Andy's Auspicious Adventures in Maine || Episode 3: The Job

Hello one and all once again! Hurtling head first into week 3. Unfortunately for all of you, I've begun to settle into things up here in Maine. Fortunately for me, this stabilization also reflects my financial standing, and I am presently willing to sacrifice a bit of adventure for the ability to persist (may I drop down dead where I stand). But at least the experiemt can be called a success at this point! I'm not just burning myself up anymore, there is a replenishing (although meager) fuel source. The fire is stoked. What I'm getting at... er... is...well I have a job now. Certainly the most shocking news to date. I'm sure this is just rocking the socks off of all you stably employed responsible people who call yourselves my friends and family. But there it is. Deal with it. I am. I get up and make sandwiches. I feed the hungry. What do you do? Yeah it's not the most slam-bang knock em' dead line of work, I'll be the first to admit it, but the plus side is that they hired me on the spot! I guess they were impressed with my ability to finish most of the sentences I start. Anyway, yeah, it's actually, despite the fact that I'm a college educated 24 year old, a really swell place. I come in at 8, make sandwiches all morning, fend off the lunch rush, and am out by 2. I get fed breakfast, lunch, and dinner if there's a day old sandwich around to take home with me. We do most of the sandwiches pre-made, and we have some pretty damn good ones. My current favorite (although I still have a lot to try) is salami, avocado, provolone, garlic mayo, and pepperchini on focaccia. Yum! It's Mom and Pop to the core. Literally. They've both lived in Portland their whole lives. Martha (the Mom in this scenario) grew up in a house right across the street from the place. Jeff is an ex-banker. They bought the place which was a deli from even further back 13 years ago and haven't looked back. All three of their "kids" (oldest is 35, youngest is a senior in college) have worked there at some point. The middle kid, Isaac, still does. He's actually the one who hired me. He's back home for the summer from Brooklyn, where he runs a catering company. Really nice guy. He took me and his dog Oscar out to his favorite beach (in the world, according to him) last weekend. It's kind of stupid how pretty it is up here. It may be my favorite beach too. One of it's neatest attributes is the fact that there is a really mean current that whips around a bend in the beach and has carved out this big drop-off, so that if you go about 2 feet from shore you'll be in to your chin. It'll be up past your head if you go another foot out. This makes it so that you can actually dive into the water FROM the beach, which is incredibly fun if you've never had the pleasure. The Atlantic, while cold, is not much worse than ole' Lake Michigan this time of year, depending if the tide is going in or out of course. I did some beach exploring of my own the rest of the weekend. I gave myself an impromptu biking tour of a few of Portland's light houses, and went climbing on some great craggy rocks along the coast. There was this fantastic fog coming in off the ocean the first time I went out that seemed to fit the scenery perfectly, or vice versa.

I'm still hiking once or twice a week up to that waterfall across the street from me, but can you blame me? I'm getting busy with freelance work too, which is really excellent. I tried to quit about a year ago because I could never find work I was interested in, and all of a sudden it started finding me. So I'm trying to build up a little momentum and roll with that. My rolling last evening however, was abruptly halted by a staple. I walked my bike over to the nearest shop only to catch the owner just as he was hoping on his bike to ride home for the evening. He looked at me and said "That sucks" and then pretty much just biked off into the sunset, leaving me to walk my flat bike 3 and a half miles back home ... into the sunset of course. The weather has been knock-out gorgeous lately, so I didn't even mind so much. I grabbed a patch kit and fixed everything right up this afternoon though, so I'm back in business. Speaking of bikes I just recalled an amazing sight I beheld last week of a bike rack and two bikes mounted to the back of a limo. Images like that provide their own commentary. On the theme of double-takes, I had two while walking my deflated bike around last evening. I happened past not one, but two different people just strolling around downtown Portland with pythons coiled about their person(s). The second guy I had to stop and ask if something was up, because one python, fine I'll take it, but two! In less than an hour! So I asked him if something was up, a convention or a cult meeting to worship some of "the Old Ones". He said "No, he just likes to walk around with his baby." Sure thing guy. ...and gal.

For those of you who might know what I'm talking about (you'll know who you are, because you'll know what I'm talking about) I saw a tribute band battle last week that was really fun: Frank Zappa Vs. Mike Patton. I think Patton won, but I could just be sore because the Zappa band didn't play anything by the Mothers. The Patton-ites stuck mostly to Faith No More stuff, with some Phantomas tossed in for filler and good measure. Also saw a really wacky show the other night at this place called Strange Maine. Bunch of Improvised noise stuff that was actually much more fun and interesting than all other shows fitting that description that I had seen prior (for the record there have been kind of a lot). I wont try and describe anything, because even the people who know what I'm talking about wouldn't know what I'm talking about.

An interesting note, I've been getting "Fag!" yelled at me from the open windows of passing cars with more regularity than even the glory days as a freshman in Savannah. My retort is always "Anachronism!" but they seem to pass too quickly to look up the word in their dictionaries. Anyway I hope the lack of follow-up pummelings is due to insufficient time to act and not for want of dictionaries. This is of particular curiosity, because, in contrast to my assumptions prior to arriving in this burg, there is absolutely no shortage at all of weirdo art-freak kids up here. This is a city caked in weirdness, and you'd think they would have bigger fish to fry (or at least sufficient experience to negate the novelty of it) than presumed sexual preference hazarded at 50mph.

This is probably getting long enough. You know I don't do this because I want to. I want nothing to do with any of you people obviously. It's just a weekly writing exercise to make sure I can still ramble on and on to no end (until the end) indulging myself and nursing my reputation as a tremendous ass who thinks that other people may find it necessary or interesting to know that he got a job making sandwiches and enjoys watching all the pretty sunsets on all the pretty beaches here in Maine. {singing now} Isn't my life great. Isn't this life grand. I have the most fun, while lying in the sand... And on and on until one of you sends me a letter bomb. ...or just a letter. I'd love to hear from you too!!!

Seriously though. I miss the devil out of all (most) of you! I don't know what I shape I would be in up here if it wasn't for having such good friends to keep in touch with, and keep me in touch. The drop-off into madness would be much steeper, that's for sure. Anyway I hope this finds you all doing exceptionally well. Enjoy your own summers wherever you are. Until the spirit once again moves me, have the fun.

Until the future.
-Andy

Link to Episode 2

Link to Episode 1

P.S. The bastards at Verizon have done something unnameable to my internet connection (I am again at a cafe) so forgive any delay in response on my part.
UPDATE:: Apparently my lines have been struck by lightning. I am currently undergoing an investigation to determine if this may have been Verizon's fault.