Made it

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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 the girls there were so cliche and because I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing. This week, I had lunch with two different people, took the subway home with a third, and was offered a ride home by another girl who lives in South Philly.

(Shawn is scanning the Philadelphia Inquirer for open houses and getting snarkier and snarkier as it dawns on him that to buy a house in this area will require half a million dollars).

I did nothing yesterday because I had the de ja vu--a seizure about every hour or more starting the night before and continuing even after I went to bed. It drains me and turns my head vacant. The seizures only happen when I'm fatigued and haven't eaten well. The same images repeat, but they vanish when the seizure ends (about 20-30 seconds). The face of someone I know but who I can't remember afterwards; a sort of horsey looking person or a young guy with shoulder length black hair. Phrases that repeat; "It's my turn," and something else about time. What's most disconcerting is that when the seizures happen, it doesn't matter where I am or what I'm seeing; the thing I'm looking at seems to be a related to what I'm trying to remember. For instance, we ate out at a Mexican restaurant last night and the de ja vu happened a couple of times before and during dinner, and it seemed like the other people in the restaurant were connected to the dream or the memory I was trying to piece together and have been trying to uncover the entire day. But later, I could be sitting at our own kitchen table when it happens again, and I glance at the floor thinking, This was in my dream too, the floor tiles, they mean something. But when it ends, none of it makes any sense and there is no answer to what I'm trying to remember. It's frustrating and compelling too. If I were a character in one of Stephen King's gunslinger novels, the visions would be from another world or time and hold the key to a greater truth that would at some point save my life if I can manage to figure out what they mean.

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