07.09.01 - 12:39 p.m.

If I were a normal or even halfway motivated person, I would have used my lunch time to write some cover letters and call contacts for magazines. So I would have something to do in two months. Instead, I sat under the red curving metal of Calder's fabulous Flamingo sculpture for an hour and read. And not my HTML design book, either.

Then, stopping at Books A Million, I found a little novel called Confessions of a Shopaholic. Now that makes sense. Put the word "shopaholic" in the title so people like me will see it, identify with it, and of course since we're compulsive shoppers we just HAVE to pick it up. God. Author must be making millions - the better to further her shopping habit with, no doubt.

Ooooh. The book is British. Fun accent time once again, with people who say things like "sodding" and "bugger," instead of stupid fucking American curses which I should definitely stop using. I can quickly see my night slipping away in a haze of popcorn (shit. popcorn maker is still packed in the scary storage area), okay, maybe not popcorn but goldfish crackers and Dr. Pepper with the book. The book was supposed to be for my trip! I can't read it tonight, I'm supposed to be job-hunting or some important thing!

No. The woman in the book is a JOURNALIST. (Well, for a money mag, but still.) Noooo. I now quote:

Because, of course, we don't have the editorial budget to create our own front covers. God, no. When I first started out in journalism, I thought I'd be able to go to shoots, and meet models, and have a really glamorous time. But we don't even have a cameraman. All our sorts of magazines use picture libraries like Image Store, and the same images tend to go round and round. There's a picture of a roaring tiger that's been on at least three personal finance covers in the last year. Still, the readers don't mind, do they? They're not exactly buying the magazines to look at Kate Moss.

Sound like anyone I know?

Time for horrible three-hour class on search engines or something equally mind-numbing. Bugger.