And I'm back from my month long sojourn.  My favourite part without a doubt: There Goes Treble.

Author's Response:

You've been gone longer than a month, Alex Wert. :(  I'm glad you're back. :)

I enjoyed There Goes Treble, too.  A cappella groups have some pretty odd and punny names, so it seemed to fit both with the original name and what they might make their "after group" name.

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!  This Andy story is one of my favorites that I've written, but like many of my stories, it doesn't attract the big crowd.  I'm going for quality of readers, not quantity. ;)  Thanks for adding to both.  I hope you hang around a bit more.  The forum is slow, by the way.  Sloooooow.

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I would so be singing "Did you ever know that you're my hero..." to you right now if this review thing had audio.  But it doesn't, so your ears are safe.  OMG, I LOVED THIS!!!  His bullet list was SO PERFECT, particularly the nicknames one (Unibrow!).  The detailed story about his resume killed me, especially since the whole drawn out process reminds me so much of my own experience, as does his work history, which is sad... but so very funny.  I kind of died a little at the Weight Watcher's prank and Andy's obliviousness to the fact that they were all laughing at him and not the jerky guy.  And Little Tapioca sabotaging Andy's resume on purpose and him having NO CLUE.  And oh, how you made my heart sing with the Andy/Karen bit.  And that closing paragraph was pure genius.  I loved this entire fic like crazy.  I adore how you can portray so many of the outside forces that impacted Andy simply through his innocently oblivious views.  The writing voice that you gave him is just so him that I wish this Andy really did have a daily blog that I could laugh with and get heartbroken with.  Anyway, AWESOME FIC!

Author's Response:

I love how you get every nuance of my Andy chapters!  I'm sure there were a few people who read through this quickly and didn't get just how long it took Andy to get that resume together and get the job. 

When posting this Andy chapter and the last one (the firthgal era ones), I have to say I wait with bated breath until you've reviewed. I wonder if you're going to think I've done right by Andy. I give a big sigh of relief when you review and of course you've "gotten" it. Andy's such a wonderful character.  I'm not a fan of the season 3 Jim/Pam angst, but season 3 gave us Andy, so that part is a pretty big win.

I actually thought about changing the title of this, because to me (and to my regret, really) it didn't end up being so much about the forces that shaped him and "how he got that way," it ended up more being "this is Andy, this is how he is" and showing how the Andy-ness has manifested itself at different times.  I didn't end up renaming it because I couldn't think of another name I liked and also I sort of didn't want to wrench its identity from it, if that makes any sense.  When I think of this story, by the way, or speak of it to my betas, it's just "the Andyfic."  I thought you'd think it was funny to know that.

By the way, this chapter was done a long time ago, like early last summer when the first chapter came out.  It sat around and waited for me to write the 2nd chapter.  Then it sat around and waited until I finally decided recently that the junior high chapter and college chapter may never get written to my satisfaction, and I couldn't let this chapter die on the vine, especially since it so nicely (for me) practically wrote itself. ;)  If I ever do make those other chapters behave, I'll fit them into the right places here.

By the way, I added a comment in the fanfic section of the Andy Bernard Chronicles and I noticed cobwebs in there.  (Not really, but you know what I mean.)  Have you been too busy for the Chronicles?  Have there been no worthy new Andy fics, or do you just add them and not have an "updated activity" section?

You probably recall that Andy did compare Karen and himself to Sam and Diane, in Diwali: "Roller-coastery friendship. Hot. Cold. On again. Off again. Sexual tension filled type of deal. It's very Sam and Diane." " Wow." "From 'Cheers'."  "Yup."  Given that and Karen's sensible "throwing out the Jagermeister" decision, it was easy to jump to a conclusion that Karen had perhaps imbibed the Jager a prior time and done something she then regretted, like having a little spin on the 'Nard Ride. Karen fervently hopes that anyone who reads this blog thinks that Andy's making the whole thing up.  He isn't. ;)

Thanks so much for reading and reviewing, firthal!  I'm especially glad that you liked this. 

I can't think of a proper comment for this, one that will fully CONTAIN how much I adored your little ol' story. The first two chapters had me laughing and cringing in a way that is mostly reserved for Michael Scott, but I just LOVED the sense of, oh, delusion? And blissful ignorance in the last piece. This line in particular made me laugh out loud:

Keep a little Jägermeister in your desk drawer. What may slip when Jägermeister is involved? Perhaps an office secret? Perhaps a lady's virtue?

Hee! This whole thing is just so utterly, pitch-perfectly Andy. It makes me think that there should be an entire existing collection of similar fanfiction, all of Andy's weekly blog-updates. Hint, hint.

Anyway, thank you for the fun read!

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Hey! It's so great to see some new work from you!

I love that it took Andy so long to "get his resume" together. He certainly seems the procrastinating type. And his relationship with "Little Tapioca" was quite funny. Poor lady. :D

Andy the barnacle... wow. That's a brilliant image right there. I'm sure there's more than one person at DM who would agree with that analogy. ;)

Great job, Kev, and here's hoping that inspiration strikes in the near future!