269 – Too Busy

I’m going to bed. Sorry. It’s gotta be that way. This has been an incredibly busy day for me, and I’m exhausted. It’s 1 am, and I just got for for the first time since I left over 18 hours ago.

238 – The Knick, “The Busy Flea”

I can’t tell if Cinemax is staffed by idiots or geniuses. Their new prestige series, The Knick, is airing on Fridays. Fridays! The widely accepted graveyard for broadcast television. The only thing worse is (shudder) Saturday. Ever since the days of The Sopranos, Sunday has been the day for high concept cable drama. Perhaps HBO, the more popular parent company to Cinemax, doesn’t want to canibalize it’s own end-of-weekend cash cow. It does however leave one wondering if anyone is watching The Knick. Certainly not on Friday.

236 – Endings and Beginnings

your standard multi-species orgy improv scene

This has been a pretty good year for me, creatively. But much like with The 25th Annual Spelling Bee, all good things must come to an end. My latest positive venture is Julie Brister’s Advanced Monoscene class through UCB.

220 – Working Hard, or Hardly Working

This summer has been a hot one. But where work is concerned – it has also been a long one. The last school year ended in early June, and the new one start on Monday. That’s only two months (which is crazy), but from the perspective of an employee, those desolate months are sometimes interminable.

 

My job is most interesting when there are actual students to assist with schoolwork. In the absence of the children, people like myself are relegated to manual labor. Ugh. Can you imagine anything worse?

When there’s nothing else to do, I nevertheless manage to find projects to work on. Whether it’s taking inventory of text books or laminating newly-received novels or some other piece of busy work, there is always something to do. 

“Something to do,” but often that something is rather trivial. No matter how unimportant, though, there is always more to be done. Regardless, I’ll take care of the task. I’m lucky to have an aide gig that actually pays over the summer months, so I really have no grounds to complain about anything.

Well, guess what. I’m complaining anyway, because the administration waited until this week to actually give us hard work to do. You would think a school would be aware of how many new teachers it hires. And furthermore, that it would be aware of how many rooms those teachers will require. Here’s the thing, my unnamed high school likes to go against the grain, especially when it comes to preparation.  So when it is decided that the library will become a classroom, there is no better way to address the task of removing thousands of books than saving it for the last day of summer break. That’s how my co-workers and I found ourselves in the position of moving boxes and boxes of books from school to a storage locker for four hours.

(If the shuttering of a high school library isn’t a sign of the times re: the nation’s not-so-secret devaluing of education, I don’t know what is.)

I don’t mind being asked to do physical movement – in a lot lf ways it comes with the job. I do mind, however, waiting until the last minute to spring suck work on your support staff. But I suppose I don’t have all the answers. That’s why I’m just support staff. None of this will be a problem come next week, but until then I’ll have nightmares about incessant cleaning and picking up boxes. Ten years ago I would never imagine that I would be looking forward to the end of summer. Now I can’t freakin’ wait. Bring on the blitz!

206 – San Diego Comic Con International Day Two

After a crowded night in which three adults shared one king-sized bed (much tossing and unrequited cuddling ensued), the second day of the 2014 San Diego Comic Con International arrived. We woke up pretty early, as you’re wont to do when you’re bed is just too full. We had a hazy conception of what we would do with our morning, but we weren’t going to plan things out too strictly. That’s just not our style.

144 – Closing the Bee

When Fraggled Productions’ run of Urinetown closed in October 2012, I was incredibly excited to see what would happen next. Now – a year and a half later – the musical follow-up, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, just had its final show. It has been a long process (or at least it has felt like it), but it has been an extremely fun one.