Update #3: One Hell of a Work Week

As y'all know, I work for a call center for a major healthcare company. To go into further detail, I specialize in the dental benefits. I thank this job for several things, like a further awareness for the health of my mouth and also the tragedy that is little kids getting root canals.  So obviously, I take calls. Quite a few in fact! I speak to a variety of people from rushed providers' offices to disgruntled members to chipper third-party agents. But lemme tell you about the week where I took maybe only twenty calls overall. Why? Read on below!

What's Been Happening So Far...

This weekend, as part of my job at the non-profit, I'm joining my co-workers in a parade. I already decorated my ridiculous fish hat with colorful curly ribbons to commemorate the good times. I'm excited about it, but also concerned. I think I am getting a cold, but that's not going to stop me. But it won't surprise me if I pass out Sunday night (also after going to see Vienna Teng in concert [whoo-hoo!]) and wake up the next day feeling like a semi had struck me.

So much to do with plenty of time to do it, believe it or not. Today, time is surplus.

I'm also thinking of taking up a few hobbies to help me through some of the rough patches in my life at the moment. Atop that, gain more skills and knowledge. Like bookbinding and making soaps, even going back to drawing. Though, the last thing I want to do is get bogged down in too many hobbies.

So far, got a few things done. A few more before going to the bookstore for a closing shift.

I need to stay on top of this blog.

Soooo...

I went to a reading and Q&A with Audrey Niffenegger earlier this evening. I have yet to read her books (but I did get Her Fearful Symmetry), but was fascinated by her as a person. If you Wiki her (which I'm gonna bet you have at this point of reading my entry), you learn that she's a visual artist. Most of her works are graphic novels. The art is beautiful, especially in The Adventuress (which was being sold at the reading I went to). The stories sound awesome too, like The Night Bookmobile.

She read a chapter from Her Fearful Symmetry and already, I know she's a gripping storyteller.

But, that's not why I wrote this entry. It is what she said when asked about being a writer. She mentioned about not having many writer friends. J.G. Ballard was much like that too (he talks about this in his memoir). Not that I don't cherish the writer friends I have too, but when I stop and consider, I don't have many writer friends either. I do have friends with a wide variety of interests: jewelry-making, cooking, cartooning, reading, and so forth. Niffenegger talks about friends she has, quite a few being artists like herself. Still, even with her fame, she still doesn't have many writer friends. And I'm thinking, she seems to be doing fine. If she can roll with all this, then I can too. Having not as many writing friends doesn't make one less a writer anyway, which is what Niffenegger has helped me realize. I'm just glad to have the friends that I do have.

To them, I guess, I can be that writer friend. And the one who never shuts up about Talking Heads and Silent Hill.

And yes... I did get her autograph. What kind of writer/reader would I be if I didn't?