I Want You to Know I Want You Dead

So enough of that sad bastard music...

This is worthy of record, and I need you all to serve observer. I need you to bear witness, to gaze and wonder unto this hoary and foreboding occurrence.

I was sitting at my monitor, safely glued to my placation of choice, perusing the internet (as is often my wont) and opened up the personal page of a friend of mine, who had displayed on his front page a video clip of a band I'd never heard of performing. This intrigued me enough to play the file that I might lay my mighty judgement upon them. As I tried to listen to the band, I couldn't quite make out what they were singing, and couldn't quite pick out exactly what they might sound like or, indeed, if I liked the band or not. As I grew more confused, like a cat with a Chinese food box stuck on its face, my consternation focused around why I could not clearly understand the music, why the information was being garbled before it could reach me.

It is important, at this point, to understand what had happened during the five minutes beforehand.

I had been working on applications for grad school when, having finished what I was laughably calling "my work," I decided to reward myself with some good, old-fashioned self-pity, and began playing a song guaranteed to make my insides wring. Once that was playing, I then started to peruse the 'tubes, and eventually found my way to my friend's page which also contains, apart from the video clip, and embedded audio file set up to play as soon as the site is opened.

Without realizing it, and before it was too late to say I didn't have time to react, I was trying to listen to three separate songs at once.

Ladies and Gentleman, I have achieved American Youth Culture. Give me a McDonald's cheeseburger, an iPod with an internet-capable phone in it that plugs directly into my frontal lobe, and a swollen sense of entitlement and I will be as their God.

KNEEL BEFORE ME, HIPSTERS AND EMO-KIDS. KNEEL BEFORE MyGOD. PRAY AT THE ALTAR OF MY TOO-TIGHT PANTS, AND QUIVER IN FEAR OF THE WRATH OF MY SCATHING BLOG REVIEWS OF POPULAR FILMS!

PIRATES OF THE CARRIBEAN TWO WASN'T THAT GREAT! WHAT WAS WITH THE END CAPTAIN JACK OMG! I'M TOTALLY NOT GOING TO SEE THE NEXT ONE!

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Girls (meaning all of you, not just the ladies), I got a new job. There are few things in the world I'm suited to do, emotionally. I mean, I think myself a rather capable man, abe to do most mundane and complicated tasks. I run the gamut of utility. I am the Swiss Army Knife of employees. Yet, my shortcomings often fall under the category of the "soft-skills," things like arriving on time and having the proper appearance and acting the proper way around coworkers. I have never attempted to fit into any corporate mold that is not, intrinsically, who I am, and have suffered because of it. I always did my job to the best of my ability (which, to be perfectly frank, was extensive), but I never quite got comfy.

Well, I'm warm and cozy now.

Ladies and Gentlemen, diseases and letches, problems and pornographs...

I work at Medieval Times.

I used to say that if I could figure out a way to fight for a living, I would be happy. Well, I guess someone figure out a way a long time ago, and I just never got around to thinking about whether or not I could do it. But I did it, and I'm doing it, and I honest-to-god have the best time every day I'm there. True, the hours are a little intense, and true things are a little rough right now because this is just my fifth week there and there's so much to learn, but I'm working hard and doing my best and not taking any shit from any no-chinned, classless self-aggrandizer.

And no feuds. None.

There's a lot of drama backstage. People are always fighting with each other, but I float above it, buoyed by my glee at actually working there. I ride horses, people. I ride horses.

They pay me to ride horses.

I handle a falcon on a regular basis. I carry weapons around all day, just running them this way and that. The mondeau blade and the joust shield are the tools of my trade. On a typical day, I'll show up right after I get off of class (which, considering that's an hour or so after the official shift start time, they have been extremely accomodating about), I'll go out to the arena and train in my basic fighing stuff while the knights practice. Once that's done (an hour or so), I'll do my tasks (another hour on the outside) and then spend two hours watching TV in the locker room. We all just watch TV.

It is awesome.

Like I say, I've been learning to ride a horse, and I'm getting to be okay at it. I'm still new, but my body is beginning to not need my mind in order to make the horse do the things that I want it to do. It becomes a muscle-memory... instant connection kind of deal. I want the horse to do something, and I don't have to think about what I have to do in order to make the horse do that. Still, trying to sit a trot is hell on one's back. The entire back, shoulders to ass.

And balls. Can't forget the balls. Mustn't forget the balls.

So it's awesome, and I'm happy, and I've made some really cool friends. I can't say I ever had a job I was this excited about, and I'm sure that I'll soon be able to say that I've never had a job I enjoyed so much once I'm past this orientation phase. I can honestly say that, between that, grad school, the festival, and all the writing I've been doing lately, I'm happier than I've been in a long time.

We'll see if this lasts the hour.

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Also, there's this guy that works with me that is Toki Wartooth. It's awesome.