Teamwork?

I am clearly the worst person on this team. I am not having the grand ole time that I thought I was going to, and there are several reasons for that.

I am not in the place that they told me I was going to. Soldotna and the surrounding areas are not anywhere close to Anchorage. I am paired with someone that I have NOTHING to say to. He talks and talks, and I just have no response. The work is terrible. I have to go from home to home in the boondocks of Alaska, driving down awful dirt roads to places that have no desire to be found. The people here are getting more and more pissed at us for doing our jobs, and I don't blame them. The other people here are hardcore young Republicans, and I am clearly not, so even though they are decent folks, I disagree with them on most things. I would do that anyway, because there is nothing to do here and I am bored. When I get bored, I have to make my own fun. When I make my own fun, it's usually at someone's expense. At least they think I'm funny. I'm shocked one of these kids hasn't taken a swing at me at this point.

New goal: Get Bryan to throw a punch at me. Then beat the ever loving shit out of him. In self defense, of course.

I'm just ready for this to be over. I really miss driving on pavement. Perhaps if I were in Anchorage I would be having a far different experience. I think that if I were in an urban area, with stuff going on and places to go that might actually be interesting, I would have a different view of this place.

I will miss the scenery up here. It's like a postcard everywhere you look. Forests, mountains, clean lakes, and unusual (for me) wildlife have made this a visually enriching experience. I am drained mentally though. The picturesque vistas don't do much for me other than gain a heartier respect for the beauty of nature.

But that isn't enough for me. This job is just a job. It has 0 challenge for me, other than making it through the day. I find that my temper is starting to become more and more obtrusive. I don't want it to show up, but it does, and I snap at people, mostly the dude I'm paired with. He doesn't deserve it, most of the time. True, he fumbles over simple words and has trouble reading street signs properly, but that isn't that big of a deal. I have just been so frustrated with this place that I don't even bother hiding it anymore.

Other people have joined me. Their vitriol has grown as I water the seeds of their discontent. The rest of team is getting fed up with the work, the negativity of the people we have to talk to, and the crappy nature of this town. I feed into that. That is why I am the worst person here. I am making them have just as shitty a time as I am. I am worming my frustrations into their subconscious, and it's working. This is how I am passing the time.

Oh, and drinking. There is some good beer up here.

SD

Don't Speed in Alaska.

Don't do it. It will never end well for you. We were assigned a route that we had done before. Like, three days ago. So people were sick of us. Really, really sick of us. I don't blame them. The market saturation for this campaign is absurd. Mailers, phone calls, ads on TV ad radio, me and my cohorts walking door to door, volunteers poaching our work. It all adds up to people being sick and tired of the shit that we are doing and they are starting to react. Very negatively. I've said it before and I think it rings with total honest: I feel legitimate empathy for these people and I think we need to relocate to some other town for the last week of the campaign, if for no other reason than to leave these folks alone.

In order to get higher numbers, and look good to the bosses, we tend to drive a little faster than the speed limit allows us to. It's usually no big deal, no one is ever on these roads and there isn't a cop to be found. So the doofus and I worked a dead end road, and turned around. He was driving (I'm not driving that big ass truck, I have a Civic, like a normal human), and he floored it. The road wasn't that long, so we never got that fast. Well, that didn't matter all that much.

We turned the corner, and realized that someone was following us. It was a station wagon, so we figured it was some volunteer being an asswipe and trying to do our job better than we were. But they were creeping. Hard. We pulled over, thinking the person was going to just drive by and leave us in their dust.

That didn't happen.

The car behind us stopped and a woman burst out. She stormed up to us cussing a blue streak. Pissed. SUPER PISSED. "Who the fuck do you work for?! Who fucking sent you here?" We were stumped. What were we supposed to do? Answer? Honestly? Sort of, was the immediate consensus. We told this disgruntled lady what we were doing and who we were working for. But I'll be fucked if we gave an actual phone number. "You are fucking assholes and you need to slow down. Going 80mph through a neighborhood."

I'm going to stop right here. This isn't a neighborhood. It's a bullshit dirt road in the middle of Fucking Nowhere Alaska with literally 4 homes on it. It's a mile long, easy, and there are 4 homes. If you don't rip shit down down this street, you are doing everything wrong.

"Why the fuck are you going this fast?"
We answered: "We have a quota to fill. We need to go down this road." (She had followed us down a second road at this point, I forgot to mention this before).
"Fuck your quotas. If you come back down my road again, I'll fucking shoot you."

Wait, what? This woman (demon) just threatened to SHOOT me over some fast driving? Really?

She went on: "I'll know this truck now and I'll fucking shoot you if you come back here!" She was pissed.

Up to this point in my life, I had figured that I had seen a lot of shit. I AIN'T SEEN SHIIIIIIIT. I know this now. I know that everything that I have known and loved will be taken away from me in a split second by some road rage slag with a gun in Alaska.

Eventually, after a few more threats of gun violence, there were a lot of them, she stormed back to her station wagon and blew off at a very high velocity. She was speeding! She's a hypocrite. She's a disastrous cunt who needs to mind her fucking business.

It was not a good day. Being threatened with a gunshot to ones own person never makes for a good day.

Fuck it. I'm home in a week.

SD

Laundry Day

Attached to the King Salmon Motel is a laundromat. It isn't big, but it gets the job done. For $2.25 a load and $2.25 a dry. $4.50 for one load of laundry? You have to be fucking kidding me. Of course, everything here is more expensive. We have to go to McDonald's every day to check in the data we gather, because they are the only place with reliable Wi-Fi around here. The hotel has decent ethernet, but it there isn't enough juice to it to stream shows. So when I get home there will be a lot of catching up to do. Anyway, the McDonald's Dollar Menu is called a Value Menu because everything is twice as expensive as back home.

Everything is more expensive here. I get why. We are in the hinterlands of Planet Earth and it takes a little more to get stuff up here. But laundry? These fuckers have more water than they know what to do with. Why does the Speed Wash on Broad St. cost half as much as this place? Although I will say that certain aspects of this laundromat ringed of home. There was a woman talking loudly on the phone while using FAR too many machines, and one of the only machines left was broken. I am used to this. I get laundromats. So I did my wash today and have just enough clean clothes to get me back home. Where I can spend a day in lazy pants being a dirtbag and watching shows on the couch. Hulu has no idea what I am about to do to it.

I don't really know how much the clean clothes are really going to matter in the days upcoming. I mean, I walk around outside all day, and the people I come across clearly gave up on caring about their appearance. I try to at least come off as the professional that I am, so a decent outward facade is important. I'm not saying I am trolling for votes in a suit and tie, but I try to at least wear a shirt with buttons on it every day. Not that I have to troll for votes anymore, anyway. The firm I work for changed up our routine, so we are now just trying to remind people that there is an election upcoming and they should get to their polling station and cast their ballot. We are supposed to nudge them towards a couple specific candidates, but I don't care whom the choose, just as long as they get out there.

People are really really fed up with us. Hell, I'm fed up with us. I think that carpet bombing these people with calls, mailers, ads on TV and radio, and jagoffs like me walking door to door is just too much. Not to mention that, along with the 8 professionals doing this, there is also a team of volunteers doing the same thing. They are not a part of our company, they just do this for the love of it. Why they didn't get hired instead of us is beyond me. They are getting to houses before us, pissing people off, and we are receiving the brunt of their ire for repeatedly harassing these poor folks. I pity them, I really do. I think we should take a day off soon just to give the residents a damn break. Today, someone was so fed up he told me "Yeah, whatever, this fucking election needs to be tomorrow." I had nothing to say back other than "Yup. Me, too, man. Me, too."

It's nasty out there. They are really trying to get every single possible vote. Today, an address we were sent to was literally a graveyard. There was a plot number and everything. I went to investigate, looking at the name a number on my knock list. Sure enough, this guy was fucking dead. In the damn ground. But apparently still a registered voter. I marked him down as a "Refused to Answer." Seemed about right. It wasn't a very nice cemetery. It was down one of the ubiquitous dirt roads in residential areas here. If you aren't in a proper town, you live on a shitty dirt road, and apparently you will be buried on one, too. I guess that's what you sign up for if you make the poor life choices that lead you here on a permanent basis.

There is something to be said about the solitude here. It's very quiet. Not a lot of police action, not a lot of stuff going on. I guess that's okay, though. The sleepy nature of the Kenai Peninsula is saving me some money. I was expecting to struggle with that in Anchorage, but they sent me to the middle of nowhere, and they saved me a lot of cash in the process. I don't eat much, just the shitty breakfast in the shitty diner, and then dinner in the room from groceries I got my first day here. They've lasted! Also, I have curtailed my drinking a lot. Occasionally I'll go out to dinner with some of the guys and tip a few pints, but other than that, I have been behaving myself. It's hard to go out and get weird when you have to be walking around in the cold at 9 in the morning.

I have gotten used to the cold. I don't know if my knees have though. The wonky one started to swell up, but some Aleve has helped, and I think the cold might be acting like a natural cold cuff. Ice helped a lot the last time around, and seeing as though the high temperature in Soldotna (where I am) was 29 degrees, I think the worst of that is over. Whatever, I can tough out one more week. I hope.

I think I am going to miss seeing those mountains everywhere the most. I like those.

SD

Signage.

Now, the places I have been, literally all of the places I have been, have distinctly marked labels on homes or mailboxes. Something to easily distinguish them from every other house on their street, even if they look exactly alike. I'm sure there are several reasons for this. Taxes, census, receiving mail, letting your friends know where you live.

Not in Alaska. It seems as though nobody gives a shit about identifying where they live. So when your job is to go from specific address to specific address to troll for votes, life becomes a bit frustrating. We have found some of these routes to be extremely aggravating due to the lack of numbers on homes. There are entire blocks here that have no numbers on homes. How does this make any sense? How is this a thing that happens?

I must be spoiled to live in a place where not only are homes relatively close together, but well labeled and not at all shady. For every middle class home or nice, there are 5 shacks that are so beat down it's remarkable they get electricity. Nasty trailer parks, homes with tarp roofs, and yards littered with all sorts of debris are run of the mill here. I must be spoiled to live in a community that gives a shit about how it looks.

I live in a place where things are properly labeled. Streets for instance have signs. Accurate ones. Up to date signs. Signs! Looking on the GPS on the way to a row of homes to knock on, we had to turn down a street called Smoke Pole Ave. I laughed. OF COURSE I DID!! Smoke Pole Ave. would have been the funniest thing I have seen up here. Was there a sign for Smoke Pole Ave? NOPE! It had some other sign, someone's non pole smoking name. Even on cross streets, there was nothing coming remotely close to Smoke Pole Ave. I went from laughing to depressed very quickly.

If you have a road in your town called Smoke Pole, you need to advertise it. Think of the social media benefits. People would think it's funny (because it it) and tweet, share, or otherwise let the world know of the hilarity of your street. Not Alaska. Alaska has no sense of humor. Alaska needs to get it's shit together.

Between the lack signs and lack of humor here, I have no idea how I am going to get through another 8 days of this. I guess it isn't so bad, I shouldn't complain about having work. If I were at home right now, I wouldn't have anything worth writing about or worth, well, anything. I'd be collecting unemployment and furiously searching for work. I would be frustrated with life, instead of a doofus and some dumb shit in a town that got incorporated less than 70 years ago. I only wonder now what each day will bring me to make me more ready to get back to civilization.

They have nothing here. No book store, no record store, not even kitschy shops to buy shit with moose on it. You would think that a place like this, whose population has to swell immensely during hunting and fishing season, would be prepared for people that come from out of town. I guess not.

You have one more week to impress me, Alaska. Moose are fun, but fun is funner.

SD

Dog Whispering.

I can't say that anything fun or interesting really happened today. It was pretty normal. Routine, even. I get up, poop, shower, brush my teeth, and get dressed just like any other day. We all go to breakfast at the shitty diner together, so the whole team has some food based bonding time every day. This morning I was hungover, due to the karaoke bar madness last night, but I got over that pretty quickly.

The doofus and I went on our route, no big deal. I was able to go off into some neighborhoods on my own, getting away from his idiocy for a while. Seriously, I don't think he can read. Maybe I'm just better at dealing with street signs than he is, I don't really know.

In one of the neighborhoods I think I woke up a pack of dogs. There seemed to be 15 of them barking at me at the same time. What the hell did I do to them? I like dogs. I want them to love me. One came out of his yard and started following me around. He stood in the street while I went to houses and knocked on doors. He would bark when I came back to the street to move on to the next house. This happened for 2 entire streets worth of houses. Other dogs were freaking out and running around and barking. There was a lot of barking dogs today. More than normal. Everyone has a dog or two out here. I think I've seen maybe, MAYBE 5 cats in the days I've been here.

Eventually my new doggy companion took off and went home. Or so I thought. After a minute of solitude, I hear this thundering from behind me. I wheel around and the dog is sprinting at me and barking. He started circling me and barking and then just sat down in front of me. He cooled out and just trotted along side for a while. I MADE A DOGGY FRIEND!!

Then he took off for good and I was alone again.

I'm alone now, doofus went off to the beach to watch the sunset and get some barbeque or some such shit. The beach thing is honest to God true. He asked me if I wanted to go with him. To the beach. In balls cold October. To watch a sunset. I asked him he was taking me there to ask me to prom. I'm kind of a dick. Whatever, he laughed it off and left me to watch the World Series. I was fine with that.

I'm not going to watch a sunset on a beach with a 350 pound dude. Fuck that.

10 days until home.

SD

Karaoke Night.

Sometimes you need to blow off some steam. Sometimes you need to go out with the guys and have a few drinks. Sometimes you have to get weird. Sometimes you need to bring your own world into the world that you have been infused into. But there are other times that you need to feel like you are at home.

Home is important. Home is what keeps you grounded. Home is what gives you the base line for your entire life. I listen to the music that I know, I reference the shows and movies that I am used to. I talk about the things I know and the things I have done. And they all refer to home. I am trying very hard to not think about home in loving ways. I am trying not to be homesick. I am trying to live in the moment. In Alaska. In the now.

It seems really trite and cliched as I write these words and read them back to myself, but there is a truth to them. The draw that home brings, the people, the girl, the safety, that means a lot to someone who is so far out of their realm. I am definitely out of my sphere of security. I see moose on a daily basis. We do NOT have moose in New London. There is a risk of bear attack every day. Bears. Fucking BEARS. Nobody, no matter how hard they might think they are, fucks with bears. I am far FAR outside of my comfort zone.

I am reminded of the tour I went on with Hand Grenade Serenade. There was a member of the band that was so far outside of his understanding that he fell into a shell and made the tour hellish for those of us who were into it. I don't want to become that guy. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be the one who brings everybody down.

Today, I know that I was a pain in the ass. My temper got the best of me, and I became an angry dickhole who was no good to anyone, let alone the pious doofus that I work with. He's a minister, and I am most certainly a sinner. I feel bad for cussing as much as I do, but my vocabulary will not be adjusted per the the religious leanings of some dude that I share a shitty motel room with. Anyone who knows me understands this.

But I am trying to let the bullshit of the day roll off my back. I am trying to temper my temper. I need to understand that there are solutions to the problems that I have encountered, and I prove that I actually AM smarter than these people and fix the damn problems. I have to create solutions and act upon them, and most of my problems are going to go away. At least for a little while.

Today, it was bonding with people. Obviously, the doofus can't hang with the NL life. He isn't going to be the one to go out drinking with me. He isn't the one that will create his own stories to regale my friends back home with. There are some though. There are a few guys here who will hang out and make my life more normal.

Or so I thought.

Chris, Bryan, and I went to a bar tonight, The Duck Inn (get it, just Duck In..get it....Jesus...) is, in fact a bar. We were told it was special, for some reason. That reason is far beyond my understanding at this point. We were there, having a good time, Bryan doesn't drink, and makes his 6 years sobriety very well known, so he DD'ed for us. Nice of him, good look, Bry.

As it turns out, it was karaoke night at the Duck Inn. As a veteran of many karaoke nights, both by being there and by listening to them at Stupid O'Clock in the morning from the gay bar next door to my apartment, I understand what is good karaoke and what isn't. There is not much that qualifies as "good" karaoke.

There was the obviously local dude with the giant sideburns and stupid fisherman's hat squawking out songs from the 60's. There was the pretty fiance singing really good songs with her really good voice (she was awesome, for reals....) and there was the star of the night. A dude with a black t-shirt tucked into camouflage pants singing 60's and 70's country songs. He as amazing. I bought him a shot.

And then there was Bryan. A nice kid, a total dork, and a Republican to the end. I am not one of his people. And then he sang. He sang one of the worst songs I have ever heard. I general, it is a terrible song. Drowning Pool's "Bodies" is, on it's own merits, one of the most deplorable excuses for music that ears have ever heard. Any ears, not just my jaded hipster ears, can understand this is just flat out bad.

And this kid fucking belted out every note, every scream, every solo, all of it. God bless him. That song is so bad that I figured that nobody would ever want to sing that. I was wrong. I can admit that. I am wrong about karaoke...sometimes.

After that mess, Chris and I decided to stop laughing and get a little drunk. What sucks about this job is that there are no days off. We can't go out to the bar as a team and get weird (drunk) with a day off to recover. This is the crunch time of the election season and we all have to buckle down. We have to knock on as many doors as possible. We have to do everything we can in order to accomplish our goal. No matter what side, what party, what philosophy, this is the time to get your shit together and get that work done.

I kept Chris from fighting a random bro. I kept myself from getting too drunk. I have to work in a few hours, and I have a responsibility to those who hired me to put in my best effort. So no matter how well that chick sang Billie Holiday songs, or how cool that waitress thought we were, we had to go. I think I have a different type of drunk than a lot of people. I just want to have fun, talk to people I don't know, maybe dance a little. You, know, do the things I would never EVER do when I was sober.

Anyway, Bryan's non-drinking, bad music loving self drove, and he got us back to home base safely and without a warrant being dealt out for either Chris or myself. There was a doubt...if only for a moment.

Everything is safe, now...for now

SD

The Social.

I found a brewpub. I like it a lot. The St. Elias brewpub is a pretty legit establishment, with some seriously good pizza with a nice foldable crust, and really REALLY good beer. The Baltic Porter is legit. I went there with a few guys from work, Chris, an Alaskan native, Bryan, a non-drinking dork from South Carolina, and Tristan, another refugee from the great State of Connecticut. Chris and I drank beers and regaled each other of our debaucherous pasts, while Bryan and Tristan chimed in when they found it necessary. Tristan and I talked about Connecticut, Bryan and I talked about metal. We all talked about work.

We bitched and moaned about how terrible the routes we work are, how lazy the payroll department can be (which is terrifying), and how the scenery around Alaska is so remarkable that it knocks you backwards. So Chris and I drank. You learn a lot about a man when you drink with him. This dude can hang with me. This dude would be okay in New London. We had a few rounds at St. Elias, and then we had a few more at the hotel.

Drinking in a parking lot, no matter where that parking lot is, seems to have a few universal truths. First, you never hold your beer. Keep it on the ground so that the cops can't nab you for open container. Other than that, you better bring your A Game stories. The ones that are fool proof. The ones that make you look like some sort of Dionysus. You tell the stories that make you into the Greek God of Amazing, and then you tell more. You have to hang, man. You have to go beer for beer. I would still be in the lot drinking right now if I weren't called away to write an email to my boss. We need to get quotes from people we talk to now. This is stupid. No one wants to say that much to us that would actually sound good as a quote. I have to dig deep into my media past to spin some of this shit.

There was one woman today, though. A resident at a retirement home (yeah, we have to go there, and it's the best part of my day) was PISSED. Pissed at this entire election. A lot of people are. They are pissed at getting a billion phone calls, people like me knocking at their door, the vitriol between the two candidates. Just flat out pissed. This woman said this to me, I wrote it down because it was sooooooo good: "I'm so mad I could spit! They can both go to Hell and kiss each other!" Oh, Gloria Wisencraven, can we PLEASE hang out all day? Please? I would fake everything else for the rest of the day, record absolutely nothing, and hang out with Madame Gloria drinking Scotch (we all know she has some) if given the opportunity. She was incredible.

What tomorrow brings, I have no idea. I'll get my assignments and knock on doors. I promise you though, there will not be someone that brightens my day like Gloria. Not a chance.

Anyway, I sit here typing away, drinking my beer, knowing that tomorrow night, there is a pretty good chance that I am going out with my coworkers again. I am being social. I have something to look forward to at the end of the day now. A drink with someone I work with. It's not big, but for me, this is the first step in becoming actually comfortable here.

I can leave the lumbering oaf I work with at home though. I seem to get sick of him easily. His seemingly childish reading level. His inability to say words correctly. His lack of knowledge about the pronunciation of our opponents LAST FUCKING NAME. But, BUT, there are only a few more days of this knucklehead. Well, 2 weeks, but in the long run, it's okay. We actually work well together. I look like a genius while he looks like a moron. I like that dynamic.

One road in, One road out. Two weeks until Connecticut.

SD

KWHALE: Alaska's home of the ROCK!

Another day in the hinterlands. Driving around cleared out strips of land that pass for roads is not exactly my idea of a good time, but this is work, and work isn't supposed to be fun, or at least that's what the elders taught us. We eat breakfast as a group every day at this crappy diner next to the King Salmon Motel where we are staying. King Salmon, yeah buddy. So we sit around and shoot the shit, I drink coffee and eat something normal, and the nitwits I work with get some garbage that the cover in syrup and butter.

Yesterday, I figured, correctly, that I would want something hearty to fuel me as I walk around neighborhoods knocking on doors all day. I was right, but the biscuits and gravy I got was pretty salty and terrible, and the gravy was more akin to paste than actual gravy. It wasn't the worst thing I have every eaten, but it was close. Today I decided it would be better to get some eggs. Someone else did as well, and they got scrambled eggs with white toast and hash browns. The hash browns come with everything, so they were placed along side my over easy eggs and rye toast.

Let me say this about rye toast: It is supposed to be thin, tan, and have caraway seeds in it to make each slice, you know, GOOD! Alaska needs to understand the difference between rye bread and marble bread. Marble bread is half rye, half pumpernickel, swirled together for something that is incredible for a pastrami sandwich. It's okay as breakfast toast, too, but not what I wanted. Idiots. Also, this bready abomination was super thick, like Texas toast. What the fuck is this? I want rye toast, not this marble brick that has been saturated with butter and my own silent shame.

I think this breakfast blew my cover though. I think they can smell the Yankee Liberal on me now. I got a very, we'll say New York City, breakfast, and I got some odd looks. I wanted to say something like "what's the matter bitches? You afraid of some yolks?" But I didn't, I just sat there, drank bad coffee, and ate bad food. Whatever, I needed the caffeine and sustenance. Move along.

The driving is becoming a bit much as well. It's not the sheer volume of driving, but rather the either not having any idea where we are supposed to go due to the lack of signage, but the fact that the roads are straight up foolish. They aren't paved, they are windy, uneven and mostly wet. If it snows, no, WHEN it snows, these roads are going to SUUUUUUUUUCK. And suck a lot. Driveways are no better. They are mostly just gravel, and even though there are almost exclusively trucks and 4x4s up here, so I guess it wouldn't be that big of a deal. Still though, how do you shovel this crap? How do these people deal with the weather on these prehistoric driving apparatus.

We listen to the radio in the car. Switching between one of three country stations, which is what the doofus I am paired with likes, or the rock station, which I would like if it didn't suck worse than the rye bread. Nobody must like good music up here. Or I am just a jaded hipster that hates most everything that would ever be on any radio station. It's probably that. I'm just a dick.

Going around from house to house in the middle of the day is interesting. Hardly anyone is ever there, and the ones that are usually don't care all that much. Today some redneck started going off on Obama and dropped a few N-Bombs, so that was fun. Lots of people said "God Bless," and I just said "Yeah," and walked away.

On the bright side, while looking for someone's home, I was able to see a moose! A FUCKING MOOSE! Hell yeah, moose, way to graze. And way to be gigantic. It was a lady moose, and that lady moose is one big ole bitch. She blended in with the tall grass she was eating, so the photos I took with my shitty phone camera are going to be shitty and not do this noble beast justice. It's not like you can get real close to one and snap a selfie. Those things are aggressive and enormous and they will stomp you the fuck out. Moose give 0 fucks. I like moose.

I saw a moose today, what did you see?

SD

OK, Alaska

Hartford to Cincinnati to Seattle to Anchorage to a rental pick up truck to the hotel in some place called Soldonta. What? Where? After being in the air or in an airport for the better part of 18 hours altogether, I had to drive with the dude I'm paired up with for 3 hours to get to the hotel. He's a nice enough guy. A minister with a wife, 2 kids and a 3rd on the way from California, he's 350 pounds and pretty much an idiot. Fumbles over the easiest words. Says "For realz" (with the z) without a hint of irony. He makes me feel really REALLY smart, so I have some purpose.

The work is pretty tedious. All we do is go door to door and knock. They provided me with an iPod Touch to record the silly survey we have to ask anyone who opens the door for us. Not many people do. Not many at all. Out of 100 people we had to ask, we came across the following:

-24 actual people
-75 dogs, most of them pretty awesome
-12 chickens
-1 vociferous rooster (that little shit needed to shut his fucking mouth
-1 goose in a pen
-1 backwoods weirdo in sweatpants
-0 guns pointed in our faces.

The one backwoods weirdo was straight out of the backwoods weirdo playbook. Scraggly beard, dirty sweats, super angry attitude, phone to his ear with a cord attached to it, and a SUPER shady "home." It was more of a ramshackle methed out lean to than anything else. If this guy WASN'T furiously clacking away at an old typewriter, spewing out anti-establishment nonsense, he's being a backwoods weirdo in the wrongest possible way.

Other than that, there was nothing really interesting. No moose. No bears. Not a whole lot of wildlife. I found that kind of odd, as we were not in a truly residential neighborhood. Mostly unpaved roads with scattered homes, some of them quite lovely, and a lot of virgin forest. Nary a moose to be found. And I was looking, dammit.

The other people in this group are pretty standard Republican. I don't have all that much to talk to them about. There is one guy from Stamford, and he worked with Tom Foley in 2010, so fuck him. And there is one prototype blonde Republican WASP girl who worked with Linda McMahon in her quest to gain a Senate seat. When she found out I was from CT, she asked if I knew a couple of people who worked with her on that campaign. She's an idiot. I wanted to remind her that I don't know everyone in the State, but it was early in the morning and I hadn't drank any coffee yet, so my brains weren't clicking on all cylinders yet.

A lot of the time these people talk, I silently mock them. They are so super stoked to be working for a Republican that it kind of pains me to have to work along side them. I don't share their values. They aren't New London hipsters like I am. They don't have the same background and pedigree that I have. I want to go the bars around here with these people, just to show them how to do things right. I don't know if that will fly. They can't hang with me. Some of them were shocked that I bought beer for the mini fridge. I had to get food, so why the fuck not get some beers. I'm going to do what I want in my free time, and if that means tipping a few back when I get out of work, so be it. If they have a problem with that fuck 'em.

Yea. Fuck 'em.

SD

Seattle has a place for planes to go!

First things first: I'm writing this while waiting for a plane. In Seattle. I'm on my way to a job in Alaska, yeah, THAT Alaska, to work on a Senatorial campaign that a friend of mine hooked me up with. So I'm in Seattle right now, not enjoying much other than a gray sky and an uncomfortably bad chair for typing. But, Seattle's airport does have it's perks. First of all, there is free Wi-fi, which is great, but would be better if it didn't SUCK! Seriously, for such a connected and technologically advanced city, at least to us Eastern folk, the Wi-fi here is fucking terrible. It was better in the last plane that I was in, and that went over Idaho.

Either way, I'm just tossing off a quick check in, I'm sure that I will be giving this keyboard a workout throughout the next 15 days. As of now, however, I have been awake for so long that I don't really understand time at this point. I think I have to get ready to get on a plane soon, but I have no real concept of hours at this point, so fuck it. I have no idea what the actual time is where I am right now. I think it's like 1:30 in the afternoon, but it could be something very different. I really don't know.

I don't really care either, to be honest. I think that I just want all this travel to be over with at this point. I've been either on a cramped ass plane, or in some sterile airport for most of a day, and I figure this is probably just my life right now, so I might as well adapt to it. In this here Seattle Airport, they play local music over their PA system, and that is incredibly cool. They also have a pretty good burger place in one of their food courts. It's right near the gate where I am writing this. A gate that I had to take a train to get to. A goddamned TRAIN! While I was on this silly train, I realized that all the announcements here, either for departing flights, or simply rattling off some TSA PSA, are all bilingual. English and Japanese. That's when I realized: There are a shit load of Japanese here. Just in the airport, there are so many Japanese. Whatever, I get it. Still, never heard Japanese announcements before.

Anyhow, My flight is threatening to board now, so I better wrap this rambling garbage up. So the moral of this tale? Seattle's airport is pretty cool, and has a lot of Japanese. They have a sushi bar, too. I didn't eat that. Fuck you airport sushi, you can't fool me into explosive poops.

More later,

SD

Screaming at the walls.

I have to keep my mind occupied. Without a job to whittle away the hours and no interviews on the horizon, I feel like I am going stir crazy. I know I am not going to go all Howard Hughes and collect pee in jars. I know that I am not going to move to a cave with a typewriter and create some voluminous manifesto arguing against the government or religion or some other crazy person nonsense.

I could though. That might actually be fun. Unfortunately, I have no real reason to. I simply don't care enough about much of anything to create some vast text of rambling bullshit. I like a few things, some more than others. What I don't like, right now, is the prevailing sense of boredom and frustration that has weaseled its way into my psyche. I write these words and realize that I have become fully vested in self loathing. I need to get my shit together.

On the bright side, I have something to look forward to at the end of this week.

I have tickets to the United States Mens National Team (USMNT from here on out) of Soccer play in Hartford Friday night. This soccer game is noteworthy. Not only is it the first big time soccer game I will have attended, but it is the final game of Landon Donovan, the best player this country has ever produced.

I was surprised to hear that he picked this game to be his last, and he has enough equity in the US Soccer Federation that he could have picked any game. I would have thought that he would have picked something in the Southern California region, as that is where he is from and where he plays professionally. He had plenty of chances to go to Europe and play in higher quality leagues, in fact, he started in Germany, a popular spot for American players.

The all time leader in goals, assists, and clutch plays have made Landon Donovan the most beloved player we have ever seen. He was so good that Everton F.C., a major club who plays in the English top division, made several bids to get him, and he rebuffed them all. Donovan played on loan there a few years back, but was always more interested in the American game. He was the most influential member of the first legitimate roster of American soccer players. He might have been solely responsible for creating the surge in popularity in this country for soccer.

And I get to watch him retire.

I got tickets 6 rows up in a corner of the lower bowl of Rentschler Field in Hartford, also where the UCONN football team plays. It's going to be pretty sweet. We can tailgate, maybe with a keg. I will be adorned in my Donovan 10 jersey, because I am a sports dork and I own jerseys. Plural. It's going to be an interesting evening. The American Outlaws, a USMNT supporters group with over 150 chapters in the US, including a very active contingent in Hartford, will be there with a massive canvas banner saluting our best player, and I can't really wait to see it.

We're playing Ecuador, by the way. I couldn't give less of a fuck about Ecuador if I tried.

SD

The Worst.

The worst is the waiting. The worst is the not knowing if anyone has even looked into your shit. The worst is applying for jobs, sending out inquiries, doing your part, the heavy lifting of the employment hunt and garnering literally zero response from anyone.

Granted, it's only been a few days, so I can't really expect anything to happen that quickly, but still. Sooner or later I am going to be able to write something positive here. Not just complaining about how nothing is happening and postulation about what I can do to pass the myriad hours I have at my disposal. That gets repetitive and lame.

I will say, with all self loathing, this might have been the longest week of my life. I feel like it should not be Thursday, but rather next Monday by now. Not having a job really sucks the fun out of life. There is a distinct lack of purpose in daily life for me now. There isn't all that much to do other than will power myself away from the liquor cabinet. I think this will pass as I get used to it.

Figuring out other activities, preferably free ones, to pass afternoons after a morning full of job hunting, is key. I need to find some free shit to do outside of my apartment. Inside things are nice and all, but I get sick of these walls sometimes. They remind me of where I am in my life. Yes, it's a sweet apartment, but being here all day means that I am not working all day. Everything reminds me of the negative. I need to focus on positive things, but when they don't exist, that gets really hard.

I knew all of this was coming. I had plenty of advance notice of the upcoming unemployment, but still, I didn't think I would take it this hard. I thought, okay, this won't be that bad. I'll just find a job, no big deal. WRONG. Like, really really wrong. Maybe next week will be better.

Hopefully next week will be better.

SD