ending in '-ate'
2004-05-06, 1:17 p.m.

I am not a management type. Having to facilitate, articulate, mitigate, ameliorate, mediate, and conciliate makes me want to absquatulate . But as my supervisor is off for a couple of days, this is my lot. I feel as though I'm being punished for taking yesterday off, though.

I feel better today. "Better" of course being a relative term that in this case means I just barely do not want to kill myself or others...I felt obligated to come in today, as I always do. Sucks but there you go. Conscience is my bitterest enemy some days.

I looked myself up on the internet today, and I guess I don't have a very unique imagination, because there are apparently others out there with whom I share a screen name. I check both my regularly used names, and found a lot of results for one, a few for the other--most of which were nothing to do with me. And some of which were rather unsettling. It is weird (to me anyway) to see a name that you consider your personal identity there in print and being castigated by the writer. Maybe if I had a very common first name I wouldn't be so sensitive; this sort of thing must happen all the time to people named Debby or Bill. I just have a weird enough name to have remained sensitive to seeing it in print or hearing it on TV or radio.

Once it finally filtered into my brain that "Friends" was going to be ending its run soon (tonight?) My first thought was--literally--"Is that show still on?" I have never been able to sustain interest in that show for more than a couple of episodes, and I've often wondered why I didn't find it very interesting and amusing...most other people did--why not me? After a decade of putting it down to the fact that I am smarter and more discerning than most people, I finally got an answer that makes perfect sense. I don't like soaps. I do like (well-done) sitcoms. I don't like "Friends". So it is either not well-done, or not a sitcom. Or both. And apparently, it isn't as popular as it thinks, anyway.

I feel as though I should be putting down lists of things. Movies I like, books I've read, or some such shit. Why, I don't know. But as my whimsy takes me:

THINGS ON MY DESK RIGHT NOW

1. Three empty Coke cans, because I'm too befuddled to remember to carry the old one back and recycle it when I get a new can They are Coke cans because I can't get RC at work.

2. Four cans of Slim-Fast for when I can't find anything I want for lunch.

3. An ergonomically correct hole-punch.

4. A box of Puffs tissues. (not Kleenex!)

5. A small candy jar with a few red-apple flavored JellyBellies in it.

6. A 2003 calendar illustrated with photographs of Vermont.

7. ALL THE USUAL OFFICE JUNK--like calculator, stapler, phone, etc.