under-desk Sistine chapel - Sunday August 22 1999    

While Kim was off in Rancho Bernardo doing a massage housecall, my boss called asking if I was coming in to work today. I told him I hadn't been planning on it, but... Somehow he convinced me to come in anyway. My boss is just such a positive guy, he makes even bitter pills like me want to please him. If there's one thing about my workplace that bodes well for my stock options, it's the extremely functional system of managers running the place. There are a few bad eggs amongst them, true, but they're mostly big names who are only there to give the company investor credibility. Other than providing that, those people might as well just stay home every day.

So I slipped off to work on my bike. It was ever so much easier to do so with Kim not there. There was no argument, no fuss, no fight, no bitter feelings to taint my ride, just the warm sun beating down on me and the diverse water birds of the San Diego River doing their thing.

I was at work for a good couple of hours before I heard from Kim. She was all confused that I had unexpectedly left for work. Owing largely, I guess, to the fact that I rarely bring up the unpleasant subject of the weekend workplace expectations placed upon me, Kim had been working under the mistaken assumption that my weekends were once again free. Perhaps I'd even deluded myself into thinking the same thing. How could I explain my boss's phone call without sounding like some sort of chump?

So Kim decided to come to work and hang out with me there. Her thinking was that she never gets to see me anywhere else, so she might as well hang out with me in my pathetic half-cubicle.

I didn't appreciate her presence at first. She was a big (and slightly intoxicated, I might add) distraction. Just imagine trying to code complex VBScript functions while your girlfriend is sitting on the floor beside you whining and quizzing you about your reasons for being there and her dog is snuffling around looking for crumbs on filthy internet startup carpets. But eventually I grew used to her presence and she gradually quieted down. What really helped was when she went on a beer run and returned with a 12 pack of Mexican brew. After that, I drank as I programmed and Kim retreated with Sophie beneath my desk, lying on her back with an assortment of pens and pencils working on a Sistine Chapelesque ceiling painting above my knees.

My boss went all out for us too, ordering each of us full chicken teriyakis for dinner.

I managed to get quite a bit of work done this afternoon, and I was even home in time for the Simpsons.