I got up so early this morning that it might as well have been last week to go to work for the busiest shopping day of the year. I figured it was a good way to score points with the managers so they'll let me stay on as a permanent employee after the holiday season ends and the mall takes down it's nearly twenty-seven miles of weather-proof garland and lights. I had to park way away from the store because apparently the mall rent-a-cops told all the merchants that nobody can park anywhere near where they work because the parking is needed for shoppers. (I swear, when the Old Navy/ Yankee Candle store Allied People's Labor Front finally builds a barricade and rebels, I'll take up arms with them.) So, after marching back to the store in weather so cold it could freeze the balls off a brass monkey, I clock in and proceed to start shelving books. Of course, nobody told me the proper way to organize the sections until I had messed up, but that's how everybody there learned. Two hours later, the store was ready to open and I was set to run a cash register for the next six hours. It wasn't so bad, though, because I got to work with Dawn the extrovert. That's not her real last name, obviously, because I can't spell her last name. My imagined surname is apt, though. She spent the early morning compensating for my cold dead silence by talking about anything that came to mind, and we built a conversation on this somehow. Business was steady throughout the morning without being nuts like I thought it would be. Even the food court at lunch was pretty calm. I had two giant slices of matza-thin pizza from the pizza place with the cool employees for lunch, and then back to work. By the time I left, my shoe heel pad inserts had slipped down into my arches, giving the sensation that I was walking on jello. I was hungry and tired and tired of being hungry and cold. What's the best remedy for this? Why, Mexican food! One hour and a veggie combo "e" later I was good to go. I ended up going back to Barnes and Noble to buy Thickfreakness by the Black Keys. It's a CD I've wanted for a long time, and since I just got my first paycheck, I bought it. Don't worry, it's published by Epitaph, who is not a member of the riaa.

I'm free this weekend, so I plan to go looking to try to figure out what to get people for Christmas, as well as what I might want. I really can't think of anything, though. There's a book I saw at work that looks cool, but that's about it. Ah well, no matter. Any meaning in this season that can't be gleaned from the Peanuts Christmas special isn't worth my time.

Work has been going well. So well, in fact, that I have little else to talk about. I work eight hours a day selling books to an even mix of smart people and people who are doing the right thing by buying a book. Sweet old ladies buy harlequin romance novels with covers that would make a sailor blush and titles made of randomly exciting words. Guys come in and buy four different gun magazines and they're always polite and well groomed, defying my stereotype of the average gun nut. I wander around helping people like Bruce Banner in the old Hulk TV series, except in a bookstore and I don't get big and green. I just get frustrated when I can't find the right place to shelve a book. It's a good thing, though, because I'm saving for grad school. Having a goal and cool co-workers make customer service so much better. So come on down to Barnes and Noble. We'll let you in out of the cold and sell you a book or a CD or a movie and a cup of coffee, and then send you on your way. Remember, you can't spell "Barnes and Noble" without "nesandno", which is probably a word for "good books" in some foreign language. Trust me on that one, I work in a book store.

I worked my first full day today, eight hours. Full tour of the store, hang out in music, work in customer service, cash register, lunch break (at 7:00, lunch time in the middle of the Pacific), customer service, cash register, straighten up and go home. Needless to say, my feet are on strike. The up side is that I'm in a job with people I can talk to and it's even kind of rewarding selling books to people. People are interested in all sorts of things, it turns out. One gentleman ordered a book on the history of the world from 600 BC- 200 AD. I was happy to oblige, of course.

Okay, now this next section may be a little strange, as it deals with signs of the apocalypse, but bear with me. In all of the various editions of the Bible and the movie Ghostbusters are several signs to watch for. The one that isn't mentioned, oddly enough, is the skinny Jewish Santa Claus. That's right, the skinny Jewish Santa Claus. Apparently my good friend Gerry was drafted to play jolly old saint nick in a local commercial. The funny thing is, of course, he's never really bought into the whole commercialised Christian holiday idea for as long as I've known him, and rightly so. But that's not the funny part- the funny part is, he's skinny Jewish Santa Claus! Bwa Ha Ha! This might even trump the historical significance story from 1997. According to his blog (link to the left) the ad will start airing today. I'm elated at this, of course. One of my friends is now quasi-famous until, I don't know, new years maybe. I'm going to ride his coat tails to all kinds of riches and perks, like getting to ride shotgun in his car or getting a choice table at either local Bob Evans. Congratulations, Gerry- you're one baby step closer to your own reality show with Corey Feldman and MC Hammer. Good on you!

I had my first day of work today. Nothing much, just four hours learning and using the register. The people are all cool and things were slow enough that I could learn it all pretty easily. Tomorrow I'll be working at the customer service desk, looking up books and hunting them down for people. It's the sort of work I think I might prefer, so I'll see what it's like. Nothing else to say, really.

I do believe I got the job at Barnes and Noble. I've had two interviews within twenty-four hours and both went well, so w00t. After learning more about the company, my opinion has greatly shifted to positive. The image I had of them only offering best sellers and light material was based on the display tables. Apparently, the store carries quite a bit more tucked away on the shelves. BN is also the only place in town I could find Dee Dee Ramone's book Chelsea Horror Hotel, my next book to read after I finally finish Diary. The first manager I talked to sounded like he wanted me to work in music, which I wouldn't mind at all, but part of me wants to work with the books because I feel I have a broad enough knowledge base to help people in several sections.

I went to an art show last night at a local tatoo and piercing studio. The one unifying theme of all the pieces was skulls. Nearly everything had a skull somewhere in it. It wasn't cliched, though. The really interesting pieces were the ink designs by the tatoo artists. They normally work with ink injected into flesh, so seeing them use ink on paper is really interesting. It's a unique style similar to Japanese ink paintings. Aside from the art, there were other entertaining elements at the show. The small flock of curious high school hipster kids (looking like they stepped out of the liner notes for the latest Strokes album) were kind of funny, looking uneasy but wanting to see an underground art show. There was also a guy in a gorilla suit hanging out in the lobby, and a mime walking around shaking a donation box. I hope the donations were for the show, now that I think about it.

I turned in my application at Barnes and Noble today so that I might become a lanyard clad, book hocking holiday helper monkey. I'll sell you books approved by Oprah, USA Today, and Entertainment Weekly. Want a heartwarming collection of poetry about the cute things moon-faced retarded kids say? Come see me. How about the long-winded diatribe of an ex congressman? I have that right here for you. What's the best way to put to rest the rumors of your shameful illiteracy? Why, buy a book! Scientists everywhere agree that books make people look smarter. You like looking smart, right? You're not a dummy, are you? Of course not. But maybe you're worried about looking pretentious? I can see how you might worry about that. Not to worry, though, our books won't make you look pretentious, like that old "Little Professor" store. They carried books about "Europe," and "Asia", and other places Americans don't live. Thank divine providence that they aren't selling those kinds of books in our fair city anymore. Come see me, or any other semi-casually dressed book seller, and we'll get you set up with a good book. You'll be able to feel good about your purchase, even if you never actually finish or even comprehend the content within.

Ok, that's out of my system. I know I have to stay positive, even though I hold a bit of a grudge against them for forcing out smaller privately-owned stores. B&N isn't that bad, really. They have a nice selection of art and design magazines. I might even get a discount on their sparse collection of obscenely marked up cds.

I found a bunch of Smashing Pumpkins and Zwan concerts from as far back as 1992. All kinds of live performances, from various sources of varying quality. It's amazing to think that I missed most of these shows the first time around because I didn't know how much I would enjoy them when I was older. When I was in seventh grade I hadn't the foggiest idea how cool it would've been to see a curly-haired Billy and company performing "I am one" right after it came out. To see them perform '"Starla" for fifteen minutes to a packed audience. It makes me wonder what I'm unaware of right now. These things always take time to filter into the suburbs, even to avant-garde-lite types like myself.

It's a special report tonight, blog readers. So far, all of my posts have been written past-tense, reflecting on things I have done. Tonight will be different. Tonight, I will be blogging as I prepare noodles with oriental peanut sauce. I've never prepared this dish before, so I could be in for an eventful evening. It could be crazy- crazy!

A little background:
I bought a package of organic oriental noodles at the food co-op the other day. In truth, I was only in there to buy a couple packs of instant thai noodles and try to position myself in the checkout lane with the cute redhead, but the sale tag over the noodle bags snared my attention. A buck thirty-nine for noodles is a bit much, but these were no ordinary noodles. These were organic noodles that promised not to kill me upon consumption. For those of you who aren't familiar with organic\vegan food, here's how to tell if it's organic: it looks like dirt and the packaging swears up and down that it contains all kinds of herbs and grain-based materials. No one can confirm exactly what most of these ingredients are, so they must be good for people.

Anyway, I want to make something interesting that I've never had before. I just have to find something without meat and made from things I have on hand. Kind of like Macguyver (peace be upon him).

I found a recipe using google here. The Columbus Dispatch in Columbus Ohio, a city I love, has provided me with an oriental peanut sauce. The peanut comes from peanut butter, which was developed by someone in America, or so I'm told every black history month. I'm including this link so you can open a new tab and follow along at home. If your browser doesn't support tabs, you're probably using ms internet explorer. My condolences.

Through the wonders of modern technology and Best Buy I'll be narrating the preparation via a laptop from the kitchen.

Preparation:
Okay, I'm in the kitchen to confirm that I have the proper sauce ingredients. We have a surprising amount of staple items for cooking various dishes. The hot pepper sauce I'm using is questionable because it's hot sauce for tacos, but I'm kind of making this up as I go along with the recipe, so we'll see what happens. Everything looks to be in order, so I'll get started.

Execution:
Okay, start with the peanut butter. Three tablespoons. It's kind of thick, and not the most workable medium in the world, but I managed. Now I need to mix in two tablespoons of boiling water. At first glance, this seems like some kind of joke for newbie chefs, to make them try to burn themselves measuring a tiny amount of boiling water. The trick is that the water boils away too fast for them to get an accurate amount, especially one tablespoon at a time. To compensate for this, I'm boiling more than two tablespoons of water. Liberal arts strikes again!

Well I'll be darned, it worked. The peanut butter thinned out nicely. It's the consistency of some kind of sauce, so I'm on the right track. Add soy sauce, done. Seems like a bit much, but whatever. Add vinegar, done. More stirring, everything mixes well in my little white dish. It's actually pretty tasty right now, but I choose to add a bit of hot sauce. Three little drops in my mix. Stir, taste, nada. Add a bit more. Not bad! Just a hint of pepper.

Okay, now the noodles. This ought to be easy, I've been cooking noodles for years. A watched pot never boils, so I'm typing to kill time. The recipe says I need four ounces of noodles. Fortunately, I have a postal scale handy to determine the weight of my noodles. After a little trial and error, I have four ounces of noodles. It was kind of like that part in Raiders of the Lost Ark when Indy has to balance the bag of sand with the idol, except I'm using noodles and I'm not in a room designed to kill me. Hey, there goes the water. Add noodles, stir, wait patiently. The organic noodles look like long thin wood chips and they float, so I have to keep stirring them. Noodles done, strained, and in the bowl. Pour on sauce and clean up a bit.

The verdict:
It's pretty good, actually. I'm pleased. It's a heaping bowl, so I'm glad I like it. Even a few bites later, I'm still enjoying it quite a bit. It's better than I expected, much better than peanut butter and vinegar and soy sauce on noodles initially sounds.

It was filling and satisfying without upsetting my digestive system, which is always a plus. If I had an image server I would have included pictures of my progress, but that would have taken even longer to complete. My total prep time was about an hour with all the typing and reading the directions, so I'm sure I could get it down to about fifteen minutes once I'm good at making it. I never thought I'd be mixing peanut butter to put on noodles. It never occurred to me.

This concludes my first sweeps month blogging stunt. Remember- watch this space for the superblog team-up of Gerry and Loyal, which will answer the question; "what if Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee collaborated on a comic about two skinny guys trying to survive in a world of lumbering fatasses clamoring around the mantra of atkins?" Stay tuned.

It's been a good couple of days. I went to see Stomp last night and then the Matrix: Revolutions today so I'm in a pretty good mood.

Gerry says that we need to hype our joint blog, which is funny because we each represent half of the other's audience. Here's how the preview would look if this was a movie:

20th century fox fanfare circa 1977, then the Warner Brothers title screen, fade to black.

fade in music: "the Guns of Love Disastrous" by the Smashing Pumpkins (instrumental variation of the Batman and Robin movie songs)

Transition up from black to the two fools, Loyal and Gerry standing facing each other by a cool looking grey metal wall. Loyal is wearing one of his several short sleeve black "artist" shirts. Gerry is wearing a red shirt with a blue shirt over it, looking sophisticatedly geeky.

Gerry: "It's time, fool."

Loyal: "Aye."

Fast paced montage of both characters doing all kinds of exciting things, like driving speed boats and jumping across rooftops a la Spike Jonze's Sabotage video. Intercut shots of mundane things too, like driving and sitting in the basement watching TV.

text: Coming 2003

text: Eep

fin

That's how it would go, I suppose. Geeked out and overhyped. The only good thing about it would be that we aren't moving our story to Miami and picking a fight with Vinnie Barbarino. Who would do that? That would be worse than devoting half of Godfather III to Michael Corleone's daughter and Greedo shooting first combined.

Ground Control to Major Tom

I've been informed that I need to update this blog. I hadn't realized that it had been full week since my last update. I am also reminded that it has been a full week without anything major happening. I hung out with Todd and James a few times and that was cool, but I'm not sure how blog-worthy it was. My definition of blog-worthy is getting a little stringent, though.

I got a rejection letter for the computer help desk job, which pissed me off royally. I need money in a big way if I'm ever going to move away from here, and I need a job to get money. What does it take? I'm starting to think that I might not be smarter than all the mouth breathers I like to feel superior to. Ah well, at least I get mail. Applying for a job is kind of like using active sonar pinging to reaffirm that I'm alive. I send out a resume, portfolio, and demo reel, and I get a polite letter back informing me that I'm not needed. Maybe it's like the boomerang in the Legend of Zelda games- I throw it out and get a steaming lump of rejection when it returns. Thus far, my accuracy is %100.

I found myself musing about domestic things again tonight. I was in Meijer waiting for a prescription to be filled, so I wandered through the hardware department to look at the tools and I ended up in the aisle with the lights and other little home-y touches. I was actually looking at this stuff and thinking about how I'd paint it or alter it to suit my tastes when furnishing an apartment. It's odd that it feels kind of natural. I'd like to furnish my own place some day, but that would mean moving to a different city, away from all my friends. I guess it's a trade off. I would like to live in Chicago, or some cool city. I'd also like a nice varied music scene I could get into. Oh hell, I'd be happy with a job anywhere.

Watch this space later this week for a joint blog post with the esteemed Gerry Appel. I promise it'll be a better team-up than Batman and Spawn.