Maggie's Journal

This is my second week of work and I’ve done very little of my actual job duties as of yet. So far I’ve done a lot of filing and labeling and other such busy work. Which isn’t bad, it just delays settling in.

I did actually learn how to do something today that will be part of my job. I get to place logo’s on different publication covers in quark! Also, I got called in to a meeting to hear about some copy I will be writing just as soon as this lady gets me the information.

It kind of seems to be a group of people who are really smart and creative, but not so good at explaining things, organizing things or coming up with the most direct and simplistic way of doing things.

Friday Patrick and I start dance lessons (his co-workers gave us a g/c on his birthday). That should be interesting. I’ve also been invited to attend Improv workshops on Tuesday nights for free. I will probably start that next week as I’m too tired today.

I’m getting lots of experience driving in the snow everyday. I hear it stops snowing in April or so!

I started my new job today. Not sure what to think yet as things were a bit unorganized. I’m sure it will be great, but for today is was a tad frustrating. You know how I like everything all organized! But the great news is that I get a paycheck on Friday! Patrick and the IRS thank me profusely.

I got a job that I start on Tuesday!

I went in for an interview through The Creative Group for a proofreader/copy writer position. Had a great first half of the interview with two men and then they told me that they interviewed someone yesterday that was over qualified and if she’d take the job they really felt like she should have it. So I was very discouraged until they said that I’d made the choice harder than they thought it’d be and that they should
really take us both. They sat there mulling things over for a few minutes and then mentioned that they had another position that they needed filled that wasn’t exactly defined yet.

So we talked about that one….I would get to do some layout, not the design, but the physical placement of stuff in a program that I’ve been wanting to learn and then help out wherever needed. I told them I was interested and they said they had some talking to do.

Well, I just got the call from the creative group that said I got it. They created a position just for me, I think my title will be Production Coordinator and it pays more than the job I went in for. Of course, she also mentioned that the other person hand’t taken the proofreader/copywriter job yet, so it sounds like they just knew they wanted me and didn’t really care where. I should have had to go through a trial period, but they are skipping that and hiring me on full time from the begining. They said they felt comfortable with my
talent and professionalism and personality that they didn’t need the temp part!

I’ll be working for Emco, an office supply catalog company. Not a super exciting thing to help layout but oh well!

So I’m really excited. And, I get to play the rest of this week before starting on Tuesday!

Apparently Rob Thomas (of Matchbox twenty) is now also a solo artist with a new cd coming out April 26th. Yippy!

I’ve wanted to learn to play the guitar for years. Since the begining of the year I’ve really been on a kick that I want to challenge myself to learn and try new things. I don’t really know a whole lot about what types of guitars are good or anything like that, aside from the obvious names.

I’ve looked on ebay a couple of times to see what’s out there and anything I recognized as good was of course expensive. I was just searching for drums on ebay for a friend and decided to check the guitars again. Apparently Sunday night is a great time for auctions to end as there were two or three pages of sales ending in mere minutes. One in particular ended in 4 minutes and was a penny. So I bought it. It’s probably the world’s biggest piece of crap,but it comes with accessories and it only cost a penny plus shipping and handeling.

Now I just have to learn to play and hope I don’t suck. But a friend just told me if I do suck, I can blame it on the cheap guitar!

I’m going to a new volunteer meeting for Habitat for Humanity because I signed up to help with their newsletter. The meeting is at a Starbucks.

I know, it’s a little late to just now be posting about our weekend, but hey, I’m only semi-employed and it keeps me very busy!

This weekend we went into the city to go to Central Park. Patrick had been wanting to go ice skating so off we went. As we waited for one of the trains there where 3 women standing and talking and we instantly identified them as Texans. They just fit the stereotype too well. Once we got on the train they started talking to some other people about Texas for some reason and Patrick chimed in that we were from there too because he wanted to answer a question the ladies had been asked and didn’t know the answer to. So as we were talking another guy walks up and says to the women, “did I hear you say you are from Texas?” So there was a nice little Texas reunion on the train and it made us feel closer to home.

We finally got to the park and I got some hot chocolate from my favorite hot chocolate place to drink as we walked around. There were tons of people out enjoying the park. We made our way to the ice skating rink and Patrick finally got to enjoy his skating. Of course during this time the sun started to go down and I got chilly! But we had a good time and then we walked around the city going in to different stores.

We just got tickets to the April 15 show! I’m excited!

For the last two days I’ve been doing proofreading for a company that makes pocket calanders. At the top of every page there is a different quote.

Here are some of my favorites:

“The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.” -Peter F. Drucker

“The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.”-Denis Waitley

” It infuriates me to be wrong when I know I’m right.” -Moliere

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” -e. e. cummings

“Some editors are failed writers,but so are most writers.” -T.S. Eliot

” I am a part of all that I have met.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.” -Mother Teresa

“You can’t really be strong until you see a funny side to things.” -Ken Kesey

“Once you have them in the funny bone, their hearts and minds will follow.” Robert Wilder

and my personal motto:

“Nothing makes a person more productive that the last minute.” -Unknown

Back at the begining of the TV season Patrick and I decided to Tivo the new show Lost because the previews made it look sort of interesting. We’ve been Tivoing it all this time and saving the episodes, but we never started watching them. Then one day we realized we’d accidentally deleted the first episode. But apparently over the winter season break, they ran it again. So this past week or so we’ve been sitting down trying to catch up. Every episode gets us more addicted. There are so many mysteries and it seems instead of solving any of them, they keep introducing new ones.

On one of the two episodes we watched last night, I thought they killed one of my favorite characters, it’s the guy who played Merry in the Lord of the Rings movies. The only other actor on the show that I’ve ever seen anywhere before is Matthew Fox from Party of Five. So those two guys and the main girl are my favorite.

The show is about the surviving passengers of a plane that crashed on an island and they are now stranded there because they were a 1000 miles of course, so people are looking for them in the wrong place. The island is a bit wacked out and that combined with the mysteries of all the people, makes for a great show.

Anyway, the reason I’m explaining all this is so that I can share a quote from Patrick as we were watching the show last night. Right when it appeared that Charlie, the character I like, was dead and I was pretending not to like the show any more, Patrick busted out with “This show is going to drive me to drink!” It was great and probably one of the funniest things he’s ever said.

New Erasure cd is out today and thanks to the beauty of Itunes it’s only $9.99! Too bad the 5 nights in a row they are playing in NY in April were already sold out by the time I knew about them.

And yes Jeff, this entry is for you so that I can get a nice eraser comment or two!

For some great pictures of the snow visit the link to Patrick’s site. He had fun taking before and after photos.

Ok, I’ve finally gotten around to getting my pictures from Christmas up. Click here to view them.

I’ve added a link in the links section (on the far right) that will take you to Patrick’s website. That way you can read about the mundane details of our life from both perspectives.

We had a good bit of snow on Wednesday. Patrick liked that it was “powder” worthy of a ski slope. We took some good pictures of the dogs playing and of the frozen river.

Tomorrow, we are supposed to be hit with a blizzard that will leave us with 10 inches of snow. That should be fun, right? I guess all our wondering where winter was has finally caught up with us. But as I pointed out to Patrick, if we are going to have temps below 30, then it ought to be some sort of law that we have snow.

We had a spot on our white shower curtain so I decided to wash it. Leaving me with words of wisdom to impart to everyone:

If you have a cotton shower curtain, you really shouldn’t wash and dry it unless you want it to be fit for a Barbie doll house. You could say it shrunk a bit!

Mom, Rach and Kelli wanted to see a picture.

I just drove down the block to Staples. It was a piece of cake. I’m not sure what I was so nervous about. Of course there are much bigger roads to take (and bridges, yikes) on the way to my interview on Monday.

Today we woke up with ACTUAL snow! But we still didn’t have as much as there was in Texas at Christmas. The dogs enjoyed nosing around in it on their walk. There are supposed to be snow flurries all day.

We saw Rent tonight; Our first broadway play! It took me a couple of minutes to get used to the fact that the entire thing is sung, but once I got passed that I loved it. There were parts that brought me to near tears. I was feeling really stupid about that until afterwards, as we were walking out, I saw that many of the others were saying the same thing. Drew Lachey, Nick’s brother, was the lead. He’s a short little thing, but he was actually pretty good. His singing was a tad nasal at times, but overall I thought he wasn’t bad. The show is a bit raunchier at times than I was aware of, but I think it was a good first choice.

The playbill listed other shows that are out and now we have a whole list of things we want to see. Molly Ringwald and Jason Biggs are in something….Ethan Hawke and Wallace Shawn are in a new show opening soon, and then there is Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays, which sadly isn’t playing even half that many Sundays! Ohhhh, I think I remember reading a while back that Jeremy Piven and Andrew McCarthy are in something together…I wonder if that’s closed yet?

Saturday night we walked the dogs and decided to give them time to play. We have two main spots that we can play in, the big circle (closer to the river with no fence) and the little circle (fence around the river). We decided to play in the big circle because it was less muddy.

Now we know we can trust our dogs off leash as long as they are focused, so we brought a bone to throw so they could go retrieve it. Everything was fine, Bailey was eating Sam’s head and pounding him to the ground in order to get the bone and Sam was busy out manuvering Bail.

And then, out of nowhere, fireworks errupted on the other side of the river between Brooklyn and Manhattan. At the first blast, Bailey rushed into the little roped off street that separates the park from the real road. We got her back quickly and tried to refocus her. We thought everything was fine until there was another blast. Then she headed straight for the real street into oncoming traffic with Sam following at her heels. Sam wasn’t scared, he just didn’t want to be left behind.

They ran straight across the street and Patrick and I were chasing as fast as we could. All I could think of is, “Oh God, I’m going to watch my dogs get killled.” But somehow they made it safely across and all the way down to the front door of our building. By the time Patrick and I finally caught up, they were sitting pressed up against the front door. I let them in while Patrick went back for the leashes and they ran straight to our apartment door.

I guess the good thing is, we know they know where home is!