Category Archives: writing

Apr 09 2009
2 Comments
writing

Circling In

I normally enjoy the walk in, although lately the weather is too cold in the morning and then slowly changes as I get closer to work to, “too hot to wear a jacket.”  It seems like this morning is particularly bad, as traffic does not want to let me cross and I’ve caught every single crosswalk as it counts down to the red hand.

I’m at one when I hear the question.

“How long did it take you to grow that hair, man?”

“Too long,” I answer, without thinking.

“Damn straight.”  He looks at my hair again.  “You Japanese?”

“Nope.”

“Hrm.  Chinese?”

“Nope.”

He goes through the list.  Each gets a negative response.  “Korean?  Thai?  Burmese?  Laotian?  Vietnamese?  Malay?  Mongolian?  Hmong?”  To be honest, I’m kind of impressed.  Yet, at the same time, kind of disappointed.

He pauses to think.  “Taiwanese?”

“Sorry.”

He pauses again, with a puzzled expression.

The walk signal changes and I step into the crosswalk.  “Filipino,” I say without turning my head.

Midway through the crosswalk I wonder if even that word was a fair description.

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Mar 27 2009
writing

The smallest thing

I remember very clearly.

It’s a colder spring day in 1996 and I’m shivering in my long wool coat.  Despite living in the District for three winters, I still haven’t learned to layer.

I look over to my girlfriend, and she’s occupied with driving.  She shifts matter of factly in the stop and go traffic on Rockville Pike.  It’s a slightly misty rainy sort of day and the intermittent wipe of the blades punctuates our conversation.  It’s about everything and nothing at all, the kind of conversation that two lovers have when they’re not entangled in each other.

We should be in class but we’re not.  We do this more often than we should.  Even though our grades don’t suffer, I know that every time we skip class, a part of us rips away.  A little bit more, every time, we step further and further away from being the perfect son or daughter that our parents want us to be.  But we don’t care.

It’s a long trip in the rush hour traffic, longer still because we ache to get to our destination.  We know what awaits us there.  We long to hold it in our hands, to be complete.

We arrive and we get out of the car.  I wait, in the rain, feeling small droplets through my too short hair.  She locks up the car, takes my hand and we walk through the doors together.

We walk slowly, window shopping at first, stopping at every counter to look at the tiny, expensive objects under glass.  Every now and again, I ask a salesperson to bring an item up from behind the counter.  She nods her approval or disapproval and we move on, taking great care to thank the salesperson each time.

Finally we stop at what feels like the last counter.  The final one for us.  The reason we came all the way out here, in the rain and through the traffic, together. Continue reading →

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Mar 22 2009
writing

Book versus Movie

I caught the Watchmen in IMAX which was great.

I felt like the combination of high definition digital projector, overpowering sound system (used judiciously) and good seating all came together with a very visual movie to push my experience over the top.  Now a lot of people disliked the movie and liked the movie.  It’s one of those polarizing events when people come down on one side or another.

I’m in the “enjoyed the movie” camp.  I thought the pacing was fine for a three hour movie, and it never felt long.  I did not have the same experience as I did when I watched the King Kong remake, where I felt like I was waiting for something to happen.

As far as being faithful to the source material or not, I never judge a movie based on its book.  Two forms of media use different methods to get the story across.  Watchmen the movie is not Watchmen the book.  To judge the merits of a movie by a book’s standards feels like an unsound method of reviewing something.  Having read the book several years ago, I felt that while I was familiar with the overall plot of the book, I was far enough away temporally to be surprised with how the movie would develop the characters and storyline.

That said, I felt that the movie stands on its own as an enjoyable experience.  I’m going to let my thoughts settle for a bit, then get around to rereading the book to refamiliarize myself with how the plot developed in that format.

Feb 13 2009
2 Comments
writing

ReTales: My favorite job

I loved answering the phone.

Which is probably why I didn’t get to do it very often.

I would clock in, and then ask the shift supervisor who the sponsor was this week.  Every week, a publishing house paid corporate money to have us push a game when we answered the phone.  I heard that corporate often “cold called” stores to make sure that they were pushing the right product.  I hated corporate, but I enjoyed what I was doing for one day a week.

So I decided to combine the two.

“So, who owns us this week?”  I ask as I finish clocking in.

“SEGA, Virtua Tennis, pre order for only five dollars, blah blah blah. You know the drill.”  Rob sounds bored, but then he always sounds bored.  “You got the phone today so don’t forget the sponsor.”

“Sure.”  The phone rings.  I pick it up, and take a deep breath.

“Hello!”  My voice booms through the too small space of the too crowded storefront.

“And thank you for calling EBGames!  Brought to you by SEGA!”  I make sure that they know that SEGA is all caps.

Customers begin to stare.  My face is contorted with manic enthusiasm for SEGA and Virtua Tennis.

“Located in the beautiful Pentagon City Mall in Arlington Virginia!  Come visit us today!”  I remember that we have a sponsor, and take another deep breath.

“Where you can preorder SEGA Virtua Tennis for only five dollars down!  This is John, how may I help you?!”

Rob stares.

No response from the phone.  I think I hear breathing, then an abrupt click.

“Hello?”  I shrug and hang up.  I turn to Rob.  “No one was there.”

“You know what ‘John,'” Rob says taking the phone from my hand,  “I think I’ll answer the phone today.”

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Feb 10 2009
writing

ReTales WhooooOOOoooh!

I have fond memories of retail, which is strange because retail is horrible, soul destroying work that exposes you to the very worst aspects of American culture and society.  I worked for a now defunct (but then major) video game retailer in one of the busiest malls on the yellow and blue lines on the DC metro.

Let me paint a background picture.

My store number is one seven six.  My identification number for logging into my register is seven seven seven three zero. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work, but it takes me 47 minutes to get home if I catch the train right as I leave work.  If you purchase a game for $49.99 it will ring up at $52.24 after Virginia taxes.

The empty boxes sitting on the shelves are “guts” which is short for gutted.  The game discs are sitting in a locked shelf behind me.  I have a key for that drawer, even though I’m not supposed to have one.  I still attempt to alphabetize the games on the walls, mainly because I’m the only one who knows how to alphabetize properly.  Lately it’s more of a losing battle as some of my coworkers and most of our customers feel that you alphabetize the word, “The.”

On a wall in the back room we have polaroids of banned customers.  There is a shrink wrap machine and a heat gun which I have never, ever used for personal purposes to return things as new to other stores.  In this room, the walls are hidden behind shelves which are filled with inventory.  Some of it leans towards the center of the room.

We are in an informal competition with the girls who run the Arden B. on the second floor.  Every day we try to close a little earlier than each other.  They are winning.

I know the bank girls on a first name basis, the tellers that give us our change.  On a slow day, we’ll have thousands of dollars in cash for deposit that evening.  On a good day, well, on a good day, the money is obscene.  My register is never “short.”

The uniform is khaki pants and a black company shirt, although I get away with wearing a short sleeve button down black shirt from Banana Republic and a name tag.  This is against company policy.

Also, my name tag does not have my real name on it.  This is also against company policy.

I help open the store at 9am, on Saturday mornings.  Counting the register and tidying up the store if the closers did a poor job.  Tuesday nights after my day job, I help on the register and generally do a poor job of closing the store.  Full Disclosure: I work Tuesday nights because that’s the day that new games are released.

I have some stories for you.

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