But Call Me Betsy

I successfully finished my first week at the new job and I really, truly like what I do and the people I work with. My boss actually complimented me for something I'd done well in front of her boss. I was amazed. I told Shawn about it and he said that's what normal bosses are supposed to do. I had forgotten. Three people who didn't have any idea about my skill level brought me pieces to edit and were very thankful when I turned them back. Along with that, everybody seems extremely competent and motivated--like, they want to do their jobs and do them well and will stay extra hours to get things done. I brought some work home over the weekend; editing this handbook and I get a tiny thrill when I find a mistake because I'm helping, I'm helping! So much is going on there in terms of rebuilding and vitalizing the campus and drawing in more students and caring about community outreach. I remember my first week at the other job and how I cried at least once because th...

I don't have much time to write because I have the first in five meetings for today in 10 minutes. I feel like I am pretending to be an assistant director. I have my own office which has come equippted with the following: a flat screened computer with speakers, a scanner, a printer, a palm pilot, an eraserboard, paper cutter, filing cabinet, phone, 2 booshelves, bulletin board, and, my favorite of all, a space heater. Oh, and there's a coat hanger on the back of the door. The door which I can shut if I want some privacy. The door which is not a cubicle wall. I'm wearing a suit today with a jacket that doesn't quite fit. It's the bust-line that's the problem. Is it unprofessional to wear a suit that won't button? The sleeve and waist length are fine. Oh the curse of being voluptuous! Weird former job work dream last night. I went to an Indigo Girl concert that everyone from my old job also attended, including the male VP who I had a slight crush on. He ...

I start my new job tomorrow. What if I do something really dumb like forget to set my alarm and show up three hours late or accidentally ingest LSD and start tripping in front of the Provost? Or make an inappropriate joke or walk around with my skirt unknowingly tucked into my underwear (this happened to me in real life once). I hope I can do this job. I think I can, but I feel like I have to go in there on the first day and start making flow charts and setting up meetings and illustrating how assistant director-ish I am. Isn't it true that beginning a new job is supposed to be one of the top ten stressors in life, right up there with death of a loved one and moving? To my own personal top ten lists of fears, I would add (1). being judged by the grocery store clerk for not buying healthier food; (2). getting a horrible hair cut because I don't stand up to my hairdresser when s/he starts shaving my head which reminds me of another fear I just came up with the other day; (3)....

The best young artist people-watching in the city belongs to the Starbucks on Pine and Broad because the University of the Arts is right behind us. Here we have a kid wearing knee high athletic socks and sandals. He still sports a flush of adolescent acne. All of them must required to carry canvas bags with long straps to hang across their chests. They must also have unkempt hair—the girls wear it long and tangled and the boys have white kid Afros or long bangs they must constantly flick out of their ever-watching eyes, who’s looking at me? Who’s not looking at me? How are they reacting? A totally hot guy with a girl who has real dark red hair, Botticelli features and coloring, very pretty too though appears more conservative than he is. He has a square, cleft chin and long, straight blond hair in a Beatles type style, bug eyes, scruffy face. A younger, blond, less smelly looking Jared Leto doppelganger or else James Spader if JS were actually attractive. Once again, the look for ...

Shawn and I went to Mandoline, a byob on 2nd and Chestnut for dinner last night. I gave him a book of sonnets, pjs and WD 40 for his bike. He gave me a lovely undergarment as (not so subtly) requested by me. He ordered better than me--a filet lightly doused in oyster sauce (whatever that is). I had scallops on top of potatoes that were covered in some kind of sweet juice. Both of us ate too fast. The waitress became our best friend even though we didn't order appetizers or dessert (the bill still totalled $58). There's an attractive, possibly gay boy sitting at the table across the room. He's short---I can see this even though he's sitting down. He has moussed blond hair and side-burns and looks to be about 25 years old. He's writing in pencil in a notebook. He would be 5,000 times cuter except for the fact that he's wearing his oxford shirt unbuttoned just one button too far. I suspect it's to show off the thick silver necklace he has on--another fashion fa...

Another work dream last night. This time, I was stuck in line for a party behind the VP and had to make awkward conversation with her for fifteen minutes. Then Shawn came up and charmed her by doing this intricate tango in the middle of the room. Woke up again this morning surprised to remember I don't have to go in there ever ever again. I've been rereading some of the journal entries I wrote during our quarterback meetings and a pattern emerges in case after case--if you shoot yourself in the head, you will probably be a donor. Or let's just say, you have a greater chance of donating. So many cases start with SIGSW (self-inflicted gun shot wound), so you have a family in grief over the death along with the highly complicated feelings of anger, guilt, and shock that follow a suicide (that sounds like a sentence from a textbook). Some day, maybe I'll be able to write a short story about a case--lots of quotables from the meetings because on some level, you have to ...

It is the first day of my temporary unemployment and I'm sitting at the Starbucks on 9th and South Street using someone else's Wireless connection illegally and feeling no moral qualms about it in the slightest. I have the rest of this week off and two days next week before I start the new job. I'm determined to spend at least part of each day writingf, even if it's only an hour or so. I have got to get into better writing habits. Dinty Moore (his real name) from Pennsylvania English sent me a copy of an essay I had published in that journal like four years ago and I reread it this weekend and liked it a lot and envied the me who used to write. I can't continue the rest of my life rereading old pieces that have been published; I have to keep moving forward. Maybe this new job will help, especially if I can take a grad fiction class in the fall which I am determined to do. I am still experiencing PTSD from the previous job. Had nightmares all weekend about it. In the...

I had the brilliant idea on Saturday night while at karaoke to make a list of all the housecleaning duties that need to be done on a fairly regular basis and then to write up two separate lists for what I often do and what he often does and, needless to say, it led to an in public fight consisting mostly of hissing comments made across the table at one another because we were around a bunch of others trying to have fun. It did not, as I had hoped, lead to Shawn wanting to take a greater part of the housekeeping duties but rather to him telling me I should clean his bathroom and he'll pay the phone bill. Or something like that. We watched more of the American Idol auditions last night (Boston), and I have to admit that I have a slight crush on Simon, if only because he's the only honest one of all three judges. Paula A. would tell a ventriolquist to keep trying and the other guy is too nice as well, except when he's holding his head in his hands and laughing while the contes...

I was having an ugly-feeling day on Sunday when we went over to our friends to watch the Superbowl and so we were drinking Cosmos and then a PBR and then some red wine, you know, the usual alcoholics fare and having a good time. I said something kind of funny and everyone laughed and I was still please with myself when I went into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of my reflection and I thought, Omigod, I'm becoming a "character." As in the kind of person that people go, Oh, that Aimee, she's a character! My hair was all over the place and I looked pale and a little unwell and jolly. I don't want to be a character. I only want to be pretty and desirable. I don't want to be Ethel Merman, but that's how I looked and felt at that moment. I am doomed to characterhood.

It seems like just yesterday that I thought donation and transplantation boiled down to whether or not you had "organ donor" on your license. How young and foolish I was! I now can tell you much, much, much more about the process than I ever hoped to know and than you will ever want to hear. I have heard hundreds of stories of untimely, tragic deaths and like maybe three happy stories of transplant recipients. Just today, I photoshopped eight quilt squares, each one dedicated to someone who died this past year. Some squares have the faces of the person who has died scanned on them. One has the name crookedly embroidered across the front by the spouse. Others have stickers and patches glued on them. How do you pick what will go on square to represent a person's entire life? Mine would consist of cat hair, an ink stain, and the words "she petted every dog she ever met" in glitter. I don't mean to make light of the squares. They are incredibly sad and...

That's right, I have taken my laptop to this coffee shop in Italian Market and dragged Shawn along with me and managed to connect to their Wireless connection. Shawn did not want to come and i don't think this is the best example to give him about how great coffee shops can be because it's very smoky and they are playing the worst music ever...1980s mix of the shit that no one liked then and no one likes now. "Lies, lies, lies, get out!" And now, "Talking in Your Sleep" or whatever the hell Now we have this dwarfish old man with a limp and a brown hat who is loitering near us with a cigarette pinched between his fingers. Possibly retarded or a stroke vicitm. I know it will be a cinch to get Shawn back here every weekend! We seem to be having bad luck this weekend with obnoxious strangers--same problem at Moriarity's last night where we went for karaoke. We sat next to a table of 21 year old girls in sparkly tank tops who all looked slightly pregnant....