Dear Guillermo,

Welcome to Unemployment-ville. Population: You.

Indifferently,

Your Former Employer

Ah, well. It's not such a bad place, really, and I hear there is plenty to drink there.

But did it have to take them 13 days to fire me? They claimed to have used that time to investigate the matter, but I had flat-out told them from the beginning that I had broken the rules. Maybe they didn't believe me at first. Good thing they've come around and decided to finally trust me.

The meeting was brief.

And I was in a surprisingly good mood when I went in to meet my fate. No matter what they told me at that point, I would have been satisfied. I think it threw off my boss and his assistant to see me grinning like a fool. (During previous meeting I had acted appropriately chagrined.) I knew there was no horror they could inflict upon me worse than what I had already imagined.


I can't be too worried at the moment. I had been unemployed (for the first time in over two years) for less than a 8 hours and I had already been offered a couple of jobs. I didn't even ask. (Why would I? Who wants to work?) I know all is not lost. I should be happy that I have so much.

Why, I still have all my bills. Bless them, I know they won't leave me anytime soon.

My emergency savings had taken a staggering blow during my little California adventure. I'm almost down to my emergency emergency savings, which is basically a big jar half-filled with change.

So I'm doing what anyone would do at this crucial juncture in determining their future. I'm going to Rocky Point for a couple of days. Find my spirit animal. Then, enlist it's help in killing "Evil Guillermo." We don't think we'll will miss him. Sure, he does think up most of our jokes, but he also drinks most of our beer.

Deja vu

I found myself once again curled up in an armchair inside Barnes and Noble reading Sandman. I say that I found myself because I tend to get lost in those stories. I used to lose myself all the time but it happened less and less as I got older. Maybe it was because I read less fantasy, or went outside more, or something tangible like that. But no, I think as I developed my own view of the world, I also grew reluctant to accept the many things that didn't fit into it. At least where literary works were concerned. I still saw no problem with a movie where a man is beaten up by his possessed hand and then cuts it off with a chainsaw, or a girl that accidentally summons up the Goblin King to kidnap her little brother, or even a man with scissors instead of hands. It was all good, as long as someone else could show it to me. Really, I just got lazy.



Siblings and Speed Dial

My little brother, Luis, called me three times today. I was honestly pretty annoyed. He's good at calling when it is inopportune for me to talk. He usually doesn't want anything in particular, just to know where I am or what I'm doing. But for the past couple of weeks, he would call once, maybe twice a day. "Three times," I thought, "is just too much." I almost got mad. "Why is he all-of-a-sudden calling me all the time now?" Once I thought about it, I found the answer.
The boy has gotten used to seeing me.

Before when I was working my regular hours, I would see him about once a week. We would usually go out to eat, hang out, or rent a movie. Now since I've not been working, I see him just about every day. I have been spending much more time at my parent's house just hanging out, trying to remember what it was that I used to do when I actually lived there, that long year ago. And yeah, it isn't always the most exciting place to be.

And when I think that there are several people that I often call more than once a day, his behavior suddenly becomes...appropriate. I'm his friend, and when he is calling to see "what I'm doing" he's sort of seeing if I'm planning to come by the house. Maybe see him. Maybe joke around with him. Maybe even get him out of the house. On an e-mail survey Beth Froehlich sent me over a year ago, I answered the question "Who is your best friend?" with "Luis, because I know I can get him to do something with me anytime." I put that partly to cop out of being forced to choose just one friend and partly because it is true. It's still true. And I don't want that to change. Lousy family, getting me all sentimental. And making me realize that all it took to turn irritating into endearing was the tiniest shift in perspective.

Advice, unsolicited.

"A storyteller that doesn't tell stories is nothing." I read that today. And yet, here I sit, one of the many that still manage to convince themselves on a daily basis that we are hopelessly mired on this side of Creation.

Information and knowledge: two currencies that have never gone out of style. -American Gods

Yar, be ye not knowin' who ye be? Then haul keel over to yer pirate's christening. Dirty William Bonney commands it!

*The above two sentences are written in perfect sea-bonics. Yar.

* * *
I have another "meeting" with the boss on Thursday. When I was asked what time I would like to meet, I harkened back to the old saying, "Nothing bad can happen at three o'clock."

My meeting is scheduled for two.

* * *

Due to the fickle nature of my commenting system, I was unable to receive your threats to inflict great injury on me should I ever post my poetry again. (If you actually used that link instead of just scrolling down, I hail you mightily, O Laziest Person Ever.) Tell me which one (or ones) you found most or least offensive and I will owe you a favor. But since I don't have much political, social, or economic influence, I'm afraid that all my favors will be purely sexual.

Off I go to Barnes and Noble to drown my sorrows in Neil Gaiman's "Sandman."

A wild time was had by all at Game night. I pity you if you were not there. You missed an epic battle between some of the finest intellects ever assembled. The weapon of choice? Trivial Pursuit.

There was also pie.

Everyone else in the world was at IHOP. Where were you?

Roommates are great. Mai-linh and I argued for over an hour about absolutely nothing. It got a little intense, but then Beyonce came on shaking her groove-thang and we were able to put aside our differences and watch her be all crazy in love.

The party for my brother Donaldo Saturday night was awesome. My older brother Miguel showed up as well, which was nice. I got a bit more out of hand than I intended to be, but so it goes. I still managed to lend out a few books from my library and throw an exclusive pizza party in my room. If you haven't checked out Hungry Howie's, you might want to think long and hard about doing so.

In the wee hours of the morning Donaldo, Jay, Boston, and I all watched "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and then we even watched "Frankenweenie."

There were a couple of minor mishaps, such as when the friend of an un-invited neighbor attempted to convince Donaldo about the superiority of the Air National Guard and that he didn't even believe Donaldo had even been in Iraq. I was able to keep Jay and Donaldo from tossing the guy around, but it was close. Man, what a dumb-ass.

I also awoke to find my beloved puppet, "Hispanic Boy," impaled by a kitchen knife. The bastards had got 'im right through the dinosaur on his shirt. I thought that was odd. It turned out that Donaldo had done it, and since he gave me the puppet in the first place he can stab it all he wants.

Besides, you can't kill Hispanics by stabbing them.

Awesome! I was just wishing I could see my somewhat-estranged Godmother on only 3 hours of sleep!

I haven't spoken to her in a great while. She sort of stopped sending me birthday cards after I gave up religion for Lent. Catholics. Such powerful influence, and it seems to mostly be used for holding grudges.

No fancy links, no year-old memories, no what makes you read past the first 3 seconds of this sentence.

This is all real. My fingers go as slowly as I tell them to. I have been accused of being ponderous. That just means I'm easy to read to but difficult to talk to.

And depending on your position, yes, or no.

I was speaking to Brian earlier and I wanted to go to Vegas.

I was speaking to Brian Young earlier and I admitted I was feeling damn nihilistic.

Which has never worked before me in the past...

Which hasn't let at least a couple of sins pass by

Must go.

Too much too think about in this forever mist...