I got my job because my aunt cuts my bosses hair.

I went with my boss last night to my aunt's salon. She needed her hair cut and I thought it might be fun to tag along. Also, I wanted to play a little Wing for her and my aunt had my Wing CDs. At some point we decided it might be nice to go buy a bottle of wine and have a couple glasses or so. OR SO. I drank an entire bottle by myself. Totally drunk, my boss and I decided that it might then be fun to go out and hit up some of the local queer bars. For the record, these bars are generally not okay in my book. Really not okay. But I was too drunk to care.

After drunk-dialing a half-dozen people while I was waiting for my boss to freshen her make-up (I think I left Connie a message that said something like, "This is totally a drunk dial." You can't fault me for honesty) we went to the first bar. At this bar I sucked down four Bacardi and Cokes with lemon, stole a lot of olives from the bar, and bumped into a homo and a les with whom I went to high school. They came over and said "Wow! Taylor! Haven't seen you in a long time!" and I said, "Oh, hi. I thought you two looked familiar. I'm sorry, what are your names again?" even though I totally knew their names. I can be a bitch like that when I'm drunk. Or when I'm not. Whatever.

Then we went to another bar and I don't remember much other than dancing all dirty up on my boss.

I guess I made it home at some point because my brother came home around 1:30am to find me laying down in the bathtub with the water running, still wearing a wife beater and my underwear, singing "that Kelly Clarkson song you listen to over and over again."

Also, something interesting must have happened last night because I found my pockets stuffed with condoms this morning.

This is why I only let myself go out once every 47 years.

My job is hardly chaotic.

Sometimes 2 million people seem to have not received their newspaper, have lost their newspaper, or have somehow manage to wedge their newspaper up into their butt. Sometimes one of our paper carriers decides it's okay to driver her "big, ugly jeep" (the customer actually said "big, ugly jeep") up onto the lawn of a subscriber.

Honestly, though, a good 85% of the time my job is painfully boring. Well, maybe not "painfully", but definitely boring. Thank God for my boss is all I can say. She's probably the most super-duper coolest boss ever. I got an email around 2:30 today from her that said, "Is it 4:00 yet? I'm totally going to blow my brains out if I don't get out of here soon." to which I replied "I'm sorry, I don't have a gun, but I do have a semi-frozen ice pack in my lunch box that you might be able to bludgeon yourself to death with."

But, let me say, just when I think my job is the most boring job ever all I have to do is take 20 steps away from my desk and into the foyer to talk to The Elevator Driver Man. The Elevator Driver Man actually has to drive the elevator. It's very old. The elevator and The Elevator Driver Man have those two things in common. TEDM is probably 900 years old. In reality, he's probably 90. TEDM has the worst job ever and he is more than willing to tell you every time he takes you for a ride. He'll ask how you're day is going and then he'll tell you how much he hates his job. I once made the mistake of saying that it was a slow day. I guess no one has a slower day than TEDM who drives an elevator that maybe gets used 15 times a day tops.

Also, he sleeps. That's how he passes the time. He just goes to sleep in his little chair. I walked out into the foyer today to take my daily trip to the third floor and he was sleeping like only a baby or a man on the brink of death could. I usually just step heavily on the first step to wake up him. Today I stepped on the first step and he didn't wake. I hit the second step a little louder. Still nothing. I really nailed that third step, I'll tell you. He opened his eyes. I apologized for waking him and he said, "No, it's good to know I'm still alive." I suppose at that age the line between sleep and death is dangerously fine.

Also, I flirted with the guy who answered the phone when I called the admissions department for a school to which I'm applying. He started it, though. But I flirted back. He was all "Oh, you went to UMASS Lowell! Do you still go there? I'm from there. Oh, you don't? Where do you live now? Oh, that's nice!" and I was all "Okay Kevin! Thanks Kevin! I'll tell them I spoke with you Kevin! You've been very helpful Kevin! Take care Kevin!" And this was totally different from this because Kevin sounded young and cute and not like a greasy meatball.

Oh no she did not just sing Work it Out just now.

Oh she totally did.

I told my boss that I missed last night's American Idol and she told me that I used up my one allowable miss of the season. She told me that if I miss tonight's episode (which, obv, I did not) I had better "lie like a dog in the morning."

You can imagine her dismay when I told her that I would not be watching tomorrow night's elimination episode. There's no fucking way I'm missing the finale of Project Runway.

First I'd just like to say that I am the number one worst 23-year-old to ever roam the earth.

I went to bed at 7:30 last night. I went to bed at 7:30 on a Friday night. I really wanted to stay up until 8 to catch the end of CSI, but I just couldn't get past 7:30. Granted, I had to be up at 5:50am in order to leave for work by 6:30, but that's hardly an excuse. 10+ hours of sleep is hardly necessary.

Also, when I woke up this morning? Insanely exhausted.

This morning at work I received a call from a customer's son. He called to cancel his father's subscription, for the poor man (GRHS) had passed on. When we cancel accounts we have to post the reason for the cancellation on the account so that others in the office who pull up that account can see why we lost the customer. The message that I typed read: Pissed on.

If my Saturday-working cohort hadn't caught it before I made it offical someone might have thought that a customer cancelled his subscription because someone dropped his pants and relieved himself all over said customer. I know that if someone pissed on me I'd be mighty upset about it. I don't know if I'd necessarily take it out on my local newspaper, but I would most assuredly be - um - pissed off.

My diet is so atrocious I should probably be arrested.

I just had ten pieces of bacon and two martinis for dinner. Arrested, I tell you.

A large part of my job is dealing with both current and prospective subscribers.

I start and end accounts, put holds on accounts for vacations, and call people to tell them that if they don't pay us the $2.43 they owe we're going to come to their house and smash all their windows.

Yesterday I got a call from a man looking to start a new subscription. He owns an advertising agency with a really awful name that I will leave out for fear of being Googled (even though he doesn't have a website - believe you me, I've already checked). Now, I ask him for delivery instructions and he says: "You have to go under a white archway. There will be a lot of flags. I like flags. Especially our kind, if you know what I mean." To which I laughed uncomfortably and asked him for his phone number, but only because I had to for his account info.

So I call him this morning to make sure his subscription started properly per procedure and he tells me that he never got his newspaper. I weep a little on the inside because I know that this only means further dealings with this man and then I tell him that I will call the company that delivers our papers and have one sent out to him. He asks me which city I live in because, apparently, in his reality, that's an appropriate question to ask the guy from the newspaper that you've only ever spoken to once before.

'Round 2:30 I receive another call. He still hasn't received his paper (I'm honestly convinced that he received it and threw it in the trash so that he had another excuse to call me). I tell him that I'm terribly sorry and that there really isn't an excuse for this type of service. He asks if I could possibly personally deliver the paper to him. On some other plane of existence I bellow "CREEPY QUEER" into the phone and hang up, but on this plane of existence I tell him that I do not deliver the paper, but just sit at a desk. Crestfallen, he tells me that he'll settle for an alternate delivery person.

My phone rings at 3:15 and I know it's him. I just know it. I ask a co-worker to answer my line. It was him. He asked for me. My co-worker told him I went home. He proceeds to tell her roughly 4,000 times that I'm an excellent employee of the paper and that he'd appreciate it if this information could be passed on to my boss. My co-worker hangs up the phone and then tells everyone in the building about my not-so-secret admirer. What a weiner...

T-minus 20 minutes until American Idol.

I will not lie to you. I was all about season one. I even voted during season two. I lost my love for it during season three. Three just wasn’t there. It wasn’t up to snuff. And now I find myself thoroughly addicted to season four for two reasons: a) my life is severely lacking the B-class drama that only American Idol can provide and b) if I don’t watch I won’t have anything to contribute to the American Idol recap that takes place ever Wednesday and Thursday morning at work. My boss is addicted. She had a count-down going on all day. I think I’m going to make her a paper chain counting down to the finale.

In an attempt to gear up for the show tonight I’m listening to a little Miss Clarkson. That bitch has got it going on right now.

Also, I’m going to go downstairs and make a bacon and maple syrup sandwich.

Before I go stuff my face full of fried, greasy bacon coated in sweet, sticky syrup, though, I’d like to say that I was really disappointed when I saw the opening sequence of Queer Eye for the Straight Girl tonight. They show the three homos with their little banners reading The Locale, The Look, and The Life and then they show the dyke with her banner reading The Lady. I really, really think it should read The Lesbian. The Locale, The Look, The Life, and The Lesbian. I really think it should be The Locale, The Look, The Life, and The Rug Muncher but I suppose that just ruins the whole alliteration thing they had going on.

Well, I got my very first Google hit yesterday.

It was for “taylor the latte boy”, just as I’d suspected it would be. I found myself eighth on the very first results page. I was surprised to see that the number one spot went to the Gaychristian.net message boards where one such gay christian named Romans6 was trying to push the song “Taylor the Latte Boy” down the gay christian throats of other gay christians. Spots two through seven were, naturally, lyrics for and tidbits about the song (made famous by Ms. Kristen Chenoweth), so that was fine.

Speaking of gay, I was watching some figure skating thing on TV last night. Just before the big finale (Mr. Paul Wyle doing a rather poignant little number to Enrique Iglesias’ Hero), they introduced the ice dancing couple of Oleg and Ludmilla Protopov (my spell checker just had an aneurism, mind you). They are 73 and 70 respectively and still skating. They wore matching outfits of salmon (the color, not the fish), with Oleg’s being a one-piece and Ludmilla in a mini-skirt. They skated to When I Fall in Love and let me tell you, I did.

The fact that my keyboard is starting to get all clogged up from chocolate bits and shavings should tell you a lot about what my life has been like the past couple of weeks.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Chris and Kate for writing me letters of recommendation for my school applications. Also, I got one from my lovely friend Karen in San Francisco. Reading your own letters of recommendations is a lot like attending your own funeral service but way better. You get to hear all of the nice things people have to say about you without that whole messy death thing. That reminds me of that episode of the Golden Girls where Sophia staged her own death just to hear her friends say nice things about her. That Sophia is a keeper, I tell you.

It’s funny when you realize that you’ve grown up.

I remember when putting away the clean dishes and washing the dirty ones was considered a harsh punishment. That act that takes barely 30 minutes felt like a waste of an entire day. I remember when the thought of caring for someone other than myself wasn’t even an option. I remember when I thought that I was above heart-ache. When I thought that no one could hurt me. I remember when I could barely see enough of the top of my head to brush my hair in the bathroom mirror. Now I have to bend my knees a bit. It’s funny when you realize that you really have grown up.

Also worth noting are the three birthday gifts that I received! J sent me a gorgeous Ted Baker shirt (because it’s a size 2 European shirt and actually fits me). Chris sent me a ringer t-shirt that says “Math is hard, let’s go shopping” on it (because math is hard and we really should just go shopping) and Kate sent me an iTunes gift card (because she meant to send it to herself but accidentally entered my address). Now, if anyone has any suggestions for songs that really must be a part of my play list, please drop me a note or an email!

I got my first paycheck today.

It was for a measly three days, but also the largest check I’ve ever received. The future looks bright, my friends.

I’m really starting to grasp things, too. The system they’re using is a little archaic, but the more I use it the more it makes sense. I have to say, the woman who trained me was probably not the most suited for the job. In her defense, she knows her job and she does it well. Also, whether she knows it or not, she has insane OCD. I watched her try to get two adjacent cells in Excel to be the same shade of grey for roughly 9 minutes. She uses a ruler to cross things off of lists. She’s dated and initialed everything that’s crossed her desk, from reports to tape dispensers.

Also, I heard her tell a customer that subscriptions are available in three-month “inclements.”

I suppose I should start by saying that,

honestly, it’s probably not going to be all that bad. The hours are going to be long and I’m sure the customers are going to drive me to the brink of insanity, but it’s probably not going to be all that bad.

Now, before today I’d only ever been in the office once before. For my interview. While waiting for my now-boss to finish up what she was doing I obviously scoped the place out. I made note of the two awkward looking men at the back of the office. I made note of the bad 70s fake wood wall paneling and the bad 70s tile floor and the bad overhead flourescent lighting. I made note of the two women who are now two of my co-workers. At the time I estimated that they maybe had eight teeth between them.

In a way I was right. One of them probably has about eight teeth. The other? Not so much with the teeth. Not so much.. Also, J has aptly nick-named them Patty and Selma.

But really, it’s probably not going to be all that bad.

This is it.

My very last Weekend of Fun and Spontaneity. Of course, I say that like I’ve actually had a Weekend of Fun and Spontaneity anytime in the recent past, which, you know, is entirely untrue.

I start my job on Monday, though. I start my job in the circulation office at a local newspaper. The job that mostly consists of answering phones and keeping track of customers and, from time to time, talking to old people. My boss said that sometimes the old people call and all they really want to do is talk.

“My boss said that sometimes the old people call and all they really want to do is talk.”

-Me, 5 second ago

Okay, so it’s not going to be the perfect job, but what is? (I’ll tell you what is. An Oreo tester would be a perfect job. But only after they’d already eliminated the faulty Oreos.) It’s going to pay well and has health benefits and between the 40 hours a week I’ll be spending at the office and not having any friends to go out with, I think I have a real nice opportunity to sack away some money (AAU finally stopped sending checks. Either they realized I’m not on the payroll and never was or that’s the end of whatever was left from one of my student loans).

Despite the old old people I really think that this is all that I need right now. I need some place to be and the fact that they’re going to pay me to be there only makes it more worth my while.

I feel good.

I feel better. I feel like more chicken lo mein, but I ate it all for breakfast.

I saw Hide and Seek with my brother last night. It stands to be said that my family is, in general, not particularly touchy-feely. Mother is apt to give out a hug here or there, but the rest of us? We don't touch. It's just an unspoken rule.

Last night, during the movie, it took every last fiber of strength in my body NOT to jump out of my chair and into my brother's lap. I may or may not have grabbed his arm at one point. I think I blacked out shortly thereafter. Truly, truly frightening thing.

And then, because I couldn't sleep (and, quite frankly, don't think I ever will again), I called J. Actually, I returned his call from the night before. It was lovely. It was really nice. It was just how I wanted it to be, but wasn't sure it could be so soon. I'm glad to have found a friend in him. I'm glad that he's doing so well and proud of the strides he's made already.

Also, I'm glad that I'm going to be working 40 hours a week starting Monday so that I will have BETTER things to talk about.