Writing fiction is HARD

I've been trying to work out a short story that I might eventually be able to make into a very, very small movie. But it's been no less than ten years since I've tried to write something that wasn't at least partially based on real life events. I suppose its not that writing ficticious material is all that challenging - I can come up with all sorts of ideas. The problem is getting them down on paper without the sentences looking as if a 5-year-old were responsible.

I now understand why Kaavya Viswanathan used someone else's material so egregiously. It just looks, feels, and sounds better when someone else writes it. I am also highly critical of other people's writing when it comes off as trite, or just simply too direct. I feel like the sentence "Judy was sad." is too easy. I want the passage to make me feel Judy's sadness without ever using the word 'sad', or even better if you can make me feel Judy is sad without even mentioning Judy.

My writing therefore, could use more sentences like "Judy was sad." But like most people with my particular type of crisis of confidence, I must create enigma where none exists or needs to exist. After all, when the depth is false, its all just shallow thoughts posing as something more interesting. Yet what to do when the shallow thoughts are all you've got?

It's What's for Dinner

My economics 101 professor from university conducted a study of the old beef council commercials, and discovered that they actually made people less likely to buy beef. The logic was something like "The customers would go to the store with their meat choice awareness increased, possibly even intending to buy beef, but would opt for a perceptionally healthier choice like chicken or pork."

The gist being, most people don't choose dinner. It just sort of happens. So the commercials heightened the customers awareness of choice in meals, and beef almost always lost out. Sorry beef producer friends, but the good news is that the beef council stopped using the commercials after the study was released.

Gimmie a Break

Break me off a piece of that.

If I were an established writer, like J.K. Rowling, I might be tempted to use the state of my apartment as some sort of metaphor for my life in general. The once-used glasses stacked in the sink, waiting for me to put them in the dishwasher for a bath. The coverless duvet strewn across the bed. The pile of smoky clothes from Memorial Day weekend still waiting to be put into the laundry basket. The utilitarian furniture. The lack of basic necessities like food and chairs for the dining table. The shower with the lone dark footprint, foreshadowing am unapetizing future. Etc.

But I am not an established writer, so I will let you make your own assumptions.

I get to watch TV all day at work tomorrow. It was supposed to be my day off, but we have the Back-to-School(BTS) set broadcast. So now I have Wednesday off instead.

I need a vacation.

But the District Manager conducts his official visit in two weeks, so that's out of the question for a while. Also, I would like to travel- visit friends and such, but I'm tight on money. NYC would be fun, but Cupcake is heading to Germany. Denver? It'd be more fun if Drew visited Mpls. Chicago is out, and I hear the farm in Ohio is on the busy side these days.

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Oh What a Night

My boiling pot of water was interrupted by the 4th fire alarm in 3 weeks at our building. I took it as divine intervention - knowing that the dirty pot would sit in the sink for who knows how long, I turned the stove off and proceeded down the 20 flights of stairs. When the alarm in our building goes off, the elevators automatically return to the bottom floor and don't move. I'm just nerdy enough to actually leave my apartment because I know my luck, and the first time I decide to stay I'll get trapped in a real blazer and end up being "that guy" hanging out the 18th floor window screaming for help.

It had been raining, no pouring, with marble sized hail about an hour earlier, but when I walked outside there was a break in the rain. I didn't feel like standing in front of the building waiting for the barrage of fire trucks to arrive, and I was hungry and needed to kill a little time so I decided to walk down the street to my local Indian restaurant for dinner. They were pretty busy with it being Friday night, and I had to sit at a table in the middle of the room. At least my server gave me a seat with a view out the window onto the street. Sitting in the restaurant, I saw a bicyclist almost get hit by a car.

The car had pulled into a driveway to turn around, started backing up and initially didn't see the dude on the bike. He stopped in time, and it was a good thing too, as the momentum from the collision likely would have propelled the bicyclist right under the wheels of a bus heading in the opposite direction of the street. You know you've been watching too much Law and Order when you immediately start playing out a scenario in your mind where the biker gets killed by the oncoming bus, and the driver who hit him speeds off. Of course, we'd learn later in the episode, that this 'accident' was no accident at all, but rather a paid hit on the biker - a man who worked as a delivery boy and always rode his bike home down the same street on his way home form work. Turns out, his loving wife had taken out a $3 Million life insurance policy in his name just 2 weeks earlier, and the guy driving the car? A catholic priest, who cracks under interrogation and admits he took the bribe money to help his parish pay for the treatment of a diabetic child.

Mid-way though my chicken korma and naan, the rains begin again. The sky looked threatening during my walk to the joint, but it looked like I'd have plenty of time to eat and walk home before it started to rain again. I was wrong. At first it was a mere sprinkle, then as I was sipping the last gulp of diet coke and signing the bill it began to pour again. I sat at the table for a bit, hoping the rain would die down, but it was no use. I;d already paid the bill and was expected to be on my way. I couldn't stay seated at the table any longer without imposing, and so decided to suck it up and get wet. And did I get wet. I crossed no less than 4 impromptu rivers that had sprung up at hillsides, driveways, intersections and the like.

When I got home (no flames at least), I had to towel off and completely change clothes. Its been a few hours now, and I;m sufficiently dry. Now I think I'll watch The Squid and the Whale. It takes place in Brooklyn (Park Slope to be exact) don't cha know.

Must be a full moon

Strange day at the JC today. I had a particularly crazy woman who bought some shoes from us, then lost them while still shopping in our store (?), and then wanted us to give her two more pair for free because she lost them. When I told her that wasn't possible she raised her voice and the expletives began. Because she mentioned having already talked to the store manager, I decided this woman was officially his problem, so I called him to come bat clean up. He, in turn, delegated this woman to our 5' 0" assistant store manager, Sarah.

The ASM came down to talk with the customer, and so I returned to the stockroom to finish marking some shoes for the clearance rack. While I'm in the stockroom, a commotion breaks out on the sales floor. There's a lot of screaming and yelling and then a loud crash-thud. Immediately after the commotion, I think I hear someone say "Get her down!, Get her Down!"

The first thought that goes through my head is that the crazy lady has attacked little Sarah and is holding her down trying to strangle her or some sort of disaster. Well, I come rushing out of the stockroom - and thankfully Sarah is not being assaulted by the crazy lady. What had happened was, out LP officer was tracking a shoplifter who got spooked and decided to make a run for it. On the way past the shoe department, the fleeing shoplifter knocked over a table and then ran into another customer, knocking her to the floor. And that's what had happened.

Luckily the lady who got run into seemed to be okay. When I first went to see her I was sure she would be bleeding because she was older and obviously got hit without being prepared. No bleeding, just a little confused and embarrassed. Understandable.

Also, store manager Mike took us all out to lunch today -- verifying that today must be some kind of special full moon. A blue moon perhaps? Lets get the Discovery channel to do a documentary to find out.

He should have done better with that effort

If working at the American office of a German investment bank is reason enough to post about the World Cup, then I suppose a blog entitled The Patriots of Europe is almost compelled to write about it. So here it is, my official World Cup '06 posting:




Did you see the horrendous performance by the US team in their first game? I didn't either, but I read about it, and then watched part of the second half replayed on ESPN Classic after work. I'm not a soccer (football, whatever) expert, but I do know enough to know the names of many of the star players from Europe. And I know the rules of the game without the "Soccer: What the F*$k" article that likely ran in your local paper last Friday.

The analysis from the pundits is spot on in my opinion. The team lacked creativity, energy, and just looked tired and outmatched. But really, do we need to kick everyone's ass at soccer now too? What's next anyway, are we going to get wrapped into 6 Nations rugby or the Cricket World Cup? Wait, is the US still eligible for the Commonwealth games???

Soccer (football) is for the rest of the world to enjoy, let's let them have this one. If you are a fan of the game who happens to live in the US, I wouldn't argue if you told me rooting against the American team would be the right thing to do. Why get everyone excited about MLS when the level of competition is so much higher in the English Primereship, Spanish La Liga, and Italian Seria A (current scandal notwithstanding), etc. It would be like tuning in to see the score of the basketball game between Leceister City and Leeds instead of watching the Mavs beat the Heat in the NBA. Novel, but not worth most people's time.

Another note: American play-by-play announcing just doesn't mesh well with soccer. It's too formal for a game with so much riding on the anticipation of scoring, rather than the actual payoff. The best announcers are casual and conversational. It's more suited to the kind of broadcaster associated with color commentary in most US sports. ISU fans think Eric Heft only with a think accent, preferably Irish or Scottish.

Count This Motha'

The retail version of spring cleaning, inventory, has been kicking my ass at work. The amount of bizarre, useless junk that accumulates I2I (that's inventory-to-inventory for you non-jargon speakers) is both stunning and overwhelming. All those things you've been putting off for 12 months are finally calling, and they've decided its payback time.

I've been digging through piles and piles of loose shoes trying to find mated pairs. Once I find two shoes that are mates, the next step is to ID them as accurately as possible - a difficult task considering many of these items are not current and we have no record of owning them. After the merchandise has been ID'd I have to make a scannable barcode ticket.

Luckily, we don't actually take the count ourselves. We use an outsourced inventory agency to actually count the items. But on top of resolving those pesky mis-mates, I also have to clean up all the stockrooms as the inventory service is notorious for hiring a mostly less than competent workforce.

Every time this year, all the sales managers freak out. Often there are severe breakdowns, sometimes even resulting in tears depending on how well prepared said manager's area is. After the freaking out, there is a noticeable shift to a more fatalist "what will be will be" mentality, which lasts until about 12 hours before the actual count. From that point forward, the official position is "Fuck it."

No breakdowns here though. I'm in good shape. The count doesn't happen until Sunday night, and I've finished most of my tasks. There's still one day for things to go horribly wrong though. Keep your fingers crossed.

What would you do for a Klon-Dyke Bar

I'd climb to the summit of Mt. Everest in Bermuda Shorts with a 12-year-old mule on my back and no cigarettes.

Went to see this band last night at Triple Rock. Generally speaking, I hate anything associated even remotely with Connor Oberst but there's something about tap-dancing indie pop cuties that is just too aww shucks inspiring to ignore. Plus, they have the added benefit of being a totally awesome band.

It was nice to see a band with so much energy on stage. They reacted well to the audience (even if the crowd was a bit on the dull side), and I like seeing happy-go-lucky performers who actually look like they might be having a good time on stage. Some of the members were even smiling during the set -- several times! Which is a rarity in the shoe-gazer hipster scene.

All in all, a very refreshing, fun show and I'd recommend seeing them live if the tour is heading your way. Bring your tap dancing shoes - I think they'd love a special guest performance.

I Wanna Fuck it Up

Can't Cook Won't Cook

Drew laughed at me when I first bought my paper shredder, but sitting here today spending the better part of an hour shredding the piles of unsolicited credit offers that have been gathering on the dining table for two months; I was quite thankful for my purchase.

Does everyone else get the exact same offer from the exact same credit card company almost daily? I'm sure there must be a way to opt out of these mailings, but I'm too lazy to go to all the trouble that must necessarily be associated with that.

MB has decided that a grown man such as myself has no excuse for not ever learning to cook. She's got it in her head that I need personal cooking lessons from none other than herself. I'm apprehensive about the whole thing, and have already cancelled two planned sessions. Its not that I can't cook. Despite popular belief, I do know how to boil a pot of water, and can even do a nice number with chicken breasts, butter, and olive oil on the range. My aversion is to the messy clean-up process associated with meal preparation. And though I have developed a reputation as one of the most lazy people on earth, its not even that I'm too lazy to clean up after myself.

I just really don't like cleaning up food. Its such a hassle, especially without a disposal. Food is fun when its hot and before it's been consumed. But as soon as it's eaten it really loses it's charm. I hate those squishy bits of soft unknown stuck to the plate, the soggy cooked veggies that tasted great but now are disintegrating rapidly. And the smell of consumed, cold, wet food is too much for my fragile senses.

Plus, no matter how hard I scrub a pot, pan, dish or glass. And no matter how hot the water is, or how much soap I use, I am never confident that my cleaning has been useful in any way. I could spend an hour washing one plate and decide it still isn't clean.

So there it is. That's why I don't cook. Let's go get a Pizza.

On a related note, has anyone seen the commercial for that automatic shower cleaner? I'm sure it doesn't work well, but the idea of never having to clean the shower again is very appealing. Someone else buy it and tell me if it works.