Andrea's right. Last night with Heed really sucked. I don't want to have to euthanize him but his agression is so not okay. On any level. He's going on a very well-informed visit with a friend of ours tomorrow, if he lived there he'd be the only dog and have an experienced dog-owner mom who would come home at lunch to play with the little guy.

Please join me in praying that this works. I don't think we could place him with someone we didn't know and I'm not sure I can bear to euthanize him. This needs to work.

I'm still adapting to my new place inside the exciting world of work. Many many things are good about this place:

• All of the new people who started around the same time as I did are very very cool. And I'm not just saying that.
• I'm working in my field (the writing field, not recreation. Unfortunately I am cursed and utterly unable to get a rec job to save my life.)
• The location is a whopping 10 minutes by car from my house. By light rail and a long walk from the Discovery Musuem, it's more like 45 but still, all transportation takes place n San Jose, aka the City Where I Live, not a city 45 miles from where I live.
• The thought, just the thought of having a real-sized paycheck in my life is almost too much to bear. Stay tuned for tales of frivolous purchases and refinancing.

One unexpected thing that sucks is the side effects of all this sitting and typing on a non-ergo keyboard. My tailbone, which will probably never heal (see last April, when it all began), hurts like you might imagine a gigantic pain in the ass would. I think I'll have to invest in one of those donuts to sit on. I could bring it to meetings and make a big joke of it 'anybody want a donut?' I'd say, waving my ass cushion at them.

Better wait until I've been here a bit longer for that sort of thing...

Sometimes I feel like I'm about to get sick, about to need a couple of days in bed to recover from the oncoming imaginary illness. But then I think no that's not possible. I don't have time.

How did I get so busy?

At work. At a 'real' job for the first time in over a year. It's kind of scary but also pretty cool. Thanks again, Carol! Once those fat paychecks start rolling in, I owe you a niiice dinner. And some crack, if you want it.

Were I to write a movie about my work experience, I would sell it as this: "It's like Office Space meets Claire of the Moon." That's kept me cracking up all day.

I've made virtually no progress on my fiction. I accept that it will not be ready for class at 4 pm. I have however unclogged our kitchen sink and filed Andrea's taxes. This year she gets the big fat refund, since techically I made no money last year. I think it came out negative, in fact. How is that possible?

Ahh, the tax returns of the unemployed. Next year I hope to file the tax return of the merely underemployed.

But still no fiction. I feel like I'm letting my characters down. Sorry.

I am utterly without discipline. I now have 10 pages of fair-to-mediocre fiction, all character development stuff, but I need at least two more pages and more importantly, I need to make the characters interesting enough that the three people who buy this book someday (and you know who you are) will want to keep reading. At this point, *I* don't want to read this shit.

Baby, it's Cold Outside
The office in our house, the place from which I do all my research for school (this semester's myriad of library visits notwithstanding), write in this blog and slowly, painfully work on my uncompelling second novel, is always cold. Every day that I'm home writing, I bundle up like Nanook of the North only to be completely shocked when I finally step outside, shocked to find out that it's totally warm and I could be wearing shorts.

I think today is one of those days. Gotta go find a sweatshirt. And perhaps a woolen shawl.

Finally!
I just got home from playing goalie for my red team and I am thrilled to report that WE WON!!!!!!!!! The score was 3-1! Not only did I only let in 1 goal, I came in well below my usual average of 5 goals a game. I know that you know that 1 is significantly less than 5 but bear with me. Woo! Hoo!

My defense kicked ass, they shut down all but one breakaway (hence the 1 goal, which was about the stupiest goal I've ever let in, I anticipated too early and swung at a slow-moving puck when I should have just stood my ground and left my damn stick on the ice, then covered it. Sorry, team, that was really stupid.) and stayed on their man for the entire game. Even Heather hardly screened me at all, especially after I called her 'door.' She got the message and kicked ass the rest of the game.

I am beside myself. For once, a win!