So I called my local internet provider today to iron out a few wrinkles with my new service, namely its hundred-percent total broked-ness, and they put me on hold to check on something or — if I know anything about phone-based customer service, and I believe I do — or to just sit quietly for a moment and wish they were dead or maybe skimming down the slip ‘n’ slide back home, and this amazing hold music comes on. It was sort of like Franks Wild Years—-era Tom Waits, except the distortion on the phone made it much freakier-sounding. Then it was abruptly replaced by the usual Kenny G and I was left wondering if I actually heard it or what the deal was. True story.

Twice today my higher-up presented some ad concepts to his higher-up, and in both cases the higher higher-ups seemed to make a big show of being really bored. Lots of audible yawning and wandering eyes and more idle whistling than you’d expect. My higher-up responded by stumbling and talking too fast and engaging in ill-advised ad libbing. I.e., the boredom theatrics totally worked. I responded by doing what I always do in meetings, which is write random words in my notebook and decorate them all fancy, brow furrowed. “¡BOK CHOI!” is an example from today. I almost always put an inverted exclamation point on there.

Over the weekend I moved into my new apartment, or duplex, I should say (I guess I never really knew what a duplex was until recently — I always thought it was either a condo or maybe a retirement home), and so far it’s just me, the cat, the TV, the desk, and the air mattress. The cat has stopped hiding in the bathroom sink and is now knocking coffee cups onto the kitchen floor and yowling.

There are no curtains, and I’m convinced the landlord’s elderly parents, who just happen to live next door, are watching my every move and transmitting daily reports to their son. You know in Ferris Bueller where the principal is bolting down the school hallway but stops and walks normally whenever he’s in front of a classroom door? I’m like that.

Still, to this day, the only reason I know how to spell “principal” is because he wants to be your “PAL.” As opposed to a “principle” which, you know, doesn’t. I think that’s from Beverly Cleary or some shit.