Year: 2001
September 15, 2001
Here’s an itemized account of my 9-11-01 day, as you already know about all the other disgusting events that happened:
- 8:45am
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Head to work on the F train. F train is slightly delayed because of “a fire in the World Trade Center.”
- 9:40am
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Get to work at 53rd St. Work for 10 minutes as coworkers and I get news about what’s going on.
- 9:50am
- Everybody leaves work. I look down 5th Ave and lower Manhattan looks like hell.
I walk through Central Park with a coworker to her apartment uptown until I figure out how to get home because all transportation is screwed up.
- 2:00pm
-
Start walking to the 59th St bridge (one of the only open bridges) from West 86th St.
- 3:00pm
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Get on an N train at Queensboro Plaza once the trains start running and go back through Manhattan to 34th St. where the F train eventually and eventually takes me home.
- 4:30pm
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Get home, try to make some phone calls, go to Key Food, watch the news, etc.
Not too much compared to the days of many other people, that’s for sure. All I saw was smoke when I looked toward where the World Trade Center used to be. It sucks that those buildings are now completely gone. It really sucks that so many people died. My mom wants me to move out of New York. And I’m worried about all this “retaliation” talk.
September 8, 2001
I’ve been recently realizing that nobody sees this blog, so it is doing the job I hoped it would do. And that is to serve as a journal that has the possibility of being seen. For you see, the last time I wrote in any kind of a journal, it was hell to read through because I was writing as if it would never be seen by anyone. And for me, that creates shitty writing.
And my spider seems to have died after sucking all the blood out of some huge insect. Maybe the blood was poisoned or the spider ate too damn much.
My internship just turned into a full time Webmaster position. So now I am an entry-level webmaster. Shit. Who ever heard of an entry level webmaster? This job is doomed.
August 31, 2001
There has been a spider in my bathroom for about 3 weeks now. He has eaten 3 insects so far.
My new job (from my internship) let me out early today because it’s labor day weekend. Such a surprise is so far unprecedented in my work-a-life. I believe highly in the get-out-of-work-early style of surprise and hope it continues.
August 12, 2001
My girlfriend is into the James Bond movies. I have never really seen one until tonight. We saw Octopussy and I believe there were some good scenes in it. Not being an action film fan, I would recommend this film for its general hilarity.
A quote from the lady: “My father gave me the nickname Octopussy.”
WTF?!
August 9, 2001
Tonite I am re-living the lazy college days of art school. Two forties of the Olde E and some Beastie Boys, who are no longer annoying after a one year neglect. And I am working on a freelance project.
This freelance project is nice because it doesn’t require me to get up every morning like my internship does. And it doesn’t make me sign “Sorry your dad died” and “Happy Birthday!” cards in the same goddammed day like my internship does.
But my internship is maybe maybe going to turn into an entry-level web design/programming position that will pay for some programming classes and pay a salary, so it’s best not to bitch about it for now.
And the JESUS.
August 7, 2001
I don’t think I’ve had one interesting thought for at least a week now. I must be getting used to working full time.
Or perhaps I’m reading too much Bukowski.
July 29, 2001
I recently visited the fine city of Iowa City, Iowa for my sister’s graduation from the University of Iowa. I’ve been away from Iowa for about 5 years and away from the Midwest for a little more than a year. When I go back to the Midwest I enjoy the laid backness and its obvious contrast to the workin-it scene of New York. I’ve been in New York for a little more than a year, and the more I get used to it, the more I think about going elsewhere to be lazy. Nevertheless, I expect to stay another 4 years or so.
For I desire the MONEY.
July 21, 2001
Lately I have been reading the english translation of Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre. He won the 1964 Noble Prize in Literature. He is red-haired as I am. He is of the existentialist nature.
One memorable quote from it thus far is:
Undoubtedly, on his death bed…he told his wife…who had watched beside him for twelve nights,
“I do not thank you, Therese; you have only done your duty.”
When a man gets that far, you have to take your hat off to him.
Some rough stuff. Also in this book, he tries to stab his hand to change the nature of its existence. It only kinda works.
July 12, 2001
My mom always tells me about how women are underrepresented and underpaid in the workforce of today’s America. She’s quite angry about it.
But since I’ve been in New York, it seems the only people I have ever interviewed with or worked with have been women. I’ve only worked with one man since I’ve been here, and I’ve worked with one million women.
Maybe it’s the profession, maybe it’s the city. But either way, sometimes I remember with strange fondness the old days of working with old cranky racist homophobic sexist Wastewater Treatment Men.
It seems my whole life I’ve been hanging out with thrice as many women as men. Perhaps that’s why I am such a woman.
July 7, 2001
Reminiscing about the music I used to listen to in college, I remember and severely recommend the LAWNMOWER DETH, the Atom and His Package, the Kraftwerk, the Pixies, the David Bowie, the Suffocation, and the GangStarr.
But lately as I have been out of college for one year, I recommend the same bands as above, as well as the Mobb Deep and the D12. My musical taste is not yet very sophisticated as a white man in Brooklyn, but it does me fine so far.
In other words: My musical tastes may suck, but at least I’m not all that ugly.
June 30, 2001
Last night I was watching Whipple’s World for some reason, and he was asking celebrities what their worst summer jobs were. I think most of them were working at the donut shop or things of that nature. I wasn’t really paying attention because I was making macaroni and cheese.
Anyway, now that I’m searching for full time employment, I’ve forgotten about the summer job scene. Ah, the shitty summer job. My summer jobs have included:
- caddying at the Joliet Country Club
- delivering papers for the Des Moines Register
- detasseling near Cedar Falls, Iowa
- working at the Des Moines Wastewater Treatment plant
- framing shitty pictures at Michael’s Arts and Crafts in Des Moines
I’m not sure which job was the worst, but I sure didn’t last too long with the framing. The Wastewater Treatment plant was quite interesting visually, with all the underground passageways and the pipes everywhere and the big-assed engines. And gallons upon gallons of straight SHIT.
June 30, 2001
I have just pulled my first all-nighter since college. There’s something interesting about an all-nighter. It makes you see the morning.
June 30, 2001
And the moral is: Don’t go after large things. They are too large.
June 30, 2001
I have just finally seen 2001: A Space Odyssey and I’m just finally reading Moby Dick. I have recently begun reading the books and seeing the movies that seem to have a certain cultural significance by the amount of times I have heard or seen them referenced. In short, I am reading the books everyone read in high school and seeing the movies everyone saw in high school.
What I have found humorous in Moby Dick is this passage spoken by the head of a rowboat trying to catch up to a whale:
“Start her, start her, my men! Don’t hurry yourselves; take plenty of time—but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that’s all,” cried Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke.
“Start her, now give ’em the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy—start her, all—but keep cool, keep cool—cucumbers is the word—easy, easy—only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys—that’s all. Start her!”
June 30, 2001
Email from freeservers:
The last time you went to a fast-food restaurant, didn’t they ask you if you wanted to supersize your meal? Now we feel like getting into the act and asking you if you want to supersize your Web site. Well… don’t you want to supersize your Web site?
Just think of all you could now do with more Web space and bigger file sizes:
Add high-quality, streaming videos – With up to 100 MB of Web space…
Share digital photos – Now that you’ve got that slick new digital camera…
Create graphics-intensive Flash & Shockwave sites…
I get confused when fast food gets compared to slow sites.
June 30, 2001
Today I have learned more than usual about web design. Next goal is creating liquid pages. Then my sites won’t be so damn small-looking on the large monitors.
Over the past year I have been turning more and more towards web design than illustration. It started out with switching to the Design program from the Illustration program one semester before graduation. I feared the freelance life. So I got into print design, and then into web design in hopes of landing a full-time gig. It’s been a while, but I’m still learning. Still learning how to interview with enthusiasm. Still learning how to prepare for working on a team. Still learning how to communicate with others who seem to know more about it than I do. I am teaching myself, with help from online tutorials and I am getting better at it steadily. And doing less illustration.
I am not making much money doing web work OR illustration, so it doesn’t matter yet. But it will soon.
