Daily Planner

8am: Drink coffee from home, look forward into the day and try to express into thought what I expect, get something back along the lines of, "mmmmm, e-mail, something, lunch around 1?, no teaching, hiding is good, coffee's getting cold, too many cigarettes, keyboard's kind of dirty but what can you do?" Post to blog.

9am: Finally check e-mail. Also, the phone is telling me MESSAGE WAITING but I successfully ignored it yesterday before I left, so I bet I can ignore it an hour or two more. With steely determination, answer a few e-mails. Afterward, flush with worker pride, reward self with cigarette.

10am: See, the problem with answering phone messages is that it's usually someone who wants to you do something, but it's right around now when I need to check it and probably call the person back to ask them to explain what they meant when they said, "Hi? It's Denise? I'm at 8-4235. I was told you might be able to help me about the thing on the computer that does the thing? Thanks!" Of course, I'll have to play the message around 5 times because Denise, like everyone else, speaks entirely normally until they get to the part where they say how to get back to them, at which point they talk 256 times faster and 2 octaves lower, like a coded burst of information they didn't want falling into enemy hands.

11am: Fun with the internet. Check here to see if you jerks have stopped by, see that you haven't, cry, hit a message board, post about how my friends are always making me cry, get new nickname: Sobby McCrybaby, wonder if I shouldn't buy a small bottle of vodka to hide in my drawer, realize a few things: (1) don't really have any drawers in my office, (2) even if I had one, I bet it wouldn't be refrigerated, so where would I keep ice and tonic? (I should point out that when there's an internet outage in our building I die a slow death. It's horrible. I'm literally on the internet for 60% of my work day, 80% if it's "slow." And this is true for most people here, the mood in the office takes on a stashless junkie's nervousness when the internet goes down.)

12pm: I'm sure there will be pressing matters that will occupy my time until lunch, so what better way to fortify myself by taking another smoke break in my car while listening to an episode of This American Life on CD. Some days, I'll actually take enough breaks by myself that between them and driving 4 total miles (1 in morning, 2 at lunch, 1 leaving) I'll have listened to an entire 50-minute episode. If I quit smoking, perhaps I will take Cello Breaks. After 3 or 4 years, I'll challenge Yo Yo Ma to dueling cellos and give him a sound thrashing. I mean, as long as the piece is no longer than 10 minutes. Realize I haven't seen the boss for, like, a week. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

1pm: Around 10 after, go for my 1/2 hour lunch. More often than not, this means driving home, throwing some soup on the stove, and watching a little something on the DVD player. Good: anime, TV episodes, non-fiction, anything short and not heavy. Bad: porn, Oliver Stone movies, complicated murder mysteries, porn directed by Oliver Stone. Get back to work anywhere between 10-to to 2pm, because surely part of my 1/2 hour lunch does NOT include stopping for tea/coffee/snack on the way back and smoking in the parking lot before going in. Also, the parking sucks here, I had to prowl along for 10 minutes just to find a space. Guilty (for some reason) secret: Sometimes, when I'm home for lunch, I take off my shoes.

2pm: Thoroughly exhaused from my busy day, it's time to unwind a bit. Chat with some co-workers, go back to check for mail, poke head in kitchen to see if anything (cookies, cake, candied ham shavings) is on the table, surrepticiously check out the cuter co-workers and either innocently flirt or otherwise try not to scare them/creep them out, think (for .2 seconds) about tidying office, take smoke break instead, poke head into training room, wonder who to call about cricket infestation, touch base with Shawn for a few minutes. Shawn, by the way, is my Man enabler. While I don't think we've had a conversation for longer than 5 minutes, I see him at least once every day or so, providing me (and perhaps himself!) with the opportunity to fortify my Y-chromosome with some brief, hugely (nearly magnaminously) cheerful, lower-octave conversation about sports, the weather, women, movies, whatever. Actually, mostly whatever, because when Men speak in That Voice, conversations about anything--knitting, say--become Manly.

3pm: Check to see what I'm teaching tomorrow. Dig around piles of paper around the office until I find the right hand out. If I need to make copies, I'll do so! Well, maybe. If it isn't time for a smoke break, which, what do you know, it is! More internet, but later in the day internet, in which I am more likely to pass over the familiar and search out something new, something strange, something wonde- ah, screw it, check Fark. Check the blog. Check my mail, and ignore anything important; it is FAR too late in the day to respond to actual work issues, okay? Unless it's a request to forward a message to Campus Bear Control because 6 grizzlies locked you in your office, demanding honey and tenure, then it's going to wait until tomorrow.

Oddly, I'm no longer a clock-watcher when it comes to quitting time. I'm almost, but not really, Zen in my approach to the end of the day. I'm usually Aware of Quitting Time around 3:50, at which point I read a last thread, check one last thing, do one more 8~ minute task and then go home, untying my shoes in the car (sometimes while driving) to give me maximum de-shoeing potential upon stepping into my home.