Here it is. The entire month of June for the year 2000. Don't you just feel like a part of my life? Doesn't it make you all warm & fuzzy inside to know that I'm sharing a part of myself with you? I know it does. Read on, starting from the bottom.

June 29th, 2000: So, yesterday was my 6th fun-filled day at COSI. I pulled into the parking lot, slapped my pocket a couple of times upon exiting my car just to make sure that my keys were inside, and headed toward the building. I was pretty tired from a long Wednesday night, so I climbed the steps extreeeeemely slowly, and as I did, I caught a glimpse of Nick walking up behind me in the mirror. He didn't look too happy, and I wasn't so sure that I should be the one to try to brighten his day, so I sped up and attempted to avoid him. I didn't want to seem rude, but at the same time, I still hadn't been getting signals of 100% love, so I just hopped on in the building by myself and headed toward the Guest Services Desk.

The day before had been my John's last day. When I walked in the building on Tuesday morning, he was there to greet me, and he told me wistfully that it would be his last time greeting me. I was terribly upset by this and led him to the Desk to sit and talk with me. I asked where he was headed for his new job, and John told me that he's heading to Mt. Carmel Hospital to be a security guard. I asked him if he was only going because he'll get to carry a gun, and poor John was horribly offended that I would suggest such a thing. Then, he told me that the thought of the gun was pretty much the only reason for his leaving. (It makes him feel like a man, apparently.) I told him that I was desperate for a piece of gum and asked if he had any to spare, and John smiled as he reached into the left pocket of his oh-so-tight uniform pants. How I longed to be that piece of gum. He reached for my hand and placed the gum on my waiting palm, and closed my fingers around it. It would be the last time that sweet John would ever touch me, for a moment later, he was called to action. As I watched him walk out of my life for what I imagine will be forever, a single tear gently rolled down my right cheek. And then I turned to flirt with the new guy, Brian.

So, today was my first day without John. It was painful, but Jen helped me try to accept it before the morning meeting. During the meeting, Nick came in and sat down on the floor with some of us, but instead of sitting on the end by me, he scooted in between Jen and Brian. I rolled my eyes at him, but I expect that sort of thing from him, really. I avoided him after the meeting and went to the front Desk to talk to Jack, a crazy, old volunteer who enjoys yelling at the janitorial staff. You know, the only other place that I've ever worked is at Subway, and there, we were all equals. I didn't have a manager, and even the owners made subs while they were in the store. But at COSI, it's completely different. There's like an hierarchy of workers, and somehow, I ended up very near the bottom. Fun times. One of the other new chicks, Mary, who happens to be a junior at OSU and is on the synchronised swimming team (which is way too weird but cool at the same time), told me that the upper-level people in the COSI offices have been throwing away applications, because it seems that everyone wants to be a Guest Services Specialist. Craziness. I have to wonder what the heck it was on my application that made them like me. But anyway, the hierarchy. (Mary doesn't know what that word means, by the way.)

First, there's the kitchen staff. They aren't even actually COSI employees. They're hired by a different company and paid by a different company and managed by a different company, but they dwell in our building and feed our guests. They frighten me.

Then, there are Support Services. These are the people who haul around all of the tables and chairs and Tensabarriers and mops and brooms and have to take care of the so-called "big spills" which are actually just messes created when someone happens to throw up. Of course, no one likes to hear the phrase "throw up", so the phrase "big spill" is used in its place.

Then, there's the Box Office. These are the people who sit at a huge desk area on big, comfortable chairs and sell tickets all day. They get paid considerably less than me, but their jobs have to be terribly easy. Although, they have to deal with irate customers complaining about the high price of visiting COSI, and trust me, there are a lot of those types.

Then, there are the Safety Services people. They look like police officers. They walk like police officers. They carry billy clubs like police officers. But they're way, way hotter than police officers. They carry around walkie-talkies and look incredibly powerful. They handle all of the child molesters who attempt to penetrate the building. They're all incredibly polite.

Then, there are the Exhibits Technicians. These are the people who build the learning worlds, the people who actually run the learning worlds, the people who play with all of the equipment so that everyone else will, the people who yell, "Walk, please!" 800 times a day, the people who keep everything going.

Then, there are the Little Kidspace people. Little Kidspace is a protected playground that has all of these crazy toys and slides and equipment that are supposedly really great for the development of infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers. These people must be majoring in early childhood development in college, and they're all totally in love with kids. They're all very talkative and fun, too. I like hanging out at Little Kidspace.

Then, there are the Guest Services staff. We have to be incredibly knowledgeable about the goings-on at COSI and answer stupid questions like, "The door says that you close at 5, and so does that big sign over there. So, what time does this place close?" We're in charge of admitting kids to Little Kidspace, which is always fun, because everyone argues about our policy. Just because the sign tells them in at least two different places that only infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers are allowed inside to play, why should they believe it? Of course they should demand to see a manager and threaten to kill my first-born child right in front of their 2nd grader! We carry walkie-talkies just to seem cool. The fact that they always end up making our pants nearly fall off is just an added bonus. We handle all lost kids, hand out refunds, give out directions to local malls, and help people fill out incident reports when they accidentally break their toes by slamming into steel doors (happens once a day, at least). We're the everything people, and we get paid the big bucks (ha).

Then, there are the Human Resources people. They handle all of the behind-the-scenes paperwork junk, hiring, finances, etc. No one ever sees them, and no one really wants to.

I never knew that I was concerned about my place in the hierarchy until a couple of days ago. A woman walked by me, and I just assumed that she was an Exhibits Tech or something. See, we all wear matching COSI shirts. We Guest Services people wear white ones, but everyone else wears assorted colours. So, I was talking to this woman about COSI things in general, and we got along smashingly. Later, I saw her walking around with a trash can, though, and my whole perception of her changed. I must be much more snobbish than I think I am, but it seems like the different levels of the hierarchy don't hang out. Oh, another COSI rule that I found out during my orientation on Tuesday killed me. You know Mystery Boy from Adventure? Well, I believe that he's a volunteer, which means that I'm not allowed to hang out with him outside of COSI. I had no idea that this was the case, but apparently, COSI doesn't want any kind of weird harassment or legality issues coming up, so no fraternisation is allowed between paid staff and teen volunteers. So, even though I'm probably less than a year older than him, if he's a volunteer, I'm not allowed to date him or anything. So, it looks like I'm going to have to find out a bit more about him before I make any sort of move.

All right, so back to Day 6. Nick and I were assigned to the roving positions, which means that we just walk around the learning worlds and make sure that everything's going all right, that no one needs any help. As soon as Ray told us that we were rovers, we both grabbed our walkie-talkies and headed out in opposite directions. It was still before opening time, so there was absolutely no one in the building except for the team members and volunteers. I went to I/O, the computer-based area, and made some digital pottery for a while. I then went upstairs, but no one was in Square Wheels or Raise the Roof, so I just went to the landing above City View to hang out. City View has a giant outside patio area where you can look out over the city, a bunch of random stuff from the old COSI building that helps to tell the history of COSI, and a pendulum, the main attraction. The pendulum is surrounded by a ring of steel balls, and it hits one of the balls every 15 minutes, knocking them onto three stair-step blocks below. As the balls hit each block, they make a different sound. The place is very isolated and extremely quiet, so the sound of the balls hitting the blocks echoes all over the room. I love it up there. So, I stood on the landing for a while and watched the pendulum until I realised that I was doing absolutely nothing and getting paid for it. So, I walked down to the actual City View floor to keep myself busy until 9:15, when the next ball would fall.

I got too antsy after a while, so I left to do some more roving. I walked by Adventure and stared wistfully at it. See, at orientation, I was told that no one wearing a COSI uniform is allowed inside except during an emergency, because COSI wants the area to be filled with only costumed actors to make it seem more realistically Indiana Jones-like. I saw Nick a little ways down the hall and wondered if he would talk to me or escape me by going upstairs. He stopped to get a drink, and I assumed that he would drink just long enough to let me pass so that he could avoid me, but in reality, he continued down the hallway after taking a quick sip. He smiled when I caught his eye, and I told him that it was killing me not being able to go into Adventure. He said that he had never actually been through the maze part of it, but he had done a walk-through when he was working Safety Services one night. I told him that it freaks me out even in the day when the place is full of people, so I couldn't imagine doing it alone in the dark. He said that Adventure doesn't even compare to the talking giraffe in Little Kidspace. "The talking giraffe?" I asked. "The talking giraffe," he replied. Apparently, there's a giraffe up there who demands, "Come here. Let me measure your height," to all of the little kids. That and the televisions at the Box Office that play a commercial that says, "Join Omar Sharif and from The Secret Garden, Kate Maberly, as they explore THE MYSTERIES OF EGYPT" are the only sounds at COSI during the night. But Nick is a MAN; he can handle it. So, as he was telling me this, he had started walking with me. And when the story was over, he kept walking with me.

And he kept walking with me still. We walked past the Guest Services Desk to the other side of COSI and went in I/O. I showed him the spin movies that allow you to see things as fast or as slow as you want them to and backward or forward, depending on your preference. We sat and rode movie roller coasters together for a while until we got to the water droplet falling from the sky. It's my favourite movie clip, and I told him so. I think Nick likes how much I love COSI, how I approach everything with the wonder of someone who's never seen it before. Either that or I'm interpreting his look completely wrong and he actually thinks that I'm a total psycho. On our way to Ocean, he asked me where I'm going to school, and I explained the whole OSU, biology, pre-medicine bit. He asked me what I want to do with my life and actually knew what I was talking about when I said "anesthesiology". He's going to Columbus State for law enforcement. This is probably just more of my snobbery coming out, but I tend to look down on community colleges. But somehow, Nick seems like the perfect law enforcer, and I told him so. It made him smile.

Ocean is my absolute favourite place in COSI. It just fascinates me, and I can't get enough of it. Just walking underneath the big piece of driftwood that marks the entrance gets me all excited. It's really dark inside, lit only by some blue and purple swirly lights that make it seems watery, the effect completed with the sound of ocean waves. Nick told me that it scares a lot of people to go in there as we headed off to the right to see the fish. We walked past the submerged submarine in a pit of bubbling water to the room with the tanks. He went to one side of the first tank and I went to the other. I felt the fish tank scene from the remake of Romeo and Juliet ensuing. He came over to my side of the tank and tapped on the glass as he told me that he often wonders if the fish are studying us even more than we're studying them. As he led me to the other tanks, I told him that I want to have a house with a whole fish tank wall. We went back out to the room with the sub, and Nick told me that it used to sit in the parking lot of the old COSI and no one even cared about it, but now that it's inside the new COSI, kids flock to it and wait in line to get inside of it. He wanted to know what's so cool about it, so he went around to the steps leading down to it and took a look inside. He said that it was oh-so-exciting. We then walked upstairs to Life. Nick climbs stairs at the same speed I do. He has really, really long legs and should climb at a superhuman speed, but he doesn't. Or else he does and he's just polite to a weakling girl. I would expect that from him.

When we got up to Life, I asked him what his favourite part of COSI is, and he said that he didn't really know. I told him that no one just doesn't know, so he thought for a second and decided on City View. I was surprised and explained that no one likes City View, but he said that he likes how quiet it is up there, that the sound of the dropping balls relaxes him. After we looked at the stages of fetuses encased in glass and debated about whether "feti" is a word, he told me that he had never aged himself on the "this is what you'll look like when you're 80" computer, so we went over to a computer, and he lined himself up in front of the web cam-ish device and waited for his picture to be taken. He kept looking off to the side of the screen to see what I was doing beside him, which I thought was extremely cute, since I could see his eyes in the computer screen. When he was horrified at how he will look when he's older, I took Nick over to the metal poetry wall. The wall is covered in those little magnetic strips with words printed on them, and people construct sentences using them all day long. I wrote "the frog is", and Nick added the word "love". I added "ingratiating" before his "love", but he didn't know what "ingratiating" means. But that was okay, because it didn't make sense anyway, and because I couldn't remember what his "fecund" meant. We then went into the echo-free room and clapped. The echo-free room is a dark, little area in the back of Life that has these panels on the wall that absorbs all of the sound. When you clap or talk or anything, it sounds hollow. I love it in there. Our roving time together was over then, so I dropped him off at Little Kidspace while I went downstairs to rove on my own.

I walked around for a while, and on my second trip around the building, I neared the Little Kidspace Desk. Nick peered around a sign and saw me coming, and he got that whole readying attitude about him. I stopped to talk for a second, and he asked to see my schedule. I asked him where Sunspot is, and he said that COSI actually changed Sunspot's name, because people kept thinking that it was something really cool, when in fact, it's just an empty room where people can go to eat lunch. I told him about my first trip to the new COSI with Sheena and how we went to Sunspot first, thinking that it was going to be something really cool. Later, I went downstairs to be a checkpoint chick. Nick was supposed to be roving, but he came down to the Desk and took over someone else's job so that they could eat lunch or something. My checkpoint was close to the desk, and I noticed that he was glancing over at me while I checked people's Tech Passes. He seemed to be acting really weird, and I couldn't decide why. Nick kept walking over to the edge of the Desk nearest me and glancing still through the branches of a potted tree that's kept there. As soon as I would look at him, though, he would smile and walk away. It was incredibly maddening. Finally, when no one came to the desk for a while, he picked up his walkie-talkie and walked over to my checkpoint. I was astonished at his abandoning of his Desk and promised him that the throngs would now be surrounding it at any second. He told me that if they did, he would run back and jump over it to aid them. I told him that I didn't know what I would do if he did, and he said, "Well, at least it'll impress you." I laughed as he stood by me for a second and waited while I gave a family some directions and checked their tickets. Then, I looked over at him expectantly, and he said, "Do you have any plans for lunch?" I simply said, "No, I don't," as if I didn't know what was coming. He then asked, "Would you like me to show you where City Center is?" See, everyone asks where City Center Mall is, and I have no idea how to get there from COSI, and he knows how inadequate I feel when people need directions that I can't provide. So, I told him that I would love it, he smiled and walked away, and I became absolutely giddy. I had wanted nothing but acceptance from Nick, and now it seemed that I was finally getting it.

A guy named Jacob came and took over my checkpoint job about ten minutes early, so I went to the Desk and sat with Nick. Someone came to relieve him, so we put our walkie-talkies away and went outside. We walked along the riverfront to get there, and as we did, he asked me what year I am in college. I explained that I'm not actually in college yet, which kind of took him by surprise, I think. See, he's 20 years old, which kind of took me by surprise when he told me, since he looks a bit younger than that. He asked me how I found out about the job at COSI and various other little things. He told me that he liked working in Safety Services more than anything, but they had to cut back, and he got fired, being the newest guy and all. I told him about my passion for black Jettas and Focuses. He was incredibly easy to talk to, which is odd since he's so shy. But I like that about him. He's also incredibly polite, holding doors and whatnot. He led me to Sbarro, because he has a passion for pizza, which I happen to share. I told him on the way there that I'm a vegetarian, so as we were waiting in line, he said that he usually gets the meat lover's variety, but that the least he could do for me was to get plain, old pepperoni. It was a nice gesture. It turns out that he's done just about every job at COSI, and he's also had a couple of stints at Tuttle Mall. He asked where I'm living and was surprised that I drive all the way to COSI every day. He assumed that I have an apartment. He lives at home, too, by the way. The salad guy inside Sbarro looked at Nick's nametag and called him by name when asking him if he wanted salad. Nick said that he knew that he should have taken off his tag. The guy didn't call me by my name; he reminded me of Mike's friend Charlie, though. Nick led me outside of Sbarro so that we could sit on some giant carpeted steps in the center of the mall. I asked him if he has ever heard of Guster and told him that I have "I Spy" in my head ceaselessly. He didn't know Guster. Telling him that was actually my trying to probe a little to find out what kind of music he listens to, but he didn't pick up on that, so I had to come out and ask. He told me that he listens to everything, but I explained with an exasperated sigh that "everything" doesn't help me and asked his favourite band. He thought for exactly .228 seconds and answered, "Van Halen." Now, at this point, I was in the middle of chewing on a big hunk of cheese pizza, and my laughing almost made me choke/have a "big spill". Van Halen. I told him that he seems like a Van Halen fan, so he told me that he likes ZZ Top, Stevie Ray Vaughn, the whole bit. I had no idea what to think, because I generally find all of that genre to be incredibly ridiculous. So, I just got my laughs out and accepted it. It turns out that he listens to a lot of good alternative, a lot of the same stuff that I like, and I was surprised (and delighted) to hear that he's as disappointed as I am that one of our local alternative stations was taken over by a classic rock station of sorts. Nick told me that he graduated from Hilliard Darby High School, and I told him that I had been there for a Mock Trial something-or-other, but he told me that Hilliard actually didn't have a Mock Trial program, because if they had, he would have definitely been in it. He finished off my pizza when I couldn't, and we headed back to COSI for our afternoon whatnot.

On the way back, I told him about my friendship with Josh, the boy with the massive, white truck, because Nick was a Boy Scout with Josh back in the day. I told Nick about eating lunch with Josh's mom my first day at work and telling her that Nick hated me. He laughed at that but never really told me that he didn't hate me. He mentioned that Josh's older brother had come in to COSI days earlier, and I told him that a guy who Tracey used to date had come along. We had been talking about movies earlier. Actually, I swore that he was going to ask me to go to a movie with him. I'm usually pretty good about picking up vibes, and when he asked me what the last movie I had seen was, I saw a date proposition coming up. But it didn't, dang it. He just wanted to talk about Gone in 60 Seconds and how Nicholas Cage is his favourite actor. Kevin Spacey is mine, but Nick hasn't seen American Beauty yet. So, I told him that I'm in love with Harmony Korine's work and adore Gummo, but he didn't seem too impressed with the thought of big-headed midgets and bacon taped to walls. Nick is the kind of normal guy who could balance me out, I suppose. I told him that Labyrinth is actually my favourite movie ever and asked if he has seen it. He said that he's seen parts, so I went into a little David Bowie in tight pants-loving monologue. Then, he told me that he can actually do the crystal ball work that Bowie does in the movie, and he even has his own crystal ball to do it with. Now, if that isn't impressive, I don't know what is. We passed a little homeless guy who was spinning around in circles along the side of the road while looking up at the sky. I told Nick that the little dancing man had just made my day, and he said that the guy is named Dancin' Bob. Evidently, Dancin' Bob just sits along the road, dancing and talking to those who pass by him. I told Nick about Dancin' Bill, a kid at my school who always danced around the halls for no apparent reason. Nick liked that. It then began to rain, so he whipped out his Safety Services keys and told me that he would show me a shortcut around to the back door. The door was already open, and I think that it made him feel like less of a man not having to use his keys to get us inside. He led me around through the back, and we passed the other Nick, who I haven't worked with since my first day. He said hello to Nick and started talking to him about something while looking at me, but he never actually said anything directed toward me. I told my Nick that the other Nick hates me almost as much as my Nick did for a while, and my Nick said, "I never hated you!" So that made me feel better. I followed him to the front desk and handed me my walkie-talkie, and then it was over. I thanked him for a great lunch, and I left to go roving.

I was at the Desk later, listening to a man complain to Ray about his kids not being admitted to Little Kidspace, when Nick walked over. He just came and stood and stared. I love the way that he looks at me, actually. I promised myself a while back that I'm not going to love blue eyes anymore, but his are irresistible. Extremely light and wonderfully clear. He had been roving for an hour, and he was bored, so he just stood by the Desk for a bit. He told me that he planned to steal a kid if none got lost anytime soon. That made me laugh. Ray asked me to go take over Jacob's checkpoint, so I did. Nick came by, told me that he was going to go out to the Big Science Park to play on the kiddie rides, and asked when I would be roving the next time. I was secretly hoping that we could rove together at 3, and just as I was about to leave my checkpoint, I saw him come walking toward me. My first thought was, "Wow, he came to meet me." But then a rather trashy chick intercepted him, and he stopped to talk. I didn't want to intrude, so I walked past them and went upstairs to start my roving. I walked through Square Wheels and Raise the Roof and desperately wanted to run into Nick, but I didn't. I gave up and started back toward Life, when all of the sudden, he rounded the corner. I pretended not to notice him, of course, and I walked past him as he stopped to answer someone's question. He kind of brushed the person off and caught up with me as I was going into Life. I told him that my back hurt and that I planned on sleeping on one of the Life couches, so he followed me over to one of them and tried to look occupied as I tried to get comfortable. Nick said that at least one of us had to stand up and look helpful, but the urge to sit down and relax overcame him, so he sat on the couch next to mine. I got up to play with an exhibit, and he followed me. He told me to put on a pair of headphones and listen to myself getting a haircut. He told me to lean back and close my eyes, so I did, and I could hear the sound of the barber breathing in my ear as the scissors went around my head. I opened my eyes to ask Nick a question, and another piece of slutty white trash was busy flirting with him. It kind of amused me, because she was a totally different kind of person than I am, meaning that she looked rather unintelligent and didn't seem to mind that she looked horribly wretched. (There's a difference between beautiful girls in slutty clothes and trash in slutty clothes, I firmly believe.) So, I watched him talk to her and watched her fawn all over him for a while until I was done getting my hair cut. Then, I got up and walked away to wander through the rest of the learning world, so Nick said good-bye to the other girl and followed me. Actually, the girl was from the Box Office, and she asked if he would be working the next day, to which he replied, "Only if you are." I couldn't believe that he could possibly flirt with that . . . trash . . . with me standing there. But whatever. So, we made our baby next. (Yes, that came out exactly how I wanted it to, Bethany.) Actually, there's an exhibit inside of Life that allows two people to sit facing each other with some sort of altered glass panel in front of them. When the people line their faces up correctly and turn on some overhead lights, their features blend together to show them what their baby might look like. Well, we did that, and wow, we're going to have a good-looking baby. He has curly hair, too, though, so I'm going to feel sorry for the kid when it comes to that. Whoa, did anyone else just realise that I said, " . . . we're going to have a good-looking baby," as if we're actually going to have a baby? Yeah, totally done on purpose. Anyway, he led me back to the back of Life and showed me a wrecked car with a sign that talked about how two of the people in car died because the emergency brake was accidentally engaged, and the car smashed into a tree or something. The sign also said that the two would have lived if the brake had only been engaged a sixteenth of a second later. The exhibit was asking whether you believe in fate or random occurrences. I was trying to decide, so on our way out of the learning world, I asked Nick if he's a Christian, he said yes, and then he asked if I am. I didn't expect him to say yes, but he did, and I was impressed. He asked what denomination I am, and when I told him that I'm Methodist, he told me that he's Catholic. Catholic. I told him about all of the Catholic-haters in my town, which made him a little uneasy, I think.

We went to City View, because I was dying to see a ball drop, and Nick had already seen two. We waited for a minute, but I was too impatient, so we went back to the display of exhibits from the old COSI, and Nick pointed out to me where each one came from. He showed me the door to the old coal mine that he had carried over on his shoulders to the new COSI when they had their moving parade, and I marveled at his brute strength. Then, it was time for me to go supervise Little Kidspace, so he walked me to the elevator and continued with his roving. A bit later, he came up to the Little Kidspace Desk and told me that he was bored again. Actually, he just came and stood there for a minute and looked at me. So, I lifted my head and looked at him. I feel like he gets lost in me for a moment every time he looks at me, which feels really good. (Or maybe I'm the one getting lost. Either way, I like it.) Then, he seemed to come back from wherever he was and said, "Entertain me." I replied, "I don't think that this is the appropriate place. Meet me in the echo-free room in Life a litter later." Now that made him smile. But alas, I had to remain at Little Kidspace, so I cleared off the Desk and told him to come sit down. I pulled a yo-yo out of the Desk drawer and told him that I had never mastered the fine art of yo-yo-ing, but of course, he had. So, he got up from the front of the Desk and showed off all of his skills. He said that he taught himself to yo-yo when he worked in the COSI gift shop and had nothing to do. Talk about insane useless talent. He asked to see what I could do, so I quickly put the yo-yo away as he swung his legs over the Desk. He spun me around in my desk chair with his feet as I babbled about kids and hockey and soccer. Then, someone found a lost kid and described his parents over the walkie-talkies, so Nick left to hunt for the parents. He didn't come back for a long time, but when he did, he came back with Jen, who had also been looking for the parents. I was looking through a Columbus city guide, so only heard bits and pieces of their conversation, but they were talking about college. Jen is a sophomore or junior, so she and Nick are kind of on the same path right now. I felt really jealous, which is an emotion that I don't usually feel. I mean, they included me in their conversation and asked what kind of classes I plan to take this Fall and everything, but still, I felt really young and inexperienced sitting there in between them. They had to leave to make the closing announcements, so I just hung out with the Little Kidspace worker chicks until closing time. Mary, the synchronised swimming chick, and I have been getting along really well and going to see movies and stuff together, but she came up to Little Kidspace with a new guy named Travis, and she seemed really distant. I didn't know if it was because I had basically abandoned her all day or if she just wasn't being herself because Travis was there. So that was weird.

I didn't see Nick after that. He was going to class right after work and cut out a little early, so I didn't really get to talk to him about whatever is going on with us. I can't decide if I did something suddenly to make him like me of if he liked me all along and was just too shy to say anything. Or maybe he doesn't actually want me at all, and he was merely being friendly. But he had never once even passed by me when we worked together before, and all of the sudden, he was actually seeking me out to talk and walk together. I wonder if we could ever work out. I mean, he looks at me like no one else has, but at the same time, all of the girls at COSI love him, and even if he doesn't seem interested in them, I don't know if I could handle him talking with trash all day while he's with me. I need to stop analysing and just let things happen. I work with him on Saturday, so I suppose that we'll just see, won't we?

June 24th, 2000: So, today was my third day of work. And what a day it was. I woke up at five, which automatically should have told me that it would be a rather bad/interesting day. See, whenever I know that I have to get up and go somewhere the next morning, I don't sleep. I toss and turn and think that every single sound is my dad calling up the stairs to my room to tell me that I forgot to set my alarm. But it never is. It's always my retarded cat or my air conditioner or my piles of stuff cascading to the floor. And that means that I waste entire nights worrying. (Just like I've wasted my entire life worrying.) So, at 2:48 A.M., I was ready to get up, but I rolled around for a while and had dreams about Jonathan in the back of my friend Josh's big, white truck. Someone once scratched the word DIE into the passenger-side door of Josh's big, white truck. So, that's cool. At 4:58 A.M., I couldn't take it anymore, and I got up. I decided to leave for COSI at 7:45 A.M., so I actually started heading for the van at 7:50 A.M., thinking that I would still be able to leave at 7:45 A.M., which makes perfect sense if you think about it. As I was settling back for my drive to work, not yet really consumed with the fact that I was most assuredly going to have to drive 70 MPH all the way to Columbus, I realised that I had forgotten to brush my teeth. So, I hopped out of my seat and ran inside. I had to work around my lipstick, which is always a load of work, but I finally left my house a few minutes later and cruised to Columbus. I was feeling good at that point, although a bit-absent-minded. When I arrived at COSI, I pulled into the staff parking lot as I always do and checked my lipstick as I always do. Everything was normal. So, I hopped out of the van with my COSI I.D., my lipstick (for after-lunch touch-ups), a brand new pack of gum, my COSI keys (get this - they gave me keys on my first day), and my lunch money. I pocketed them one by one and marveled at how my pants weren't as weighted down as they usually are. Then, I realised why. I had left my keys in the van. Well, of course I wouldn't have locked the keys in there, right? So, I tried the door. And then the passenger door. And then the sliding door. And then I stamped my foot on the ground.

When I got inside, Moon was sitting on a bench, reading a book. I sat down beside her, and she closed her book while I launched into my story. Moon is incredibly sympathetic to everyone, so she offered stories about her mom locking the keys inside of her running car, so I didn't feel as bad. During the morning meeting, I kind of forgot about the whole key thing, thanks to Moon. She asked if I had ever seen the play Fortitude, and I told her about my second trip to COSI when I first laid my eyes on beautiful Todd as he greeted Tracey and me in the doorway to the room where the play was being performed. She laughed hysterically at that, while I tried to decide if she's the type of person who falls madly in love with people like I tend to. Later, Ted told us that Jeff Gordon's racecar was going to be on display for the day, so we were supposed to invite people to touch it, sit in it, have their pictures taken with it. Well, that whole idea just made Moom go crazy. We laughed; Ted stared; Moon was embarrassed.

When we all gathered around the Guest Services Desk later to review the day's schedule, Moon told Ted to allow some time for her to take me to touch the car, which set her off again. Love that girl, I do. In the middle of the morning, I was a checkpoint person for two hours, which made me very happy. There was absolutely no one in the building, so I was entertaining myself by singing Elliott Smith with just the right amount of volume so that people could hear it but wouldn't really think anything about it. This kid who I imagined to be about 12 went past me and flashed his Tech Pass. Then, he came back out of the exhibit areas and flashed it again, which is totally unnecessary when leaving. Then, he came back in again, and we laughed. And then he went back out again. We laughed more. And he went back in. He asked me my name. And then he went back out again. This happened an unbelievable amount of times. Then, he stopped one time and asked me if he was allowed to leave the building to smoke. I realised that he was probably more like 16 or 17, and I wondered why I hadn't noticed it before. I told him that he couldn't smoke in front of the building but that we had a special smoker's area in the back. He disappeared for a while after that, but then I saw him come in the front door again. He came over to talk, and I asked if he had gone out front to smoke. He told me that he did, and I chastised him for blatantly disregarding my authority. He evidently thought that I was serious and didn't come by to see me for the rest of the day. I felt kind of bad about the whole situation.

I went back to the Desk and asked a chick named Leslie if she knew someone in the building who could get my car unlocked. Leslie doesn't look like someone I would get along with, but I soon found out that she's not at all how she appears to be (i.e. she's not really a dumb blonde). She called Safety Services for me, and I went outside to meet a Columbus cop who was already busy attempting to break into the van. I tried to offer advice and provide a cheering section but to no avail. He told me after ten minutes that it had become a personal challenge, a test of his manhood, so he would continue to work on it if I wanted to go back to work. I did, but alas, I saw him leaving a while later. I started panicking a bit. I'm a big panicker when the opportunity arises. So, I went upstairs and called Joanie. She offered no condolences. In fact, she called me an idiot and told me that she hoped that Dad wouldn't come get me. Well, Dad couldn't come get me, so I panicked more. I called Gladys, but she wasn't home. Joanie called my aunts and uncles and grandparents, but all of them had already gone to the Fair for the hog sale and couldn't be reached. So, I called Mike. I knew that in the off chance that I could actually get ahold of Mike that I would be taking him away from his day off of work, but I really didn't know what else to do. So, I called his house, and his sister told me that he was at Jonathan's. So, I called Jon, who let me talk to Mike. I apologised for calling him and all that, and explained that I was stuck at COSI and had absolutely no way home. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I totally almost started crying. It's not like I actually believed that my family or my co-workers or anyone else would ever abandon me at COSI, but something just set me off, and I swore that I was going to cry. I definitely didn't want to cry, though, so I attempted not to, which didn't work well (i.e. at all). I knew that Mike had to have been able to tell that I was, which made the whole deal worse, especially when he told me that he was going to Cleveland and wouldn't be around to pick me up. So, I thanked him and panicked more.

Nick had come in for work at that point, and I knew that flirting with him would make me feel better, so I went to the front desk, told him that he looked ever-so-sexy in his glasses, and asked to borrow a pen. He handed it over, and I told him that I would return shortly with just enough . . . something . . . in my voice that he would wonder what I had in mind for that pen of his. I returned later after writing part of this story down during my lunch break, thanked him coyly (I'm the queen of coy, you know), and told him that I had an ever-so-important question for him. I could tell that he was at least a little intrigued, so I asked where he lives. He then became very intrigued and told me that he lives in Hilliard, which made me totally out of his way. I told him that and explained my problem but told him not to fear, that I would find a way home. Nick told me that his car is in the shop to try to make me feel better. I told him that it did, but it didn't at all. But I found my ride just a few minutes later. A ride with Gladys, in fact. I was happy. Quite happy.

I then hopped on over to Gallery 1 to be the NASCAR chick, which meant that I stood in the doorway to the Gallery as my beloved Todd had once done and clicked a little, metal tally machine every time someone went in to see the car. The girl before me hadn't coaxed people into coming inside for a view, but I couldn't help but try. I should be a telemarketer or something. So, I was really getting into my hostess role, and I wanted to see if anyone was coming down the hallway, so I peered past the giant cardboard cut-out of Jeff Gordon opening up a Pepsi that had obviously been shaken excessively. When I did, I saw none other than the fourth COSI guy who I've fallen in love with. Let's go over this. There's Todd, the volunteer coordinator. There's John, the Safety Services officer with the billy club. There's Old Nick, the Guest Services boy (who will be known as Nick S. from now on, by the way). Then, there's this mystery boy. My second day at COSI, I felt someone staring at me at the morning meeting, so I looked around. When I looked his way, I realised that he was rather immersed in me. He smiled and nodded, and well, he didn't really look like the rapist type, so I smiled back. Well, since then, I've been in love with him, and he's constantly walking around with some of the volunteer kids (although I'm not sure if he's a volunteer or not), so he's very accessible, and we talk quite a bit. Odd that I don't know his name still. I do know that he works in Adventure, an Indiana Jones-esque treasure hunt of sorts. The place is all dark and creepy, and all of the people who work in that specific Learning World are actors who get to choose a character. He plays an Australian, which is hotter than the Georgia pavement, if you know what I mean. So, anyway, I saw him heading away from Adventure and toward me, so I did my usual pretending not to notice him so that he would have to say hi to me first. And he did, of course, so I asked him if he wanted to go in and touch the car with me, but alas, he had seen it already. So, he asked how many people had gone into see it, and I looked down at my tallying thing and told him that 650 people had gone in. He was impressed, so I had to take all of the credit and tell him that they had gone in only because of me. He then reminded me that I had only been working at the NASCAR exhibit for 39 minutes, which burst my little bubble but let me know that he was in fact, acting the part of my stalker at the moment. He left, and I was giddy until Nick came by. I clicked him in on my tallier and told him that I hadn't even been in to see my beloved car yet. Mystery Boy came back by the other way with some other guy, and when I looked up, he waved, smiled, and said hello in some weird voice that either meant that he knows that I'm always waiting for him to make the first move and is getting tired of it or that he's desperately in love with me and was just showing me how incredibly adorable he is. Either way, when he asked, I told him that "765 adoring fans" had been in to see the car, and he and the other guy kind of chuckled. I then realised that I hadn't even so much as glanced at the guy with him. I always promised myself that I would never be one of those girls. Looks like I lied.

So, as if locking my keys in my car wasn't stupid enough, I had to go and do a couple of other things that made me question exactly how gay I really am. (Sorry, Matt.) First, at about 4 o'clock, I walked back to the NASCAR thing to touch the car. Nick came strolling toward me, and I said, "Hey, I'm finally going see my beloved car." However, he informed me that the car had been taken away an hour earlier, had been loaded on a truck and hauled off before I had even gotten to see it. I stamped my foot on the ground and whined. I stamped my foot on the ground. I was like a two year-old throwing a tantrum. It was the second time that I had done it, the first being when I discovered my imprisoned keys. After I did it, I stopped and looked at my foot as if it wasn't really a part of my body, and Nick cleared his throat and said, "Umm . . . yes," in his almost-English-sounding voice. I felt weird. So, to make things better, I stood at a checkpoint for a bit just for fun. One of the actors from Fortitude walked by in costume and smiled. I smiled back and was about to let him pass, but just as he was going by, I reached out and touched his shoulder. I don't know what I was thinking, but I just kind of did it. I apparently meant to do it, too, because when he stopped and turned around, I kind of pointed at his costume and said, "You're really good, you know that?" Then, I stopped, thought for a second, and said, "What did I just say? That wasn't even me." He evidently understood and thanked me a couple of times and asked when I had seen the show. I couldn't really even talk to him, because I was so confused by what had just happened. "You're really good, you know that?"? First, that's not the kind of thing you say/ask to someone who has been acting his entire life. Second, it was just plain dumb sentence structure. But I did it all the same, and now I can't even talk to him without remembering that and wondering what had come over me. Yick.

Finally, Gladys came and picked me up at the end of the day. Notice that Tracey did not come with her. Just Gladys came. Tracey actually made plans to go out with Samantha. I think that tells me all I need to know right there.

June 21st, 2000: On my second day of work, I walked inside and noticed that only Old Nick was at the Desk. I kind of dreaded being there alone with him what with his fairly obvious dislike of me and all, but I walked over and "Good morning"ed him anyway. He was in the middle of reading something, which gave him a total out, but he put down his material and actually talked to me. A girl named Jen walked over and got behind the Desk with us to go through the money box that we keep for refunds. I had kind of avoided Jen the day before, because she seemed way too confident with her place in the Guest Services family, and I didn't want her belittling me on my first day. But when she set the money box out on the counter, she turned to me and mentioned the fact that we hadn't been able to talk the day before. She turned out to be just as great as Johanna, and she kind of took me under her wing for the rest of the day.

When it was time for the morning meeting, I walked with Jen and Nick, and Nick said something about a woman who had been totally irate after seeing Fortitude the day before. Apparently, she was upset that a woman shoots herself at the end of the play. Now, the whole thing is incredibly dark, and I can see someone getting a little upset about it, but this woman was out of control. So, when Nick was done talking about it, I said, "Hey, what do you expect? It was written by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., for God's sake." Then, I realised that I just managed to totally alienate myself yet again, because Jen and Nick clearly haven't read any of Vonnegut's stuff. But they kind of chuckled anyway to make me feel good as we all sat down a couple of seats away from Todd, the love of my life. I noticed him watching me while I was watching everyone else, and darn it, I want to love him, but well, who knows where he lives or how old he is or if he has hairy feet or if he's heard of Guster or even if he wants marble flooring in our first home. So, we'll just have to wait and see how that goes.

After that, it was time for more "training", so after staring at Ted's porn for an hour or so, he released me to go try my hand at everything. My first job was to be a checkpoint person, which quickly became my favourite job. COSI's tickets are called Tech Passes, and my job was to stand at the North checkpoint and make everyone show me their Tech Passes as they entered the North wing of the first floor. Now, this sounds like a very insignificant task, but as trivial as it is, I love it. It gives me a chance to talk to absolutely everyone who comes through the place, which I love. I'm a total people person, and I feel like I'm the hostess of a party with a never-ending stream of guests when I'm a checkpoint person. I think I make COSI visitors comfortable, because all I do is smile. It's not even a fake smile, either. I just love it so much there, and it comes naturally. I suppose I have Mom to thank for that. Well, anyway, during my second hour of that, a security guard came down the hall toward me, and I greeted him, of course. He stopped in front of me and asked if I was new, while doing that whole totally sure of himself head-nodding thing that guys do constantly when talking to girls. I told him that I'm Katie. He said, "Katie. Katie. Katie," as if he was seeing if his voicebox approved of my name or something. He was John. I didn't say, "John. John. John." I don't care what my voicebox thinks of him. See, John happens to be gorgeous. (I know that I'm going on about the guys at this place, but I haven't seen so many smart, good-looking ones all in one place. I also just graduated, which means that I've been stuck with high school boys for the last four years, middle school boys for three years before that, and elementary school boys with cooties for five years before that.) So, John is probably around 22. He's tall. He's blonde. He's HOT. John told me that he's not going to be a security guard in two weeks, that he had just put in his two-week notice that day. I told him that that's a darn shame, because I'm not even going to be working again until June 24th. John explained that our love affair would merely have to be cut short. I was really okay with anything that I could get from him at that point. One of John's friends came over to talk and John warned me not to get used by the guy while whipping out his billy club. John is perfect. Except, John is a boob-starer. You know the type. Can't focus on anything else. I guess I'm kind of used to it by now, but I had to reach out and lift his chin with my finger at one point to redirect his attention. I'm sure that he was just admiring my fine COSI shirt, though.

I felt good. But not for long. I went downstairs to the Desk, and Ted mentioned that a girl named Moon was going to be coming in to work. He explained that Moon has been a volunteer for three years, so she's familiar with the place. When she came in, she totally intimidated me with her knowledge and the fact that Old Nick loves her. I wanted Old Nick to like me so badly, and I have no idea why. But Moon actually turned out to be the nicest person I had met yet, which I should have assumed would be the case from the start. It was at this point that I stuck my foot in my mouth. Now, I've always been told that my feet are small, but when that thing went in my mouth, I felt like I was suffocating. See, a kid named Sam got separated from her parents, and it was my job to locate them. I couldn't tell for the life of me that Sam was a girl, though, so I found her parents and told them that their son was sitting at the Guest Services Desk, crying. They were visibly offended, but what could I do? It's certainly not my fault that they had their kid's hair cut far too short.

A bit later, I went for my first lunch at COSI. The café is extremely vegetarian-friendly, so I sat down with a little box of cheese pizza and watched all of the people around me. The box had a big label on it that said "ASK FOR A FRESH PRODUCT AFTER 1:42 PM", followed by about six "CHEESE"s, so I took that off and stuck it on my shirt. I knew that it probably wasn't a good idea, but I did it anyway. When I finished eating, my friend Josh's mom came over to ask me how I liked working. (Josh's mom works in the gift shop at COSI.) She had said hello to Old Nick and me earlier in the day while we were at the desk, so after we discussed my time at OSU and Josh's inability to decide between going to college for music or for acting, she asked me how I liked Old Nick. I told her that what I think of him is of no importance, because he's set on hating me. She laughed and said not to worry, because Nick hates everyone, which strangely made me feel better. She told me to open up to him and he would open up to me. I took her advice a little later. After that, I was a rover, which means that I just walked around the exhibits and helped anyone who needed helping. This is also an ideal job, because it lets you play with all of the stuff without feeling the least bit guilty. As I was roving on the Mezzanine (a.k.a. the second floor), I passed Old Nick's ticket desk and said hello to him. He smiled and said hello back. At that point, I knew that I had finally been able to take him over with my mind control.

I was definitely right about the cheese nametag. For the rest of the day, all of the visitors and staff members laughed about my supposed creativity and remarked about how it was after 1:42 and I was getting a bit stale. They all acted as if I was the most clever person they had ever met. I acted as if they were even more clever. I went back to the Desk to try my hand at that, which should have been a mistake but actually wasn't in the end. See, the desk people have to be extremely knowledgeable about COSI, which I am not. But a guy came over with his girlfriend and asked me a question. And lo and behold, I was able to answer it. I noticed that the girl kissed the guy's shoulder while I was talking to him, which kind of made me think that she was staking her claim, marking her territory, if you will. It freaked me out. Well, after that, the couple latched on to me. Every time they had a question, they would seek me out and interrupt whatever I was doing to find an answer. Luckily, they were horrid map-readers, and I knew where everything in the building was, so I was able to look incredibly smart. At 4, an hour before we close, Ted asked me if I wanted to go see one of COSI's movies, so I went to "Africa - The Serengeti". That was good stuff, let me tell you. I loved listening to all of the parents lie to their kids during the movie. The kids would get all teary-eyed when one of the lions killed a wildebeest or something, so all of the parents would quietly explain that the lion was merely giving the wildebeest a good neck bath, that the lion's teeth weren't really penetrating the wildebeest's neck and that blood really wasn't gushing out of the thing. The mass-mating scene was also a winner. Sex? No, no. They're dancing. Fiction is where genius lies, clearly.

When that was over, I went back out to the desk to listen to the complainers. They all come in at the end of the day, apparently, so it's a good show. One woman decided to fill out a comment card, and she wrote, "This was a waste of my time and money. Quite frankly, this place sucks." I loved it. especially since the next person came in and wrote, "I live near the Smithsonian and visit quite frequently, and I found COSI just as enjoyable." Great stuff. After talking to Moon and Old Nick for a bit, I asked Nick if he had ever seen The Sixth Sense. I told him that he looks exactly like the kid in that movie will look when he's 18. He's even got the eyes and the smile. Such a cutie. Moon got really freaked out, though, because she's hadn't noticed it until I pointed it out. I like it, though. I like the way his eyes crinkle up when he smiles, especially. Enough of that. So, Nick let me do the end of the day announcement over the intercom to make everyone get out. It made me feel like one of the family. Yes, COSI is good.

June 18th, 2000: So, I took the job at COSI as planned. When a woman from Gap Inc. Direct called and told me that she was prepared to offer me a job, I displayed an incredible amount of faux sorrow and explained that I had accepted another job only a few days earlier. It made me feel incredibly powerful. Even as I was driving to my first day of training on Friday morning, though, I was still feeling torn about my decision. I would make almost two dollars more at the Gap. I would work with some of my friends. It would be a nicer drive to work. Tim would be there. (Gosh, I should have never gone to check him out at my interview.) But I shoved that all to the back of my mind and pulled into the staff parking lot, which made me feel good. When I walked in the door, a security guard greeted a staff member ahead of me and then asked if he had ever met me before. I explained that it was my first day, so he introduced himself to me and tried to help me find Ted, the Guest Services Coordinator who would be training me. Ted was nowhere to be seen, so the guard led me to a bench and wished me luck. Random COSI workers walked by my bench, and I said hello to them all, but I felt incredibly out of place, for I had no COSI shirt. All of the other staff members had on green, coral, or white COSI shirts. I had on a cute, little purple shirt that I had pulled out of my closet, but liking my shirt didn't help me look like a COSI worker.

Finally, Ted came out and led me over to the Guest Services desk. A random guy was standing there, as was the guy who had been at the desk the day that I had come in for my interview. Since he had been into me before, I was hoping that he would kind of help me out, introduce me to everyone. But I quickly noticed that he was acting a bit differently than he had that day. When Ted introduced them both as being named Nick, the Nick I had never met shook my hand and said hello, while the other just sort of stood there. It was odd. It was then time for the morning meeting, so I followed Ted and the Nicks to Gallery 1, the meeting place. On our way there, New Nick said something to Old Nick about a Dave Matthews Band concert, and since I'm a Dave fan of sorts, I asked him if he was going to any of the Ohio concerts and told him that I'm going to the one on Tuesday. He turned to glare at me and coldly told me that he's going to shows on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday or something like that. I said, "Wow," which he completely ignored and turned away from me to continue his conversation with Old Nick in a hushed voice. He then led Old Nick away from me to a seat in the back of the Gallery. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I just sat down with a random woman and waited for the meeting to begin. When it did, Ted went down the list of the day's events, and all of the leaders of the exhibits stood up to make announcements about what was going on in their areas. Everyone was crazy nice, clapping for the tiniest achievements and such. It made me feel good just to be there. When the meeting was over, Jim, the guy who called and offered me the COSI interview, came over and scolded Ted for not embarrassing me on my first day. I told him that I'm not easily embarrassed, which somehow led to a conversation about OSU, where he happens to go to college. Jim and I could get along. It's too bad that he works upstairs.

So, I went back out to the Desk and stood around with the Nicks and another random girl who everyone knew except me, of course. Ted went back to his workspace (notice that there are no such things as offices at COSI) to prepare for my training and to get me some COSI shirts, so I waited at the desk and tried to look knowledgeable. I said something to the girl I didn't know, and suddenly, we were best friends. I don't know how it happened, but we have everything in common and she looks exactly like a friend of mine who moved to Florida and she's funny and she thinks I'm funny and boom, we're best friends. It was great. Johanna is her name. Sounds like a song. Anyway, Ted came and got me, and I went to the shirt room. Being part of the Guest Services crew, I get to wear a white shirt, which makes me happy and makes me look tan. So, I went to the bathroom to change, and boy, was I feeling good. Not only do I look fabulous in the shirt, but part of the COSI Look includes black pants. Now, I bought like 800 pairs of black pants for my stint at Subway, and I love each and every pair of them, but I hardly ever get to wear them. But now I get to wear them at COSI. And I look really great in them. But enough of that. I was in the family restroom. Doesn't that freak you out. (A statement, notice.) There are families going to the restroom together somewhere out there. Craziness.

So, I went back and trained with Ted after that. Training actually consisted of him talking to a wall while I listened. I really don't know how someone who can't look people in the eye got to be a Guest Services Coordinator. He handles things well, but I think that he may be completely devoid of all people skills. So, he talked. And talked. About nothing, I swear. He would start off talking about the movies that we show and end up saying, "It's my birthday! I'm allowed to wear my 'Fuck' shirt to COSI!" That was definitely the highlight of my day, I would say. Here I was sitting with this guy who had five different Bibles on his desk, along with random pictures of Christ and prayer verses all along his desk and hanging on his walls, and he actually said, "It's my birthday! I'm allowed to wear my 'Fuck' shirt to COSI!" I think I should probably repeat that for those of you who didn't grasp it, but I'll restrain myself and try not to for the time being. Ted also had seductive pictures of a girl on his wall. Now, he felt compelled to tell me that he has a wife and a daughter, so I would like to assume that the pictures were of his daughter, but if my dad ever took pictures of me like that, I'm hoping that everyone would call him a pervert and label him a sexual predator. She was all up against a tree and . . . ick. I had to stare at them for hours.

When my faux training was due for a break, Ted sent me out to the Desk to see if I could put myself to use. A volunteer named Mary had come in, and wow, she was old. She had 1, 600 hours of volunteering under her belt, if that tells you anything. Well, older people love me, so I chatted with Mary about my future plans and my loooong drive to work and my childhood spent at COSI and my hog project at the fair. Well, she ate it right up, and I was really enjoying my story time with her. That is, until Old Nick came over. He just stared at me while I talked to Mary, and I couldn't decide if he wanted me or if he wanted me to shut up. You'll have that with him, though, I suppose. He left, and Mary and I were laughing about something when the man of every girl's dreams walked up. It wasn't the first time that I had seen him, actually. The first time that Tracey and I went to the museum, we wanted to see a play called Fortitude. So, as we were entering the gallery where it was being performed, a random worker greeted us, and wow, he melted me. So, anyway, the same guy approached the Desk that day. And he melted me again. In the words of one of my favourite authors, he was "a sensational invitation to make babies". Whew. So, Mary, sensing my urgency to drag him to a far corner and have my way with him, introduced me to him. He asked if I was enjoying my first day and if I was a volunteer or if I was a paid staff member. I told him that I adore the museum and that I was being paid. He smiled coyly and said, "That's a shame, Katie. I'm in charge of the volunteers. If you were one of them, we'd be working together." Ouch.

I really didn't know what I was doing at the Desk at all, so I was sent to patrol the exhibits, which was a horrible idea. As I was wandering though all of the learning worlds, people kept stopping me to ask directions. I had a dandy little time making them up as I went along. I had been to the place three times at that point, but I still couldn't keep one floor straight from the others. So, I'm sure that there were countless people walking around, as completely lost as I was. But that's the fun of it. I kept running into Johanna, and wow, I must have made a good impression on her. Either that, or she's a total lesbian who only wants my body. Every time she saw me coming, she would get all smiley and happy. Yeah, definitely a lesbian. But we walked around together, and she made me feel so darn welcome, as if I totally belong there. When my feet got tired, I went back to Ted's workspace for some more "training". Ted has this crazy habit of making up examples for absolutely everything. He can't just tell about a rule and leave it alone. He does crazy voices and gets up and prances around and plays the part of the dissatisfied customer just to make sure that everything is understood. All of this while not so much as glancing at me. At 5, he released me, and I went home to sleep. COSI is tiring.

June 16th, 2000: I'm a total suit person when it comes to interviews, and I love being overdressed everywhere I go, but I knew that absolutely anything that I picked out of my closet would be more formal than what everyone else in the interview would be wearing, so I was a little less concerned about my clothes for the Gap interview than I was for the COSI interview. On the whole, though, I was way more nervous about the Gap thing. I don't know if it was Tim or what, but my stomach was in knots. The strange thing was the fact that it didn't even matter how well I did at the interview, because I was sure that I wasn't going to take the job even if it was offered to me. I arrived about twenty minutes early as I had planned and applied a coat of lipstick just to attempt to clam . . . yes, clam . . . myself down a little. There were so many people there that day that the parking lot was completely full, so I had pulled along the curb and parked in front of a car with a couple of people in it. I had seen them look at me as I passed them, but I didn't think much about that. When I got out of the Mustang, slipped my cell phone into my purse, and double-clicked the "Lock" button on my car remote, thereby making its horn honk as I was walking by the other car, I heard the people inside of it scoff at me. I felt really icky about that. One of the girls in the car got out and followed me inside, and I could just feel her judging me as we entered the building. The door to the place was really weird, and I just couldn't seem to get it open. I asked her if she had any idea how to do it, but she just scoffed at me again as the people inside watched me struggle. It finally came open. I wanted to slam it in Scoff Girl's face. But she actually turned out to be really nice, as we talked as we waited for our interviews. The lobby was full of waiting people, and I amused myself by watching them. Absolutely everyone there was wearing either faded jeans or sweatpants, so I felt a little out of place, but I had expected that. Then, two guys about my age came in and sat down, and wow, were they incredibly good-looking. I mean, you have your cute guys and your decent-looking guys, but these guys could have easily been models. I'm not even one who's attracted to that type, but well, I could barely even keep my mouth closed. Dang.

A guy working at the front desk started calling out people's names to fill out some kind of form, and I discovered that the hottest of the two hots was named Tim, which really has little to no importance in this story. Then, I noticed that I was one of the only ones who didn't have to fill out the form. I thought that it probably had something to do with the interview and that I wouldn't be allowed to have one since I had obtained mine illegally. But they didn't dismiss me even after my name wasn't read, so I was relieved. Scoff Girl was now sitting beside me in the lobby, and she explained that Tim had lost her application two times already, and that it was her third time filling one out for him. So that's what the form was. I was hoping that Tim had mine framed in his office or something, but I'm somehow doubting that as I write this now. A few minutes later, a kind of 30-ish-looking guy came out and leaned on the front desk after a few minutes. I looked up at him and he totally stared at me. Like just a really obvious, "I don't care that you know that I'm staring at you" kind of stare. I was flattered at first, but then I started doubting myself and imagined that he had gone into some kind of open-eyed coma due to the light reflecting off of the diamond in my necklace or something. I think that I may have smiled at him while this was happening, because I just smile at everyone and everything, but I also may have had some sort of confused look on my face as I tried to decide whether he found me attractive or if he was in need of some emergency CPR. Either way, he walked over to the older woman beside me and introduced himself as Tim. My Tim. He looked absolutely nothing like my mind told me he would. But I was pleasantly surprised, as the Tim in my mind intimidated me terribly. So, then I was forced to wonder if he had known what I look like before I came in that day and was judging me while in his supposed open-eyed coma so that he could relay his feelings about me to Jonathan or if he had actually been staring at a small pile of dog tosh that someone had applied to the wall right above me. It was all so horrifically puzzling.

I spent the next ten minutes attempting to form an opinion about him, and I decided that I was definitely a fool for not trying to woo him over the phone weeks before and weeks before that. He seemed incredibly genuine, and he could dress well without appearing to be the least bit gay. I'm sure that he totally knew that I was staring at him as he wandered around, but I didn't care. So, he took us all back to a big conference room for the group interview, and stupid me, I sat all of the way in the back with all of the other crazy totally inexperienced kids. All of the old men knew better and sat right at the head of the table near to the interviewers. I knew that my work was cut out for me. I remembered that I was chewing gum and attempted to swallow it, which I hate to do. It was all stuck in my throat, and I thought that I was slowly suffocating, but no such luck. Tim introduced himself and the three other interviewers and then asked us all to introduce ourselves by answering 5 questions: 1) Our names, 2) What shift we wanted, 3) When we were available, 4) What kind of experiece we have, and 5) Who we would want to be if we were famous. He asked for a volunteer to go first, and everyone just sat there. Call me what you will, but I had the whole situation planned out. It's a habit that I've gotten into, and I've basically got it down to a science. I know before anything begins that I'm going to be the one to go first. I want to be the one to go first, and I do everything in my power to make sure that I am the one to go first. So, I waited until the point that Tim was just about to make someone go first, and I said, "I'll go first," as if I hadn't planned to all along, as if it was just spontaneous volunteering. I don't know why I do it or what I'm hoping to accomplish, but I just have to be the one to go first. So, I told them that I'm Katie. I told them that I want to work the first shift. I told them that I just got out of school, that I'm available at any time, that I'm probably a loser for graduating and actually wanting to go to work. I told them that I have little to no experience (emphasising the "no" part), that I'm a Subway Sandwich Artist, that I'm sure that my sub-making skills will serve me well in the warehouse. I told them that I would gladly be Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy's, if given the chance. I told them that he hadn't even graduated high school, and there he was, filthy rich and famous. I looked around the table at all of their approving smiles and chuckles, but I was mad at myself for saying that. I don't know why I said it. It was the first thing that came to my mind, I suppose. The weird thing about it is the fact that I can't stand Dave Thomas. I find him to be disgusting, even. I wrote a story about despising him on here sometime last year.

Scoff Girl went after me, and as she started talking about being a bank teller, I started thinking about who I would really rather be. I came up with Tiger Woods. I considered John Lennon. I thought about Beck. They all seemed like better choices than Dave Thomas. But it was over with, and I was stuck being Dave. No one else had much good to say, either, save a guy who said that he would like to be Tiger Woods. I said "Cheers" when he told us that, but only Scoff Girl and the boy to the right of me heard me. I was sort of glad; "cheers" isn't generally accepted around here, you know. Another guy wanted to be Michaelanglo, which completely rocked my world, but he looked a little too much like Ben Gillies from silverchair, and that scared me. Another guy looked exactly like one of the guys in N*Sync, which totally freaked me out, but he had years of warehouse experience, so I was pretty sure that it wasn't the same guy. While one of the model men was introducing himself, I was looking at him just as I had looked at everyone else as they had talked. Hot Tim, who was sitting right beside his model friend, evidently thought that I was staring at him and stared back. That's such an uncomfortable situation. I didn't want to look away, because then Hot Tim would think that I was rude, but if I kept staring, then Hot Tim would think that I wanted him. Oh, wait. I did want him. Nothing uncomfortable there.

When we were all done with the introductions, Tim gave us some random questions. The first one was "Attendance: Important or not?" I was the first one to speak, as planned, and I said, "Yeah, like anyone's gonna say that it's not important." People laughed, but I was thinking, "Hey, Katie. Maybe that's not exactly the kind of impression that you want to make." But whatever; it was done. We discussed, and I just loved listening to those people. They all knew that our being hired was based on how well we interacted with other people, so we were all trying to say just the right thing to make Tim like us. (Except for me, of course. I was too busy being cynical yet witty to impress myself.) I decided somewhere along the line that I really liked Tim. When all of the questions were through, we had to go around the table and tell the person to the left of us what he or she did well during the interview. I knew that things had gone wrong when we got to the model men. The first said something about how it would be tough to talk about Hot Tim since the two of them are friends. Then, he launched into an hour-long speech about how they both work at Abercrombie & Fitch, and how Hot Tim's such an incredible guy, and how Hot Tim is such an incredibly hard worker, and how Gap Inc. Direct would be incredibly lucky to have him work for them. He said nothing about Hot Tim's performance during the interview. So no one after him did, either. I wish I remembered what the cutie guy next to me said, because dang, it was nice. I mean, the guy had never even talked to me, and he gave me some of the best compliments that I've heard in quite a while. Of course, he was staring into my eyes while he told me whatever he told me, and well, he had really nice eyes, so that may have had something to do with it. He was also attempting to win himself a job, too, so that also may have had something to do with it. I told Scoff Girl that I dig her because she has as little experience as I do. I'm such a nice person.

So, then it was over. I felt like I had to say a little hello to Tim or something to at least acknowledge the fact that I knew that he's a real person, but he was busy talking to one of the other interviewees, so Scoff Girl and I just walked out together. Come to think of it, we were the only two chicks in the interview. Huh. She told me that she liked my Mustang as we came to the curb where the two of us had parked. I wandered if the aforementioned scoff had been one of jealousy or if she was just lying about liking the car. She wished me luck with the job, and I told her that maybe I'd be seeing her around if we both got hired. As I got into my car, though, I realised that I wouldn't be seeing her even if we were both offered the job. That thought kind of bothered me. Angel and Erica work there. Jonathan will be working there soon. Tim works there. I should work there, too. But I'm not.

Later that night, I finally used Tim's e-mail address to write and thank him for the illegal interview. I also wanted to kind of feel him out to see what he thought of me in more than just a future employee kind of way, because well, I'm like that. He wrote back and told me that I got the interview on my own good "phone manners and how well [I] spoke", not just by my calling him and trying to get an illegal interview. I liked that. He also said something about looking forward to speaking to me in the future, which could mean something . . . or could just be a nice way of telling me that he doesn't really have any interest in me at all. Either way, I feel good about life.

June 13th, 2000: So, it's summer now, and I decided a few weeks ago that I need something other than The Ainsley Harriott Show to occupy me. After my second visit to the new COSI with Tracey, I knew that I would love to work there. (For those who aren't in the know - COSI is a science-oriented place that is pretty much my entire childhood. Most of the stuff is aimed at kids, but no one can go there and not enjoy himself.) So even before school let out, I sent in my application. Employees have to be 18 and graduated from high school, so I had to write that I wasn't available to work until after May 29th, the day that I graduated. I really didn't expect to be called back. My only work experience is my summers around the farm and my three months at Subway. (My Lord, I stayed there for an entire three months.) After three weeks of not hearing anything from COSI, I pretty much gave up on getting an interview, but I was okay with that.

A few days after my giving up, my friends Angel and Erica called to invite me to a movie and ended up telling me that they had interviews at Gap Inc. Direct, a Gap warehouse of sorts. Now, I've made fun of Mike endlessly for working at his Gap, but this seemed like a different situation entirely to me, so I didn't feel like a hypocrite at all when I went with them the next day to fill out an application. The place kind of surprised me, really. It was far too nice to be a warehouse, but the kind of people coming in to work made it evident that it was, in fact, a warehouse. (Nothing against warehouse workers. Just a bad generalization on my part.) It was also pretty evident that Erica and Angel would be hired, or at least it was to me. Everything is judged by appearance on first meeting, I believe, and well, Erica and Angel were the only ones there who looked like they were even remotely interested in looking nice. While they went back for their group interview with ten or so other people, I sat out in the lobby area and copied down my past employment information, which was rather easy, to say the least. I was the only one in the lobby other than a couple of Mexicans, so I entertained myself by seeing how much of what they said was understandable. (Wow, I'm being super prejudiced today, aren't I?) One of the guys who was answering phones tried to amuse us with really, really bad jokes. And when I say bad jokes, I mean bad jokes. But I laughed nonetheless, because well, that's what you do when you're at Gap Inc. Direct.

When Angel and Erica emerged, they were excited, because as expected, the other people in the interview were complete morons. The best part about the whole thing was that they had gotten their interview illegally. Apparently, they know someone who gave them the phone number of this guy named Tim who works there. They called Tim, told him who they were, and scheduled interviews. So, knowing that I'm as cheap as they are, Erica and Angel gave me the number. Now, this Tim guy shares the same last name as the Tim who randomly calls me to talk when I'm at Jonathan's house, so I asked Angel and Erica how old the guy who interviewed them was. They told me that he was in his 30's, so I was a little disappointed, knowing that I could have prostituted myself to Tim if that's what it took to get the job.

A couple of days later, Joanie and I were elbow-deep in bathroom cleaner when the phone rang. Something told me to stop cleaning and answer it, so I did. It was a guy named Jim calling from COSI to see if I was still looking for a job there. I scheduled an interview for June 9th and was darn happy. That night, I tried calling Tim from Gap Inc. Direct, but I kept getting his voicemail, so I just left my number and told him that I was interested in the job still if there was a position open. The next morning, I woke up at ten, and at 10:15, the phone rang. It was Tim, and he was prepared to set up an interview time for me. We got a time set for June 12th, and I was darn happy again. I had to know something, though. I don't know why I did it, but I just asked Tim if I could ask a question. He said sure, so I asked if he was the Tim who knows Jonathan. He paused for a second, and I thought that I had just made a complete fool of myself, but then he said, "You're Katie," which doesn't really mean anything when you read it, but it was clear to me that he knew me from his tone of voice. So it was the same Tim. But darn it, he had to bring up the fact that he had given me his e-mail address a week or two earlier and that I had never written to him. I told him that I had actually written about being sorry about that on this website, but that didn't make anything better, since he was embarrassed about the world knowing about the situation. I told him that it was more like the ten people who actually read this stuff, which really didn't help, either. He told me that there was no way that I could have an interview after that, which I could kind of understand but didn't really think was fair. Of course he was kidding, so I wasn't forced to shove him in a burlap bag and beat him repeatedly. He also said something about us not being able to go to the movies after this, to which I said, "Aww", but evidently I didn't sound sincere, because he laughed and said, "Aww. Oh, well," mocking me. So, I was going to meet Tim, it seemed.

On Friday the 9th, I woke up incredibly early to go to my COSI interview. I left the house insanely early, because I was worried about traffic. Of course, I can't bear to be behind anyone, so I was cruising along at 70 the whole way, which got me there about 45 minutes before my interview. I didn't know what to do, so I just sat in the car and got out my lipstick. When I was one my 8th or 9th coat, I looked out of my windshield across the parking lot and noticed that there were people in the car in the row ahead of me. People who were gawking at me. I waved and exited my vehicle, thinking that things were not going too well so far. I went inside the building and found the guest services desk, where a cutie guy immediately left the old woman he was helping and began throwing himself at me. Not literally. So, Guest Services Boy got that "Look at me. I'm a real man," voice and head nod thing going as he whipped out his walkie talkie and paged Jim, the guy who was interviewing me. He then sent me to a nearby bench where he could "keep an eye on me," according to him. After a few minutes, Jim came out, introduced himself, told me that he it would be a bit before he was able to interview me, and set me up with a guest pass so that I could walk around the place. I was wearing a suit, so I looked totally out of place what with all of the little kids running around, but that was fine, because people thought that I was important, and random COSI workers kept offering to show me around, which is always a good thing.

At 11, I headed back downstairs after watching a heart surgery in the Life exhibit, and as I neared the guest services desk, four men stopped talking, stared at me for a minute, and began talking again, obviously about me, since they were all doing it as they continued to stare. I realised that Jim was one of them, so I assumed that they were talking about my interview, which they were. A guy named Ted ushered me into an office and showed me to a seat. We were sitting about a foot away from each other, which I realised might be a little uncomfortable when we begen talking, since some people are intimidated by the fact that I like to look people in the eye when I speak to them. He obviously was, or else he didn't realise that I was still in the room, because he talked to the wall beside him through most of the interview, with only a few glances at me while I was answering his questions. But it was cool, because he was obviously impressed with my mad Subway sub artistry skills-filled past, and he told me that he wanted to hire me if I came through the background check without a criminal record. I thanked Ted and the wall for the lovely interview and left to wander around COSI some more. As I walked about, I thought about the interview and decided that the coolest part about the whole situation is that they had no idea how old I am. Ted had to make sure that I was older than 18, and when I assured him that I am, he started talking about how as part of the COSI team, I would have to be a good role model for all of the teen volunteers. He told me that they really look up to "adults like us", which almost made me laugh out loud. But you'll have that, won't you?

Ted called me later that day and hired me. He hadn't gotten the results of my background check yet, but he hired me. I accepted. I was happy. It made the whole situation with my having to decide between the jobs at COSI and at Gap warehouse very, very easy. But I decided to still go to the Gap interview for a few reasons: a) I wanted to prolong not telling Erica and Angel that I had taken the other job for as long as possible, b) I wanted to get the Gap job just to be able to turn it down, and c) I wanted to meet Tim finally. When I talked to Angel and Erica about him, they told me that he was "a cute, little guy". Now, I had a good picture of Tim in my mind from my few times talking to him. In my mind, he's incredibly tall. He's insanely thin. He wears really thin, silver-framed glasses. He has slighty wavy blond hair that reflects the light. "Cute, little guy" didn't fit into that picture anywhere. So I was curious. Angel and Erica explained that he was really hyper during their interview, and they told me that I would like him. I was intrigued.

Look for the end tomorrow.

June 2nd, 2000: So, graduation parties are good. Tracey and I haven't exactly had the same friendship lately that we had year or two ago, so I was kind of surprised when we actually started planning our party together. I decided to have a separate family-ish party, because I didn't know if all of my crazy family and all of my family friends and all of the people from my church would dig hanging out with my crazy friends. All of my crazy relatives insisted on helping out with Tracey's and my joint party, though, so there was food and tables and chairs galore. A few minutes after the party was supposed to start, however, only two people had come, so I was starting to think that none of the whatnot was going to be needed. I was wrong, of course.

When Katie and her boyfriend, Rob, showed up, I knew that things were going to be good for me. Katie and I have seriously been friends all of our lives, but there's this weirdness between us. I think it may come from her mom, which I probably shouldn't say. Katie's mom, Donna, is highly competitive, and since she and Katie's dad know my family so well, Donna is constantly comparing Katie to me. If I do something well and Katie doesn't, Donna feels threatened. I don't think that Katie's jealous of me or anything, and I don't know that she has any reason to be envious of me, but sometimes I feel like Donna is pushing her to be. Katie could explain that better, I'm sure. But anyway, Katie and I were being supergood friends on Friday night. Before she came, another friend at the party told me that Katie had been hitting on her friend Heather's boyfriend, Josh. Katie used to date Josh and I thought that we all know that she's very much over him, but apparently we don't. So, when I told Katie about the rumour, she got all crazy about it, so I was forced to tease her for the rest of the night about that.

Tracey's friend Sam had been throwing ice from one of our coolers onto the floor all night, which inevitably led to an ice fight. I ended up with the worst of it, since Katie was being a beast and rubbing it all up and down my jeans, creating a massive wet spot. I was forced to put some cubes in her shorts, which I felt horrible about, as I'm sure you can imagine. Mike came after a while. He's been odd ever since the end of school. I don't know what to think of him. Joanie and a bunch of her friends sat in one corner and dove for pickles that were in a massive jar while Katie and I picked out prime pieces of cake. Mine ended up being out of the very center of the cake, which left a nice hole that I was particularly proud of. Katie and I happened to get into a nasty icing fight the last time we were around a cake, and we swore that it wouldn't happen again, but it did, of course. After we had covered each other's faces, we went after Tracey, who was expecting us, naturally. Pictures were taken, faces were washed, and all was well. Oh, except for Katie's hair, which was extra sticky for the rest of the night. Mike and I had a "chicken nipple" situation, which involved him walking past me and saying "chicken nipple" repeatedly, just to see how I would react. I didn't, which upset him. We had to do some sort of roleplay thing to see how I would react if I didn't know him and he whispered "chicken nipple" in passing me on the street. I decided that I would definitely try to deny the fact that he was talking to me and just ignore him.

We kind of split into little groups after that, so I only know the details of the events surrounding my group's activities, which I'm sure you're terribly disappointed by. After perusing all of the groups, I joined the Heather, Josh, Katie, Rob, Mike group, which was by Josh's Dart. Somehow some random icing whatnot happened again, and it led to Josh and Rob's faces getting covered, which Katie and I felt absolutely horrid about, as I'm sure you can imagine. From there, some face-licking took place, and well, the pictures are nice. I wondered how Heather felt about me licking her boyfriend, but well, that's something that I just can't be concerned about.

I got a little antsy and left to join some members of Tracey's group, who were busy playing Euchre. (Wow, I love that word. I have to name my first son that.) I took some pictures of my friend Phillip, who is destined to be a model. I swear, he's screaming Calvin Klein. So, I put him in model poses and randomly snapped pictures that were to prove to be the best that I've ever taken, but alas, my crazy camera was being heinous, and the Phil part of the film didn't turn out. (I tell you, Tracey. First the Big Yanks, now Phil.) Mike came over after a while and was being weirder than he had been at the beginning of the party. We all noticed some cars parked back in Tracey's field and wanted to know what the drivers were doing, so Mike suggested that we all link arms and run across the field together. He said that it would be "the funnest thing that we've ever done". Well, that was fine and all, but when I didn't respond to his suggestion, he got all weird. I wish I knew another word to describe it. This wasn't his usual eccentric weird; this was weird weird. So, in retaliation, he started stuffing leaves into a tiny Vel-cro pocket that happened to be on the sleeve of my shirt. I wasn't amused by this whole deal, so I sat down at the picnic table with the Euchre-ers. He randomly threw himself onto me, which prompted disgusted looks from my friends Erica and Angel. This was too much for Mike, so he told me that he was leaving. I told him to go ahead, which evidently hurt his feelings, but he left anyway. As soon as he had gotten into his car, Angel and Erica said, "Good. Now the party can start." Well, that wasn't the end of Mike. I imagine that he was just testing to see whether I really cared if he left or not, so he had just put his keys in his car and come back. I was visibly weirded out by his . . . weirdness, though, and I think that everyone else was, too, so he said that he was leaving for good but patted my shoulder while repeating some random phrase for a couple of minutes before actually leaving. Now that's weird.

Angel has an intense hatred for Mike, which I think is pretty cool. I should have her write me a little story about her intense hatred for him to post on this page. See, Mike is friends with Charlie who has a sister named Robin who was once best friends with Angel. According to Angel, Mike and Charlie used to make fun of her for hours on end on the bus to school and whatnot. Angel can't seem to forget the mocking, and she can't forgive Mike, either, which I really don't blame her for when it comes down to it. So, when Mike left, Angel went on a bashing rampage. It was great to listen to. She was talking about how he's so possessive and how he was visibly angry when I was talking to people other than him and all kinds of crazy whatnot. I was a little flattered, but Bethany said that he's like that with her, too. Mind you, she said that while laying across the picnic table, which makes her statement null and void. Oh, plus she's a pathological liar. Hey, speaking of pathological liars . . .

Tracey's friend Sam spent the entire night throwing herself (literally) at another Josh at our party. Everyone believes that Josh will someday beat his wife, and I'm allowed to say that knowing full well that he might see this, because well, Josh loves my ability to tell it like it is. So, Josh, honey, we all know that you're going to beat your wife. There it is. Well, I should take that back. Not everyone knows. Sam doesn't know, because she doesn't go to our school. So, she did everything in her power to get Josh's number. See, she can't just come out and ask for it, so according to Bethany, she kept saying things like, "You should give me your number, Josh, because I'm going to be going to college at Columbus State next year, and I need to know some people." Now, that wouldn't be such a bad thing, except for the fact that Josh will only be a high school senior next year and has nothing to do with Columbus State. But that's Sam for you, God love her.

During this, I went for a ride in the Dart with Josh, Rob, Katie, and Heather. Actually, I wanted to drive it, so I made Josh back it down the driveway for me. He ended up driving us around the block going at least 400 miles an hour, which prompted screams from us chicks in the back seat. But I drove it part of the way back to Tracey's and slammed on the brakes at least 800 times, which made Josh a bit leery, I believe. So, that was the end of his offering me his car. Such a shame that the Dart and I had to part on such bad terms.

So, graduation parties are good.

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