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Blackout

Well, I had an interesting day yesterday.

At about 4:30, me and another guy were getting on the elevator to go downstairs for a drink/snack. As we got on the elevator, the lights started flickering, so we immediately got out before the door closed. Right then, the power went out on the whole fucking eastern seaboard. I got to see the emergency procedure of shutting down about a dozen machines that require heavy-duty AC, beeping and complaining as their backup power supplies tried to crash-land them. The machine room was prepared for the contingency – except for not having any backup lights. Oops.

We thought it was a building problem, but within a few phone calls, found out power was really out all over New York, New Jersey, even as far away as Detroit and Ohio. Without a computer, I had nothing to do, so I hit the road. I really didn’t want to walk, but at least I had my iPod, and I was lucky enough to wear shorts that day. Unfortunately, I only had about $2 in cash on me, and the ATMs weren’t going to be working with no power.

The walk reminded me way too much of 9/11, and I even took the same route for the first part of the trip. This time, there were way more people flooding the streets and sidewalks, and the temps were much higher, probably in the mid-90s. I was instantly dehydrated, and cut over to Park to hump my way north to 59th street. People on the street from bodegas and restaurants were selling their bottled water for about 100% above retail. I hope these bastards get anally gang-raped by well-hing, syphilitic SARS patients in the near future.

I finally bought a can of Sunkist for $2 before I hit the Queensborough bridge. (If you saw Spiderman, this is the bridge at the very end, with the battle with Green Goblin.) I have rode my bike across the bridge many times, and there is a separate lower deck for pedestrians, so you don’t walk as high, and it has no cars on it. As I followed the swarm of people to the bridge, I realized we weren’t going the right way. And a second later, I found myself walking on TOP of the bridge, on the upper deck, next to cars. It was very freaked out, being up there with no guard rails or sidewalks, marching next to a line of pretty much parked traffic.

After the long bridge, my body was ready to shut down from dehydration. I barely managed to cross the 39th street bridge over the Sunnyside rail yard and was desperately trying to find a way to simply give up and carjack someone, when I ran into a spa on 39th and Northern that was scrambling to give away all of their ice and big tubs of water with dixie cups. I drank about six glasses of water, the best water I’ve ever had in my life, and then saw that next door, a firehouse had a hose set up with a sprinkler. I put aside my bag and completely drenched myself from head to toe, which immensely helped me stumble the last few miles home.

Round trip: 8 miles. Just over 3 hours. Not too shabby. Of course, I can barely feel my legs today, but I made it.

I didn’t have anything to eat other than snack food and powerbars when I got home, but I really didn’t feel like eating after all that walking. I drank as much water as I could, and luckily I still had running water. I finished reading Skunk Works by flashlight, made a few phone calls (that still worked, miraculously) and tried to sleep. And tried. And tried. Outside, it was a fucking party until after midnight, so I put in earplugs, soaked a towel, and covered myself with it. No fans = sucks.

The power kicked in at about 4AM, turning on my lights and fans. I got a few hours of good sleep, until my boss called and told me to stay put. Turns out a big chunk of Manhattan is still screwed, as are the subways. So I get a day off. Too bad half of the cable channels are out.

I’m going to go take a nap in front of a fan, then hit an ATM and get a bunch of real food. Hope all’s well where you’re sitting.

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Boys and Girls

I’m somewhat depressed. I just watched this movie called Boys and Girls on TV while I was sitting at home on a Saturday night, eating canned ravioli and frozen garlic bread for dinner. It’s one of those college comedy/romance movies, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. and Claire Forlani as these two college students that are opposites but very paired together. They keep running into each other by chance and don’t entirely click, but over the course of their college career, become the best of friends. Then they semi-accidentally sleep together at the end of Act II, insert cliche commotion, and the whole thing ends with her giant soliloquy as he’s on the plane leaving for home at the end of the year, about how she needs him and really does love him, etcetera.

It all sounds very cliche, and it is. But I guess it was very well done, at least as far as these sort of teen college movies go, and it caught me for some reason. Maybe part of it is Claire Forlani, who is not only very easy on the eyes, but also had this role where she seemed to be the perfect, down-to-earth female, the kind of girlfriend one would really want, both very sexual and beautiful, yet very carefree and open. But part of the reason the film stuck in my craw was the same reason I spent so long writing Summer Rain: I really do feel nostalgic over my years in college. Even if the fairytale romance like the one in this movie (or, for that matter, the one in Summer Rain, which was fictional) never happened, that era was the playing field for something like that to happen. So I did enjoy the movie, but it also brought this weird funk over me that I can’t seem to shake.

(Weird aside – the movie also briefly featured Heather Donahue, who was in The Blair Witch Project, although I didn’t even know it was her. It also had Jason Biggs as Prinze’s roommate, and Alyson Hannigan as Prinze’s first girlfriend. And then in the American Pie movies, Biggs and Hannigan end up married. Weird.)

So I got audited AGAIN, by the State of New York. They claim I did not file a tax return in 1999, which is humorous considering I DID file a return, and I’ve got a copy of it sitting right here, and then they later audited said return to squeeze a bit more money out of me. Fuckers. I would like to send them a letter saying “Dear NYSIRS: it appears your records are FUCKED. I did pay my taxes, you pieces of shit. You now owe me a refund of 25% of the amount of taxes paid for wasting my fucking time and another stamp to mail this stupid letter, you pieces of shit. Love, Jon.”

I got Command and Conquer: Generals and it is the most perfect way to destroy any writing ethic I may have remaining. It’s a pretty cool game, albeit a slight bit sluggish on my machine.

Not much else is going on. The weather is a bit shitty, and I am broke, so I’ve spent most of the weekend sofar either running errands or trying to clean the house. I am slowly making progress on the apartment, and there are a few new patches of floor visible from the shifting of things. I’m throwing out junk, trying to shuffle the bookshelves a bit to get things off the floor, and just trying to put things away as I can. Nothing major, but it’s getting there.

I should write, but I don’t know if I can. Either way, I should get something done now…

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Boston

I’m back, and I had a pretty good four-day weekend in Boston. The weather was nice (albeit a bit rainy on one day), the subways did not reek of piss, the restaurants had working public restrooms, and the cashiers actually talked to you, as if having paying customers was a virtue. Quite different from my home town, and a nice change.

The main event on Friday was the reading, and finally meeting my writer friend John Sheppard. He read last, from his book Small Town Punk. I read from Rumored to Exist, the first time I ever read from anything, and it went okay. After that, we went to a bar called Bukowski’s. I met some cool people, sold some books, gave away some books, traded some books, and got some books. So that went cool.

I also saw some old IU friends. Jeff Sumler showed up at the reading and had a few with us there and at Bukowski’s. I hung out in Harvard Square on Saturday afternoon with Brian Smith and his wife Sarah, where we ate some Mexican food and walked around the Harvard campus for a while. And even though our plans didn’t pan out, I got to chat a bit with my old friend Drew. So there was a lot of the conversation about where persons x and y were, and what it was like back in Bloomington, and how the campus has changed in a decade, and all of that. And that sometimes feels a little childish, like I’m one of those high school football player types stuck in the past. But sometimes it’s good, too.

And now I’m back. And I’m dead tired, and I’d love to tell more details or upload the pictures and make a web page, but I really need to crash…

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Freaky dream

I had this dream Monday night that I had some kind of weird, parasitic, fungal growth under my fingernails. These little black dots, like tiny seedlings, were growing in a sort of paisley pattern that sort of reminded me of some sort of henna tattoo. But it was UNDER the nail, and was fucking FREAKING ME OUT. Any kind of fungal growth like that really bothers me. A friend of mine once told me she had some kind of infection or bacteria on her tonsils, and it was growing like little flowers on the back of her throat and it FREAKED ME OUT for like a YEAR. So I was going apeshit in the dream, trying to stick an x-acto knife under my nails to scrape away the stuff, and considering just going to the hospital and having them peel back my nails and then wear band-aids for weeks until they grew back. I was in a total frenzy, a shiver running through all of my skin, every pore itching every time I looked at my nails and saw these little creatures living under there.

I woke up, and looked at my clock, and it was about an hour until the alarms went off, so I turned on my desk light, and looked at my fingers, and THE FUCKING STUFF WAS UNDER MY NAILS!!

Then I really woke up. Holy shit, I hate dreams like that.

—

The Boston trip is planned and ready to roll, although I am no longer taking the last-minute special through Delta because they wanted to screw me into paying double for a hotel because I was traveling alone. So now I have another hotel booked, and I am taking the bus there, which only costs like $20 but involves four hours of sitting in a bus. I’ll bring a book, a gameboy, and the iPod.

What am I doing there, someone asked? John Sheppard is reading on August 1st. You can read more about the reading here. I am tempted to sign up for the open mic before the reading and rattle off a few pages of Rumored, but I don’t know if I will or not. Maybe, though. I will also be meeting up with a couple of other friends from IU, and I also want to check out the USS Constitution and USS Cassin Young, which are both a stone’s throw from my hotel. And I want to enjoy being out of New York for a long weekend.

Not much else to report, just playing Tribes: Aerial Assault constantly, and trying not to think about bugs under my fingernails.

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Boston planning, memories

It’s been absolutely fucking unbearable here, heatwise. I spent most of yesterday sitting in bed with a fan pointed at me, reading and passing in and out of sleep. I managed to get out of the house today for a haircut, some shopping at St. Marks (including Toy Tokyo and Kim’s) and a late lunch of breakfast at Kiev. I also went to Barnes and Noble and got a book on Boston, so I won’t be completely lost when I get there on Thursday.

I’ve been to Boston twice already, both times at the end of ’95. Both times were for work, when I was at CompuServe, and both times I was there for a week for a trade show. I had fun both trips, although on the first one, over Halloween, I got really sick and had to fly home with a full-on head cold, which became the absolute worst pain I’ve ever endured in my life. But both times, I saw a good amount of the city, although most of it was spent zipping around in cabs with people who knew more about the general geography, so I have no idea which way is up. But now my new book has a map, and I should be able to get around a bit better.

My memories of that whole era, the first six months of Seattle, are far enough back that I only remember mostly good things. I spent all of my time hacking on my first two books, I didn’t have a TV, I didn’t have any money, and I tried to do a lot to find out more about the new-to-me Emerald City. Most of that involved spending the last few bucks after car payments and rent to go to Elliot Bay books, buy whatever Bukowski I didn’t have, and go to whatever book signing they had. I remember meeting Barry Gifford, Richard Rhodes, and Kay Jamison within a month of each other in the basement of that old bookstore. And when I didn’t walk down to Pioneer Square, I would drive north and south on I-5, going up to see movies at Mountlake Terrace and wandering around the Northgate mall.

I just realized I have a shitload of travel books, both of places I’ve been and places I’ve wanted to visit. I wish I could visit each of the places I have a book for; it would be cool to go to Japan, Amsterdam, New Orleans. I don’t think I am taking any more big trips this year, although I am going to Vegas and probably taking one more long weekend. But next year, I’d like to roll all of my tax money into plane tickets and hit a lot of places.

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Sneakers

I just watched the movie Sneakers, which is probably one of my favorite movies of all time. It has a nice, twisty plot, and even with the fake crypto technology subplot, it’s a very memorable and fun movie. I actually saw it in the theater three different times with three different dates when it was playing in Bloomington back in 1992. It’s another piece of proof that maybe that year was my high water mark, as I could get three different dates inside of a month or so, and I don’t think I’ve dated three different people in the last three years. Anyway, the movie reminded me of that era, not only in reference to who I saw it with, but also the look of things. The toy company-slash-enemy hideout is decorated in that early nineties tech look that existed in Lindley Hall and other newly remodeled buildings when I was on campus.

Not much is up here. I have been borderline sick all week, so I haven’t been in the mood to write. I’ve been falling asleep after work, eating dinner late, having the whole evening collapse onto itself, and then oversleeping in the morning. It’s a bad pattern, and hard to break. I slept for almost three hours after work tonight, but luckily, it’s Saturday tomorrow (today) and I’ll be able to sleep in. I have planned another weekend of nothing, except maybe getting work done on this (still untitled) book.

I’m very tired and it is almost 2:00 AM, so I better split.

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I don’t know but I’ve been told

I haven’t been writing in here much because I’ve been working on a new book. And I can’t talk about the new book because that would jinx it. But it’s going well, it’s getting there. And now I have a sore throat, so I’m expecting a cold and full shutdown some time this week. Some people can function fine on a cold, but it completely devastates me, and makes even the most simple daily routine difficult.

Got a whole new bundle of books from Amazon, but they are all at the office. I’m trying to finish up the 4-book Asimov trilogy, and just got done with book three. All of the other stuff I got is history, military. Good stuff.

I’m trying to run every day. It’s boring at first, and the boredom is pretty much my limitation now, moreso than shin splints or cardio. I just got a CD of running cadences recorded at Camp Pendleton, so you can march along with the Recon Marines. It’s actually pretty fun to march along with the CD, although my stupid portable CD player that advertises a 48-second skip buffer lasts about three good strides before skipping. I just zapped it all to the iPod, so hopefully that will work better.

OK, time to sleep…

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Hammerfall, writing, travel

I have been doing nothing but eating pizza, drinking lots of Coke, and listening to this Hammerfall CD over and over and over and over. It is the best CD in the world. I’m sure I’ll be bored of it in a week.

I started writing a new book. It is like Rumored to Exist but way more offensive and it has more of a linear story. That is all I can tell you for now. But it will be cool.

I am going to see John Sheppard read in Boston on August 1st, and you should go if you have the means. There is a remote chance that I will actually read from Rumored to Exist, but it depends on my blood alcohol level at the time. Oh, and I bought tickets to go to Vegas on October 24-29. I have no idea where I am staying. If there is even a remote chance that you want to go to Vegas, you should go with me. Or bank up your change and go in January when I’m sure my cohorts will try to get me to throw up in another four-star restaurant.

 

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68

It is sixty-eight degrees out! I don’t know how the fuck this happened. At lunch, it was mild out, but after work, I practically needed a jacket. I might actually be able to sleep tonight without taking a fistful of sleeping pills. It’s not even muggy or anything. I wish it would stay like this all month. (I hope I didn’t just curse it.)

I officially have too much stuff to read. The Asimov books are great, and I’m almost done with the first one. But I also got a copy of The Watchmen from Amazon the other day. It’s a graphic novel (i.e. comic book) from DC that everyone keeps telling me I really need to read. I don’t collect comics – I did for a little while in college, but got out of it when I was spending way too much money on Spiderman stuff. But I do occasionally like to read something when it’s good. The last good thing I read was the new Punisher title in the Marvel Knights series. I really like the faux-Mack Bolan anti-hero character, although he got a little too cartoony and weird during his run in other various Marvel comics. Ray told me to pick up the hardcover anthology of the first dozen or so of the new series, and they’re excellent. The art is much more realistic and gritty, and the stories have much more of a raw human feel to them. Like I said, I’m not the greatest fan of comics, but that book did it for me.

As far as other reading, I got a new book on flying ultralights today, but I forget the author/title. A quick flip on the subway showed a lot of good info about the meteorology side of things, which is good. I have a whole slew of books on my Amazon wish list. (If you’re curious, it’s here.) And then the other day, the guy who sits next to me ordered a shitload of books on Barnes and Noble, and they couriered the books to him THAT DAY. FOR FREE. Only in New York…

I think I’m back on the book of Bloomington short stories, and I’ve officially killed off any thought of working on my book called The Device. I did steal about 4,000 words out of it that I might use in a short story though, so that’s cool. I have 65,000 words of this book written, but much of that is in first draft format and horribly needs a rewrite. I hope I stay on this project, because I really need to get writing.

OK, that’s it. Time to sleep.

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2.4 Mhz of raw computing power, in the palm(s) of your hand(s)

Still hot as hell here. I think I hit my upper bound on hot food, too. I never really got used to spicy foods, as I lived in the Midwest and ate a lot of really bland stuff. In college, I worked with a lot of people into the cult of the chile pepper, which seems to be prevalent in computer geeks for some reason. I had horrible stomach problems for years, so I didn’t get started on this, though. Since I moved to New York, I’ve slowly tried to introduce hot food to my diet, but I can only do it to a certain extent. I do okay with a chicken vindaloo, and I’m to the point where Tabasco is pretty middle-of-the-road. But I’m nothing like a coworker who is both New Mexican and of the aforementioned chile/tech geek cult, who can put ten ounces of pure nuclear habanero sauce on a single taco without flinching.

I don’t know if I mentioned that I bought a Tandy 102 from EBay. They are very neat little machines, especially given their mid-Eighties vintage. They have a full keyboard and a 40 by 8 character LCD display. Their 8-bit processor and up to 32K of RAM ran a tiny OS with BASIC, a text editor, and some other basic stuff like an address book and calendar. What’s cool is that the whole thing ran on 4 AA batteries for twenty hours, and when you hit the on switch, the thing immediately came on, more like a calculator than the five-minute wait on a current Windows laptop. It has a serial port to connect to a real PC, and should be a neat toy to play with on the train or while sitting in bed. Maybe I’ll run a serial cable from it and use it as a dumb terminal off of my Linux box. Of course, I have a real VT240 collecting dust in my closet, so I probably won’t do much with it. And the size on this places it smack-dab between my SideKick and my laptop. But for only $45, it’s not too bad.

I’m currently in the process of re-reading a bunch of Asimov stuff in order. In my senior year of high school, I only had to take a couple of classes in the last semester, so I had a few study halls, an hour that I worked in the theater, a piano class, and a lot of other filler. I had high hopes of reading every book in the library, or at least the ones I found interesting. After I read every World War II book cover to cover, I started reading all of the SciFi they had in the place – Bradbury, Orwell (okay, not really SciFi) and I worked through a lot of the Asimov. I don’t think they had any PKD, which would have been great too, although it seems like all of the good anthologies of his stuff have come out in the last decade or so. Anyway, I am reading through the robot books (I, Robot,The Robots of Dawn, The Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun) and I’m considering going into the Foundation books, but it depends on how I do on the other stuff. I did some digging around, and I never knew that Asimov actually died of HIV complications. He had a heart bypass in 1983, and he got a bad blood transfusion. It was kept secret at his death, until a biography that came out last year. Pretty weird.

OK, I need to go write, if that’s at all possible in this heat.