Truth in Advertising

Welcome to month 26 of Rob's unemployment. For all the resumes I've submitted, I've received 2 interviews, 1 second interview and no job offers.

Even Amway said, "We'll get back to you, Rob."

That's not encouraging.

I've applied for writing jobs, marketing jobs, communication jobs and employment coach jobs. In hindsight maybe the last idea was poorly conceived, but I need a job, any job.

"Do as I say, not as I can't do."

The Pirate Queen and I have already conducted several state of the union conferences. She recommended a new work mantra:

"Would you like fries with that?"

I can't. It's like Fonzie saying, "I was wrong." The words don't fit. I've swallowed too much crow so far. I can't eat those words too.

"What about entry level jobs," my queen asks.

I can work those jobs. I've applied for those jobs. Those employers don't call me back any more than the other employers do. I don't know if it's my approach or that 42-year-old beginners aren't as fashionable as they were 10 years ago.

Age and inexperience: It's the new black.

And isn't that the thing? I'm not alone. For every hundred of you reading my blog--Ok, I know, just play along here--there are almost 9 of you without jobs. That would be eight of you without jobs, and Dave. His left hand is still working, but his right hand doesn't know what the left is doing: the rest of him is unemployed.

If you're reading me in California, that's 11 of you with Dave, but at least Dave's whole left arm is a functioning member of society. The rest of Dave is pretty pissed.

If you're in Riverside County, then 14 of you are standing in job lines with Dave's left hand--The rest of Dave works here while the rest of us suffer. Shake his left hand anyway, no hard feelings. In fact his hand is soft but firm. Dave is a good guy.

Me? Not so much. I'm a little grumbly about standing in line with everybody else, trying for the same job. The line is even more discouraging, because there are more than 100 people in Riverside County. For every one of my 100 readers (yeah, stop laughing. It's not that funny) there are over 294,000 people, besides Dave, competing for the job I want.

The cream always rises to the top.

If that's the case, what do we call the stuff that sinks to the bottom? Oh yeah...great.

So, after beating my head against opportunity's door waiting for God to open a window, I've decided on a new approach: honesty.

That's right. Everybody out there is trying to oversell and out-maneuver the competition. It's time to just tell it like it is. That brings us to my latest cover letter/resume:

Situation needed: Rob of all media trades seeks employment.

Do you have standards? Me too/neither! I am an over-trained under-worked workhorse with a minimal track record, seeking to be exploited for alfalfa sprigs and sparse attaboys.

Are you tired of requiring five years of work experience in your job postings? I'm tired of lying that have them! But I'm not going to get those five years unless somebody lowers their standards. Why shouldn't that somebody be you?

Because what I do have is five years radio and television broadcast and production school-studio time. I can run and troubleshoot any hardware that makes sounds or casts shadows. That includes studio staff.

As the student manager of a redheaded stepchild college radio station, I led a staff of credit grubbing freshmen and munchy hungry stoners through three semesters. In that time the station garnered a reputation for least offensive miscreants gathered on campus. Our record of zero administration enforced shutdowns and one reprimand (for referring to the school administration as, “Castro and his cronies”) still stands unmatched. This is not only a testament to an experimental dry campus policy, but also a demonstration of my laissez-faire leadership skills.

This experience is just a light questionable film on my stripper-pole of training. I also have design/office software experience dripping down my leg. If Adobe published it or Microsoft mico-tweaked the functionality from it, I have spent hours cursing it, breaking it, reinstalling it, and making it my bitch. This not only qualifies me with a professional level of expertise, but it also means that your in-house IT team can continue monitoring the spyware you installed into the corporate email browse while I answer everybody else’s dumbass questions.

Do you need a writer? I can do that too! As a writer, I’ve received a 3.5 GPA for my collective portfolio of brochures, pamphlets, ad copy, press releases, articles, public relations puff, and short fiction. Non-pay web-zines and other online gathering holes have already launched successful sites with my gratis labor, why wait your turn, when you can cut in line for a few pennies an hour?

“We love your work!” said Paula Sirois of divorce360.com where I submitted blogs for unpaid publication. Other free labor recommendations are available upon request.

My talent for adaptive voice can be your voice! I am a corporate tool waiting to be worked. No job too menial, no paycheck too small. I am your man, a yes man, a no man whichever man you want, man.

Idealists say, “I will never sink to that level.” I will sink that level like the Titanic at an iceberg party. There’s no limit to the depths I’ll plunge to keep my life afloat. If you can fathom the words, I’ll string them together till they touch the bottom of the Mariana Trench to make fifty cents.

If you’re interested, contact me soon because sycophants of my quality don’t come often and when we’re gone, we’re gone; barnacle lips on the corporate ass-ship until the day the ship goes down.

A little update

Hey all!

I'm so sorry I haven't posted. My bad. Here's the thing: I'm busy. Yeah, I'm still unemployed, but I'm taking classes, and they're taking no Rob prisoners. Between the campus newspaper, Photoshop, and a few other courses, I'm burried in a homework blizzard. I promise to post when I can, and to pick things up a bit in the summer thaw.

In the meantime, here's a link, follow it. It's a story I wrote for a local paper. It's not nearly as self indulgent as my blog, but then again, what is? I save all that self love for you--and I promise it will be back.

So, follow me vicariously, and take in a little Rob:

My article

Identity Games

Life. For Hasbro it’s a game, for others it’s a cabaret—ol’ chum. For me, it’s a place. A place to hang my hat. Oh, that’s a home? No, I don’t think so. My home echoes, and there’s nothing there to hang a hat on; it's empty—and no, that’s not my head, although I occasionally do hang my hat there too.

This week some lucky Monopoly bidder took possession of my blue property, ending the Rob era as homeowner-- Go ahead, play the little Kodak commercial Paul Anka soundtrack. Watch the Rob moments collage roll past as I sniff a little. I hate to see the house go. I guess that's the funny thing: it's not the house that's going; it's me.

Yeah, that’s funny.

That’s life.

Life is funny. Like the time I went to pick up Debbie Doe-eyes for a first date and she brought her older sister. It took me a little while to see the humor in that one too, but now it is a great conversational opener

“You’ll never believe what happened to me once…”

I don’t think the house story will ever make the conversational list. Luckily I’ve rolled bolts of other material. Material I've spent my life quilting together, while life’s machine stitches my fingers into cool patterns.

“This stitch is called ‘stitch in a ditch: Rob living in a trailer down by the river.’ There’s a funny story behind it…”

There’s a funny story behind everything, and while looking for the humor behind eviction I received grad school rejection letters from Iowa, Michigan and UC Irvine. Now I’m looking for the humor behind rejection too. That comes easier. The Debbie Doe-eyes story sets precedent.

Everybody say “awww…”

I’m sorry. You’re just not as good at the Rob pity as I am. Maybe it’s the practice. Maybe you just don’t have the vested pity-interest that I do; the pity doesn’t mean as much to you as it does to me. Here, try this: after every paragraph say “aww Rob,” really loud and hug the air where I would be, if you associated with me.

Yeah, that’s a good start. Ready? Here goes for real.

So, this pity tragedy I’m writing is life. My life is looking like that new Liam Neeson movie--the one where Liam thinks that somebody has stolen his identity so he throws a Charlie Sheen tantrum until people take notice. No, I’m not stark raving Sheen--my identity wasn't really stolen, it was just misplaced while self-detoxing. You get the point.

If the point seems less obvious and more convoluted than a pile of jackstraws, try this memory game: little Robby was once a kid, and like every other kid, he was lost. Oh, I played games such as Monopoly, Life, and Naughty Barbie; I knew thing about hot stoves, electrical sockets and never to mix the two in the same tub; I even knew all the things I liked, but what I didn't know was what I wanted to be or even not to be.

That moves my pity tragedy to the Hamlet realm, except I always knew that I didn’t want to rule Denmark. I hate the smell of dead fish. I knew that even when I was 8. I remember, something else from when I was 8. I remember writing about wanting to be an Indy-car driver. Before I had finished 365 laps though, I’d crashed into three trashcans, one mailbox and bent my bike-frame against a pickup truck. My 9-year-old career journal reflected on whether my 8-year-old brain had misread its lifelong destiny.

In my twenties, I wrote about wanting to DJ, because I loved music. Later I scratched that. I learned that DJing was more ego than music. Music was for musicians, and I couldn’t play an instrument better than I could play Life or drive an Indy-car.

It was through this trial and error process that a pattern began to appear. All the vocations displayed in my inner monitor, were all later boxed and hauled away, leaving only one constant: I had written about them all. Therefore, I must be a writer.

It made sense. A fireman rushes into buildings, saving lives. I rushed into sentences, sharing insight.

See Spot run. Run Spot run!

A lawyer works to set legal precedence, creating his unique place in the world. I worked to avoid plagiarism, creating my unique place in the world.

See Tops run! Run Tops run!

Like every other career choice, mine had goals: get published, get read, get paid--not necessarily in that order.

See Rob write--

And therein lay the disconnect: nobody saw Rob write. If a Rob writes in the words and nobody reads, does the Rob make a sound? I knew that War and Peace wasn’t built in a day, so I've tried supplementing my income, applying for peripheral jobs. Communications, media, marketing, even government gigs: all fields needing my skills.

All fields ignoring my talents.

See Rob’s resume! Print Rob print!

That was when I reconsidered school. Maybe my writing needed a push. Maybe I needed somebody outside my body to help me understand what the world outside my head wanted see me write. I submitted applications to the biggest and the best schools in the land. I mean, if I am a writer, they should see my marquee talent glowing 20 feet high dazzling with structural highlights and verbiage effects, right?

They didn’t see a thing. I am Liam Neeson auditioning for a John Belushi role.

“I’m a zit! Get it?”

My three biggest hopes wrote letters expressing their regrets, while reminding me that only the top 2 percent could earn the privilege learning in their institutions and indelibly highlighting that I didn't meet their mark.

How deep in the slush pile was I buried? I don’t know, but I can tell you that I couldn’t breathe. Rejection is tough to take, even at those odds. I mean, if I'm a writer, I should overcome avalanching odds, right?

That's how all the good stories end: Liam Neeson comes off the bench, scoring the final touchdown while the crowd chants “Ru-dy! Ru-dy!’ That should be me. That chant should be “Robby! Robby!” Sure, none of these schools are Notre Dame, but they are literary universities. Their literary is based on the same literal 26-letter alphabet that I use. It still uses the same language. The only difference is how many words they string together.

And, lo! There, yonder, we watched Tops prance through the bursting tipped wheat anthesis of our youth! Prance Tops prance! Later that day, Tops' thrashed in threshed detritus and the Tops we knew, the Tops of the glistening coat and unflappable grin gave way to rigored flesh and clumping fur.

Now I don’t know. Maybe they’re right. Maybe I’m not a writer. I mean I’ve latched onto this concept with terrier determination, but I’ve read the books: the line between delusion and determination is hair-brained thin. I have Scottish roots. I come from a people who’d chop off their right arm to win a bet that they have only five fingers. I don’t know if I’m qualified to tell the difference between dedication and delusion. There is at least enough evidence on the delusion side for me to count on all five of my fingers.

So where does that leave my identity? It’s left sitting with a group of pseudo-intellectuals playing the game of Life, waiting for a turn. Nobody wins because nobody moves. Instead, they sit arguing about why two blues or pinks can’t occupy the front car seat, or how playing Life doesn’t matter because life is all in our head anyway.

My identity isn’t a pseudo-intellectual. According to my GRE It’s not even a half-wit. I’m just a Rob Blogger taking up cyberspace.

According to the GRE.

According to my mortgage company.

According to three out of five grad schools.

These are all people who should know, right?

Maybe yes, maybe no. Maybe they’re the pseudo-intellectuals deciding how the game is supposed to be played.

See, when I was a kid, yes I played Monopoly, Life, and Naughty Barbie. I played a lot of games. They all had different rules, but they also had one thing in common: you could never tell the outcome of the game until the last piece was played. If you were playing Monopoly, the person who endured till the game’s ending move decided the winner. That usually happened when the other players got bored and walked away around lap 365 or so. The Parker Brothers supplied so few of our rules; we made up because we knew the game better than its creators. We played the game

At the other extreme, the game of Life endured at least three major rulebook changes. Once upon a time there were stocks, and insurance. In the later years we randomly picked careers from a pile, because it was more like real life.

Even more like real life would be a bunch of Old Man Monopoly Moneybags shrugging over inside out pockets, losing turn after turn. Right now so many of us are out of work and out of sorts and we can’t find where we belong. Our game isn’t over though. There’s still time to play. Maybe I am as delusional as Liam Neeson, but I believe these schools, these mortgage brokers, these employers, all know what they’re looking for. Right now that isn’t me, but God gave me a purpose, and he controls the game. I’ve seen that. I’ve seen my words reach people, seen readers identify with my flailing identity, saying, “That’s me!” I’ve seen people remember ways my life has touched theirs, even if—especially if—I’ve forgotten the event ever occured.

The point is, we all have a purpose, a way, a path. Sometimes it’s not as obvious as one multi-colored path stretching across a game board. Sometimes we lose a turn and slide back to “go,” but if we believe in a good and righteous God, we’ll always win. Not in the way that Hasbro, the University of Iowa, or even employer XYZ rate progress or ability, but in the way that matters: in the way we touch other players trying to make their way across the board, playing their Life or living their cabaret right along with us.

So for now, I’m waiting on my next roll. Pass the dice to Liam; it’s his turn. I know who I am, and right now I am right where I’m supposed to be.

Life Imitates Blog.

I just got an email from my father. That in itself isn't a bad thing. My dad loves me, and he likes to keep me updated on the life of a RobBlog-father and RobBlog-mother. He tells me about life in the old homestead, and I always ask for money. That is our relationship.

In an interesting note of serendipity, This week in Journalism, we studied journalistic law. I'd never been that interested in law, but as a blogger, I took special interest in words like "libel," and "slander." Especially after my Rita Coolidge comments earlier this week. I mean, I didn't bash her, but I could see where somebody named Rita Coolidge could read my blog and go, "That's not nice."

It brings me back to the days of Mom and Dad, when they used to say, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." I took that to heart; that's why I blog silently . Still, I did dedicate a whole blog to Rita, and I normally don't do that to celebrities. Oh, I may poke minor jabs at, but never do I stay on topic. You know my blog better than that! The thing was, she fit my theme, and no matter how bad I ramble, I adhere to my theme like it's made of taffy. Luckily for me, it usually is, and is kinda tasty too...

Today it tastes like crow, and not Sheryl either. I am happy to say that after careful deliberation over articles of libel, I discovered that, no, I hadn't de-famed Rita. Time did that.

Just like it defames all of us. Time makes us who we are, and we can't always be popular. If you're reading my blog, then you know exactly what that means. I am the bloggy black hole of popularity. Popularity comes in, and somewhere, in a distant galaxy, divine justice comes out.

That's why, when my father told me about the upcoming Prescott High School choir concert. I rushed to my blogging keyboard to say a few words about the wonderful and incomparable Rita Coolidge. See, tonight, Rita and her band will be accompanying the PHS singers. I'd rather she not take out her blog wrath on the innocents. She has a wonderful voice, and a great repertoire, she could vocally gut them--or make them sing "All Time High" just to punish me.

Rita, I'm a blogger. I'm not worth it. Please, step away from the children.

So, I'm apologizing for any unintentional cruelty. In fact, if you didn't gather it from my previous blog, I actually DO like Rita Coolidge--Mostly her early 70s stuff. It reminds me of being a kid. I love "You," as well as her versions of, "One Fine Day," "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher," and "The Way You Do the Things You Do." My favorite Rita song is "We're All Alone," even though it wasn't until my 20s that I realized that it was a woman singing it. I always thought it was some mid-toned man like Kenny Nolan.

So, If you're anywhere near Prescott Arizona tonight, see Rita, save some singing children, and defame a blogger. It's all for a good cause.

The President Cuts a Single, and Other Reasons for Appendage Pulling

Do you know what the day after President’s Day is? It’s Cautionary Blog Day. That’s right, go back to your history books. Look it up. Cautionary Blog Day was established shortly after president Rita Coolidge traded a stone face place on a South Dakota rock for a career in adult contemporary radio. In hindsight, a poor career move: everybody remembers the four mountain foreheads. Nobody remembers a Rita Coolidge song.

“Without you, there’s something special about you…”

Ok. Some of us remember more Rita than we’d care to admit. We remember all kinds of bad things. It’s not by choice; it’s just there in the back of our minds like a Jar-Jar Binks pop-up. I remember lovely Rita, when she was a meter maid, but this blog isn’t about her. It’s about me.

No, it’s not about me either. This is Cautionary Blog Day. This blog is about a writer friend of mine with a cautionary tale. And no. “writer friend” isn’t Rob code for “this blog is about me”—not this time.

This time, this blog is about an unemployed writer friend of mine. No, once again, I’m not the only unemployed writer out there. There are bunches of us. Why? Because the out of work actors have stolen all the good wait jobs. Besides, we’re writers. If we were happily employed, we’d have nothing to write about. We’re happiest in our self-absorbed misery.

“We’re all alone. We’re all alone…”

Preach on sister Rita!

Writers alone are easy targets--especially the unemployed ones. Unemployed writers need to eat. Writers are not starving artists. We’re usually well fed. Either by eating our words, or eating porch kibble left out for neighborhood cats.

“The doggone Meow Mix is mine!”

Rita didn’t write that. I did. It’s part of a cautionary tale told by writers to cold nose cats trying to nibble our kibble. That’s another cautionary tale though. This cautionary tale happened when my writer friend applied for a job.

Writers tend toward work-from-home situations; they adhere to our habitat. Unfortunately, most of these situations are either multi-tiered marketing schemes or multi-fool scams. Finding a work-from-home career is harder than finding a dirty needle in a haystack, but more people are searching for the job, meaning you’ll stick yourself with the dirty needle long before you get a job that lets you work from your house. That’s right, even Rita had to tour.

The work my friend applied for was a data entry job. Supposedly, he downloaded some special super secret database software, and then tallied up all the data they could find. My friend isn’t a fool. He knows his Mount Rushmore from his Six Grandfathers Mountain. He knew to ask questions, and to not hand out any money up-front.

After a few weeks of reciprocal online interviewing, my friend signed up for the data entry program. There only seemed to be one catch: for my friend to do the job asked of him, he would need to pay for extra special software. This isn’t too outrageous. Look at my resume; I’m schooled in several thousand dollars worth of software. Sure, writers use Microsoft Word, but to keep the kibble wolf from the door, we train in a variety of multi-functional programs. I speak to the spirits through Photoshop, Adobe Acrobat, and many other mediums.

“Close the window calm the light…”

Extra software did little more than raise my friend’s eyebrow. Besides, his would-be employer promised to reimburse him for any out of pocket expenditures. Of course the trick was that the out of pocket expenditures went to that employer, because this was magic bean counting software. So my friend worked out a way to wire the software people money after the employer had sent him a cashier’s check.

When my friend received the check, he Western Unioned his payment. I’m not sure how they worked this simultaneous payment plan. This was a murkier part of the story. What became crystal clear in the tale was that shortly after my friend deposited the check, his bank closed his account. When he questioned why, they told him “We don’t do business with people who deposit fraudulent checks.”

Thus the cautionary tale reaches a climax. My friend needed to cover two paths at once. He needed to file a police report, and he needed to talk to Western Union. Luckily, he went to WU first. They told him that nobody had received his money yet, and that they would stop the transaction before somebody did. In his best Rita Coolidge, my friend sang Western Union praises.

“Your love keeps lifting me…”

The other path was less fruitful, but it needed to be handled. The reality is that in 2008 the Internet crime complaint center received over 275,000 reports of online fraud. Most online predators shed their skin so quickly that they don’t get caught. That said, it’s still important to report fraud, because criminals rarely act once and they rarely quit. Someday, if they do get caught, your report will be one more nail in their coffin. Besides patterns are easier to follow when there are more breadcrumbs.

My friend felt pretty crumby. To make matters worse, when the bank closed his account, they froze his funds. There was still real money in my friend’s account. Real money my friend still can’t touch until the bank investigates things to their satisfaction.

So that’s this year’s cautionary tale. It’s not as funny as President Rita’s Facebook faux pas of 1930, but then again, what is? But just like Rita’s mistake, it’s important to investigate facts thoroughly. Just because somebody says something you’d like to believe, doesn’t make it true. Ask Rita. She’ll tell ya.

Metaphorically Speaking

So, last Monday was Valentine’s Day. The preceding Friday? That was “final pack your crap and go Day.” Yup, it was the time my mortgage company chose to slam the door on my metaphoric clutching fingers. Ok, maybe not metaphoric. They were quite real, and they really, really hurt.

For those of you who know—metaphorically speaking or not--my mortgage woe story is an epic tale. My mortgage company, Cenlar, and I have had a Beowulf/Grendel relationship. Well, except I’m not really Beowulf, and…well… they’re not really Grendel. I’d say that I’m more of a five-year-old with a Millennium Falcon and Cenlar is my father. Dad and I agree that as long as I do certain chores, I get to keep my toy.

My chores are established by Mom. This works great until mom decides to have more kids. Then there are more kids than chores—cuz apparently mom is prolific in the kid department. Mom is also a little arbitrary and drinks a lot, and that influences her ability to fairly deal out workloads. She decides the best way to handle this is to line us all up against the wall and let the Beebee gun of fair employment decide our fates.

Pump. Blam!

“Ow!”

That’s my little brother Charlie. He gets to water the horses. It’s a pretty easy job since we don’t have any horses.

Pump. Blam!

“Ow! Waaah!”

That’s my baby sister Gertrude. Mom asked her to go to the store and pick up some smokes. Gertrude pulls the power motor on her stroller and putters out. Gertrude may be young, but she’s got engine-uity. Yeah, all I’ve got are stupid puns and my Millennium Falco--

Thunk!

“Missed! No jobs for you, Rob!”

Scratch that. All I’ve got are puns.

Chewbacca wails from inside the ship.

Dad, being the benevolent father that he is, gives me time to find other chores before he takes away my toy. “You’ve had that toy too long. I can’t return it to the store, but you better get a job, or I’m gonna sell it to the gophers.

Damn gophers!

“Watch your mouth!”

“But I didn’t say it aloud!”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m Dad, now get a job.”

So I set out with my Millennium Falcon to search of a circus. Why a circus? Because, when I was three, I trained as a clown. The problem with three-year-old clowns though, is that they’re all terrified of other clowns. Why would a clown fearing three-year-old clown look for circus work? I don’t know! It’s a metaphor! Work with me! Let’s just say that that’s why I returned to work at home. Now I’m five. I’m a big boy, and I’m no longer afraid of clowns.

The problem is, there are a bunch of clowns looking for jobs out there. I’ve got the red nose and big shoes, but so do they—they have that and big-top experience: something I don’t have. Oh, I have entertained myself, but that hasn’t gotten me anything more than fuzzy hands. Even worse, I’m five and the prime funhouse hiring clown age is four-years-old. To them, I’m an over the hill ex-mama’s boy wannabe-fool.

Carnival after carnival I get tent flapped in my face. “Out of my way clown,” cry boorish barkers chasing after rube rabble cash. They don’t see my talent. They don’t see that I need work to save my Millennium Falcon. Nobody takes this crying on the inside clown seriously. I hang my whiteface in shame and return to my father.

“I can’t find work.”

“I know. “ he says, rubbing his chin. He’s eying my Falcon. It’s a little banged, and there’re makeup smudges on it. The landing gear doesn’t even pop out all the way anymore. I know he’s thinking about how disappointed I’d be if he took it.

Shaking his head, he says, “I’ll never get anything back for that piece of crap. You need to clean it up a bit.”

“I would, but I can’t afford the soap and sponge to clean it.” I spit on the plastic gun-bay windows, wiping it with my shirt. You can almost make out Han using Chewbacca as a dust mop inside. “See?”

Dad sighs and shakes his head in his usual, “I love you” fashion. “Ok, look. You write this twenty-page report on why I should let you keep the Millennium Falcon, and I’ll see what I can do.”

Ugh! I’m a joker not a writer! What choice do I have? I write the report, then I spend an extra three days correcting errors. Clowns can’t spell. I know that, so I give it to a girl at school. She looks it over, makes some suggestions. After she returns my paper, I make the final corrections, place the report in a nice folder, and bring it to my dad.

I find him working his front yard Star Wars spaceship sales emporium. He’s taking a tie-fighter from a brother and sister couple. “I’m sorry,” he says, handing their ship to my uncle Ted. Ted rents out spaceships. He hands my dad some change, and tosses the fighter in a pile marked, “fix and flip.”

I rush to Dad’s table. “Dad! Dad! Here’s my report!” I proudly extend the folder towards him.

He shakes his head. “I need you to mail it to me.”

“What?”

“It’s the rules. Mail it and then wait for my reply.”

So I mail it. Within two weeks I get a reply in the post box: “I did not receive pages 10-20. You’ll need to rewrite them.”

My floppy shoes hung low that night. Still, I’d done it once, I’d do it again--and I did! I mailed my new pages, and two weeks later I received my reply: “I need you to rewrite pages 10-20, we never received them.”

Wha?

This time I went out to talk to Dad again. I found him at the paper shredder. I thought I recognized my pages going in. Maybe I did. I knew that if that was the case, he was doing it to teach me something. I just needed to find out what it was. “Dad, I sent you those pages, why do you need them again.”

He continued shredding without saying a word.

“Dad?”

Silence.

“I see my pages right there, what’s going on?”

Another page enters the shredder.

Now, I’m clenching my fuzzy palmed fists. How frustrating! I’m doing all this work, and I’m not even guaranteed that I’ll keep my ship. I storm back to my room for another try at pages 10-20. Once again, I work them to perfection, and I send them in. My reply comes the next day.

We of Dad-lar are sorry. You have refused to complete our requested material in the allotted time. We have no choice but to move forward in our claim of your toy.

Love you bunches!

Dear ol’ Dad.

While dad slept, I tiptoed into his room. I wanted to show my love and appreciation for all he’d tried to do. Slowly, I undress. When I’m completely naked, I hop on his bed, both legs straddling him. Shocked, he sits up.

Smack! That’s the sound of a Millennium Falcon against his forehead it’s broken the door, but I feel better. Why am I naked? I wanted to make sure he remembered. And with that, my Falcon and I are out the door.

I’d run to join the circus, but I can’t. So, I take my Falcon, and flop down in an empty field. Dad is going to be mad. He’ll even come down hard on me when he does. It’s fine. I’ll enjoy my remaining time until he does. I begin motoring my ship around the field, dandelion fluff billowing in my wake.

Six months’ play time passes before Dad finally finds me. In the meantime, I’ve showed a little pirate girl my little spaceship.

“I always thought they were bigger.”

It may be small, but she likes it. She decides that she’d like to help me keep my Falcon. As a full-time pirate, she makes better than clown change. When swollen head dad stomps through my dandelion field, he’s got a little mini-note he tacks to the fuselage. It’s not the 95 theses. It’s a notice of auction. He’s gonna sell my toy to the highest bidder.

I knew this was going to happen. At least I have a little time to get Han, Luke and the rest of the rebels out before the ship goes on the block. My pirate girl offers to let me keep my toys on her Weeble ship to, and I call some friends from school to help me move them there.

That brings us to last Friday. Last Friday Dad called me and said “Send me twenty pages about why I should let you keep your falcon, and I’ll see what I can do. I wanted to hit him with the Falcon one more time, but the pirate girl said, “No, don’t. Send him the twenty pages.”

So I did. I’ve completed the packing, and Dad’s pushed the auction date back to March 15^th.We’ll see what happens.

That’s my situation in a chocolaty metaphor shell. Everything I own is packed up and waiting, just in case I need to move. Everything except this book I found, “Expressing life through allegory.” Maybe I can find a use for that…

Love Me!

It’s Valentines Day! Did you get your valentine something special? If you say, “I don’t have a valentine,” slap yourself twice before continuing with this blog.

No, I’m not kidding. Do it.

I can wait all day.

Okay, now harder.

Once more, with feeling.

Okay, that’s better. Here’s the thing. Just because you don’t have some lovelorn fool salivating over your every hip-shimmy, doesn’t mean you don’t have a valentine. First and foremost, you have yourself. That’s right. Now give your valentine a big hug.

No, I’m not kidding. Do it.

I can wait all day.

Okay, now harder.

Once more, with feeling.

Thank you. Now since it’s Valentines Day, I suppose I could tell you all about what I’m doing for the Pirate Queen, and carry about it for a blog self-indulgent “look at me the cool blogger” kind of way. I could, but I won’t. See, I don’t want you to feel like I’m rubbing her in your face. I mean that’s kind of weird, and she’s not into the whole, rubby-rubby thing anyway. So forget it, even if that is what you want.

Some love is private.

So what’s left to talk about on V-Day? Well, we could sip and spin our traditional Kool-Aid cooler topics. Did you watch the Grammy’s? What about that Lady Gaga? What did you make of that pointy-shoulder prosthetic production? Kinda odd, huh? Still, that was her point. Speaking Valentine’s Day language, she’s saying “love me, cuz I was born this way.” Ok, well that’s not really true. I mean, it is what she said, but the fine lady was born a normal coo-coo goo-goo baby. She calculated her evolution into the crazy Gaga icon we see today.

“Look at me and love me! Talk about me! Talk about my egg!”

The PQ and I talk about her eggs, but we don’t put them on the stage for all to see. The intimacy of privacy adds legitimacy to our love. Gaga fans, don’t get me wrong; we all have a closet gaga. Well, I did, but the PQ threw mine out, along with my closet Stevie Nicks. Okay, she didn’t throw out Stevie. She just untied her from the chair and let her go.

“I’m sorry Miss Nicks, Rob isn’t really good at expressing love.

The PQ says there’s only room for one love in our house—and two cats. Our cats would love Gaga. They like anything they can play with. They can’t play with lady Gaga, but I’m sure they’d love to. See Gaga screams, “love me!” but you need to do it from afar. As a public figure, her private time is for self-love.

That’s fine. Don’t get me wrong oh Gaga-ites. She’s ”Born This Way.” I get it. It’s a nice song, and even if we’ve heard the message before (and it sounds uncommonly like Madonna’s “Express Yourself)”, I think it’s good message.

“Love me.”

Some people feel alone and unloved. I’ve felt that way before. It’s a bad place. Especially since we’re so blinded by the need to feel loved that we miss those reaching out with love. Sure, that last person who needs to worry about getting love is Lady Gaga. I’m sure she gets all forms of love in her mailbox every day.

“Uhm yeah, could you move that to the ‘rubber gloves only’ stack, please?”

We all deserve love, and on Valentine’s Day, and I think “Love Me” a great message. Let’s get it up on a billboard in bright letters and cram our love need down everybody’s throat. It’s better than all the plastic surgeon and divorce lawyer signs trying to cram themselves down my throat. Those signs are based in love insecurity.

“Who can love me?”

And if there’s something we Americans share in abundance, it’s insecurity. Maybe it’s the way we scream, “Love Me!” rather than whispering, “I love you.” Maybe that should be the next hit the next sincere artist. Not three-minutes about how cool I am that you’ve got to love me, but what about thirty seconds about how cool it is to share my love with you.

It is you know.

So if you’re reading my blog, thank you. I know that sometimes I come across as sarcastic and self-indulgent. That’s because I am. I’m a blogger. But, I love others too, and, yes, it’s a good and healthy love. So if you’re reading this blog, print it out, cut it in the shape of a little heart, and stick it to your fridge with that pizzeria magnet.

Me, I’m just a jobless blogger, but you, you’re loved.

Happy Valentine’s Day.