Day one of the first day

One of my talents, and there are many, dear readers, is the uncanny ability to wake up when I want, the way I want . Now, when I say wake up, I' mean from sleep; I'm not referring to spiritual enlightenment, because I'm almost positive you only need to wake up once to achieve that. At least that's what Baba Ram Dass told me over coffee and donuts a few years back. Anyway, back to my point.

Last night, for example, I went to bed earlier than usual because I had to get up at six thirty. To soften the blow of waking up to the clarion call of my alarm, I set my internal alarm clock to go off periodically throughout the night, so by waking up at say, four thirty, like I actually did, I could go back to sleep knowing I had a couple of hours left. It may not seem like much, but it's quite the psychological victory. Time, you are my plaything.

My first day went well, better than most other first days at new jobs that I've had. It helped that it was a gorgeous day. I seemed to gel with my boss Karen and the crew, though it's always hard to tell how people will be when you've just met them. Neil, who started a week before I did, made me laugh a few times, though unintentionally. One of those times was when I was at the computer with Karen and he approached us and said to her, " Sorry if I seem out of it today. I only got an hour of sleep last night because I was partying pretty hard." When he walked away, Karen looked at me and said, "Why did he just tell me that? Couldn't he have just left it at 'I didn't get much sleep'? You don't tell your new boss that!" I thought pretty much the same thing and added, " No kidding! I spent the night in jail on a drug charge, but you don't hear me talking about it."

Tonight is going to be a Herzog night, I can feel it. My mood is just right for one of his films: I'm sleepy, but my mind is sharp. Perhaps, it will be Aguirre that will beckon. Or Kaspar Hauser. I'll let you know which it is in my next entry. I'm sure you'll be dying to know.

To cap off a pleasant day, I received a voice-mail from my friend Chris today offering me two free tickets to Wednesday night's Celtics game. He has a wake to go to and won't be able to make it. I called Luke Warm and asked him if he'd like to go and, being the big Celtics fan that he is, he accepted. They're playing the shitty Hawks, so maybe the Celts will pull off a rare victory.