Going Hiatus & Green (A Crappy Precarious Bloke's Note)

After some crappy hiatus involving me, the girlfriend, and her angry (ang-gay) client over some “Going Green” article I’d wrote last week, I am now back to what I really love doing: blogging another fucked-up day of my life. That crappy yet simple hiatus has the potency to become serious – a crazy blown-up-kind-of-serious – which again comprises of me and the girlfriend walking the thin line of b.r.e.a.k.a.g.e. Though I really hate to admit that but the way things are – no good mind can help it where it now leads.

So what’s this all about? You may ask. It was really very simple: a client looks for a writer to write about “going green” (or is it “going gay”?) copy for his website. I am the available writer and the most needful of money (still am). So I just decided to do it. I informed the girlfriend, who was out-of-town that time attending a wedding. She said okay and added with a caveat that I better be careful with that client as he has the reputation to be difficult to please and fondness to break a writer’s heart whose article doesn't particularly make him happy. I didn’t grasp the full meaning of the warning. And I have a good reputation to ignore anybody’s warning too. But that’s another story for next blog.

Yet I found out later.

Groggy as I was that morning, I ignored the caveat and proceeded to work (I can’t work well anyway with anyone threatening me with hell and damnation if I pissed one of them off with my writings).

I read the instructions minutely for several times. I got little from it which proved to be a bad omen. There were only the given title, News-and-Society category, suggested conversational tone, and the client’s website. I clicked his site and found out what I need (or thought found out everything I need) before I wrote his article. So the rest of the day was spent reading other existing articles about the topic, researching further, and finally got some rest.

After a light lunch and coffee, I started writing the first draft. Complete with the right perspective, structure, content, voice, and a cute ending (wish I can publish it here and boast on my cute ending. But the salamagan has already paid for that article though bad as he thought it was). I rewrote it, played basketball with bystanders, won 20 pesos from the game, went back to my room, rewrote it again, and sent the cutie away to the beasts.

One week or so later, the girlfriend called me. The client has emailed and I can read the message myself thru her email. The client was fuming angry. His choice words are designed to cut like daggers that go:

“Just to tell you that your article was the worst I have ever seen... Not sure if English is your first language but judging from the number of errors I\'d guess not.”

Well, there was more but they were again kind of mean. So I just stop there. But again I fucking digress!

Of course, English is not my first language for crissakes! I learned my Hebrew when I was 8. Mastered Greek in kindergarten, and my parents had decided that English was kind of cool too and so I better learned it together with Latin. But it was only later when a couple of friends showed me those Sidney Sheldon novels that I seriously trying to learn the English language. And I discovered D.H. Lawrence, Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Sinclair Lewis, and fucking DOB, among others, for myself.

But the hiatus did not end there. The girlfriend had panicked. She valued her clients too and I was doing my best to scare them away. So she decided to just scrap me off from her team of writers. Which is the best thing to do, I think. So the die is now cast.

But she seemed very consoling. As our telephone conversation went:

GF: ... so what’s your plan?

Me: Ummm, what plan? (I was planning to just get drunk that night).

GF: Well, what will you do next? I mean, if you really care for my opinion, I will be very happy to see you back teaching again in college. Or try to apply other jobs aside from writing. I can accompany you in your job interviews if you like.

What the..., I mean fuck. I can’t believe she said that. She was like telling me why not stop from punishing yourself further and drink this arsenic for your own good. I mean if someone (the only person you care about in the world, only she’s not) stop believing in you and said things like that, the effect would be the same. Okay fuck it, and so I just replied,

Me: Okay I hear you completely. Thanks for the offer. First off, I am finished teaching with college students (the picture of young innocent virgins just cross my head, makes me beam and tremble). Let’s stop this (the thought of a bottle of rum that I hide somewhere crosses my head). I know what I am doing and I don’t think you understand me anyway. So let’s just cut this conversation. I still have important things to do before I sleep (like getting drunk for cripessakes!)

GF: Like getting what?

Me: I mean you need some rest, right? It’s almost 12 midnight. Good night then..’

I put down the phone, tried to find that bottle (thanks God, when all things fail, something is there for you), and started thinking for my future prospects, which was easy ‘coz I’ve none for the moment. Except, of course, live as I am.