QUEEN JANE APPROXIMATELY

So, I'm at work. And yet I'm listening to Deerhoof, drinking some nasty coffee, and reading the latest issue of Poetry. (Thanks, girl!) These facts are not mutually exclusive, oddly enough, because nobody else is in the office.

I'll amend this because now somebody else IS in the office--but it's okay, because she isn't much older than me, and we can commiserate about how WEIRD it is that everybody else at this job doesn't remember how much minimum wage is. "What is it now, seven dollars?" Um, no.

I've forgotten how much office jobs are about seeing how much you can get away with. They can never pay you enough: I do truly believe this. And it seems especially true when I'm driving home with a terrible headache and I feel like my eyes are just going to roll out of my head: I think about how much they pay me, and how much everything costs: gas, cigarettes, food, electricity, whatever, and it seems like a paltry compensation. But right now I'm getting paid to sit here in my little outfit and chill out while keeping abreast of the scandals and petty name-calling in the poetry world (which, believe it or not, is my idea of a good time).

It's strange to spend so much time in a small town that isn't my home. Like Greene County, locals are very keen to tell you that they can tell you aren't from around. They think I have a New York accent, which is just too strange to think about. I wonder how they would take it if they found out that I'm from an even smaller town.

Oh, and happy birthday to me!