[Just fire me already]

Arrrgh! I am the worst employee ever! I was supposed to open at work today, but I’m still sitting here in my pajamas, wondering if I can make it in by 2. I’m counting on setting a start date real soon at the Appeal, but I just called and the design coordinator will be out until Monday, so I’ve got to wait for the final word before I can quit Dillard’s. I was hoping to avoid working the morning after xmas, but it seems I’m having no such extraordinary luck. Phil has to work at 5 a.m. the day after, which is legions worse than my measly 9 a.m. But we’re both plotting to skip work and stay with our families for another day. We miss them so.

It doesn’t help my apprehension that I’m having dystopian dreams about this job. Last night, I dreamt thatI got a letter in the mail saying I was hired — hooray! — but that based on a computer interpretation of the perfectness of my design clips, they were only going to pay me $19,000 a year. In the dream, pay rates were figured by an objective computer program that you fed the tearsheets to. It calculated your allegience to the golden mean and proper proportion and balance and whatnot, and spit out a salary figure based on that. If they offer me $19,000 in real life, I won’t be able to afford living in Memphis, so let’s raise that by about $10,000 and I won’t complain.

I spent my morning painting my sister’s xmas gift — an acrylic re-interpretation of a pastel drawing I did back in high school art class (with the illustrious Mrs. Salama, for whom we re-wrote “Boombastic” or whatever that horrible Shaggy song was: Mrs. Salama-lama. Uh. Mrs. Salama-lama. Coreen!). It’s a city-near-the-water nightscape with pretty blues, and it’s coming along quite well on canvas. If we move and get a two-bedroom apartment, I foresee the second bedroom turning into a music studio for Phil and an art studio for me. That way I’ll feel obligated to make more art and not get so damned rusty.

Brooke, Phil’s sister, is in the hospital today having contractions. She’s scared but ready to get it over with. I would love to drive down to Selmer and spend the evening in a waiting room just to catch a glimpse of a freshly baked baby, red and squinty from the long journey down the birth canal.