The Boring Review

I’m sure I’ve told this story here before, but I’m going to tell it again, and there’s nothing you can do about.
Well, I suppose you could not read it, but that’s not going to make a difference because it’s not like anyone reads any of this anyway, so knock yourself out. Either way, I’m still going to write it.
Years ago, back when I was in college and married, I was sitting on the living room floor in our apartment bagging and boarding my comics and resisting the natural temptation to just sit there and read them, while my wife and a friend of hers were sitting at the kitchen table.
In the midst of my organizing and archiving efforts, I sort of paused and started staring off into space.
Eventually my wife noticed this and asked me what was the matter.
I said, “I was just thinking...isn’t the whole point of having a hobby that you’re supposed to be doing something you enjoy?”
The point was, I like reading comics, and I’m only a collector inasmuch as I hold onto the comics after I’ve read them. I’m not terribly interested in the preservation and organization thing, and the fact that I engage in any of those things is, again, rather incidental. If I’m going to keep the comics I’ve read, I need to preserve them, and if I want to be able to read them again I need to be able to find them.
This idea came to mind again today not because I’ve got hundreds of un-bagged comics sitting around in disorganized piles, but because I’ve spent most of the day drawing.
In parallel with that I’ve also spent most of the day swearing, and saying things like, “Do I even know how to do anything? I don’t know why I’m even asking, as the answer is clearly, ‘No, I don’t.’”
Fucking hobbies.
Seriously, why the hell am I spending hours just pissing myself off doing something that I ostensibly enjoy? I’m obviously not doing it for money, and it sure as hell doesn’t feel like I’m doing it for love.
In any case, before sitting down to “enjoy” my hobby, I did the usual Saturday morning routine, which involves getting up after getting much less sleep than I normally do during the week yet, paradoxically, feeling much more rested, sitting around for a while, then showering and dressing and heading out to the comic shop and to go grocery shopping.
I actually did a little less sitting around, so I ventured out into the world earlier than usual, and as a result got home sooner than usual.
I didn’t have to buy much in the way of groceries, as I didn’t need much, and on Thursday I’ll be heading to Michigan for a week, so there wasn’t really much point in buying a bunch of stuff.
I’m looking forward to seeing the family, and getting away from work, though having an abbreviated work week means having to get a bunch of shit done before it’s over.
Speaking of work, on Wednesday, per the conversation with my boss on Monday, I actually wore a suit.
This led to a lot of surprise and amusement on the part of most of the people I work with, who all assumed that I was interviewing for a different job (“Interviewing for that VP position Jon?”), or that I’d been to a funeral.
A lot of people referred to me as Gordon Gekko (the character Michael Douglas played in the movie Wall Street), and while I did feel an urge to go around telling people that I wasn’t happy with the second quarter numbers, I thought about saying, “I’m more like Patrick Bateman in American Psycho,” but I don’t need to add fuel to the whole “secret serial killer/serial killer waiting to happen” fire, so I kept my mouth shut.
For my part, wearing the suit caused the song Suit and Tie Guy by D.R.I., the video for which is posted below, to keep playing in my head. This was fine by me, as I actually like the song - most of you probably will not; D.R.I. is clearly not for everyone, but yes, mother, I do call that music - and it served as a nice change of pace to have a song that I actually like stuck in my head.




Beyond that, not much of interest has been going on. On Thursday I discovered that the hot intern, whose internship was ending on Friday, will become the hot contractor next week, which means that she’ll be around for a while longer and, assuming she ever was, she’ll no longer be off-limits.
I mean, theoretically it means that she’ll no longer be off-limits. In practice I remain Jon, so it doesn’t actually mean anything.
Speaking of interns, on Friday during our staff meeting we had a goodbye lunch for our intern, who is also sticking around for a couple more weeks, but will be interning for someone else. He seems like a good kid, and did a good job for us, so hopefully he’ll go far in life.
*Sigh* Now do you see why I haven’t posted anything in a few days? It hardly seems possible, but my life just seems to get even more boring with each passing day.