Donations

Once I graduated from high school, I suddenly got smart and studious and spent a lot of time in college. I first went to a junior college and got an associates degree. Then I went to a state college and got a bachelor's degree. Then I went to a different university and got another bachelor's degree. Then I went to yet another university and got a master's degree. So I have an associates degree, two bachelor's degrees, and one master's degree. The only problem is that my degrees are an AA in English and General Studies, a BA in English, a BA in Classics, and an MA in Classics. They aren't degrees in engineering, computer science, medicine, or law. In other words, in spite of my four degrees and in spite of my stunning brilliance and intelligence and my intellectual superiority, I'm not exactly rolling in the dough and banking a six figure salary. However, I'm a very humble person—obviously—and pretty romantic in the sense that I put my passions and interests above money. I'm very content with that decision, in spite of the fact that it might sometimes be nice to have a six figure salary.

But the point of all this is that there is a downside of going to so many colleges and universities. Almost every month I get letters from university foundations and alumni foundations asking me, yes me, for money. I think that these foundations need to start looking at their former student's major before asking for money. If they want money, they need to start hitting up the engineers and lawyers for money. I got nothing.

A Drug for Everything

Just when you thought there were enough drugs on the market, you learn about a brand new drug. While watching TV this evening, I saw a commercial for a new prescription for your eyelashes. Yes, your eyelashes. You rub the ointment on your eyelids, and it is supposed to make your eyelashes longer, thicker, and darker. I can see how something like this would be important for someone with health problems or for people who have lost their eyelashes because of chemotherapy. For that and for those people, the new drug makes sense and I wouldn't object to its use. But when the commercial shows tall, beautiful women mingling at a party and batting their eyelashes at handsome men, you can't help but think that the whole point of the drug is for vanity purposes. If you use this drug, you will have full eyelashes and therefore you will be beautiful and you will be the center of attention. Show me a cancer patient in your commercial and your drug will be a little more noble and a lot less laughable. But, no, this is for women who are not quite beautiful enough because they don't have full lashes. So let's have them pay around $120 a month to make themselves feel beautiful. I suppose when pride and vanity are at stake and when pharmaceutical companies have dollars to make, who really cares? If you are not happy with yourself and what you were born with, when all else fails take a prescription drug.

I wonder if there is a prescription drug that will make me 5' 10"?

Family Values

It has been another busy week at work, so I'm going to try to catch up on some of the things that I've been meaning to post over the past few days. The big news stories of the week—before Michael Jackson's untimely death—were the adventures and antics of Mark Sanford, the Republican governor of South Carolina. After a "busy legislative session" he went missing and no one knew exactly where he went. This should have been the first clue that something was seriously wrong. If I disappeared after every busy week at work, well, I would never be found because every week is busy. And I would probably also be fired if I stopped showing up to work. But that is beside the point. Sanford disappeared and at first it was believed that he went for a hike, but as it turned out, that was a lie. He was, in fact, in Argentina visiting his mistress. Apparently he has known her for eight years and the two have been having an affair for the past year. Whenever something like this happens the questions of family values and the sanctity of marriage immediately come up.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am a democrat—as if there were any question. However I will be the first to admit that infidelity is not a problem only of the republican party. There have been quite a few democrats who have been caught with their pants down with someone who was not their spouse. In general I like to think that a politician's personal life and private escapades are irrelevant to their public service. I couldn't care less what they do in their bedrooms. What I care about is how they stand on the issues and what they do or are attempting to do to improve the lives of the people in their city, state, or nation.

So why is there such an uproar and outrage over Sanford's and other republicans' trysts? I think that it has to do with hypocrisy. This is supposed to be the party of morality, the party that preaches family values, the party that tries to protect the sanctity of marriage. So when these sanctimonious politicians fall from their pulpits, their hypocrisy is revealed in the brightest spotlight. Sanford is opposed civil unions and domestic partnership benefits, and when asked to address the issue of gay marriage he said that marriage is between one man and one woman. However in his personal life marriage is apparently between one man, one woman, and one mistress. For many people, monogamous and committed gay couples especially, Sanford's holier-than-thou preaching and actual actions are morally outrageous. This is someone who is denying an entire community of their rights while at the same time he abusing the very rights that he is fortunate to have. The cheating is bad enough, but the hypocrisy is worse.

Current mood: relaxed
Current music: Maroon 5 "If I Never See Your Face Again"

Changes

It has been a few days since the announcement came down at work about our summer furlough. Naturally the mood and morale in the office are fairly low right now. I think that everyone is starting to realize that we are getting paid less to do more work in what amounts to a shorter amount of time. It is difficult to accept, but, again, we have to look on the bright side, no matter how dim it might be, and recognize that we're all fortunate to still have jobs right now.

Right now things are a little more difficult in our department because two editors resigned. With them gone, the rest of us are picking up projects that they had to leave unfinished. In addition to this, new projects keep coming in. Within a few days, my own workload went from about 7 projects to 15. But I guess it is better to have too many projects rather than none at all, and I suppose having too much to do keeps me indispensable.

I am mostly sad this week because one of the people who left is a very good friend. We've worked together before at a previous job—my very first publishing job, in fact—and she was the one who did most of my training. I think I owe her a lot of credit for what I've done with my career over the past five years. But I'm losing more than a mentor; I'm losing an absolutely wonderful friend, one of my best friends. So it made me really sad to see her go and it was sad to say good-bye. But I'm happy to know that she is leaving us to do something more exciting, like getting married and moving to Australia. Heck, if I were in her position right now, I would quit and move out of the country too! It is nice to know that she is leaving to go on a wonderful new adventure, but I am still going to miss her.

However, in spite of losing one best friend at work, I'm lucky that the person who is going to replace her is another one of my best friends. We've also worked together before—the publishing world around here is very small!—so I'm looking forward to working with her again. We ruled the office at our previous job, so I assume that it won't take long before we rule this office. I'm looking forward to it!

Economy

I knew that sooner or later the state of the economy would eventually catch up to me and my company. Like almost every business out there, we are feeling the pinch of the bad economy. Publishing is one of those industries that generally does not do that well in a recession. Books are a luxury expense for most people, and when money is tight people don't buy books. They go to the library, which is great for the libraries, but not good for publishers. For the past few months our company has been doing a wonderful job to "tighten its belt"—to use a cliched phrase—and they have been doing everything possible to try to minimize the direct impact on the employees. I laud them for that. But I suppose this is something that you can do for only so long. The company has started to cut deeper. Yesterday morning we received a message from the director of operations of our office and she called an unannounced, all-hands, mandatory staff meeting. An office-wide staff meeting rarely happens spontaneously, so we all got the feeling that something serious was wrong. It turned out that the company has started to lay off employees and has instituted a summer furlough program. Employees were laid off throughout the company, but in our office we are losing only two people. It is possible that we would have lost more, but we recently have had people resign so most of these positions simply will not be replaced.

The summer furlough will last for the next three months. Everyone will be required to take six days of unpaid time off. Fortunately—I suppose—I was already planning on taking time off in late July, so I can use these furlough days to cover that time. I suppose the bright side is that I won't have to lose any vacation or personal days during that time, and I can save these days for my vacations at the end of the year. (And hopefully I still have a job at the end of the year!) But, these furlough days are still unpaid, and that is what really hurts. For the next three months, 9-10% will be deducted from every paycheck. For me that amounts to about $300-400 a month. That might not sound like a lot to some people, but when you already don't make a lot of money and when you are supporting yourself, that amount is still pretty big and I'll be feeling it. Unlike some of my friends, I don't have a spouse or significant other who is willing to pay my rent and all of my bills and tell me that I don't have to have a job if I don't want one and that I can just sit around looking beautiful. I'm not that lucky. Everyone I'm close to is poor, like me!

So this weekend, I definitely have to go through my "budget" to see what unnecessary expenses I can cut and figure out what I can do to save what little money I'm going to be making over the next few months. I am looking on the bright side, however, and trying to count the blessings that I still have. I feel bad for the people who were laid off, but I consider myself very fortunate to still have my job right now.

Current mood: frightened and stressed
Current music: iTunes on shuffle—Goo Goo Dolls "Let Love In"
Current drink: water. I can't exactly afford Cognac right now!

Birds

Things have been unusually quiet at my home over the past few days. On Tuesday after work, we had a special happy hour for two co-workers who will be leaving the company soon. I got home at about 9:30, did a few things around the house, and then went to bed. I woke up the next morning and it occurred to me that it was much quieter than it had been over the past few weeks. I didn't hear any chirping and I didn't hear any wild rustling in the wall. Then it also occurred to me that I didn't hear any rustling in the wall all night. When I came home from work later in the day, I still didn't hear any rustling or chirping. The birds, obviously, are gone. I'm wondering (and hoping) that the babies are simply big enough to fly and the bird family just flew away. But I also noticed that our gutters were recently cleaned, so it's possible that the maintenance staff saw the gaping hole in the side of the building where the nest was built. The hole, however, isn''t covered up. As much as I've been enjoying the peaceful sleep I've been getting over the past few nights, I'm still hoping that the birds weren't harmed or killed. Hopefully they flew away to another nest.

Weather, Update

We had some interesting and wonderful weather last night. We had a late afternoon thunderstorm, but the lightning and thunder were pretty mild and it rained for only 20 minutes or so. Things then cleared up and calmed down again, but a second storm blew in later in the evening. It was just starting to get dark and I was lying on the couch in my living room reading a book. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a flash of lightning and then heard the thunder. Being one who loves lightning and thunder, I immediately put my book down and went out on the balcony to watch the storm. It turned out to be an incredibly wicked lightning and thunderstorm. The lightning wasn't just flashing behind the clouds, but you could actually see the bolts streaking across the sky. The storm was so powerful that I wasn't the only one outside watching it. I heard several other people on their patios or balconies shouting oos and ahs with each flash of lightning. It was as if we were watching a fireworks show on the Fourth of July. Unfortunately, though, the storm passed quickly. The lightning and thunder subsided and the clouds began to drift away revealing an almost full moon. It was an absolutely amazing and beautiful night.

Current mood: resting and relaxing
Current music: iTunes on shuffle—TATU "All the Things She Said"
Current drink: coffee

Weather

We've had quite a few strange turns of the weather lately. I think that when I last posted I was talking about thunder and lightning and afternoon or evening storms. Earlier this week, the weather has been pretty cloudy and gray. At one point a cold front moved in and the temperature got so chilly in the evening that I actually had to turn on my heater for the night. How often does that happen in June? After that one night, the temperature slowly started to return to normal. We're probably nowhere near as warm as we normally should be at this time of the year, but at least it is a little more normal that temperatures in the 50s or 60s. The air is just different, too. It's been humid. For those of you who haven't lived in or been to Colorado, it is usually bone dry. It is not a place that is known for its humidity, and even the slightest trace of humidity is something that we all immediately feel. Certainly it isn't like the humidity in back east or in the south. That humidity, as my friend once charmingly said, is like a solid. Having gone east for various business trips, the humidity was something that I immediately noticed. When you step out of the shower, you immediately feel as if you need another shower. When you walk out of an air conditioned building, the air does hit you like a solid. It is like you've walked into and surrounded yourself with some hot, heavy, wet drapes. Today I was hit with that feeling as I was leaving the office. It might not has been as severe as that, but you could definitely "feel" the air.

Current mood: relaxing after a busy week
Current music: iTunes on shuffle—Filter "Take a Picture"
Current drink: Corona