Much as I like the Extreme Peacefulness of my new position, I have to admit that there are days when it pretty much crosses the line into mind-numbing tedium.

Wednesday I spent a large chunk of the day entering email leads into a spreadsheet for end-of-month reporting and analysis. It's a necessary task, but I'd give twice my own hourly rate to someone else to do it for me. Type the date. Type the Argonut ID code. Type the lead source. Repeat ad nauseam, 700+ times a month.

I'm still enjoying the new job, though, in spite of the extra duty penalties I'm suffering for having volunteered to help them out when they were in a bind.*

Much of what I'm doing is still like a game. Like last week, when I was running reports and looking to see how some of our advertising campaigns are doing. I was feeling a bit guilty about wasting company time dinking around that way when I was abruptly shocked to remember that that kind of "dinking around" is part of my job. I mean, wow. Not only work I don't mind doing, but tasks that feel more like play than work!

The boringness factor, though. Contrary to what Gidget says and Vela believes, this is not rocket science. It's fun, but not taxing. It's even a bit--I won't say demeaning, but I will say it's rather less intellectually challenging than the kind of work I'm capable of.

Still, for the money they're paying me, and I'm very grateful for the regular paycheck but it's not that big, so for the money they're paying me, they're getting about as much of my brain as they're entitled to.

I fell off the diet wagon directly into a vending machine accident yesterday. Sigh. Even if it was only half a package of salted peanuts, it's a demonstration of self-indulgence that is just disgraceful. Shakes head regretfully.**

I gave in and printed out a list of the country names I feel I should be able to remember. Of the entire list of 235 (I think), there were 163 that I thought I should be able to name at the drop of a hat. I'm going to study the list before I try the game again. It may be cheating, but I prefer to think of it as "studying." (If nothing else, I may learn to spell Liechtenstein, right?) (It's the first e. I can never seem to remember the first e.

There will be a pause while I slurp coffee and sift through my brain for something interesting to say....

Not interestingly, but aggravatingly, while I was off doing phone relief, Skylla crept to my desk and dropped a fiver onto it. I refused point-blank to take money from her for cigarettes before and advised her to buy her own if she planned to smoke regularly. But, she explained today, it works better for her if she just borrows from me.

It's a significant difference to her, you see, that she's not "buying" cigarettes. (I don't think she realizes that she's not less of a smoker just because she doesn't go into a store and pay for her own.)

Previously I also refused point-blank to be responsible for showing up every day with enough cigarettes for both of us. She feels that giving me money will take care of that potential problem.

Gidget advises me to buy an extra pack with Skylla's money and just leave it here for her, but that's basically just me buying her cigarettes for Skylla, which puts me where I don't want to be.

I haven't been able to find the words to explain to anyone how badly I don't want to be part of this situation. If you're my friend? Bum a cigarette. Snag a pack. Borrow a carton, I don't mind. But Skylla is not a friend of mine. She makes nice at me because she wants cigarettes.

Also? Now, today, before she falls off the non-smoking wagon she's clearly been on, it's time for her to face the fact that you either smoke or you don't. If she's fought the battle this far, she needs to not smoke and she's not "not smoking" just because she's not carrying the fiver into a store on her own.

I wish I could find the words to say that to her.

I'm noticing that I'm not as serene as I was when I started this post.

"Time flies like an arrow," goes the old joke. "But fruit flies like bananas." If you have some interest in speculations in cosmology, you might enjoy reading about this. I did.

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* As I stop to think about it, I'm not sure why I complain about it so much. I mean, yeah, it means an additional 8-10 hours of work every couple of weeks, but it's not like it's hard work. And some MSFP experience will look good on my resume. But still I complain.

** Except that I'm doing a little better than that, having dropped 4 lbs so far.