September 20, 1999

It's decided. I'm going to Chicago for Thanksgiving. I can't wait, actually. I haven't seen Danny for so long, it's ridiculous. We used to joke that when I moved to Seattle and he moved to New York (he applied to NYU, though it didn't work out) our umbilical cord would be stretched as far as it had ever been. We used to talk to each other every day like three or four times, and we went out for coffee or something practically every night.

Things just aren't the same now. They're not worse, but they're different, which is part of life, I guess. You can't ever have it all. (Unless Danny moves to Seattle, that is!)

At any rate, most of my close friends in Chicago are no longer in Chicago anyway. Charles moved to Connecticut, Michelle is at Harvard, and... ok, maybe I didn't have THAT many close friends. Steve, Frank and Liz are still in Chicago, of course, so I hope I get to hang with them over Thanksgiving for at least a while. Anyone who lived with me automatically gets upgraded to the status of "close friend", just 'cause I know so much about them now.

In other news. I really like my job. Have I ever mentioned what I do? If so, I will mention it again. I'm an "editorial production assistant" for a small publishing company that writes manuals to help employers interpret employee benefits law. This sounds intensely boring. I realize this. However, I don't actually have to write the books, and I don't have to read them for content. What I do is page layout, proofreading, and editorial processing.

It's a great job. I get to be as nitpicky as I want with grammar, punctuation, and spelling. In other areas of my life I get yelled at for this behavior, but at work it's accepted and even expected. It's sheer bliss, I tell you.

When I was doing my job search, I was looking for a job as a copy editor. Unfortunately, most of the places that were hiring for copy editors wanted at least five years of experience. After three weeks of frustration (yes, I'm impatient) I broadened my search to include just about any job listing that had anything to do with proofreading, editing, or publishing. That's how I found this job. The listing was for "legal secretary/proofreader". I went to two interviews, and then they offered me the job. Tom (my boss) said that although I was not particularly experienced, since I was right out of college, it seemed as though I had a lot of common sense, "and that's important in a small company like this one." I was actually quite flattered.

The other great thing about this job is that since we never interact with the public, we can wear whatever the hell we want. Right now I'm wearing a tank top, a flannel shirt, shorts, and sandals. It's outstanding. One of the only reasons I disliked student teaching was that I had to dress up every day. I hated it.

The other bad part about student teaching was getting to work at 7:30 AM. To be perfectly honest, the starting time is one of the reasons I decided not to be a teacher. It's just not worth it to me to be constantly tired and need to go to bed by 9 PM. The quarter I was student teaching, I had no social life.

Not that I have MUCH of a social life now, but I could if I wanted to. And that's the important thing.

Later

Charles suggested that I add a link back to the intro page any time I mention someone who's on it. So I did it.

I've been thinking about Charles all day. Before I can tell you how exactly I've been thinking of him, I have to share an anecdote.

I read a lot, and so I've picked up the meanings of many words simply from context. Often, if an author has used a word imprecisely, I misunderstand its meaning. Sometimes it takes awhile for me to correct these misperceptions. For example: for a long time I thought that "esoteric" was synonymous with "extremely intelligent".

"Esoteric" is closer in meaning to "mysterious", or "arcane". It refers to something that is not easily accessible, to something that is hidden behind layers of meaning and subtlety.

Of course everyone knows what "extremely intelligent" means. (Is she ever going to get back to Charles?)

Charles is both esoteric and extremely intelligent. So my confusion about the meaning of the word becomes no confusion at all when applied to him. Does this make sense?

I'm having a pretty weird day.

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