I woke up in a strange place

By Marc Heiden, since 1997.
See also: a novel about a monkey.


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March 20, 2002

I didn't have to work last night, so I take back everything nasty I said. I got no problem with that guy. I just stayed at my desk when everyone else got up to leave at 4:15, and no one asked why I wasn't going, and I went home at 5 as usual. As I was leaving, the rabbi said that I should be careful, because it was wet outside. Does he think I am soap?

I ordered a lomo last week. Let me rephrase that in the correct syntax: I ordered a lomo!! ahhahahahaha!! Now I am only waiting for it to arrive. It is due today, or tomorrow. Lomo is the insane genius of cameras. Sometimes they fall apart, and you grow tired of the lomo's antics, and want to give up on it. (This is what I have heard.) But sometimes you make the lomo to dance. (This is also what I have heard.) Lomo is for stealth. No flash is required. Lomo can take pictures in any light. Its pictures have the incredible. But sometimes it up and falls apart. Lomo is the raving mad Dostoevsky camera. Sometimes you are to the lomo, go! You drink and you gamble and you are so bad! But then the lomo is good. (I have heard this.)

I work at a Jewish place of employment, although I am not myself Jewish, and therefore I have a bunch of time off for Passover. I wanted to go somewhere, but nothing has come together, so I will probably do some prime sitting around instead. Or I'll go take a vacation in the kitchen. I don't know. One thing that is going on during that time is author Irvine Welsh's promised appearance at the Metro here in Chicago. Columbia College told lies before, and I hate them for it, but this is claimed to be true:

Thursday, March 28 Columbia College Fiction Writing Department Presents... "TROUBLEMAKERS: LITERARY ROCK & ROLL" featuring readings by IRVINE WELSH JOHN MCNALLY JOE MENO followed by a one-hour DJ set by IRVINE WELSH Tickets: FREE! All Ages Doors: 7pm / Show: 7:30pm

So there's that. I'll go, and if they are lying again, I will do much the same as I did before, which is to complain.

My cats have this crazy new thing to contend with. I went ahead with my plan, as stated yesterday, to buy a big tree thing for them to climb on. It's pretty neat. There are three tall, mid-sized logs that stand straight up from a carpeted base, and nestled between the logs are three cradles, which are also carpeted, and presumably comfortable. The highest cradle is about even with my neck. At the base is a hut where the cats can have some privacy. My mother says they are called 'kitty condos', but I am not a big believer in private ownership of land, so I call it a 'kitty collectivized recreational installation'.

These are all very domestic things to write about.

I should explain the tap dancing reference from a few days ago. They mentioned that I can tap dance in the bio used to announce my hiring in the company newslatter, because it's on my resume, and the bio was taken straight from my resume. I can sort of tap dance. I have a pair of tap shoes that fit, and I can make a plausible clickety-clack with them. I learned how to tap dance for a musical I was in during high school. I went to an all-boys school, and nearby was an all-girls school, so theater kids who didn't mind the long walk would swap schools and get better parts that way. The girls' theater department was also streets ahead of ours, both in quality and in fun. (And in...the ladies.) We did "42nd Street" one year, and because I was a personable fellow, and because no one else could dance either (but were, for the most part, better singers), I wound up being the featured male tap dancer in most of the musical numbers. I never stopped being bewildered to find myself in the situation, much like I am with my current situation, and the one before this, and the one before this, but I did my best, and the show was a huge success. At the cast gag awards, I was named "Best Pseudo-Dancer", because although I made every movement more or less perfectly, my feet almost never touched the ground. (The female dancers were loud enough. No one can tell when you screw up tap-dancing if you don't make a sound.) I left it on my resume, at the very bottom, because hiring directors love to notice it during interviews. I'd be fairly fucked if asked to tap at a company event, though. Like a soap-man in "Singin' in the Rain".



I woke up in a strange place is the work of Marc Heiden, born in 1978, author of two books (Chicago, Hiroshima) and some plays, and an occasional photographer.

Often discussed:

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Written by Marc Heiden, 1997-2011.