If someone should receive this gift, why not me?
- Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero
"Another Longwinded Comic Book Analogy"
You know how comic book writers usually conclude their run on a series with a big event that wraps up a lot of loose ends while shaking up the status quo, allowing whoever the next writer is to go in any direction they want with the title?
No?
Well you do now. Ha! Can I slip in the expository shit or what?
Anyhoozle, that's how I feel these days. Like the major storylines of my life have all dovetailed and been resolved. My character arc has been completed, and thus, the guy who's been writing my mundane little adventures for years has shuffled off to do other work... most likely a creator-owned series that he'll lose interest in somewhere in the middle of the first year, leaving that story unfinished while he goes off to write Green Lantern or something.
Meanwhile, the editor of my life is sifiting through pitches from a bunch of writers who want to take over my series. Some writers want to take in bold, new directions that will completely change the reader's understanding of who I am as a character, placing me in situations I'd never have imagined, while others want to focus on classic continuity, keeping my supporting cast pretty much intact, and bringing back old friends and foes we'd all forgotten about. The possibilities are endless. My editor's still not sure what to do...
So where does that leave me now? In that strange limbo a series sometimes takes between regular writers. You know what I'm talking about (or at least, you will in a second): Those three or four issues with odd guest writers. Sometimes it's some newbie writer who has an odd little "Clark tries to get a job selling ice cream" story that no one really gets, or it's one of my old writers, coming back for an issue in which they pick up subplots from back in the day when they were writing my series, like "Whatever happened to Karl Bloom?" or "Let's take Clark back to the old apartment from that story when Clark stayed in Columbia for the summer."
I feel like I'm getting tossed from odd situation to odd situation on a whim, waiting around for the next big thing.
"42 Hours in Columbia"
Somehow, I made it out of the basement, escaping Parking Lot duty, power, and responsibility (more on all that later) long enough to spend a couple of days back in good ol' CoMo.
I met some people, watched some movies, and received an awesome shock or two. I heard some people talking, and apparantly, it's about time to give some serious thought to what I'm going to do when I graduate. Apparantly, this whole Daredevil English Major thing is supposed to actually go somewhere. Who knew?
What am I going to do? I still don't know. But in keeping with the whole "saying you want to be a writer in college is like saying I want to be a rockstar," shit I've been saying for years, I guess it's time to play some gigs and get noticed or something.
Time to actually get to work...
"Clerks in a Parking Lot"
You know you're pretty far from home when you have to explain why you read Harry Potter.
The new job is going along swimmingly. I understand about half of what I'm told to do, I can answer about a fourth of the questions that I'm asked, and I have no idea why anyone would actually want to go to Worlds of Fun.
My boss has taken to putting me in Post 7, this tiny air conditioned booth where it's my job to make sure that no one parks next to the administration building unless they have a blue or gold parking tag, or they give me a good excuse... I don't think this guy realizes just how much of a push over I really am.
Mostly, I just sit at the booth, read, listen to music, and answer the phone when it rings. It's just like working the FARC front desk, only Mel's not there.
The annoying people I deal with now are a lot more tenacious than their FARC counterparts. For example, most of the people I had to talk to on Friday were Worlds of Fun employees who wanted to park near the administration building to pick up their pay check, rather than parking in the unpaved employee lot that's about five hundred feet farther away. Now at first, I was letting them through, until I got a call from my supervisor advising me not too. From that point on, it was a lot of me begging people to just park in J Lot while they claimed that their doctors had suggested they never walk again. Apparantly, Worlds of Fun only employs people who've just had knee surgery or have twisted an ankle. The highlight was the girl who made me call the office to beg on her behalf, when all I wanted to do was say "Look lady, I'm no doctor, but to be quite honest, I think a little walking might do your tubby ass a little good." So now I'm worried that I'm on the verge of becoming one of those pathetic little people with a little bit of power who gets off on making people jump through hoops.
I just wish my shorts weren't so damn tight. They leave nothing to the imagination.
Oh, and the people I work with aren't really worth talking to. Here's the conversation I had with one of my coworkers:
HIM: Who's the other black guy they hired?
ME: Uh... I think his names Jeffrey or Joseph or something. I don't really know him.
HIM: I think it's Joe. Do you think he can work a double tonight?
ME: I don't know. I don't really know him. Ask Todd. Todd's his friend.
HIM: When did Joe start working here?
It's like Clerks in a parking lot... only there's no Randall, so it's just me bitching a lot and saying "I'm not even supposed to be here today." Still, it' beats the living shit out of trying to drive an ice cream truck, so color me satisfied.
My sister let me borrow her X-Box and Spider-Man game. So that's what I've been up to other than work and the odd roadtrip. I left for Columbia two hours later than I'd planned because I just had to beat the Scorpion.
I've spent the last two days trying to beat the Green Goblin in our first bout. It's impossible. When it comes to the do-or-die, high stakes aerial battle, I can most definitely do, but when it comes to the ground-bound fisticuffs afterward, I just can't do it. It's like the wiry little bastard's hopped up on more Oz than L. Frank Baum in an underaged whorehouse, and I've got no support from Nick Fury or his fuckwit S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. And Harry Osborn is no where insight to make with the last minute save by stabbing daddy dearest in the back while his choking the fucking life out of me.
But hey, I suppose we all have our crosses to bear and dragons to slay, don't we?
Well... He's probably not going to beat himself to the edge of death...
- Spider-Man: Rock Reflections of a Superhero
"Another Longwinded Comic Book Analogy"
You know how comic book writers usually conclude their run on a series with a big event that wraps up a lot of loose ends while shaking up the status quo, allowing whoever the next writer is to go in any direction they want with the title?
No?
Well you do now. Ha! Can I slip in the expository shit or what?
Anyhoozle, that's how I feel these days. Like the major storylines of my life have all dovetailed and been resolved. My character arc has been completed, and thus, the guy who's been writing my mundane little adventures for years has shuffled off to do other work... most likely a creator-owned series that he'll lose interest in somewhere in the middle of the first year, leaving that story unfinished while he goes off to write Green Lantern or something.
Meanwhile, the editor of my life is sifiting through pitches from a bunch of writers who want to take over my series. Some writers want to take in bold, new directions that will completely change the reader's understanding of who I am as a character, placing me in situations I'd never have imagined, while others want to focus on classic continuity, keeping my supporting cast pretty much intact, and bringing back old friends and foes we'd all forgotten about. The possibilities are endless. My editor's still not sure what to do...
So where does that leave me now? In that strange limbo a series sometimes takes between regular writers. You know what I'm talking about (or at least, you will in a second): Those three or four issues with odd guest writers. Sometimes it's some newbie writer who has an odd little "Clark tries to get a job selling ice cream" story that no one really gets, or it's one of my old writers, coming back for an issue in which they pick up subplots from back in the day when they were writing my series, like "Whatever happened to Karl Bloom?" or "Let's take Clark back to the old apartment from that story when Clark stayed in Columbia for the summer."
I feel like I'm getting tossed from odd situation to odd situation on a whim, waiting around for the next big thing.
"42 Hours in Columbia"
Somehow, I made it out of the basement, escaping Parking Lot duty, power, and responsibility (more on all that later) long enough to spend a couple of days back in good ol' CoMo.
I met some people, watched some movies, and received an awesome shock or two. I heard some people talking, and apparantly, it's about time to give some serious thought to what I'm going to do when I graduate. Apparantly, this whole Daredevil English Major thing is supposed to actually go somewhere. Who knew?
What am I going to do? I still don't know. But in keeping with the whole "saying you want to be a writer in college is like saying I want to be a rockstar," shit I've been saying for years, I guess it's time to play some gigs and get noticed or something.
Time to actually get to work...
"Clerks in a Parking Lot"
You know you're pretty far from home when you have to explain why you read Harry Potter.
The new job is going along swimmingly. I understand about half of what I'm told to do, I can answer about a fourth of the questions that I'm asked, and I have no idea why anyone would actually want to go to Worlds of Fun.
My boss has taken to putting me in Post 7, this tiny air conditioned booth where it's my job to make sure that no one parks next to the administration building unless they have a blue or gold parking tag, or they give me a good excuse... I don't think this guy realizes just how much of a push over I really am.
Mostly, I just sit at the booth, read, listen to music, and answer the phone when it rings. It's just like working the FARC front desk, only Mel's not there.
The annoying people I deal with now are a lot more tenacious than their FARC counterparts. For example, most of the people I had to talk to on Friday were Worlds of Fun employees who wanted to park near the administration building to pick up their pay check, rather than parking in the unpaved employee lot that's about five hundred feet farther away. Now at first, I was letting them through, until I got a call from my supervisor advising me not too. From that point on, it was a lot of me begging people to just park in J Lot while they claimed that their doctors had suggested they never walk again. Apparantly, Worlds of Fun only employs people who've just had knee surgery or have twisted an ankle. The highlight was the girl who made me call the office to beg on her behalf, when all I wanted to do was say "Look lady, I'm no doctor, but to be quite honest, I think a little walking might do your tubby ass a little good." So now I'm worried that I'm on the verge of becoming one of those pathetic little people with a little bit of power who gets off on making people jump through hoops.
I just wish my shorts weren't so damn tight. They leave nothing to the imagination.
Oh, and the people I work with aren't really worth talking to. Here's the conversation I had with one of my coworkers:
HIM: Who's the other black guy they hired?
ME: Uh... I think his names Jeffrey or Joseph or something. I don't really know him.
HIM: I think it's Joe. Do you think he can work a double tonight?
ME: I don't know. I don't really know him. Ask Todd. Todd's his friend.
HIM: When did Joe start working here?
It's like Clerks in a parking lot... only there's no Randall, so it's just me bitching a lot and saying "I'm not even supposed to be here today." Still, it' beats the living shit out of trying to drive an ice cream truck, so color me satisfied.
My sister let me borrow her X-Box and Spider-Man game. So that's what I've been up to other than work and the odd roadtrip. I left for Columbia two hours later than I'd planned because I just had to beat the Scorpion.
I've spent the last two days trying to beat the Green Goblin in our first bout. It's impossible. When it comes to the do-or-die, high stakes aerial battle, I can most definitely do, but when it comes to the ground-bound fisticuffs afterward, I just can't do it. It's like the wiry little bastard's hopped up on more Oz than L. Frank Baum in an underaged whorehouse, and I've got no support from Nick Fury or his fuckwit S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. And Harry Osborn is no where insight to make with the last minute save by stabbing daddy dearest in the back while his choking the fucking life out of me.
But hey, I suppose we all have our crosses to bear and dragons to slay, don't we?
Well... He's probably not going to beat himself to the edge of death...
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