2001-05-22 - 2:34 p.m.

I have subscribed to this online diary service in an attempt to get myself writing every day, and to chronicle some of my observations over the course of this summer. I am slated to begin a collection of personal essays in the fall, though getting an early start would make next semster much easier for me.

Not only does typing up my thoughts make for a useful record - cutting and pasting is much easier than transcribing from a written diary. And, best of all, keeping my quasi-memoirs will give me something to do at work.

Some day in the distant future, I may find myself in hot water for having said that it is difficult to find enough work at the Office of the Associate Provost for Academic Affairs at CoMputer University. I'm willing to bet that a thousand tasks are under my nose, and that I am simply lazy and unmotivated. But the fact is, answering the telephone and filing are just TOO monotonous a business to undertake for 8 straight hours (I typically take lunch right at my computer.) And so I make use of the internet, with its ever-expanding offering of mindless entertainment, chat with friends, or covertly sew behind the large Hewlett Packard Color Laser Jet N 4500 printer. To expand upon the latter, I am currently hand-piecing 3.5-inch squares that will eventually become a patchwork tea cozy for my boyfriend's mother - more on that later.

But back to the work situation. As I said, I work for the Assosciate Provost, who is currently receiving cancer treatments, and is therefore not in the office much. My workload is, consequently, light for very sad reasons. Still, it's light. My supervisor, aka, Da Boss-Lady, who is typically around to make sure I do enough work to earn at least some of my 6.25 an hour is currently on vacation, which means my load is light to the point of nonexistence. So I hang around the office, waiting for the phone to ring like some desperate, lovestruck teenager, holding down the fort - as if it were going anywhere!

Not to complain. I need the cash more than I care to think about. Already I am far behind on my rent, ditto for my phone bill, and owe my boyfriend what probably amounts to a cool $300 for plane tickets for the weekend trips we'll be taking this summer. It's not a good situation. Thankfully, boyfriend and landlady are forgiving, and, apparently, Verizon doesn't terminate your service if you don't pay for a while, so I'm sitting pretty for a gal so deep in the hole.

My latest pastime (very latest, as of yesterday) is digging up online daily comic strips and reading them all at once. It's not a very noble or intellectual pursuit, but I'm not going to beat myself up about it. For many, summer is about soap operas, cheap romance novels, bad blockbusters and UV rays. Why not add online daily comics to the list? I feel I am learning about creating characters and comic book art, which might not be too terribly useful, but I want to be open-minded. Learning is learning, after all.

What I'm wearing:

What I'm reading:

What I'm doing after this: