blame Wal-Mart

All right, so I got off from work at 11:30 and then went to Wal-Mart to get some snacks and due to the fact that neither of the two open check-out lanes seemed capable of actually checking out people, I'm not really in a blogging mood. I'll post something tomorrow during the day. I've got plenty of time.

I'm grateful for cran-raspberry Gatorade (20). That's right: cran-raspberry! I didn't know until tonight, but it may be my new favorite of all the -ade varieties, including lemonade.

some quick math

Okay, I've done some calculating and it turns out if I jammed the maximum hours I can work in one month at the paper into one week, I would still be working part time. Five hours a week. Five? Somehow, when the editor told me that once I got into the swing of things I would be able to work pretty much any time I want, I thought it meant I would be working a few more than five hours a week. FIVE. This news on top of the fact that the guy didn't tell me what he wanted in a preview until tonight after I'd finished writing my second preview, has me annoyed. Lots of quotes. Why not just say, "I want lots of quotes." There's more to it than that, but I don't really want to go into it any further. It's just frustrating how poorly the expectations of me have been communicated. I know some of the issues are mine. I should stand up and say, "What the heck do you want from me?"

I kind of blanked out for five minutes here. I'm not really sure how to wrap this up. So I'll borrow an ending from some of the best fiction ever written:

The End

I'm grateful for happy endings (20).

um

Let's pretend like I've written something brilliant here.

I'm grateful for a vivid imagination (20).

Gone like the Oreo

Why do people always insist upon screwing with the things I love.

No work until wednesday

I guess I really am going to have to get another job. My boss said that once things got going, I would probably be able to work as many nights as I wanted. But he only has me coming in on Wednesday and Thursday this week even though pretty much all of the fall sports seasons have started. Grrr. . . now that I have a work, I want to be working. . . I know. I know. Patience. But I want this job to be an experience for me rather than for my resume. I want to learn. I want to write on a deadline. I want to be able to say without qualifications that 'I'm a writer.' I want to type or re-type things. I want to answer phones. I want to fetch coffee. I want to fill out forms with my social security number so I can get paid. I want to respect my boss for something more than just his experience. I want to stop feeling transient. I want to stop complaining now. . . I am better off than I was a few weeks ago. I tend to expect everything to miraculously fall in line once one thing goes well for me. That's not really the way things work though.

I'm grateful to have some kind of work to be frustrated with (20).

Everything's coming up Procrastinator

Today was good to me. My first article ran in the paper. I wasn't expecting it to feel as good as it did to see my name followed by my words in a newspaper. After all, it's a small-town newspaper that I believe every member of my family, including myself, has made fun of at some point or other. But it still felt good, like progress.

The goodness of the day also included the arrival of my new cell phone. So I now possess something that could potentially make everyone in a movie theater think that I'm an inconsiderate asshole. But damn is it cool.

Today also ended with some Halo. I don't know if you guys have figured this out yet or not, but I like Halo. It's fun. You get to blow stuff up and stuff.

I'm grateful for good news about a doctor (20).

Typer

I'm not going to write much tonight. The paper was having some technical issues and needed someone to retype a bunch of stories, and I got the call for that task. I haven't mentioned this, but the last time I went to the driving range (crabbycrabby) I think I may have done something to my wrist because it has been sore ever since. And today while I was typing, that wrist started to really hurt and eventually went completely numb. So that was fun.

Today I turned in the article I wrote on the interview I did last night and the editor, no wait, my editor said that it was quite good. He said that he really liked my lead, which was something he had criticized about the little writing audition thing he had me do last week. But I didn't feel too bad about the criticism because at the time I didn't really know what a lead was. Now that I know what a lead is, I'm glad to find out that I can indeed write one.

I'm grateful for feeling useful (20).