Ok, so I'll break from the California catchup to report on the present moment. Its another bizzare night of people watching at DTUT. First off, on my way here, I watched a couple part ways after a date at the doorstep of the women's apartment building. I overheard her say, "Do you want to come up or are you tired?" Please woman... he either wants to come up or he's a unic. Funny enough, he didn't actually go up. I wanted to turn around and smack that guy on the back of the head and say, "Dude... what are you doing???" He was kind of a dorky guy, too... not likely to get this opportunity in the near term from what I can tell. Ah well. Now I'm at the cafe... with my back to the woman singing and playing guitar. She sounds ok, but she has the most ridiculously bland lyrics I've ever heard. She was singing some nonsense about being in Paris before... total dribble. There are three foreigners at the table, and a couple. I'm at the head. The foreigners--I can't tell if they're all together. The girl across from me is a fox... she's talking to a guy... they have accents, but I can't tell what kind, b/c of this guitarist drolling on about an apron. The girl with them, who chimes in every now and then is typing away on a laptop. She's quite unattractive... in fact, its like a spectrum of physical appearence. The guy, in the middle, is pretty non-descript. I keep trying to catch the girl across from me with some eye contact, but she's really enthralled in this accented conversation with the other two. Ah well.
I had a great meeting the other day with a Regis alumni. I ran the alumni database again for publishing people, and I came up with a guy who was a CFO for a publishing company. He rang me after I e-mailed him and was willing to stop in the GM office to chat. Turns out that it was his last day at this firm--he was going to be working out on Long Island in a different industry. Fantastic timing. Anyway, he gave me some great advice about getting my name out and associating it with my topic before I push harder on the actual book itself. He said my problem was that I was trying to write a good book, which isn't the way to get one published. So anyway, I went to a great website that he suggested would help me find some ways to get my thoughts on the subject into the media: www.mediabistro.com. Its got lots of really helpful articles about how to freelance for different magazines. They're also doing an event that would give me a chance to pitch to some literary agents that I signed up for. Also, from that, I found a site for the Young Professionals of New York City. Its like a professional society for young people in their 20's... interesting stuff. I signed up... they do lots of social and career events in the city and seem to have a good member base. I'll keep you posted on how that goes. Anyway... I need to go scouring the internet for writing opportunities related to career development. More on California and my new baseball team later...