Posts by Jonah

“Are you a mouse?”

I looked up from where I was silently thumbing through index cards in a card catalog drawer and pulling author/book cards. Florence was standing there addressing me, “You’re so quiet! Cough or something once in a while. Get up andmove around! Anything to let us know you’re there.” She paused and put her hand on my shoulder then asked, “ARE you there”

I answered quietly. “No.”

When I’m not acting loud and raucous, I do tend to be unobtrusive, especially in new situations. I’ve entered the house, made my way around, and eventually entered whatever room my hostess or floormate is in to have them jump in surprise when they look up to see me there. “Oh! I didn’t hear you!” I’ve started purposely making noise when I enter a room so that I won’t catch them off guard.

I also don’t have much to say… or not the inclination to say it. Out loud. My friend in Washington’s coworker told me my friend had “warned me you were laid back.” I may have smiled somewhat at that point.
But Florence was right. I wasn’t really there among the 3×5 cards. My internship so far has consisted of mindless work like this, but I enjoy it because I can let my mind roam while I’m doing it. I think I also like it because I love putting things in there place, organization, etc. Don’t ask me to apply any of this to my own life, but getting paid to do it for someone else? Heck yeah.

It might seem like the most boring work in the world. A typical day (although those seem few and far between) starts with me getting up around 8 andtaking a 15-20 minute drive to work. It’s actually Ken’s house that he’s added an enclosed and expanded garage to which houses his books, office, and studio. The organization I’m working for is called Mars Hill Audio. It puts out a bimonthly audio magazine (on tape) with 8-10 minute articles on cultural issues. Sort of like NPR. Ken does a lot of the interviews in the studio. He’s got probably more than 12,000 books and getting new ones all the time. My job so far is to put library of congress labels on all the new ones. Working backward, I’ve reached “P” according to author last name in the room full of books yet to be shelved. Then I get to try to make space among the books already there for the new arrivals. Most of them are ended up getting stacked on top of the pre-existing ones. When I’m not doing that, I’m entering data from the catalog cards (that I mentioned pulling earlier) into a computer database. Author name, Title, Place of Publication, Publisher, Date, Call Number, and Description. Since last week I’ve entered two stacks of cards about 3 inches high. I’ve got another batch about that big to do now, and that makes up two drawers of the 8-drawer card catalog filing cabinate. Then after I do the Author/Book cards, I get to do the reviews. Then the magazine articles. Then maybe the titles or the subject headings.

I don’t think I will complete this task this summer.

But there’s other things I do. Like make copies or type up address labels and find envelopes to mail things. Stuff like that. I proofread 200 odd pages of subject titles today.

On Tuesdays Ken and I drive from Powhatan,Virginia, where he lives, about 60 miles or so away to Charlottesville, where the Mars Hill office is. That’s where the two full time employees work along with the other intern and the volunteer, Florence. Florence is almost 70, but refuses to act her age. She’s also very outspoken. Which leads her to say things like, “Make more noise!”
I coughed later on in the day. She’d already left. A pity.

I went to DC this last weekend. Visited a friend I’ve known for longer than
I can remember and went to a Broadcast Journalism School put on by an
organization called Youth Leadership something or other. Which was great
except that I have no desire to get into broadcast journalism. And any
inklings I had in that direction were quickly snuffed out as the weekend
progressed.

I also learned how to network. No, not like how to run a bunch of computers
at the same time, which might have been somewhat useful. I learned how to
meet people, find out as much as I can about them, and manipulate them into
doing things for me. No, it’s not that callous, but not exactly my style
either.

I ALSO learned about the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and how to
be an optimist. I’m happy to say that I’m still as ineffective and
pessimistic as ever.

But, despite my cynicism, the weekend was not the waste I may be making it
out to be. I learned a great deal, whether I’ll use it or not, and got
exposed to a lot of ideas that are good for me to be aware of. I also
determined that I’ll never fit into Washington professionalism, and I have no
desire to work there.

But as my friend I was staying with told me, “You are the one person I never
have to worry about fitting into the cookie cutter role of all that. You are
your own person, unlike anyone else I know.”

Which led me to the realization that I’ll probably be cursed with kids who
want to be perfectly normal.

In other news, I spent a good deal of time on the phone talking to my mom
this evening and on the keyboard (piano) playing after not having access to
one all weekend. Which means that, despite drinking a cup of coffee after
supper, I don’t have the time or energy to expound on anything more than I’ve
already covered about the weekend.

You can stop cheering now.
But there will be other trips to Washington, so maybe I’ll tell you about all
of that.

In still other news, I found 3 four-leaf clovers on Friday. I also got to DC
from here (leaving at 5:45 pm) in 2 hours and back (leaving at 9:15 pm) in 1
and 1/2. Which, as I understand it, is very good time. Think there’s a
connection? Well, take into account that I also got lost on the way and
almost got hit (never turn left from the right hand lane) as I finally saw my
friend waiting by the side of the road ready to flag me down.

In case you’re wondering, the subject title of this e-mail has nothing to do
with its contents.

Susanna was watching a STTNG episode today in the living room. Actually,
Jonathan was watching Empire Stikes Back (or is it Emperor? Umpire?), and I
had to leave the office while Ken was doing an interview, so I watched the
end of that.

“Leah…Leah…”
“Turn back, I know where Luke is!”

Anyway, then Susanna got to watch her Star Trek. Ken’s got like all of them
but 2 taped. I think I mentioned that. And I was still in there, so I
watched it too. It was one where Picard gets captured (she watched both part
one and two of this episode) by the Cardminians or whatever they’re called
and tortured. It was pretty cool.

“THERE… ARE… FOUR… LIGHTS!!!!!”

Going to Charlottesville tomorrow.

“Come in here, I want to show you how this works,” yelled Ken from the Studio. I dropped the book I was entering into the computer and ran into the next room. Ken was running some tape through one of the three reel to reelplayers in there. “This is called a pancake,” he said, as he spun tape off the roll without a reel around it. Then he quickly explained what he was doing as he expertly punched buttons, switched levers, and spun reels, leaving me with an even more vague impression of what it’s like to mix audio. He played the tape of the guy he’d interviewed on phone from across the country, stopped it, played the tape of himself asking questions, stopped, spun the reel backwards, and then set it for when the guy said “T…” of the “two” of counting backwards from five. Then he played the two tapes together. The rich sound of his studio recorded voice grated against the metallic sound of his voice over the phone lines as they played out of sync by a nanosecond. “That’s close enough,” announced Ken, quite pleased. He turned down the channels of him and the interviewee on the phone and left the two studio recorded voices playing. “Now I’ll check every five minutes or so to make sure they’re still in sync,” he said, “and adjust it over here if one runs faster than the other.” We listened to the two voices discussing a novel the guy being interviewed had written. “We’ll edit most of this stuff out,” Ken said, “I’m just trying to draw him out.” Near the end, Ken grinned and said, “Sounds like we’re sitting next to each other, doesn’t it? Who’d of thought we were separated by thousands of miles?”

Hmm..

I’ve got way more e-mail than I can deal with. So quit complaining about not getting anything personal, and
I’ll try to remember to add you to my mailing list.

Right.

Today. Hmm… Today. I’m beginning to think my moniker is correct. Especially with cars. No, I don’t get vomitted out onto beaches by sedans with stomachaches. I just seem to bring bad luck to vehicles. Like the dead battery day before last?

I was running a bit later than usual this morning after printing some stuff out and taking (too much) time to read e-mail from the night before. So I grabbed a piece of bread and the last can of grapefruit juice and trotted out to the car, revved it up and took off down the road. Only my car is running a little rough and keeps making this WOMP WOMP WOMP noise. “That,” I thought, rather astutely, “Sounds just like that time I had a flat tire.” Stopping the car and running around to the other side, fears were confirmed. The front passenger side tire was as flat as Kansas. I pulled off out of the road and onto the grass on the side of the street and walked back a couple of doors to the house where I’m staying with my bread and juice in hand.

I called AAA and got an estimate of 15 to 50 minutes before a truck would show up to change my flat. Then I called my employer and explained the situation to him. He suggested getting it fixed at a place down the road on the way to his house. I hung up and told Joanne, the female half of the Wallaces with whom I am staying, “I have a flat.””Oh!” she exclaimed, “Well, let’s see, let’s see. You can take my car, and I’ll take the Suburban; I’m getting ready for this big thing we have tonight, and I’d usually be gone by now, but if you take my car, I’ll stay here–I don’t have to leave for a while–till they come to fix it, or you and Doug could go get a used tire, or…” I stood quietly till she paused and then calmly explained what I was going to do. “Oh,” she answered and then added, “You don’t get flustered easily, do you?” I smiled, “No, not really.”

I sipped at the grapefruit juice while sitting on top of my hood, waiting for the truck to arrive. It was warm; the sun was out. Thursday seemed to be lawn care day. The neighborhood I’m living in is fairly nice. No one seems to dotheir own yard work. Trucks were scattered around the neighborhood with workers mowing lawns. I sipped some more juice and read chapter 2 of the book by Dorothy Sayers I’d been assigned to read. “Excuse me,” came a voice from the house I was parked in front of, “Excuse me, what are you doing there?” A woman stood in the doorway, an expression of annoyed suspicion on her face. I gestured toward my tire, “Got a flat.” “Oh!” her expression changed to surprised compassion, “Do you need to call anyone…?” I shook my head, “Got someone on the way.”

It got warmer, so I took shelter in my car with the windows down. The yard workers got closer. Evidently they did most of the yards in the neighborhood. Soon lawn mowers were cutting the grass right near where I was stranded. I looked up from my book to see one of the older guys in glasses and a black tank shirt at my window. “Is there any way you could put your car into neutral and let us push you out of the way?” he asked. “Got a flat,” I answered. “Is that all? Well, $#!%, we can take care of that!” he exclaimed, “Got a spare and jack?” I assented. “I’ll get the boys.”

It turned out that, though I did have a spare in my trunk, the jack was missing. I don’t know where it went. It used to be back there. Maybe someone swiped my jack, replacing it with the can of soup that I really can’t explain the presence of. But the yard people had an air compressor that plugs into a cigarette lighter. A big fellow with a beard and blond pony tail stuck around till it filled my tire up. The leak was slow enough to let the tire hold air for awhile. I thanked him and drove off, waving at Tank Top on the way.

The people at the auto place were nice. I sat around staring at car magazines and wall charts of axles for about 15 minutes. Then a fellow came in and plopped a bent, headless nail on the counter. “That’ll be six bucks.”

Tire’s still full tonight.

In other news, all the paid employees of Mars Hill gathered in the Myer house to watch Dr. Strange Love. Or Dr. Strangelove. That is one weird film. Made by the same guy who directed The Shining, 2001, Clockwork Orange, and Full Metal Jacket. He also took over direction of Sparticus. Peter Sellers is magnificent as the title character. And two others.

“Just remember… If you don’t reach the President, you’ll have to answer to the CocaCola Company.”