“The hippie in you is winning,” Brian told me the other day, pointing to the Kerouac novel on my lap.  (If this were my real journal, Brian’s name would have hearts all around it, and if I knew his last name, I’d pair it with mine, in girly cursive, in the margins.) I had said, seconds earlier, that my future plans carry with them this tension to pursue my passions, matching them with my business mentality.  I explained that there’s a suit and there’s a hippie inside of me, and it’s a constant push-pull between dollar signs and dylan.

His words rang in my ears when I embarked on my employment adventures with corporate giant Best Buy this evening.  Just orientation, you know — but when the training dvd began,  it was just so..so impeccably produced, I couldn’t help but cringe a bit. I know it will be worthwhile job experience; I’m just not one-hundred-percent comfortable with it right now. ..

I’m writing now mainly to stay awake.  People think overnight hours are tough, but they’re really not. (Or shall I say, they haven’t gotten to me yet?) The four o’ clock hour is the hardest, when my work is done and it seems as though the world is sleeping.  One of the best aspects of this job are the people who call in: the insomniacs, the garbage collectors, the stoners…

“A few songs ago,” they’ll say. “You played a song about…about holding you in my arms?”

“Should I buy the new Beck album? ..’cause I’ve been thinking about it, and….”

“I heard this song, like two days ago…It goes, ‘bah-da-dat-ba-dooo-dat daaaaa’…you know?”

Yeah.  I know.  And it was Springsteen.