Today I realized something about myself. I can't even have a normal pencil holder! Do you see this nutty thing? Amongst my normal pens and highlighters are a Peeps bunny pen, a figural Jason Voorhees pen, and a miniature pirate flag all topped off with a clip thanking me for choosing to let the rabbit have some Trix. Yet somehow among the chaos that is my cube, growing more interesting with each addition of a new My Little Pony or figure of Captain Caveman, I'm still regarded quite highly by my peers. Yesterday as I'm pounding away codes and blearing over path reports the lady on the other side of the wall called my phone and went, "I just wanted to tell you I think you're brilliant."

I sat there waiting for the punch line. For her to say I was brilliant because of some office prank I pulled, some joke I made, or for her to pull the old sarcasm on me and follow it up with making note that I'd typed a wrong key and accidentally diagnosed someone with pedophilia instead of foot pain. Instead she said that she could tell I had a fantastic future ahead of me and that I'm going to do amazing in the field. I thanked her, saying that my goal is to get my CPC and possibly go into auditing.

I think most of the reason I'm always so taken aback by these sort of things is because I spent so much time in the past failing high school and being regarded as if I was mentally slow. I nearly shit myself when I finished up my classes this winter and the program director said she'd be interested in having me come back down the line to teach classes. Sometimes that person staring back at me in the mirror feels very new.



I bought myself flowers for a job well done.

Yesterday evening I went for one of my long aimless walks after dark, crossing the train tracks and veering around the empty industrial buildings in town. I always carry my cell phone with just in case something happens like my shitty knee decides to stop giving me gentle reminders that it hates me and just gives out altogether. As I'm walking and listening to my MP3 player, deep in thought over when Unicorn by Apoptygma Berzerk will have a meaning to me again, I realize the Pirates of the Caribbean theme is bellowing from my pocket. My cell phone used to play the Fraggle Rock theme, but since I got a new one a few weeks back, I had to change it up, and I'm still not used to the new ringtone.

40 minutes into my walk I was needed to lend an ear to a friend's relationship woes, and I proceeded to do so not only for the 20+ remaining minutes of my walk, but the entirety of my stretching afterwards and then some. Being needed by friends still feels new, too.

Today I didn't finish the article I'm working on because I had a loooong day at work blowing bubbles and fighting with the printer and chose to instead watch a movie and relax. I hadn't checked out the "Watch Now" on Netflix in a while, so I wound up curled up in bed with dinner as I watched Evil Dead on my PC. I'm never looking at a tree the same way again.