Time takes time you know

Last week-end I played laser tag for the first time. I've always wanted to try it out but never got to until this week-end. My team won, of course. I wanted to try the batting cages but everyone else seemed so good I chickened out. The last time I held a baseball bat was third year high school.

I'm having a grand time. Really. Sometimes I still wonder. What if circumstances had been different and I didn't have to come here and I never met this person. What if I really was meant to be with who I thought I was meant to be with. Or what if I had convinced myself I could be stupid for once and be with a jerk. Then I'd never be on the receiving end of so much kindness and thoughtfulness.

I've been trying to come in earlier at work lately. Trying to bring lunch from home so I won't have to spend so much money on food. (Starbucks Frappuccino is $.99 at Duane Reade!) Trying to remember to pay my bills on time. (Heat costs me about $125 a month; this with the thermostat at 65 and me in my trusty old oversized Hanes sweatshirt) Maybe I'll take a day off and get my learner's permit soon.

All you need is a pretty song

I've never wanted anything so badly. I know things will be okay in the end; I know God wants me to have this particular thing (that I can't say yet what lest I count my chickens before they hatch). It just breaks my heart a little - the vastness of the difference between yesterday's triumphant giddiness and today's icy disappointment. It doesn't help that I talked to my mom and all she said was to make sure all the kinks are ironed out. I wanted her to tell me how, to step in and say, it's okay, I'll take care of everything. But I know that's impossible. And inconsiderate and immature and lazy of me.

Tomorrow's another day.

Think about those books you read and
I wonder if they make you think about me




I've been reading Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything and I can't put it down! I wish I didn't have to. I keep wishing I could call in sick and just stay in bed and read it from cover to cover and memorize random facts about anything.

My first job when I got here was in a company that imported goods (knicknacks, pretty little figurines) from China and supplied them to various retailers. I worked in a little office separated by a thin sheet of glass from the warehouse. I was the only female. My particular task was to input data about various items onto a database. One day my boss asked me to input measurements for some items that just came in. The measurements, he went on, were in centimeters so I had to convert to inches. I just kept nodding yes, and at that point, he probably thought I wasn't even listening to him.

Boss: These measurements are in centimeters and you have to convert them to inches.
Me: Yes.
Boss: Before you input them on the computer.
Me: Okay.
Boss: You have to use the calculator.
Me: Okay.
Boss: Do you know how many centimeters are in an inch?
Me: Yes.
Boss (already thinking of the best way to fire a poor little short Filipino girl): How many?
Me (trying to keep a straight face and the Chariots of Fire theme out of my head): 2.54 cm..!

He looked at me then with utter amazement and afterwards treated me like a daughter and didn't say anthing about my flimsy reason for not being able to work there anymore a week later and only said that I shouldn't be working in a warehouse anyway.

My point is, tiny little bits of fact picked up from high school or Jeopardy or an excellent book like A Short History can worm their way into your brain and no matter how unlikely, might be of great use someday.