Synopses & Reviews
Paul Ash appears to like his chemistry set just a little bit too much. He's also an absent minded disassociated borderline psychotic narcoleptic insomniac.
What I Think About When I Go To the Job follows Paul through three years of stumbling just along the edge of a functional existence.
He fades into consciousness on buses pulling into stops in towns he doesn't recognize, in taxicabs other people have apparently already paid for, shady 1 A.M. meetings with guys at bingo parlors, and back room drinks with hardcore lingerie models over late night infomercials. He wakes up in raw motel rooms while searching out Middle America, then finds himself wandering through lower Manhattan on Sept. 13, 2001, having apparently been charged with writing a guide to getting around New York after the Disaster.
Paul seems to bumble through Time, just barely able to maintain on the most basic levels, while somehow absorbing and articulating the more complex mechanisms, and underlying patterns which drive the situations he interacts with.
Many people find this amusing, sometimes even charmingly cute; making them want to bring him home and take care of him. But it can be a real liability when trying to conduct a Regular Life.
About the Author
Paul Ash is the author of The Hotel Brain, Can of Air, and What I Did On My Vacation. He is the editor of Sniffy Linings Press and regularly performs monologues drawn from this book. Possibly indicating that while having one's marbles may certainly be useful, it is not a necessary condition for productivity.
Table of Contents
Part 1: An Incidental Vacation
Part 2: Why should I loan you mine, when you've broken yours off already?
Part 3: My Time in the Land of the Untouchables
Part 4: Ellipse...
Part 5: Chinaski Fortune Cookie
i Cast of Characters from 'Why should I loan you mine, when you've broken yours off already?'
ii The best parts of It
iii Notes on the mechanisms of Time Travel [from 'George meets John Denver in a Time Tunnel and learns to have fun']
iv One Hand Clap: Endnotes for An Incidental Vacation
v Interviews
vi Lists
vii Monkey in the Middle: A Conversational Tool