ephemeral choco-pops

i called my new boss at the natural food store this morning to see how long my training would last tomorrow. if i was finished before 5:00 i could get paid for at least one more training behind the bar at max brenner before telling them to kiss off. sure enough, he doesn't want me to be there too long on my first day. so after coming in at 11:00 tomorrow morning i should be out by 3:00 or so with plenty of time to breathe, eat, and make it over to 1500 walnut street.

tonight i showed up there at the suggested 15 minutes earlier than scheduled. it started raining before i arrived so i was a little wet after locking up my bike and walking into the building. i said hi to the bar manager, who looked at my wet long sleeve striped shirt and informed me that i was supposed to be wearing my uniform. i reassured him that it was in my bag and that i would go change into hit. walking to the bathroom i exhaled and felt the relief of the temporary nature of this ridiculous situation.

i joined my fellow choco-men and women after punching in and spent the next 4 hours learning how things work behind the chocolate bar. we did get to taste some of the hot chocolates which was nice, but the whole experience was pretty surreal for me. knowing that i really don't need to absorb any of this information, that it's all pretty meaningless, i vaguely paid attention just to prevent boredom.

all 9 of us trainees cleaned and closed up the whole thing, bumping into each other and squirming for direction from the trainers brought in from the union square restaurant in new york. by quarter to 9:00 we were done. before we left the general manager had us meet him in the basement office where he handed each of us paychecks for our 2 hour orientation we had to sit through last month. a whopping $12.05!

it was still raining outside when i was reunited with my bike. this week can't be over soon enough.

sandwich-maker vs. "chocoman"

okay. so, i went to the first training at max brenner last night and it was pretty ridiculous. fortunately i will be getting paid for the 3 hours that i endured. max himself (the mystical chocolatier/cult-leader) graced us with his presence, sharing with us the story of how this all came to be--his ascent from an aspiring romance novelist in israel to the ceo of an international restaurant group. surely, if he had touched all of our foreheads we would have collapsed to the floor. instead we all just sat there, all 150 of us who were hired to work at this brand new center city establishment, obediently listening to every word. laughing at every joke.

there's really too much to say about what happened last night. the main headline is: because of a "gas issue" mb will not be opening for business until july 1st. however, they calmly reassured us that they would keep us busy until then with various trainings and even make it fun for us! whoopee.

i received my uniform before leaving at 8:00 pm: 2 medium-sized brown t-shirts with a drawing of max's head on the left arm and the phrase: "chocolate is good for you" in big colorful letters on the back; a brown apron with one pocket and "100% pure max" scrawled at a dramatic angle across it; and finally, a brown beanie (which one of my fellow baristas pointed out, "is not fashionable and, rather, resembles a horseshoe crab") which ties in the back and features the word "chocoman" on the front. of course, the female-identified barista's hats are labeled "chocowoman." fucking hell.

in addition to the opening day being delayed until "july one," they granted us with today off, along with saturday and sunday to celebrate father's day weekend. this is all good news.

the experience actually wasn't terrible, but it did make me desire the natural food store job even more. this morning, after finishing up a coffee date with local radical historian dan berger, i received a voicemail message from the kitchen manager that had interviewed me yesterday afternoon: "we want to bring you on."(!!!)

i called back and chatted with him for a minute and he asked me to come in thursday to start training. great! the whole cafe is vegan, the people seem really cool, and the only weird thing is that i am expected to bring my own knife to cut the sandwiches....but no uniform! just can't wear open-toed shoes or tank tops. no problem.

SO. i'm still gonna go in for another day of training at mb tomorrow since i'll get paid for it. i mean, what do i have to lose? then on thursday i'll give the bar manager the bad news and my address to mail the check. word. looks like things are gonna work out okay this summer afterall!

early summer job chronicles (continued)

it's unusual that the middle of a month could contain so much upheaval, moments of transition and starting over. today is the 15th and over the past few days the world has been turned upside down and shaken up; mostly for the best.

on friday night lv's roommate and bf ollie began to move out of their 2 bedroom apartment. the living room was filled with boxes filled with (most of the) kitchen items and all the large furniture ready to be moved across town the following day, along with her amazing dog marmalade and cat, estelle.

late that night a car parked across the street from my house (where my least-friendly housemate had moved out of for the summer the day before) containing 3 good friends that i missed a lot. it was so great to see liz, david, and michelle again. l & d were on their way to new orleans where they are moving for liz to begin her librarian career. they picked up michelle in nyc on their way to philly and at 2:30 am they all settled into my bedroom to sleep after a long day of travel.

also, last week i applied for a job at a local natural/organic grocery store that's near south street. they had posted an ad on craigslist the day before for a sandwich-maker and i figured that if they hired me it would be vastly superior to the corporate chocolate culture of m*x brenner that i would begin training for this week.

and that brings me to today. i just had an interview for that job and it went really well. if they call me back in a couple days offering it to me than i can kiss the bald man goodbye forever. although tonight i am going in to begin my week of training. luckily i will get paid for it and i have this plan to finish the training but not work when the restaurant opens for business next week. crossing my fingers!

stay tuned...

a new, new beginning

from this moment on we will remind ourselves of the things that are good for us and pursue them with wild abandon. they are our fuel, our lifeline. the other shit, those pesky (and yes, alluring) speedbumps on our road to happiness will be rejected and ignored. from now on. let's remind each other of this. let's talk more often. the only thing that can really hold us back now is our own self-doubt. a new summer is on the horizon and anything--everything--is possible.

into the atmosphere

i feel like i've been thinking about a lot of stuff lately, but i'm not really sure what to write about. in this moment of transition and upheaval i remain in the same place i've been since january, struggling for direction and inspiration. i'm in this weird in between point though where i'm still looking for a job but have this weird one that will be starting soon. i had another interview with prometheus last week where the entire staff collective asked me questions. so intense. i think it went pretty well, but we'll see what they decide later this week...

i wouldn't have been able to sustain myself here this long without lv's love and support. she has just been so amazing. and now she has been laid off from her full-time job and is battling the bureaucracies of unemployment offices, her dysfunctional agency, and the non-profit job-hunting complex. i hope to support her through all of this. we're gonna make it, together.

adventures in job hunting: part two

after my interview at cigna (did i mention that they were featured in michael moore's movie sicko?), i bought a pretzel from these kids across the street who were trying to raise money for some sort of program for youth. i sat down and breathed in the strange corporate culture that surrounded me in the heart of this urban business zone. then i biked a few blocks down the street to apply for another job. this one was just posted a few days before and it was to work at a restaurant opening here next month.

i had never heard of max brenner (mb) or its "chocolate by the bald man" before, but i soon learned they it is a growing "international restaurant group" and in addition to locations across australia, israel, one in the phillipines and one in singapore, there are two of these chocolate-based concept restaurants in new york city. and now, the company is preparing to spread its "chocolate culture" to philly. um, okay...

the space where it is moving into is right on walnut street amidst a concentration of other high end restaurants and boutiques. i entered the building, signed in, and took the elevator up to the second floor. they had set up a temporary hiring office, sort of assembly line, where they greeted us with a application and clipboard and asked what position we were interested in. people were spilling out of this room and i almost turned around and left as lv was meeting for lunch down the street. but i decided to stay and go through with it.

i came back later and ended up being interviewed, one by one, by each of the various managers of this new establishment and by the end of the afternoon i was filling out tax formers and being welcomed to their weird cultish family as a barista. so i finally got a job! but the feeling was pretty surreal and bittersweet since i wouldn't actually start working for a few weeks when training starts. there's a lot more to say about all of this too. i'm sure it will all come out eventually...

as june's rent starts to loom over my consciousness i still need to figure something out. the challenges continue but whatever happens should be interesting. we'll see.

adventures in job hunting: part one

as spring begins to morph into summer i look around and there's so much going on. a lot of people i know are in a transitional moment, whether they're graduating from school or moving somewhere new, travelling or getting ready to start a summer job. although part of me is nostalgic or even jealous of this state of affairs i am not exactly in a grounded, static situation here.

earlier this month i resigned myself to truly prioritizing employment. i carved out a daily routine of looking at every job listing on craigslist upon waking up and applying for as many as possible. over coffee and cereal i would bust out disingenuous "cover letters" detailing my passion for filing papers or making coffee drinks. i rewrote my resume and fine-tuned my references. for the most part the result was a defeaning silence of an empty e-mail inbox, with the exception of two bizarre possibilites that came to light last tuesday.

at 1:30 in the afternoon i found myself being interview on the fourth floor of one of the tallest buildings that compose philadelphia's skyline; the headquarters of the nation's largest pharmecutical corporation's: cigna. yes, pure evil. but no, i was not applying for some sort of office job there. the position was to be a barista in the new "coffee bar" of their cafeteria. crazy, right? i could say a lot more about this but long story short is that after competing with 20 other desperate unemployed folks, they didn't call me at the end of the week. phew!

to be continued...

returning to the fold (part II)

i've been having a lot of vivid dreams lately, ever since it starting getting warmer outside. i wake up missing all of these people from my past lives. i run into some of them in real life too and meet for coffee and have really fantastic conversations about where we came from and where we're going.

my mind is racing too much these days to abandon this now. i'm here. come back to visit soon...

millions for mumia, ten years later

the first time i ever came to this city that i now live in was ten years ago today. on april 24, 1999 a massive protest in march in support of mumia abu jamal was organized in philadelphia. the millions for mumia march was both a celebration of his 40th birthday and an impassioned plea for his freedom from death row.

this evening, ten years later, i will be attending another event in philadelphia for mumia who is still unjustly incarcerated after all these years despite an international movement of supporters. the "more than a book release" event tonight at the historic church of the advocate in north philly will celebrate mumia's latest book jailhouse lawyers and will feature a number of speakers and performers. there are a number of similar events happening around the country today, mumia's birthday.

for more info visit:
http://freemumia.com/april242009.html

the continued search for focus

sometimes it's hard figuring out where i want to focus my energy. i desperately need to cultivate a steady income, but go back and forth between looking into traditional wage jobs/temp work and dedicating all my time towards my own writing and other projects. passions and survival, indeed. i'm looking forward to talking to lv about our life goals, both short and long term. i think that will help me focus. i want to envision and articulate where i want to be a month from now, 6 months, this time next year, in 5 years, etc. it will be helpful but also fun to share these dreams together.

today, i find myself at a coffeeshop all over the place. i jump from researching freelance and proofreading jobs to feelings of guilt around not booking an early summer tour for one of my aid & abet clients. all the while, the impending may rent looms over every action and thought like a fatal illness. but i'm optimistic that i'll figure something out over the next couple weeks.

bright forecast

now that i'm back in philly, i'm try to harness the inspiration from my travels. i was hoping that i would be catalyzed after the nyc anarchist book fair and reflecting on my past life in northampton. but the first few days back have been a struggle. it's still sort of cold, dark and rainy. it's as if nothing happened and i just woke up from a dream. maybe i'm still 27? i wonder if i will ever be liberated from the shackled bureaucracy of financial institutions. i wonder if tomorrow will begin a new era of sunshine and creativity. the future is still hopeful. i just need to keep reminding myself why i'm here. what i'm doing. and where i'm going.

spring break 2009

i've been on the road for a full week now. it seems like months ago that lv and i were waiting for the megabus in philly for a weekend adventure in new york! now i'm heading back to the big apple for another weekend, but this time from northampton--where i have been all week. i was able to see friends and family in celebrating my 28th birthday and despite getting a little sick it's been great fun. i'm looking forward to the anarchist bookfair tomorrow, meeting up with my aid & abet co-conspirators again, and also returning to philly and my sweetheart sunday evening. i think when i return my mind will be fresh and inspired and i will be to appreciate the beauty of the full bloom trees even more.

april urgency

it's been a good week. one morning i woke up and was brought back 6 years, to my final semester in college. jolted out of bed with the realization that it was now officially april and my senior project was due at the end of the month. there was a similar urgency this week, with so many things going on and to look forward to in the coming weeks.

tuesday night i went to a fantastic zine reading at the wooden shoe with cassie j. snyder and al burian. cassie was hilarious and it had been about 4 years since i had last seen al perform. i enjoyed the thread connecting all of the pieces he read: what was it that initally brought us to punk and why are we still in it? why were we all there that night? i had really nice conversations with all the other wooden shoe folks afterwards as i got pumped up for the couchsurfing.com meet up i was heading to afterwards!

there's a japanese restaurant/karaoke club where local couchsurfers have been meeting every tuesday night for various specials and a private karaoke room. i was inspired to check it out this week with the temptation of visiting the philly pretzel factory at midnight when the 35 cent, fresh pretzels are available!

i had fun meeting all of these random people, some from philly, others couchsurfing from across the globe. over 30 of us squeezed in this room to sing songs accompanied by the cheesiest japanese karaoke videos that you could imagine. i bonded with some of them after my performance of "dancing with myself." ha! i biked down to washington after midnight beating the carpool to pretzels. it was great to finally experience the freshest, hottest pretzels in town before biking all the way back to west philly.

there's so much more to say about this week. mostly, that jen angel arrived via train on april fool's day and it's been great seeing her again. her event at the wooden shoe last night was a success and i had a blast hanging out with all these great folks afterwards that came out for it. jen's crashing at my house over the weekend while i'm in nyc with lv. then sunday i'll be heading back to western mass to celebrate my birthday and see all of the wonderful people in my life up there. see you soon!

springing forward for real

this was a tough week. for a few days straight, i felt paralyzed by stress and depression which is pretty unusual for me. things got better yesterday though. i spent the day with lv as she criss-crossed the city from appointment to appointment. then she provided me with support and focus before my event at the wooden shoe, a discussion about "radical change in the age of obama." the event went really well and i felt so much better and connected to the world afterwards.

and today actually felt like spring! i had the pleasure of meeting tyrone who does the really amazing website enough and our conversations inspired me to write about my experiences in philly...here. things are turning around and i'm excited for my favorite month, just around the corner!

the gaps in between my aspirations and my apathy

the line in that song really speaks to where i'm at right now. over the past 6 years i've been struggling with that balance of working hard on projects and the lures of complacency. as the gorilla biscuits once sung, "i like hanging out but who doesn't," but it's time to start truly living our lives and realizing our dreams instead of just sitting on our asses: "let's start today."

maybe sometimes i'm too hard on myself, but i really wish that i had worked harder and had more to show for it now. but i know it's not too late and that i am the only thing that is holding me back from making it all happen.

propagandhi show/prometheus update

"so...anything new?" i was asked recently by a friend; beyond my previous response of things being pretty good in philly. well, last weekend i had a chance to see one of my favorite bands (and biggest political/life influences) from high school play live. propagandhi are a punk band from winnipeg, manitoba that have been playing since the late 80's and made a stop in philly, accompanied by their fantastic new album supporting caste. it wasn't quite as much of a mind-blowing experience as the first time i got to see them back in 2000 in new york, but it was fun and important nonetheless. it was great just to be able to bond with some of my new friends here over this band that has meant so much to all of us; a thread connecting our collective experience as punks and activists.

the other thing, of course, was getting interviewed for the internship with prometheus. the update on that is that they decided to go with someone else for the position which, as evidenced by my previous post, was not a tragic blow to my life. they had tons of applicants for the position and even though i was one of the top 3 candidates, there was someone else that had a lot more fundraising and development experience. it seems like the organization is going through a lot of upheaval right now so i wish that person the best and hope that it's a fulfilling experience. i'm mostly pscyched that i can still come back to northampton for the entire week of my birthday, as i had planned, before the anarchist book fair in nyc!

that's it for now. more updates later...

internship dilemma

yesterday i had an interview at the prometheus radio project for a paid internship that would go through september. they're a rad organization that works with community radio stations all over the country and their main office happens to be 3 blocks from my house. the internship wouldn't pay much, but enough to for me to live on and definitely more than i'm making now. i have mixed feelings though because i wouldn't be able to dedicate as much time to my aid & abet work. jen angel pointed out, though, that the summer is a slow time for booking tours (at least on college campuses) so maybe it would be fine if i got it. we'll see!

i'm trying to be better about structuring my time and being productive as a self-educator/employer, but it's still a challenge. i have a lot of ideas and projects and time i just need to be more motivated and focused. but this is nothing new.

i will be going back to massachusetts around my birthday next month which i'm really psyched about! of course, if i get this internship it will cut into my spring break time since it starts that week. hmmm...

daylight savings nyc

i woke up in brooklyn sunday. we sprung forward an hour overnight which was appropriate. my brief trip to nyc was definitely worth it. i got to spend the afternoon with my dad who had been on vacation there since wednesday night. we walked around times square and central park, enjoying the warm weather. i got to meet up with jesse for dinner in the east village after she got out of work. afterwards i took the subway to brooklyn where i met up with jon after an unfortunately pretentious panel discussion on photography he had just been on. we walked back to his apartment in greenpoint, where i crashed.

sunday morning we walked around the neighborhood and jon took portraits of me with his new camera. i had to catch a 1:30 bus back to philly but i had just enough time to meet cristy road for breakfast. she just joined the aid and abet roster and i'm psyched to work with her and set up some sucessful for tours later in the year.

during the bus ride i cleared my head and felt good about the trip. arriving right near philly's 30th street station i bumped into dave end who was taking a train up to nyc to rehearse for a big performance he's doing with kimya dawson at carnegie hall soon. he also informed me that kimya will be playing at the unitarian church in philly the next day and he might join her for a song or two.

i jumped on the subway toward 5th st. and made it with enough time to get a snack before the wooden shoe collective meeting which i was facillitating at 5:00. the meeting went well as we approved the restructuring of the collective's bylaws which we passed at a daylong retreat two weeks ago. it's the beginning of a new era for this radical institution and i'm excited to be part of it right now.

discovering the end of the rainbow!

i woke up this morning exclaiming "today is gonna be a good day!" it's been a good week. sort of unbelievable that today could be any better than the last couple but i have a feeling in my gut.

yesterday saw a pre-sunrise bike ride with lv to the upenn dental school. she put her name down to be seen later in the morning and we walked around a bit as the sun slowly emerged into our day. i got home around 9:30 am after they finally called her number. my housemate adam greeted me from the kitchen as i walked in the front door, reminding me that it was rent day and that i should put my check up on the fridge with the others. i nervously confirmed my awareness of this fact as i headed upstairs to check my bank balance online.

the day before, after a little research, i figured out how to find the status of my tax refund on the irs website. my refund was due to be directly deposited on march 5th! with that knowledge, i took a deep breath and closed my eyes as the page displaying my balance loaded. this has become a routine over the past couple weeks, an act i have performed many times each day with the hope of newfound riches at my disposal. but this time i was more optimistic. i opened my eyes and gleeful discovered two additional digits in my checking account! enough to cover this month's rent and maybe even next month's too!

i wrote out my check to the landlord and posted it on the fridge with the others. everything is going to be okay. spring is almost here.

marching ahead

march is always a wild card. the snow that arrived in the middle of the night during the final hours of february, and the initial hours of this new month, began to melt in today's bright sun. something shifted today. i busted out my review of the new thermals album for jesse's website sadie, and finally figured out how i will cover my rent this month. what a relief! inhale. exhale.

now i have returned to my new favorite cafe on 43rd and locust where you get two free refills, the sun shining through the big windows facing the street. i am determined and focused now to finally finish this article i've been working on about our new president and the challenge of social movements to develop strategies to navigate this new political climate. things are starting to fall into place. i think spring is afoot...