thursday february 6 2002    |    12:15 a.m.

today (yesterday, now)i walked out of my job at barnes and noble, halfway through my break. i wrote the evil store manager a termination letter, told her to mail me my last check and the reimbursement for a pair of pants that a café dude spilled bleach on, left my keys on top of it on her desk. told the manager on duty i was leaving. he gave me a big hug -- it's been a year and a half, people, a lifetime in retail years -- and wished me luck and i left.

it was raining. i didn't know what to think about anything.

i got a job offer that morning. i will be doing simultaneous translation (english/spanish) for civil unemployment hearings. i am completely underqualified, save for my language fluency, and the mock-trial part of my interview was a disaster. but i guess it was the influence of the friend who referred me to the job in the first place. he's a supervisor there; i met him while he was working part-time at b&n, and the night before he got fired he told me about the job.

i have no idea what i'm getting myself into. i'm stressed out, tired, nervous, excited, scared. i don't know. the pay is much better and it will be full time. i will probably dislike it. i will be 24 in less than a month.

what the hell is going on?

the kenyon alumni bulletin always plunges me into a sad-eyed slump. the trees and the friends i rarely talk to anymore and the quiet boy who is a published poet now.

i just don't know.