My right hand hurts. I keep bending my fingers back, trying to stretch it, but I’m “double-jointed” – the fingers go all the way back to my wrist – so it takes a lot of muscle-power to stretch the hand, causing me to worry that, in my effort to stretch my right hand, I’m going to injure the left.

I’m pretty sure there’s an ancient, Chinese proverb about this exact situation. If only I’d have paid attention in third grade, when they teach Chinese mysticism and philosophy – then I could quote it. Alas.


I suppose I should explain why my right hand hurts. God knows I don’t trust you to come up with a reason yourself. I know you, dear reader, and know that your twisted imagination has already concocted an offensive reason for why my right paw aches; something like:

“I’ll bet he was trying to knit a scarf with thick, Rowan ‘Big Wool’ yarn using only a 10 inch, single-point needle!”


You’re sick, y’know. You need help.

The reason my right hand hurts is because I have been addressing envelopes for wedding invitations, using large, calligraphy pens and ornate lettering. It’s my wedding gift to Carrye and Jared, who’s wedding it will be.

I’ve been ill again. Ever since I moved to LA, I get sick all the time. Oh, well. That’s the price I pay for getting to nosh with Posh and Becks every Tuesday.

…Okay, technically, only Becks and I do any actual “noshing” – you get the idea.


Yesterday was my boyfriend’s birthday. I got him a rad gift. (I know what you’re thinking – “Job, what better gift could you give him beyond your hacking, disease-ridden body?”) An AMOEBA GIFT CERTIFICATE, that’s what I gave him. Who doesn’t want one? Even I want one for my birthday, and I don’t even need one! Because, as many of you know, all Amoeba employees are allowed as many free albums and DVD’s as they want. In fact, we’re PAID to take them home! We drive them home in the cars our bosses buy us, which we park in our gold-plated garages with matching tiara encrusted, truffle-flavored diamond mines.

I’m delirious. I have no idea what I’m writing. We’ve been through this before, dear reader. This is how my sick day blogs read. If you feel inspired to pray for me by the end of it, please do. It’ll give you something to do while you’re waiting for Limewire to finish downloading a crappy copy of that Rockwell single.

5.) The Haunted Mansion

Last I checked, Amoeba Music is not selling any of these, no matter how much I pester management that there is a ready market for it.

I don’t know what it says about me, but as a child growing up on the sunny island of Oahu, I dreamed incessantly of once again returning to the Haunted Mansion, located on the edge of New Orleans Square in the Magic Kingdom of Disneyland in Anaheim in California on the Mainland…

…Earth.


Something about the temperature, the hues of dark greens, blues and violet, set a-glow by thousands of volts of black light; a soundtrack of pipe organ and church bells… It made a young Job feel at home. I can’t account for it, but that’s how it felt and, infantile as it may seem (maybe even perverse) it still does.

Once inside, I would never want to leave. At age five, I stood at the base of the escalator that took people from the end of the ride to the outside world, and cried. I’m sure people who passed me assumed I was crying because the ride had scared me, when in actuality, I wanted to move in.

I was a deeply unpopular child.


Every once in a while, a copy of the Haunted Mansion soundtrack will pop up in my section of Amoeba. It was only sold at the Park, and even then in limited edition batches (though they re-release them). Most anything Disney on c.d. goes out of print and instantly becomes a collector’s item; there’s always a market for the stuff. There’s people out there right now, who have left their babies alone in cribs, as they hunt for anything with that recognizable Disney logo stamped on it.
(Confession time: When a c.d. simply will not sell in my section, I just hand-draw this emblem on it, then stand back and wait for the bidding war between customers who suddenly must own this “rare release by Disney of the ‘Inside Deep Throat’ soundtrack”.)*