I have a packed day ahead of me. Rest assured I won’t watch a second of sports, as I’m in the middle of writing a vicious term paper for my Women’s Studies major at The New School. I’ve titled it “The Growing Femininity In Office Men During The Chalskian Era (1990-Present): And Why The Female Worker Continues To Be Pushed To The Side.“

My first draft, about 90 pages typed, is in a state of utter disarray — and I’m not making progress mainly because I continue to be distracted by OUTSIDE FORCES. Section 2 is a shambles and I am committed to spending this Sunday line-editing this thing down to its britches. That means no more people calling me with FALSELY URGENT, nonsensical personal dramas (you know who you are, Tamara and Bellsy). I am EXHAUSTED with playing counselor on the phone when I have a MASSIVE term paper due. Apparently, I’m the only person committed to growing intellectually on this campus. (Sound about right, Tamara? Open a book for once.)

Some clown from my Post-Trotsky World-View class asked me if I wanted “to go watch Raiders-Chiefs and drink PBRs.” WHY WOULD I DO THAT? This is someone I immediately crossed off my list — he’s a loafer. I’m not: I’m balancing my studies with two part-time jobs M-F: (1) as a receptionist at a mid-sized PI firm in West Los Angeles (some ancient notes on that here); (2) as a librarian at a middle school I will not name for the sake of the youth. NO, I DON’T HAVE TIME TO SIT AROUND WATCHING SPORTS.

Predictably, as I walk across campus to the (empty) library, all the bars will be filled by 10 a.m. with dull men waiting for their football teams to play. While they waste inordinate amounts of time drinking 32 oz glasses of draft beer and eating spiced bird wings, I will be HAMMERING OUT A TERM PAPER that *might* have a tangible impact on the field of women’s studies — not to mention my GPA, which currently sits at 3.17.

That’s how serious and committed students do it at The New School.

* * *

Jenny’s Week Seven Picks:

DEN @ MIA – Denver 22, Miami 13
SD @ NYJ – San Diego 31, New York Jets 21
HOU @ TEN – Tennessee 32, Houston 31
ATL @ DET – Detroit 41, Atlanta 28
WAS @ CAR – Washington 19, Carolina 18
CHI @ TB - Tampa Bay 34, Chicago 19
SEA @ CLE – Seattle 28, Cleveland 17
PIT @ ARI – Pittsburgh 29, Arizona 23 (OT)
KC @ OAK – Kansas City 17, Oakland 16
GB @ MIN – Green Bay 51, Minnesota 10
SRL @ DAL – Dallas 33, St. Louis 7
IND @ NO – New Orleans 37, Indianapolis 16
BAL @ JAC – Baltimore 40, Jacksonville 17

Hello, readers:

I’ll be getting to my “locks of the week” later in the column, but first things first: I should introduce myself. My name is Jenny Silver. I’m 23 years old, I live in a single apartment in Culver City, CA, and hold down two jobs to pay back the vicious school loans I’ve accrued since 2005 (NOTE: I’m 8 credits short of my degree in Women’s Studies at The New School, but taking time off right now to focus on work. Were I studying full-time, you can bet I wouldn’t have time to assemble a weekly “pro-football column,” etc., etc.).

MY FIRST JOB: I’m an assistant librarian at a middle school in West Los Angeles. It’s a 15-hour-a-week position that allows me plenty of free time to read in-stock books about subjects that interest me, and (covertly) work on my first novel, which sits at 243 pages (in four notebooks, which I keep on my person at all times).

MY SECOND JOB: For the other 25 hours a week, I answer phones at a mid-sized private investigative agency on Pico Boulevard near Century City. Hired by the agency’s lead P.I.s (I’ll call them Bert and Ernie for the purpose of this column–not their real names, but appropriate), I was brought on to handle “light reception work.” Truth be told, I do my share of miscellaneous work–namely getting lunch for “B&E.” Every day, at 12:30 p.m., I steer the company car west down Pico to The Apple Pan. My esteemed bosses order the same thing always, in one massive batch: three hickory burgers, three steakburgers, two slices of pie, and two black coffees to go. The cook at Apple Pan, Jackie (a man), doesn’t say a word, and doesn’t need to. I walk in and Jackie nods, prepares the same food as yesterday, stuffs it all in a paper sack, and adds it to our “tab.” Ernie did some sort of work for Jackie a while back. Lunch has been free ever since.

Here's a picture of the burgers at Apple Pan. I pick up a bag of them each day for my bosses. Slices of pie, too.

SIDENOTE: I am currently reading a three-volume set of books about the I-formation offense. Because I work at a middle school, it is rudimentary reading, but I’m learning a lot. Volume One focuses heavily on the birth and earliest use of the formation under VMI’s Tom Nugent in the mid-1950s. Volume Two is co-written by two students who played on John McKay‘s ’62 national title team at USC–a team that blasted opponents with the I attack on a week-to-week basis. I haven’t read Volume Three yet.

Back to the job. Our office works with another P.I. outfit in Manhattan. I’m not entirely sure of the relationship (I’ve only been answering phones here since June), but we’ve done work—and continue to do work—for Major League Baseball and the NFL. I know this because my duties include transcription of wiretaps and the gathering of special (classified) memos. As it was told to me, since the NFL players’ strike in ‘82, the league office has diligently monitored (via wire and, more recently, GPS surveillance) every coaching staff in the league. I, personally, have no memory of the players’ strike (I wasn’t even born until 1986), but it must have irritated the wrong guys.

UPSHOT: Our office was recently brought on by the NFL to help with this rather large effort. We currently staff a team of 15 P.I.s to cull, sort, and produce data for a slew of “consultants” at the league office—hundreds of pages per day. We FedEx our reports every evening.

MORE FROM JENNY AFTER THE JUMP

We’re short-staffed right now, so B&E have been sending me audio files to transcribe (it’s all done via computer now, of course—MP3s, etc.). We scan through hundreds of hours of audio. It gets *SO* boring sometimes (I need a drink!). Much of the talk is mundane, grey—inarticulate. Below is what I’ve been working on today, post-Apple Pan (it’s a snooze-fest around here):

[9/16/09. Verbatim telephone call transcript (OPERATION HOODIE TREE Addendum). Marked: "Recorded at Commissioner's Request; source-scrambled"/Taped by: SILVER FOX./Classified "Stage-1 Covert"/Speaking: ERIC MANGINI (EM), JOSH MCDANIELS (JM).]

[Call begins at 11:49 p.m.]

EM: Good evening, Josh.
JM: Good evening.
EM: You’re 1-0 and nobody believes it.
(silence)
JM: You’re 0-1 and nobody doubts it. Where are you right now?
EM: In the office; with my feet on the desk; eating shrimp. Where are you?
JM: In the film room breaking down your defense—you were eaten alive by Peterson.
EM: If you’re analyzing film—if you’re studying—then you’ve certainly witnessed the blatant hold on Big Baby during AP’s touchdown run.
JM: Which touchdown run?
EM: Very funny. The big one.
JM: Didn’t see a hold—
EM: Look closer. Big Baby is groped. I’m seething. I’ve filed under-the-table correspondence to the big house regarding  no less than 17 unflagged, crystal-clear holding violations that went unpunished in the second half alone.
JM: You drew the short straw. No way the league lets Brett lose the opener.
EM: Here’s the next part: hours after I file my complaint, the league fines me 25 large for injury report violations from LAST SEASON… regarding Favre. How poetic. Meanwhile, I know (from you…) that New England fudged injury reports about Maroney; and the Steelers–beyond the law, always–fully misrepresented Big Ben’s rib issue before the Super Bowl. None of them are fined. Just me.
JM: I see we have an angry coach en route to Denver.
EM: I am angry. The league is treating me like a child.
JM: You want to see a child? Here’s a child. I just received a text from Brandon Marshall: “Hey, McD. I’m at Dave & Busters on Colorado Blvd! Late-night happy hour! Hammered beyond mind/body/spirit. Drinking with my boo. ROTFL. Hit me up.”
EM: Did you text him back?
JM: I said, “Get to bed. Your own.”
EM: Are you on Twitter?
JM: Covertly. Wade’s on Twitter, you know–
EM: I don’t get the fascination. Why can’t men just go to work and do a job?
JM: …I like Ochocinco’s page.
(silence)
EM: Do you watch “The Hills”?
JM: No.
EM: (pause) …me neither.
(painful silence)
JM: Coach, I’ve got three assistants in here waiting to break down your D.
EM: I’ll see you Sunday.
JM: Bye, Coach.

[Line cuts dead at 12:01 a.m.]

* * *

Jenny’s Weekly Picks:

HOU @ TEN – Tennessee 31, Houston 13
NO @ PHI – New Orleans 28, Philadelphia 20
ARI @ JAC – Arizona 34, Jacksonville 19
OAK @ KC – Oakland 19, Kansas City 16 (OT)
CIN @ GB – Green Bay 21, Cincinnati 17
MIN @ DET – Minnesota 44, Detroit 9
STL @ WAS – Washington 10, St. Louis 0
NE @ NYJ – New York Jets 27, New England 24 (OT)
CAR @ ATL – Atlanta 13, Carolina 6
TB @ BUF – Buffalo 37, Tampa Bay 26
SEA @ SF – San Francisco 16, Seattle 9
BAL @ SD – Baltimore 28, San Diego 3
PIT @ CHI – Chicago 20, Pittsburgh 17
CLE @ DEN – Denver 7, Cleveland 6
NYG @ DAL – New York Giants 34, Dallas 30
IND @ MIA – Miami 30, Indianapolis 10