Me and Jocelyn ended up hugging, I helped her burn her staff folder onto a CD-ROM. “You were a ray of light in a…” she said. “Hellhole?” I said. We laughed. Aww, I’m totally going to miss her. I’m really sad now. Tom and Matt are completely indifferent. I’m sad. I’m really sad. Susan left while Jocelyn was still here and said goodbye in a heartfelt and diplomatic way. Mike cloistered himself away in his office. He wants to stay as far away from the truth of his managerial failure as possible. I’m depressed. I want to call Amanda and tell her that I’m not going to give her a ride, but the only reason I would give would be the truth: that she’s a minor and I’m not going to expose myself to litigation. I don’t know what to do. I’m forced not to be passive agressive at work, so I think I’ll do the passive agressive thing and go home or go try to find Steve, Sammie, and Tawna. I guess I’ll just go to the college. I shouldn’t be passive agressive. And I think Molly volunteered to help with layout. I need to make phone calls. I’ll call Molly first from here, then go to the office. I need to get gas tonight. Okay, I’m done with neighbors and everything…OMG. I forgot the community calendar. Fuck. Actually, I think I did it. Let’s see. I didn’t put anything new on it, but oh well. I’m getting the fuck out of here.

The emotions in this room are so thick I could cut them with a knife. Well, at least I think so. Everyone else is pretending they don’t care what’s going on (about Jocelyn leaving). Or maybe they don’t care. Oh, I thought of something really funny a week or so ago. Matt Crawford (the copy editor)’s roomate’s name is Matt Mais, he has been writing some stuff for the Triplicate, and since they’re roomates, I had to amuse myself by pretending that they were lovers. It’s really funny to picture Matt C. being all “Oh, you’re just so cute when you’re mad, Matt.” or Matt M. saying “I love the way you write it like that, Matt.” Man I’m so bored. I have to think up things like these to ward off falling asleep. I just did a Google search for “Mike Schmeltzer” and it brought up my blog on the second page of search results. I’m glad everybody is too technologically inept to find my blog. I’m thinking of taking my picture off my blog permanently…but I think that it would be obvious anyway who I am. Should I take my blog off the Net? I don’t know. I’m really scared seeing how easy it is to find.

I’m overcome with melancholy as Jocelyn is leaving…:( Mike is totally ignoring the whole situation, I wouldn’t be surprised if he never even said goodbye to her. I have a buttload of Neighbors stuff to do, I need to get started. I left to go do my layout session with Terry. He’s smart, he knows what to do. The depressing thing was Amanda. She was basically living in the Drift Office with her cats and stuff. Well, not permanently, but just for the day until I supposedly give her a ride to that lady’s house. I don’t think I want to get involved. I think I’m going to go straight home. Or at least tell her that I can’t give her a ride. Maybe. There is no limit to the depths she’ll sink to. I saw her begging Michael Rosenburg to go live with him. I’m sure he’d love it, but he has enough sense to know he’d get arrested. He was actually giving her good advice, to just weather it out until she’s 18. So I guess he’s not as much of a lech as I imagined.

OMG. That anus Tom just said that it was Molly’s fault for not sending in cutlines. “No, she sent them in, you just lost them,” I replied. I can put up with him being a bumbling idiot, but when it comes to accusing my friends of being bumbling idiots, that’s where I draw the line. God this is so depressing. I just want to hug Jocelyn and be all “I’m so sorry that he’s such an ASSHOLE!” but 1) that would be totally inappropriate, 2) I’m not a person that likes to touch people, 3) she’d probably think I was coming on to her. I just feel so bad! I don’t know what to do, I can’t concentrate on my work at all. This is all so depressing. School used to be my haven from the evil that is Mike, and now there’s craziness and evil wherever I go, there’s nowhere that’s safe. It’s days like this that I just want to crawl into a dark corner of my room with a stack of good novels and not leave for a week.

I was searching for some obscure story on the server, and the thought stuck me to see how many editorials Mike has written, so I searched for the slugline we use for editorials:

[insert date here].edit.[insert title here]

so I searched for “edit”.

Results (listed from new to old):
0918.edit.throgmorton
0904.golf.resort.editorial
edit.Frank.Lynch.0819
edit.Throgmorton.0814
edit.skate.0807

There are a few more that are older, he’s written about one a month. If I were a reporter, and I wrote one story a month, I would be fired. But I guess Mike is just beyond reproach. Lame. I’m totally going to miss my appointment with Terry. I’m going to have to go over there, do that for an hour, and come back. Damn it. Well, I’m going to try…no, it’s impossible. I can’t finish Neighbors and all that crap in time. But I’ll try to get as much done as I can. And then I’ll have to come back to this hellhole. Jocelyn bought me Subway, repaying her debt, so I’m happy.

I’m really not as tired today as I would have thought. I got to sleep around two and woke up at 8:30, so I got six and a half hours of sleep. I guess that’s not too bad. However, I feel really icky because I didn’t wash my face or hair, I didn’t have time. Just got out of 1B…I totally bombed the quiz. I could only think of two categories of setting, and I didn’t know how the main character of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest related to the setting. Isn’t he just…there? Whatever. I did get the question about the two ways characters can interact with setting, and barely anybody got that one. And I alone was able to answer that One Flew is an example of unreliable narrator. I was happy about that.

I should go to work and get it the hell over with. Omg! Jocelyn is supposed to buy me lunch today, because she owes me and it’s her last day. W00t. I should totally go intto the bathroom and wash my face, go to the car and put on my shoes, and mosey on over to work. I haven’t seen Sammie or Tawna or anyone today…I hope I see them later. I don’t hope I see Naiya. I had to be extraordinarily nice to her since I’ve been so cynical about Amanda’s “meltdowns.” I hate pretending to care, but I can’t get on Naiya’s bad side. You have to treat crazy people with kid gloves. She’s using these “meltdowns” totally for attention, and only an idiot would argue otherwise. I really hope I don’t see her today.

I really hate Naiya and Amanda’s friend, that “Wiccan” girl that brought that candle for Amanda that day…she’s one of those people who think it’s fashionable to be on Prozac. Give me a fucking break. I’m going to work.