my kingdom for a can opener.

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dateline: home away from home

2 august 1996 5:38 p.m.

They were really nice about it. At least I smelled it coming, wrote about it even, a while ago... and I still get to goof off in this lab, keep my stuff in the fridge in the SLIS lounge, and I don't think anyone will get around to changing the names I gave the Macs around the department at least for a while (though "Gwenhwyfar," the IIci always use, will soon be adopted by an instructor). Dr. Osborne, by and large the coolest professor in the school, was standing in the hall. "Hey," he said in a mysteriously comforting way, and offered me some honey-roasted peanuts. Told me a Bob Dole joke I'd heard, but still made me laugh. Just another day. Still, I cursed a blue streak to an unexpectedly early lunch. I went to campus center, not even thinking I ordered that gawdawful katsu again, and I ran into Judy, a girl I had in an ICS class last year. We exchanged a couple of lines of pleasantries, and I said, "So what's up with you?" She said, smirking, "I just lost my job." Damn. She took my line. She worked for the historic biographical research center (or something) in Bachman Hall, where Morty -- the oh-so-effective UH president -- hides. All the student help there, seniority be damned, are out. Although I forgot to ask if the other "moles" got canned too, I bet they did. Hey. Cyna still has my "Abba: Greatest Hits" CD. This very minute, all over campus, I wonder if there are more nicely folded, crisp white letters on university stationary waiting in the decorated makeshift message boxes in departments all over campus. I wonder if my s-word mantra is being echoed in cars, buses and on sidewalks throughout Manoa? Ben "The Education Governor" Cayetano my ass. And that's exactly where he's gonna get it in '98. I called the bosslady at Queen's, and she said I could get five more hours a week for now and most likely a lot more after the throngs of summer hires run away. This very second, I've got enough in the bank for my now day-late rent, seven credits, and maybe three-quarters of a textbook. Some aloha Friday this has been. An early, backhanded "happy birthday" from the state. Derek is insisting on taking me to a consolation dinner. My brain is going a million miles a minute. So, to top it all off, now I've got butterflies.