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9:12 am - Wed 12/26/01 Worked till sometime after 6 on Xmas Eve. It was still very busy, but I only had one scheduled hour on the register, and we were very well staffed, so it was not too big a deal, stress-wise. At the old store, there was always a potluck on Xmas Eve; Mary Ellen would bring in Sloppy Joes in a crockpot, and there'd be lots of homemade cookies and what-have-you (Me being me, I'd bring in pop or chips, or something along those lines). Here, management ordered sandwiches from Quiznos, so there were those, and lots of pop, and loads of junk food (Any effort I'd been making to watch my sugar intake has gone out the window over the past two or three days). I had thought about doing a couple of cards for people at the store--John O., Tony, Darren--but I didn't (It was, I think, a combo of laziness and fear of social awkwardness. I should have done it anyway). I missed the champagne toast that was one of the rituals at Schulers (Just a little "We made it through" congratulatory thing); Here, people basically just scooted out the door as soon as their work was done. On the ride home, I was feeling pretty sad. When I got to the apartment, there was a card from Tom and Mary in the mail (With a copy of Tom's new song, "That's America", which he wrote in response to the 9/11 attack). That was nice, but it didn't stem the tide of sadness and self-pity I was feeling. I thought about writing, but I avoided it, the reason being pretty clear--I had a strong feeling that I'd write myself into an emotional black hole at that point--so I just hung out, alone, a little blue, a little bored, and a little sorry for myself (It's occured to me a couple times over the past day and a half that I really wish I could afford full cable!). Xmas day was more of the same. I spent the morning trying to figure out what to do with myself--And at a time like that, you NEVER want to do all the things you COULD do--then started getting anxious when I wasn't hearing from Byron from work (We were supposed to go see "Ali", he and I and Josh from the cafe). But I did talk to some people--Lauren, Cary, Mark and Jane--so I didn't feel quite as lonely as I had the night before. Byron called at some point after 2:00, while I was on the phone, so when I got the message, I returned his call, and we arranged a time for him to pick me up (The movie was at 7:15; He picked me up at five, and the three of us had dinner at a place called The Mustache Cafe in Westwood). The even out felt VERY awkward to me. The three of us didn't have much to say to each other. There felt like a lot of attempts at conversation that didn't go anywhere, and I thought more than once that I would have been better off seeing something down on Vermont by myself. The movie, all-in-all, was disappointing. The things that were entertaining in the film were the same things that were entertaining about Ali in real life--His mouth and his boxing. The recreations of his interviews with Howard Cosell were funny and fun, and the fight scenes were, I thought, extremely well done, but some of the other parts of the movie I found a little...dull. But that said, the movie did STIR me a bit, just by virtue of being about a man, flawed as he might have been, who definitely demonstrated a couple different kinds of courage. "Courage" had been on my mind much of late. This "Cowardly Lion" finds himself wishing he could get some from the Wizard. But instead of "Oz", I'm off to the land of Borders, for post-Xmas returns and all that kind of fun.
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