The things I've seen... you can't unsee...

Tonight was a fucking train wreck. T-r-a-i-n-w-r-e-c-k!

I don't know where to start the night, so I will start with last night just before bed I was reading a book by a Nobel Prize winner and in the first 50 pages a man ejaculates into the mouth of another man. Normally I am not squeamish about this stuff but it certainly threw me off the beam.

I had a weird dream last night where I was in the hospital with, in the dream, my ex-wife, who is not my current wife and we were debating about child names and finally we couldn't agree so I told her, "Look you bitch, come up with something or I will name the baby Fuckhead and you will raise him alone with a birth certificate that says Fuckhead or call him Jr. and name him after me. I don't care, but do something quick before I burn this hospital to the fucking ground." I remember the last line of dialog in the dream so well because I woke up and thought my house was on fire. Somebody had a really pungent fire going outside and so... well naturally I woke in a start and the last line of dialog was ingrained in my head.

Fast forward through work, which was fine, only 17 more shows until New Year's Eve.

To dinner. Holy Shit. When I lived in New York there was this ad for a restaurant called Augie's, which is this gigantor portions shitty Italian food family style place. They had this horrific ad with 5 of the biggest fattest guys sitting around a table and eating food, salad, pasta, meat parmigiana, it didn't matter. (Actually one of the funnier bits in the ad is this guy eating a mixed green salad, and he has this look on his face that says fuck you salad, I am going to eat you 'cuz you're here.) And then these specimen of American culinary culture gone horribly awry walk out of the joint with these trash bags of extra food -- The Augie Doggie Bag -- and the sad, lone sister walks out last with this look of sheepish embarrassment.

So anyway, with the mood all set for you, I sat next to that family tonight. Not literally, of course. But figuratively, it was a man his 5 sons and a daughter and the oldest son ate -- I shit you not -- a double cheeseburger with most of the fries, a piece of salmon covered in the cream sauce, and a half of portion of past and meatballs. I was at Cheesecake Factory. That may not mean much to most of you, but to those of you who have been to a Cheesecake Factory near your hamlet you will know that they make an effort to put at least 48 ounces of food on each plate. It was appalling; this kid is going to die at the age of 22 because of overeating. Anyway, aside from the revolting amount of food that this kid ate (I will not begin to mention the way it wasn’t eaten, I am just not strong enough yet) he had this thing with his napkin that I found mildly vomit inducing. His napkin sat in the middle of the table. So, every time he wanted to wipe his mouth, he had to reach across the table to pick up his napkin. And one point he dropped a piece of cheeseburger in his water (or sprite) and just fished it out and kept eating and drinking. Honestly, it is the most disgusting thing I have ever witnessed.

If that kid is the future of America, we are all doomed.

What are you reading?

I don't know why I like customer service jobs - but I do.

I think I like the feeling of doing a good job, maybe the recognition that I get on the street when I run into one of the volunteers that works with me? I don't know.

I do know that Christmas time invariably sucks when you work in a customer service job. I happen to have a very good customer service job and so it doesn't particularly bother me that I am around upwards of 6,000 people over the weekend. Most of them people that I will never see again.

What bothers me the most is that I haven't had time to sit down and write a damned thing, blog or otherwise, since the 17th or so of November when Christmas Carol opened.

I have been reading a wonderful book recently called Under the Skin by Michael Faber. I don't know that I would call it science fiction, but I would certainly say that it has some pretty interesting stuff in it. I would group it in with Animal Farm by George Orwell. Tonight as I was reading though I noticed something that made me really sit up straight.

For the bulk of the book (about 200 pages or so) they had used 31 lines per page. I am not in publishing, so there might be an actual measurement that people use, but I can count to 100 and I did go back and count later - after I noticed what I am about to relay to you.

The book has this character who basically poisons people in her car. Every time she does it there is a finality to it. It ends a section of a chapter (creates that funny double space paragraph) or it goes to the next chapter. On this time though, it just ends the page. When I went back and looked what the publishers had done was gone to 30 lines a page for about 4 or 5 pages. This may not seem like much, but the hook that was waiting on the next page was really suprising and I am convinced that the pagination had a lot to do with it. It was genius and it emphases why you should never buy a Penguin or Signet classic.

Now I know what you are thinking. WHOA. Where did that come from? One minute talking about a book, the next dissing Penguin. I just don't get it.

So I will explain, I have been reading and buying a fair number of books lately. The ones that I like the most are typically the trade paperbacks, they are a little bit larger and generally a better quality. But I think more than anything, I really like the feel of a good book in my hand. The weight of it, the texture of good quality paper, criminey even the smell of it. Penguin and Signet books are light, the paper is crap and they smell like glue and shitty ink. Blech.

On a total side note. I have recently found out that there are three people on my staff that have the same birthday as me. Now, that is some shit, because unlike Nicole, who somehow manages to work with a person that has the same birthday as her everywhere she works. I have met only one person, a girl in Roswell, NM, who had the same birthday as me. Now there are TWO on my staff. WEIRD SHIT. The weirder part is that I always think of myself as sort of a fuck-up because of my zodiac sign. Basically I am a Leo/Cancer cusp. So imagine two of the polar opposites of a person, one wants to go to a party and dance loudly to AC/DC, the other wants to lock themselves in a room, burn candles and listen to The Cure. That is me.

So I found this quiz on Blog things and this is kind of freaky also, I am exactly 93 % Leo and 93% Cancer. I am not sure how scientific this quiz is, but it is fun to think about.

You are 93% Leo

How Leo Are You?

You are 93% Cancer

How Cancer Are You?

Well anyway, sorry for all the disjointedness of this post, once I get back on to a regular schedule it should tighten up considerably.