MisterNihil.com
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30.8.02I have a pair of boots I never wear. I don't exactly know why, other than that they are not appropriate anywhere but in one situation, and even then only once a year. Ahhh. Specialized shoes. They're my renaissance boots, made by a Russian man, with hand-cast rubber soles and all hand-made leather uppers. They come over my calves. hear that, world? A garment that takes my calves into consideration. They're probably my favorite piece of clothing. Or maybe it's a toss-up between them and my trench-coat, army green and velvety. I don't know. Neither is practical nor appropriate to most situations. I'd wear either (or both, joy of joys) at the drop of a hat. Speaking of which, I suppose a third entrant is my official Indiana Jones hat. Yeah, from one angle it's just a brown fedora, but that's what makes it great. It could be greater: There exists in the world a leather fedora, alike to mine other than materially. I long for it in the small ways I allow myself to long for Things. Perhaps my most desired fashion accessory, though, is certainly more practical than a leather fedora in Texas: I'm aiming for a laptop. It's style, believe me. Somebody had to design and create that look, usually with only one idea in mind: make it salable. Make it desirable for the fashion-conscious, and the Geek shall follow. Make it impossible to live without. Like an old black trenchcoat that has, yes been replaced, but still hangs in the closet. I have one such. I bought it not a week before those Columbine bastards decided to make it socially unacceptable to wear one in public. So, in my closet it hung. I still never wear it. I don't know why, and I can't get rid of it. Maybe it still holds Vampire memories for me. Ugh. Vampire. A fashion-driven game if there ever was one. Also, I don't look good as a vampire. Pale skin and sunken cheeks; creepy, hollow eyes; a slender, wasted profile. These things are not mine. I am decidedly healthy, with a rosy complection that screams "NOT A VAMPIRE." Vampires look dead. I've always made a point to look alive. Even with white makeup and dark circles under my eyes, I can't manage to look very dead. Once, I managed to make myself look ill, and another time I managed believable scars. Fat vampires are a fashion accident by definition, and when you add technicolor vests with oil-slick rainbow patterns, you get a beautifully undeniable example of one. I loved it, but I didn't look as good in the outfit as I felt. I looked silly. I felt suave. So much of life is like that, yeah? Thanks to that kickass Smattering (. com) for the thought-provoking Friday Five and to Spyderella for introducing me to the fun they can be. Posted at 4:18 PM I crept up to the house, trying to remain blended with my surroundings. It wasn't easy in the wheelchair, but I did my best. The only clue I had: A man in the street said to me "Worship the elaborate puppy of doom," just before he passed out. The coroners said it was an overdose of drain cleaner. I don't know what a single 'dose' of the stuff is, so ODing seems difficult, but he managed. I wheeled myself up to the window, leaving tracks in the half-dried clay mud behind me. I needed a new hobby. Inspiration from the refrigerator at work in those magnetic poetry things: "worship the elaborate puppy of doom." Hot damn. Posted at 2:18 PM - - - - - - - 28.8.02Wow. Busy day today. I took in three more corporate/institutional orders, completed another, am dealing with events changes, and it's only just after lunch. There's always something else to do. I never am not busy when I want to be. (that's a good thing, by the way.) I'm allowing myself to write one mildly unpleasant thing, that makes life more of an adventure: the carpet here is wool, I think, or something that, like wool, builds up static charge. If you sit at a desk, shuffling your feet, then touch, say, a door handle, you get a pretty noticable electric shock. Going into the bathroom is an exercize in aversion therapy. It's an adventure, but it gets mildly unpleasant. On hot summer days (today, for example) the dryness and heat seem to up the charge. bzorch. bzorch. bzorch. Posted at 1:38 PM - - - - - - - 27.8.02Wow. I had to snatch a chance to update today. It was busy. So, last week I filled or dealt with the third highest number of unsolicited corporate orders of any of the last five corporate order buyers here. I admit, the numbers I was competing with were "Zero" and "About Three," but whatever. I'll take number 3. And if it keeps up like this, I'll take number 2 pretty rapidly. Yeeuch. It's the part of the job I could do without, dealing with people and having to be smarmy and cagey at the same time, not offering a discount (I mean, technically we could give discounts, but our margin is tiny and if you factor in having to pay for shipping too...) (An order I filed today, in fact, had the profit cut in half by the shipping charge, if that tells you how low it was, and that was on UPS ground on a relatively light package). So I filled two more today, and am rapidly finishing another. Yup. And I've added a new book to the system on consignment (these folks), which is surprisingly easy. Mwahaha. Absolute power over a corner of the store. The thing I like today: location of the store for lunch options. Within about 5 minutes, I can get to any of several places selling any of several types of food. It's not much, but it counts, says me. For example, I'm really close to Frank & Angie's pizza, makers of the finest Mushroom and Roasted Garlic pizza I've tasted. I order it as an altered Lugosi's Lament, a pizza they make with roasted garlic and chopped tomato. We took one to board game night last night. Also, they make tiramisu. So yeah. Stuff. Posted at 5:44 PM - - - - - - - 26.8.02Good weekend. I cooked again, which is good. I grilled chicken and portabello mushrooms, made special bread for Holes-in-one, and made croissant dough. All of these turned out just fine. I got to see the Invisible City crowd again, which is always nice. Yup. A weekend. I've decided to start writing again on a story I started a while ago, and to actually try to finish it this time. Today I took off when I felt like it for lunch, then did an hour on the floor and changed out the flier box outside the store. That's today's thing I like about my job: if this gets to be too much, I can always go and do something to break up the day. I have that kind of autonomy. As long as the job gets done, I can do it how I please, more or less. So there you go. Also, I finished The Thin Man by Hammett, and loaned off Summerland until it is released. This means I'm pretty much through my reading list that I had for real. There's always something I could be reading, but I feel refreshed and my batteries recharged enough that I think I'll finish writing "Blood," or at least get it plotted out enough that I can finish it, and won't be so intimidated. Posted at 3:47 PM - - - - - - - 23.8.02Today I ate lunch at my desk, and am currently juggling three unsolicited corporate orders. The guy who did this job before me got three in the entire time he did the job. I have three in the first week. And I said Hell Yeah. It's not really a measure of skill, as the calls just come in, but it's something. That's what I like about my job today: I'm damned good at it. I'm always workin, yo! I'm just that cool. OK, enough gloating. Back to the grind, as it were. I feel so corporate. It's neat. I've never really been before. Oh yeah, and I'm thinking hard about taking off early, if only because everyone else seems to have. I feel sort of alone. Um. Posted at 2:44 PM - - - - - - - 22.8.02Today's is late, because I met up with my little brother and we practiced music. That, in fact, is today's cool thing about my job. My schedule is flexible enough for me to do that, and it's actually at a time where I have some time in the evenings to do stuff. I get off at about 6ish every day, more or less, although according ot my phone message I get off at five. That's another thing. I have an office number. There's a number you can dial from any phone in the nation that works and is hooked up and stuff, you know what I mean, that will make the phone on my desk ring and go over to my voicemailbox. Yeah. I got my first two business-related messages today also. It was pretty cool, in mine own 'umble opinion. We went rock climbing on Tuesday, and as we went about the business of trying to scale walls, I cought myself thinking, "If this is what it's like to have a hobby, count me in." Yeah. Just livin', you know? Maybe I'll try to write more soon. Also, Toshi and I are thinkin' hard about the platin' party, and the events seem to go: rock climbing in the morning, then the actual platin', and then some food. Not too much, and all of it carefully selected to be wonderfully delicious and nifty. We're also not making everything this time. I'm promising myself I'm not going to go overboard. There'll be a bread, but not a huge amount, a main dish, but not a huge one, and a vegetable or fruit, which we're still sorting out becuase life throws a bunch of choices at you. I think I'm gonna get a Mac. Toshi is starting school again on Friday and so needs access to specific programs that will run better either on a Mac, or on her own computer. We need a second because I don't want to fight with her over something as trivial as computer time and I know we will. It's a stupid fight and easy to avoid, so I'll probably work soon to mobilize on it. PS on the job thing: I'm also, and this is curious, the only Buyer for BookPeople who actually buys books. Isn't that odd? The rest of them decide which books to buy, and purchaser does the actual buying, and then a crew of people recieve them and add them to inventory. I decide, I buy, I add to inventory. Just like that. I have absolute power over a tiny part of the bookstore. They have semi-balanced power over the whole rest of the bookstore. It's like government, and I'm a tiny branch they fund and trust to do whatever-it-is-that-guy-does. Update nobody will ever see: Wow. I know a whole lot more about this now. It's not even funny. I am probably the most direct buyer of books here, but I'm not the only one. How it works for everybody else: They pick the books, they tell a representative from the publisher (or publishers group in one particularly delightful case. That sounds sarcastic, but they really are cool), who places the actual order. That only goes for the first order of books, usually those that aren't yet published. For reordering of backlist (the stuff we already have on the shelves), the computer makes a list of the books that are sold on a given day, and the buyers look it over, and either a)call a publisher if there's been a run on titles from that publisher, or b)send it in for electronic ordering, which is actually placed by the guy who sits behind me (this process is called "backlist reordering." keen, huh?) (From where I was sitting when I wrote this post, though, it looked like nobody else actually ordered books directly. This isn't true). So there ya go. Not that anybody is likely to actually read this. Posted at 11:10 PM - - - - - - - 21.8.02It's that magical time again: My work finally got kind of hectic, and I'm loving it. I like having enough/too much to do. I've been in a meeting this morning, and in the middle of big massive ordering this afternoon, and I stopped and had a deli lunch because it was possible. Yeah. Corporate. Tell you what. Today's thing I'm loving about my work is the keyboard wrist-rest on the desk that is my very own (no office, but that'll come once I've pushed enough people down the stairs- ah, I mean, once I progress far enough). The rest is covered in a pocket of maroon, shiny stuff, over a strip about eighteen inches long (keyboard length plus an inch or two on each side, so plenty long enough) of this weird creep stuff like they make bicycle seats out of now. Kind of a space-age polymer that feels an awful lot like flesh. Ne-e-e-e-eat. It's odd, and it feels wobbley when I type. Keen. Plus, as today is dress up like the literary character of author of your choice day, I chose Mark Finn, a guy who works here and writes books with the clockwork storybook collective. He said, if immitation is the sincerest form of flattery, consider him flattened. He was amused, I am still amused. Life is good. Posted at 4:38 PM - - - - - - - 20.8.02I got another one of those magical fifteen minute breaks while I wait for somebody to show up at 1pm (it's two now). Only four or five more hours until I get to go rock climbing. So, another smattering of good about my work: I'm drinking a lot of water throughout the day. I think that's good in itself. In case it's not good enough, I have a real drive to get started again on my writing, if only because I'm having to look at the stuff that people are selling on consignment (PS, Invisible City People: consignment in book stores may be a way to go on selling the game, once it's released. I know we do it, and think that several of our bitterest enemies do as well) (I tried to make that link to a specific consignment item, but I can't find it on the page right now, and anyway, I know from whence I speak)(I hope), and I could write better than lots of it. I just don't yet. It's just time, y'know? A need to write and a supply of water are two good things about my job. Plus, they give me those little sticky notes, the ones only a finger's breadth, in EIGHT colors. Yeah. And I get to use them and the regular sticky notes in my work every day. So there you go. Posted at 2:03 PM - - - - - - - 19.8.02Wow. It's Monday, and the first day of my new Corporate job as Corporate/Consignment/Special Events Buyer at BookPeople. I get these fifteen minute breaks during the day, and I intend to use at least one of them every day (yeah, everyday. I know it won't last, but I like the project) to post one good thing about my job. I think it'll keep up my natural positivity. I get too negative too fast, so I'm gonna do what I can. And I'm starting with that worst of all things: work. Yeah. Everybody hates work. I actually don't. Here are a couple of reasons, as I don't believe in saving them up: 1. Work makes me enjoy and relish the thought of rock climbing in the evening, or on the weekend, or whenever. 2. Four words: Air Conditioning in Texas. 3. I get to play on a computer all day. It's what I'd be doing if I weren't employed, too. I'm gettin' payed to play on a computer. Hell yeah. 4. I get my own desk. That in itself is worth showing up every day. I have my own desk. 5. I get to decide when it's appropriate for me to have lunch. If I want to take off an hour to eat at 9am, so be it. If I want to wait until four, that's OK too. I can actually meet my Toshi in the middle of the day for the mid-day meal. 6. Everyone secretly wants my job. That's just a point of pride. 7. I like the walk from my car to work and from work to my car. I get to stretch, I get to enjoy the fact of being alive, I get to feel like I'm doing something. It's just a little slice of life, and life is good. So, there you go. I'm liking my job, if only for the simple reason that if I let myself hate it I'll go nuts. It's a good job, and I'm thankful for the opportunity to have a job at all. Yup. Stuff. Posted at 5:20 PM - - - - - - - 18.8.02So, stuff is happening. The old car, as anybody who lives near prolly knows, is dead. It's been replaced. This means one thing: Platin' Party at My Place! Saturday, I'm thinkin'. Dunno. Life. 'Bye. Posted at 5:58 PM - - - - - - - 17.8.02I have a new job. I am now the corporate and consignment buyer (and special events stock manager) for Book People. I think I'm not gonna get to do more events, but the pay's marginally better. Plus, what could look better on a resume. Random, hidden links are the coolest kind. See if you can find my hidey link to Free Web Culture, Distilled. PS, thanks to Tiffany for the Baled Hate thing. Posted at 12:16 AM It grows up out of the ground in clumps. It has to grow somewhere, and I think we all knew it was somewhere in the South. In the spring, it grows the best, and once it gets high enough, we drive the tractor around, cutting it down and making neat rows of it piled up. then, once it's dried out and concentrated, we run the bailer around to the rows. This is the dangerous part. You still have to pick it up by hand. Fights break out and we only tend to get half a field picked up at a time, just in the interests of keeping tempers in check. We don't ask where it goes. Men in black vans come and pick up the bales of hate, and we just keep planting the seeds they bring each year. For enough subsidy, you'd do the same thing. Posted at 12:13 AM You don't realize you didn't have power until you have power again. Sort of like, you don't realize your well ran dry until it rains. Sort of. Posted at 12:09 AM - - - - - - - 10.8.02Oh, Yeah! See if you can find ME in one of these pictures. Didn't think so. But I'm there. If you go back to the BP page, you can find pictures of several other events where I was. You won't find pictures of me, but you can see what my job looks like. I feel like Lee Majors in the early 80's. Yeah. The anonymous Events Guy. Posted at 12:46 AM I have now, in my possession, a collection of five CDs. They are not so much the "Best of Flash," as they are the "Most of Flash." They include the, now semi-legendary "First Record" that you will "Never Hear," (he refers to it in another of his songs about how much he hates the fact that he seems to develop fans). They go through two discs of SuperFlux, two of Brother Machine, and a fifth of all of the new stuff, including the Not's numbers. It does not seem to include one song I was looking for, but I'll either find it later on the discs, or bug him about it another time. Yeah. Disc Six: the Obligatory MisterNihil Disc. Yeah. I like it because it feels like listening to a retrospective of any other musician. I listen, enjoying the new stuff, and remembering why I liked the old stuff. It's got all his "Hits" on it, and a bunch of musical experiements I remember happening more years ago that I want to remember. It's been surreal. Posted at 12:34 AM It's not enough to be fantastic. You also have to be loved. Yeah. Life can be as good as it wants. Yeah. Posted at 12:31 AM - - - - - - - 9.8.02Unexpected Monkeys HA HA HA ! Posted at 1:14 AM So, metaposting, I have to comment: I like that one because sometimes life is like that. You wait for something bad to happen, and it doesn't, and you sort of have to sigh a relieved sigh. Posted at 1:00 AM As Fritz left work, he whistled a tuneless whistle. His pace was brisk, his head held high. He nodded hello to each and every patron of the parking lot, either known or not. They all mattered, and they all deserved a little acknowlegement, said the back of Fritz's mind. The work day was over. Every customer, big and small, fun and not, had been served. His job had been done, and he'd been the man for it. Yes. Life was working as it should. He gave a little jump as he neared the parking garage where his car waited. He'd done this walk a hundred times before, and he felt he might do it a hundred more. The whistling turned into something by Bach he hadn't heard since he was a child, learning Violin. Or Beethoven? Whatever. Something bouncy and airy. Probably Bach then. Whatever. He gave a little hop up the stairs, and turned the corner. There waited his car. He smiled, got in, and started it smoothely. Yup. One more day. Whatever else happened, whatever was wrong with the day or the life, he'd had a good walk to the car. Posted at 12:58 AM Then, something beautiful erupted from his chest. It rose from his face-up now-still form, and shone across the parking lot. The crowd of after-movie patrons stared. From the swirling mass of colors, a face emerged. It was sort of his face, and sort of God's. It surveyed the crowd, matching us all gawk for gawk. Then, it looked to the sky. I think I heard it whisper, "I'm coming home." The mass swirled skyward, into the starry heavens. All we could do was watch it go. Minutes later, he still lay, face-up on the pavement, smiling. His skin had gone pale, and his heart had stopped. The movie wasn't even that good. I'm glad, though, that even though we had kind of a mediocre evening, we got to see something beautiful. I know I'll sleep well tonight. Now that I've had time to consider, I think the face was his, but the way he saw it. Kind of like him at his best. It makes me proud to have known him, and proud to have been there for his finest moment. We all saw what he saw in that instant before looking in the mirror each morning. That face that we all know is really there somewhere, and hope is waiting on the other side of the glass. Posted at 12:49 AM - - - - - - - 7.8.02"Hardware" is a funny topic. I don't know why that happened. I didn't even use the word. I like the story though. Posted at 11:09 PM Totally changed my mind. Wow. I'm an Ass sometimes. New list: Dune, Frank Herbert Summerland, Michael Chabon The Thin Man, Dashiel Hammett That's it. I'll write more after I've read some or all of those. Wow. An ass. Wow. Owa Tana Siam. Wow. Posted at 10:47 PM - - - - - - - 5.8.02I'm not gonna be posting for a while. Here's why: Dune, Frank Herbert Summerland, Michael Chabon Prague, Arthur Phillips Ash Wednesday, Ethan Hawke Fellowship of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkein Any two Holmes mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkein Any other two Holmes mysteries, Arthur Conan Doyle Return of the King, J. R. R. Tolkein note: Maybe I'll be clever and add links to this page for the Bookpeople page so you can buy them there. I dunno. You can probably get copies of these anywhere. I'll add the link some other time. Posted at 2:08 AM - - - - - - - 4.8.02So, yeah. That's what it is. Just life. Just life. Yeah. So. Whatever. Posted at 12:40 PM - - - - - - - 3.8.02And Fuck this anyway, man. I don't need your stupid rules. I can just run and quit any damned time I fucking want, I can just jump away and not deal with your crap. What? You've noticed I've got skills? You're moving me up in the world? Well, OK, I can deal with that, I guess, as long as the rules keep changing. I just can't deal with this. I never want to deal with this crap again. OK, for just a little while, butn ot all the time, 'cause that was the deal. OK, just for a while. Until that other job I want more opens up, then give me that one. What? somebody else got the job without my even being asked whether I want to do it? Well Fuck this, man, I don't need that static. I'll walk, motherfucker. I don't need this noise. I can just deal with stuff I want to deal with. What? You don't like my boss now, and you want him out? I'm the logical replacement, as I'm the one in training for his job? Well, I'll stick around, but only until my new shipment from Amazon comes in. When I get that box of James Kochalka and MC900ftJesus, I'm out of this damned place. 'Cause I don't need this static. Yeah. Whatever. It's all just static. I just want to quit now. Not the job. The other thing I write. I don't give a damn. So I stole a topic. So I'll quit. It's what I do. I quit. All the damn time. Posted at 12:55 AM - - - - - - - | All material copyright 2002-2003 Ben Gibbs. | |||||||||
