Keys and Economies

11 January 2010
Today was one of those days when I said something I shouldn’t have. I’m not sure why I can recall obscure facts about history, music, movies, and science and all sorts of unimportant dates in my own life, yet can’t seem to remember when I shouldn’t say certain things.
I like to attribute this problem to my upbringing, as I was raised by a pack of wild New Yorkers. But this is just shifting the blame and, besides, some members of my family (such as my Dad) seem to be really good at saying the right thing all the time. Oh well.
And this brings up another point: I’m starting to wonder if writing about something from each day is such a good idea. More than once already, I’ve had to edit or tone down what I said at the risk of upsetting some people who may read this. Also, I find myself purposely leaving out some of the events of my life becuase I’m not sure this is an appropriate forum. For example, maybe I shouldn’t talk about such-and-such, because that’s work-related, and I don’t want my job to get angry with me. Or, I think I should leave out this thing that happened today because, even though it’s interesting news, it’s not really my news to announce. Stuff like that.

12 January 2010
Today I found time to prepare query letters to four more literary agents. As I mentioned earlier, I already emailed just about any agent that accepts email queries, so now I’m moving on to those who like snail mail. In a way, I don’t like these agents as much. I mean, come on, it’s 2010! What kind of business does not accept emails? I learned that it takes a lot longer to prepare queries that are going to be shipped via USPS, because in addition to gathering the materials, I also have to ensure they print properly, and I have a hate-hate relationship with printers. I also have to print out address labels, create SASEs for each agent, and use up all kinds of stamps. It takes at least two stamps per agent, as they all want an SASE (which is a pretentious acronym for “self-addressed stamped envelope”). Anyway, I hope to hear back from them…

13 January 2010
I received an email from my Dad this morning. This is a rare occurrence, and it catches me off guard because when I seemy own name in my in-box, I assume it’s an email that I had sent myself. I’m sure that sounds weird, but it’s true: I often work on an article, blog post, or list at work, then email it to my home account. At home, I’ll work on something some more, then email it to work. Or, I’ll send myself little reminders, such as the email I sent the other day that said: “brewer post,” which was my way of reminding myself to stop at Northern Brewer and the post office on the way home from work.
Anyway, in his email, my Dad said that he got terminated from his job and to not contact him at this email address any longer. Of course, I wanted to reply to find out the details, but since his email specifically said not to use that address anymore, I figured I shouldn’t.
I called him tonight to see exactly what happened. He was laid off. It wasn’t totally unexpected, as his company had laid off other employees as recently as Monday, and they had been losing many clients.
I feel bad for him. He’s had at least 5 jobs in the 9 years he’s lived in Florida. From what I’ve seen, the economy there is always slightly depressed compared to Minnesota, but this recession has really hit the Sunshine State badly.

14 January 2010
Today, at my job, we had a birthday breakfast. As the name implies, our whole department headed down to the cafeteria for breakfast in celebration of our co-workers’ January birthdays (there are three people in my department who were born in January). My company picks up the tab, which is cool because it allows me to do things I wouldn’t normally do – like grabbing an orange juice when I’d normally just drink water. Or getting two servings of hash browns instead of just one.
While sitting at a table with my co-workers, my cell phone rang. I usually don’t answer my phone when I’m in front of other people like that, but the call was from Jennifer, and she was calling right at the time she should’ve been leaving to bring Owen to preschool. I figured she was going to say something was wrong with the car. And, well, that’s kind of what she did say: the car keys were no where to be found. Where were they? Oh, that part was easy, they were in my coat pocket hanging in my cubical. So, leaving my half-finished breakfast there, I ran to my cube, grabbed my coat, and drove all the way home. I was really mad at myself since that was a really stupid mistake. More than that, I think it’s important for Owen to go to pre-school, and I want him to have a good experience there. So, I don’t want to be the cause of him missing any days.
Turns out, there was an accident on highway 94, so I was stuck in traffic for about ten minutes. As always, the accident wasn’t blocking any traffic, it’s just that everyone had to slow down to gawk. I really really really hate that people do that. First of all, such behavior simply causes more accidents. Second, if you’re really that interested in the accident, pull over and watch it from the sidelines and let people like me, who are on the road because we want to get somewhere (I do NOT sight-see when I’m driving), get to our destination.
Anyway, I finally got home. We arranged things so as to minimize any delay: Jennifer and Owen were already in the car waiting, and I ran into the apartment to lock the door for them. Owen was only a half hour late to preschool, so I guess that’s not so bad. And one of my co-workers was kind enough to bring my donut back to cubeville for me.