rock over London. rock on, Chicago.

bored at work, I checked the traffic for the blog. apparently, someone in Oslo looked at it briefly.
why, pray tell?
because they typed my name and “real doll” into a search engine.
first off, it cracks me up that the post that generated the most hits on this site was about two years ago, when I copied and pasted pornographic spam I found on a Bjork message board. cause, see, if you have a bunch of tagged words and phrases like “anal penetration” and “blow job,” people are more likely to click on your link, cause that’s what runs the fuckin’ internet anyway. anyone who comes through here looking for porno goes away disappointed, but hey, at least they stopped by. maybe my witty and cynical prose catches their eye in the half second before they hit “back” on their web browser. you never know.
secondly, it’s fucking awesome that my name and “real doll” will lead you here.
and most importantly, I imagine that it’s plenty revealing to find out that I know what a real doll is. for those of you who don’t, this probably isn’t work friendly: a real doll is a giant rubber doll you can fuck.
no. I don’t have one. still saving!
after spending a good five minutes of exhaustive internet research (while getting paid to edit a newspaper), I discovered that a guy named McMullen created the most depressing and expensive masturbation device in the history of the world.

yes. we are everywhere. and we are helping you jerk off.

so. I’ll start posting porn soon. please check back often.

I’m still awake.
this is what I look like right now. it’s kind of narcissistic to take pictures of yourself, but someone has to hold the camera.

went to San Diego today. seems very nice. saw more of it than I’ve ever seen before. the bridge to Coronado is absurdly large. we crossed it just after sunset. very pretty.
also: watched Cannibal Holocaust tonight. the name is in pretty poor taste and is inappropriate, but so much about this film is inappropriate that I think the name can slide. seriously, it’s got to be one of the most offensive films I’ve ever seen. it’s not even a horror film. it’s just offensive. I can’t count on one hand the number of animals they killed. there were a few different rape scenes. and, of course, the cannibalism…
either way, not for the weak of stomach.

I designed the front page of the paper for both the saturday and sunday editions. this is important and noteworthy because I’m basically on my own on the weekends. desigining page one means you’re in charge (kind of) and there’s no one else there all evening. it’s just you and one or two other people for about eight hours. if you get in a real bind, you call someone for help.
so now that I finally did page one on the weekend, I’m no longer a liability. I freed up somone’s friday and saturday nights. I’m now an official part of the team.
so now I can put in real, legitimate time towards getting out of here. I’m no longer training, the way I see it.

bought a copy of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” the other day. it’s for a real shitty reason: Coppola’s film version was on the tube before I went to work, and it gave me the jones. I mean, fuck, the novel has inspired countless rip-offs over the last century. it must have been worth something.

yeah, so that’s where I’m at right now.

reprinted, without authority, in its entirety.

“James and the Giant City”
by JPM

Back when James was still in early elementary school, the month leading up to Christmas was absolute hell. He was the youngest of nine children, and the only one of them that every Christmas season had to go to the doctor by the time December 12th had come. Poor Jim would literally worry himself sick about the prospect of Santa screwing him over. In his heart-of-hearts James knew that he didn’t deserve some of the things on that two page Christmas list, but for the most part he felt he was being very reasonable.
But is Santa reasonable? Would Mom tell the Big Man her side of how the car window was broken? How the hell was James supposed to know that his newly constructed slingshot would be so accurate and powerful? Surely if he could just reason with Santa, explain that if he was going to be culpable for that shattered window, then so should God. Why? For giving him the intellect to construct such a marvelous slingshot, the strong arm to launch the projectile, and the excellent aim that had proven deadly to more than a couple chipmunks, and one (apparently) expensive car window.
After Christmas would come, the incapacitating pain in James’ stomach would pass away with the release of all that worry. As he got older, the ailment no longer became a problem because he realized there was no Santa and he went through the obligatory jaded-teenage-hipster phase.
A little over a decade would pass before poor James would feel that wretched pain in his stomach again from crippling anxiety. This time, it wasn’t over a childish delusion either. It was over finding a job after graduating college with a degree in Anthropology and a minor in English. Two subjects that imbued him with a keen understanding of the world around him and the ability to read and write at a level that only 5% of the world’s population was educated to do so. But, he quickly found out that when he was in a society where a huge portion of that 5% was located, this meant only two things: Jack and Shit.
So after the first couple weeks of sending out resumes went by uneventfully, he started to feel a slight quiver in his guts. But he found a place to live in Chicago where he could stay rent-free in the good graces of his new friend Rodney until he found a job. The situation was fortuitous indeed, but also, ultimately, another source of stomach pain.
James got himself some interviews, one of which was at a prestigious law firm. The woman who interviewed James really did like him, and told him so outright. But, they needed someone with a little more experience who could hit the ground running. The other interviews were at temp agencies where James was tested on his typing speed, proofreading skills, and ability to use software programs. He did well on all of the tests, but always left feeling a little ashamed. Like he had just gone out on a date with someone he had met through the classified section of the newspaper who had advertised “Lonely Hot Young Girl Looking for Fun.” Of course the woman would be middle-aged, a divorcee, with the emotional baggage of a POW, looking for validation from someone, and James would just be looking for someone to think about before going to be bed.
Likewise, every temp agency advertised great high-paying jobs that you were practically guaranteed as the agency had connections with all of the major firms in the city. After falling for these advertisements more than once, James realized something was amiss.
The problem was, James was naïve. He read all the bylines of the articles his career-counselor disseminated in his intensive resume-writing/job preparation course, but they always said pretty much the same thing for which James felt he didn’t need another class, adding a few thousand dollars more to his student loans, to know: life out of college is tough. Really?
The anxiety attacks and growing crippling pain in his stomach became the visceral reminder lest he forget what those articles said: life out of college is tough.
What didn’t make things any easier was his social situation. Having been born and raised in Indiana, and attending a state school there, he didn’t encounter too much of the “diversity” he read about all the time. Living in Chicago though, was a crash-course in “diversity.”
James’ roommate, Rodney, who he met shortly after starting to interview in Chicago, was the nicest guy in the world. Pretty much a damn saint for letting a virtual stranger stay in his apartment completely free and expecting nothing in return, just a friend until James could get his life together.
Rodney was also gay, which is a value-less fact. This was something James knew and it didn’t bother him. All of Rodney’s friends were also gay and it was they who really gave James a lesson in diversity. After aggressively hitting on James, which was a first for Jim but he took in stride, they realized that he wasn’t curious, or even in the closet. They saw he was in fact straight, and they accepted him as their token straight friend. But when James went out with them to the bars they frequented, it was like a drop of blood being dropped in a tank of piranhas. The night would consist of being groped, being cursed at for not dry humping some sweaty guy on the dance floor clearly on drugs, and finding out that the world was nothing like mom and dad. Which was just fine by him, except for one thing: James wanted a goddamn date and a job to facilitate being able to take a lady out in the city that loomed on the horizon but felt completely out of reach the emptier his pockets got.
Then one day that was exactly like any other, that consisted of walking down the street to a café where he would sit and hope that a barista wouldn’t ask him to leave for not buying anything because he just needed free internet access, he sent out a resume that got a response.
A call from a non-profit organization woke James up at around noon, which was typically the time he would sleep until because he had no reason to get up early.
James groggily looked at the number; one which he didn’t recognize but knew it had to be a company calling him in response to a resume they had received from a young man with decidedly average credentials.
Within a minute of answering the phone James knew he should’ve let it go to voicemail. The clearly intelligent and no-nonsense woman on the opposite end of the line spewed out facts about her organization that were like jabs from a prize-fighter to a somnambulant James who desperately scribbled down what she said all the while thinking a) which company is this? – I sent out twenty resumes yesterday and I can’t remember a goddamn one, and b) for the love of Christ think of something intelligent to ask.
The woman was quickly realizing she was dealing with a putz. After all he had misspelled “opportunity.” As in this “opportunity” for employment is quickly fading away. As James stared blankly at what he had just written down, and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, he realized that the woman had stopped speaking and was probably contemplating adding to the requirements for the job posting “No Jerk-Asses PLEASE!”
So James, in all of his early-noon grace, quickly asked the woman, “So, uh, this is like, a real entry-level position?”
A more inane question would be hard to contrive.
However, the woman was courteous enough to elaborate for poor James. Then the veneer of formality was cast off and the woman was very professionally blunt with Jim. She informed him that, essentially, his cover letter could probably have been written by a chimp chained to a typewriter, and that instead of curtailing his resume for a job in a law office, he should probably specify it for whatever job he is applying for.
Suddenly that brilliant plan that James stuck to of copying and pasting essentially the same resume and cover letter to every job-posting he found was revealed for what it was: the most asinine thing he could possibly do. Having just got through college where he nickel and dimed his way through everything, and finding himself in a position where he similarly stretched a dollar to the breaking point, James knew a change was in need. The tried-and-true philosophy of it’s not quality but quantity that is the mantra of any young adult with student loans to pay, is only true in certain spheres of life. One of them not being the professional world.
The woman was so surprisingly sincere, almost endearingly so, that James realized it would behoove him to try his best to get a job where he could work with an organization that clearly was doing its best to better society and where the employees didn’t treat a bumbling fool like, well, a bumbling fool.
She graciously told him to re-submit his resume along with a writing sample. It was here that James saw a ray of light to redeem his folly of sending out a resume to an organization he didn’t research at all and was wholly unprepared to speak intelligently about.
After hanging up the phone, James ate the bland breakfast he had become accustomed to in order to pinch pennies: two boiled eggs, toast with incredibly old margarine, and a glass of tea. As he ate, he thought about what would be the best way to show his personality and writing skills. He wrote everything down, showered, and went back to the café where he hoped he could use the internet for free again without being kicked out for not buying anything. This time, he was going to send his resume out right, making sure to read everything again and again. After all, he was a meticulous proofreader.