Excuse Me, Sir?

Last week I didn’t write an article. I tried, but I just couldn’t make it happen. I had an idea about lambasting movies centered around a clearly retarded main character that no one will admit is retarded because it's an attractive female (i.e. Flashdance or Pretty Woman). Then I had an idea about making a list of my 10 favorite New York comics who aren't currently on comedycentral.com (Craig Baldo, Andres du Bouchet, Sean Crespo) but I had a hard time whittling that down, too. I tried to begin writing my opus on Hooper, but that's too big a project to tackle in a mad rush to post something, anything. In short, nothing worked.

One of the reasons I agreed to do the Friday column is so I could get myself back into the habit of writing. From about age 12 through college, I pretty much wrote every day. I always had a journal with me. I was constantly jotting down ideas, writing essays, horrible, horrible poetry…in retrospect it’s probably all crap, but it was work. And that’s all that mattered. I wrote a lot, I read a lot, I painted a lot. That was who I was.

Today, I’m still constantly working, but not as much on anything even approaching art. I layout PowerPoint presentations and publisher’s letters at my day job. I fix-up logos and flow copy into newsletters to make a little extra money. I futz about with HTML, CSS and XML code in an effort to make this Web site look and run better. There are brief moments of actual creative output within all of these activities, but when I look back on it, I don’t really see anything with any artistic weight to it. So I set some goals for myself recently. Obtainable goals. Write an article a week. Actively collaborate with other creative people. Put Drink at Work on the map. Produce a comedy show. Start making short films with the equipment that’s been gathering dust next to the Dyson vacuum cleaner in my closet. And slowly, tentatively, all of those things are beginning to happen.

And I’m so fucking tired. Right now I’m sitting in a diner on my lunch hour, hopped up on Tylenol Flu, trying to focus on sizing and color-correcting photos for the 20D blog, scheduling some work time with one of our other columnists, planning my evening of taking more photos at comedy and music shows, stressing over hearing back from a band for the Drink at Work show, and I’ve just realized that I can’t remember what I ordered for lunch. Grilled cheese? A salad? The falafel platter? All I want to do is curl up on the vinyl booth and fall asleep with a cushy pillow and a sip of water.

The waiter never brought my water. I’m suddenly in a Kids in the Hall sketch. “And I never got my water…” The waiter looks as stressed as I feel. Every time a customer asks for something he gets this sad, “what now?” look on his face. I smile at him when I ask if I can have my water with the split pea soup I apparently ordered.

I don’t mean to whine. I’m not unhappy. In fact, for the first time I really feel like I’m taking advantage of the fact that I live in New York. Aside from my day job, I want to be working on all of these projects. But the problem is, I’m not anything in particular. I’m not a comic, I’m not really a writer, I’m not really a Web master, I’m not really a photographer…I’m just this nice girl who works hard. But on what? And who really cares? I'm not even that nice.

Plus, my resentment of my well-paying and benefits-offering day job is beginning to disgust me. How hard is it to go into an office everyday and sit at a computer and do your job? It’s not hard at all. It's just...what's most apt...disenchanting. And I live for being enchanted. New York is enchanting. Great comedy is enchanting. A phenomenally good rock band that is about to be huge and they're just such nice guys you want to take them home with you and play cards is enchanting. Being in love is enchanting.

The meeting scheduler in Microsoft Outlook, conversely, is not.

I also ordered a fried fish sandwich. He left off the tartar sauce. Crap. Now I have to bother him again...I don't know if he'll be able to take it. He hates his job more than I do. At least I don't have to talk to people most of the time. But the waiter, he's got a section full of crabby people who just want toast and an egg cream because they ate breakfast at 10:30...why are you eating again then? He's probably got a student loan and an angry boss and snippy waitresses who, let's be honest, are a lot better at this than him. And he's got me, taking up room by myself at a table with a ridiculously large laptop that he's trying his best not to spill marinara into as he shimmies past...and I never got my water or my tartar sauce so he's sure he's not getting a tip.

Little does the waiter know, I'm not the sort of person who won't leave a tip. And I'll smile at him even though he put my fish sandwich on a crusty roll instead of the soft hamburger bun I now remember ordering. The fish is going crumble out onto my plate and lap and I'll still be hoping his day gets better. I'm too tired to not feel bad for him.

Spalding Gray wrote a novel called Impossible Vacation where he made the point that he was never quite where he wanted to be, and when he got where he wanted to be he found that he still wanted to be somewhere else. I wonder if that feeling is what eventually did him in. We can't live like we play chess. Sure you have to plan ahead, but you also have to be in the moment. If you're focusing entirely on what your next seven moves are you'll find yourself by game's end with an empty board and nothing but bad memories. I don't need a vacation. I need sleep. I need quiet. I need to be here now.

Crap...I need more water. This isn't going to end well.