The bribery worked!

Oh... uuh... wait a minute. I mean, what bribery? What illegal campaign contributions? What orgiastic sex with the committee members? What Fed Ex package full of drugs and dirty magazines? What the HELL are you talking about?

Actually, you're probably wondering what the HELL I'm talking about. Well, I don't see it at the official site yet, but my sources (e.g. a form letter) tell me that I've been nominated for a diarist award. Did I say "a" diarist award? Ha! I meant many, many awards. A plethora. Four awards, to be precise. (Didn't know four was a plethora, did you? Well, it's true.)

I have a Dramatic Entry in there, and also some site nominations. The big ones, actually: Best Journal, Best Writing and Best Design. I am super excited (as some of you probably realize) about these nominations. Let me be brutally honest. I have hoped for an entry award in the past, and perhaps I even harbored a little hope for the design one after my redesign. But Best Journal? Best Writing? I honestly didn't expect to end up in those categories. I'm totally stoked.

Being a nominee is going to make picking the winners slightly more difficult this time around, that's for sure. It would be disingenuous to claim I don't want to win, arrogant to claim that I think I should win, and supremely tacky if I seriously asked y'all to vote for me. I guess the safest thing to do is just keep my mouth shut.

So, I'm going to keep my own opinions to myself: whether I think I deserve to win any (or all, or none) of the awards I've been nominated for, if I'm voting for myself, how much crack and how many hookers it actually does take to bribe the awards committee, etc. Really, I think it's better this way. But what I can do is say thanks for nominating me. Really. And I don't mean it in that disingenuous, self-effacing, falsely modest sort of way, either. It means a lot to me.

Group hug! Group hug!

Today was a fantastic day. Coasting on the thrill of my nominations, I went to my first, and favorite, class: the literary magazine. I grabbed a poppy seed bagel and some smoked salmon. Yum. My favorite.

We editors are currently going through the submissions on our own time in chunks. Wayne had the stack that had my stuff in it. When I saw him, he said, "Hey! I wanted to tell you that your stuff was really incredible. I mean, really good stuff! I was impressed. We were talking about it in the car, because I think we have to limit how many pieces from one person-- especially an editor-- can go in the magazine. But all your stuff was so GOOD! It's going to be hard to limit!"

You can imagine my ego inflating at his words, like a little purple balloon bursting from my brain. Heh. It's cool to have a balloon floating out of your brain.

Later on, I showed Toker a sonnet I wrote for a class assignment, which happened to be dedicated to him based on an inside joke. I warned him it wasn't very good. (What I should have said was, "I'm not sure if it's any good because I just wrote it." But instead, I went with, "It sucks! It's terrible!" which made me sound... well, disingenuous, self-effacing and falsely modest. Yuck.)

Toker was sweet enough to read it, grin at me and say, "Of course it's good. You don't write bad poetry, Mo." Of course, the answer to that is, "Au contraire, mon frere!" Because, c'mon. EVERYONE writes bad poetry. But it was still a sweet compliment.

During class, a couple of other comments got thrown my way. Probst said, "That's because Monique is smarter than the rest of us" and someone else said, "I don't want to insult Mo. I'm more afraid of her than I am of you." A third person said, "Mo makes the class so much fun!"

I know, I know. Pride goeth before a pin comes and bursts my purple balloon bouquet. But it still made me grin. I love those guys.

After class I headed off to Starbucks for an orange mocha chip frappuccino with an extra espresso shot. (I still ended up fighting to stay awake in class, but that's neither here nor there.) I saw that they were hiring, and I remembered what Charlotte told me: Starbucks offers great benefits (even to part time employees) and once you have worked at one, you can work at any Starbucks. And since there are roughly seven Starbucks per capita, that's a great deal!

So I filled out an application, and turned it in. Lo and behold, the guy sat down and interviewed me right there. He was the guy to talk to, because he's getting together a team to open the new Starbucks location, about five miles from my house. (Another Starbucks! Just what this town needs!) Anyway, I am pretty sure I've been hired as a Starbucks minion.

I told him I didn't have retail experience, but that I would love to work in a customer service profession. I reassured him that making half of what I used to make was not at all a problem. (Yeah, like I really expect Starbucks to pay $15 per hour.) He came to Starbucks from a high paying, soul sucking office job and was able to relate completely.

In fact, he told me that if I "work out" he would see about promoting me to shift supervisor. Cool! I don't even know how to make a latte, and I'm already a shift supervisor!

The best part is that the new location doesn't even open until January. So I can be trained now, and pick up shifts and such, but I won't really be needed until January.... after my three week vacation in Holland.

So, coasting on yet another wave of purple balloonyness, I headed to Keats. The lecture today was really interesting. We studied "Ode to a Nightingale" which is a great poem. It's the one with lines like, "I have been half in love with easeful death" and "Magic casements, opening on the foam / Of perilous seas, in fairy lands forlorn."

Great poem, interesting lecture, good day. A good day.

Of course, tomorrow is going to be a nightmare from hell.

I called to beg off my job at the polls, but some wires got crossed somewhere, and my district manager actually came to my door in person to talk to me about it. Somehow (I know not how) I agreed to work from 6:30 in the morning to 11:00, when I have to head into the city for my workshop, my class, and a poetry reading. I can't even skip the reading, since I promised Tom Collins I'd give him a ride home afterwards!

Right now, I'm wondering if I should even go to sleep tonight. Shit. Then tomorrow, I'm supposed to drive into the city early, park my car at Laurie's, and go out dancing after class. Dancing! Needless to say, I may have to forgo that pleasure.

But whatever happens, at least I've had a glorious day with my balloons. Never underestimate the power of the plethora.

"I want to break free of this nine-to-six bullshit. I want to be able to take a day off once in a while to go to the DMV or sleep late. I want to go to Disneyland.

Life is too damn short for this. Somebody, please, get me out of here. "