First-Person Narrator

So I started writing a new probably-a-novel thing tonight, and I was showing some of the early bits to karenhealey over instant messenger. Here's what I showed her:

"It was sheer desperation that prompted me to apply for the job at The Mage's Tower. I was just out of college, with a shiny new B.A. in English, and it turned out that I wasn't really qualified for anything but more school. Which I couldn't afford, because I'd just gone four years without a fulltime job. So I grabbed a Sunday paper and went through the classifieds with my favorite purple highlighter in hand, looking for enough work to keep me in my apartment.

There were a few listings for jobs that required no prior experience, but none of them were even remotely related to my skill set. Don't get me wrong; I'm sure that carpet installation is really cool and all, but it's not what I had in mind when I was wading through the complete works of Shakespeare. And there was no way I was going to fall for an "earn thousands of dollars working part time from home" scheme.

Which left the ad for a cashier at The Mage's Tower:

Play games for a living at locally owned fantasy gaming store. Flexible hours. Must be open to new experiences.

The last part seemed a little ominous, but I circled the ad anyway, and adjusted a copy of my standard cover letter to include a few lines about how much I'd always enjoyed genre novels. Reading The Hobbit several times in middle school had to count for something."

Her response was immediate.

Karen: *snrk* Carpet installation!
Me: ACTUAL AD THAT I CONSIDERED ONE TIME
Me: it did say no experience necessary!
Karen: I'm sure your co-workers would have been *wonderful* guys who didn't make you want to punch them in the throat at all
Me: I have no doubt
Karen: (Do you know how to punch someone in the throat?)
Me: yes
Me: it's like punching, except at the throat
Me: *laughing hysterically at own wit*
Karen: I thought there might have been techniques, cos of the chin and stuff
Me: ah, well
Me: yeah, you wouldn't want to try actually -punching- someone in the throat, probably
Me: I'd do a four-knuckle strike
Karen: That's the one where your hand stays straight and your fingers bend over at the first knuckle?
Me: yup
Karen: *strikes herself in the throat*
Me: ...don't do that
Karen: Oh, yeah, hey, look at that. That totally hurt.

Is there anything more rewarding than being a writer? I'm not sure that there is.

Me, fishing for compliments: You can't just say that you like my hair "because it's pretty." You have to be specific.

Jameson: Okay. Uh. I like your eyes because…they're like a lunar eclipse. No, a solar eclipse –

Me: What?

Jameson: No, wait – because they're like blue with a gold ring in them and then the center is black.

Me: ...

And then I laughed until I started choking.

karenhealey will appreciate this.

Jameson and I were out in the backyard this evening, and he was pointing out some new holes near our orange tree.

Jimmy: We have ground squirrels. Or rattlesnakes.

Me: Squirrels, then. Rattlesnakes don't dig holes.

Jimmy: They just live in them? They don't dig them themselves?

Me: Honey, how would a snake dig a hole?

Jimmy: ...Well, their rattles open up into spades.

I should be at my martial arts class, right now. There is a long and grumpy story about why I'm not. I came home from work very grumpy, left here, went to class, came home again, and then unloaded my whole grumpy mood on Jameson.

"I'm sorry you had a bad day," he said, rubbing my shoulders. "Are you feeling hungry?"

"A little," I said. "Mostly, I'm feeling like a fat lard-ass."

He paused.

"I could go get some sausages, or something, and we could cook them," he said, hesitantly.

I maintained a grumpy silence.

"Or, I could get... Rice cakes. And we could... Smell them."

Every girl should have a significant other as wonderful as mine.

I woke up early this morning to finish up my reading for my Women in Antiquity course, which happened to be a section on life for women in ancient Greece (specifically contrasting life in Sparta and Athens). I was getting close to done, and was starting to think about what I wanted for lunch. I figured I'd give Jameson a call, and see if he wanted to drive over, since he had my car from the night before, and pick something up on the way. Just as I was about to do so, I heard my car pull up into the drive. I went out to meet Jameson, and see if I could convince him that getting me a sandwich was a Very Good Idea.

( I couldn't help but notice as I stood on the porch, watching him get out of the car, that he was only wearing one shoe, and had what looked like a cut-up sock wrapped around his bare foot. )