Virginia is for Lovers

OK, so it is was my 4th week at work and they already sent me to the DC area for three nights this week to pitch and meet etc. I guess I should be flattered and I am. I like where I am. It is going very well but I have exercised an enormous amount of restraint. What I mean is, I am doing nearly everything in my department. Not doing everything as in running myself ragged, but doing everything as in doing all the thinking. We have these out of control brainstorming meetings where little gets accomplished and then I go and write the whole thing alone. It is a little scary because I feel as if I am in a vacuum. In other words, if it's all my work and it gets rejected by the client, then I am the only one to blame. However, no one seems to realize it is all my work.

Case in point: I had 5 ideas that I came up with by myself in my home. A few weeks later when this woman I work with looked at it she said something like "Oh good, you used some of my ideas." And I really believe she thinks that. And I let her think that. Because I am getting lots of kudos as it is and it really isn't going to do me any good to portray myself as the guy who has every fucking idea. So you see? My predicament is that I need more collaboration.

I was at a pitch this week. My boss was there. I knew what the prospect was asking and I responded to it. My boss did not know what the prospect was asking but thought he did and responded differently: quandary, do I respond the right way or the wrong way (and show a unified front?) I chose to go somewhere down the middle.

Anyway, VA was a big bore and a lot of work. I rotted at the airport for 4.5 hours yesterday while they changed a wheel on the plane (!) Very encouraging. The plane was so small I actually had to lean over as I walked to my seat. It was very "People's Express" circa 1985.

But I am home and today I spent some quality time in my garden. I put up this new fence so I don't have to look at my neighbors sitting on their disgusting rotting deck furniture.

I also have a nasy sore throat.

Oh, I have a new gym obsession guy. This one is from my before work gym. He checks me out a lot, which of course I like. He's short, which I like, has that cool kinda reddish-brownish Connicky hair, which I like. He's very strong but he's a little soft in the middle which is fine. I don't know what my deal is these days. I'm either into punky brown haired 19 year olds or men in their 40s with mild beer guts. I'm so over perfection. It is so tedious. Read a book. I used to be at the gym 3 hours a day. It is funny to think about now. Anyway, my new guy--he looks very good in a towel. We'll see what develops.

Tram Accident

Nighthawks

All this coverage about the Roosevelt Island Tram and not one reporter mentioned Nighthawks. That was a really fun movie from the late 70s about this terrorist and his posse that terrorize NYC.

There is a really fun sequence where they take over the Tram and hold hostages for hours, I think they even kill some people and dump 'em in the river. There is another fun sequence filmed in Xenon I believe and "Brown Sugar" is playing. The filmmakers never got clearance though so on TV and most of the new versions it is playing some cheesey faux disco but you can still find copies with The Stones.

On another note, that term terrorist was so exotic back then. The only other movie I can think of that featured terrorists in the US was Black Sunday, another fierce drak movie. That was based on a book by Silence of the Lambs' Thomas Harris.

iPod

So about 3 weeks ago my iPod from 13 months ago died. 13 months is significant because after 12 there is no warranty. I had to pay $50 to find out from Apple that my only choice was getting a new one. So, I get a new, better one and then days later my whole computer dies. So I'm psyched that my music library is preserved on the iPod because I can just transfer it back to the desktop...but no. Apple will not let you transfer music from the iPod to the desktop, only vice versa. I am so pissed because now I am at a complete standstill. If I sync the iPod it will have no music on it because it will synch to blank iTunes. I want my money back. Apple sucks. If anyone knows a way around this ridiculous rule, please share.

Weekend

That guy I was talking to at work? The young cute-ish one? This is funny: Friday I'm hanging out by the reception desk and he walks by and one of the reception gals asks him if his "father is driving in today." He said something like "I don't think so."

I was thinking, what? Who cares about his father. Then it hit me. He has the same last name as the CEO. The CEO is his father.

I had this totally pukey feeling for a second like maybe I had said something to him the day before like "That CEO is an asshole, eh?" Of course I didn't but I still felt pukey imagining if I had. So, suffice to say I am keeping away from him.

On another note...Friday the office was closing at 3. I had been working on this really kick-ass proposal since I started that was due Monday. Since I started I was told it was due electronically. I was taking one final look at RFP and saw, clear as day: "Due Monday 4/17. Hard copies only."

I'm going to cut to the chase on this one. My first instinct was to ignore it which I probably would have done 5 years ago since I knew it would fuck up my day. But instead I felt like I had worked my ass off and I was not going to risk the prospect rejecting it.

But, shit. Nobodys want to hear bad news especially when it's Good Friday and half the world is closed/closing early and the top brass did not even come in. So Bart here worked his ass off and got people who did not want to work to work and even with people in remote locations who don't even know me yet and got this whole thing done and put to bed by 6:00. The funny thing is, nobody seemed to care. My immediate boss seemed more concerned with the CEO's reaction. But the good thing is, I cared and I did it and it made me happy.

Politics. I tell ya, this place is filled with them.

The weekend was cool. I saw my Mom and Dad they were good except my mother cooks two times a year: xmas and easter and wow, is she a bad cook. It's kind of funny and I don't really mind it's just such a burden to eat.

I also went to Home Depot and bought some flood lights and also checked out grills to buy but I'm not going to buy it for a few weeks because I'm still not sure whether I want gas or charcoal. Charcoal is cool and tastes better but I want to grill every night and grill fast.

When I was waiting for these slow Southern chick in my main office to email me these files on Friday I was calling all these people to kill time and I called my friend who I stood up a few weeks ago. She was fine with the stand up. I like her a lot but she does not get that going out in Manhattan on a weeknight is like a royal pain in the ass for me now between Brooklyn and work. Some people don't even understand where Brooklyn is on the map.

Good news: I recovered all the files on my hard drive from my old computer. Best Buy wanted to charge me something like $300 to do this. But my friend Stephen who is this tech guy said to buy an external hard drive cover. It was so cool. It was $30 and I popped the hard drive out of my old tower, popped it into the new device, USB'd it to the new tower and Voila! A magic new drive showed up on my new system. I am psyched because I have tons of files there plus really good pics of me.

I totally need garden help. The front and the back. It is looking so ghetto. Maybe this week I will post some pix of it.

But I need to get ready for bed again. Oh, I might have to go to Virginia next week for work. I'm so annoyed they are going to start making me travel. I hate business travel.

Subway

Why do so many people peer down the wrong side of the tracks to look for an oncoming train? Better yet, why do these people often look both ways? Shouldn't they be worried about getting on a train if they actually believe trains run in opposing directions on the same tracks?

Amd why do people of all ages wear really excessively large knapsacks, sometimes bigger than they are, and not even attempt to take them off on the subway and instead cram them into people?

And why as soon as we see the light of day and go over the bridge do 50% of the people on the train reach for their cel phones like so many trained animals?

Yes, I have many questions.

One of the 5 men I work with is actually young, cute and of dubious sexual orientation. Today I spent a little time with him asking him what he does and all that. That's actually something I aspire to do with everyone there but somehow I have only gotten to him. Anyway, he seems like he could be interesting, he's just working an uninteresting job for a boring client. Maybe I'll make his job more interesting. Talking to him got me hard, too, which is always fun.

Anyway, I got 3 books today:

1) A basic book on gardening (since I now have a front and back yard and it looks like the last person to tend to it was Boris Karloff)
2) A new suspense book called "Nightlife" that's been getting good reviews
3) My Adrienne Barboob autobiography which I think I will read now...

Lots of Women

I now work in an office with about 35-40 employees. I hadn't realized this until we had a group meeting, but I am one of 6 men (and 3 of them are the CEO and his 2 Lieutenants.)

I have no problem with that. There's never anyone in the men's room and it's always really clean. It's a bit hot though. Women always complain that offices are cold and never seem to realize that it may have something to do with that sleeveless top and short skirt.

Anyway, I am now going through that thing I go to at every job where everyone wonders about my sex life, as in do I like girls or boys. Nobody really has probed all that much yet, though. Maybe it's because I am too new, maybe it's because I actually have a position of authority, I don't know.

The gay thing is so weird at work. It's not a protected class so hypothetically you can get fired for it. I really dig employers that do Domestic Partner benefits and write in stuff like that. This is not one of those companies. I think that's just because they are a little cheap.

I like it so far, which is good. It's important to like or at least tolerate where you spend 50 hours a week. My biggest concern right now is that I don't know if any of these people are smart yet. I've had some really good ideas and I can't tell if the tepid reaction has been because of a) general malaise b) politics (meaning they need approval first before they can like something) or c) they don't get it/it's over their heads. I hope it's not #3. I have been lucky enough to work for some really smart people and besides learning from them they also recognize and value good ideas.

We'll see how it goes, it is only week 2.

I'm so tired and my muscles hurt. I need to get in bed so I can wake up at 5AM again. I'm so boring now. I was much more interesting when I was chewing Vicos 2 months ago. But I'm happier now. Sort of.

Good Story

I always like good writing and I really like good short stories because they are usually under 30 pages. Anyway, to my surprise, I liked "Brokeback Mountain." It had a lot of texture and layers and one of the reasons I think it worked is because it was very sad and tragic but was written in a completely unmelodramatic, matter-of-fact manner which somehow made it even more affecting. All said, I was plesantly surprised.

Brokeback Mountain

I have neither seen the movie nor read the story and someone who shall remain nameless has been on my case about this for far too long so instead of downloading a program so that I can bring photos back to my blog (new computer, remember?)I'm going to sit on my couch and read about two tortured homo hicks...

Katie Couric

Oh, who really cares? This story involves so many types I do not care for: Television Executives, Publicists (oh, sorry, I mean "media strategists"), Pundits, Katie's Wonder Bread fan base (who make Oprah's fan base look hardcore in comparison), Katie's annoying and ever extending family and on and on.

She bugs me. They all bug me but at least Barbara Walters is insecure, Diane Sawyer is open about her inner ice queen and --wait---it's not the 80s, there are no more. Cable news killed the Network news star. No more all star baby showers on Murphy Brown.

Katie only blew up after her husband died. She became like this sob-sister idol. And it all kind of happened simultaneous to celebrity culture emerging as the dominant form in this country.

Nobody watches the 6:00 news anymore, that's the real story. That and how are they going to try and make the 6:00 news more like "The Today Show." She has no gravitas. What a bore.

One week later

OK, first off, I will get back to writing near daily again shortly. I just want to say that I just came off my first full week of real M-F work in more than 5 years, and certainly my first week of real work coming in from Brooklyn.

And the consensus: Shit, I'm tired.

It takes me an hour door to door each way, plus I like to get to work by 8:30, plus I must go to the gym near the office at least 3 mornings a week or I cannot function. So, I wake up at either 5 or 6AM depending on gym or not. As awful as 5AM is, the commute is actually better and I can get a seat.

It's also nice to be at a real, fully functional McGym again. Complete with cute polysyllabic guys. But that commute home is ugly. 3 trains and never a chance of sitting.

So, this week was exhausting as I got used to a new gym and a new schedule plus my new computer did not arrive until Tuesday.

Oh, yeah, and the job...

The Job. Hmmm. It is odd for me because it is the first time I have not started a job and either immediately been miserable or felt superior/hostile to everyone.


It is also the first time I have started a job with no fear. I did not make it sound like I could do things I had never done. I am very qualified and my biggest problem is going to be not moving too fast because I am a bit ahead of people there in terms of methodology and thinking process. I also don't want them to know how efficiently I work because then they will lay more on me.

I also have much more confidence coming into this job than ever before. Maturity. I have been through a lot over the last 10 years: The first 5 of those were career related---I had a job that moved at warp speed and I did everything there and had enormous professional growth and worked with some marketing legends. The second 5 were personal and involved death, 9/11, 2 extremely humbling jobs, big money highs and lows, and other sundry items. At this point I am more or less unflappable. Plus I have no interest in making friends and in who is nice/mean to me.

I am also amazed at the politics. I am from a collaborative business background. This place is like the cliché where I ask a question or present an idea and everyone looks at the CEO's reaction before they offer an opinion.

I think I need to chill a bit because my mind races and I see myself either outgrowing or running the company in a few months. It's kind of how I used to be about exercise: I wanted big muscles in 3 months and it does not work that way. Working out should be a lifetime thing and growth comes over years, not weeks and months.

It is really weird though because projects I worked on 5 years ago have still not reached this company. The upside is that I have done a lot of work in the past I can present as new. The downside is that they may not recognize certain ideas or ways of thinking as good.

Anyway, this weekend has been about chilling. I am so tired and I still woke up too early today. If I remember correctly I'll probably sleep great tonight and finally feel better tomorrow, just to start all over again...

Oh, and all my files are still trapped on the old computer. Annoying.