I pointed this out to Lara, saying, "This is our last shift together." She said, "It's not like you're leaving the company, Patrick!!"

Oh, the love. You can almost feel it.

Actually, I'm beginning to get paranoid that everyone knows something I don't. My new desk/office isn't known, I haven't been given any real assignments (except to spiff up an e-mail newsletter) to think about by my new boss, and everyone in Design has been extremely nonchalant about me going. It's enough to make a guy feel unwanted.

Dan made the decision not to hire anyone to replace me. Instead, people will rotate as backup supervisors on weekends.

Somehow, to me, that diminishes a lot of what I did in the department. Sure, everyone who'll be filling in during the Friday, Saturday and Sunday shifts is qualified enough, but I worked hard to make that set of shifts into a cohesive whole. From 11am on Friday mornings until 7:30pm on Monday nights, I knew exactly what the flow of documents would be, could schedule for optimal output, and didn't have to leave notes to inform anyone of what was going on. It was a set of shifts I cobbled together myself and pitched to Dan a few years ago, and I think I've been largely successful with it.

Apparently, Dan said to Laurie that he couldn't remember how the idea of a weekend supervisor who covered the whole weekend came up (before that, one supervisor covered Saturdays and the other covered Sundays). I guess he forgot the conversation I initiated with him about it.

Ah, well. Not my problem. Not my department, after this coming Sunday. I wish them all the best.

Well, not the best. It'd be good if they found that the weekends were just a little tougher without me.

It rained all day today. I didn't notice it for the most part, because my desk faces away from the windows, but whenever I had to pass by the far wall, I got to see the grey, wet pavement below.

Most of the time, I love rainy days. Occasionally they depress me, but for the most part I find them comforting. If it's warm enough, I even like to go walking or running in the rain. I tend not to huddle and scurry when it's raining (unless it's really cold outside). I will carry an umbrella if it's important not to look too dishevelled at my destination, but wet hair doesn't bother me overmuch.

As I sit typing this, I can hear the rain hitting the back deck. It's a soothing noise, especially with all the lights and the TV turned off.

Sometimes I think I should move to a damper city, like Seattle or San Francisco or London. (San Francisco is more foggy than rainy, I suppose, and pretty much only in the mornings.) I visited my friend Janet in Seattle back in the late 80s, and I adored that city. She fretted while I was there that the weather would ruin my trip, but I liked walking around in the rain.

When Laurie and I visited London in 96, it was during December, when it seemed to rain for at least part of the day every day. For some reason, that made the city even more appealing. All the old buildings, washed with rainwater, the pavement and cobblestones changing color as it became more and more saturated...it appealed to me in a big way.

I don't know why I have travel on the brain today. Possibly because I'm in a time of transition. Though I'm not making a radical change with this new job, it will be a new environment for me. I've met a group of new people with this show, all of whom I like very much. I'm becoming more social (though still dateless, unfortunately), and want to get out more.

Plus, I have a vacation coming up. Though I won't be going anywhere for an extended period of time (due to rehearsals), Laurie and I plan on visiting New York City for at least two days, possibly three. She wants to see the new Monty Python-based show (though she told me that tickets are impossible to get), and I'd like to visit a museum or two while I'm there. I told Kymm (when I called her to find out just what the deal was with this "Sally" creature she suddenly was mentioning) that I might end up dropping in on her while I was off work. For some reason, I have a desperate need to visit her in her lobby. Laurie has said that there will be no lunch or dinner at Vynl, and I concur. While the waiters are all cute, I've been there every time I've visited NYC, and I believe that there is at least one other restaurant within the city limits.

Actually, I just called Laurie to remind her to remind me to take her to the Festival of Meat restaurant (or whatever it's called) that Kymm recommended when Diego and I went to New York. It's truly an experience. I've never been exposed to so much meat in my life as the night that we went there for dinner. It's very expensive, but honestly, when men walk by with swords covered in steak or prime rib, it's worth the price.

I don't know what pounds of meat have to do with the rain. I tried to write a wrap-up sentence for this section, but there's just no connection to draw between the two.

While things were still kind of up in the air about the transfer to the new department, I updated my resume on monster.com. I didn't have any desire to start an outside-the-Consulting-Company job search, but sometimes updating your resume leads to employers seeking you out. At least, that was the way it worked five years ago when I last did a job search in earnest.

Today, I got the following letter in my dedicated monster.com e-mail:

From: Ms.Recruiter@FinancialCompany.com
To: Paticksemail@isp.com
Subject: I Saw Your Resume

Patrick,

My name is Megan Recruiter and I am the Recruiting Coordinator for Financial Company Financial Advisors. I came across your resume on Monster and I'm very interested to meet with you to discuss the Financial Advisor position. We are currently seeking individuals to work in our Waltham location. This opportunity can be both personally and financially rewarding. It requires initiative, hard work, self-discipline, and an entrepreneurial orientation.

A representative from our office will contact you within the next few days to schedule an interview. In the interim, if you would like to be pro-active and schedule an appointment, please feel free to contact us. I can be reached at 781-555-1234 ext. 3780, or by e-mail Ms.Recruiter@FinancialCompany.com.

I look forward to meeting with you soon!

Sincerely,
Megan Recruiter
Recruiting Coordinator
Financial Company Financial Advisors

Now, my resume is in no way financial- or sales-oriented. In my "seeking a job" section, I state that I'm looking for a position that will use my graphic design, writing, and organizational skills in a small, casual office environment. The Financial Company is none of those things, and the position of Financial Advisor is, according to their website, nothing more than a glorified sales rep.

I could have just deleted the e-mail, but I was in a feisty mood, so I sent off this response:

Ms. Recruiter,

While I am flattered that you have sent me an e-mail, I highly doubt that you took any sort of a good look at my resume. Had you done so, you would have seen that I am qualified for, and seeking a position that utilizes my writing, graphic design, and supervisory skills. I am not in any way seeking a "Financial Advisor" position, which to me, sounds very much like an entry-level sales position.

Most likely, your company employs a computer program that searches for keywords and spits out form letters to those of us on monster.com indiscriminately without a set of human eyes taking a good look to see if you have a decent match.

I believe that Financial Company would be a good company to work for, but you lose credibility when you send out random messages to "candidates" who have expressed no interest in the position you describe. I know it is difficult to find good salespeople, but this technique can't be helpful in finding the individuals who would thrive in that position.

Once again, thank you for your "interest." If you care to take the time to actually look at my resume and find a position that matches what I have actually written as a job I am seeking, I would be happy to speak with you. Please tell whoever is going to be contacting me not to do so, as I have no interest in the position of Financial Advisor.

Sincerely,

Patrick Cleary

Maybe I'm burning bridges here, but I don't see myself ever working for that particular institution. Sean works in a financial company, and I most likely could find a position within his firm, should I want to branch out into that industry. However, the Consulting Company is just about as corporate an environment as I can stand (and it is pretty corporate), and I'm very happy that I don't have to start interviewing at places like the Financial Company.

It just really irked me to receive what is effectively spam from this well-respected company. Don't they get enough unsolicited resumes without having to go trolling for keywords on monster?

Or maybe I'm completely wrong, and my skills fit the position of "Financial Advisor" perfectly. If that's the case, I'm selling my worldly possessions and moving into a commune for a year or so.

Today we did two run-throughs of Act I in rehearsal. I was very stilted and stiff during the first one, but I fared better in the second one.

I'm slowly starting to see some dimension in the character I play. Mostly, he's required to be incredulous at all the oddball characters around him, but there are some moments of humor generated by his responses, rather than the outlandish behavior of his costars. The co-director told me in notes from the first run-through to let a little bit more "me" show through "Peter," so I tried to just stop acting for a bit, and it worked much better.

I guess that's what I'm uncomfortable with, having the lead in a show. I like to act because I can play someone who is completely unlike myself, and when you're a main character like this one, you have to let a lot more of yourself come through.

So Peter became more sarcastic, more sensitive and more relaxed than how I'd been playing him before. I think the directors were pleased to see me a little more comfortable in the role. I'm still not quite there yet; my "Peter" is still a bit of a cypher, but I can find bits of personality here and there. I think I'll be better off once I'm completely off-book (I have most of it down; I just don't remember my cue lines as well as I should) and can actually listen to the other people onstage with me. I'm lucky to be in a show where my lines make sense in context; there are very few non-sequitors in the script, and I have nothing resembling a monologue.

I was a little pleased to see that Will, who plays the "juvenile hero", a little uncomfortable with his kissing scene with Jude (the "ingenue"). They're written to be desperately in love for no reason at all (because stock characters like theirs in mystery novels need to be), and their first time onstage together is supposed to be a great big kiss. Will gave Jude a quick peck on the lips the first run-through, and turned his head to the side the second time around. Heh. So it's not just my gayboy female phobia coming through.

Jude and I have gotten the kissing scene down pretty well by now. It's actually the least of the "sexual" interactions I have onstage, as one woman vamps all over me throughout the play, and another has a scene where she literally climbs up my body, saying "I'll do anything...anything at all." It's all very PG-rated (it's a family show, for the most part), but it is kind of intimate. And kind of hilarious, as all the women in the show are quite attractive, and the only guy who has no possible interest in them is the one who gets all their attention.

The one part I know I'm doing well is the slapstick humor. Rachel, who plays the vampy older woman (I think she's younger than me, which is funny) slaps me in the face at one point, and I've told her it's okay to just whack the hell out of me. I've gotten pretty good at not anticipating the slap, and I turn my head back right on-cue, which makes people laugh even though they've seen it a couple of times before.

Will is supposed to clap me on the back a little too heartily at one point, and I'm going to tell him to basically just try to knock me over, because it'll be funny. He has about 2 inches on me and he's built like a football player, so that will be a nice little moment if I can get him to put some of his muscle into it.

Funny how I ask to be slapped and knocked over and dragged around (Rachel also gets to yank me offstage roughly at one point), but kissing is the part that scares me. Maybe I have a masochistic streak I never knew about.

I'm all over the map tonight. Sometimes I find a theme and go with it, but sometimes the day doesn't lend itself to that kind of entry.

I'm looking forward to three days off from work, and then the last three days of working in Design before my vacation. Tomorrow, I have a meeting with my new department (which I still don't consider "work" yet), and then the Fabulous Robert and I are making up the trip to Northampton that I bagged out on last week.

The rest of my "weekend" is unbooked (except for rehearsal on Wednesday night), so I'll probably spend that time binding many, many copies of "Elephant" (a bunch of you have offered some really cool stuff in trade for that little book...and if you think you don't have anything to trade, remember that I'm not looking for great works of art or anything valuable, and that I really have an affinity for stones and glass), learning Act 2 of the play and writing the 10-minute piece about poets I thought of on Saturday. (That one involves a little bit of research.)

Next week is going to be about packing Laurie up for her move (we've agreed to try and see one movie every day during out vacation together, which will probably be the latest matinee show inbetween packing boxes), coordinating the trip to NYC (if there's anyone who lives around there who wants to get together for lunch or something, let me know!), and learning a lot more about Lotus Notes than I currently do, since it'll be a large part of my job, or at least I'd like to make it part of my job.

Somehow I have the feeling my journal entries will be all over the map more often than not for awhile.