The American Splendor

"I might venture out more in the coming week."

 

How ambitious those words now seem, a fortnight later.  Yes, I had my pea coat, yes, cold seemed to be less of a problem, but that was only the first of many problems to be solved.

 

On Monday, the 22nd, I went back to work after having done some errands over the weekend, such as transferring money from my new bank account to my old one in Massachusetts.  I had several bills on auto-pay and I wanted to keep them there.  The temp agency doesn't do direct deposit.

 

At work, I got two phone calls that made me nervous.  The first was from the bank, and I thought there might be a problem, the second was from the library.  A week earlier I returned a Harold Lloyd DVD by squeezing it through a locked book drop.  But the bank just wanted to confirm some information and the library told me they had a job available.  That's nice, but the job would have been a step down from what I'd been doing.

 

Around this time I heard from two of my friends from the show I was a part of in Boston, "Erin Judge Presents..."  I got a Christmas card from Liz Simons, who left for New York in May, and she told me that Andrea Henry, another castmember would be performing in the New York round of Nick-at-Nite's "Funniest Mom in America Contest 3."  In the two weeks since, she's advanced to the LA round and will be performing at the Friar's on Tuesday.  That's the day I intern at IO West, so I might not be able to make it, but will try.

 

But that Tuesday night I went didn't call the lights on MADtv's improv show.  One of the teachers did it for me.  And he also did so for the last couple of shows.  This would have been fine, but what sometimes happens, and happened this time, someone came into the booth as one show ended to tell me that they'd call the lights for the next show.  This meant that I missed the cue to pull the lights and blast the music.  Also, that person was not going to call the lights because arrangements were already made for someone else to make the call.

 

Also around this time my bed deflated.

 

When I moved in, I was moving in from my uncle's house in Ontario, CA.  That's too long a drive to make more than one trip, so I decided it would be logical to get a compact bed to move into the apartment, so I got an inflatable bed since I had a roommate that had one with positive results two years ago.

 

In fact, I had a conversation with someone recently about it and realized I hadn't needed to inflate it in quite some time.

 

When I came back from the internship, I noticed the bed was inflated, I checked the plug and inflated it.  I got in and felt the floor as I lied down.  I would have to start the search for a new mattress.

 

Sleeping on a deflated mattress wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  The biggest difference I noticed were that my dreams were much more surreal.

 

On Thursday, I noticed I started to get a sore throat.  In Boston, when I had a sore throat it usually meant that for the next two weeks I'd have a large dose of phlegm in my sinus cavity.

 

But, the next day I went into work and heard that someone in the office had strep throat, so I thought I might have it myself.  I was working in an office with UCLA EMT and paramedic instructors, so I asked one of them if I might have it.  One said it might reveal itself in white spots on the back of my tongue.  So, I went to the bathroom and found some.  It made me nervous.  I felt a little dizzy.  Fortunately, it was my last day in that assignment, so I set up some templates for my successor to complete my work on the instructor evaluations and said "Goodbye" to my place of work for the previous two-and-a-half weeks.

 

I left at about 1:45 to look for a doctor.  I was finally referred to a free clinic on Fairfax and Beverly, but when I got there, I couldn't find one, so I started walking down Beverly until I got to one, but it was 4:00 and they don't take walk-ins on Fridays.  I tried calling to set up an appointment, but they were only open until 4:30 and the line was really busy.

 

I wondered if I'd be able to make the internship meeting, or my class, the next day.

 

The answer to both was "Yes."

 

I woke up to phlegm, which meant that it was only allergies, as I'd encountered them before.  I had already started taking loratadine so it was just a matter of time before I'd be better.  I knew that I was at least not contagious.

 

In class, I was doing okay, I guess.  But obviously, other things were on my mind.  All I could do was try to participate as much as possible.  I went straight home after.  I was a bit disappointed too, since there as a Guitar Hero tournament at IO West and I was waiting all week to be able to participate.  I enjoyed playing the game back home at the Best Buy in Cambridge.

 

The next two days, I stayed in to rest and drink as much juice as I could.

 

On Tuesday, I went to my new job.  I got a little lost.  This time I was working in a more indeterminate role at the UCLA Center for Health Sciences, and was lost getting there.  Hospitals are mazes, and compound the problem, I misheard the directions for the office as being on the eighth floor, not the A floor.  That was only the first of many miscommunications involved with this job.

 

It was in a basement and at first I didn't have my own screen name for the computer, so either my supervisor or I could use the computer, not both of us.  My first impression was that she seemed like she could be a relative of Jane Curtain that kind of knows that she's famous, but doesn't know much about "that television thing" (they look similar).  

 

It was a little frustrating communicating with her.  It was almost like we weren't speaking the same language.  There were some basic computer things she wasn't aware of, such as what those colorful buttons at the top of the web browser do, and when training me on tasks she didn't understand some of my questions, conversely I didn't always get exactly what she said at first either.  While it was possible that could have been me, it seemed more likely that it was her, only because she tended to backtrack and forget things she was supposed to say or notice anomalous circumstances that she'd never seen before.

 

But, my biggest problem my first day was that I was sent home early at four, not enough time to go back home before the internship, too long where I wouldn't feel like I'd have to kill time.  So, I went into Best Buy for a while and played some Guitar Hero II.  Man I was rusty at first.

 

I went to IO West and realized I forgot my shirt, like it was a dream (as much of the past seven days have been, dreams and consciousness have blurred quite a bit lately lately).  I called the lights for MADtv this week, and while I found a great place comedically speaking, the cast would have liked a little more time since they started a bit late.

 

IO West was pretty much fine, but I don't think I should have eaten the pizza, what else would I have eaten though?  It sat in my stomach in between comfort and a toilet.

 

And so the week continued, the weather improved and so did my health.  I ate some miso soup with udon noodles in Westwood and I went browsing for a new mattress pad for the mattress I'm getting tonight at 8pm. 

 

I went to class yesterday where we worked on character work.  The first exercise was one in which we found a character and were interviewed in character with three others.  I found I did pretty well there the first time since I basically let go and just responded to others.  The second time around was significantly less successful.  There was a second game in which we all wrote three traits, one each on a separate piece of paper.  We would go up in two person scenes and draw one trait that we'd have to exhibit to inform our characters.  Like in the first game, the first time was much better than the second.  My problem seems to stem from a lack of eye contact and being in my head.  In general, I've always over-thought things hope to fix it one day.

 

But I'm glad that the problems I have right now are related to stuff like that and not all the other things that have distracted me for the past two weeks.

 

Thank you, I'm Eric Cheung.  I'm on MySpace and Live Journal.

 

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