What a weekend. Ugh. No power was fun - we got to be gypsies, but without the backstory or the oral history and cultural identity. And with public schools. Anyway, glad that's over. I have learned I function very poorly with actual cash. Not because I spend it, but because I have to go to inconvenient places during nearly impossible hours to accomplish anything. I think I have figured out how I'm going to address the problem I was having with chronic overdrafting, though, so I'm thinking that going back to the direct deposit/debit card system (with help from my Secret Plan[tm]) is the only way for me to actually be able to function effectively in a financial sense. There is a 45 minute window for me to cash my check on the day I receive it between getting off of work and the closing of all places that will (sometimes) cash a check. If the machine can read the numbers, which apparently cannot be entered manually. You know, the Chinese that were trained on the abacus and developed reasonable skill with it can do amazing feats of calculation in their heads because they can simply visualize the abacus. We have a great many retail workers (I'm guilty of this one occasionally, too) who are unable to function when the cash register goes down, and have to resort to a calculator for really simple arithmetic. I'm trying to not do this anymore, but I still check my work on the calculator. I'm okay with that - that's what the dang machines are for.

Mystery meeting at work this afternoon. I assume it's good? They just give you the boot if they're getting rid of you usually. Makes me nervous when they don't tell you anything about the meeting, just give a location. Sounds like a trap. What if one of those meeting rooms is actually carnivorous? No one misses temp workers...scary.

Been thinking about the Buddhist concept of ego death as a goal to be pursued and how much it used to disturb me, but doesn't anymore. I've found I am more likely to engage in effective actions and experiences if I let as little awareness of self and its relative abstract involvement in events intrude. Basically, if I start thinking about what this means for or about me, specifically in an identity sense, I am no longer involved in events. Most of the time, my sense of identity is at best a tangent or non-sequiter to the flow of events, and the more I remember not to let self-consciousness crash the party the more interesting and fulfilling my life becomes.

I sit next to a guy with a mohawk and very little visible skin that isn't tattooed. Nice guy, very professional phone voice. Sometimes I love this town.