Interview

Long time, how've you been? I hope to be stricken with the writing bug sometime this summer, despite the fact that my computer is in a room whose temperature flirts with three digits in the summer, not to mention the occasional whiffs of cat poo. This is intended to be one of those quite lengthy, too-much-information, rambling blog posts summing up the last couple months and to provide more insight into the quirky enigma that is me.

The format of this post will be an imaginary interview of me by an unheard interviewer. Yes, this has been done before.

Q.
'Fine, how are you?'

Q.
'That's great. Can I buy you another drink?'

Q.
'Cool. Uh, excuse me... a PBR for me and a [name of some weird tropical girly drink] for her.'

Q.
'No problem.'

Q.
'Yeah, it's great to have a day off tomorrow. I'm actually taking Thursday through Monday off as well this week. You've got to love the two-day work week.'

Q.
'Well, tomorrow I'm just kicking it, I don't know, maybe find someone with a grill or something, but Thursday I'm flying to Arizona and hiking down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon.'

Q.
'Yeah, it should be great. We're flying in to Phoenix, renting a car and driving north, and staying in a hotel right on the rim. Then Friday we're hiking down, Sunday back up. Staying in a cabin for two nights. I'm a little nervous to see how the old knees will hold up. I bought a brace from Walgreens last weekend, hopefully that helps.'

Q.
'Well, I'll have a backpack, but aside from a few clothes and my contact solution and stuff all I plan on carrying will be mostly water. It's going to be insanely hot, most likely. But the 'ranch,' or whatever you call it that's at the bottom provides beds and towels and soap and stuff, plus we paid in advance for the meals. Since all the supplies come from a mule, I guess we have to do that. They do have a place that sells beer there, but God knows how much a bottle costs, not like we can go down the block or anything.'

Q.
'I think it's going to be beef stew or something. I didn't really have any input in planning the trip, I was actually asked by a coworker, and his friend was planning it. So there's going to be ten people in total and I'll know less than half. Also, weirdly, it'll be the first time in nearly a month that I'll have eaten meat.'

Q.
'Well, no, nothing weird like that. It's more of an exploring new options sort of thing. Just got tired of planning meals around the chicken or beef or venison in the center of the plate with everything else an afterthought. We'd been eating a few vegetarian things that we really liked, so we decided to see if we could go a month without resorting to the old standbys.'

Q.
'The tricky thing is that you have to plan your meals a bit better. Sure, there's always spaghetti or something, or frozen veggie burgers (which are disgusting), but usually you have to find recipes and actually cook. I made a couple soups, lentil/spinach and gazpacho, some avocado and black bean tacos, some stir fry with eggplant and tofu, curry potatoes and vegetables (the best thing ever, by the way), and just a lot of things with fresh vegetables. Of course we have a few restaurants nearby who catered to this sort of thing, so a few falafel sandwiches and the like were in the mix as well. It took about a week for my stomach to catch up with the fact that there wasn't going to be 6-8 ounces of meat in the menu, but since then I've been fine.'

Q.
'No, I think I always ate healthy enough. 161 pounds of muscle right here, ha ha ha ha. I think I probably just need to cut down on alcohol and do a few stomach crunches and I'll be fine. I haven't been to the doctor in nearly a decade, so I fucking hope so.'

Q.
'Oh, well, uh, thank you, I'll take that as a complement. Coming from you that means a lot. Hey, excuse me, I'll take a large glass of your cheapest tequila on the rocks, and another refill for her.'

Q.
'Oh no, don't worry about it. I like talking to you. I appreciate that you seem interested in what I have to say.'

Q.
'Otherwise, no, not up to too much lately. The last few weekends have been pretty low key. Went to a few bars, ran a few errands, that sort of thing. Obviously these upcoming few days are going to be crazy, and the rest of the month is going to be pretty busy as well.'

Q.
'Well, uh, the weekend after this is the Pitchfork festival, and then after that is an expedition to FFL Nate's cabin in northern WI, and there's a few concerts to see in between, so I'll hopefully stay out of trouble.'

Q.
'Wow, how'd you know I was a film major? To tell you the truth, not too many new movies lately, Knocked Up was fantastic, but I'm a big Apatow/Freaks and Geeks/Undeclared fan, so my judgement may be skewed.

Q.
'I'll take the rest of that tequila bottle, and a roofie-tini for her. Uh, anyway, what was I saying?'

Q.
'Uh, music yeah, it's going to be a good year, I can feel it, Best of 2007 is off to a pretty good start. New White Stripes is very good, new Spoon (streamable here) is better. New New Pornographers is difficult and questionable so far, may be a dud. A couple other new things that shall remain secrets for now.

Q.
'Not much else is new. Oh, I know, in the last couple hours, since this imaginary conversation began, I got my first professional haircut in exactly one year. It looks OK, I guess. Short enough that I don't have to bother with it unless I need to.'

Q.
'Thanks, yeah, I know it makes me look younger.'

Q.
'Twenty-eight.'

Q.
'Wow, I was going to say that you look older, actually. Maybe because you are so, uh, confident.'

Q.
'No, uh, sorry, I was just, I like your shirt. It's shiny. My eyes, sorry, uh, you know, naturally...'

Q.
'Yes, I do, she's great, I'm sorry if I, uh, offended you.'

Q.
'Wow. I mean seriously, Wow. I'm flattered by the offer, but, I really can't.'

Q.
'I think so. I mean, yes, I'm sure.'

Q.
'Yes, you are very attractive, I know.'

Q.
'I, uh, actually think I'm late for another appointment. It was very nice meeting you.'

Q.
'Uh, yeah, I know it's late, sorry, but I really need to run. See you around.'

As our hero sprints away from the imaginary interviewer, who may be red or dark brown haired, with full lips and perky boobs, he thinks only of the fact that he has neglected his poorly-named blog, which has recently past 10,000 hits without fanfare. 'Soon,' he thinks, 'I will become the blogger that I've always meant to be, and will ascend to the pinnacle that I've always deserved.'

THE END.