march 13, 2000.

Lunchtime. Day 2 at the new job. I've spent the last 45 minutes basking in the sunlight flooding the lobby; in contrast my little grey cubicle can't help but feel cold and unhappy. On the upside, I've managed to hammer out a decent outline for the historical essay due tomorrow. On the downside...it's due tomorrow. I've been trying to figure out if this job could've come at a more awkward time - with 2 essays due this week, it's not a pretty scene at casa del Amoret. Last night I did the full freak out thing and sobbed for a half hour in despair of ever finishing these damn assignments. But I feel better now.

Well, kinda.

I think the biggest problem is that I went out & had a good time this weekend. I'm not talking about huge amounts of time, just 6 hours on Saturday in the city (wow, that does seem like a lot) and church on Sunday morning. It's pretty grim when you realize that the weekend is over and you haven't made significant progress on Tuesday's paper. It's even grimmer when you realize that you can't skip class to make up the time - that you're committed to some sort of insane rat race position for a good 8 1/2 hours every day.

Blech. Stupid responsibility. In the words of everyone employed by Krusty the Klown, "I wish I was dead."

Nevertheless, the weekend was worth it. On Saturday I hung out at the Tequila Bookworm for hours, chatting to friends and complaining about the substandard milkshake I received. (It really was terrible. But I have to admit, it was a helluva life lesson. If you order chocolate and the staff tries to cover for a lack of supplies by coaxing you to order "burnt mashmallow" instead...well, don't go for it is all I have to say. How cloying.)

My long-distance friend Austin (or, as he's known on the Ship Of Fools site, Augustine the Aleut) was in for a visit, and as I totally tanked on his last visit, I was more than eager to show up this time. Sure, I had an essay to write...but I had a friend in from out of town. I felt so important.

I had to skate around the issue with my parents, though. Taking time out of essay weekend to visit is bad. Visiting with an older man is worse. And visiting with an older man who lives out of town and found me through my webpage...well, I don't have enough exclamation points to detail their presumed response. So I skirted the issue. Especially since he showered me with gift (a John Donne iconic fridge magnet, totally cool. I think I'm the first on my block, that's for sure).