Wednesday, March 10, 2010

In The Thrall of the Blank Stare

My comic run would be delayed for the sake of some work I picked up for the city of Lakewood. Delayed to the point that it probably wouldn't be till Friday that I would find the time to sate my dark urges. As for the work I picked up, I would be shooting a "Fiscal Forecast" for the Water Board. This would be just as exciting as it sounds by my excited typing.

U_U

(The emoticon above signifies non-excitement).

Through much of the meeting, I found myself daydreaming about nothing. This worried me, because I could usually rely on my daydreaming to help move a day along. But the numbers and powerpoint slides were just too much for my tortured imagination. I was temporarily in the thrall of the blank stare. The kind where you stare at something, and there really is nothing going on in your mind. No thought. No contemplation. No misery. No joy. Just... VOID.

Perhaps its a survival trait. Much like going into shock. My brain just shut down so that I wouldn't notice the passage of time, or lack thereof. It did seem as though I was skydiving into a big whiteboard of figures and camera zooms. But its worrying, because I would much rather go over an interaction between made-up characters rather than mental oblivion.

I got back Lakewood after filling up the gas tank of the city van. Oh, wait, I haven't introduced the Lakewood City TV van! The van... is a war horse. It's a Ford mini-van that has a cracked dashboard, squishy brakes, and a rear view mirror that fell off the windshield. I remember a time where actually driving over 60 mph while simultaneously running the air conditioning would lead to the van shaking in away that was anxiety inducing. It has since been fixed, but just about everything in the van has "since been fixed," with a new problem right around the corner. The greatest wonder of the City TV van is that it has yet to explode or crap out its engine upon the freeway, when all rights and evidence leads one to think the worse would happen.

But no, really, its a lovely vehicle.

By the time all was said and done, I was at Norwalk. We had a Planning Commission Meeting, so we had that to look forward to, as well as the fact that I would be Director for the night! Being Director is pretty cool. Especially now that I was nearing a solid dozen times having been Director. I much prefer this time over the first time I was Director, where I couldn't carry on a human conversation for fear that I would somehow ruin all cable with a wrong button push. But now that I'm something of an old hat at it, I enjoy the entire process completely. I just like knowing what I'm doing WAY more than being confused by all the shiny lights on the board.

After Norwalk, I headed to Justin's house to hang out with him, Victor, and Josh. The conversations were random and absurd as usual. Very much to my liking.

Topics of Conversation @ Justin's: Lex Luthor's awkward reasoning, time travel made easy, the fact that the Flash can't run to the Moon, Satan in the paper, Superman being a super sport, the death of an entire future Earth, Turtle-Turtle-Turtle-Turtle-Ninja-Turtle, recycled theme songs, etc.

I then neglected to write this blog on time. Ugh.

-Nate

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