So I've said it before, I don't like posting in times of great stress, change or sadness. I'd just hate this blog to turn into a bitching session and I don't feel like I write as well (or at least I'm not as funny) if I have other things on my mind... This is one of the many reasons (along with my lack of talent) that I can never be a professional writer who has deadlines. So yeah I offer no apologies (although I am a little sad no one's been harassing me about a new post, for as much as I poke fun at them it at least lets me know that people enjoy them and want more) and I'll just bring you up to speed.
So the first big thing that could fall under either the stress or change categories of why I haven't been posting is my impending homelessness. Ok it's not really that dramatic... but our property manager told us May 15th that the property owner was selling all his investment properties as their leases were expiring so come July 1st we don't have a place to live. This sent into motion one of the most cluster fuck of a home searches in history. I wasn't so worried about finding a place right away because we had 45 days and most of the places that were advertised were available at the latest on June 15th. So in my mind there was no point in looking at houses until at least the last week of May or the beginning of June.
Of course my roommates (or anyone else for that matter) don't think the way I do and so a search was initiated immediately. After hearing me start to bitch Robert called for a house meeting that Saturday where we laid out some parameters on what we wanted/needed in a house, and it was surprisingly productive, Steve even called it, "The closest thing to a 'Power Lunch' any of us had ever been too." But this just brought up another problem, (ok more like annoyance to me) when I got to work invariably Robert would show me all the houses he'd seen while looking on craigslist, I'd check my email and see that Steve had sent me links to the crème of that crop and I'd get home and I'd have IMs from Chris waiting for me with the same damn houses. I actually stopped checking craigslist and started looking for different places that advertised houses for rent.
Steve found the best alternative in a website that a realtor we've nicknamed "Smokey" had his
listings on (and yeah that really is the picture he uses on his website). One of his houses we've dubbed "Crush" because well... when looking at it online I told Robert that it was by far my favorite so far and that I had a bit of a crush on it... And of course this got back to Chris and Steve and the rest as they say is history. And then we looked at it this past weekend and I fell in love a little bit more... it's a three story, recently renovated row house about 6 blocks from Union Station with an elementary school playground across the street from it. We went ahead and applied for it and hopefully we should hear back in the next few days.
The prospect of living down on Capitol Hill really excites me, there are so many bars and so much to do around there, it's in walking distance to practically everything I really hope we get this place. Sure my commute will be about 10 times as long but I've been insanely spoiled the last year and a half. And Robert and I will even start carpooling to work together.
"How will they be able to commute together with Brian working overnight?" you may ask. Well I may then tell you that I'm currently training my replacement. (Ok well obviously not right now... in fact I'm just making her do all the work while I slack off, all in the name of making sure she can do it all on her own, it's great.) "Wow, Brian that's great news! Now we'll be able to hang out more!" I'm sure you would respond. To that I would add, "Yes and I may just buy you a drink to celebrate the fact that not only am I being cured of my Vampirism, but I'm also getting a promotion and will be the Front Desk Supervisor Monday thru Thursday."
This was another change/stress that I was going through the last few weeks. Caitlin (the Front Desk Manager) announced that we were restructuring the Front Desk, we added an Assistant Manager and rearranged the supervisors schedule so there'd only be one per shift and there would be 4 shifts. So I applied for the Assistant Manager and to be a Supervisor and after two interviews, an application and a case study on how to improve customer service at the front desk I found out yesterday (Monday) that I got the Supervisor job.
I'm a little disappointed, I wanted Assistant Manager and I thought I was the best one for the job. But I haven't been a Supervisor yet, and Rory, the dude who got it, has been for almost a year and I think he'll do a pretty good job (just not as good as I would have done). But I'm also really excited to take on more responsibility and any promotion is cause for celebration and the pay is pretty good too.
Oh shit, I almost forgot to tell you about one of the highlights of the year. Last Tuesday I saw Pearl Jam at the Verizon Center. It was awesome, they played some old songs I hadn't heard live before (Leash, an awesome version of Release to open the set
and Alive), the new stuff sounded awesome and they seemed to be in really good form, Mike McCready was really the star of the show bouncing around playing a bitching solo on Rearview BEHIND HIS F'ING BACK! The sound quality was a little disappointing, sometimes the vocals especially sounded muddy, but I think a lot of that had to do with our seats being where it seemed two of the speaker banks overlapped at an odd angle so there was some echo. But I downloaded the bootleg and that sounded really good, so I really believe it was just the seats. You can see the set list
here.I was really surprised at Eddie Vedder's lack of political commentary, it seems most bands feel that because we're in the nation's capital they need to make some sort of statement. But the only thing he said about DC was how nice Mount Pleasant had been for them the night before and he made one joke about Dick Cheney calling him ("Hello this is Dick Cheney"/"Hello Dick.") and requesting "Fuckin' Up" by Neil Young (with the chorus comprised solely of "Why do I keep Fuckin' Up?"). It really impressed me that they just came played a kick ass show and left the politics at home. They just reestablished why they're one of my favorite bands.
Anyway now that things are starting to settle down with my life, hopefully I'll post more. But no promises. With any luck I'll be posting next week to let you all know where I'll be living and how the Tom Petty concert this weekend was. I hope things are going well with you, please harass me to post more often, it lets me know you care.
-B
WILTN: Pearl Jam - "Porch" & "Inside Job"
