“I couldn’t make out the details of the rape.”

Yes, that was an actual sentence I spoke, in all seriousness, at 2am PST to a woman on the phone in Atlanta, Georgia.

Usually this would be the type of teaser sentence that I would just leave hanging. But this seems too – macabre – to do so.

I recently started freelance transcripton work (transcription is what us poor writers who work underpaid jobs to do make ends meet), for a company based out of Atlanta. They do emergency rush audio transcription of the interviews conducted by the police of recent crimes, to be used within 24-48 hours of the crime at the arraingment hearing of the perps. My first assignment was to transcribe an audio about a rape that happened this last Monday night in Atlanta’s Olympic Park. Besides the realization that nearly all my transcription work has revolved around crimes, and I feel a little akward to be making $80 in one-hour fees as a direct result of someone being raped, I could not complete the task.

For the first time, ever, I could not complete a writing task as I gave my word on. No, it was not because I was choked up or sad or anything (though listening to these interviews is a very dark practice it feels), the cop on the tape had left his cell phone on, so it’s magnetic field interfered with the audio on the tape. And apparently the subject was sitting very, very far away without a mic. And there was crying and yelling, and the thickest George accents you ever heard, complete with two scoops of mumbling.

So the tape I was working on was due in court by 7am EST. And I could, as hard as I tried, not make out but three of every 50 words – no hyperbole. So this leads me, a gay 26-year old in Gilbert phonning an employee who works at The CNN Center in Atlanta, to tell her that I cannot complete my overnight work for a Georgia courtroom the next morning because the rapist mumbled too much, and “I couldn’t make out the details of the rape.”

The lady at The CNN Center tells me, “William, despite her rapist being a mumbler, you were unable to complete the assigned task. We can’t pay you for the confession of the victim’s rape.”

I think I’m done with this job. And I’m going to go hug a fucking Care Bear or something.

Beachfront Christmas?

In one of the odd things that usually come my way, I may be working a writing job in San Diego. From mid-November through late February. Somehow, one thing and one project led to another thing and another project, and a surfing-stylized clothing company with a main base in San Diego needs short-term help to assist with catalog writing, web content writing, and press writing. Apparently this is a very busy time of year. Who knew?

And you think they would have their own in-house unit for that, but I’m not complaining. They are supposed to greenlight this idea in a week … and I would be working 40 hours a week, making in three months with them what I would in six with University of Phoenix. I would gladly welcome the time away from the Valley to meet some new people and get some writing work done out on the coast. I would come back for Christmas of course to spend time with my family and Justin, and I would do my best to pursuade Justin to join me with Beau and his boyfriend at Disneyland on New Year’s Eve if this whole thing goes through.

In short, I miss my California winters.