Driving home last night, the Cowboy Junkies (and the lyrics of David Wiffen - or Whiffen?) kind of summed up my frustrations, as described in my last entry:

I feel like some old engine that's lost my driving wheel

And I like the following verse:

You can't say much in a phone call, babe
You know how it is
I have to tell you one sure thing
Oh, won't you listen to this
I want to tell you that I love you, babe
I want to tell you just how I feel

So today I went to Barnes & Noble and looked at the magazine racks for ideas of where I'd like to work, and then I wandered the aisles and came across Metro New York JobBank and took it to a table and copied down the addresses and contact names of maybe two dozen publishers in the city. Coincidentally, the table I sat at had a book left behind by a previous browser: Me Talk Pretty One Day, and I thought, Me read book some day. After filling a few pages of my notebook with addresses, I arrogantly left the book there next to Me Talk Pretty and purchased Time Out New York and The New Yorker with grandiose dreams of joining their editorial staffs. I figure I'm going to just send out some resumes with blatantly honest cover letters ("I know the job market sucks, and I know this is a longshot, but I'll wash your desk with my tongue if you'll give me a chance.") and see what that does. It can't be worse than the responses I've had since September. With the exception of two interviews -- a jewelry distributer wanting to start a newsletter who randomly found my resume online, and a health media publisher who got my resume from a job fair I attended -- my most promising response was from a major national magazine that sent a personal letter back telling me I had what it takes to work there, that I was doing the right things, but they won't be hiring until late 2002 or early 2003. Maybe this effort will bear similar, yet more ripe, fruits.

And I like Barnes and Noble. All those books, all that potential! And the feeling of a library, just not quite so creepy. I always found libraries interesting, and fun in a way when there are too many choices, yet they all have that library smell of God knows what, and that somehow made them creepy. I don't know. But I did find another great coffee table book and something I'll be sure to pick up someday when I feel like buying things for myself again: The West Wing book, "the official companion to the show." It has everything, since it's distributed by Warner Bros. and written by Aaron Sorkin. It covers the first two seasons with character/actor profiles and interviews, as well as still shots from all the eps. I had a great time flipping through it.

So now I have too many magazines to read, along with TolkIEn, who frankly puts me to sleep. I don't know if it's the handy Penguin paperback pocket classic style or the long, unbroken paragraphs, or the style of writing or the subject matter, but I cannot read more than two chapters in a sitting without wanting to pass out for three hours. I'll have to try reading in the middle of the afternoon to see if that helps, but I'm having flashbacks of grade-school gifted-and-talented program reading assignments, and if it keeps up, I'm just going to give up. I think he's a little overrated, frankly, and what's up with the three initials? J.R.R.? Pick one, or two, man! You don't see "F.S.K. Fitzgerald" on the cover of The Great Gatsby, do you? NO! He dropped the "Key."

Alright, enough for now. Some work to do, some Casey to chat with.