Well, maybe a little, I am. I need to go back and look at the literature for the workshop, because I could have sworn that the topic was supposed to be full Photoshop, not Photoshop LE. Believe me, I was more than a little surprised when I walked in and saw an overhead projector proudly proclaiming that we would be learning the ins and outs of the latter package; for one, I already know my way around LE, having obtained it a while back when we bought our scanner. I was hoping that the workshop would cover the features of the newer, fuller versions of Photoshop, one version of which the library has kindly installed on my work machine.

So I got a nice, long, open-eyed nap during the morning half of the lesson. "This is a layer. This is how you change colors." Yeah, and this is how I have daydreams about David Duchovny...

The afternoon session was a little more entertaining. We were instructed to create some graphics suitable for our library's web page. Everybody else dutifully trotted off to their respective libraries' pages to grab some pictures with which they could play. Well, Way Library doesn't have any nice pictures to play with; that's why Tech Lady and I are redoing the whole thing. Right now, all we have is a tired old sketch of the projected new library addition, done last year by the architects. Ooh, purty. I started from scratch, and came up with some okay things, but nothing I'd show to anybody. I'm very persnickety about any of my creative work; it has to be just so before I'll even show my grandmother. Just ask Eric about the times when he's wanted to hear some piece or other that I've been working on, and I've refused, almost violently. There's a moment when something you've made is so intensely personal, when it's in the process of emerging on its own, directly from your mind, and revealing it to anybody would be as physically painful as tearing your own arm from its socket.

So no, I don't have any graphics from today's workshop to show you. But maybe later I'll cook something up.

Good grief. It's seven in the evening and Eric's not home yet. He's been putting in some overtime at the new plant, but this is bordering on ridiculous. They're not even making a product yet, and he's putting in multiple twelve-hour days a week.

I haven't had to do long days since finishing grad school, and I've almost forgotten the horrors of taking classes from 8:30 AM until 5 PM, then working a full shift at Eat 'N Park. It's been almost a year since I've had a cup of coffee. Can you imagine? I can barely remember the taste of it, let alone feel the sensation of sending a scalding black cup of it racing down my throat as I raced through the restaurant kitchen between customers.

That was a great job. It was one of the few restaurants open twenty-four hours a day in Morgantown, so we students tended to spend way too much time there, poring over books and music scores, or just socializing, until the wee hours of the morn, drinking cup after cup of java. After a while, many of us realized that if we were going to be spending so much time at "The Park," we might as well get paid for it. It wasn't a high salary, but we lived cheaply; I remember sharing "meals" of saltines and salsa with a girlfriend and laughing about it.

My second summer at West Virginia, I stayed behind instead of heading home to Maryland. I worked night shifts, when the drunks poured out of the bars and came to our "Drunk Buffet." The restaurant may normally have been the "Place for Smiles!" but at two in the AM, we were as rude as we wanted to be, and the patrons loved it. One of the hostesses used to openly take bribes to seat people ahead of the crowd. When one of my intoxicated customers threatened to dance on the table if we didn't bring her a plate in five minutes, the manager told me to "Let her! It's free entertainment!" The cops who came in to keep an eye on things after the bars closed were as lax as anyone.

I woke up around noon, along with the other guys who stayed in Morgantown. We watched some talk shows and listened to some Phish, played poker, or fooled around on the local BBS's. Then we geared up for work, worked our shifts, and came home to play Dungeons and Dragons and drink until the sun came up. That was the life!

Eric is finally home. He's exhausted and hungry, so we're going to go out and get some grub. Tomorrow I'll have to face my boss's questions about the worth of today's presentation, so I better come up with something good for her. Wish me luck!

Oh, I was not disappointed in my estimation of "Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?" Eric thought the guy picked the wrong girl, but we both agreed that the guy was in for a sad disappointment if he honestly thought he was going to meet any woman of substance by announcing that he and his millions were up for grabs by any woman willing to parade around in a bikini. Then again, perhaps we're overestimating his own integrity...