It was the perfect weekend follow-up to the great Bar Exam Trauma of last week. A friend of ours who lived in KC until December and then moved to Indianapolis (which is actually how she became our friend -- Mary met her on a plane between Indy and KC, even though she actually knew Tara while we were at KU) came in to hang with us for the weekend. Mary, Tara and I picked her up at the airport Friday night, then we hung by the pool on Saturday, went to dinner Saturday evening, went back to Mary's house and hung on her porch Saturday night, cooked brunch on Sunday, went to a Royals game Sunday afternoon, cooked dinner Sunday night, and went for a walk before taking her back to the airport.

It was awesome. Especially since I have about nine dollars to last me through this week, I appreciated the lack of expense. Tara paid for my general admission baseball ticket since she owed me, and then we cooked every other meal except dinner Saturday night, which was kind of expensive but it was quite delicious.

Of course, I had big plans to go get my driver's license today, but I forgot the somewhat important area of my face when I put on sunscreen at the baseball game, so I now resemble a lobster. Hopefully by tomorrow it will have faded down to a decent tan.

        

Things are looking rather bleak on the job front. Actually, I think I'm just going to temp for a while anyway. The fact is that I'll be traveling for the entire second half of August, so I don't really want to get any kind of permanent offer at the moment.

And where am I going, you might ask?

First up is Graceland, where, despite the fact that I have no strong feelings about Elvis, I have still always wanted to go. Mary's parents have conveniently moved to Memphis this week, so we're leaving on the 16th to drive down and hang there for a few days. We will return on Monday, the 21st.

On Thursday, the 24th, I will board a plane to PA for my cousin's wedding, which is the 26th. The 27th also happens to be my parents' 40th anniversary. I will return on Monday, the 28th.

On Tuesday, the 29th, I will board a plane to Las Vegas, where I will meet up with my family for three days of gambling with money I don't have, basically because my brother didn't want to go to France, the little bastard. We're also going to see Cirque du Soleil's Mystere, which is really what I'm looking forward to the most.

On Friday, the 1st of September, I will board a plane from Vegas to Los Angeles to visit my friend Laura for Labor Day weekend. I will return to Kansas City on Monday, the 4th.

THEN I will have to find a job.

        

Okay, it's tomorrow (it's actually two days later, I started writing all that up there on Monday) and I did get my driver's license yesterday, but I underestimated the power of the camera to pick up on my lobsterish skin coloring, so I basically look like I'm about to explode.

I'm really kind of bummed by this. So far, I've had pretty good luck with driver's license photos. I guess it was my time for the crappy one.

Besides getting my driver's license, I faxed a resume to a temp agency that specializes in legal work (as opposed to illegal work, I suppose) and the guy on the phone sounded like he would be able to find something for me that would use my education.

And that was it. I stood in line at the DMV for a half an hour and sent a fax. Productive, wasn't I?

The rest of my day is spent lying around, reading Harry Potter, watching the tube, gathering images for my redesign. I don't feel particularly bad about this yet, but I would like to do something next week that actually provides an income.

        

Okay, enough whining about having to find a job. I know that's dull.

The biggest stress of my day was the fact that I turned on the television to watch Northern Exposure while I was having lunch and the cable kept flickering in and out, and all I thought about was the fact that Survivor was on tonight, so it better be fixed by 7:00, or heads were going to roll.

[later: the fucking cable did cut out halfway through, and kept cutting out throughout the rest of the show. I missed the immunity challenge completely, but it came back on and stayed on through the Tribal Council, so I got over it.]

I have to say, that's the one thing about the Midwest that is taking me the longest to get used to, the fact that prime-time television is from 7-10 rather than 8-11. I grew up with it being 7-10, but for the last six years, in California and Pennsylvania, it's been 8-11, and I think I like it better that way. You just have some extra time to do stuff before settling in for the evening. (Of course, this is only if your life revolves around television.)

It's just not night at 7:00. I still consider that late-afternoon. Of course, in the summer it stays light here until almost 9:30, so it's not even night at 8.

I wonder if there's been some kind of study about whether people in Central and Mountain time zones get more sleep. I mean, if you like to watch the late news, you're up until 11:30 on the coasts, but only 10:30 in the middle.

Not that it makes any difference to me. I can't go to bed before midnight no matter where I am. The fact that I can watch all of Letterman and half of Conan instead of just half of Letterman is really a bonus, I suppose.

        

In other exciting news, I have finally found a font that is as close as I think I'm ever going to find to my own handwriting.

It's called MandysHand, and here is what my name looks like in that font:

Okay, so, that's not really impressive since you don't know what my real handwriting looks like, but that is damn close. One day when I have a scanner I'll show you. The only difference is that my 'a' is a little rounder, but other than that, it's right on the money.