Katie Doyle, Girl About Town

Thursday, May. 17, 2007 - 12:01 a.m.

So, new job is progressing decently, I suppose. I'm still in shock over my teeny tiny paycheck, though. I realized the other day I haven't worked for less than $10/hour since before 1987. I feel like I should really be back in high school or at least college again, since I'm regressing seriously backward on the income ladder. :(

I like the information desk, though. People are really grateful when you help them find a book they really want. They thank you profusely and tell you you rule just because you put in their hands the thing they want most at that moment, when it's really nothing more than your job to do so. I love it. You can go above and beyond the call of duty all damn daylong in television and everyone just assumes it's their due. Almost no one ever says thank you. You sure as hell don't get kudos for it. But find a copy of Blink for someone, and they can't thank you enough. If I only made $10 an hour, I'd be a very happy camper.

Unfortunately, I don't make 10, I make 8, and that translates to $192 gross a week for me right now, 256 once I finally get fulltime. Considering I have a car in need of serious repair, that's a very bad thing. My car has developed a charming little foible wherein it refuses to start when the weather is warmer than 78-80 degrees. It needs either a new main relay or a new: igniter, ignition coil, ignition switch, or some other mystery part like spark plug wires or something else equally random. After a few days' research on the web, the most obvious things are the first 4 things I mentioned, each of which costs around $80 for the new part, plus the time to test and fix each thing, which, if it happens to be the main relay and is the first thing they test, will cost all of about $300 to fix. If it's not that, or they start with something else, it goes up $60/hour and $80/part as it progresses. And that's before the part mark-up, which is 50%. So the cheapest I'm looking at is $340. Over a week's worth of work. In television, I could fix it and still have money left over. In my new life as a "book seller," it's at least 3 weeks' worth of work. I can't tell you how stressful that is. When I was working in television, I always thought I didn't have enough money. (Well, not always; the last job was awesome money, but I had to use it all to pay my mom back for France.) Now that I've returned to my college income roots, I remember what actually never having enough money is like, and I'm freaking out. :(

Whatever. Here are some pictures to look at.

This is my most-viewed image ever, to-date. I even made Flickr's Explore page, highest rank 225, so I made the top 500. W00t. It's called "Night With Her [Blanket] of Stars and Her Great Gift of Sleep. It's based on a painting by Edward Robert Hughes, which is, in turn, based on a poem by William Ernest Henley called "Margaritae Sorori."

This is something I did today, for a group I'm in. It's called High 5, in which Doraemon and C-3P0 high five each other when Skins pull ahead of the Shirts by 50 points.

This one is called Catch a Falling Star.

And this was a chalk drawing I did one of my days off last week.

That's all I got. Have a nice day.

Peace out,
Katie

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Yesterday's News - Next Stop

In which Katie shares sad news - Wednesday, Apr. 01, 2015
In which Katie returns after a very long absence - Monday, Jun. 25, 2012
In which Katie pokes her head in and brushes some of the cobwebs away - Thursday, May. 06, 2010
In which Katie asks you to write your congressman again. - Monday, Jun. 02, 2008
In which Katie asks you to please click the link and send the message to protect the rights of artists - Wednesday, May. 21, 2008