A Year in Pictures of Working

Anybody Still Out There?

2007-11-30T09:37:00.000-08:00

It seems like I've been off for months and months, but really it's only been about three. I keep threatening to take a longer break than that, but not this time, I guess.

I've started a new blog. If you've got some free time, go check it out, leave some comments. A Year in Pictures of Comedy. Less than a week into it, there are already three pictures of Young, so Young fans will be very pleased.

Hopefully, if I get some time in the next few weeks, I'll go through the links on this page, and update them. I'm sure some of them have disappeared/moved.

Anyway, thanks again for reading, and maybe I'll see some of you over at the new place.

That's it, for now.

2007-08-10T14:06:00.000-07:00

One more year done and on the books. I'm off for a much needed sabbatical. I'll almost certainly return with another blog eventually, but I don't currently have one (that I like) in mind, so I may let myself have a longer break than I did after the last one. In the meantime, check out the various blogs to the right (including my previous blog, A Year in Pictures Following the Break-Up), and maybe subscribe to my podcast, Premisey.

Drop in from time to time and drop me a line.

Thanks,
Arnie

2007-08-06T22:33:00.000-07:00

It's always Monday again.

2007-08-05T23:45:00.000-07:00

Lollapalooza.

The 1900s played at noon, so they didn't have a huge crowd. Ed (Marketing Assistant), the lead singer, opened by saying, "Is everyone here from Chicago? No one else has heard of us." It was a great show, though, and the crowd grew as their set went on.

During their song 'Bring the Good Boys Home,' instead of singing "touchdown for Katie Jane," Jeanine sang, "it's a girl for Katie Jane," a wink to those who knew that the Katie from the song, Nick's wife, had given birth to their second daughter, Lucy (Newborn), early that morning.

Sarah and I wandered around for the rest of the day, seeing bands, and trying not to get sunstroke. We saw Iggy Pop and Peter Bjorn and John. We saw a man in a Grateful Dead t-shirt talking to a woman who was crying and yelling at him. He gave a high five to a passing friend without missing a beat in his nodding along to the very serious things she was saying to him. We saw my friend, Margolis, perform some old Second City material on the comedy stage. We saw dozens of dragonflies swoop above the crowds and smelled a lot of pot.

Later I caught up with Jeanine about what things were like behind the scenes.

Jeanine: I mostly just wandered around by myself, doing interviews here and there. Rockstars and all their minions are so silly. There were a lot of groupies. Like real live groupies. Those girls are terrifying. I overheard two of them in the bathroom saying, "We should head over to Modest Mouse. If we can't give blowjobs there, we're totally screwed." I loved Pearl Jam, though. A highlight for me, really. In the artist area behind the stage, it was packed during their set and everyone was singing along in Vedder voices.

2007-08-04T23:59:00.000-07:00

The final round of the Cagematch of the Fallen Teams. There were no judges this time, just an audience vote. Meador came to vote for us, as did Chris and Innis from work. It wasn't enough, though, and we lost 54 to 42.

Afterwards we went next door to Bar Louie to have some drinks. Jill had to go home after the show and Niki and Nick hadn't been able to be there at all (Niki because of her Second City show and Nick because his wife, Katie, was due to give birth to their second child at any moment). The rest of us took this group picture, remarking that we were standing in the same spot where we'd taken a picture after our last last show at iO, when we were cut from the schedule two Augusts ago.

Stegmeyer: You know what? I'm upset.
Alex: Me too. I hate that I'm upset, that I got caught up in the whole thing, but I am. It would have been nice to do more shows.
Me: Yeah. But... if we want to do more shows, there's no reason we can't. There's any number of places we could perform.
Alex: That's true.

2007-08-03T15:46:00.000-07:00

Sometimes we talk about having a special Business Attire Day. Instead of coming to work in jeans or shorts, we'd all wear suits and ties and carry briefcases.

Meyers: We could all give fake power point presentations!
Evan: I think we'd all be so busy pretending to do business that we wouldn't get any work done.

It's a luxury to feel that way, that playing at office would be a fun lark.

We've had special days in the past. Mustache Day. High Five Day. Mostly, though, we just work, like any other office.

Years ago a local public television show, 'Wild Chicago,' came and taped a piece on Jellyvision.

Steve-o: I think they were disappointed that it was just a bunch of people sitting at computers, you know, quietly working. They said, "Hey, can one of you jump out of this garbage can?" I said, "That isn't really something we'd normally do."

If my job were a relationship, I guess it would be like dating a minor celebrity from your youth. You find out they're more or less a normal person. Sometimes that's disappointing, but mostly it's good. You get along well, you spend most of your time together. The romance is pretty much gone, but you don't yearn to be back out on the market. You're happy. You're content. Still... sometimes you wonder, how will I know... will I ever know... if this is how I want to spend the rest of my life?

2007-08-02T22:16:00.000-07:00

Job #12: Texas Instruments Clean Room (cont.)

I was hoping to just slip out on my last day working in the clean room, but the shift manager decided to get ice cream and have a small going away party in the break room. I'm not sure why exactly. I hadn't worked there that long, and I mostly kept to myself. Maybe it was just a good excuse to be out of our bunny suits and face masks.

Some of the people wished me good luck at my new job at the charter school. "You're lucky to be getting out of here." That was the parting sentiment at most of the jobs I'd had up until that point. You're lucky to get out here.

The majority of my co-workers, though, a lot of whom I didn't recognize out of their suits, just quietly ate their ice cream, enjoying a few extra minutes of break time from a twelve hour workday.

Someone drew a card for me on the special clean room paper (its fibers wouldn't damage the microchips), and several people signed it. This isn't it. I'm sure I have it someplace, but I've been looking for it since I started this blog and I just can't find it. This is a "recreation" I drew. It's fairly accurate, although maybe there wasn't a cake in the drawing now that I think about it. Maybe the man in the bunny suit was just sitting at his station, working.

Months later, as my year at the charter school was coming to a close, and I was already thinking that I'd be lucky to get out of there, I ran into one of the clean room workers in the lobby of a movie theater. He told me that everyone was slowly being fired, and that the factory was probably going to close.

2007-08-01T19:41:00.000-07:00

The area around the office is pretty sketchy, but also poised for massive gentrification. Construction everywhere. A Whole Foods is being built across the street from the strip club. Giant billboards advertise the coming of something, I think condos, called SoNo. ("SoNot Vanilla!")

And this giant building is nearing completion. I think it looks like a child's drawing of a cruise ship. Nate, Allard and Shane think it looks like a sandcrawler from Star Wars.

I sometimes wonder if this means Jellyvision will eventually be pushed out of the area with everyone else.

2007-07-31T15:46:00.000-07:00

Finally got around to using my work insurance to get a physical.

Doctor: According to the Weight/Height chart, you are... [traces finger along line]... "obese."
Me: Obese? Huh.

The doctor then went on to explain how our bodies are elaborate chemistry sets and how office lifestyle is very contrary to what our bodies were designed for. Then again, I've been living the office lifestyle for years, even when I wasn't working in an office.

When I got back to work, I immediately announced, "I am officially obese." This led to laughter, debate and then everyone looking themselves up on an online ideal body weight chart.

Amanda: This is messed up. What color were you on the chart?
Me: Whatever color obese is. What color is obese?
Nate: It says I need to put on weight.
Michelle: I think this just goes to show there needs to be a weight name beyond obese.
Chris: Well, there's morbidly obese.
Me: I'm going to start referring to that as "mo' bese."

Later in the day Amanda called me into her office.

Amanda: Wrap your fingers around your wrist. Do they...
Me: They overlap.
Amanda: Oh no, so you're not even...
Me: I'm not even big boned. I can't even say that.
Amanda: Arnie, I'm trying. I'm trying to find a way that you're not obese.
Me: I just am.
Amanda: It's crazy.

2007-07-30T21:58:00.000-07:00

I was recently interviewed for a Chicago suburbs magazine called 'Beep.' The reporter did a web search for "long distance Chicago" and my blog(s) came up. It's an article about long distance relationships with a few blurbs thrown in from me.

Sarah: You are now the official spokesperson for our relationship.

I'm usually a little wary of being interviewed, since being horribly misquoted is the standard from my experience. But this one turned out okay.

The article touches on both of my long distance relationships, the one that worked out and the one that didn't. The one that didn't (in the long run, anyway) was with N.

A few weeks back, I sent N my yearly, "just checking in, no need to write back if you're not ready to write back" e-mail. I was curious to hear how's she's doing and whether she was able to graduate despite her mounting medical bills. I was hoping to hear that she's accepted a teaching position somewhere.

I haven't heard back from her.

The 'Beep' article refers to me as having been "devastated" at one point and "finding love again" at another. Both of those things are true, certainly, no question, but a little melodramatically worded for my taste. But that speaks more to my own stoicism, I guess, than to any journalistic inaccuracy.

2007-07-29T15:16:00.000-07:00

Last night was the semifinals of the Cagematch of the Fallen Teams at iO. James Jackson played against Maude. It was close. Going purely by audience vote, Maude actually beat us by one vote. There are two judges, though, each with 15 points to give away, and they both voted for us.

So, James Jackson goes on to the final round next Saturday at midnight against Sandbox Democracy, a team that started at the theater during the same schedule as us, oh so many years ago.

Here's a candid photo I took of one of the judges, at the bar after the show.

2007-07-28T19:19:00.000-07:00

I walk by the dry cleaners every night when I come home, and sometimes Kevin's cage is in the front window. I usually stop and say, "Hi Kevin," and look at him for a bit.

I've started thinking about the fact that he wasn't abandoned as I'd first assumed, but that he'd tried to escape and was brought back. And I know, logically, that he's a domesticated bird and can't survive out on his own, but I remember a time when I worked at a dry cleaners, and how happy I was to eventually get out.

2007-07-27T20:07:00.000-07:00

Bits and pieces.

1. Trupe: [looking at menu] Do you think it’s okay if I order something that’s $12?
Wonak: You don’t have to check with me for every little thing.
Trupe: You’re the CFO of this marriage.
Wonak: A $2 difference isn’t going to ruin us.
Trupe: [laughing] I’m trying to save this company!

2. Earlier this summer, NIck was trying to get Meador to apply for a teaching position at his school.

Nick: The school is looking for a Biology teacher for next year - wanna give this teaching thing one last go? I'll be your Ham Radio Club co-head if you want.
Meador: It would be great to work with you, Nico, but I'm committed to nursing school right now.
Nick: Okay, needle time. We could coach baseball together! Oh, and your son, Trent, would be able to attend the school. And we would both buy large TVs and watch them during the summers!!!

3. I knew a guy named Shaun in Arizona. We're not really in touch anymore, but I read his blog sometimes, and I think he reads mine. Reading his blog reminds me of being trapped (in Arizona and in shitty jobs) and feeling like I would never get out. He's had some tough breaks, and, by his own admission, is a bit plagued by his own negativity.

He recently blogged about buying vanity license plates for his car. He bought plates that read, "FAILURE." He wrote on his blog, "I have a fear of failure, so one way of fighting fear is to embrace it."

Two weeks later his plates were stolen.

4. Young: My job title has changed three times since you started this blog. My latest one is Provisioner. I pretty much do exactly the same job as before.

His commercial still hasn't aired.

5. Mom: [via e-mail] A quick Ty story. . . close to Matt & Julie's house is the airport and there was a helicopter. Julie told Ty it was an Army helicopter. Ty thought that she said it was an Arnie helicopter so he named the other one a Ty helicopter.

6. I periodically get e-mails from ex-Jellyvisioner, Mary, saying, "I've decided to make a point of being better about staying in contact with my friends. We should have lunch." Each time I write back, "Let's do it," and then never hear back from her.

2007-07-26T11:34:00.000-07:00

From the limited view through the TV, Poland's basement office looks pretty spare. The only decoration visible is a gold record hanging on the wall over his shoulder.

During the late '80s early '90s Poland was in L.A. with his band, Lost Luggage. He describes their sound as, "Like the Smiths meets something even gayer than the Smiths." Apparently things never really took off for Lost Luggage, although they did get songs placed in several movies. 'Kingpin.' 'PCU.' 'Bikini Island.'

During that time he got to know the Gin Blossoms.

Poland: [via IM] I think we had the same publishing co. as the Blossoms, and we used to play gigs together. Then they got famous and we kept buying generic beer. I played drums for the Gin Blossoms for part of their tour when their drummer fell down and cut his hand open on a beer bottle. They gave the gold record to me 'cuz apparently I helped them sell 500,000 copies of "New Miserable Experience." Because people always notice the drums at a concert.
Me: Didn't they ask you to play with them again not so long ago?
Poland: Not really. I saw them about 6 months ago at a show in Battle Creek, and they said I should sit in. I didn't. But I drank their beer backstage.

2007-07-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

Sarah's own blog, loosely patterned after my own, is also coming to an end soon. Originally titled, 'Chicago to Boston' it changed to 'Chicago to Boston to Chicago' when she moved back early.

Sarah: [looking at this picture of her first entry] Aw man. I was so nervous and excited then.

I think it's been tough on Sarah that the move to Boston didn't prove to be the great life-changing opportunity she'd expected. Still, she seems to have bounced back. ComedySportz is going well, and she's circling in on that new career she'd announced she'd figure out by the end of the summer. She'd prefer to keep the details of this potential career path private for now, though.

Sarah: I don't know how I'm going to end my blog.
Me: Don't worry about it. I don't know how mine is going to end either. Probably something boring.
Sarah: What if Amanda called you into her office and fired you?
Me: That would be hilarious. It would be terrible for me, but awesome for the blog.

2007-07-24T23:16:00.000-07:00

What has Otis been up to since being cut from the iO schedule? Mostly not much, to be honest.

The original plan was to still meet every Tuesday, but most of our Tuesday meetings end up getting canceled because not enough of us can make it. You know, the usual post-iO story.

Still, when we do meet, like we did tonight, it's fun, and we usually end up making some kind of video for the Otis website. Plus, Joe made a steady-cam out of PVC pipe. How many cut teams have done that?

2007-07-23T13:58:00.000-07:00

Nate is back at work after a weekend at the Montreal Comedy Festival. Paul Provenza (Stand Up Comedian/Actor) recently saw Nate's two person sketch show and invited them to open for a show he was putting together for the festival.

Nate: We basically got back-doored into the festival.

The show they performed in also included the Kids in the Hall and Mr. Show.

Nate: I met the Kids in the Hall. I can pretty much die now.
Me: That's amazing. Did you do any...like... networking?
Nate: No. No. I don't know how to do that. I'm not good at that stuff.
Me: I'm not good at that stuff either.
Nate: There was this one other guy there, a new guy like us, and he was really good at it. All about that stuff. Right after his set he went up to every famous person in the room and asked, "Hey, what did you think?" And they were like, "Yeah, it was funny." By the next day he had put up quotes from all of them on his MySpace page. "So and so is funny. - Dave Foley."

2007-07-22T22:03:00.000-07:00

Mom sent me this track suit shirt from Dad's basketball camp. It's pretty awesome, although I'm not sure when I'd wear it.

I have more or less consistently been going to the gym. About twice a week, nothing crazy, just some basic cardio stuff. I'm still easing into it, even now, six months in. I stopped weighing myself, because numbers-wise, I haven't lost any weight, but I do seem to have lost at least a little width.

2007-07-21T16:16:00.000-07:00

Tom and Steph's son, Sam (Newborn), was born last weekend.

Tom: [via e-mail] A week ago, Steph was trying cases in front of
judges downtown and I was writing advertising copy. Today Steph's
changing diapers and watching The Today Show, and I'm buying nursing
bras and asking if they have Vaseline is a squeeze tube rather than a
jar, because who has time to dip Vaseline out of a jar? Life changes
fast.

Today I went to see the new family in person. The lights were dimmed. Soft music was playing. Everyone smiled and watched the baby sleep.

Tom: This is what we do now.
Me: This might be the most relaxing space I've been in in months.

Maybe I caught them at a good moment, but Tom and Steph seemed very relaxed and in control.

Tom: When we first came home from the hospital, we had Sam in his carrier, and we set it down on the kitchen island. We stood there staring at him, and then we just both started bawling. Tears streaming down our faces. "What are we supposed to do now?" [laughing] The next three days we were just bawling on and off all the time. "My son! This is my SON!"

2007-07-20T19:58:00.000-07:00

The place where Sarah's working during the day seems to be going through a little downsizing. This translates into some kind of free food item every Friday as someone else leaves. Pizza party. Cake in the kitchen. Giant cookie.

Sarah: [via IM] Oof, I ate too much 'fired cookie.'
Me: You should take a picture for my blog.
Sarah: Uh, no. That would be too creepy. I could take a picture of the cookie pizza.
Me: That's what I meant. Not of people being fired.
Sarah: I could get the President to put a person from AP in a choke hold and pose for a picture. Would that be ok?
Me: If you can make it look candid.

Here Sarah and her friend Ryan (Temp Administrative Assistant) eat the last bit of going away cookie. Both will still have jobs on Monday.

2007-07-19T19:42:00.000-07:00

With under three weeks left, this might be a good time to do a Yearly (in Pictures) Blog Performance Review. Close the door behind you and have a seat.

First off, I think we went into this year knowing that it wouldn't be as successful as the year before. A blog about working isn't as naturally compelling as a blog about getting over a break-up. No surprise there. We continue to stand by the decision to branch off into new territory. 'Another Year in Pictures Following the Break-Up' would have been a mistake.

Dealing with this year on it's own terms, the idea that work is it's own kind of relationship was, forgive the pun, workable. It got the job done. Some of the entries strained for a significance that just wasn't there, while others were a bit sentimental, but overall things zipped along, sticking mostly to the theme without getting too restricted by it.

The biggest flaw has maybe been the fact that the job itself, the job at Jellyvision, is a good one. Wouldn't this blog have been so much better if it was a shitty job? Occasionally complaining about having a great job just comes off as insincere or spoiled, especially when a lot of people are reading this in cramped cubicles, trying to distract themselves from jobs they hate, wondering if this is the day they get fired for spending too much time on the internet. Sure, even great jobs can be a grind at times (can "turn into McDonalds"), but don't expect the kind of sympathy for that you'd get for having an engagement fall apart.

Okay. Enough about that.

Overall, good work. We came in every day (even weekends) and punched the clock. We took pictures, we wrote words, we posted links. We kept things on track and on schedule. And (until today) we did a good job of not writing in first person plural.

I know this blog project is almost over, but hopefully we can work together again someday on something else. We'd like that very much.

2007-07-18T16:15:00.000-07:00

I asked Shane to send me a picture from his editing job out in the suburbs. That's him in the doorway at the end of the hallway.

Shane: [via e-mail] I wanted to convey the size of the building, although this doesn't even begin to make it clear.

This is all kind of irrelevant now, because as of today Shane is back at Jellyvision. He's been rehired to work on a new project here.

I asked him how his last day at the other company went.

Shane: It was bittersweet. One girl made me a cake. The fact that I couldn't eat it owing to the fact that I react badly to strawberries in no way diminished the beauty of the gesture. They were nice people, and they seemed genuinely sad to see me go. However, I didn't regret it.

2007-07-17T15:22:00.000-07:00

I took this picture a couple years back, before Grandma Anne moved into the nursing home.

I gave her a call today.

Me: I hear you have a boyfriend.
Grandma: Who told you that?
Me: Uh... I don't remember.
Grandma: Well, he comes by three times a day and likes to tell people that I'm his girlfriend.
Me: Three times a day. He must really like you.
Grandma: I think it's too much. But if it makes him happy...

Grandma and this man, Walter, dated briefly more than fifty years ago before she married my Grandpa Ralph.

Grandma: I really don't remember too much about it. But he does.
Me: Sometimes it's nice to have a little company. Nothing wrong with that.
Grandma: He's nice. He's a Catholic and gives me the blessing every night.
Me: What does that mean?
Grandma: He's a deacon.
Me: Oh.
Grandma: Who'd of thought? At my age.

Supposedly Grandpa Paul has started seeing someone, himself. Maybe seeing someone isn't the right expression. He's begun going out to lunch with a woman named Lou Ann.

Grandma: It's probably nice for him to have someone to talk to.

2007-07-16T15:00:00.000-07:00

There are few actual enclosed offices here. There are a few tiny private casitas in the back, including this one, which is thought to be cursed.

Just like being the drummer for Spinal Tap, or taking the Defense Against the Dark Arts position at Hogwarts, whoever works in this casita is not long for the company. Three different people have called it home during the short time I've worked here. They're all gone.

It is currently empty.

2007-07-15T15:22:00.000-07:00

Job #13: Charter School Teacher (cont.)

As I mentioned before, when I started teaching at the charter school, there were only three teachers returning from the year before. Not a good sign, but the administration promised, "We're going to do everything we can to keep everybody this year."

I took this picture of the World History Teacher at the end of the year. He's reading an e-mail from the administration telling all the teachers they have to reapply for their jobs. And they'd be notified mid-summer whether their reapplication had been accepted or not.

As the final days of the school year ticked by, the students, most with unstable home lives (if they had home lives at all) would ask, "Are you going to be here next year?"

"I don't know yet, " I lied.

2007-07-14T23:56:00.000-07:00

Steve is back from four months performing on a cruise ship. After doing the Whirled News show tonight, we grabbed some food at a nearby diner.

Steve: Do you think they accept... [dramatically pulling bill out of wallet] Egyptian money?

He told stories about the highs of traveling through Europe and the lows of living on a cruise ship.

Steve: I'm not sure what I'll do next. I could get by for two months on what I saved if I have to. I was talking to my mother and the first thing she said was that I should try to get my old office job back. That would be totally against the whole point.

We went out for drinks and I bought a few rounds, refusing payment.

Steve: At least let me give you this.
Me: I'm not taking your Egyptian money. You should keep that.
Steve: [fanning out several Egyptian bills] Oh, I've got plenty.

2007-07-13T16:51:00.000-07:00

I was too nervous to go knocking on doors, asking about the missing bird, but I did realized that I could go into the dry cleaner downstairs (next to the Chamber of Commerce) to ask questions under the pretense of bringing in dirty clothes (I brought the tie I wore to my cousin's wedding. You may have noticed the spot on it in the picture). The guy who runs the place is very nice and always remembers my name. Sadly, I never remember his.

Me: Do you know anything about the bird that was out in the back area last week?
Dry Cleaning Guy: Yes, he's mine. My baby. [bringing cage with bird in it from back of store] A woman found him a few blocks over. He opened the cage himself, with his beak, and flew away. I couldn't catch him. He's done it before, crazy bird. But he's home now, aren't you?
Me: What's his name?
Dry Cleaning Guy: His name is Kevin.
Me: Hey Kevin.

Case closed. Mystery solved.

2007-07-12T14:27:00.000-07:00

Someone in New York came to this site by googling, "Has anyone been killled for working with Vector Cutco?" Ominous.

Job #6: Cutco (cont.)

Here's how Cutco works. You are encouraged to sell knives to your family and friends, making a small commission off each sale. You get paid $10 or $15 for each presentation you make (assuming they fit certain criteria) whether you sell anything or not.

My plan was to give as many presentations as possible, not sell any knives, and clean up on the presentation fee. I actually encouraged people not to buy the knives.

Me: Look, they're expensive. I get $10 no matter what.
Sympathetic Family Member: I feel like I should buy something.
Me: My commission is very small. You'd have to buy a lot of stuff for me to make more than the $10 I'm already making.
Sympathetic Family Member: I want to help you out. I'll buy something. What's the cheapest thing you sell?
Me: Well... the paring knife.

I sold a lot of paring knives.

During my final meeting with my Cutco Team Leader, he put the squeeze on me.

Team Leader: [looking at my list of presentations] So, do all these people you gave presentations to fit within the criteria?
Me: ... they should.
Team Leader: All the right age? All married couples?
Me: Well, maybe one or two were a little younger. And a couple of the parents are divorced, I guess.
Team Leader: [tapping on calculater] Mm-hmm... we're going to have to take those off. [sighing] Look... I'm going to have to go through and check up on all of these. I'm not saying you're lying, but I need to make sure you did these presentations. That's going to take a while. Can't pay you until that's all settled.
Me: Oh.
Team Leader: Or... I could just cut you a check myself. For say... [doing balancing scales gesture with hands]... half? My own checkbook. Then I'd just add your sales numbers to mine. Take over the responsibility myself, in case something doesn't add up.

I took the check.

2007-07-11T14:42:00.000-07:00

Chris and H have broken up. Again.

I asked Chris if their relationship had been a job, what kind of job would it have been.

Chris: It was a lot like waiting tables for someone who wasn't sure what they wanted to order.

He seems to be doing okay, not as sad as he was last time they broke up (no plans to head out into the desert). He posted a 'Men Seeking Women' ad on Craigslist and already has a date lined up.

Woody: You found a girl on Craigslist?
Jarecki: For how much?

His Craigslist ad was titled, "Attractive, Partially Damaged Male in Search of Rebound - 29." Within a day it's already been flagged by Craigslist users and deleted from the site.

2007-07-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

Working from home today to avoid the heat in the air-conditionless office.

I've used a little of this time to thoroughly investigate the back stairs area. The bird is gone. I hate to say it, but I haven't seen it since I returned from Indiana.

Maybe it's flown away. Or maybe, hopefully, someone else took it in.

Sarah: [via IM] Or it's dead and someone found the body and disposed of it.
Me: Or that.

I'm determined to find out what happened. Partly because I made a big deal out of solving this mystery, and partly because I feel guilty and worried. I guess a real detective would hit the bricks, knock on doors and ask questions. I don't know any of my neighbors, though, and I'm generally nervous about approaching strangers.

Maybe I'll post a sign asking for information with my e-mail address and phone number. Well... with my e-mail address.

2007-07-09T19:28:00.000-07:00

Amanda: [via office-wide e-mail] "No, it's not hell. Literally, at least. It's just very hot. And that's because the building's air conditioning units were stolen this week. Which would be comical if it weren't so suckatociously hot in here now."

Apparently the theft has been taking place over the last week or so, with the thieves coming back and taking more tubing each night.

Evan: [via his blog] "It turns out all the copper was stolen and sold for scrap. Let's see. Copper's going for $3.15/pound… 100 pounds… that's $315. The cost to replace four air conditioning systems this size is going to be well over $10,000. Someone should come up with a crime efficiency table. This might be the least efficient caper ever."

The temperature is in the 90s outside. And not much lower inside.

Amanda: "Insert Smellyvision joke here."

2007-07-08T21:13:00.000-07:00

Hansen: The pontoon really takes things to the next level.

We usually do the cabin trip in August, but this year we did it early, since Nick and his wife will be expecting their second child in August. They'll be too busy for much of anything after that.

Nick: Thanks for adjusting your schedules, guys. It's nice to do it early. It's one of my favorite weekends of the year, but it usually has this "it's the end of summer" feeling to it, which always makes me sad.

Like any vacation, by the end we were ready to come home, restless and cranky. But that first hour on the pontoon, a beer in my hand and the wind in my hair, I remember thinking, "I could stay here forever."

2007-07-07T19:45:00.000-07:00

Trupe: Come on guys, we can't all be wearing green.
Nick: Okay, I'll change.

2007-07-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

Blueberry Island again. The yearly cabin trip with some friends.

Meador likes to build games he's seen at parties, using PVC pipe. This year he brought a game that involves tossing golf balls tied together by a rope at horizontal poles.

None of us know the true name of the game, but have come up with several of our own (most of them based on the fact that the hanging balls sort of look like testicles). Dangle Balls. Sling Sacs. Battle Sacs. Drape Nuts.

Since the set is homemade, the balls frequently break from the ropes ("sac-cident") and need to be repaired by Meador.

2007-07-05T22:10:00.000-07:00

Julie: Driving into town, seeing the buildings and the lake, you think, "Why would anyone not want to live here?"
Matt: People are outside, walking around, riding bikes. Back home, you ride your bike and people look at you weird.
Me: It's not always like this. Pretty soon you just focus on how hard it is to park.

Today we did touristy things. Millennium Park. Taste of Chicago. Navy Pier. It was a long day and a lot of walking. Ty and Will were very well behaved until near the end, when I tried to take a family picture and Ty refused.

2007-07-04T21:16:00.000-07:00

Julie and her husband, Matt, brought Ty and Will to Chicago for the 4th. Sherry, Sarah and I hung out with them at the Lincoln Park Zoo. We saw monkeys and lions but everyone, myself included, seemed most amazed by the giant rabbit in the kiddie area. That rabbit is huge!

Afterward we all went to the Rainforest Cafe. Ty seemed equally intrigued and frightened of the animatronic animals.

Julie: Will charges into anything. He doesn't get frightened. But Ty is a pretty nervous child. On our drive up here, he said to Matt, "Slow down, Dad. You're going too fast."

Most of the meal was spent fixated on the giant elephant, which would occasionally move and let out a pre-recorded elephant noises.

Julie: You should have seen Ty when you were in the bathroom. He got all nervous and said, "Where's Arnie?" Sarah tried to help and said, "He's in the bathroom." But Matt immediately said, "Oh no! He's in the jungle!"

2007-07-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

A pet bird is living in the back stairwell behind my apartment. Or, it would seem, a bird that was once a pet.

Young and I think it's the same bird that used to live in a cage on one of the porches below us. The cage is gone now, but the bird is still around, clutching a railing, sad and confused.

I've been saying lately that I'd like to solve a mystery and I guess this is it. Theory: Our neighbors moved, abandoning the bird. That's all I've got.

Sarah: Are you blogging about the bird? Are you going to blog about the fact that you haven't done anything to help it?
Me: I'm going to solve the mystery.
Sarah: You haven't done anything yet.

2007-07-02T18:32:00.000-07:00

We've had the same magazines in the bathroom at work for a very long time. I have read and reread them.

Entertainment Weekly's Summer Movie Preview. Discover Magazine's Top 100 Science Stories of 2006. Wired Magazine reporting on YouTube and the 'lonelygirl15' phenomenon. MAD Magazine's take on Grey's Anatomy ("Groin's Monotony").

In the bathroom at home I've been reading an anthology of movie criticism from the silent film era to today. In 1915 Hugo Munsterberg in an essay about "photoplays" wrote, "It is not the dangerous knowledge which must be avoided, but it is the trivializing influence of a steady contact with things which are not worth knowing."

For better or worse, most of my life has been about a steady contact with things that are not worth knowing.

2007-07-01T20:03:00.000-07:00

On our way out of town, we ran into Grandpa Paul at his usual breakfast spot when he's in Wisconsin, the Olympic Cafe.

Grandpa: Well, I survived the wedding.

He was in good spirits last night, playing cards at the reception and telling jokes.

Grandpa: This joke's a little dirty, but I you're all old enough. When does a woman lose her sexual drive? After she cuts the cake. [laughs] That's a good one, I think.

At one point during the reception he came up to me and asked, "Where's your girlfriend?"

I replied, "She's in Chicago."

"Is she rich?"

"No. She's not rich."

"Then get rid of her!" he said, and walked off.

2007-06-30T23:12:00.000-07:00

The family (minus Julie), at an Elks Club Lodge somewhere in Wisconsin, for a wedding. I have over 40 cousins and I can't make it to all the weddings, so I pretty much stopped going to all of them. But Sherry and Allie were going to drive up from Chicago together (Mom and Dad flew straight there) and I thought it would be fun to go with them.

An hour into the drive, though, behind the wheel, still stuck in Chicago traffic, with everyone listening to their separate ipods, I wasn't so sure. I sort of felt like a sitcom dad on a family trip. One that doesn't understand why everyone isn't overflowing with good old-fashioned family togetherness. One that gets cranky himself, as his ass goes numb and his back gets sore, and no one understands his 1950's Dad burdens.

Luckily, earbuds eventually came out of ears and we talked, going over the usual old stories. Laughing about old family trips and old family fights. Talking about changes and "isn't it weird that"s. "Isn't it weird that Holden is dead." "Isn't it weird that we'll probably never go into Grandma Anne's farm house again." "Isn't it weird that we're older."

It was nice. Totally worth waiting in traffic for.

2007-06-29T20:27:00.000-07:00

Over lunch, Allard talks about a bris he attended the night before. This leads to a nuanced discussion of the pros and cons of circumcision, using Nate's sleeve as a visual aid.

2007-06-28T19:57:00.000-07:00

Feeling a little burnt out lately, so it's nice that I have some opportunities to get away coming up.

This weekend I'm driving up to Wisconsin with Sherry and Allie for a wedding. It'll be nice to nice to spend some time with my two youngest sisters. Then, for the 4th, Julie is coming out to Chicago with her husband and two sons.

After that, I'm heading off for my annual cabin weekend with some friends. Here's an anticipatory e-mail exchange.

Nick: So, dudes, pretty exciting about the new pontoon boat, eh? I am going to try and learn the ropes this weekend, but it is imperative we don't maroon it in the shallows. I will be the first one to use it on my own, so please don't make me regret it.
Me: "[hand slowly reaches for steering wheel]"
Hansen: "[places ballsac gingerly on handrails]"
Trupe: "[softly weeps over Meador's bloated, seaweed-strewn corpse]"
Me: "[makes a nonsensical but somehow convincing argument for not notifying the police]"
Meador: "[releases methane as Hansen pokes at swollen abdomen]"

2007-06-27T22:56:00.000-07:00

Watched Sarah perform in Mortified. It's a hilarious show where people read embarrassing entries from their real teenage diaries.

Sarah: [reading] "I'm writing in different colors because I'm in love!"

You can just barely see Sarah there on-stage in this picture. I sat at the bar, the closest seat I could get in the packed-to-the-gills Green Mill.

It's been a big week for Sarah. ComedySportz hired her. She'll begin performing in those shows after five weeks of Monday through Thursday rehearsals.

Sarah: I'm not going to see you much in July.
Me: Well, we'll have fun in August then.

And her Mortified set killed. A highlight in an overall very funny show.

Afterwards she came back to find me at the bar. We looked at the blurry pictures I'd taken.

Me: In this one, if you zoom in, it kind of looks like you're looking right at me.
Sarah: I saw you. You were standing over there, right?
Me: No, I was sitting right here.
Sarah: Oh. I was looking at the wrong person, then.

2007-06-26T11:01:00.000-07:00

Poland took this picture of me from his basement in Michigan.

2007-06-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

The snowball effect of looking at something gross on-line.

Someone says, "Oh gross." Then someone else comes over and says, "What?" The next person asks, "What are you guys look at?" Soon, everyone else notices a crowd is gathering.

In this case it's pictures of a guy who lost hundreds of pounds, leaving him with literally sheets of extra skin hanging off his body.

Woody: He's like a human flying squirrel.
Nate: His whole body looks like balls.
Me: How could he exercise with all that flapping skin?
Poland: He pulls it back into a ponytail.
Steve-o: He'd be amazing at an apple orchard [starts miming picking apples and and putting them into a hip satchel made of his own skin].

2007-06-24T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sarah got out her headshots for a special by-invite-only audition for ComedySportz tonight.

Her headshot looks nothing like her.

A couple times a year I remind myself that I should get headshots. I go back and forth between thinking that would be ridiculous and thinking it's ridiculous that I don't already have them. My current excuse for not getting them is that I would like to lose more(/some) weight.

Maybe I should just use Sarah's headshots.

2007-06-23T11:09:00.000-07:00

This blog is a little over a month from being done. I'm looking forward to using the blog vacation time I've accrued.

Blog Project End Date: August 6.

2007-06-22T15:02:00.000-07:00

For some reason there's a life-size cardboard stand-up of the Rock in the office. It's been here as long as I've worked here. No one knows who it belongs to.

Today, a long series of events led to us removing the head so we could put our own heads on the Rock's body. Actually, Lacy (in the office doing some recording for a potential project) was the one that did the dirty work of cutting the head off.

Here's Poland as the Rock.

Chris was the only person in the office who seemed truly upset by the Rock's decapitation.

2007-06-21T22:16:00.000-07:00

Went to Waveland Park to watch Jellyvision's softball game against the Runs. To meet the league gender requirements, Jellyvision had to enlist several women, like Thea, that don't work in the office to play on the team. Apparently, it's a struggle every week to make sure there will be enough women at the game.

Thea: [via her blog] I play catcher. I like to think it's because I'm the epitome of team spirit, the mascot, not just because I'm the least-skilled player on the field...I mean, I know I'm the least-skilled player on the field, but I've got so much heart I had to buy a new bra to accommodate the extra lump on my chest. I stand at my post behind the plate, and try to lighten the mood with my random non sequiturs. Most teams enjoy it, or at least silently question why there's a silly loony bin candidate standing behind them talking to herself.

I watched the game sitting next to Allard's nine year old son, who said, "Don't be surprised if they get slaughtered. It tends to happen."

The game started off well, with Jellyvision taking an early lead. Things quickly took a turn for the worse, though. Final score: Jellyvision (6) The Runs (24).

Afterward, the umpire came up to the Jellyvision team and told them they're "the most fun team in the league," and that he'd love to play with them sometime down the road.

Steve-o: Do you know any women?

2007-06-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

Last night I took Tom to the Lakeshore Theater to see stand-up by Janeane Garofalo and Patton Oswalt. It was a belated birthday present (although not as belated as last year, only about two weeks late instead of three months... I am a slightly less bad friend than a year ago).

Tom came to the show straight from his last "baby class" with Steph. Their baby is due in August.

Tom: The classes were kind of a waste. There's nothing we hadn't already learned from doing research on-line. Basically, we just watched a bunch of disgusting birth videos that were obviously shot in the 80s.

2007-06-19T11:28:00.000-07:00

Haircut.

And yes, I do take too many pictures of myself in the bathroom at work.

2007-06-18T13:06:00.000-07:00

Amanda Lee's brother is moving to Baltimore, so she brought a box of Chinese soup spoons he was getting rid of into the office.

Amanda Lee: Take as many as you want. I already have 60.

Also, Evan brought in a cake shaped like a hamburger.

2007-06-17T16:18:00.000-07:00

Father's Day.

Dad once said to me, "The secret is to find something you like and that you're good at, and then turn that into your career."

He told me this at Disney-MGM Studios while we sat in the audience for the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.

2007-06-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hansen: I had my first real-life spit take this week. I was drinking from a bottle of water while one of our wealthier senior partners was talking about this new jet he bought. Someone asked, "How much are jets going for these days?" He said, " 11.3." He said it so casually that I just spit water right out of my mouth. I couldn't stop myself. A week earlier the same guy was talking about a vacation he took to Cabo with his family and when someone asked how much he spent, he said, "37."

2007-06-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

Jack Attack stories.

Each You Don't Know Jack game ends with a Jack Attack question, which is basically, words and phrases floating across a screen, and when two of them match (according to a clue), you hit a button. It is possibly the most fun question time, but also sometimes the hardest to write.

1. Sarah was playing this week's Jack Attack, which involves matching up people with their secret identity (Clark Kent is Superman, etc), when it came out that she had never heard of Deep Throat.

Me: Really? Deep Throat? The Watergate informant? You didn't know that?
Sarah: 5 out of 10 people wouldn't know that.
Me: Call someone. Anyone.

So Sarah sent out ten text messages asking people if they'd heard of Deep Throat. And when she was done, I realized she was upset.

Sarah: You didn't need to make me feel stupid.
Me: You're not stupid. It just surprised me. There are lots of things I don't know that I probably should. Everyone has weird gaps in their knowledge.
Sarah: It feels like you're trying to make me feel stupid.

I apologized and re-apologized. Every time she started to feel better, her phone would beep letting her know that she had another text message from someone who had heard of Deep Throat.

2. If I can't come up with a seventh (and final) pairing for a Jack Attack, I ask people around the office for suggestions. On the rare occasion that that doesn't work, I e-mail a couple friends and see if they have any ideas.

Me: Quick, I need non-superheroes that have secret identities. Like Deep Throat. Go!

These are the answers I get.

Hansen: Okay... legal cases where the plaintiff was seeking relief on a mechanic's lien and the defendant improperly filed the lien with the County Recorder's Office. Go!
Trupe: Interactive activities where the learner practices how to make scrambled, folded, and round fast food eggs. Go!
Nick: Well-written plays with a 3 to 1 female to male ratio and a cast size that is expandable to 30. Go!
Young: Guys, quit busting Arnie's balls and make an Access database that can compare the telephones numbers from one spreadsheet to another that lists them according to the switches providing service. Then worry about the callback you aren't getting for the audition you killed on yesterday.

2007-06-14T18:44:00.000-07:00

The air conditioning went out at work. Or partially went out. It was working on one side of the office, but not the other.

This led to everyone walking around the office guesstimating exactly how warm or cool it was in each area. "It's like, 73 here, but it's got to be 85 over here." This went on for some time.

2007-06-13T20:12:00.000-07:00

Amanda needed a phone number from me, and after giving it to her I jokingly added, "You should call my mother, too."

Amanda replied, "Give me her number and I will."

I did and she did. What I thought would be a quick and funny phone call turned into a very long conversation. Amanda asked questions like, "How do you feel about having a son in the arts," and, "Don't you think it's time he settled down and got married?"

I never heard Mom's half of the conversation, but, at one point, while nodding, listening to my mom answer, Amanda looked at me and mouthed, "She really loves you."

Later in the day I got an email from Mom. "Hope I didn't embarrass you too much by anything I might have said to Amanda. It's awful nice to hear how talented you are from your boss. I smiled all the way home from Toledo."

In the postscript she wrote, "Being famous isn't the most important thing. . . being happy is much more important. . . I don't know if Amanda would agree. We are very proud of you and happy that you really like your job."

2007-06-12T14:30:00.000-07:00

Sherry officially lives in Chicago now. Sarah and I had dinner with her on Saturday and then she came and watched Whirled News Tonight. It was a great time.

I'd be lying if I said I completely understand Sherry's job. She lives in Chicago but works in Texas during the week. I told Sherry that Young has a theory that she's a spy. Sherry laughed, but neither confirmed nor denied it.

After some pestering by me, she agreed to be on the blog.

2007-06-11T22:57:00.000-07:00

Allard had this delivered to work today.

Gabe: Someone having a midlife crisis?
Allard: It's my giant old-man skateboard.

2007-06-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

The second episode of my podcast, Premisey, is up. You can find it (and subscribe to it) on iTunes. Or you can just listen to it by clicking on the link to the right. Subscribing is better, though.

People who have appeared on this blog that you can hear the voices of on the podcast: me, Sarah, Young, Nick, Meador, Hansen, Alex, Megan, Lacy and Joe.

2007-06-09T14:48:00.000-07:00

Last night, before our Diplomat Motel show, Meador told us that today he's giving a speech at the graduation ceremony at the school where he teaches.

Meador: I'm a little underprepared, so I'm nervous.
Me: Are you opening with a joke?
Meador: I've got a couple ideas. I'm sure it'll be hot in the auditorium so I might start with, "I came in here earlier this morning and it was pretty cold, so I went and cranked up the boiler. You're welcome."

As I've mentioned before, this is Meador's last year teaching. He's been accepted to nursing school.

Me: How many years have you taught?
Meador: Four years.
Me: So the length of a high school education.
Meador: Yep. I'm graduating too.
Me: Do you think you'll get choked up?
Meador: I cry at all rites of passage.

2007-06-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

1. Sarah got free tickets to Wednesday's White Sox versus Yankees game from someone at work, so I went with her and her roommate, Tim. They were good seats, 13th row. A higher-up from Sarah's job was sitting a few rows behind us.

Sarah: He couldn't believe I had better seats than him. He asked me how I got them. I told him I got them from Brad. He was like, "I'm going to have to talk to Brad." There goes my free seats connection.

2. On Thursday, Jellyvision's softball team finally played against the undefeated Cleats First.

Me: How was the game?
Henry: It was the best loss I've ever been a part of. The best 11 to 2 loss.
Allard: Those women were very intimidating.

2007-06-07T23:06:00.000-07:00

I took a picture of Woody cracking Amanda's back and wrote a little post about it. I also wrote about a funny conversation Amanda and I had later in the day. As usual, I ran it by Amanda to make sure it was okay to put on-line.

Amanda: I'm sorry. I have to veto it. We're doing a lot of outbound sales now and potential clients are going to be googling the company and me. I have to seem like a role-model for a while. Or at least try to hide the fact that I'm not. Sorry. [beat] Maybe you could blog about this. What I just said. About me trying to hide the fact that I'm not a role-model. That's pretty interesting.

Here's part of what I originally wrote.

Amanda: When are you going to be famous? You're going to be famous someday, right?
Me: I don't know that I will. I sort of think I won't.
Amanda: That's too bad.

2007-06-06T13:12:00.000-07:00

Apparently, everyone I know is in Europe this summer.

This postcard from Mary (from Amsterdam) came in to the Jellyvision office this week.

2007-06-05T14:16:00.000-07:00

Job # 10: Temp

I remember moving to Chicago straight out of grad school and thinking things were going to be much easier than they were. I thought I'd get a job easily, not one that I loved or what I'd be doing forever, but something good and high paying, immediately. Instead, I spent months temping a little, but mostly sitting in the tiny apartment I shared with N at the time, depressed, waiting for the temp agencies to call me.

It was at this time that I got seriously addicted to playing "The Sims." It's a "life simulation" computer game. You have little people, and you build them houses, and you make sure they feed themselves and sleep and make friends and go to work. I'd get up in the morning, get on my computer, and usher my simulated people through their daily lives, until they had lots of nice things, friends and promising careers. I'm sure you can fill in the other half: I had no money, few friends and no job.

2007-06-04T10:14:00.000-07:00

During this morning's weekly company meeting Amanda said, "I'd like to take a moment to recognize all the hard work Jarecki has been doing lately. If we had promotions here, Jarecki would get one."

2007-06-03T14:53:00.000-07:00

When I put the job titles after the names of most of the people I write about on this blog, I could easily include "/Improviser." Many of them are something-slash-improvisers, even though the majority of them, myself included make little to no money improvising. And most of them get a little crestfallen when I ask them for their official job description. They often have day jobs they are neither excited about nor proud of.

Months back when I e-mailed my friend, Carrie, asking her for her job title, she responded, "as an exercise in self-fulfilling prophesy, i tell people that i'm an actor/writer rather than my official day job title of executive assistant. the very first time i did that, it turned out that i was talking with a producer for a small production company in Chicago. the next week, she called me with an an audition. ever since then, when people ask what i do for a living, i do not hesitate to tell them that i am an actor/writer. we are what we say we are."

I labeled her as an "Executive Assistant" on the blog. That's the whole bit, the joke, of this Year of Working blog.

I've had jobs that I hated and jobs that I was embarrassed about. I've had so many labels that would make me sad when I glanced down to read them printed out over my heart. In college I could say, "I'm going back to school soon," then after college I could say, "I'm just out of college, still figuring things out." But eventually I was too old to say those things. And I never felt comfortable calling myself an improviser or writer, even though I spent so much time doing those things.

Sometimes, "This job isn't who I am," isn't enough. Sometimes you want to say, "This job isn't even really my job."

I never feel far away from that and I worry that I could easily end up back there.

2007-06-02T11:42:00.000-07:00

Allie's volleyball team has been touring Europe, playing games, and my parents spent the last week following them through Munich, Salzburg and Prague.

Mom: [via e-mail] gunten tag! BOTH OF OUR FLIGHTS WERE ON TIME AND DID NOT HAVE ANY DELAYS: SOME OF THE KEYS ARE DIFFERENT ON THEIR KEYBOARD AND IN DIFFERENT PLACES! neither of us slePT much and are pretty tired right now. we got here about 10 am their time. we are waiting for the team to get back from practice and then we are heading to SALSBURG: I AM NOT SURE WHICH KEY IS CHANGING TO CAPS BUT I HAVE DEFINITELY BEEN HITTING IT! THE Z IS WHERE THE Y SHOULD BE TOO: I AM TOO TIRED TO FIGURE OUT WHY I AM GETTING : INSTEAD OF PERIODS:

2007-06-01T23:39:00.000-07:00

Talked to Tyler (Legal Assistant) a bit at a party. He works in a law office.

Tyler: It's one of those things where if they didn't like me so much I probably wouldn't be working there. Because I'm not very good at my job. But I make people laugh.

Tyler's boss doesn't know how to use the internet so he has Tyler order boxes of wine for him on-line a couple times a week. From each box, he gives a bottle to Tyler.

Tyler: We're talking... 300... 400 dollar bottles of wine. Over the last three years he's given me a lot of expensive wine. But he doesn't know that I'm drinking it straight out of the bottle while playing 'Halo.'

2007-05-31T19:35:00.000-07:00

The Jellyvision softball team decided to have lunch at What's the Beef, because that's where they ate two weeks ago when they won. The superstitions have begun.

Michelle: I wore the same socks.

Due to rain, their game against the undefeated team Cleats First was canceled.

Poland: Well, I consider that a victory.
Meyer: We didn't lose!

2007-05-30T21:48:00.000-07:00

The educational project I worked on during my first year at Jellyvision (and what I was finishing up during the beginning of this blog) has won a BESSIE award. What is a BESSIE award, you ask. I'm not entirely sure. Some kind of educational software award.

The press release describes the program as "flawless," and cites its "unusually comprehensive and compelling content."

The actual award goes to the company that hired us (and due to corporate restructuring was unable to hire us to do more). Still, it's nice to hear our work was well-received.

2007-05-29T22:50:00.000-07:00

The weekly pictures from Chic-A-Go-Go are probably getting old, but the last of our three episodes aired tonight. Most of the children and dancers left by the third episode so it was just us and a handful of crazies.

You can see a lot of Sarah and I dancing in this episode. I'm not much of a dancer so I rotate repeatedly through my "I'm dancing" bits. Robot arms. Pointing. Running in place. Super excited for a second. Half-hearted roof raising.

Mostly the camera seemed to catch me in the moments between dancing, when I was looking around as if to say, "Now what? Still? I'm still dancing? Okay..... uh... comical moonwalk, maybe?"

Here's my most natural moment during the show, taking a picture.

2007-05-28T18:24:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day. Apparently this is the day everyone goes to the movies. Sarah and I went to see '28 Weeks Later' with Nick and Katie. At the theater, I ran into seven improvisers in three different groupings.

While still on the way there Nick sent me a text. "We have seats. Cochran is behind us."

Cochran (Content Producer) is an improviser who works with Trupe.

Nick: It's weird. I was typing the text to you, writing 'Cochran is behind us' and the T9, the predictive text, wrote out dead instead of behind. It said, 'Cochran is dead.' Creepy.

Here's a picture of Cochran, alive, after the movie.

2007-05-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

1. James Jackson (those of us that were in town anyway) competed against Uncle Pecos in the iO Cagematch of the Fallen Teams last night. Beforehand we had someone take our picture. A victory shot and a defeat shot. One of each, just in case.

We won with 63 votes to 19. It's a good thing too, because we look much better in the victory shot. Morose slouching does not become us.

2. The Jellyvision softball team did not do quite so well against Joe's Achilles (the only team with a worse record).

Me: How was the game?
Meyer: We were like that other team that played against you in the Cagematch.
Allard: It was bad.
Meyer: At first there were only four of them, not enough to play. And it was really windy. Sand was flying everywhere. Then, at the last minute, the rest of their team appeared through the cloud of sand and demolished us.
Allard: It was like Iraq.

Win or lose, Steve-o's e-mail recaps of the games are usually upbeat and detailed. This one wasn't. "Jellyvision very bad. Score two runs. Lose 14 to 2. Lots of dust. Hurt eyes. Next week will try again."

2007-05-26T14:42:00.000-07:00

Job # 9: Creative Writing T.A.

While going to grad school, I taught introductory creative writing classes to college students. It was easy, but low-paying work.

I remember, once after class, walking back to the parking garage with a non-traditional student from my class, a retired businessman. He was maybe a retired CEO. I'm probably exaggerating his success in my memory, but he'd done very well for himself.

"I've tackled the world of business," he'd said on the first day of class, "and now that I have time I want to try to tackle the world of the arts." A statement like that tends to set off warning signals, but he was a good guy, smart and respectful. He brought a knowledge of the world to the class without the resistance to learning new things that can sometimes plagues older students. He took the assignments more seriously than the other students, and, frankly, sometimes more seriously than I did.

He seemed to think I had some secret knowledge to impart, but really I was just a kid who went to grad school right out of college because I didn't know what else to do. And I was about to graduate grad school with the same amount of directionlessness. It was odd that as a grad student I was already more cynical about the "world of art" than a businessman in his 60s.

We got to the parking lot and saw that our cars were parked next to each other. His was a BMW and mine was a Taurus with no air conditioning and no door handles on the driver's side because someone had ripped them off outside a bar one night and I didn't have enough money to fix them.

So, there we stood, between our cars, him next to his driver's side door, and me by the passenger side of mine. "I really admire what you can do," he said, stepping into his car.

"Thanks," I replied, and crawled into my car through the passenger door, scooching awkwardly over to get behind the wheel.

2007-05-25T23:26:00.000-07:00

A bunch of us went to see a sketch show at the high school where Nick teaches. A few of his seniors put it together as an independent study with Nick. It was funny, not just high school funny, but filled with some genuinely great and even kind of sophisticated moments.

Afterwards, while (I assume) the high schoolers went off to do some celebratory post-show partying, we adults went out for dinner and some beers, ending up in a bar that was too crowded and too loud, feeling generally old. Most of us called it an early night.

I have a couple shows of my own this weekend, and afterwards I plan to do some post-show partying myself, and feel younger rather than older than I am.

2007-05-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

The James Jackson Cagematch is this weekend.

I was at iO and saw that someone had written "James Jackson" and "JJ" all over one of the posters for the team we'll be competing against. I felt bad about it, so I took the poster down and threw it away. Then I realized I'd just thrown away one of their posters, an action that could be considered equally dickish.

2007-05-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

The 1900's episode of Chic-A-Go-Go aired. You can occasionally just barely glimpse Sarah and I hanging out in the back of the crowd. Mostly my head is cut off because I'm too tall. Once you see me hitching my pants up, another time I'm scratching my stomach for an unnecessarily long time.

Finally, near the end of the show, you get a clear shot of Sarah, (a pregnant) Katie and I, as we do a slow motion run during the El Train Line segment.

Young: [laughing] Are you pretending to wipe sweat off your brow? You're an idiot!

2007-05-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

My 30G iPod is packed with music, but lately I've just been listening to talking: podcasts of 'This American Life' and a 36 hour audio book entitled 'A Game of Thrones.' I even tried listening to an interview with Stephen Wright while working out (slowly).

This week, though, I've gone back to listening to music on my drive to and from work. Elvis Costello. Magnetic Fields. Pixies. And yes... Toto.

It's making me happier.

2007-05-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

Did a little spring cleaning of my messy desk. Here's a 'The Things They Carried'-esque list of all the things cluttering my work area.

computer
empty bowl
glass of water
empty diet dr pepper can and empty diet coke can
box of kleenex
USA Today section from December listing people who died in 2006
small screw
pamphlet for Engineers Without Borders
an invitation to Mary's one woman show last December
Pockets menu from that one time I went there with Shane
yellow notebook paper with words, "Arnie's Keys For Sarah" written in giant letters
unopened 'Night of the Comet' DVD
an old Rolling Stone magazine
unopened extra Men of Mortuaries calendar
Jellyvision benefits folder
copy of the Performer Agreement for Kyle's in a Coma.
empty Amazon box
mysterious key
huge stack of old printouts, most of them for projects that are already long finished or ended
three crayons
tape dispenser
phone
weird little keychain Allard brought back from Thailand
empty Best Buy bag
Microsoft Office Word 2003 box
Microsoft Office Standard 2007
three pens, a highlighter and a sharpie
an unopened Idaho Spud candy bar given to me (months ago) by a client from Idaho
instructions on how to play a Nose Flute
headphones
four notebooks full of scribbled notes
Langley School Music Project CD
16 reference books
various confusing old Post-It notes (one simply reads, "forethought")

2007-05-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

"I don't wanna work in a building downtown."

Went with Martin, Meador and Young to see the Arcade Fire play at the Chicago Theater. It was the first time any of us had been inside the old theater which is huge and very ornate.

Martin: [pointing to one of the paintings over the stage] That's Apollo, the god of art.
Meador: How about that one over there?
Martin: That one's Hera, queen of the gods and... goddess of art.
Me: Wait, they can't all be patron gods of art.
Martin: Yes they can. They all are.

2007-05-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

Meador has officially been accepted to nursing school.

Meador: I was beginning to sweat it there near the end.

In order to prepare, he came over and played 'Trauma Center,' a surgery game, on the Wii.

Young: Meador! You're supposed to use antibiotic gel before you start cutting into the body!
Meador: I didn't know!
Young: Am I going to have to follow you around when you're a nurse?

Meador received a C ranking on his first simulated surgery.

2007-05-18T18:53:00.000-07:00

Jellyvision won its first softball game last night, against the High Elbows.

Here's an excerpt from Steve-o's weekly e-mail recap:

"Little did R. Kelly know on that fateful day, when, with the hand of God helping him hold his pen, he wrote that classic song called 'I Believe I Can Fly,' that his work would mean so much to a ragtag group of men and women from a little town called Chicago, where R. Kelly also had sex with an underage girl and filmed it. Last night, the Jellyvision softball team flew. After who knows how many seasons of winless softball, the team finally won a game. Final score: 10-6. They believed they could see it, so they knew they could do it, and if they believed it, there would be nothing to it."

Woody: I think Steve-o is secretly a frustrated sportswriter.

The winning game ball spent the day sitting in a glove, perched atop a coat tree, in the middle of the office for everyone to see.

2007-05-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

For Evan's 31st birthday, we ate lunch in the Garden of Eternity, which is really just a couple picnic tables behind an italian beef place called What's the Beef.

Me: What is the afterlife was really just this place back here?
Evan: Sounds good to me. I'd love it. I mean, I guess after 300 years I'd get tired of What's the Beef's menu. "Could I get a salad or something?"

Evan is about half a year younger than me. Like most of the people that already worked here when I first came aboard, I've always assumed he was older than me.

2007-05-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

The first of three Chic-A-Go-Go shows we watched tape aired last night. Sarah and I mostly sat back behind the cameras and watched during this first one, but you can see Jeanine and Jane here during the El Train Line segment.

The show itself seems slightly more menacing when you watch it on TV.

The 1900s' episode airs next week.

2007-05-15T12:48:00.000-07:00

Another picture Lacy sent from backstage at her play. Ajax checks his e-mail.

Last night I had drinks with Lacy, Chris and Thea. Something must have been up with the burgers Lacy and I had, because we're both sick today.

Lacy: [via IM] the woman who plays Andromache in my show told me the best ever call-in-sick excuse. it's brilliant. no one will ever question it. "There is blood in my stool." then the follow up can either be a very serious "I'm going to be okay" or "I found out, it runs in my family!"

2007-05-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Job #13: Charter School Teacher (Cont.)

I helped a little with the student paper at the charter school where I taught. This is a picture of the head administrators column in the second issue of the paper. His first column had been about freedom of speech. "It requires conviction, courage and confrontation and if you don't use it, you will surely lose it." This second column was about smoking. At a full page, though, it included several unusual digressions. For instance, "Four years later (and I claim self defense) I ran away from home after knocking out my guardian and putting his wife in the hospital."

The issue never made it to the students. The head administrator deemed it inappropriate due to a Halloween picture of the male Media Arts teacher wearing a dress.

2007-05-13T15:28:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day.

I called Grandma. She seems to be doing the same, still not happy in the nursing home.

Grandma: There's nothing to do. You can't really talk to many people here. One of my old boyfriends is here. Sometimes I sit with him
Me: Oh? Someone you dated before… when you were younger?
Grandma: Yeah. He can't swallow or eat, so he has to have tubes down his throat.

She asked how my job is going.

Grandma: I'd like to read some of your writing sometime. I keep a bunch of your old writing here in a drawer.
Me: Well… it's on the internet. Do they… can you get the internet there? Do they have computers you can use?
Grandma: Huh?
Me: It's on… you can see it on a computer.
Grandma: Does your mom get it?
Me: Yeah.
Grandma: She hasn't sent me any of it.
Me: Well… you can't send it. You can't print it out. It's a game. You have to play it on a computer.
Grandma: Oh. I see. [beat] Are you still in movies?
Me: Movies?

2007-05-12T23:06:00.000-07:00

The iO theater has a show called the Cagematch. Two improv teams perform and the audience votes one of the two back to compete the next week (or in some sort of tournament set-up). It's a fun gimmick as long as you don't take it too seriously.

They've recently decided to do The Cagematch of the Fallen Teams, a Cagematch only open to teams that have been cut from the iO schedule. A funny idea. My old team, James Jackson, decided to enter, mostly as an excuse to get us all together again to do a couple shows. We've even been seeded number one in the tournament, which is somewhat flattering, I guess, and in theory we should win our first match, since we compete against the lowest seeded team.

It doesn't really work that way, though. It's no secret that the key to winning the Cagematch is packing the house with people that are going to vote for you (it's a clever marketing tool for the theater). Teams and performers who've been around for a long time may or may not put on better shows than newer teams, but they'll almost certainly be less compelled to pester everyone they know to come see their shows. For instance, the number 2 seeded team has already lost to the number 15 seeded team.

To make matters worse, James Jackson's first match is on a holiday weekend. About 50% of us will be out of town due to various adult obligations.

Carrie: You guys have to win so we can all get together and perform in the second show!

I was in the bathroom at iO tonight and saw that the team we'll be competing against has made slick posters encouraging people to come and vote for them.

2007-05-11T17:16:00.000-07:00

Nate graduates from college this weekend, so we had a cake at work.

Me: I didn't realize you were still in college. Do you need me to buy you beer?
Nate: I actually haven't taken a class in over a year.

Besides graduating, Nate is moving into an apartment by himself soon, instead of living with two other guys, one of which lived in his pantry.

While eating cake, conversation turned to the Jellyvision softball game the night before against the Homerun Homerun Hippos.

Woody: ... we lost. We were doing well, but then they scored three grand slam home runs in one inning. It was hard to come back from that.
Allard: After the game the Hippos told us that this was the first game they'd won in three years.
Evan: I love our team. I really think we're going to win one this season.

2007-05-10T14:26:00.000-07:00

Steve-o and I went to the Borders near the office to get some new reference books. We checked out the children's section to see if there were any good books of simple facts there.

Steve-o: Look at this. This shelf here is the children's reference shelf. And from here down.... all pirates.

He was right.

2007-05-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

Paging through my 'School Years' book, you can see exactly when I stopped playing sports. In the eighth grade the Sports section reads, "Basketball - City Champs; FCC Swim Team." In ninth grade the Clubs and Activities section spills over into Sports. By tenth grade Sports is blank. And in eleventh grade Sports is actually crossed out so no one will wrongly assume that there is anything athletic about representing Belgium in the Model United Nations.

I played a lot of sports growing up, but I was never aggressive enough to be any good. By high school I was perfectly happy to replace sports with Clubs and Activities.

Job #0.5: Basketball Camps

Still, I enjoyed working at Dad's basketball camps over the summer. I sold pizza, sodas and candy in the dorms. I ran various errands.

The only bad experience was the time I had to step in to referee a game. Due to a scheduling mix-up, I was the only person available. And I was in totally over my head. You need to be aggressive to be a ref too. "Oo... should I call that? Was that a foul? Too late. Okay, maybe I shouldn't call that foul to even things out. That was pretty obvious, though. Uh oh... too late again."

The only thing worse than having two teams of sixth graders yelling at you and giving you shit for the calls you make or don't make... is knowing in the back of your mind, that they're probably right.

2007-05-08T22:40:00.000-07:00

Lacy, having an IM conversation with me, backstage during a show of "Troilus and Cressida."

Lacy: In the 3-hour show, I spend maybe 10 minutes on-stage. So there's a lot of downtime. It's two hours between my second scene and my third scene.

So, like most people at work, she spends a lot of time on-line. Only she does it in period costume and a "custom-made, hand-tied wig."

2007-05-07T12:38:00.000-07:00

Someone pointed out that a movie called 'Hard Times' is playing on cable this month. I DVR-ed it.

Again, I never got through more than a couple chapters of the Dickens' book, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't about underground bare-knuckle street-fighting.

2007-05-06T23:37:00.000-07:00

I received this text as I was getting ready for bed, far too late to call the nursing home where my grandmother now lives.

2007-05-05T23:29:00.000-07:00

Sarah was finally able to move into her new apartment today, with her friend, Tim (SAT/ACT Teacher).

When she moved to Boston last fall, she sold her bed to her friend, Jana. Now in Chicago again, Sarah offered to buy the bed back.

Jana: You can have it. And I don't want any money. It's yours. I had sex on that bed anyway, so you shouldn't have to pay anything.

So, things are, slowly, getting back to normal.

Sarah: I've decided I'm going to find a career by the end of the summer. Something I could do for the next five years. So that gives me a couple months to figure it out.

2007-05-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

The Jellyvision softball team (part of it anyway), right before heading out to play their first game last night, against a team called G-Unit.

As Steve-o (shown here in the middle) wrote in an office-wide e-mail, "Jellyvision has a long and storied history as one of the worst softball teams known to co-ed recreational-level summer-league softball. Spanning certainly seven or eight seasons, it is believed that Jellyvision has actually won only one game, and it is disputed as to whether or not that game was won by forfeit of the opposing team."

When I came into the office today, I asked how the game went.

Allard: We're not terrible!
Henry: We tied. Then we played an extra inning and lost.
Allard: But that's as close to winning as you can get and still lose, right?
Henry: They scored six runs in the extra inning.

2007-05-03T15:17:00.000-07:00

Sometimes posts have to disappear.

2007-05-02T14:17:00.000-07:00

Due to what I can only imagine is a Peapod error, we have a case of baby yogurt in the fridge at work.

2007-05-01T14:14:00.000-07:00

After the educational project came to an end last year, Josh left the client company and came to work with us as a salesperson. I think it's safe to say, the client company was more straight laced than Jellyvision. Case in point, the day I had to spend editing out all the farts and burps we'd put in the project.

Today, some of us took Josh out to lunch for his birthday. On the way back, Woody and Chris started yelling that they wanted to stop at a Radio Shack we'd just passed to buy a remote controlled dragonfly they'd seen on the internet. Amanda executed a dramatic U-turn and the dragonfly was purchased.

Woody: Ooo... the box says it's made with carbon fibers.
Amanda: Guys, Josh is used to working with ADULTS!
Josh: No. It's good. It's good.