A Brief History of Time Well Spent

I haven't been very good about keeping in touch, I guess. I should fill you in, basically tell you what I've been up to since I moved to New York. Let's do it.

July -Aug. '05 - Moved to NY. Stayed with one friend for about a week, another for about a month. Found a place the night before the second friend was going to kick me out. It was not available until mid-October, so...

Sept-Oct. '05 - Went back to my parents. While in the DC area, produced a couple dozen tracks for popular R&B combo, the Christs.

Oct-Dec '05 - "Acclimated" myself to New York. Went through most of my car insurance settlement money.

Christmas '05 - March 1 '06 - Wrote the acclaimed, failed "novel", "Trouble is My Gun", living on a diet of toast, buying lottery scratchers with my one remaining credit card in an attempt to generate a little cash.

March-May '06 - Existential panic over whether my novel was any good. I'm not sure what I was doing for money. I must have found some somewhere.

Summer '06 - Unable to find work, decided to go back to college. The New School was the only local university that was still accepting applications. Around the same time, I noticed a new business being built around the corner, a doggy daycare center.

Sept '06 - Started school and a new job working graveyard shift in said doggy daycare center. This proved to be too much for me. My grades that first semester were: A, A-, D, F. Sections of my novel get amazing reaction in one writing class, tepid-at-best reaction in the other. Agent who asked to see it holds onto it for months then leaves job to galavant around Spain with Teemu, her Finnish boytoy. Doubt level high.

March '07 - Now taking just two courses so I could better focus on my dumb job, fired for, I suppose, insubordination. Probably other things, too. Get food poisoning the next day, shit the bed.

Summer '07 - Manuscript rejected by other agent, decision is made to put it on the shelf indefinitely while I begin work in earnest on hot new idea sure to be called a Neal Pollack/Scharpling & Wurster ripoff if it ever sees the light of day, which presumably it will not, because I am doomed to failure. Work halted when intensive summer schooling begins. At same time, asked to submit a mediocre sketch packet that will garner zero reaction to an acclaimed cable TV sketch show. Weeks wasted. I should put all that stuff up here, I guess, since it's not gonna be used anywhere else. Decide to pursue grad school in hopes of someday becoming a college professor, because I cannot think of anything better to do.

Christmas '07 - Jan 5 '08 Having narrowly missed out on straight 'A's for the first time since 4th grade, am now forced to throw myself into the grad school application process, begging and scrounging for recommendations, and just doing a generally shitty, rushed job. Jan 3 is due date for top choice school. Optimism level low. #2 school app due the day after. THings grim, but everything off. Today, Jan 5, was GRE day. I did no preparing, slept poorly the night before, did not have a chance to eat before the exam, and had a mid-grade cold. Still did well, because I am good at shit like that. At least, I think I did well. Im not sure what a good score is.

So that's where I'm at. Tomorrow I'm off to Maryland for a little r&r and what I hope will be an insignificant medical procedure (I'm gonna get turned back into a woman--these balls keep getting in the way. Am I right, fellas?). God knows after that. Only two courses next semester and I'm a college graduate. I could not care less, but at least I get a fancy piece of paper for all the money I'm gonna owe. Shit, and I've been living off the excess from my loans, too, and I'm down to about nothing. I'm kind of fucked, but that ain't news. I'll try not to let it affect this thing.

Speaking of which, a few upcoming treats are on their way, including:
Aforementioned shitty sketches!
A Christs video or two or three!
An idea I had tonight that would be totally groundbreaking were anyone to give a shit and might mean new life for this once robust website!
Extended absences, self-pitying meltdowns, and pleas for money!

Stay the fuck tuned.