Well, happy valentine’s day. I know today celebrates romantic love, but, lacking that, I’ve made sure to send out some love and affection to friends and to the various candidates. The candidates got a little email, like, hey, I hope you know that I always enjoy hanging out with you.

Tonight is speed dating. Is it a bad sign that I was looking for happy hours already? It just makes me a little nervous is all. I’m sure it’ll be fine. I’m sure there’s a good story or two just waiting to happen.

Oh, yesterday had a good story. Wanna hear? Ok, so this guy responded to a personals ad, and he’s been kind of persistent without being crabby about it. I like a little perseverence. I’ve knocked myself out to make things easy for too many people. Not that I’m out to make things hard, but I’m done paving the way to my door.

So, this guy, I finally break down and talk to him on the phone. From his physical description and telephone manner, he reminds me of a big, human golden retriever. Good natured, large, happy. He said a couple of things that struck me as odd. First, that he teaches at a community college nearby, four nights a week. I didn’t know about that. Another friend of mine works for another one of the city colleges, and they don’t have classes at all on Fridays, much less Friday night classes. Soooooo, I thought that was odd.

And, he made sure to tell me that his family was quite wealthy, and he’d felt used by some women who thought they would marry into his family’s money. I found that kind of strange. If you don’t want people to date you for your cash, why tell them about your family’s money? He claims his family is co-owner of a large chain of restaurants here.

The internet being so handy and helpful and all, I looked all this up. Nothing seems to be fitting together. I doubt that he’s provided me with his real name, which is certainly his perogative, but a quick cross-reference of the owners of the restaurants with the last names of instructors at the college showed no matches.

Lastly, of interest, he wanted to call me again last night, but didn’t. I don’t know if at some point he might have realized that I wasn’t a complete idiot and that I might be savvy enough to verify what he was telling me, or what. No email yet, either. So, it’ll be interesting to see if he touches base again.

I did get a Valentine’s Day text from my youthful former friend. I haven’t seen him in over a week and a half, and got no communication from him for a week, but today, he’s checkin’ in for some lovin’. I knew he’d do that. I deleted his phone number from my phone completely to prevent myself from doing something stupid, like calling him. Fortunately, I seem to have relocated my spine, and this seems to be working its way out of my system.

Oh, very exciting news: I’m actually at a job right now! Of course, that sounds pretty bad, doesn’t it? Finally get some paid work, and I spend my time working on my blog. Unfortunately, strangely, they are struggling to keep me occupied. My last instruction was to “surf the internet a bit.” So. Here I am.

I’m at a very nice office on the west side of the Chicago Loop. I actually have a humongous bank of windows just outside my cubicle, so there is some precious natural light. Everyone is very nice, of course. It’s humbling to be back on the bottom of the food chain. I pass the offices (very nice offices at that) of people my age and younger, and I think, huh. If I’d been a little more type A in college, I could be a compensation consultant. It looks like a very cushy life in some ways, what with the big salary and all. But, I overhear their conversations, and no, I was not meant to be a compensation consultant. Or any kind of consultant, for that matter. Oh, the mistakes I’ve made, but at least I didn’t try to mold myself into some kind of corporate faux-workaholic. Because being an under- or unemployed administrative assistant is morally superior . . .