Normally this is the kind of day I would never bother to write about here. Nothing much happened. However, I read "Theft By Finding" this week, bookmarked all the good quotes, and after spending four hours writing down quotes from it, I decided to write an entry today like David Sedaris would have. Which is to say, focusing on other people's random minutia.

I spent most of today at the Craft Center, making up hours that I missed during tech week. Not much was going on in the morning other than I helped the soapmaking teacher figure out the new scanner, gave some directions and wrote down the timesheet info. So I spent four out of five hours there writing down quotes from "Theft By Finding." When I publish the book review I think I'll put all 11(!) pages behind the spoiler cut, because the quoting has gotten a bit far beyond the usual.

The manager on shift was listening to decidedly emo depressing music for most of the shift. I don't know the other two regulars on the Saturday morning crew, but I couldn't help but notice that one of them was hiding in the back with giant headphones on and even the one closer to the counter had one earbud plugged into her head and the other into her laptop. I can only assume they weren't thrilled with the music either (especially given the booming tunes I periodically heard out of the giant headphones), but it seemed a little unprofessional to have giant headphones on during a supposed service job where you work at the front counter and are supposed to get interrupted. Then again, other than the soapmaking class, not much was going on and there was hardly anyone to wait on anyway. Later the music turned into "Nostalgia Saturday," by switching to playing songs from Disney movies of the 2000's once the afternoon shift came in.

I've known the guy who teaches soapmaking there for years. We actually learned at the same time from the same instructor, he just took over the class later. He works in my neighborhood (and presumably lives around here as well since I've seen him around with his kid) but usually I just see him running around a few blocks away from me. I have no idea on his actual age, but I hadn't seen him up close for a few years and couldn't help but notice that he's gotten older. He grew a beard, he's got crow's feet now and while he was always a skinny dude, he's now at a more normal weight. Meanwhile I still look the same. I guess this is what happens when one person has a kid and the other doesn't?

It's really fun for me to not age, mind you, but it's starting to throw me when I notice that other people aren't doing the same. One friend of mine claimed she used to not age before she had a kid, and while rereading "Theft By Finding" today Sedaris mentions that some friend of his didn't do drinking and drugs (which Sedaris did tons of), so she looks the same. Clean living and a fat head, that's all I can chalk it up to. Also helps to have no one love you or depend on you for their survival, I suppose. A relatively stress-free life, by comparison.

Last Christmas season I bought a daily calendar of corgi pictures, the best of which I saved and put up in my cube, creating a wall of happy corgis to protect me from my depressing coworkers that I share an office with. After the year was over, I took the rest of the pictures to the Craft Center and put them out for folks to adopt and now people are happily decking the front door and walls with corgis, naming them things like "Toastyboi" or "Harry Potter and Ron Weasley" and making their own corgi memes and posting holiday corgi pics on the computer backgrounds. It is a delight. The chosen theme for this quarter's free T-shirt is now "Dog's Birthday" and they're looking for designs. I posted some inspiring corgi birthday pictures along with the sign. Later on today when I went to the grocery store I picked up a $2 box of Boo the Dog valentines to hand out on my next shift, which is the day before Valentine's. Last year I handed out Tsum Tsum ones, or something else cute along those lines that people also decorated the CC with. Holidays are always better at the Craft Center. Corgis are the best all of the time. I am still wondering how that corgi got on a pony, something else we've mused about this week there.

If this was a real Sedaris diary entry, it would have featured some yelling criminals, or something involving Iusually literal animal) assholes, but alas, my day was pretty squeaky clean and the worst thing that happened today was it suddenly becoming horribly blustery between the time I got to the CC and a few hours later. I guess that fits with his living in Chicago for a few years, though.

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