A woman wanders through the store for some time. She’s beautiful, quiet and alone. As the end of the day approaches, and it’s time for us to make the announcement that Rocket Video is closing soon, she finally makes her way to the counter. It’s crowded. there are a number of people grabbing videos at the last minute.

“I don’t have an account yet,” she says.

“No problem,” I tell her, pointing towards our giant gumball machine. “Just fill out one of the forms over there and bring it back up. We’ll get you started.”

I help a few more customers. Then I become aware of an exchange between my coworker Sean and this same woman. She complains about having to fill out a form. Glen H., a regular customer, defends us a little by saying, “They’ve got to look out for themselves.”

This is true. We need to know who you are before we let you rifle through our vast movie collection.

Sean explains our membership policy as best he can while he works the crowd of customers.

She says, “I don’t understand why I have to fill out a form if all I want to do is rent a movie.”

Sean says, “Because you have to.”

Clearly growing upset, she says, “Wish me happy birthday.”

“Happy birthday,” says Sean.

She pushes her way out the front door. “I don’t like your attitude,” she snaps.

Sean calls after her, “I like yours!”

And all I can think is…

…happy birthday??

Business at hand? There’s way too much of it. I was hoping to blog a bit today about what it means to be from another galaxy, but I’ve been socked in by a fog of work the past couple days. I don’t normally work on Thursday nights, but this week I’ve agreed to take a shift at Rocket. Boss called me and asked if I would please at least work this one day. I normally work Saturdays, but due to circumstances, I’ve had to get the next few Saturdays off. That means I’m not on the schedule at all during the coming month. But why would Boss himself ask me to take a shift? Jeff should do that. He’s the manager, after all. What, I wonder, is Boss’s reason for asking?

I find out this afternoon. It turns out that Boss #2, whom longer-term audience members will remember caused me no end of mischief back in March, has heard that I’m taking some time off. This guy is a real nut. He’s about the worst retail businessman I’ve ever known. He’s paranoid, suspicious and inept. He wants me gone so bad that I swear it’s the only reason I’m staying. I like being a thorn in his side. He’s also in Europe for the summer, but when he hears about my schedule, he declares that if I don’t work for a month I’m effectively fired. This causes Boss #1 to panic a little. He doesn’t need the aggravation. He likes me, and understands that there’s nothing wrong with having an articulate and compassionate employee. Plus, I think he’s a little afraid that if I bail completely on Rocket, I’ll stop being his web-monkey (which sounds a helluva lot more perverted than it actually is.)

So off to work I go. Rocket looks nice on the outside, but behind the scenes it’s a complete mess. Actually, it’s kind of a mess on the outside, too. I noticed today that someone left a pile of belongings strewn about the sidewalk outside. I’m tempted to clean it up. But I’m also tempted just to leave it. Boss #2 doesn’t deserve the effort.

On another note: these are some of the albums I’ve been listening to lately, courtesy Amoeba Music:

It’s Sunday morning. I’ve got to drag my butt over to Amoeba for another nine hours, which is tricky, since I spent eight hours there yesterday followed by seven hours DJ-ing Sirry’s birthday party. That’s about five and a half hours of sleep. But hey, since I don’t drink when I spin, I don’t have a hangover.

And some Sunday amusement for ya:

Via boing boing, here’s an interesting phenomenon. Someone in the UK thought to test the drinking water for antidepressants and discovered that so much of it has been consumed there that traces of un-metabolized Prozac lace the city’s water supply.

It seems I’m back and running strong. The transfer from Hostsave to iPowerWeb turns out to be weirder and takes longer than I expect. Entries from way back in February surface under an old template. I get a call from a friend wondering why I’m depressed. Then for a while FTP routs to the old server while my browser was points to the new. I also find myself trying to update old registrar information, which has me listed as still living in Santa Barbara, reciving email at an old address and going by the name, “Elephant, Dreaming.”

Before you go spewing coffee all over that expensive monitor, there’s a reason for that. Eons ago, when I used to draw my own greeting cards, I used to make up cool, fictious publisher names to write on the back of the cards. Coiled Panther Publications, for example, or Staggering Sloth Designs, maybe. Once I drew something that looked like a reclining “Z” and I thought of Dreaming Elephant Productions. It was probably at this time that I registered sixsquare.com, so as a lark…

Yeah, yeah, you get it now. I’m sure you’re all stifling yawns. The upshot of it all is that someone, somewhere decides that my first name is Dreaming and my last name is Elephant and there it is. I can’t imagine what that would have been like had some clerk needed to place a call to me…

That’s a picture of Karma Caffe, just around the corner from Amoeba Music in Los Angeles. Earlier this week I discover the place on my lunch break. I snap this picture because I think they’ve done a spectacular job decorating the place. The warm sun and cozy colors are conducive to writing, which is what I hope to do there during my off-Amoeba hours. But just across the street from this place is another coffee house I discovered the day before. The atmosphere is a litte more austere, a little more open and bright. The people who work there are incredibly nice. I like them even better than the people who work across the street. So to be fair, I suppose I’ll have to divide my time between the two places.

Neither one of them serves great coffee.

On a final note, I’m listening to Quarterflash sing “Harden My Heart.” I checked out a couple of fat 80’s music comps from Amoeba yesterday in an effort to shore up my collection. I’m DJ-ing Sirry’s party on Saturday and the order for the evening is Eighties.

That’s not to say I won’t sneak a little Deep House in.

Just so everyone knows, things are going to get wonky around here for the next couple days. I’m in the process (finally) of transferring this site to a new hosting company. Posts may disappear for a while, then reappear without warning, possibly sporting new tattoos and missing a few teeth. The URL will, of course, remain the same, so just check back from time to time. Posting will resume in earnest as the process completes.

Hello? …Oh hey, what’s up, Britney? …Hawaii? End of September? Just the two of…? Hey, wait. What about Kevin? Oh. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, but listen, I can’t, babe. I’ll be busy then…

Quick recap:

Sunday – Work all day at Amoeba. The day passes swiftly, however, and after I get out at eight, I swing by Rocket to bug Ryan and Sara and pick up the external hard drive I use to back up Boss’s Powerbook. Since I have to get up early to meet with Boss, I go to bed early that night (midnight) … but only after posting here and then tooling around a little with the treatment for Blood & Mist.

Monday – Head over to Boss’s house at nine to do some routine backups and touch base on web design plans. The backup goes fine. Their desktop PC, however, is riddled with spyware and adware. A browser-hijack prevents all internet access. I end up having to use Boss’s Powerbook to do research on the bugger. By the time I have the thing wiped clean, the system is rife with conflicts and the DSL connection seems to have shut down completely. With increasing exasperation, I hammer away at the system, curse Bill Gates and wonder in the back of my mind whether I’m going to be able to make my date for the evening. It’s an internet date, and she seems like someone I want to meet. I hate the idea that I might have to call her and say, “I can’t make it tonight. There’s this computer, see, and I have to get it running…” There are only a handful of things I want to do less tonight than tinker with Boss’s computer. And then as if I weren’t annoyed enough, Boss hands me a phone and tells me to join him on a conference call. So for the next hour, I hang on to the phone listlessly with onoe hand and flail around on Boss’s desktop with the other while in my ear, Boss extolls the virtues of Herbalife to an international group of supervisors.

When that hour is up I gather the computer and tell Boss I have to finish the task at home where I can download the necessary tools. I hightail it home, set the beast up on my desk and after a mere sixty minutes, the thing is in perfect running condition. No spyware, no pop-ups, no nothing. Norton Antivirus purrs in the background, Ad-Aware is up to date and waiting to pounce. All security updates are in place. And most important, I’ve hidden all shortcuts to Internet Explorer and installed Mozilla Firefox in its stead.

To work off some steam, I go on a run up Runyon Canyon. I return just in time to scrub the dirt out of my pores, drink several gallons of water and traffic over to Los Feliz to meet my date. We have coffee at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf at Hillhurst and Ambrose. I dig the vibe there.

Want more details? Sorry. I think I’ll keep the social life out of the blog for now…

Tuesday – I return to Boss’s house with the computer. Set it up. Get it running. Lambaste the son for downloading crap off the Internet and tell him that if I have to clean up another nasty infestation of crap off the computer again I’m gonna sic Ad-Aware on his face. Boss’s wife can’t thank me enough. I ride off into the sunset.

Actually, I just drive down Sunset to Amoeba and put in my nine hours. It’s another fine evening.

Wendesday – I return to Amoeba in the morning for another nine hours armed with a tall green tea and a scone, which I later regret eating. They’re very bad for the energy level. Sara and Jen drop by later for a visit. Sara’s in the neighborhood for an audition. Jen is just the chauffeur today. So I “have a cigarette” with them outside, order Sara to break a leg and go back in to finish my shift.

I get off a little early, make serious tracks across town to the Avco theater on Wilshire at Westwood and join Edgar for a screening of Collateral. It’s a good film, taut and violent. It’s set in LA, and is very faithful to the geography. When they say they’re going to a certain address, they go to that actual address, passing all logical points in between. And the downtown area, one of my favorite places, looks beautiful.

After the film, Edgar and I chat in the cool evening for a bit. I assure him that things are going well on Mist. I should have a completely new plot outlined, treatmented and wroted in the next few days.

Returning to my humble car, Mark Smith calls me and suggests that I get cracking on issues 2, 3 and four of the Blood & Dust comic book. No problem, I say. I’ll look at the issue outline and see what I can do.

As I hang up, I think about that for a second. Where on earth is this time gonna come from?

…

Anyway, I’ve got things to do, so I’m outta here for now. I’ll leave you with a photo. This one’s a strange one. Every once in a while I’m struck by moments, by oddities, and by the beauty of ordinary things. When I return to my car after the movie, I’m inspired for some reason to take a picture. I think it’s lovely. But really, it’s just my car.