Before you read this, I just want you to watch this clip from Blue Velvet.

Thank you.

The office job I interviewed for came through for me, and right now I'm at the end of my first week. That's right. Yesterday was casual Friday, I wore jeans and a t-shirt to work, and when the clock struck five, started the first normal two-day weekend I've had in a very, very long time. Right now I'm chilling in a clean, newly decorated house (yeah, I finally unpacked and made this place look like home), enjoying a cold beer, with a pot of pinto beans on the stove. The beans are for me, but Alayna will be here later and I'll roast a couple of chicken legs, and stew some peppers, potatoes and tomatoes in cream and stock with some saffron; we'll have aioli as a condiment. We can do whatever we want tonight, because we're both off tomorrow. And from now on, I'll be off every single Saturday and Sunday, and I'll be free anytime after five on the weekends. I'll have paid holidays, and eventually health insurance. Although I'm not making a fortune, it's more than I've ever made cooking, and I anticipate these next few days of waiting for my last check from the mall gig to come in the mail to be the last time I'm broke for awhile.

Speaking of the mall gig, last Saturday was my last day, instead of Sunday, which I'd expected. The boss's business partner showed up with one of his people who helps with trade shows, and told me to help break down the kiosk and load it into the van. With absolutely no notice at all, they shut the place down and left nothing but a pile of dust in the middle of the mall. Is that shady as hell, or what? I knew business was going badly for them (I started doing embroidery to pass the time), but wow.

The new job is at a big medical company called Lifeline, a treatment and diagnosis center for people with sleep disorders, mostly obstructive apnea. I'm essentially doing data entry, compiling a bunch of separate files from patients' charts into final reports and then faxing them to doctors, although the work is more interesting than it sounds. I'm actually learning a lot about the healthcare industry, which is something I've never really had a thorough understanding of. Also, I'm good at the work, so I expect to do pretty well there, meaning I should be paid better eventually, and get on the company's payroll after the temp agency's 90 days. Somehow I forgot somewhere in the depths of my culinary career that I'm real fuckin' fast at computers.