C'est Non Un Blog

This morning I woke up and thought I looked a little bit like Hugh Jackman.

Hugh Jackman from the X-Men films, that is.

When filing one’s taxes it is important to know that if one lives in New York and works in Vermont, one must always do the New York State Long Form, even though it means hitting the No button on TurboTax fifty gajillion times. Yes, it is dull and pointless, and yes, it does hurt to see all of those deductions that you will never qualify for, but if one chooses the short form TurboTax will not pick up on the fact that you live in New York BUT work in Vermont. And it will then thus say you owe the State a whole fuckload of money.

So remember, Ben of the future, when doing next year’s taxes, do the Long Form. That is unless you like paying New York State money not owed to them.

[Note: This was the second year in a row I did my taxes only to shout out “What the hell?” when I saw how much New York said I owed them, only to see three quarters of that amount disappear in smoke as soon as I went back and selected the Long Form.]

February was an extremely slow month for me and movies. In fact, it was the slowest month I have on record. Last month I only saw 13 films, only one of which I saw in the theater. The last time I saw so little was in February of 2003, when I only totaled 15 for the whole month. Oh yeah, and I haven’t exactly written a new movie review since January. I got a new job, I’m moving to a new city…what do you want from me?

Why so slow? Well, several factors come to mind. February is always a slow month, what with February sweeps on TV and everything. Also, I worked a lot of overtime this month, which cuts down on my free time. Finally, I watched some really long movies on my days off, which cut down on my volume quite a bit. One day I spent JUST watching the King Kong extended edition DVD. Another day I watched the almost 6 hour long Bertolucci classic, 1900.

Thankfully, I saw just enough to make for you a proper Must List:

FEBRUARY

Mona Lisa
Attack!
1900
Sparkle
Shane

So, it’s official. I’m moving to Seattle the end of next month. Sorry I don’t have more details, but I’m very sleepy right now.

My new thing at work is to pretend that I’m stabbing my co-workers with my clicky pen. Not with the whole pen, mind you. Just the point. I just click it repeatedly and hum the theme from Psycho. The joke is that I have to click them like 5,000 times to kill them, and even after then it’s not the stab wounds that kill them. It’s the ink poisoning.

I am an odd duck.

So you are working over 48 hours this week, plan on working that much for the foreseeable future, only have one day off before your next day off, which is not this Friday, but next Friday, and what do you do with all of that precious time on your one day off?

That’s right, you watch the Extended Edition of King Kong and every extra in the three disk set (oh, and a documentary on Italian Neo-realism. Don’t ask.)

By the way, is it worth getting? Well, even though they really don’t add that much to the theatrical cut, they do add everything that I thought was missing from that cut when I saw it in the theater.

Which means they basically added more shots of dinosaurs killing sailors.

Because, really, if you are going to take an hour to introduce me to these annoying characters, you might as well spend just as long killing them off, one by one, in horribly disturbing ways. Thank you, Peter Jackson, for increasing the carnage.

I just want to copyright this idea before someone else steals it.

Jeremy and I were joking around at work and he talked about how he and another friend wanted to make T-shirts with “Infidel” written on them. You know, so there is no confusion amongst the terrorists as to who we are. I decided to take that idea one step further and make “I’m With Infidel” T-shirts with a big arrow on them, pointing to the right. (If you don’t get it, just take a minute to think about it.)

This spontaneous addition broke both Jeremy and me up. (I’m pretty good at doing that to him. He’s a good audience.) Then he said something that really startled me.

“I’m really going to miss you when you are gone.”

A) I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before.

B) I haven’t even interviewed for this job yet, much less gotten it (although the odds are pretty good in my favor.)

C) This was the first moment that it really hit home that I might be moving far away very, very soon.

Like possibly a month and a half or sooner. This is a huge deal for me. Not only to move away from home, but to move SO FAR away from home. The furthest I’ve ever lived away from home was Bard, and that was still only an hour and a half away. If I wanted to zip home for a weekend it was easy as pie. Soon I might be more than five hours away BY PLANE. Much less by car. On my own. It’s scary stuff.

Understandably, I’ve been a little stressed lately. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so consistently like shit for so long. Every morning when I brush my teeth, I think I’m going to throw up. And it is not the change of lifestyle that scares me so much. I can adapt. It’ll be different, but most probably in a very good way. I know that. It’s the anticipation and uncertainty. You know the song, “The waiting is the hardest part?” That’s me. Doing something doesn’t scare me. If I have to do something I just do it, which is a skill not everyone can say they share. It’s getting ready to do something that scares the crap out of me.

Back in high school when I used to act in plays, I would physically destroy myself before a show. Typically I didn’t eat much of anything the week before the show opened. I’d lose at least five to ten pounds. I wouldn’t sleep much either. And it is the same now, with anything new, really. When I went to Seattle last September, I didn’t eat much of anything or sleep the night before. After I was there, I was fine. But before hand I was a nervous wreck. I couldn’t even eat anything on the plane, while on the flight back I gorged myself like a pig.

It doesn’t help that I know that I know nothing about being on my own. Only one way to find out. Again, who cares? That’s just part of life. But the fact that it is so far away? Scary! And all of my usual stress relievers are gone right now. I’m working overtime because we are short staffed, so I don’t have my usual two days to screw around and refuel. That and my day off buddy, Harry, has been in Egypt the past few weeks. If I go out, I don’t even have anyone to hang out with and talk to. I feel caged, like that poor dog my mom brought home before realizing his history (turns out we are actually his FOURTH home, not third.) Oh well. One day at a time.

Right now my biggest problem is actually updating my resume so that I can officially apply for the damn job. Those of you who know me, know that no one procrastinates as well as I do. I’m here to make you proud.

Which helps in ways you would never imagine. Today Rachel seemed really impressed with how I did the Weekly Summary. That was a little surprising to me, because it is not exactly like this was the first time I’ve ever done it. In fact, I probably wrote it up three out of four times in the last month. But still, she seemed genuinely impressed with how I wrote it up.

And that felt really good.

Today I told Rachel that I was planning to apply for the Seattle job. Today, I officially applied for the job. I repeat that, because it is going to be important later.

She then tells me that she was a little stressed out because I was asking questions that would lead one to believe that I was applying for the job, and yet I never told her that I was applying for the job. She thought I was doing something sneaky and behind her back, like when I mentioned that I as of yet was not sure whether or not I was going to apply, and then a little later I’m talking to the Manager of the Seattle store on the phone. But as I explained to her, I didn’t tell her anything because there was nothing to tell. She knew I was interested in the job. And I told her I would tell her before I applied somewhere else, which I did. I just really didn’t know what I was going to do until now.

Then the phone rings and this is where it all gets very surreal. Bob (our District Manager) wants to know why Rachel didn’t tell him that I applying for a job in Seattle. How the hell does he even know that, you ask? Well, Mike (Seattle’s Manager) was talking to his Regional Manager, John, having a normal chat about the open position when he then tells John that he just got an email from this Ben Merrell guy. Bob happens to be at Corporate at the same time John hears about this, so then John asks Bob what he knows about my applying for the job. Bob, of course, has no idea what he is talking about and thus kind of looks like an idiot. Shit always rolls downhill, so then Rachel is confronted about not telling him. Bob, she says, Ben just told me he was applying minutes before you called.

It’s amazing how much trouble you can get in without even doing anything.

Woke to boss calling to say I didn’t have to come into work. Half mumbled something about how I was going to check to see if that were true in a few minutes. Turned off alarm and fell back asleep.

Wake up to think I’m getting up at nine, like a responsible adult. Blink and realize that it is almost ten. Eh.

Mom tells me to move the car so that they can plow the driveway. Still half asleep, I use too little gas and get stuck in the snow before getting the car into the garage. Back up, second attempt is successful.

Spend several minutes staring at my room, deciding if I should be responsible and do all of the stuff that I’ve been meaning to do for months or watch a movie. Come on, what better day than a snow day to watch a 5 and a half hour long movie?

During intermission I check to see if I can just download the update for TurboTax so I can get that done and over with. Not with my shitty internet connection, I can’t.

You know what makes me think of Valentine’s Day? Euthanasia! For reasons unknown to even myself I pick up long forgotten, half-read book on Nazis and dig in.

One can read for only so long before eyes feel like they will melt out of head. Back to Scrubs!

Hey, it is 10PM. Lost is on! And it’s awesome! Those Lost playa haters need to get back on the bus.

Watch news for a few minutes to discover that yep, we got snow today.

Please Snow Buddha, no work again tomorrow!