And then I took my coat off, put my groceries down, and spilled an entire bottle of water right into my lap. While wearing jeans. Welcome to Monday.

No, it's a good Monday. It's my first official day of full-time, grownup, real person employment! I have orientation tomorrow; isn't that cute? And I think everyone in my department is going out for a welcommy lunch at some point.

(Thanks for all the congratulations from the notify list! One person asked what exactly my job is; I'm a proofreader at an advertising agency. Ian says that he's looking forward to the first commercial where the new tagline is, "Do you have milk?" instead of the grammatically incorrect alternative we are currently using.)

I haven't had a full time job for well over three years; I am still sort of flabbergasted by the fact that now I have one. I have all kinds of plans vis a vis moving, traveling, selling my car, paying my bills-- but mostly, I'm amazed at how much free time I'm going to have. Weekends off? Enough money in the bank? Fewer than three jobs? A 401(k)? It seems too good to be true!

I only had one day off this weekend, but it felt like more. Friday I want out for sushi with Megan and Jenfu, and then we went to the movies, ostensibly to see Lost in Translation. But then we discovered it would be out on video in a couple of days (tomorrow) and that two of us had already seen it, and blah blah, did we want to see something else?

Those two girls stood around making indecisive noises. Megan didn't care what we saw as long as it wasn't Win a Date with Tad Hamilton, and Foo just wanted to avoid anything "emotionally wrenching." Nobody was enthusiastic about Cheaper by the Dozen or Chasing Liberty.

I took control of the situation and decided we were going to see The Station Agent because I'd vaguely heard it was good, and it was about a dwarf. As Jenfu said, if it was emotionally wrenching, at least it would be a very tiny wrench. Like the one from the Game of Operation, or Clue! It was great though! Very funny and sweet and subtle.

And we took some truly horrifying photo-booth pictures (which I am not permitted to post). The photo booth claimed that you had to fit your faces inside the tiny oval, which turned out to be a lie. So all the pictures are us straining awkwardly to get our heads inside this tiny oval. There's one picture where I am shielding the camera from my neck fat by covering it with my hand. The neck fat shield was never supposed to be seen!

Of course when we left the booth, we realized that people outside can see exactly what is going on in there on a little TV screen. I'm surprised there wasn't a crowd pointing and laughing, what with the whole neck fat incident.

Oh, and Foo and I also told this timeshare lady that we were lesbian life partners. Actually it was less that we told her and more that we let her believe it. I said, "Oh look, they have a box here for Life Partner" and the timeshare lady said, "Oh, you're a couple?" "Uh, sure!" We were going to pretend we had a kid too, only we couldn't think of a fake age quickly enough.

On Saturday Ian came over, and we went to La Note for brunch. I'd never been there before; I had the most delicious lemon gingerbread pancakes. (I like to write lovingly about food, in case you hadn't noticed. Mmm. Gingerbread pancakes. Toast and jam were also involved. And bacon. And coffee. And yum.)

Then we went to the flea market-- I have no idea why I decided I wanted to go to the flea market, but I was determined. The best part was this guy who was selling several crates worth of old photos. We must have spent a good 45 minutes sitting on the ground looking through these old photos. It was very Trachtenburg family.

And then I said, wouldn't it be fun to put some of these up on the internet and write captions for them? So of course, I did that! (That's the first of four.) Giving me an excuse to keep dragging people to flea markets in search of more, more, more.

Then we went to many little places around Berkeley. The toy store (much beloved by my inner five-year-old) and the used book store (where I got a bunch of books for the reading list) and so on and so forth. It's not that thrilling to write about, but it was very relaxing, and such a good day, you'll have to take my word.

Sunday I got up and went a-tutoring. I still have one or two (maybe three) students floating around. But I'm keeping them strictly on weekend mornings, where they will induce me to get up relatively early, but not ruin my day.

Then I went to Starbucks and told them the bad news: after three years of latte-making, I'm calling it quits. It really is sad to be leaving after so long; so many good times. It is strange to think I will never make another Frappuccino again. I'll have to write at least one more Starbucks entry before I go, for old times' sake. A Starbucks retrospective.

Janis is leaving for a conference at the end of the month and she asked if I would please work on the 29th. I just discovered that the Oscars are on that day, which sucks a little, but I will tape them and it will be fine. I'm glad I have at least one or two more shifts to look forward to before The Official End.

It's taken me about three hours to write this (in between proofing projects) and I would like to point out that my pants are still wet. Damn you, The Man! Damn you!