2004-08-10 - 11:09 p.m.

I have been thinking about my old Jimmy Usual diary lately and feeling an urge to update it. I used to write in it every day. Then it was every other day. After a while it was hard to find 15 minutes a week in which to get funky. I got away from writing and channeled more of my energy into performing. Now I have drifted away from that and am deciding what I am going to do next. I really want to write a play. I have an idea for it and have been thinking about it for a while.

If I can make a good job of it maybe I can parlay it into something else.

I have not updated my diary since January I think. I still work my job in the office with the guys but last week we finally hired a woman! She is really smart and picks things up very easily. She was working for one of our clients and knows our products very well. Unlike the guy she replaced you only have to tell her once and she takes it from there. Remarkable.

We were really lucky to find her. All of the guys who applied for the position were pretty bad. I figured that we would get a pile of resumes when we posted the job but they only trickled in. We interviewed a lot of them and were unimpressed. One of the guys who interviewed for the job had a big stain on his jacket. I guess he just picked it up off the floor without looking. He didn't give himself a glance in the mirror to make sure he looked ok.

Our company is a much better place to work since the former president was fired. Things have been spinning like a top since then. Of course, I have lost almost all interest in my job and have been mostly coasting. I have been there almost four years and can do the job with my eyes closed.

I no longer share a house with my sister. We were both really tied of the house and she wanted to sell it and move away. We talked about it for a long time and nothing was happening so we decided to shake things loose. I got a small apartment in Atlanta, she packed up and moved out and we all worked on getting the house cleaned up and put it on the market. I hope it sells soon. She is really ready to quit her job and move to the beach somewhere.

There was one area of Atlanta where I wanted to live and feel lucky to have found an apartment near Little Five Points. I was so sick of the suburbs with all the freaking mini vans and kids selling wrapping paper for school and having to drive absolutely everywhere. I was sick, sick, sick of it. What I wanted was a small two bedroom apartment that I could afford that was close to a train station.

Finding an apartment I can afford was not very easy. I started looking in an area called Inman Park because I wanted to live there. I found a really big one bedroom apartment that was too expensive in a building built in the 1930's. I tried to convince the landlord to work me a deal on the rent but he would not go for it. I kept looking because I knew I could find a two bedroom.

But I decided to look at the ones I saw listed in the paper that were really, really cheap. Like $600 a month cheap. Whew! What a dump that was. I met a guy who showed me an apartment in a house that had been cut up into small apartments and it was just depressing to look at. Then he took me to a big old house he had with a studio apartment that was so beautiful I really did think about taking it. It was on the second floor of a grand old house that was built about 1900. It had hardwood floor, oak panels, giant floor to ceiling windows. It took my breath away. But I could not possibly cram my stuff into such a small place.

Then I saw an ad for some really cheap apartments near Little Five Points. I met Maya, the leasing agent there and knew as soon as I saw it that I would NOT live there. It looked dangerous and dirty. The apartment did have two bedrooms but the whole place was cramped and dark and smelled funny.

Maya could tell I was not interested and I asked her if she had anything else to show me. She took me over to the complex where she lived and showed me two apartments. It was close by, near a train station, affordable, two bedrooms, hardwood floors, and in a nice neighborhood. The bathroom had beautiful green 1950 tiles. I knew when I saw it I would live there.

And I do.

My drive to work is much shorter. I have taken the train to work a few times, but during the summer when school is out and traffic is light there really is no need for the train. I will take it tomorrow because my coworker who lives nearby wants to try it.

I feel like I am getting my life back for the first time in a long time. I walk a lot. I take a stroll through the park and over to Little Five Points. There are bike paths nearby. I will be getting my bike up and running again soon and will jump on that as soon as I can.

Making the transition from a house where I have lived for 10 years to an apartment was kind of tough. First, everything I had fit perfectly into the house. Now everything I have is sort of inserted in a hodge-podge fashion into my new place. Second, I actually miss the suburbs. I never thought I would feel that way, but it really was convenient to have access to a really great Target and Media Play and Best Buy, and AMC movie theater. I miss my favorite beautiful theater. All the theaters in town are old and outdated. I don't want to see a state of the art film in some 1980's multiplex.

Also, since the building where I live is about the same age as me there are things wrong with it. When my downstairs neighbor smokes it wafts up through the walls and into my apartment. I have bunged up all the holes I could find, if you'll pardon the expression, but some still gets though sometimes. I have central heat and air and with the air is on I can't hear anything. It sounds like a freight train.

I don't think I'll be here for more than a year. I hope to be able to buy my own place when my lease is up. I'll have to pinch my pennies to make that happen.

I do like my neighborhood a lot. One of the other things I had to get use to is seeing random people just walking out into the street without regard to oncoming traffic. That freaks me out. You'll see some guy just step off the curb and start zigzagging his way across the street. The crosswalk is only 20 feet away. Why not just use the crosswalk? That's fucked.

I miss Petey, my sister's dog. He now lives with my sister and my mother at my aunt's house. He has a big fenced in yard to run around in. The next door neighbor is a crazy woman who buys him steak and hamburger and feeds it to him over the fence.

The last time I visited Petey looked up at me and said, with his eyes, "I know you are hiding in the house and you don't ever come out to see me." I told him that I was not avoiding him, that I live far away and I miss him. He turned and walked away from me and pretty much ignored me for the rest of the visit. Even when I tried to brush his hair and get all the shedding hair off of him. He just walked away. I guess I hurt his feelings. He thinks I don't love him. And now he has a yard to guard and steak to eat and squirrels to bark at. So what does he need with me?

The presidential election has given me a glimmer of hope. It is almost too much to ask for that John Kerry will win the election and George W Bush will go back to Texas and run some more businesses into the ground. I really am not getting my hope up. It will hurt too much if Bush is re-elected. I am surprised that Kerry is doing as well as he is and can't wait until the debates. George Bush is not a "talker." He don't use the right words all the time. When he gets rattled he just omits some words out of his sentences. Instead of saying, "We are studying the matter" he might say, "We studying the matter." Or instead of saying, "I know how hard it is for a family to put food on the table" he might say, "I know how hard it is to put food on your family."

And yet, it was not obvious to Americans four years ago so why should it be obvious now? One of my favorite developments in this whole affair is Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 911 will be on dvd on October. All the right wingers who did not want to support Moore by going to the theater to see the film feel that it is ok to rent it at Blockbuster.

Even the conservatives I work with tell me the would watch it on video because that does not put money into Moore's pocket. I just nod and don't correct them. Go ahead. Make it the most popular rental in the US. Fine with me.

I have been reading former President Bill Clinton's biography. I almost gave up on it after the second chapter but I didn't. I kept reading and am really glad I did. I am about 800 pages into it and have about 150 pages left. In your face everybody. I knew it! He really did know what he was doing. He really did accomplish a lot and had an impact on the economy and the entire world. How on earth can any deny this?

Our present President is not a workaholic who loves policy and wants to get things done. He is just a placeholder who believes he can just stand there for eight years like Ronald Reagan and everything will be ok. I can tell that Bush is just mystified that so many tragedies have occurred since he took office. What has he accomplished in the economy, education, deficit reduction? Are those things really even important to him? It was to Clinton so he concentrated on them and did something about it.

I hope those days will soon return. I liked it better when the country was working well. I am embarrassed that our government is just meandering all over the place while important decisions are not being made and policy is languishing.

I used to think that Senator Hillary Clinton was an opportunist who was out of touch with the real world. Now, by comparison with the current president, I consider her to be a viable presidential candidate and a responsible public servant.

And I like John Kerry. The man has been a Senator for 20 years. I think he knows a thing or two about the country, the government and how things really work. Let's give him a chance. He seems intelligent, engaged and authoritative. Now that I have gotten use to what he looks like I'm all for him!

I think that is enough for now.

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