Today presented the unique situation, in my life anyway, of going to an escrow office and picking up a check made out to me in the amount of $6,810. Throughout the day I've also been waiting for a potentially life-changing phone call, which, as of 4:30pm, still hasn't come.

I drove to the escrow services office and parked in the vicinity of where I believed the office should be. I wasn't thinking straight, however, and realized that I parked on the odd-numbered side of the street, and the office was on the even-numbered side. I could have gotten back in my car and driven to the other side, reparked, etc, but it all seemed like such a hassle, and I'd already put a quarter in the meter. So I raced across six lanes of Wilshire Boulevard with no problem (on the second try actually; a police car driving by thwarted my first effort) and with less hassle than I was expecting, emerged 20 minutes later from the escrow office with the aforementioned, large check in my name.

Then came time to cross Wilshire again. And it hit me: this is where I die. No matter how safely I cross this street, a truck will come out of nowhere and flatten me. I have just enough life left in me to watch the check fly away in the wind, and to feel my cellphone vibrate in my pocket with that call I was waiting for.

That didn't happen, obviously.

I've moved in to my new apartment in a beach area. Everyone is happy and pretty. Going to the local grocery store last night was one of the least frustrating and most effortless grocery store experiences I've ever had. This is all going to take some getting used to. Everything in my life has been suspiciously fresh and exciting and positive lately. And for once I'm bucking my own M.O. of waiting for the other shoe to drop. Maybe this time, there's only one shoe, and I really will get to the other side of the street every time.

In a few weeks, I’m moving out of the neighborhood where I’ve been living for the past couple years, just as I was really starting to appreciate it. I’ve been taking more walks lately. When I first moved to the area I thought it was a pretty boring walking area, but the thing that I forgot is that I thrive in boring environments.

Down the sidewalk a bit from my gate is a tree that produces some kind of round-ish green fruit, perhaps small limes, or unripe lemons. As I begin my walk, I pull one of those little pieces of fruit off the tree. For the rest of my 30-minute-or-so walk, I play a little game of running out into the middle of the street and pitching the lime down the middle of it to see how far it can go until it stops. I’ve gotten pretty good at it. The trick is to aim for the exact middle of the street and send it on as straight a course of possible, because as soon as it starts to roll too far to the left or right, it inevitably hits a curb pretty fast and slows to a stop very quickly.

A major rule of my little lime-pitching game is that I have to wait for a perfect moment when no cars are coming either way and no pedestrian is walking by to see me do it. That’s harder than it sounds. On an average walk, I only really get to pitch the lime a total of about four times. And even then, sometimes I look up after I release the piece of fruit down the middle of the street to see someone I hadn’t noticed before, looking at me from apartment stoop, eyeing me suspiciously. Or suddenly a car will pull up to an intersection and see a speeding lime roll by in front of them and naturally deduce that the only explanation for it is the guy standing in the middle of the street a ways down, watching it go.

My best day was last Friday evening. I got six throws in, and all of them were really good, middle of the road attempts. I was feeling especially high that night. It was Friday, for one thing; always a reason for delight. And things are going particularly well for me right now. It seems every time my phone rings, it’s someone on the other end telling me that something I wrote and sent to them is something they want to possibly give me a prize for. That night I’d just gotten a call from someone who read the play I wrote four years ago and they’re going to do a reading of it in New York City. After that, they might produce it. That made me want to go out and take a walk, and throw fruit down the middle of the streets of my neighborhood. It sounds insane, but could it be that all the insane things I’ve done to entertain myself all my life are exactly the sort of things that I should be doing more of than ever?

Last night I had a dream I encountered a very old dog, that had acquired the ability to speak English. She (?) was a little hard to understand, but I was impressed. Unfortunately, being as old as she was, she was senile. All she would talk about was her love for Carol O'Conner and how much she loved All in the Family. It got old pretty quick.

All my dreams have been interesting lately. I choosing to think of it as a sign that my brain is waking up and the fog that has enveloped it for the past two months is finally lifting. I really hate summer. I don't know if it's the heat, or the extended amount of sunlight, or the tilt of the Earth, but I can never quite get through the whole season without either losing my shit or completely turning off. This year I chose turning off, which is probably a good thing.

My Autumn 2007 music mix is almost completed. This weekend is Labor Day, September begins, and I can begin to accept the idea that fall has begun, even if calendars and scientists say that it doesn't really start until some seemingly random day next month. If I was still in college, I'd already have gone through a week of classes by now. It may still be 110 degrees in the valley right now, but Summer, I declare that the extent of your reign can now be counted in hours.

Soon I will begin to be able to string a few words together and "write" again. In the meantime, I'll let someone else do the talking again.

Hang my head low, so low
Don't see me only as I am but see me how I long to be
Shining like a flowering tree under a gray Pennsylvania sky
Look for me as you go by

Hang my head low, so low
Every burden shall be lifted
Every stone upon your back slide into the sea
It's me for you and you for me

I love The Innocence Mission. They're the only band I can listen to for hours and stare into space to. They remind me of my grandma's house when I was little, and soldiers coming back home to small town after World War II, and the mercy of a god that I don't admit to people I still believe in, and teenagers holding hands on a bridge over a stream, and college when it would snow for the first time in November.

I’m not a bad speller, but I don’t begrudge people who are. The rules of spelling in the English language are a joke. One thing I could personally never keep straight is the whole I before E except after C rule. It’s easy enough to understand, except I guess I just don’t have enough respect for C’s influence over I and E. What strange power of persuasion does C have over those two letters? Or is it simply that C and I don’t get along, and E is stepping in and saying “Enough, you two! I’m separating you. I, you stand here, and C, you stand here, and I’ll be in the middle!”

And then you have words where I and E switch places, and C is NOWHERE to be found. Like weigh. Where the hell is there a C in that word? Okay, so apparently there’s another rule that says that I and E switch places if they combine to make an A sound. I must have been absent in grade school the day they explained that one, because it makes no more sense to me than the other rule. But then you have the word weird. Is this some kind of stupid joke? Is this supposed to be ironic or something? They decided to go all anarchic with that one word because it’s weird? I’m not laughing. Need another example? Okay, my first name. Neil. I’ve been told proper names don’t have to follow normal rules of spelling. I’m really starting to wonder when any word has to follow any normal rule of spelling, ever, quite frankly.

So, I and E can switch places at any time for any reason it seems, but at least that I before E except after C rule is always true, right? WRONG. What about the word raciest? There it is: Photographic evidence that C and I maybe aren’t as unable to get along with each other as we’ve been led to believe. Some might say being that there’s a suffix involved, the rule is voided and this should be an obvious exception. OBVIOUS TO WHO, I ask! What about some immigrant?! They’re fresh off the boat, confused, penniless, eager to begin speaking and writing in their new language, so they take an English course. In this new, topsy-turvy world into which they’ve been thrown, they’re looking for just one piece of solid truth that they can hang their foreign-made hat on, and they are given this: I before E except after C. They are so overwhelmed with joy at this certainty that they almost want to weep. Then, perhaps only days later, they are perusing a newspaper or magazine and happen upon a word that dashes their belief that there can be an absolute about anything in this bitch of a country.

It’s obvious to me now. The I before E except after C rule was invented by the rich, to keep down the proletariat. That’s right. The next time you see some rich bastard on the street, ask them how to spell D-E-C-E-I-T, and I’ll bet you all the money in the world that they get it right.

Does any other animal on Earth, beside man, have the ability of being able recognize a situation or possibility of being absolutely impossible, but continue to hope and attempt to achieve success at it anyway?

Like, I heard one time that dolphins are the only species besides human beings that have sexual intercourse for pleasure. Is there some creature, such as the platypus for example, with a tendency to have a life dream of passing the Bar Exam, despite its utter incapability to grasp the legal system, much less find a way to pay for law school? Does a gazelle ever look across a crowded grassland and become instantly, hopelessly taken with a lion with whom she could never hope to have a healthy relationship, even if she somehow persuades him not to eat her right off the bat?

I doubt it.

Memorial Day weekend means the beginning of summer. But far more importantly, it means the debut of my official Summer Mix CD.

Summer is by far the most difficult of the seasonal mixes to put together. For one thing, it comes relatively quickly after completing the Spring Mix, and therefore I have less time to find a lot of good new songs to add. The other big factor is that summer was never traditionally my favorite time of the year, so finding older songs that really give me a great nostalgic feeling are hard to find. In fact, most of my memories of summer throughout the 1990’s are of utter boredom and frustration. I was much happier in the fall, winter and spring when I was off at school, and not working a crappy job or sweating to death in 90% humidity. For me, summer was just one long hiatus until I could get back to the interesting part of my life. Then the interesting part of my life ended completely, so now I see summer as just any other three month stretch. But I digress.

With all of that said, I feel pretty confident about Summer Mix 2007. This year’s spring mix was one of my best ever, so there was bound to be a bit of a letdown anyway, but I actually think this one picks up where Spring ’07 left off. It’s very chipper. It draws heavily from the ‘80s, which is strange because I generally hate ‘80s music. But most importantly, I think I did pretty well with scrounging up new songs, which is the true litmus test of how good or bad the mix really is. Here are the songs:

Grace Kelly by Mika (For the first mix in a long time, I started off the proceedings with a bang. A big, loud, fun, energetic song. My only reservation about this song is that I heard it on Star 98.7 last week, which means that by this time next month, it might be super popular and I’ll hate it.)

Open Your Heart by Lavender Diamond (So happy it hurts.)

White Heat by Madness (Technically an ‘80s song, but it reminds me of Summer 1990 because I found the tape for 99 cents in a record store and listened to it all summer in my car. Reminds me of a girl.)

One Kiss Don’t Make a Summer by Lucky Soul (This song was made to be included on a Summer Mix. I like the strings.)

Hannah by Erik Voeks (I cheated; this should really have been a spring song. Still, great memories of 1994 are welcome any time, any season. Was I really ever so happy?)

Fake Do-Gooders by Eames Era (I might have to eventually buy the full CD by this band.)

Plant Me by Suddenly, Tammy! (1993. Simply reminds me of everything that was good and beautiful in the world, one time, long ago.)

Give Up? by Hot Hot Heat (I’m betting this will grow on me. Their songs always do.)

When Smokey Sings by ABC (I have no idea why I put this on here. It’s just a good song. My friend Dan and I used to think the women in the beginning sounded like choking chickens.)

In Competition for the Worst Time by Idlewild (I feel bad for Idlewild because I went crazy over their second album then got tired of them fast. So I’m throwing them a bone. Something about the title just grabs me…)

Bury Me Closer by Palomar (Very pleasant.)

The Strong and the Silent by A House (Summer of 1995, right after I graduated from college, and I didn’t know what was in store. So I imagined the summer was like any other and that I’d be going back to school at the end of it, just like normal. So I delayed my complete breakdown for a few months.)

Manchester by The Beautiful South (The first single from the last album, the one I didn’t bother getting. One of my all-time favorite bands.)

The Goonies R Good Enough by Cyndi Lauper (I spent the summer of 1985 running through the woods, looking for caves to explore or danger to get into. God, my hometown was so boring.)

Everybody’s Got Their Own Part to Play by Shannon Wright (I’m predicting that this will be the song that I’ll still want to hear more of after August.)

Stars by Au Revoir Simone (You make me want to measure stars in the backyard with a calculator and a ruler, baby. Somewhere in my memory banks I remember feeling that way.)

Mandinka by Sinead O’Conner (From the best summer of my life, 1988. I was still just young enough to enjoy being young but suddenly just old enough to sense there was something coming up.)

Light of the Moon by Riverman (They’re a total rip-off of Nick Drake, even naming themselves after one of his songs. But they do it well, so fuck it.)

I have to admit, I make these mixes wondering what memories the songs will hold after the season is over. I’m already feeling a little wary of the Summer of 2007, I have to say. But at least I’ll have a nice collection of songs to document it.

One day you wake up and it’s better. Not a faint grasping at a hope that it’s better, it just is. Maybe it’ll be back to the old guard by noon, but this morning you sense an invisible shift in the layout of everything around you, as if everything in the world was taken away and replaced with slightly brighter replicas overnight. You hardly want to accept it, but your heart can’t help it in its bursting, and the feeling manages to hang on through your morning shower, and yes, a look in the mirror afterwards reveals that there’s a shine in your eye.

Will your friends notice? They do. The concerned telephone calls to each other to which you weren’t privy, the stilted, well-meaning but empty words of encouragement, the frustration of seeing you not at your best for so long: As if by wave of a magic wand these are replaced with the recognition that this particular sickness has run its course. And they know, because they’ve been down and gotten back up too.

Life becomes a fun game again. You’re the car, the thimble, the iron moving around the game board that is the whole wide world. In due time, before you know it, you’ll even be the smooth metal ball rolling under the glass, flying up the alley, going almost too fast, bouncing into and off of bumpers that either fling you off or pull you in for a moment, all the time hurdling toward the lowest point until some flipper knocks you up into the air again. There’s a risk of hurt in this human pin-ball, but you’re up for it, because you conveniently just remembered that you’ve missed it so much.

The feeling sticks around, despite all odds and your own worst fears, and after days of feeling this refreshment, you actually begin to look back fondly on the darkness. It was your own special kind of pain, unique to you, and now that it’s gone, you actually find yourself wondering if you’ve become less exceptional without it. Except for the way that it changed you forever, made you a little older, a little stronger, you might be tempted to go back to its comfort, smothering as it was. But no. You’ve become attached to how much easier it is to do everything, how nice it is to not constantly see the worst in yourself, how much better it is to go through life wanting to live it.

And then one day you run into him or her again, by accident, and it feels a lot like someone climbs inside you and slices you from your neck to your intestines with a dagger that’s been sitting in a freezer for a couple hours. But it only lasts for a little while, and after it fades you can at least be happy in the knowledge that your heart will long carry a memory of something that your mind has managed to make all better.

I have about as much chance of ever accepting people who attempt to initiate small talk on an elevator at 8 o'clock in the morning as I do of understanding what goes on the heads of suicide bombers.

Goodbye, Jerry Falwell.

Try to stay cool down there.

I have nothing to say today, so I'll let The Shins say it.

Born to multiply,
Born to gaze into night skies,
When all you want’s one more Saturday.
Well look here, until then
They gonna buy your life’s time
So keep your wick in the air and your feet in the fetters
‘Til the day...We come in doing cartwheels
We all crawl out by ourselves
And your shape on the dance floor
Will have me thinking such filth I’ll gouge my eyes.

You’ll be damned to be one of us, girl,
Faced with the dodo’s conundrum
I felt like I could just fly
But nothing happened every time I tried.

Oh duotone on the wall
The selfless fool who hoped he’d save us all
He never dreamt of such sterile hands.
You keep them folded in your lap,
Or raise them up to beg for scraps,
You know, he's holding you down
With the tips of his fingers just the same.
Will you be pulled from the ocean,
But just a minute too late,
Or changed by a potion,
And find a handsome young mate
For you to love.

You'll be damned to pining through the windowpanes,
You know you'd trade your life for any ordinary Joe’s,
Well do it now or grow old.
Your nightmares only need a year or two to unfold.
Been alone since you were twenty-one,
You haven't laughed since January.
You try and make like this is so much fun,
But we know it to be quite contrary.

La la la la la la la
Dare to be one of us, girl,
Facing the android's conundrum,
You see I felt like I should just cry,
But nothing happens every time I take one on the chin,
You Himmler in your coat
You don't know how long I've been
Watching the lantern dim,
Starved of oxygen,
So give me your hand,
And let's jump out the window.

It is sad but somehow fitting that I didn’t hear about the demise of one of my all-time favorite bands until two months after they announced they were splitting. The Beautiful South made the declaration on their website on January 31st, and I just happened upon the information by accident during a random Google search a couple days ago as I was looking up something else. It was a little like hearing that an old friend that I hadn’t talked to in years has passed away; not something that rocked my world, but enough to make me pause for a moment. I had to admit that the disbandment was for the best. I was one of their biggest fans, and even I didn’t bother to buy their last album released last year, partly because I would have had to pay $30 for an imported copy as their albums stopped being released in the States long ago, not that that ever stopped me from laying down the cash before. Their last great album was in 1996, their last very good one was in 1998, their last good one was in 2000, and they released three since then. I’d written them off. But yesterday I pulled out their debut album from 1990 and listened to it again, and though I still believe it was a band that ran its course, I now know that I have to pay tribute to The Beautiful South for what they meant to me.

They weren’t the best band in the world. By their own admission, they were only the 7th best band from Hull, England. But no other band’s music better suited my personality, especially in their (and my) heyday throughout the 90’s. I sometimes wondered if Paul Heaton, the main singer and songwriter, was following me around, writing songs about me. They have a song called Good as Gold which I still consider my all-time theme song. The music of TBS was laid-back, jazzy and very uncool, the sort of stuff you’d hear on an easy-listening station for adults who don’t really appreciate music and just want something pleasant playing in the background. The lyrics, on the other hand, were laced with irony, observation, and even a bit of bitterness, and the combination of relaxed, catchy tunes tempered with such wry contempt and detachment had me hooked from the beginning. The five albums they released in the years 1990 to 1996 are more than the soundtrack to my life during that time. They both described my existence as well as informed it. In a way, they justified it. The Beautiful South didn’t give a shit. And they didn’t give a shit very quietly.

Very few people in America have ever heard of them, and even in their homeland, their albums never sold that well. The truth is, it was embarrassing to admit to liking The Beautiful South in the land where people knew who they were, and pointless to admitting it in a land where they were unknown. But anyone I introduced their music to grew to love them, and a lot of people in the UK secretly loved them, too. Case in point, their 1994 greatest hits album became one of the biggest-selling albums of all time in England. It was released near Christmastime, and millions of people rushed out to buy a copy, gift wrap it, and present it to a family member so that they could avoid the shame of buying for themselves, and then borrow it constantly.

Did I outgrow them near the end, or did they begin to really suck? Both, I think. The songs lost their wit and became merely critical and whiney. I myself found it harder and harder to maintain the ability to judge the world while separating myself from it, and I can see that in the songs as well. And when they did try to be clever, that’s when they really got annoying. The later albums are a chore to listen to, to be honest. They found a bit of a spark of fun again in 2004 by releasing a covers album, putting a TBS spin on songs by The Ramones, ELO, the Grease Soundtrack, Blue Oyster Cult, and other music they/I hate. For a moment they were back, and I was back, and it was like visiting an old friend.

Long live The Beautiful South.

I've been trying to write a screenplay for a few months now. I wrote the first half in about a month, and it's taken me about three months to get myself to seriously start the second half. I know I'm really procrastinating when in order to avoid writing, I actually look for things I can do around the office. I actually just cleaned my desk. And I know I'm really avoiding writing when I post a blog.

What is up with this website, by the way? It changed a couple months ago, and now I sign in using my Google account, which makes things a bit easier I suppose, except I have to go through a series of logins to finally really get access to my own blog. I just entered the same password three times. And no matter how many times I click that "remember me" checkbox, it never remembers me. I shouldn't talk; I constantly introduce myself to the same person about five times before I finally remember that I've actually met them before, but computers are supposed to be smarter, aren't they? And why is that now when I post a blog or even a comment on someone else's blog, it takes about half a day to appear? Isn't this the age of super-speed in every facet of communication? I mean, I'm writing this entry at 10am, and no one will read it until at least 4pm later today. By then, my screenplay might be finished, and this entry will be obsolete before a set of eyes even falls on it. Doubtful, but still. Should I go ahead and post my predictions for what NFL team will go to the Super Bowl next year now, so that it will be relevant when these words finally appear in cyberspace? Okay, now I'm just being obnoxious. But seriously, the Steelers are going all the way.

Okay, now I'm going to attempt to write the scene in the supermarket. It will be long done by the time you read this. I bet it's way awesome.

I make a mix CD for myself three times a year. One for spring, summer, and fall, complete with a label on the front that I design myself. I cull the new selections from songs I hear on the indie internet radio stations I listen to at work, and in between those I pepper older songs from the past.

It can be a stressful process. It needs the perfect opening song, an even better closing song, the whole thing has to flow, and if even one song sucks, I have to live with it that whole season. (It's also all a bit ridiculous how much emphasis I put on running order, seeing as how I usually listen to it in random order in my car anyway.)

I just finished my Spring 2007 mix, and I'm very happy with it. Here is a track listing, along with my explanations for the choice of the older songs I've chosen to appear.

1. Brother by Annuals
2. Near and Far by Sarah Shannon
3. Tuesday Morning by The Pogues (This was the album The Pogues made after Shane MacGowan left the band. I had this CD a while back and this was the only good song on it. It makes me very happy for some reason.)
4. Someone to Love by Fountains of Wayne
5. Chris R. by The Swirlies (This was the first song on a indie sampler my friend Mike gave me. The whole CD is so early 90’s. I can’t remember if it was spring ’93 or ’94, which is weird because I’m usually so good at remember things like that, but in a way it’s perfect because it goes to show that that whole period of my life was kind of timeless.)
6. We're From Barcelona by I'm from Barcelona
7. Walkabout by The Sugarcubes (From Spring ’92. Nothing special, I just liked the song. It’s from the same album as Hit, which is an awesome song too, but kind of too well-known by now.)
8. A Sentence of Sorts In Kongsvinger by Of Montreal
9. Female of the Species by Space (This is to commemorate my ten-year anniversary of arriving in LA. I was so excited to listen to KROQ when I got here because it was famous, and this song was big at that time. I quickly grew to realize KROQ sucks, but I still love the song, even though it reminds me of a tough time, struggling to get my bearings.)
10. Hard Days 1.2.3.4 by Loney, Dear
11. No Place Like Home by Squeeze (I didn’t have a car when I went to college until my senior year, so before that when I’d visit home on the weekends, I’d borrow my dad’s and pack in as much fun as I could in a short time. There were still some old cassettes in the glovebox from high school, including Cosi Fan Tutti Fruiti by Squeeze. I'd ritualistically play this song because I was always glad to be home.)
12. Small Parts by The Oohlas
13. Philadelphia Freedom by Elton John (This is one of the first songs I remember hearing, ever. It reminds me of riding in the car with my mom, listening to AM radio. I didn’t know what it was about, and to be honest I still don’t really, but it just sounded so happy and bright. I loved that he said “Shine the light, won’t you shine the light.”)
14. Stolen Moments by Six Parts Seven

Time to start stocking and stalking songs for the summer mix...

Today was another long walk, thanks to the car. The mechanic needed to fix one more thing, so I drove it to the garage, then started the long walk to work. Five miles. I did the exact same walk on Tuesday, but today was better because it was cooler and cloudy, and I think all the walking I've done in the past few days has made my legs a lot stronger. Along the way I thought about all kinds of funny things. Like the twin brothers that used to live across the street from me when I was little and how we used to eat the wild clover in our yards because it tasted surprisingly good. And I wondered things, like why did whoever painted the metal gate guarding the parking lot I walked by pick that shade of green? Stuff like that.

I stopped and got coffee in a cafe that I normally drive to, and while I was waiting for the restroom, I read a flyer for some self-actualization thing. The headlines were like, "Who really are you? Do you know your full potential? Why do you feel the way you do?" And I thought, "I'm in my 30's. Those questions are no longer fun or interesting."

I got to work after an hour and ten minutes. A couple hours later the mechanic called and said, on second thought, what I should really do is drive my car around for a few days with the new parts they put in on Tuesday so that next week they can more accurately do the readings to see what maintenance my car needs. So not only was my walk today completely unnecessary, but it means I'll be doing it again some morning next week.

I can't ride buses. It's not a personal problem with public transportation, I don't think. I used to love the subway/trolley back home. But I've been in this town for 10 years and I've managed to completely avoid the public bus system. Not that I've never needed a bus, however. Today, for instance, I walked five miles to work after dropping my car off with a mechanic. And close of business for the day is quickly approaching without the repairs being completed, so it's starting to look like I'll be hoofing the 3.5 miles to my home. I'm sick of spending money on car rentals, so it's a necessary evil at the moment. Well, not that necessary I guess. I could just ride the bus. Except I can't.

I don't want to go into why I can't ride buses, because I would need to first explore that topic on my own, and I'm as against that as I am riding a bus. Maybe it's something to think about during my walk home, but I probably won't. I'll think about what ever happened to that crazy guy that used to be in my acting class, and I'll wonder if birds notice the difference in traffic patterns on Saturdays and Sundays.

Oh, and I've never been to a funeral. I don't think the two things are related, but it's interesting.

A new guy started working in my office a few months ago, and I disliked him immediately. We’ve never spoken a word to each other, and I’m never proud to admit loathing someone on sight, but I can’t help it. He’s a little fat man, and he waddles when he walks, and even his hands are chubby. His voice is like a lower-pitched Kermit the Frog, and there’s only one volume setting to it: loud.

His office is in my department even though he doesn’t actually work for my department, I guess because it happened to be the nicest vacant office at the time he started, so I’m constantly passing him in the halls and being repulsed by him. I get the impression he’s not married, and against my own will I sometimes imagine that he’s into weird kinky sex with hookers, or maybe even male prostitutes.

His office a couple left turns from my desk, and on a quiet day I can hear him on the phone because he never shuts his door. I don’t have it nearly as bad as Belinda, whose desk is right outside his door. I’ve always felt bad for her, having to hear his stupid, fat, Kermit the Frog voice shouting on the phone every day. I didn’t realize just how bad it was though.

Earlier today, I was sending a document via the fax machine by Belinda’s desk, and while awaiting the send confirmation, I became aware of just how many noises the little fat man makes even when he isn’t on his phone or has someone in his stinky little office. (I’ve never actually noticed an odor from him, but I’d put money on his being smelly.) Every thirty to forty seconds, he would clear his throat loudly, or cough, or cough a few times in a row. I actually stood there timing the frequency of his noises with the stopwatch feature on my cell phone, and it was uncanny. It was almost as if he had his own stopwatch in his office, and he was clearing his pudgy little throat or emitting his flemmy little coughs on cue. I seriously thought of bursting into his office and presenting him with readout on my screen and asking him if he was aware of the annoyance he was inflicting on the world.

I just really don’t like that little loud fat man.

No matter how busy the day, no matter how I feel, no matter what I'm in the middle of, when Carolyn's Fingers by Cocteau Twins comes on the internet station I listen to at work, everything stops for three minutes and eight seconds.

Is it wrong that I'm more thrilled about Crowded House getting back together than I am about the Police reunion?

My primary fantasy as an actor is that I would one day be able to exist - financially and artistically - on acting jobs.

My secondary fantasy as an actor is that I could get a role in some movie or TV show that would subsequently result in my likeness being reproduced in the form of an action figure. I would take him everywhere with me. When I went to a restaurant, I would let him sit on the table. When I went to my accountant to take care of my complex financial matters, I would bring him out of my pocket and let him be part of the action. When I rode the bus, which I would never do because famous and successful actors (the kind that have action figures fashioned after them) never use public transportation, I would let my little plastic doppelganger take up the whole seat next to me. Unless there was a really pregnant woman on board and the bus was really full; then they could share a seat. And when I die, I would ask that the action figure in my likeness would be taken to the top of Mount Everest, and glued to the highest peak.

This Christmas, while I was back home, my dad and I took our traditional trip downtown and walked around for a few hours. One of my favorite stopoffs in our yearly tour has always been the William Penn Hotel. It's one of those really old ones with ornate mouldings, grand staircases, giant chandeliers, etc. It's even more beautiful during the holidays. I sang in the lobby of that hotel during a chorus trip in high school. That was such a fun trip. It's not that I loved singing so much; it had much more to do with the reality of a huge group of out-of-control high school kids getting out of class for a day to go into the big city and go a little crazy. Anyway, the combination of good memories and a big fancy old hotel results in something I really look forward to every year.

Most other years, ducking into the hotel is a necessity at that point just to keep from freezing. It was unseasonably warm this year. (Then again, "unseasonable" is the new norm, it seems.) We entered anyway, and like every year, I felt such a huge wave of joy seeing finely dressed rich people sitting in the restaurant and lobby sipping tea and reading their newspapers. The same giant Christmas tree as always stood in the middle of the room, decorated with such class. As always, I wondered what the rooms above us looked like, and how much a night in one would set you back.

I never noticed the Starbucks before. It was off to the side of the lobby. Purists and snobs would be appalled, I'm sure, to find a chain coffeehouse in such a beautiful old hotel, but I didn't care. I decided it was the perfect time of the day for my cup of personality. The appropriate moment to get my caffeine fix while on vacation is a delicate matter of timing. I bought my dad one and he asked me if I wanted to sit down for a bit. I was secretly against it, as I think walking with a coffee in the winter is a fabulous thing, but I was in a real go-with-the-flow mood, so I said okay. And I would have preferred to sit in the lobby with all those well-dressed rich people, but instead we sat at a table within the Starbucks, and that was still okay. In fact, the longer I sat there, I felt such a growing comfort and satisfaction within me. I cased out the place, noticed how the decades-old ceiling belied the age of the building in which we sat despite the brand new-ness of the coffeehouse itself. The employees were mostly young and jolly, whether because of plain old holiday spirit, or simply because nothing in the world could possibly be wrong. A young pretty girl sat by herself in a comfortable looking green plush chair, reading a book, a hardcover one of course. Her reading would be interrupted now and then by a text message or a call on her cell phone, which she replied to or answered eagerly. And I thought, how wonderful must her life be. Out the window was a view of tall buildings, some newer, some ancient, because that's the way my hometown is: Simultaneously decaying and renewing in plain view. A courtyard across the street was strangely undecorated and deserted, but it looked wonderful anyway. I imagined snow falling on it, and then remembered how on weekdays in the summer, people in suits would gather there and eat their lunch.

Dad finished his coffee and asked if I was ready. I'd save a little of mine so I could walk with my coffee for at least a little bit. I wanted to hold the cup with my black woolen gloves as we walked down the boulevard. For some reason my thoughts keep returning to that place. I left a little bit of me behind, and hopefully the piece of me I replaced will stay with me all year until I go back.

Oh, if I could make sense of it all!
I wish that I could sing
I'd stay in a melody
I would float along in my everlasting song
What would I do to believe?

Happy new year.