no gnomes were harmed in writing this post

some forgotten stuff from sxsw: ok, just found some notes i had made during sxsw that i forgot to put in my previous post. mostly about the jacked-up beer prices. i can't say much about the places i don't frequent ($3.50 lonestar tallboys at red-eyed fly, $4 lonestar bottles at dirty dog bar), but i was a little upset with the $3 lonestar at beerland. and chain drive totally beer teased me because they had normal prices on the first day of sxsw ($1.75 lonestar), but the next day, upped the price to $3! i still remember when i walked in that thursday, the bartender saw me, and the first thing he said was "ok, don't hate us, but ...". i still drank the lonestar.

other observations:

• so, so many hot, tattooed men. i think i got whiplash from all my inappropriate staring.
• so many iPhones. so many thoughts of murder.
• it was nice to see so many older folks out. as my friend carrie said, it was nice to see that not everyone was "young and smooth".
• when i went to see the breeders play at klru, the only couple in there with a kid sat right next to me. of fucking course.

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hipster or homo, or how i learned to be more bitter: at the beginning of march, i went to see the diving bell and the butterfly (note to self: must read book now). as per usual, i got there about 15 minutes early. they weren't seating yet, so i had a slice of pizza and a cig. while out for my cig, i noticed two hipster-looking guys walking in and going straight to the convenience store at the dobie. when i walked back inside, i noticed the cute one was holding a six-pack of lonestar.

now, thankfully, gawker had that day published a little mockish list of how to tell the difference between hispters and homos (hipsters are the new confusing sexuality, taking the reins from those awfully tweezed, label whores that were metrosexuality [or as was originally termed on sex and the city as the gay straight man]). when i saw these two, that's what ran through my head: hipster or homo? as i mentioned, one of them was really rather fetch. the other, well, he reminded me too much of the last guy at the party in say anything. it made me feel sad for him, but then i got over it by thinking of making out with the cute one.

anyway. they went to the diving bell as well. they veered toward homosexual by not having the almost requisite straight guy extra seat between them.

i stopped paying attention for a while because the movie was so great; beautiful and depressing, just the way i like my men. at a rather moving part, which was obviously leading up to a critical point, i noticed the say anything-ish hipster rubbing the head of the cute one. took all the guess work out of it.

but then i got mad at myself, because this pda was making me feel like a bitter singleman. mostly because, well, rubbing a guy's head is one of my favorite things, and vice versa. it's a comforting feeling. it was enough to trigger me missing that feeling and getting bitter that this average looking fellow was able to rub the head of this attractive fellow whom he was obviously together with. bah. i was able to get back into the movie, but i had that nagging bitter in the back of my mind, waiting to explode into writing.

i can't remember where else i was going with this (note to self: start caring around a pad and pen so you can better record your bitter thoughts).

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encrypted: i really hate it when people say they're an open book. it doesn't really make sense to me. i mean, so what? what if the book is in french, and you don't know how to read french? a random stranger going up and reading said open book wouldn't understand it. where does that saying come from, anyway? it also, to me at least, seems like book means a phone book or something to that effect. because anyone could understand reading an open phone book. because a phone book gives you readily available information.

personally, i'm not an open book. i'm more of a lock and key diary. since i don't just open up to anyone. although you could say this blog kinda contradicts that belief.

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lost in english: this is a precursor to the next tale. one of the things i've found funny about the first ad agency i worked for is how every single person got it wrong concerning how i felt about doing traffic/work management. when i first started working there, i got grilled repeatedly about whether i wanted to do any writing. i repeatedly said no, that i just wanted to proof/edit. but, you know, things change. not necessarily with the writing part, but with doing stuff other than proofing/editing. like when this one hellish project sprang it's hydra-ish heads, i stepped up and took some traffic work off my supervisor sindhi's back, because by then she and i had developed a very good working relationship, and i hated to see her stressed out and overworked when i was just sitting there doing nothing and traffic does fall under my skill set. and from then on until the day i gave my two-weeks' notice, i was always doing some traffic work. and i enjoyed it. it filled up my free time, which i had a lot of. it got to the point where my weeks were 50% proofing/editing/QA, 40% traffic, 10% free time, which i enjoyed much more to my usual 40% proofinf/editing/QA and 60% free time. and if it weren't for the traffic work, i wouldn't have learned more about the actual work. it helped me become more well-rounded at my job.

but ... it irked me that every one just assumed that i hated doing all traffic work. it's completely the opposite.

what irked me is that no one bothered to ask me if i wanted to take on the traffic work in a more permanent way. when a woman from IT was brought over to our department to be the interactive traffic manager, i was pissed off. and it ended up being a really, really horrible move because my supervisor and i ended up doing all the interactive traffic. if i had just been asked if i would've liked the position since i was already doing it, all the strife this new person caused, well, wouldn't have happened.

when my supervisor put in her two weeks' notice, the first thing my boss told me was that i wasn't going to be required to do her traffic work and that they were going to try and take all traffic work away from me. and i remember feeling like i was being punished. the traffic work is what kept me sane. and it kept the account services gals sane because i knew what i was doing, as opposed to the people who succeeded myself and my supervisor.

and this overlooking and lack of asking me how i felt about doing traffic is one of the main reasons i quit. i felt like i was never being given the ability to advance at all at the agency. like i was always going to be just the proofreader (even though my title had been changed to editor for my last seven months there, i was still called "the proofer"). and i didn't want that. sure, that's what i wanted when i first started there, but people can change their minds, you know. and this leads into the next little story ...

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headhunted: the week before sxsw, i received an e-mail from a former co-worker from the agency mentioned above, said former co-worker being the daughter of one of the CEOs. essentially, she was tasked with trying to headhunt me to go back to work there. it was ... weird, to say the least, after i got over the initial "whoa, i'm being headhunted. this is awesome?" so she and i played e-mail tag for two weeks, then things got turned over to hr, and i played phone and e-mail tag with her for two weeks.

again, the funny thing about both of these women is that they both said "we know how much you hated doing traffic, so if you do come back, you wouldn't have to worry about doing it."

so we came to some certain agreements, and now i'm going back on a three-month contract, starting on the day after the anniversary of when i gave my two-weeks' notice.

now, i have two very distinct feelings about going back. one, i'm really bothered about the fact that they've gone and hired me back behind their current proofreader's back. it gives me bad flashbacks of when i worked for the seguin newspaper and found out a couple of days before i quit that they were looking for a replacement for me. i'm not too bothered about it, however, because from everything i've heard about this guy, he was never really a good fit for the work, but it amazes me that they waited a year to try and find a replacement for him. that's what they get for hiring someone two weeks after i quit. you don't get a quality candidate that fast.

secondly, i'm really nervous about going back. not because of the whole "is this a huge step back for me" thing, or the whole "will i fit back in" thing; i'm really nervous that i'm going to go back and enjoy working there. it's a silly thing to worry about, but i tend to worry about silly, stupid things.

the thing is, i'm really at the point where i'm wondering what the hell i want to do with my life. yeah, i'm good at pointing out errors in copy and shit, but i don't want to do that for the rest of my life. while i'm good at it, it's not my lifeblood. i don't wake up in the morning (or in my case, afternoon) and go "yeah, another day of copy editing! fuck yeah!" i just, i'm not sure what i want to do. like i've said recently, my delivery job has kind of re-invigorated my writing side. and i think i want to write. but i've never been particularly good at it, and i'm not the most creative person in the world, but i think that's the direction i want to go. and no, i don't mean copywriting; the last thing i'd ever want to do is actually write for an ad agency. i shudder at the thought. i mean, i don't know, fiction or non-fiction. short stories or books. maybe a play or a movie or a tv show.

bah. i hate thinking about the future.