When I told her that I don't love her, it's what I thought she wanted to hear. Our conversation had followed a predictable arc leading to detail-less stories of past relationships, faceless nameless collections of pronouns and epiphanies. I told her about feeling moored to a house in which I don't sleep anymore in the middle of the desert with all the world's oceans calling my name. She spoke of recently deleted texts from him, the boy who wriggled his way free of her expectations by telling her he loved her and nothing more. When I told her I don't love her, it was the truth.

She rested her chin in the heel of her hand. I followed her eyes to a scene of no particular interest.

"Yeah, I know," she said, "And that's why this isn't gonna happen."

She leaned into me as I walked her back to my apartment. I felt the heat of alcohol rising off her skin and in her breath. Her arm locked in mine, the weight of her body pulled in haphazard directions. I'd offered her my bed since I usually sleep on my couch anyway.

"I don't care if you sleep in the bed with me," she said.

I wondered what our sudden tugs-of-war looked like to each stranger we passed.

She eased into me, and my body instinctively curled around hers, creating pockets and filling voids. She pulled my arm across her and held it to her chest. Earlier she told me how the last him was just a pattern into which she fell, collapsing parts of herself to fit.

"What wasn't working?" I said.

"It was nice to sleep next to him, hold hands with him. I don't know. Have you ever been in a relationship where the sex was really bad?"

"No. Most of them were built on great sex, but that's usually not enough to sustain a relationship." It was a joke meant to peak her interest. The look of minor disappointment on her face, I imagined, was the same she gave him when evaded her with his proclamations of love.

In my bed with the palm of my hand pressed against her heart, I told her softly that I knew what she meant about having someone to sleep next to, but she was already asleep.

I ask her to be my substitute wife for the weekend. I explain exactly what I want her to do in the most un-perfumed language I can piece together, but I can still hear that newly-single, cloying desperation clinging to each word.

"Whatever. I don't care," she says, "Just make me feel beautiful."

Last week on my way to work, I got an email from a friend that I haven't see in over two years, from whom I haven't heard a single word in ten months. The subject line just read, "Logan," and I knew what it was going to say before I read it.

From about 1995-2000 I managed a store called Shinder's in a dingy little suburb of St. Paul, one of 13 Minneapolis-based, Frankenstein's monster amalgams: part newsstand, bookstore, and comic book shop that made all of its profits on sports cards, collectible card games, and adult videos. The friend who sent me the email last week was my assistant manager. I don't recall which one of us interviewed Logan; all I remember is that he was still a senior in high school and not quite 18 which, given the nature of our 5' X 12' Adults Only room at the back of the store, made hiring him tricky. Logan was willing to do all the crap that no one else wanted to: fill the pop cooler and deal with all the kid crack, er, Pokemon cards and pogs that kept showing up in shipments and bringing with them scores of snot-faced, sticky-fingered rug rats who liked to run and spill and scream dragging along their parents whose eyes were filled with either the boiling summed rage of their every acquiescence or a look that said to me, "I'm going to let my kids treat your store as their personal playground/cafeteria/toilet for the next three hours as my personal thanks for selling us $30 worth of cardboard first thing Sunday morning, asshole." I was happy to bring him on to deal with that for $5/hour.

Logan was a skinny kid, not particularly tall. He dressed like a homeless version of Paul Finch (Eddie Kaye Thomas' character from the American Pie movies), favoring an army surplus jacket that swallowed his narrow shoulders and vintage pants that showed his socks. The last time I hung out with him, he sported a fedora...nine years before they started selling them at Express. His eyes sat spaced widely apart. Somehow his big nose and small mouth balanced each other out (sort of like Jenny Garth).

As he grew more comfortable and found his rhythm in the shop, Logan would unleash tiny, one-lined furies of his humor on us in a way that made me think he didn't think anyone else working there smart enough to get the full joke. When he used to ask me if it was all right to take a smoke break, and I said yes, he'd reply, "Sweet, sweet cancer." After he turned 18, and I asked him to necessarily tour the Adults Only room to straighten up and/or discourage some of our seedier customers from stealing, that line morphed into, "Sweet, sweet anal." Sweet, sweet whatever became a mantra from the store. And that was brilliance of Logan's approach: everyone wanted in on his shtick.

The owner of Shinders insisted all store personel wear these obnoxious yellow customer service buttons that had our mascot (the Groucho duck from "You Bet Your Life") saying in a comic book balloon, "May I help you?" The buttons were about the size of a big orange and had pins on the back as thick as toothpicks which left noticeable holes in your shirt. Everyone hated wearing them. Whenever I asked Logan to put on his button, he'd say, "I really don't like talking about my flair." I'd never even heard of Office Space at the time, but I watched it to get in on the joke.

The email my friend that I don't really know anymore sent to me last week read, "I just thought you would like to know...I just found out today...Logan apparently passed away last year. Renee thinks it was a drug overdose."

"Damn," I replied. Logan was about eight years younger than I, 27 or 28 when he died.

When I got the chance, I went to Google to try and find something more about it. I sat there at my computer for ten agonizing minutes in which I couldn't remember Logan's last name.

It came to me just as I started doing something else. My search didn't come up with much. I found a private Facebook page that may or may not be his; I don't have the heart to add him and wait around wondering. There was a link to an Amazon wishlist, most of which was added four years ago: Bukowski, Curb Your Enthusiasm, William S. Burroughs, Bill Hicks, all things that reinforced this was Logan's. I wondered if that was all I was going to find, all that was left.

Deep in the search, past all sorts of Dutch language links, I found one that read, "Logan: November 2008...what I wouldn't give that right now. i love you logan." It was broken, but I got the name of the person who posted and found her on MySpace. She really couldn't or wouldn't answer any of my questions, saying that she didn't find out until a month after it happened.

I guess the reason I'm writing this is just in case someone out there hears what happens and searches for Logan Van Deen. I want there to be something for them to find.

I have a handful of pictures from a Star Wars themed, drink-a-room party my roommates and I threw (I think this was New Year's Eve 1998). Each of us decorated our rooms as different systems with different specialty drinks: Dagobah, Hoth, the forest moon of Endor. There are 18" pictures of stormtroopers lining the walls. a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Darth. Logan was the only person from work who came (though I doubt I invited more than 3 people from work). He was a lot younger than the rest of us and with his black clothes and jet black hair stuck out. I want to say he didn't drink, but he might have sipped a little weed with my brother from our balcony. He was the weird one, the one who left all my blond, suburban friends wondering "Who the hell is that?" and "Is he going to steal something?" In the picture I have of him, he's sandwiching, oddly enough, Jessica (formerly Pfeiffer) with my brother, just an odd trio standing under the raised blasters of ten stormtroopers. Jess and my brother are smiling. Logan has his mouth open in a sort of a smart-assed snarl, as if the whole scene isn't quite funny enough to make him smile. That's the kid I remember.

I saw Logan for the last time on a commuter bus on the U of M campus in early 2004. We rode for less than five minutes together from a parking lot down Washington toward Coffman Union talking small talk. He was majoring in History or Economics. That's the last time I thought of him before last week. So if you see me out, you can ask me about Logan Van Deen, but, my memories eroded as they are, I might not be able to answer. You can say you're sorry, but there are a lot more people back in Minnesota that need those condolences more than I. You can say anything you want. Just don't ask me about my flair.

"As she stands there searching my face for a reaction, I drink her in, like a glass of the rawest alcohol, filling myself with a fiery jealousy for the man with whom she'll eventually choose to spend her life."

In those heels, she stands over six feet tall, so she needs to bend down close to my ear to ensure no one around us can hear.

"Listen," she says, "I don't want you to think that just because we're going out that it's going to turn into a repeat of two summers ago." Her lips are so close to the back of my neck I can feel the heat of her words on my skin, almost feel her smiling.

I can smell the same perfume she wore then. That sweet wave of nostalgia rushes in through my nose and mouth, sweeping through my body.

"I don't have any expectations," I say. I turn back to my computer screen. "But let me ask you, did you shave your legs this morning?" I turn back toward her in my chair, put my hands on my lap, and lean back.

She looks down at her feet. A grin spreads across her face and blooms into a full smile. She levels her eyes on mine, and I know the answer.

"Smartass," she mouths and walks away.

Corporeal

There's a prayer on her lips when she reaches up to kiss me. Drowned as I am in the grind of my mind's lumbering machinery finally put into motion after months of dormancy, I can't make out what it is. I only try to match the immediacy of her desire. I'm not her religion, I'm just shiny as a mirror.

Later, perched on her bed, I look up from the base of her altar. The gears and springs and levers in my head hum in a quiet whir now having located their purpose. My mouth on skin and my fingers inside her urge out her prayer again.

"God," she says.

She clamps her eyes shut, throws her head back, buries her teeth into her bottom lip. My engine drives her toward a destination.

"God," she says.

Her body quivers. The skin of her thighs cool against my cheeks. Her fingers clutch my hair, run across the backs of my ears, lost children searching for a home. This is automatic for me, programmed in the language of sighs and moans from every woman who ever sought something intangible in me, every woman who felt I'd failed them when eventually they couldn't find whatever it was they were looking for.

"Oh, God, Michael," she says.

I am a vehicle. I'm not her religion. But she wants me to be.

I just wrote nine pages. After reading and rereading everything I've ever written during these insomnia-filled nights, I feel confident saying about this latest piece: It's. Really. Fucking. Good.

Of course I've never said that about anything I've written before, so maybe it sucks. It probably sucks because in accordance with the bargain I made with My Little Blond Friend, once I put it through the rewrites, she'll do the leg work submitting it, and if it gets published, I have to quit smoking; unconscious sabotage is surely at work. Either way, she's quite the muse.

I'm sure reading books again after The Long Waste hasn't hurt either.

See you in the The New Yorker.

Hours spent toggling between this dry, white space and rereading with surprise all the words that have dripped from my fingertips here in the past eight plus years still haven't given me the slightest idea where to start. I've built my dams high and strong since moving to the desert.

...mostly he was mad at her for making her deception so blatant, eliminating any need he might feel to cast hard stares toward her eyes and try to make her flinch. He had uncovered the what, and a what like that made the why irrelevant; why was just a modifier now. He had no more reasons to look at her. And looking at her used to be his favorite thing to do.

We leave work early, at the same time but not together. Coworkers speculate enough already, and I don't want to add fuel to their flaming. I spend just enough of my week deflecting, saying that I like her but she gives me no indication that she's attracted to me, delivering with enough weight and credibility that I begin to worry it might be true. So we leave at the same time but not together, so we can pack and run a few errands before getting on the road.

She calls a couple of hours later telling me she ready. I've been ready for an hour and a half.

I drive toward her house and see her crossing the street from her best friend and neighbor's house. She's wearing black jeans and that orange short-sleeved cardigan I noticed the Friday before St. Patrick's Day. I think of that Kate Nash song that goes: I wish you'd never forget
The look on my face when we first met

I push the air out of my lungs. I don't love her. I know this. It's not something I've convinced myself of over long hours of telling everyone I don't. But seeing her crossing the street in her orange sweater waving me a hello, I think I could.

Tonight I took a walk with a beautiful girl with a beautiful name in a park where, it's rumored, Hammer (formerly MC) was shot several years ago and not as long ago my ex used to jog/walk with a friend. Albuquerque feels small like that, as if there's nothing left unexplored. The girl with the beautiful name told me about her friend back in town for a week from Louisville and where we should take her for dinner on Friday night. I thought about whether or not I should pull her hand out of her coat pocket to hold it, thought about what songs I'll pick for the first CD I make her, and about what I'll say when we finally broach the subject of what to do with our growing affection for each other.

Last night when she excused herself from our table, I texted a friend soliciting advice on whether I should ask the beautiful girl if our night together was a one-time thing or if I should just kiss her. An hour later, after I had driven her home, I read my friend's response and promised myself to try not to over think this, whatever this is or will be tomorrow. "Good advice," I texted back to my friend. She responded, "It's the only kind I give."

I think when people ask me why I don't write anymore it's out of a misinformed sense of kindness, remembering that I perhaps told them once I enjoy it or of my plans to go to grad school for an MFA in fiction. These are generally people who don't know me very well, who don't see me squinting into the light of this screen or twisting at this keyboard, looking for every excuse to stand up from this chair.

The first thing I wrote outside of a school assignment was a note overburdened with really's and very's to a girl named Lisa that my mom found in my jeans pocket when she did laundry. Poems to a girl named Anne in high school. Daily handwritten letters to girl named Jennifer in college. The first eight (eight?) years of this Livejournal to Stephanie, Jaimee, Emily, Meredith, Carrie, Jaimee again, and Mary.

And to the beautiful girl with the beautiful name who kissed me in my car tonight, her thumb tracing lines back and forth on the back of my hand, the one for whom I'd do anything to know what she's thinking when she gets quiet and just smiles at me like that, part of me hopes you find this one day and knows how much, at least for tonight, I really, really like you very, very much; the other part is just trying not to over think it.

The boxes are packed, taped shut, labelled as living room, bedroom, kitchen or bath in black block letters. I count 33, twelve medium and 21 large. They look heavy, and I entertain that excuse for a minute, swirling it in my mouth, sweet, trying to solidify it into words. And then I swallow it down.

I wonder what I'll write about tomorrow.

A friend of mine will graduate soon with an MFA in poetry from GMU in Virginia. We met in an intermediate fiction writing class at the U of M. She wrote a story, I think, about some bumbling art thieves that I wanted so much to like.

A couple of years ago, I wrote long, laborious emails to her about the nature of single life in Albuquerque. She would write me back equally long, seemingly effortless emails about rock and roll boys in which she chastised me for listening to The Smiths. Several months ago, she wrote me that she'd forgotten that I owed her the next email.

I was surprised to see her name in my inbox today. She wrote that she's working for a journal in desperate need of some fiction submissions and wants me to send something she can suggest to the fiction editor.

As I've written about four paragraphs worth of fiction since moving to New Mexico, I'm now pouring over the dusty stories taking up valuable memory on this dusty computer, things I haven't even looked at since 2007. One of my unfinished stories trails off with, "I read back what I've written, and I can remember every lie and every truth to it."

But I don't anymore.

All I really wanted was a "yes".

My last post was written on April 1st.

Old Car: 1995 Mitsubishi 3000GT

The Bad:

• front left fender damage - interesting side story: I was stopped waiting to turn out of a gas station when this white pick up truck coming from my right took the turn into the gas station way too sharply and way too fast. Everything went into slow motion, and I knew it was going to hit me; I clenched my teeth and gripped the wheel preparing for my airbag to deploy. I managed one horn honk which I think got driver to brake just enough before she hit me so as not to cause any injuries. From her window she offered me $100 to not call the cops. I yelled obscenities at her, some of which I may have created on the spot, and directed her to park so I could check my damage.
  
  A curled strip about the size and shape of a ruler had been pushed into the bumper with scrapes of white paint and dents decorating the surrounding wound; my headlight was cracked and missing a quarter-sized puzzle piece, and my turn signal hung by two wires like an eyeball punched out of its socket.
  
  She stepped out of her truck, hair disproportionately large in relation to body, skin like old leather draped on her bones. Her white, newish looking truck took more obvious damage than my car. She offered me $200.
  
  "Look," she said, "do we have to call the cops? Please don't call the cops. I've got warrants out for me." We discussed what her warrants were for...speeding tickets, which is New Mexican slang for possession, paraphernalia and failure to appear. I told her that it looked like about $1200 worth of damage to me, and that I thought I should call it in. She explained that she has a sick kid at home (NM slang for an impatient boyfriend eyeballing the last of their meth stash), and just wanted to get out of there.
  
  She pulled three crisp $100 bills and some sweaty 20's from her pocket. Some petty part of me wanted her to go to jail for hitting me. A bigger petty part of me made a quick calculation:
  
  ***My insurance company paying out $1200 for repairs to a car worth about $400 and upping my premiums for uninsured motorists (a coverage all insured drivers must pay in NM)< $400 in ill begot drug monies.***
  
  I took her offer. She climbed back in her truck, poked her tiny head out of the window which is followed by a giant comet tail of badly permed hair.
  
  "Can we make it $250 instead?" she said.
  
  "This is the way it's got to be," I said.
  
• the left turn signal light is held in place with clear packing tape
  
• no A/C and it's been that way since 2004
  
• broken power antenna - the motor still whirs but it won't retract
  
• coolant leak and undiagnosable radiator issue that results in overheating if driven for more than 30 minutes straight without blasting the heat on full
  
• oil leak
  
• right side panel damage - from another person who hit me in a Target parking lot but that's not an interesting story as no cash or services were exchanged
  
• badly worn and cracked leather driver seat
  
• both door locks are rusted so the key won't unlock them - if you don't have the remote, you're climbing in through the trunk, over the folded back seats, and risking grave bodily harm on the gear shifter and emergency brake
  
• severely faded and chipped paint spotted with rust
  
• bent front rims resulting in difficulty sealing new tires and violent shaking at speeds over 50 mph
  
• it's missing one of the lug nut locks; as far as I know, you can't just replace one
  
• the wipers smear any water on the windshield into a fine film that refracts light from the sun or headlights
  
• when you turn the volume knob in a counterclockwise direction (as if to turn it down), it cranks it to full volume; nothing happens if you turn it clockwise
  
• wiper fluid indicator light stays on
  
• emergency brake indicator light comes on when accelerating in gears 1-3
  
• the liquid crystal of the radio display froze one night in MN, and now 1/5 of the display is permanently blacked out
  
• a persistent and mysterious rattle comes from the underbelly
  
• 168K miles of abuse and counting

The Good:

For several weeks, I've considered my strategy for ridding myself of the monstrosity...leaving it running by the train tracks, paying the neighborhood kids to lob Molotov cocktails at it. After calculating its trade-in value on several dealer websites at or around what I typically spend a month at the grocery store, I narrowed my choices to either listing it on eBay for $500 and praying for nearsighted, illiterate bidders to stir up the action or putting it up on craigslist for $1100 and taking $800. At the behest of my little friend, we drove it by the local CarMax, concluding that we would take $500 for it if only to save ourselves from driving back home and meeting with whatever cretinous teenager would come sniffing around looking for the bones of his next 2 Fast 2 Furious car. In just a few hours, I had a check in hand for three times that. I signed over the title, and asked them to pull it back around so I could empty it of my belongings.

The garage called the service desk a few minutes later to say that they misplaced the remote and couldn't unlock the doors with the key. It seems to me like this should have been something they check before handing over cold, hard cash. I fought my instinct to run to the nearest check cashing boutique before they could stop payment. About ten minutes later, one of the CarMax kids managed to jimmy the lock and drove to the service desk. I almost felt guilty taking my sunglasses, ice scraper, and the $5 and half a tin of Altoids out of the car. Almost.

New Car: 2004 Mazda 3s 5-Door

The Bad:

It's not nearly as powerful as my 3000GT, and there's a mysterious white substance on the passenger side speaker.

The Good:

Everything works, I don't have to worry about exploding on the highway, and it's so damn cool. Mine is galaxy grey mica, a shade darker than the one in the picture.

Shelter: Our bid for a new loft downtown was accepted. We close sometime next month.

The Bad:

• only one bedroom, so overnight guests will have to rough it on an air mattress or hoof it a couple of blocks to a hotel
  
• no garage
  
• very little closet space, but I've got a plan on where to have another one built; alternatively, my little friend can stash her wardrobe under the bed
  
• mortgage payments are going to cut into my monthly dvd and clothing budget

The Good:

• poured concrete on the first floor and hardwood floors on the second and third
  
• 9-11' ceilings on each floor
  
• floor to ceiling windows/sliding glass doors on every floor
  
• small balconies off the second and third floors
  
• gas stove
  
• 8 blocks from work for both of us
  
• it's all ours
  
  1st Floor:
  
  2nd Floor:
  
  3rd Floor:
  

Shelter, Part II: I'm engaged to a girl named Mary.

The Bad:

Nothing that she lets me hold against her.

The Good:

At night, she lets me hold her against me.

"Where have you been? For months and months, where have you been?" she said.

"In Albuquerque for Christ's sakes."

I'm with someone who makes me happy.

With the exception of Banana Republic, Gap Inc. brands have been posting negative comp sales on top of negative comps from last year (translation: we're doing worse this year than last which was much worse than 2005). Amid rumors the board of directors would ask him to step down, Gap's CEO, Paul Pressler, left the company a few months ago, a precursor to the total reorganization of the executive leadership team.

Just over a month ago, a communication filtered down through the department senior directors that informed of the coming formal announcement of a series of across the board layoffs. This and electronic communications, of course, came obfuscated in the typical corporate-ese: these weren't layoffs but "restructuring efforts;" people weren't being let go, they were being "impacted;" those affected weren't being faced with challenges but "opportunities for career re-evaluation."

Two weeks ago today, my director asked me to meet her in one of the HR conference rooms. What she wanted to discuss didn't dawn on me until I hit the elevators, and seeing her, my department head, and a representative from HR seated in the room confirmed it for me. My department head informed me that the work responsibilities of my position (one to which I had been promoted just three months ago) had been eliminated because the analysis functions were not absolutely business critical. The HR rep told me they were giving me my 60 day notice, but I would only be required to work for another week while I transitioned whatever pending work I had to someone else. She explained my severance package and the continuation of my benefits. My department head then strongly suggested I take the remainder of the day off to consider my options because, he said, he would make the announcement to those not affected in the department and didn't want to put me in any more of an awkward situation than necessary. Ten other positions in my department were similarly impacted, including a friend and member of my immediate team, Stephanie.

As soon as they heard the news, a few of my buddies picked me up to take me to lunch. Between the three of them and the 81 texts I got over lunch, I'm pretty sure I answered all the awkward questions leaving for the day was supposed to circumvent or at least delay. Stephanie called to let me know she wanted to meet for drinks when I was done with lunch, so the boys dropped me off at a bar downtown.

Talking with Steph for a few hours came as a relief because we didn't have to coat our discussion of our options with same bravado necessary to ease the looks and tones of over-concern piled on us by people who still had a job. Steph is a few months away from her Master's in criminal justice and her package (more significant than mine due to her tenure with the company) would carry her through the remainder of her program. Mine would get me through the rest of my lease and leave me with enough to cover moving expenses back to Minnesota if I couldn't find anything else in the 505. We both hate our boss, so things didn't seem as bleak as they could.

Several of our friends left work a bit early to meet us for happy hour, and, several drinks in, Steph and I put up a good front. By dinner time, most of the family people left for home, thinning our crowd to just me, a few of my boys, and my boss at my old position, Sarita. We hopped to a couple of other places to shoot a few games of pool and grab some food. Sarita went home around 9, at which point one of the guys insisted on getting me a few lap dances at a seedy downtown joint called Knockouts.

I walk past Knockouts every day on my way home, but I'd never been inside. One of my fondest memories of living downtown is seeing two rather stout and masculine looking women emerge from Knockouts exclaiming, "Nothing but a bunch of heffers in there," so I wasn't overly enthusiastic about the idea of giving it a go. What I was, though, was eight hours into a night of pity rounds, and my so-called friends took advantage of my weakened resolve.

I've been to strip clubs in four cities prior to entering the damp, cheap perfume-scented ashtray called Knockouts, uncovering the general rule of thumb that the higher the cover the higher caliber of talent inside (e.g. I'm pretty sure it was about $25 to get into Crazy Horse II in Vegas several years ago whereas The Golden Rail in Minneapolis is something like $2). So my expectations were set fairly low when the bouncer told us there was no cover. Still, despite this and a couple of harrowing past experiences with some dancers in desperate need of career counseling, I wasn't prepared for the display of humanity awaiting us as we entered. All I remember of that initial shock is all of this skin, skin that was not smooth, skin that rippled as if moving at supersonic speeds or as if caught in a tempest, skin attached to lips mouthing words that had no sound.

More rounds were ordered, and as if soaking in a hot tub, my body simultaneously numbed and grew very sensitive to the environment. Everything moved in fast forward and then slow motion. One of my friends stuffed dollar bills into my sweaty fists. Another deflected lap dance offers by telling each solicitor that it was my birthday. With money in my hand and celebration in my heart, I lied defenseless against the onslaught of attention.

One dancer, Danika (not to be confused with my friend in Virginia, The D)took it upon herself to escort me through the rest of the night. She stood 5'11", 6'3" in her heels and had stars tattooed over her nipples. She drank Red Bulls through a cocktail straw and talked about how much she missed Chicago. At one point, sitting on my lap, she lunged at some paper on the floor. It was just a receipt, but she explained that she once found a hundred dollar bill crumpled into a ball under a barstool. In that moment, her sincerity moved me to feel more sorry for her than for myself. Deluded in a fog of pity and lust and malicious gin, I gave Danika the rest of my cash and told my friends it was time to go.

Epilogue:
Everyone I told here and in Minnesota said being laid off was a sign to move back with the notable exception of my mom. The day after letting go of about 15% of the employees at the center, Gap opened twelve positions, five at the level below me, five at one or two levels above me, and two at my pay grade, including one in my department. All employees, impacted or not, were given the opportunity to apply. I interviewed for the data integrity analyst position in my department against two of my friends and got it.

P.S. I don't care how cheesy this song is. I love it.

One of my friends at work sent me a link to a photo tour of Minneapolis today that's making me more than a little homesick. I'm headed back in September, and I need to make sure that I hit this place up...



which I consider the best steakhouse in the city. Because I'm old school like that.