5/23/2010

No Sleep 'til (or in) Brooklyn

On Friday I drove from Boston to Brooklyn, approximately 220 miles, in about four hours. I would have made it in less time, but, you know, traffic. If you don't count pulling a car out of a parking spot a month or two back, Friday was the first time I drove since January when I was visiting folks back in Omaha. Cold, snowy, icy January. If memory serves, I think I only left the house once by myself. The rest of the time someone else drove me around. What I'm trying to say is, I hadn't driven in a car for a while. And it made me slightly nervous to be behind the wheel again. But, as the old saying goes, driving a car is like falling off a bike, you never forget how.

I'm sitting in the living room of my summer apartment at a makeshift desk that was put together by my roommate's former roommate, drinking cranberry juice and eating Mike and Ike's while watching the Angels/Cardinals game on MLB.TV. My roommate, Vanessa, is sitting at her desk across the room, working, which is pretty much the only position I've seen her in since I got here. I think she's behind on deadlines. (She retouches Japanese manga for American publication.)

After arriving Friday afternoon, I unloaded my stuff from the rental car and ventured into southern Manhattan to return the car, which only further enhanced my desire to never drive in this city. The interstate is wonderful, I can drive on the open road for hours on end, and I have, but there's just something about this city, and Boston, that makes me cringe and shy away from a steering wheel. I didn't have this problem in L.A. Of course, in L.A. you have to drive everywhere, there's no getting around it. Out here, between Boston's T, New York's subway and the buses, driving is an unnecessary luxury, like Botox and adopting African babies.

I won't say I got lost on my way to Battery Park City to return the car, which doesn't mean it didn't happen, just that I won't say it. Turned around is a better term. I would've been fine if not for all the construction near the rental place. And all the other drivers. They didn't help either. But, after a few U-turns and a spin on FDR Drive, I managed to drop the car off, after which I found my way to the subway, which will be an entirely different matter.

L.A.'s subway is a joke, and Boston's T is pretty simple to navigate. New York, though, is an entirely different animal. Here is a map of the city's subway system. Compare with Boston's. No contest.

I did manage to make it back to the apartment just fine, no frantic phone calls needed. It was just a minor adventure of my own making, one that I had hoped to avoid, and should be able to in the future. Tomorrow morning, I know exactly how to get to the Marvel offices. Whether I actually make it in time is another matter, but at least I know where I'm going.

What I'll be doing once I get there, well, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, won't we? Marvel's internship coordinator had to fill out some paperwork for Emerson so I'd be able to receive credit for the internship (to paraphrase Yakov Smirnoff, "In Russia, you pay job!"), and under the section titled "Job responsibilities," she wrote:

  • Researching information about our comics, movies, etc. to be used in creating content for our website
  • Writing news stories & possibly interviewing Marvel writers & artists
  • Assisting with some HTML work & light graphic design
  • Creating stories in our content management system

Sounds right up my alley, doesn't it? Again, I ask, who could possibly be better qualified for this job than me?

I'm living in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn, which is the southwestern-ist part of the borough. I am literally a block from the ocean. Seems like a nice, relatively diverse neighborhood. Lots of shops and restaurants. Found the nearby grocery store and a Walgreens. A branch of my bank is a block away. The subway is just a block further than that. I'm told I'll have a 45 minute to an hour commute from here to Marvel, which doesn't seem too bad to me at all. In Boston, it was easily 45 minutes from my apartment to campus, and when I was interning for BOOM! in L.A., it routinely took me an hour to drive a measly 10 miles. Commutes don't bother me anymore.

There's really not much more going on. Right now I'm just biding my time 'til the morning, 'til I start working at Marvel. By now I'm less freaked out and excited than I am anxious to just get started. I want to get right to it, jump in with both feet and impress the hell out of them so a job will be waiting for me either when the internship is over or after I finish my Master's.

Operation Dave Needs A Job begins tomorrow. Fingers crossed!

1 comment:

Alexa L. said...

I love it! Hope you're enjoying the hell out of it all.