Designated Area for Designating Areas.

What an oddly pleasant day. I feel like it has not rained in quite some time, and the light showers today were just so right.

...

At the restaurant, there's this constant, ongoing battle for a defined smoking area for the employees. In my (gasp) almost five years of employment, the smoking area has shifted location more times than I can remember, though generally its always been within a twenty foot radius of the back area of the place, where the graffiti is and the stock gets unloaded.

A few years ago, the house next to our building went up in flames, though not enough to seriously destroy the house, just enough to make it unlivable. Eying it for years, the restaurant sort of annexed the property finally, which some people claimed we were responsible for it, even though we weren't. Ironic, now, that the smoking area has now been relocated to the backyard of the house, and the fire that destroyed the house was actually started by a cigarette.

Its a nice area actually. A failed attempt at a garden, now overgrown, lots of trees blocking the next neighbors house, and some fences make it quite an ideal place to hide out for twenty minutes at a time, because few managers actually make it back there. It sort of feels like being at summer camp back there. I can't put my finger on why.

But it was fun watching the two makeshift tent structures they put up, almost blow away in the sudden gust of wind from the approaching storm. That and they're lousy for blocking the rain anyway.

I suppose either way you look at it, smokers are more and more being condemned to smoke in the oddest of places. A younger me would have been really pissed about this, but frankly, I'm looking forward to quitting this habit.

I told myself, Thirty is it. That's when smoking is no longer "cool."

My thirtieth birthday is almost three months away.

I think I can do it.

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Other good things about today: The girl I've been pining for for a while texted me out of the blue. I was sitting on my stoop, smoking, wondering to myself if I should give her a call, when blam, there it was, her text.

She texted me to ask where she could pick up an application for my restaurant.

Despite my warnings of "its a cult, and it can be really crazy at times..." she's still going for it.

I mean, it is a good job, for what it is, and a cool company, for the most part.

Anyways, I told her to put me as a reference of sorts. I think I'm somewhat respected there... sort of.

What came more as a shock, was later, she texted me wondering if I knew of anyone looking for a roommate. Which could only mean one thing, that her and her boyfriend are splitting up again. Which happened the first time around, when suddenly she started showing me some interest, and then got back together with the dude, oh, back towards the end of July.

The opening and closing of doors. Timing.

I don't know.

I'm trying hard not to end up dating yet another coworker. Not that I'm saying this girl and I are going to get together. But I have known her for a long time. And she's pretty rad.

Here we go again.

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Work was slow and pleasant today. Lots of witty banter. Standing around, smoke breaks far too often. Chill day, after the blurry, blitzkrieg of last week, all last week, that utterly exhausted me.

Oh, and then a different coworker of mine, a lady, ran up to me as I was working, and just gave me a hug from behind... I think she has a boyfriend, and its kind of weird. But I see her around the bars a lot, and we always end up talking at some point.

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Oh, girls.

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Girls, girls, girls, girls, girls.

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I need a new hobby.