Clockwork Oren

Garbonzo beans

Garbonzo beans have the most inconsistent flavor and textures.  I just had a salad with some really bad ones.  But when they’re good, boy are they good.

The end.

If A = B and B=C, why must poor B (me) suffer as the middle man?

I’m astonished at how unnecessarily complicated refilling a prescription is in this country.  I called the pharmacy yesterday, first thing in the morning on my way to work—don’t worry, I used speakerphone since I don’t own a bluetooth.  I mean, it’s not like I normally give a fuck about that law, but for some reason I abided by it this time.  Nobody was in at CVS, so I refilled by pressing in the stupid Rx number.  “Your doctor will be contacted and blah blah blah.  Thank you, for more options, press one.”  Fuck you, bye.  The plan was simple, I’d pick the medicine up on the way home from work.

A few hours later I called back and they said they’d faxed the doctor and that they’d have to wait 24 hours for it to get processed.  Well, I could deal with a day’s delay.  So it would’t work out as perfectly as I’d imagined, just like every other thing in life.

So today at 2 o’clock I called the pharmacy again when I had a spare minute at work.

“Did the doctor approve the refill?”  I asked.

“No, we sent him a fax yesterday and he hasn’t approved it yet.”  What the fuck’s going on?

I had to call the doctor’s office now.  “Did you guys get a fax from the pharmacy?”

“Hold on a moment…no, we never received it.”

“Are you sure?  They said they sent it over yesterday at something like 8:30 AM.”

“No, we haven’t received it.  Are you sure they had the right fax number?”

“Listen, this isn’t the first time I’ve done this.  They’ve called before and I got it refilled just fine.  Are you sure you didn’t misplace it?”

“No, you’d have to give them the right number.”

“Can you contact the pharmacy and do it for me?”  I’m at work you fucking bitch.  This is your job.  You’re a fucking secretary.

“You should call them again.”  (these are her exact words, no lie)

“Fine.”  I didn’t say bye and I hung up.  I called CVS yet again:

“Hi, so the doctor’s office is saying they didn’t receive your fax.”  I gave CVS the phone number again, since these people can’t handle papers with words on them.  I told her to try calling and talking to the person and making sure things were all as they should be.

“Okay, we’ll call you when we’ve sent it.”

“Thank you.”  I doubted they’d call me back, but they did about 15 minutes later and confirmed that they’d sent it again.  I thanked them.  Then CVS said that the doctor’s office needed to wait twenty-four hours until they could confirm it.  Well, I suppose I could wait yet another day.

Nevertheless, I never gave the doctor’s secretary the benefit of the doubt and called her immediately after work, as I walked towards my car.  I was licking an icecream cone from the commisary.  No answer.  I called again while I was driving.  An Hispanic lady picked up.

“Hi, I’m Oren, I can’t wait 24 hours for my medication, can you please call the pharmacy and give them the go ahead?”

“The doctor wont be in till Tuesday.”

“Wait, Tuesday?  They just said 24 hours.  Listen, this is important, I need my medicine today, okay?  Will you call the doctor and tell him that it’s urgent?”

“Okay, I’ll call him and see what he says.”  I drive home from Glendale to Van Nuys on the 101.  Half way through the 40 minute trip I call the doctor again:

“Did you call them?”

“Yes, we called and had the approval faxed over.”  Thanks for calling me to let me know.  I’ve just passed the freeway exit I needed to go to the pharmacy.

“So it’s been approved and everything and I can get my medicine?”

“Yes.  You should call them again to make sure though, that they received it”

I called the pharmacy again.  Another lazy female voice, “we will be wait, something something (inaudible) ten minutes.”

“So I can come in and physically pick up my medicine in ten minutes?”

“Yes,” she answered, and with some sass.

“Thank you.”  I was already home by this time.  I’ll go pick the medicine up soon, and probably go to Starbucks.

(.I:/)X   (good fucking day)

I blinked

And suddenly I had a beard.  It’s itching like crazy.  I’m going to shave tonight after the YMCA.

Post YMCA note:  almost fainted at the YMCA.  Must consume more liquids.  I’m shaking as I type this.

9:29 PM:  Beard is shaved, and i watched a movie called (Little Miss) Sunshine Cleaning.  ‘Twasn’t bad, but wasn’t good.

I switched up and started writing in a bigger notebook, purchased recently at Borders—also leatherbound.  It’s neon orange and looks like a cartoon basketball.  Once you go leather you can’t go back, I say.  Kinda like “once you go Mac you don’t go black” or “once you go black you don’t go back.”

I found a nice new pen and I’m going to cheat on Pilot G2 for a while.  This is one that my grandpa got from the studio.  It says “Atonement” on it, and rolls effortlessly.  I wrote another scene for Bert Solcatcher and sent it to a few friends.  I hope the story is funny to other people though.  I also wrote another journal log which gets much more personal than this.

I forgot to talk about work.  I’m interning at Dreamworks animation as a production assistant’s assistant in the animation department for Shrek 4.  I’m learning photoshop like a beast and they’ve given me a few cool creative assignments.  I can’t talk about anything specific though, as I’ve signed a contract.     I didn’t drink that much coffee today.

(:I)-<==X   (me standing up)

Bye.

my grandparents are 3.66 times my age.

Or something close to that.  76+69/2= the average age of my grandparents (only from my mother’s side)/21 would give me the number but I’m not that interested.  I’ve learned a lot of things, living with my grandparents this summer.  Some valuabe, some disappointing, some fucking hilarious etc.  This calls for a numbered list I think.

Things I’ve learned:

1. As I stated in my previous post, my grandpa is overwhelmingly critical.  So one of these times we were driving and he kept criticizing and going on about “I hope you don’t wear out the breaks,” and “You really don’t know how to get around Los Angeles,” in his South African accent.  I know by now, as a veteran in dealing with him, that I should ignore him, but this time I let my frustrations get the best of me and accidentally let some sarcasm slip.  “We can’t all be as perfect as you,” I said with some sass.  And guess what he answered under his breath?  “It’s something you’ve got to strive for.”  Great answer. So it may seem obvious, but always strive for perfection.
2. Don’t ever open a medicine cabinet.  You know, when you get older, you accumulate a plethora of conditions.  You’ve gotta deal with them though, and usually with some kind of pill or ointment.
3. Always do the same shit every day.  My grandparents have lived in the same house for fifty fucking years.  Every day, they wake up at 6:30 (disregarding the occasional times when my grandpa gets up extra early and pisses with the door open). Grandma makes coffee, granpa drinks about three and a half pots.  Grandma cleans the shit  out of every crack and crevice, also having consumed her bloodweight in coffee.  Her slippers scrape across the tiles in the kitchen, much to my annoyance as an adjacent-to-the-kitchen-living-room-floor matress sleeper.  Grandpa reads the paper, puts on a classical record, and excercycles for 20 minutes.

Will continue this list as I go…

Did not write today

I did not write today, but there is an excuse.  I went to see a movie with my grandpa and younger, taller, better looking brother.  My grandpa is a film critic.  It’s hard to drive with a critical person, especially through the winds and turns of Beverly Glen which is the route we took.  Yes, it’s just as Seth Rogan says in his attrotious juvinalia standup (you can see the video on youtube—he’s 13-years-old and not funny) the hardest part about being Jewish is the grandparents, and I live with mine right now.  I’m not complaining though, it’s fantastic most of the time.  However, my grandparents are more energetic than I am.  It’s kind of discouraging and encouraging at the same time.

The movie we saw is called The Boys are Back starring Clive Owen.  With a film critic you never know what to expect, so you learn not to give them your opinions until they’ve shared theirs.  It’s like waiting for a grade in one of your classes.  the final was hard, but it could have gone either way.  That kinda thing.  Well, he did not like the movie.

There was a reception afterwards, wherein members of the Hollywood Foreign Press gathered to chit chat about the film.  Food was too complicated for my simple tongue and I didn’t get to sit at the table.  I did get a free copy of the book though. The coffee was bitter.

(:I) bye.

Yesterday’s writing

I spent three hours at Starbucks yesterday, I forgot to say.  I switch up the locations if I’m going during the day, so as to avoid looking like a loser to other people and the people who work there.  There’s no reason to go to the 24 hours one if it’s during the day.  But still, I always go to Ventura boulevard locations because I like the diversity of the people who come in from all over the valley and I like being around people when I’m writing.  I ended up having a phone conversation with my brother Daniel for most of the time, and afterwards I wrote some of what he said down.  I wrote down segments of “Bert Soulcatcher” working title for the longer piece I’m trying to get together.  I read 100 pages of East of Eden.  So far I’ve caught 6-7 typo’s in my edition of the book and I’m on page 193.  So far there’s a lot of violence in this book, it’s a little over the top.  I skipped the opening chapter because it was full of discriptions of grass and hills and trees and stuff, but I dog eared the pages as a reminder for later.  I’ll probably never read that opening chapter, like I did’nt read all those huge essay segments in War and Peace, but at least I know just in case.  Most important thing is to be honest with yourself.

At around 4 o’clock I was 2 coffees deep on an empty stomach.  I went to this bookstore on Van Owen and browsed it for about an hour and fifteen minutes.  I picked up a beat-down old copy of Ulysses for a dollar.  Gravity’s Rainbow was $5 so I couldn’t be bothered with it.

:I good day for now.

God, how the TV makes me nervous.

One thing I’ve noticed is the amount of voices you can hear within a minute of television time.  Good, bad?  Can’t say.  But one thing’s for fuckin’ sure:  it gets me biting my nails.  And especially when the volume is turned up way too loud to accomodate the needs of my hearing impaired grandparents (no offense to them or any of you).

Comercials and news have this discomforting affect on me. I feel all the tensions of millions of people in the world pressing down on me at all times and closing me in like those walls with spikes.  I know, lame ass metaphor, and I might backspace it but anyway, when you’re watching the news it’s like somebody’s deliberately changing the channel repeatedly, and everyone hates that. It’s like I’ve been pumped with 500 mg of caffeine and put at the top of the eiffel tower, or something.  Obnoxious, obnxious, obnoxious.

Good day, (.I:-I)=X    NOTE: (that’s me crossing my arms and looking grumpy).  The period is my new brow piercing.  Hope it doesn’t get infected.

Do blogs have to have a theme?

I’ve almost completely filled my summer notebook (I’ll put a picture of it up if I can find one).  Smythson notebooks should sponser me, I think, if I ever get published.  I would vow to only use their products and do some commercials for them.  Also, Pilot G2 should sponser me because those are the only kinds of pens I can use now.  I’ve become so used to the motion that my handwriting is only compatible with that specific pen.  The texture you get is so nice and smooth.  Which reminds me:  I saw Inglourious Basterds today, and my favorite shot in the whole film is when the show the close up of the pen scratching some numbers onto the piece of paper.  Call me weird, but that close up whet my appetite for writing like porn does for sex.

I know I’ve had a good, productive writing day if my hand has pen marks.  I also count how many pages I’ve filled.  I don’t know why I’m writing about writing, but maybe that can be my theme, since I already fill my notebook with (hand)writing about life. I can use the blog as a progress meter.

I do all of my journal and story writing by hand, in my Smythson notebook with a Pilot G2—blue or black—at the 24 hour Starbucks.  I usually start out with a journal and date it at the top (today’s would be 8.22.09), and try to get down the highlights of the day.  Then I just trail off from there.  I always try to write fiction pieces but I’m not creative enough to leave myself out of the mix, so my fiction is never 100% fabricated.  Also, I make an effort to mention any books i’ve read or films I’ve seen, and give a mini review.  It’s important to steal techniques and take notes from people who’ve already been published.  I try to fill 12 pages of a pocket notebook.  I bring books with me too, as an alternative if I’m just not doing that well.  Recent favorites have been Steinbeck and Faulkner.

(:I) good day.

Pretzels

As I sit here with a bag of Rold Gold classic-style-stick pretzels on my lap, I reflect on the different types of pretzels I’ve eaten.  My favorite are the extra slim sticks, lightly salted.  I’ve never been a fan of lots of salt on anything, let alone pretzels.   I think that the flavor of a food isn’t given the benefit of the doubt when it’s heavily sprinkled with salt, or sugar, etc.

Until recently, I’ve had a roller coaster of a relationship with pretzels.  They’ve usually been a last resort snack, the last to get picked out of the cabinet.  But I noticed, that I’ve usually enjoyed the stick shaped pretzels more than the bow shaped ones.  Maybe that curly haired fat fuck in superbad was on to something when he said, “all the best foods are shaped like dicks”.  Why is it that the shape, texture, and thickness of a food determines how much we enjoy it?  Would a churro taste as good if it wasn’t a stick?   Dunno. But as I grow as a person, these questions seem more important.

Good day (:I)