* A milestone: I’ve been at my school for one year, today. Considering I thought I’d quit or be fired/stabbed within the first month, a year is pretty ass-kickin’. Even more ass-kickin’ would be a five percent raise, which is the max I’m entitled to if my review goes well. I do need that raise, since the rent on this apartment went up $100 a month in July. We’ll see how it goes.
* Nice date last night with an attorney. She’s my age, from back East, and seems to have her act together. We met for coffee and then walked down to a place on Hawthorne for dinner. It was fun and I’d definitely go out with her again. (Incidentally, meeting for coffee and then having the date continue on to a second place is sort of like a team in the NBA scoring more than 100 points. It’s not a guarantee that they’ll win, but it’s definitely more fun to watch.)
* Oh, and back to the topic of my year anniversary: I’ve decided to stop checking personal email at work, and engaging in various forms of electronic time wasting (most of you know what I’m talking about). It’s not like I was looking at porn, and checking your Gmail isn’t technically against the rules (or maybe it is) but … eh, I’d like to get more stuff done. Even though the job can be slow, it’d be nice not to worry about who’s watching what I do. Yesterday, I just randomly decided to … well, suck all the fun out of work.
* Weird dream last night. I dreamed that I was living with… someone, some woman (or was it a family?) in a big New York City high rise apartment. Paul McCartney, of all people, was a frequent house guest. In fact, he was living there, and never got off the couch. Sort of like the loser brother-in-law. OH! And the other thing was that Jon Stewart thought I was funny, and assigned me (as my first Daily Show task) to run around and take photos of knives. They were going to pick one and use it as an illustration for a joke during the news. This was going to be my big break into comedy—and of course, I procrastinated and was taking photos with my cell phone in a survivalist store right up to the very end. I was very, very stressed out. Analyze at will.
* Incidentally, my middle name is Paul (named after the couch-crashing Beatle named above), there were two huge knives for each of us on the table for last night’s date, and the deadline for my book is July 28.
* I miss having The New York Times crossword at work. The Oregonian doesn’t pay for newspapers to be delivered to schools over the summer, and I just can’t justify it in my budget. I’ll have to go get it before work.
* Wait, I just said I wouldn’t waste time at work anymore. Dammit.
