Facili-what?

We had a meeting today of the Technical Writer's Interest Group. Yeah, I know. TWIG. I didn't name it. What do you think I am, some kind of sap? I think the name stems from a desire to branch out and garner a catchy acronym. The couldn't just leave it be. There are probably some deeply rooted issues there. I personally think they are barking up the wrong tree. If it were me, which it wasn't, that name would have been locked in a trunk. They probably took a vote and it was either love the name or be out of the group. I can imagine that conversation. Decide you. Us. Or nothing at all. Anyway, I shouldn't get needled by the whole thing. We met. We looked at what was on our plate for the coming weeks. It's a lot. And we found out that the facilitator of the group will be leaving in the next month or so. They asked for a new volunteer. A silence blanketed the room. Then I saw Joan at the other end of the table and I felt this overwhelming need to make her proud of me. I get fits like that sometimes. So I raised my hand. Now I'm the man! I'm the man with buyer's remorse. I don't even have a frickin' computer for goodness' sake. I have absolutely no business volunteering for this position. But somebody had to do it and I was feeling strangely like somebody at the moment. Somebody else. Who the hell was that guy?

Work has ceased to be boring. Unfamiliar people are showing up at my elbow and leaving piles of paper that seem to cry out for artistic applications of crimson liquid. Gosh I love this work. Who needs a computer when you can doodle all across somebody's heartfelt effort to relay information? I think I'm going to get some of those sleeve garters and a desk lamp with a green glass shade. I was born forty years too late. Then again, those guys didn't have iPods. I wonder how they survived.

At the end of the work day (my first with overtime!) another editor came downstairs to my vast one-table kingdom of an office and left me with a huge honkin' document filled with programming gobbledygook and those three words an editor loves to hear, "Due by Friday." Yes! So when I show up at 6 tomorrow morning, toss out the leftover coffee in the pot, start a new pot, and press "Brew," I'll have something worthwhile to occupy my time until I can get my injection of joe.

Hey, who saw the stars this morning? Wicked cool, weren't they? So bright. Just as well too. When it's that cold out your nose would drip all over your good clothes if you weren't looking up.