How to answer the phone

June 20th, 2015

I’m told I do a terrible Bostonian. Too cartoony and brash. I’ve never been to Boston so I don’t know what the appropriate levels of cartoony and brash are. So I’ve been working it from the other angle. To use my normal voice as a baseline and slowly incorporate the accent onto the ends of words. (“CVS Phahmahcy”). I’ve confused at least one technician so far. Gotta branch out into Canadian/Minnesotan and Georgian.

I gotta get my fun in when I can, right?

Lately I’ve been entertaining the idea of being a voice actor. Like amateur stuff. Like motion comics for amateur artists or audiobooks. I’m told I have a good “radio voice” based on how I page patients to the pharmacy. And with two octaves, I can maybe do two or three different characters without leaving my usual range. This would be so much easier if I were more worldly or at least had a more diverse group of friends to chat with. Then I could pick up more voices. It’s harder than I thought it would be. 8 weeks in “Ohio” and I still can’t do that accent. But few can.

I also recently concluded that I’m a baritone. At least when I sing. Or a low tenor. Someone with expertise on this, please correct me if I’m wrong, but since I’ve recently committed my singing to silicon for the first time, I was considering picking up the piano again. Step 1: Piano Man by Billy Joel. (Step 0: pick up a keyboard from someone). Then practice.

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Rent it today!

May 6th, 2015

I received the news about my new job over the phone (while she was driving, no less) two weeks before I set foot behind the counter of my training store in Tinley Park. I had two weeks to find residence for this danville position.

First things first, bike 56 miles in 8 hrs. Then swing by danville on the way back home to scope out apartments. There were two. One doesn’t allow pets and only had a ground floor apartment. The other had many units, second and first story. And a liberal pet policy. I went with the latter. (Because I could not abide the thought of sharing a wall with a conservative hedgehog.)

I signed a lease the Thursday ten days before my move-in date. During that ten day’s time, I had 40 hours of training in Tinley Park, one 14-hr shift, and a BSOD that had me relearning the alphabet. But more on that partidubar pojnt lafer.

First, I had to acquire all the trappings of modern day life, which ironically didn’t involve any of my trapping equipment. Mostly paper towels, at least that was mom’s stratagem. I needed 16 rolls worth. And 52 pairs of boxers. And 3 toilet brushes. What does she think I do all day?

Whether or not she was trying to clean out her hall closet of coupon-ed goods, I totally went Giving Tree on Mom’s house.

2014-10-24 10.34.42

All this (sans bitchin’ black leather sofas) fits in one Honda Fit and one Toyota Sienna. Along with two and half Asians.

It turns out cornfields terrify my mom. There’s just… nothing. No one to hear your scream for help as you’re assaulted, she says. (By who, mom? A scare crow? A wind turbine? You spent a childhood playing in a rice paddy, for frick’s sake. Those have… tigers and shit.) She got an up close look at “rural” when we turned off I-57 to take some of those narrow two-lane country roads. She wasn’t so keen on danville either. No sidewalks and a lot of empty mall parking lots. And my landlord is black. But she was probably salty for other reasons that day.

Now me, I was less surprised by the economic non-activity and scratching my head at other observations.

Like a Little Caesar’s. And *gasp* a Family Video. (What year is it? Did my Honda Civic pull a DeLorean?) Do they not have Netflix here? This is like one of those weird time-warped towns whose anachronism serves as an allegory to complement the greater narrative. Or the internet sucks here.

Oh, wait.
Comcast. *exasperated sigh*

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