(no subject)

Whoa... another failed attempt to get my sleep schedule back on the path to sanity by staying up all night. I woke up at 4:30 this afternoon.

/me shakes his head vigorously.

I've gotta get a bloody job.

Anyway, having slept the day away, I got exactly ZERO productive stuff done today. The other downside to my sleep habits: I'm asleep atleast half the time human resources people and headhunters and recruiters and contacts are at work, and am productive while they sleep blissfully. DAMN THE MAN! Who instituted this "work day" idea anyway!? It discriminates against night-people! I'll bloody well start a protest or something, I will! Watch me!

Okay, not really.

Not much else going on. Still haven't heard back from the Borders in Douglasville. My mom says there's a catalog supply company up there that is hiring QUICK-like up there for Data Entry positions. It's decent pay (only 2/3 of what I was making in tech, not the "less than half" Borders is offering). So, tomorrow, I've got a half dozen resumes to fax out and have to call these guys.

The rest of tonight? Dedicated to a clean apartment, several loads of laundry, and possibly (woohoo!) a bit of writing!! Get down.

Oh, and one more thing. As I'm about to start running again (either in prepartion for the Navy commission or just to get my lard butt back into some semblance of physical fitness), I smoked my *LAST* cigarette today. One hour and counting. :-)

Compliments

Being a veteran of a moderate bit of group therapy (and man enough to admit the fact :-]), I've heard my fair share of questions like "When did you feel most hurt/embarrassed/betrayed/whathaveyou?" used in such sessions. Now, why I can see the use of such questions in a therapy session, I was thinking today that was really just kind of a downer for the day to day thing. So I wondered what a better one might be.

I like the question "What was the best compliment you ever received?" Mainly because it lead me to an answer I liked remembering.

For me the best compliment I ever received was in my first creative writing class. I had turned in my story "Bezdomny," the first one I ever really felt terribly comfortable with (I think it's still posted at www.geocities.com/CatsLaughing420) and the class was due to critique it that day. After the usual rounds of nervous "Yeah, I liked it... it was good... and stuff" (it would take us all a while to really understand that the base of "critique" was "criticize!") the usual nervous silence fell. Then one girl in the class spoke up and said "I threw the damned thing against the wall."

Now, this doesn't sound like a compliment at first, atleast it didn't to me at the time, but then she went on to explain. She'd gotten so into the main character (Mikhail Alexandrovich) that when he made his fateful decision at the end, she was just so frustrated with him (and with me for "making" him do that) that she just threw it. When she said that, I'd never felt so completely complimented in my life. Nor since. I still have the manuscript she had, complete with folds, creases, and a small tear, along with her written comments, in an envelope. It's nice to have such reminders.

How about you, reader folks? When did you feel most complimented?

Misha