Not so much.

I am not cut out to be an entrepreneur.

A couple of weeks ago, I realized that I could make money by waiting in the Shakespeare-in-the-Park line for people who had to work. Since I am, at the moment, living literally a block away from Central Park, this week seemed perfect.

Not so much.

After advertising on Craig's List, I found a woman who wanted the tickets on Monday. So I went. It seemed like the responsible choice would be to go early, like 7ish. Since I had previously waited in the line starting at 8, going at 7 seemed perfect.

Not so much.

The line was long. Crazy long. 450 people in front of me at 7 in the morning (the tickets are given out at 1 PM). Needless to say I didn't get a ticket. And therefore did not get my $100 fee for sitting in the line. A day wasted. To my mind, it was pointless. Way too early to get there in order to be sure of a ticket. I was done.

Not so much.

Undaunted, the woman who wanted my tickets wrote to beg for another try on Thursday. Me, being a total sap, agreed to do it. I knew it would be even busier by Thursday, but I figured that I could get up early, just that one morning. Of course it would be easy to get tickets if I made it to the line by 5 AM!

Not so much.

This morning, after a night of inconveniently-timed insomnia, I leaped out of bed at 4:30 and walked the darkened streets into Central Park. Because you know what's not a good time to be wandering around Central Park by yourself? 5 AM. Fortunately, New York is full of lunatics, all of whom were in the Park that morning. I approached the line, only to see the vague, murmuring shapes of about 200 people moving about in the pre-dawn light. Yes, there were 200 people in line by 5 AM. Time to take comfort in the shared insanity and to hope that our insanity would yield tickets!

Not so much.

I settled down for the long wait. For once, I figured I was in a good position. Totally in the zone that always gets the tickets. Just had to pull the blanket over my head (pre-dawn Central Park seems to be full of mosquitoes -- who knew?) and wait it out.

Not so much.

At 7 AM, the line guy showed up. Instead of doing his usual "this is is the cut-off for definite tickets" spiel, he gave a new speech. For today, of all the days of the summer, was the corporate day. The day in which the entire spirit of free theater for the masses is subsumed by the greed of the corporate sponsor. In other words, there were virtually no tickets for the huddled masses. They were all going to those who paid for the privilege. Free theater?

Not so much.

I thought about leaving. It looked bad for my ticket chances, after all. But I had promised to try to get tickets for this woman! And I am way too true to my word for my own good. I would stick it out and hope for tickets.

Not so much.

Tired of just lying there being tired, I decided to check my e-mail (yay for the technology!). Upon opening said e-mail, I noticed a message. From my ticket buyer. Sent last night. Seems that gmail chose not to update at that time... And the gist of the message? She didn't need the tickets after all. And she hoped that my day would be better for it.

Not so much.

Choices. Do I stay and try to sell the tickets to someone else? Do I give up and accept my loss of sleep? Do I wait for tickets and then keep them for myself, despite having already seen this play twice? The befuddled pondering of but a moment brought about the answer. Was Shakespeare worth anymore of my time?

Not so much.

As I walked out of the now-daylit Park, I saw the forms of the many people hurrying in the direction of the ticket line. More fools who, like me, thought they had a chance.

Not so much.

Some people make the entrepreneur thing work.

Me? Not so much.

Twitter controls the universe. Be afraid.

My weekend is turning surreal. A few hours ago, I tweeted this:

"Life really needs to get on the ball and give me what I want. Because right now, not so much."

Since I had no particular 4th of July plans, I went to the ticket lottery for Hair. The lottery tickets are given out 2 hours before the show and are only $25 for incredible seats. So, they tend to be popular. And I never, ever win lotteries.

Except yesterday I did. And the show was great, just as good as it had been in Central Park last summer. Plus, we made it on to the stage for the audience-participation dance number this time! Cheesy maybe, but totally awesome (when else am I going to be on a Broadway stage?).

When my activities were done, I came back to my current housesitting/couch-surfing situation. I'm in an incredible studio apartment for the next week and a half. Right in the "best" part of the Upper West Side. Literally across the street from the Natural History Museum. One block from Central Park... The comfortable affluence of this neighborhood is amazing to me. Sucks that I only get to stay for a short time, but still.

And then today. I decided this morning to strike out entrepreneurially and advertised that I would wait for Shakespeare tickets in Central Park for money. Already have a possible taker for tomorrow...

But it's the e-mails from friends that are the surreal part.

First I get an e-mail from a friend asking if I would house-sit for her in the second week of August. Which could very well be the single best week for me to need housing all summer. Then, about an hour later, another friend wrote to ask if she could possibly pay me to live in her house and organize life stuff.Not sure if I can actually do any of this, but at the rate my luck is suddenly going, I should be offered a dream job by Monday afternoon!

All of this followed my twitter about how life had to get around to helping me out for a change. Does Twitter control the universe?

A Cautionary Tale

Tonight:
1 glass of wine = I love wine!
2 glasses of wine = I want to fall in love!
3 glasses of wine = I love everyone!
4 glasses of wine = I love my bed!
5 glasses of wine = Where's my bed?
6 glasses of wine = I love my bed and the person in it... Wait who is that? Is this my bed?
7 glasses of wine = I don't care, it's my bed now.
8 glasses of wine = I love my bed, but why does it need to spin?

Tomorrow:
1 glass of wine = I love wine!
2 glasses of wine = I want to drink wine again soon!
3 glasses of wine = I love a good night out!
4 glasses of wine = I love my bed -- I think I'll stay in it for awhile longer.
5 glasses of wine = Where's my aspirin?
6 glasses of wine = This is not my bed! And who the hell are you???
7 glasses of wine = I don't care, I'm staying in this bed. Forever.
8 glasses of wine = I hate my bed. And why is it still spinning?

Doldrums

Sometimes life is uninspiring.

Unfortunately for the blog.

Not the best way to start the day

As I moved into my friend's apartment yesterday, I noticed a sign by the elevator. According to this little sign, the water in the building would be turned off today between the hours of 9 AM and 1 PM. The pipes needed fixing or something. Annoying, yes, but understandable. I made plans to get up by 8:30 in order to squeeze in a shower while I could.

They shut the water off at 8:35.

I was in the shower. Covered with soap. Shampoo in my hair. Had to rinse with 2 partially-filled 1/2 liter bottle of water and some melted ice cubes.

Now my skin itches.

This does not seem like the best start to my new residence.

We should all stay put. Forever.

The move was about as good as can be expected. Which is not to say that it didn't suck. It did. It just didn't suck as much as it could have.

My day began at 7 AM, when my phone rang. My phone is not supposed to ring at 7 AM. Ever. 7 AM is sleeping time. Not phone call time. Anyway, the evil 7 AM wake-up call was from the moving company. The way-too-chipper voice on the line informed me that they'd had a cancellation and would now be arriving at some point between 8:30 and 9. Instead of between 10 and 2.

Needless to say, I bounded (actually, staggered) out of bed. After blocking my roommate's attempts to get in the shower before me (she was only starting a new job today -- so not important!), I frantically ran around the apartment packing up the last few things. I didn't actually manage to tape the boxes shut before the movers arrived. But I had a lot of other boxes to keep them occupied, so it was OK.

Then they moved stuff. And I kind of sat around awkwardly and watched. It's amazing how fast an apartment can be emptied when three men are doing the work.

After about 45 minutes, the head mover guy told me they were done and that I should meet them at the storage place. As I had thought that my moving price included a ride to the storage facility, the apparent need to get a cab was a little annoying, but whatever.

I got a cab. I arrived at the address. I spent about 5 minutes looking for the storage facility all over the place before I realized it was the big building with no signs. And I mean NO signs. Not even at the desk inside. I only realized it was the right place when I saw a box with the company logo on the desk.

The storage rental went as swimmingly as such things go. And the movers actually arrived, thereby denying my paranoid fantasies about everything I own disappearing, never to be seen again. And it all fit in the storage unit! Granted, if I ever try to take anything out of the storage unit, it'll be kind of like the end of a Jenga game.

I then walked back to my soon-to-be-former apartment. It was two miles, but I figured a) it was a nice day, b) I had some time, and c) there are NO cabs in East Harlem anyway.
Back at the apartment, I had to move my summer stuff over to my friend's place and then sweep out the mounds (literally, mounds) of dust that had accumulated under my furniture. Before I could do this, however, the new tenant's mother showed up. Because who can move in to a new home without mommy's help? Or something.

The upside of this arrival was that I didn't have to clean, as mommy dearest came prepared to wage war on all vermin that might harm her precious young one. So I spent my time hauling far too much stuff to the next building and my temporary home. I need all this crap why exactly???
Then it was done. And only after 7 hours! But at least I am moved.

For now.

Ode to a Casualty of the Move

Wow, the end of an era.

Today, after 6 years, I finally took down my "Free Ballard" bumper sticker. Also today, Archie McPhee's, that wonderfully insane store wherein I purchased the bumper sticker, moved its location from Ballard to Wallingford.

I've had it hanging on my bedroom door ever since I moved to New York City in the fall of 2003. For all that time, it's been there, reminding me of Archie McPhee's all the way back in Ballard. For all that time, I've had the pleasure of trying to explain the sticker's meaning to the foolish New Yorkers who just don't understand. For all that time, it's brought a smile to my face, knowing that I was helping to fight the silly fight.

Unfortunately, I now must leave this apartment, so the "Free Ballard" sticker came down. But I can at least take solace in the fact that I gave up the fight for a liberated Ballard on the same day that Archie McPhee fled for new environs.

Sorry Ballard!

You know you're too sensitive when...

Coming home this evening, I found myself once again on the crowded and odorous 1 train. Although I hate to diminish the wonders of that fast-moving tube, I have to admit I was playing my iPod in an attempt to drown out the surrounding reality.

The man who sat down next to me was doing a better job at the reality denial.

He walked over, deep in conversation. Apparently with himself. Or possibly with someone else of the invisible persuasion. Then he sat down next to me, kind of close. But, hey, it's the subway! Where it's socially acceptable to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the sanity-questionable.

After a couple of minutes, he may have said something to me. Not sure, of course, because a) I was listening to my iPod and trying to ignore everything around me, and b) he had been conversing steadily with the air for several minutes at this point.

It seemed, however, that my non-reaction did not sit well with him. He paused and seemed to look a little sad or maybe angry. Then he abruptly got up and moved to the other side of the train, smiling and agreeing with himself that this move was for the best.

After a minute, all seemed to be right again in his not-right world.

I, on the other hand, kind of felt hurt that he'd rejected me.

Things suck.

You know what sucks? Moving.
You know what else sucks? Unemployment.
You know what else sucks? The cable company.
You know what else sucks? Humidity.
You know what else sucks? Not hearing back from an interview.
You know what else sucks? Having to mooch off my increasingly broke parents.

This is one of those times that is supposed to build character. Character is over-rated.

Shopping is cool though. When I was forced to travel to the upper tip of Manhattan (literally -- I walked into the Bronx to get the train home) in order to get a form to transfer our cable service to my roommate, I actually SAW the New York Target store! It looked very pretty.

I'll have to go back there someday when I have this mysterious and out-of-reach thing known as a "home."

Until then, back to the packing. Storage unit, here I come!

There's only so much writing you can do in a day...

Tonight, I answered e-mails. About a month's worth. Or maybe 6 weeks. It's hard to tell. So I think I'm written out. So sad... The creative forces wasted, just wasted!, on the rote replies to dozens of messages.

Not that I actually replied to most. Mostly I just hit delete.

Yes, I am a bad person.

An Ode to My Love

Tonight, I knew you had to be mine.

We've been apart for so long, but you were never far from my thoughts. Yes, I have tried to replace you, seeking out poor substitutions for your goodness, your sweetness. They were a comfort, I admit it. Those others briefly satisfied my craving, but it was never more than a bittersweet moment in time. They lacked your substance, and my satisfaction could never remain long. Some were too sweet, making me crave your subtlety all the more. Others simply lacked some ingredient, that one key component that makes you my everything. A few did nothing more than leave a bad taste in my mouth.

Through it all, you were the one I sought. But you were not to be found out in the world! No, that world is only full of cheap, commercial imitations. They try to be what you are, but they fail. How could they succeed? You cannot be bought, as they are! You are not for the masses, all of whom yearn for you but few of whom truly know you!

All this time, you were waiting for me. You knew I would come for you. That, someday, the pieces would all fall together, that I would stand at the ready. The ingredients were all there, I just had to gather them. In the end, it was not you that stayed away -- it was me! I did not think myself ready for you. You always seemed too much for me, it's true. I worried that, should I finally get you to myself, I would simply devour you whole, a devouring that would ultimately destroy me. I thought that you were not good for me. I believed the lies of others -- I did! -- which claimed that you were unhealthy and that I should seek another.

But tonight, all that changed. I took a chance. And we came together in beautiful, undying passion. When you touched my lips, I forgot the lies, the hesitation. It was our time.

This time together may be fleeting. And perhaps that is for the best. For I know that you must, in the end, leave me. But know that I will be thinking about you, dreaming of the next time when we two shall meet! Let us enjoy our time together, savoring each taste as though it were the last. And when our union is but a fading memory, even then your sweetness shall remain.

For now, we will enjoy our love. It is indeed time for another brownie.

Who knew?

So I was just pouring myself a bowl of All Bran for breakfast (yes, I eat All Bran. It tastes good. Shut up!) and noticed that there was a $1-off coupon on the back of the box. The good people at All Bran advised me to look for the advertised fiber bars in the "Fiber Supplement Aisle!"

There's a Fiber Supplement Aisle?

Why won't they just give me money?

Applying for jobs is hard. And boring.

Work should not be hard and boring. It can be hard, that's fine. That's challenging, exciting even! Work can also be boring. That is, unfortunately, the nature of work.

But hard and boring? That's just not right. Especially when the work in question is only trying to get work. There seems to be something wrong with this system.

The whole thing is especially irritating right now. Because it's not like there are actual jobs out there. Oh, there are job announcements! A few of them, anyway. I am not, however, convinced that any of these announcements are attached to actual jobs. Instead, my theory is that they are decoys, meant to lure the unsuspecting job-seeker into a state of false hope. Then, when the job-seeker is disheartened by his/her evident failure to measure up to any employment standards, the writers of the job announcements attack!

Yes! They attack! Suddenly, the job seeker sees new job announcements. These newly-announced jobs are similar to the old ones... But wait! The salary offers have dropped. And what's this about longer hours? More boring work? "Oh well," the disheartened job-seeker thinks to his/her lonely self. "What do I have to lose?"

And the cycle begins again. Ending only with highly-educated and highly-motivated persons prostrating themselves before the counter at an Auntie Anne's Pretzels, begging for a job, any job.

But they will no longer be hiring. And somewhere, in the distance, the malevolent gods of the unemployment world are heard to laugh.

End of an era

So they're going to let me escape the academic prison. With a degree, no less!

The fools...

Blog guilt

I should blog tonight.

But I don't want to.

So there.

When hipsters congregate...

The venue, a converted church. On the stage, a pair of overly-earnest music students taking down the classics with piano and violin. The crowd, hipsters of all sorts (both), waiting inattentively for the arrival of the main act and the subsequent banishment of these cultured types. They shift. They whisper. They escape to the lobby for the requisite drinks. A few especially rude souls commence with the blogging via their hipster phones.

The classical girls finish! Massive applause for the end! But wait, it's only the beginning. One unidentifiable song bleeds into another as the IT workers and waitresses-but-really-I-act begin to resemble more and more the pre-schoolers they are at heart. As the "adult" standing to the side shakes his head in disgust, the hipsters save seats for their friends and slurp over-priced cocktails through straws.

More applause. It sounds sincere, if you don't notice the faces. Not a smile to be seen, except on the faces of the people whispering to their friends.

How long until the hipster singer-songwriter takes the stage? How much more of this actual culture must we put up with before the arrival of the culture we accept? Why do we need this? How many of us will feel validated tomorrow, telling our friends about the formerly-religious venue? The quirky and oh-so-cool mixing of classical and rock IN ONE EVENT?

And how many will just be hungover?

Cats

They're out to get us, you know.

My rubber ducky disapproves.

Sometimes it's weird to think that the whole world isn't in my head. I don't mean that in a sociopathic, "only I exist" kind of way. It just surprises me sometimes when I surprise anyone. I mean, it should be obvious? It was all obvious to me!

But if I could remember that you're all not in my head, I'd probably be less surprised by the people who don't make sense. There are so many of them!

It's sad to think that I'll probably never understand them. Most of them, I won't ever even know.

Think about it! A whole world of people that I will never know. Plus all the people who used to live in the world. I'll never know them either.

We're all missing so much of each other.

But maybe someday there will be a party! Even if it's just in my head.

Is it time to stop crying now?

Sometimes life is hard. Really, really, really hard. I don't like that. Not one bit.

People say that it's the hard times that create character, that make you what you are. Whatever. I would be willing to be a characterless blob, if it meant that I didn't have to deal with the crap that life likes to throw at you.

And the really horrible part? Things aren't that bad right now.

I've got my health. The people in my life are more or less OK. I'm about to finish my seemingly neverending education. I've been successful. Some people think I'm smart.

But man it's tough.

For one thing, my life is changing. No more school. Back out into that "real world" place people keep talking about. And, suddenly, there's just not very much in that real world. There used to be jobs. Money! Now, there only seem to be a lot of people looking for those things.

Am I going to be one of them? How do I do that exactly?

I have to face the ramifications of 6 years in grad school now. Will anyone ever see me as a prospective hire? Will the PhD label make me an undesirable? I've heard that happens. Even if I do get hired by someone, somewhere, will I be able to pay off that debt? Because it's awfully monstrous at the moment.

These are problems. Tough problems. Problems that are not helped by that dissertation that still hangs over my head.

Still, it's not the problems that are the only problem. The really tough part about these hard times is that my supports have been disappearing on me.

Don't get me wrong. I still have family. I still have friends. The missing supports are not those old standbys. Instead, they're my silly internet supports. My favorite band. The message board that's been my virtual home for almost 3 years now.

The band went and broke up a few weeks back. I suppose technically they didn't "break up" in the classic sense. But the lead singer left, and now the band is different. They might be good, but they're not what I've been relying on for entertainment.

This is hardly the end of the world. It's just that I suddenly don't have concerts to look forward to. It's that I always have an underlying feeling of dread when I look them up on the web now. It's that I sometimes stay away from fan message boards, not wanting to read about what's happened.

And then there are those message boards. One in particular. Technically, a fan board too. But really, it's more like a place for friends. A place where I could always be sure of a laugh. A place where I could find people who liked me, people who admired me, and people who I liked and admired in turn.

This morning, however, it was gone. Suddenly. No warning. Just gone. Probably for good. Everything that we had there is gone. All those friends, all those laughs, gone. Not for any good reason, either. Just gone.

I can be angry. I have people to blame. I can be proactive about this -- helping to set up a new board, contacting those responsible, moving on with my life. I can do all of these things.

But mostly, I just want to stop crying.

Thoughts on Exhaustion

I should go to bed now.

An Open Letter to Those Who Should Hire Me

When applying for a job, conventional wisdom has it that one must write a kick-ass cover letter, should one actually want to get hired. This is especially important for people, like myself, whose resumes do not immediately indicate how they might be qualified or why they'd even want the job.

So I need to write a cover letter. What follows is the cover letter I want to write. I doubt it's the cover letter I will write, since one must follow convention, even when one is, by applying to that job in the first place, punching convention in the face. Thus, this particular cover letter will remain here, in its virtual home, in the vain hope that someone with a job might stumble across it and take pity on the poor fool who wrote it.

It could happen, right? Sure... Anyway, the letter.


March 11, 2009
Dear Really Important Hiring Person at the Coolest TV Show on the Planet,

HIRE ME!!!

Please, please, please, please, please, please, please! Pretty please! With cream and sugar on top! Please, I beg of you! Don't let my lofty dreams crumble into dust!

What do I bring to the table of your show? Creativity! Dedication! Loads of skills! Punctuality! Enthusiasm! (Unless that irritates you, in which case I can totally tone it down. Just delete all those exclamations and we're good.)

Thing is, you should hire me. Yes, I have a skill-set not immediately applicable to the television industry. Yes, that skill-set indicates that, even if it were applicable to the television industry, I'd be way over-qualified.

But it's not. And I'm not.

I could totally do the television thing. All of that serious historical research into medieval Arabic texts and the star knowledge of Tunisian fisherman? Transferable! Just substitute "your show's production needs" for "medieval Arabic texts." And "applicable background research" for "star knowledge." And "awesome producer-types" for "Tunisian fishermen." Oh, and drop the "historical" altogether, OK? It could work!

As for the over-qualified thing, I'm not. I'm so not. Seriously not. I mean, I've been a grad student for the past 6 years. Before that, I was in the Peace Corps. We're talking glorified slave-labor here. How would that over-qualify me for anything? And, if we're going to be honest, I'd do pretty much anything to work on your show. Get coffee. Run photocopies. Shine your shoes (actually this last one isn't such a good idea -- I'm guessing that the tragic, yet hilarious, mishap that would befall your shoes within mere seconds of me being handed the polish would result in my termination). What I'm saying here is that you really don't have a job that's beneath me.

So hire me, OK? Like now. Or soon. Because I need a job. And you need me. Honestly.

In Desperation,
Laurel Brown

Why I Will Be Unemployed Until the End of Time

I set up my very first informational interview about trying to get a job writing for TV today.

I had planned to wear my black slacks, because otherwise I pretty much have jeans. So of course the pants were wrinkled. Which I figured out AFTER I put them on and was about to walk out the door. I hastily ripped them off and attempted to iron the stupid things. On the floor. Which I haven't swept in roughly 18 million months. Thus, after I ironed the pants, I had to lint-roll them. Lint-rolling reintroduced wrinkles. But I was so late at this point that I put on the pants and my shoes to go.

So, my shoes. I noticed yesterday that my normal shoes were starting to look a little scuffed. Fortunately, I had another pair of shoes that looked to be in better shape. At least they looked in better shape in the flourescent lighting of my bedroom. Out in the light of day, I was dismayed to find them equally scuffed. If not more so. Plus, these particular shoes highlighted the fact that my nice black pants had apparently shrunk a bit in the wash. Where once they had reached the tops of my shoes, they now stopped just above the ankles.

But, like I said, I was late. So I went with it.

I couldn't even go directly to the coffee shop wherein this interview was to take place. Oh no, that would be too easy! Actually, it wouldn't be easy at all, since I had no money. The bank, where the money is, was five minutes out of the way. Since I was already five minutes late, this added a fun new dimension to my day! Fortunately, for the first time in the history of the universe, my beloved WaMu cash machine ACTUALLY HAD CASH ON A SUNDAY. Seriously, this has never happened before. I was fully expecting to have to go to another bank and suck up the many dollars of extra charges they would impose on poor little me. But something worked out! Yay!

Eventually, I arrived at the coffee shop in question. And it was only a block away from the address I gave my interviewee! (Never, ever trust Mapquest when giving directions to important people) At least I had gotten the name of the coffee shop right...

Since I was a little late at this point, I figured my interviewee might be inside. He wasn't. But approximately 4/5 of the population of the Upper West Side were in there instead. Took me three minutes to even get in the door to ascertain that not only were there no tables, there would probably not be any tables available before about 3 PM the next day.

I went back outside, where I realized that I might not actually recognize my interviewee. I then spent a fun 15 minutes staring intently at every male between the ages of 18 and 50 who had the misfortune of walking past. My interviewee was none of these men. He was instead, at that time, stuck on a dead train. It's the weekend, after all, so who needs public transportation to actually transport?

Thanks to the wonders of mobile phone technology, I did soon learn about the dead train and its deletorious effects on my meeting schedule. Yay for being a grad student who rarely has to be anywhere else -- I could wait some more!

While I waited, a colleague from my department spotted me from the sea of occupied tables and offered me a seat. Upon my news that I was waiting for someone, he shared some news of his own: he'd found a job. Kind of the ideal professor job -- teaching in his field, in a tenure-track position, at freakin' McGill University. Despite my desperate not-wanting to be a professor, I had to restrain myself from throttling the lucky bastard. I went with congratulations instead.

My interviewee, despite the best efforts of the New York City Metropolitan Transit Authority, did eventually show up. He did not seem particularly impressed with my choice of a coffee shop. Probably because he preferred establishments with enough room to actually sit. Some people are just so picky...

We decided to leave the shop that we could not enter. The interviewee indicated at this point that he hadn't actually taken nourishment (probably due to his unexpected confinement under the streets of New York) that day and would greatly appreciate a restaurant that had food.
You'd think that wouldn't be a problem. This is Manhattan, after all! There's a restaurant approximately every five feet! Except that apparently the restaurants in this neighborhood don't serve food between 3 and 5 PM on Sundays. Just for the hell of it, I guess, since the restaurant we tried was at least 3/4 full, despite having no food.

They suggested the coffee shop/swanky bar two doors down. I'd been there before, but only for pretentious and overpriced late-night drinks. But I knew they had coffee and brunch during the day. Brunch food worked for my interviewee, who expressed an interest in French toast. We even found seats after about five minutes of being ignored by the Worst Waiter Ever.

Granted, our seats were under the DJ. Seriously. UNDER the DJ. Because what self-respecting coffee shop doesn't have a DJ? The DJ in question was of course having a shouted conversation with another guy, who was standing next to us.

No matter. On to the interview! In which I was pretty much informed that I was totally not on the right path to become a successful writer in television. And that, if I were extremely lucky, I might just get a job as a production assistant, where I could fetch coffee and suck up in the desperate hope that a higher-up might take pity on me and consider my existence to be worthwhile.

Whatever.

Our food came! Well, my interviewee's food came. As did my chai. Now, I mentioned before that my interviewee wanted French toast. He found French toast on the menu. He ordered French toast. He got... ummmm... Something that resembled a chopped up and reformed muffin, with a pat of butter placed in its center. Drowned in a white sauce with black specks. Plus two artful dabs of a red gelatinous globs on the side.

This food-substance was placed on our table without a word from the Worst Waiter Ever. When we asked him what the food was, he condescended to inform us that it was the French toast. My interviewee requested some syrup. Actual quote from the Worst Waiter Ever: "We don't have syrup here."

Since he was feeling akin to a famine victim at this point, my interviewee proceeded to eat the food-substance, even having a go at the gelatinous red globs, once we had agreed that they were probably jam. The interview proceeded apace, with me learning that my interviewee had actually met this one person who one time actually managed to work their way up to being a writer after years and years of work at their production. (As far as I could tell, the other writers had sprung fully-formed from the head of Zeus.)

After about 45 minutes, we decided that we'd had enough of loudly-conversing DJs, gelatinous red globs, and my inane interview questions. Only about a dozen attempts were required to wave down the Worst Waiter Ever, who eventually brought the check, stopping only to give change to a homeless woman on his way to our table.

For your future dining reference, the food-substance with gelatinous red blobs costs $11.50. Plus the pre-added tip for the Worst Waiter Ever.

My interviewee and I said good-bye on amicable terms, despite his being ruined for all French toast in the future. He even said I could e-mail any further questions (presumably this was to stop me from ever suggesting more meetings in coffee shops).

He left to attempt a successful return trip on the subway. I left to walk home and ponder whether or not this afternoon foreshadowed a certain level of catastrophic failure in my career plans.

Then it started to rain.