Ugh. It’s going on 13:30 and I’ve already been up nearly nine hours. I know others have been up even longer that, but this was the first Black Friday trench run I’ve ever experienced — at least from the consumer’s point of view — so I felt obligated to get up early and venture out with my dad to a few stores.

I picked up a few small deals while out: oil and a filter for my car for $5; an 8GB flash drive for $15; and THE DARK KNIGHT on dvd for $4. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, as I am not completely retarded and easily led to believe that I will get anything and everything that is a “great” deal today. Most of the stores were busy, but it was a manageable sort of busy, the kind that is kind of fun to be out in.

Except for Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart was hell.

We got there around 5:30. It was our second stop after Target. The parking lot was packed, but we found a spot easily enough, which made me think, Oh, this shouldn’t be too bad. Upon entering the store, however, I nearly shat myself. The queues for people waiting to check out stretched all the way to the back of the store, and over into the lawn and garden section. I couldn’t discern where it began. There were no gaps in the queue, which in many spots was two or more persons deep. Fortunately, a young fat woman was asleep at the wheel, staring down at her cell phone, and she had let a small space open. We dashed through it, hopped over an abandoned pallet, and then were through what I was sure was the worst of it.

Wrong.

A few moments later, we made our way back to the perimeter of the electronics department. This area was even more heavily congested, so much so that one could barely move, let alone shop. Getting in to the actual electronics area would have required a feat of magic, or perhaps Nightcrawler from the X-Men. So, bowing to the inevitable, I offered a quick word of condolence to Brandon, who was nearby working in the photo lab, and my dad and I turned around and slowly pushed our way through to the exit.

I worked these Black Fridays at Wal-Mart for five years. This was easily the busiest that joint had ever been.

So what am I really thankful for this year? That I no longer have to deal with working at that bullshit. All said, though, this morning’s experience was actually kind of fun.

Lately, whenever I am feeling down or a little sad, I open this photo…

…and I remember that someone always has it worse than me. And that cheers me up.

Of course, Nate the Penguin also does a wonderful job of brightening my mood.

Got bored today, so I went down to the Fairfield Commons to grab lunch and peruse the Barnes & Noble. Also brought my laptop in case I felt moved to write. I did, and produced a quick thousand words. Now I am typing up this blog entry and trying not to stare at all the hipster kids with their skinny jeans, Uggs, scarves, and too tight clothing. It is very hard. I already feel overly conspicuous just being here with my laptop.

Oh, great. Coldplay is playing over the satellite radio. Just kill me now.

Moving on. Must finish this quickly and get the hell out of here.

Work on PROPHECY GIRL continues to progress at an agreeable pace. The other night I finally came up with a way to properly tie together the first chapter with the rest of the story. When I started writing PG a few weeks ago, the beginning was giving me a hell of a time. I’ve known the very first sentence for a number of years, and have had a general idea of what needs to happen in the opening chapter. In fact, I’ve written the first chapter several times before, but have never been satisfied with it.

So instead of agonizing over it for another month or year or whatever, I simply skipped the first chapter and moved onto the next chapter that I had a grip on. Once I did that, the words came out pretty easily. And then the other night, with most of Part One now sussed out, an interesting (at least I hope) and workable first chapter sort of sprung into existence in my head. I stopped making dinner, went over to the lappy, and spent the next hour transcribing what amounted to a braindump of ideas and notes. And then as I was writing those down, a number of thoughts and ideas on the middle and end Parts presented themselves, and I wrote those down as well.

I was damn well starving by the time I was finished, but very happy.

Now: time to leave Barnes & Noble before I start using scarves as murder weapons.

Sitting on the couch as I type this, and drinking tea. Was seated at the kitchen table earlier, clickety-clacketying away, but the window there apparently isn’t sealed as well as it should be, and it was starting to get a bit drafty.

THE NINTH GATE is playing on the TV, more for background noise than anything. I have seen it probably sixty times or so, and know much of it by heart.

(“You don’t like me very much, do you Mister Corso?”

“I don’t have to like you. You’re a client, and you pay well.”)

I have a strange love for THE NINTH GATE. It’s certainly not the best of Polanski’s films. CHINATOWN and ROSEMARY’S BABY would probably be considered those. Oh, and THE PIANIST (which I don’t care for particularly, but it did win a couple of Oscars and others seemed to really like it, so I suppose if should be included). CHINATOWN is one of my favorite films, and I’ve seen it several times. But it’s not a movie I’m compelled to watch on a regular basis. A viewing every couple of years is more than sufficient. I’ve only seen ROSEMARY’S BABY once, but that one time was very good.

But something about TNG (heh) keeps drawing me back to it time and again. It’s got a lot of things to like about it:

1) the marriage of the world of antiquarian bookselling with a supernatural story centered on the devil;
2) a noir atmosphere very reminiscent of CHINATOWN;
3) Polanski’s flawless directing;
4) Johnny Depp performing the main character as a bastard so well; and
5) last but not least, the wonderful book that the movie is based on: THE CLUB DUMAS, by Arturo Perez-Reverte.

So for many reasons, THE NINTH GATE is one of my favorite films, even though at this point it’s inadvertently become more of a comfort movie than anything. These days it tends to play in the background while I’m doing something else, such as it is today, or at night if I’m having trouble sleeping, rather than it being something I actively sit down to watch.

There is more I was going to write about, such as progress on my project of a novel-ish nature, as well as some thoughts on how I might start blogging in the future, but my knob-slobbering of THE NINTH GATE went on longer than I’d anticipated. So those will have to wait for future posts. Other things are now calling my attention.

Hurm. I just wrote a “colorful” rant about people who drive horribly in parking lots, but decided not to post it. Just in case any potential employers might be googling me, I’d rather they not see some of the vitriolic things I occasionally say when I am enraged.

So, I’m on the third week of being a gentleman of leisure. It’s going pretty well so far. No job interviews yet, but these things take time under the best of economic circumstances, which we as a nation are definitely not experiencing right now. I’m not worried, though; something will come along eventually. My money situation, even were I not to get the unemployment, is secure enough for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, I’ve been staying busy and am pretty happy in the rhythms of my new existence. A typical day might start out with me going to the nearby gym to work out. I am ordinarily too cheap thrifty to pay for a gym membership, but since it is free, I will happily not pay to use it. The reasons for it being free are still unknown to me. All I know is that residents of my apartment complex get a free membership, which is good till my lease is up.

I also go running nearly every day at the park behind Good Samaritan North. There is a path that runs along the back and into the Dayton Metroparks system, so there’s plenty of territory to explore. It is also quite lovely this time of year, with the leaves coating the ground and craven critters suicidally jumping into my path. (Seriously: chipmunks and their furry ilk can suck it.) I’ll be a little sad when it becomes too cold for me to be comfortably outside for more than five minutes.

I have to admit, the whole daily-working-out-thing has been awesome. I had been exercising for a month or two before my office closed, but it’s really nice to be able to do these things more frequently and more intensively.

In addition to this burst of healthiness, I try to do some piece of writing every day. Work on the project of a novel-ish nature has been progressing steadily. (Sorry, but saying, “I’m working on my novel,” sounds much too pretentious to me.) Ever since I have relocated my “office” into the closet, I have been much more productive. Right now, I think I’m about 1/10th of the way done, so there is still a ways to go. But — it’s more progress than I’ve made in the past several months.

What’s been really nice about not working is that I can see my friends more often. We all work different schedules, and I don’t like to be out really late during the work week. I have enough trouble sleeping as it is without shorting myself on a regular basis. Being more socially active has been awesome and definitely been better for my mental health.

Okie-doke. Enough rambling. Time to make dinner.