Peek-a-Boo!

See that? Up there? Yeah, that's me lately. Running around so fast, so hither-thither, I'm not even a blur; I may have actually traveled through the brane of the universe, on a singularity, bent around a quantum function, crossing over the fold in space-time on a cosmic string...

Okay, soooooo... too much hard SF lately (although I'll probably post a review of Stephen Baxter's Vacuum Diagrams here in a bit) and not enough Buffy. Oh, wait. How about: not enough Spike TV. No, um, hold on. ...come on, Karen, think of something normal, possibly even girly or something... Yeah, like, not enough Project Runway, and stuff. (Anita, I am definitely teasing. Please do not wrap me up in too-tight white pants and frowzy silver lamé blouse! You were right about the Pam Grier, though. So awesome!)

Ya'll want an update or something?

Well, here's where I'll be working this fall (click weekday links for location):

Monday , Wednesday , Friday

• ENGL 1101 (2 courses)
• ENGL 1102 (1 course, M & W only)

Tuesday , Thursday

• ENGL 1101

And wherever else I can find work for the remaining 20 hours of my week.

So, yes, I did get a job (or 2), and though not exactly the position I wanted (the full-time gig at GSC), I now have some good stuffs to add to the old curriculum vitae. I also have a lead on a weekend spot with another company for a few weeks in the fall that will add some cash to the budget. It's going to be a long, hard, haul, but I have faith that I'm being looked after. It's funny - lately it seems as ifGodd has been sort of having a good time with me, as if he's just wanting to point out, again and again, that I'll be taken care of, no matter how fearful I am.

I mean, He sent me my dearest friends. And, actually, that's the topic that I wanted to post on today. Friendship. I sometimes sit back in completely wonderment at the abundance of good people in my life. It's almostunbelievablee that I could be so lucky as to have such... outstanding? amazing? phenomenal? friends around me. One friend helps me paint my living room into the wee hours, never complaining a single time as I demand that she fill in the holes in the wall with extra paint and be extra careful not to get any on the baseboards, since I force her to do the dreadful "detail work" at the edges of the walls. Then she grins and invites me to lunch the very next day. And that's only one day - her kindnesses, both the small and the gigantic, happen every day, in unnumbered ways.

Another buys me lunch because she wants to spend time with me. Did you get that? She buys me lunch just so that we can hang out. Then she gets me a job for a bit of extra moolah, we work together for eight hours, and she STILL wants me to sit with her at her house to watch an episode of Deadwood that she's already seen. She even poured me a glass of Diet Cherry Coke and brought it to my lazy-butt-self on the couch. Girl is so tired she passes out on the other couch as I make loud comments and shouts of surprise during the show, completely disregarding her poor sleepy self. Yet another friend just makes my day happy with an extra beef enchilada and hours of good talking. Not to mention, of course, miles of bookshelves and bowtie festival pasta. They help me calm down when I have a job/money/men/schedule freakout (prior to the exciting news mentioned above). Another, going out for super-cheap sushi, talking about the former / sometimes men we can't seem to extricate from, laughing out loud and listening close, and just letting me know she wants to spend some time.

Friends who lend you grocery money. Give you mattresses and appliances. Get you a job.

Friends that want to see you because they want to see you. Not to get anything, not to take care of you. Just to hang out, be together, laugh, all that.

It's funny: I've written on this topic before, in rather a different vein, but I'll reiterate here. I've spent most of my life believing that I'm not very good at being friends with women, but I've learned that some of the most important relationships in my life are with these women that have come into my life in the past few years. I just hope that I can be as good a friend to them as they are to me. It'll definitely take some work - they really do take care of me in the most astounding ways.

I am the luckiest girl in the world. (a bit gushy - I knew I'd get around to being girly.)*

And... I'm BACK!

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* No, this blog did not suddenly morph into the We Channel. Geek-girl-super-sonic-knit-kicking will be back soon.