tears of a clown

(rejected titles: "Cry, Cry Baby"; "Driven To Tears";"Big Girls Don't Cry")

As I mentioned earlier this week, I gave my notice to good ol' Ray-dog on Monday. (You knew I work here, right?) After much debate over whether to tell them really really early (like end of June) or really late (like standard two weeks' notice) I decided to take the middle ground and give 'em a little more than a month to recover from the shock and awe that will inevitably arise from my announcement. I'm not one for burning bridges- mostly because confrontation at any level gets me nauseous, but I also know that should I be in a bind after I finish my master's or for some crazy, Scientologist-induced* reasoning, I decide that the ever-exciting world of defense is the world for me, the option will be there for me. Or if I fail in whatever I may be pursuing over the next two years and the job market wants nothing to do with me, I at least know I could come crawling back to the ample teat of my former employer. Kind of like staying in touch with some horrible ex-girlfriend who will never get over you just in case your cup runneth so dry that you know... just maybe... man, that's nasty. Nevermind.

Some people were surprised by how well they took the news at work. Everyone knows to some extent that I pretend to be a rocker when I clock out of here, so when I told them that I'm getting a Master's in music technology, they seemed to think it was a really cool and appropriate life choice for me. Plus, since my announcement, I've had a handful of people come to my cube to reaffirm that I'm making the right choice in my life-- one guy said 'I wish I had something I really wanted to pursue thirty years ago and that I followed it.' Kinda sad, but in a twisted way it was good to hear.

Tonight is Focusin's last scheduled gig. I've left it with the guys that I would love to keep playing gigs here and there with 'em, so once I figure out my schedule in the fall we may set up a couple of long weekends where I come to town, we have a practice, and we play a gig or three. This should still give me time to do well in school, live my New York life (I think that involves dating Mary Kate and / or Ashley Olsen), and to pursue my own Joe Perry Project.

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I don't cry much. Maybe it's a macho thing or maybe it's the fact that my hyper-rationalness is very good at making sense of any situation. However, the two things that have been known to wring out some tears from my steely gaze have been seeing people suffer and dealing with change... and there is also always an event that opens the floodgates. At my high school graduation, they had the graduating seniors march through a row of our teachers, from K-12, who applauded for us. That got me going. Then at my last collegiate squash match it came time to have our last meeting with the team and the reality of being done with college was triggered and I was reduced to a sobbing mess in front of my ever-so-macho teammates. And I've had at least one girlfriend move out on me and left me whimpering in a corner.

So my question is... what, if anything, will trigger the Next Big Cry? I've had three constants in my life since graduating from college that have defined who I have been for the past four years and that are all, in some regard, going to go away in the next month: Focusin, Raytheon, and Winnie. The move out from Malden will be rough, and we'll save talk of that for later. But what if one of the other Big Two triggers something? What if I realize at the end of Hypnotize tonight that there is the chance of me never playing that again and I become a sobbing baby right in the middle of Goss' basement? What about when they strip me of my security clearance that I worked so hard to obtain or on my going-away lunch at the 99s over a 22oz pour of Killian's Red and a side caesar salad and I hear Bill make his last awkward comment about that intern girl?

Maybe keeping myself in a constantly inebriated state until, say, I am safely locked in my old bedroom, the one in Dobbs Ferry, NY, that I moved out of in August 1997 and am returning to in August, 2005 as a plumper shadow of my old self... where nobody can hear me cry and I have all the porn I need to keep me company. I wonder if Owen found that Penthouse I stole in fifth grade...

Oh, I've found the perfect shirt to wear at my last day of work:

*I've decided to start blaming all the world's problems on the Scientologists. I'll save that rant for another day.