written yesterday, new blog post coming in a minute:

i'm such a sad individual. i cut my finger somehow without noticing and got blood on my white shirt, and i was walking around the office that way. it was so embarrassing, especially since today was the only day i had to discuss being hired full-time with my boss. i felt like such a goof: "please hire me even though i wear shirts with prominent stains to work." i didn't cut myself until i got here but no one knew that, dammit!!

i am very happy to say that, stain and all, he did hire me. beginning in february when i get back to austin, i will be working here full-time and taking my remaining classes online. very happy and excited and proud :) woohoo health insurance! i feel like such a grownup.

i submitted a second piece i wrote to the editor who published my last one, but she said she was "going to pass on this one." i felt embarrassed and yucky, but hey, that's the life of the writer. rejection and being misunderstood. there's this unbelievable quote by j.d. salinger in his short story "de daumier-smith's blue period" that i just love: "the worst that being an artist could do to you would be that it would make you slightly unhappy constantly." isn't that great?? i think i'm going to stick it on the side of the blog with my other favorite quotes.

i finished "the arabian nights" yesterday. my version was a bit of a rip-off because it omitted the story of aladdin and the lamp and sindbad the sailor and ali baba and the 40 thieves - basically the reason you would read "the arabian nights" - but it was good nonetheless. the stories were interesting. the only thing that got to me was the treatment of women. i know it shouldn't have, especially because it's so dated, but there was all this i-suspect-you-of-cheating-so-i-will-cut-you-up-into-pieces incidents, and many times they were wrong and were like you-didn't-cheat-oh-what-have-i-done? stuff like that annoyed me. but overall, good stuff. i need to go read the famous tales online now.