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	I love feedback. [email protected] MY GUESTBOOK

I groaned internally. I still have nightmares about those fie days with no sleep, staffing the President, writing something Toby had been crafting for a week and had left in a soy-diesel truck somewhere during his adventure in Indiana, making sense of a senseless mass murder, and then facing Mallory, though she did make my day a little better even if I was too exhausted to really process most of what she said. Still, I�m proud of that speech. When Sara found out I had written it she told me that she had cried when she heard the President saying the words I had written in the car between the White House and the Capital Hilton. I�m proud of the speech, especially the last part�though I didn�t appreciate Bruno calling me a freak�and recognition is good for the soul, at least in small doses. This hero-worship thing that the kid had going on, though� this floored me. I�m good at writing, I know this. It�s not ego. I�m good, maybe one of the best writers in the country. I�ve written speeches and addresses for Governors, members of both houses of Congress, President Bartlet, a handful of foreign dignitaries, a few movie stars, and once, though I still don�t know how I ended up involved in the situation, the King of Belgium. But I�ve never had someone tell me that what I wrote inspired them to do anything more than vote for what I was supporting. Resisting the urge to ask the kid how old he had been when Bartlet gave that speech�not to mention how he found out that it had been me that wrote it and not Toby or one of the speechwriting staffers�I shook his hand and tried to understand what he said his name was and made a mental note to ask Donna for a briefing on everyone as soon as I actually saw her. It�s not her job to do that anymore�well, actually, it was never her job to do that, but it was never her job to do a lot of things that she did anyway�but I�m sure she won�t mind keeping me from being the idiot who calls everyone �hey you�. I met a few more people and a woman named Ronna pointed out the office that had a piece of paper taped to it. *S. Seaborn�Deputy CoS* was scrawled in Donna�s distinctive penmanship. �I need to stop being so damned predictable,� I muttered as I set the stack of work Josh had given me down on the desk. The morning went by relatively normally. I made the calls Josh wanted me to make and around ten I met with Lou Thorton who would be the Communications Director though, and I knew this after talking to her for two seconds, she would never speak to the press�I�d rather deal with a hundred of Josh�s secret plans than one press conference led by Lou; she�d probably end up making Steve cry and I�m certain that Chris would stab Lou in the eye with her pen while Mark recorded everything on his latest Dictaphone. I had yet to see Donna, but Josh mentioned something about her being with Mrs. Santos so I didn�t spend too much time looking for her; a phone call later would be fine. Ainsley stopped by and we got into a debate about something meaningless�I think we might have scared the staff a little�and we made plans to have dinner later in the week once my internal clock set itself back to East Coast time. It wasn�t until the yelling started that the day really started, though.

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