Of road-trips and employment
A few miles south of Soledad ...
College grads and those soon to graduate have been know to utter things like ‘the real world’s scary” and “getting a job’s scary.” I’d have to disagree. The nine-to-five aint looking so bad. Its money in the bank — like, a real 40-hour paycheck. You never have to worry about working weekends at your shit-eating retail or food service job. I mean, even at those you’re going to have to work most weekdays AND weekends to get 40 hours, so why not have two days each week you can rely on having off. It’s a chance at insurance and paid vacation too.
The sucky part, the truth about the “real world” that scares the shit out of everyone, is not having that flexible shit-eating job that lets you take off a week and a half to drive to a festival halfway across the country – they can work you 80 hours and it won’t cost them a dime what with bi-weekly pay periods and a tendency to not follow fair labor laws.
It seems like everyone around me has left to go somewhere this weekend. A majority of the people I hang out with are at bonaroo right now. Even people I work with have left for festivals. Another girl I just talked to is driving down to Georgia – it makes you miss those drive-thru-the-night, crammed-in-a-car road trips that are only afforded by the luxury of minimum-wage employment.
So while many of my acquaintances are off traipsing around the country in semi-stolen mini vans eating ganja brownies, I hung out in my dorm room and watched some lost. Season one, episode twenty, Do No Harm. Again, I was watching it with the kid below me who’s watching the show for the first time and is really into it, which is cool because im getting a chance to pick up on anything I missed. But really, the biggest thing I notice is how much friggin’ better the first season was. In everyway. Cinematography. Story. Dialogue, sound. music. Especially music. Really, I don’t think they lived up to their rep. I think they set the bar too high and couldn’t quite make it the second time around.
But before I entered nerdworld, I had a great, home cooked dinner at the home of a former intern and alumna of a friend’s school. I actually met this woman a week ago at a different event and she told me then that she wanted to have a few of the interns over for dinner night – I really didn’t plan on holding her too it. But sure enough, she invited four of us over to her place and cooked mac and cheese and a delicious salad with homemade strawberry dressing (followed by delicious, thick-as-fudge Mexican brownies with a goo of dulce de leche coating the top). We talked a little about journalism and mags, but mostly about told stories of the most creative panhandlers and most ballsy panhandler-imposters we’d ever seen.
The most creative bum ive met was a gentleman who went by ‘cody the subway poet.’ Now this man walked onto the 1 train one night when molly and I were heading uptown for $1.50 pibbers. He introduced himself and asked if we’d mind if he recited some poetry. So there he stood, an elegant black man with a peppered beard, standing tall in alligator shoes, a slick black beret atop his buzzed hair, wearing a slightly mismatched suit in a dark color with a jazzy blue wing-collared shirt underneath. He began his show and my god was he a captivating performer! He spoke directly at people, changing his tone, his inflection, gesturing wildly with his arms and stepping around with his left foot while his right stayed anchored on the unsteady train floor. After two poems spanning three stops, he took off his hat and said “I am temporarily homeless because I temporarily lost my motivation,” could you help me out? I gave him two bucks. I had four on me but I wanted a beer. He was the first panhandler I opened my wallet to.
Gah. There’s this sickening, screeching, continuous nails-on-chalkboard whine coming right into my window from somewhere in this crowded sky.
College grads and those soon to graduate have been know to utter things like ‘the real world’s scary” and “getting a job’s scary.” I’d have to disagree. The nine-to-five aint looking so bad. Its money in the bank — like, a real 40-hour paycheck. You never have to worry about working weekends at your shit-eating retail or food service job. I mean, even at those you’re going to have to work most weekdays AND weekends to get 40 hours, so why not have two days each week you can rely on having off. It’s a chance at insurance and paid vacation too.
The sucky part, the truth about the “real world” that scares the shit out of everyone, is not having that flexible shit-eating job that lets you take off a week and a half to drive to a festival halfway across the country – they can work you 80 hours and it won’t cost them a dime what with bi-weekly pay periods and a tendency to not follow fair labor laws.
It seems like everyone around me has left to go somewhere this weekend. A majority of the people I hang out with are at bonaroo right now. Even people I work with have left for festivals. Another girl I just talked to is driving down to Georgia – it makes you miss those drive-thru-the-night, crammed-in-a-car road trips that are only afforded by the luxury of minimum-wage employment.
So while many of my acquaintances are off traipsing around the country in semi-stolen mini vans eating ganja brownies, I hung out in my dorm room and watched some lost. Season one, episode twenty, Do No Harm. Again, I was watching it with the kid below me who’s watching the show for the first time and is really into it, which is cool because im getting a chance to pick up on anything I missed. But really, the biggest thing I notice is how much friggin’ better the first season was. In everyway. Cinematography. Story. Dialogue, sound. music. Especially music. Really, I don’t think they lived up to their rep. I think they set the bar too high and couldn’t quite make it the second time around.
But before I entered nerdworld, I had a great, home cooked dinner at the home of a former intern and alumna of a friend’s school. I actually met this woman a week ago at a different event and she told me then that she wanted to have a few of the interns over for dinner night – I really didn’t plan on holding her too it. But sure enough, she invited four of us over to her place and cooked mac and cheese and a delicious salad with homemade strawberry dressing (followed by delicious, thick-as-fudge Mexican brownies with a goo of dulce de leche coating the top). We talked a little about journalism and mags, but mostly about told stories of the most creative panhandlers and most ballsy panhandler-imposters we’d ever seen.
The most creative bum ive met was a gentleman who went by ‘cody the subway poet.’ Now this man walked onto the 1 train one night when molly and I were heading uptown for $1.50 pibbers. He introduced himself and asked if we’d mind if he recited some poetry. So there he stood, an elegant black man with a peppered beard, standing tall in alligator shoes, a slick black beret atop his buzzed hair, wearing a slightly mismatched suit in a dark color with a jazzy blue wing-collared shirt underneath. He began his show and my god was he a captivating performer! He spoke directly at people, changing his tone, his inflection, gesturing wildly with his arms and stepping around with his left foot while his right stayed anchored on the unsteady train floor. After two poems spanning three stops, he took off his hat and said “I am temporarily homeless because I temporarily lost my motivation,” could you help me out? I gave him two bucks. I had four on me but I wanted a beer. He was the first panhandler I opened my wallet to.
Gah. There’s this sickening, screeching, continuous nails-on-chalkboard whine coming right into my window from somewhere in this crowded sky.
posted by Erin at 1:22 AM
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