A day in the life

I feel the need to apologize. I started writing this blog for you, my adoring fans, and it has been a failure. You’ve all been very nice, saying how great it is but I know the real truth so let’s not sugarcoat it, this blog has been a disaster so far. The writing has been unfunny and dull, almost as sleep inducing as one of Bruce’s emails. The good thing is that there really isn’t that much else out there for you to read. I mean are you going to read Josh’s scintillating views on ethanol or Andrew and Leigh’s gripping account of their search for burrowing owls? How about taking part in the edge of your seat excitement that is the wonderful world of knitting brought to you by our friend Rachel? Did you know that while finishing her recent project Rachel’s washed-and-blocked gauge was 6 stitches per inch rather than the 5.5 stitches per inch called for in the pattern? She deviated a half stitch per inch from the pattern!?!?!? What!?!?! That’s almost as exciting as an Angry Salad concert. (Ed. Note- I tried to find Aaron’s blog but apparently it doesn’t exist anymore. I guess my clicking the link doubled the readership from 1 to 2 and crashed the servers. Not to worry, I’m sure copies have been made and it is stored in the Library of Congress.)

The bottom line is if these offerings don’t make you long for the days when humans communicated via smoke signals I don’t know what will. So I have decided to change things up a bit by giving you an all access look into my life through this live blog of my day. Enjoy:

3:00am- Just woke up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding. I was having the weirdest dream. I was in high school and was all excited to go on a date and when I went to pick her up, the door opened and I saw the face in the picture on the right. (Interesting name for a girl but that picture looks like it's from the 60s so I guess they were naming the kids weird things back then.)

3:43am- Still awake, heart still pounding. Wondering if the image will disappear if I gouge my eyes out with the nail clipper.

4:17am- Finally getting sleepy, picturing an email from Bruce……zzzzz…zzzzz….zzzzz

7:15am- Awakened by my girlfriend Cynthia, that’s Dr. Cynthia MD MPH to you, whispering into my ear that she has to go to work. Is there a better way to start your day than hearing your girlfriend say “Honey, I have to go to the hospital to work because I’m a doctor”? I mean imagine if instead of that your spouse said, “Honey I have to go to my job as a librarian”. Would you just shoot yourself in bed or would you at least get up and do it in the basement?

8:00am- I’m sure those of you who work at 110 Elm have taken note of the homeless guy who has set up shop on the corner of Elm and Richmond streets. To be honest, I drive by most days and don’t really notice him but this morning something caught my eye. He was sitting in his usual spot and there was a strange looking dude talking to him. But this guy wasn’t just talking, he was almost screaming, his arms flailing and every so often he would interrupt his diatribe and do 10 squat thrusts. I was intrigued so I pulled over and as I did I realized the wildly gesticulating maniac wasn’t another homeless guy, it was Aaron. I walked over to figure out what was going on:

Aaron- Dude, this is the sweetest set up ever. You’ve got this little wall to sit on, plenty of side walk to sleep on and best of all this tiny little patch of dirt.

Homeless guy- What the hell am I going to do with a patch of dirt?

Aaron- Well listen, you went to Cornell, right?

Homeless guy- Yup, voted most likely to succeed in the Class of 2000 and they were right.

Aaron- Well then you should know all about farming which means you can definitely turn this dirt into a CSA. You could grow all kinds of vegetables and I’ll talk about it so much at work everyone will get involved just to get me to shut up. Won’t that be awesome? Then I’ll get everyone at work to start taking the bus and to stop taking part in their partisan bickering and vote for Unity08 and then the world will be full of rainbows and sunflowers and you’ll be living in a mansion. How does that sound?

Me- Aaron, what are you doing?

Aaron- What do you mean? I’m rocking this guy’s world. I only wish Ed Tufte was here.

Me- What the hell happened to you? You look like crap.

Aaron- Oh, I decided that taking the bus is the easy way out so I’ve started walking to work. I go to sleep at 9pm wake up at 10:30pm, 90 minutes of sleep is awesome, and then head out. It’s amazing.

Me- How long does that take?

Aaron- Well it takes awhile and stopping every ten steps to do twenty pushups makes it even longer but I freaking love it. I mean I’m making a difference, I’m changing the equation.

Me- Yeah, ok, well let’s get to work, say goodbye to your new friend over there.

Aaron- Later dude, get going on that CSA, twitter it so I can follow along. We’ll go to Local 121 for lunch soon.

Homeless guy- Go Big Red.

8:15am- Arrive at 110 Elm, walking across second floor to get to my office. I like getting here before anyone else so as I walk through the cubicles I don’t have to stop and talk to any of the serfs who toil away day after day out here. I mean could you imagine working in one of these things? Could you imagine being married to someone who works in one…”Morning Cor.” Yikes, it’s Ellen. Jeez can I ever get away from this woman? (For those of you who don’t know I used to be married to her, for proof, here’s some of video from our honeymoon, doesn’t Ellen look and sound great?)

“Hey Ellen, how’s Froggy?” I don’t know if she answered or not. Remember in Peanuts when the adults talked? That’s what I hear when Ellen talks to me. I stood there for a minute nodding and smiling and then walked away. That was the shrewdest roster move I ever made.

8:45- Wow, if I still worked in Class Campaigns I’d already be done for the day. Did I ever show you the video I made about my CC experience? Check it out, it’s pretty funny.



Does't Rachel look funny sitting on top of the copier?

8:50am- I really should go say hi to Bruce, he gets a little anxious if I don’t visit him every once in awhile. When I left last night he was on a conference call, I wonder how that went. As I get to his office I see him in his chair, fast asleep.

Me- Bruce, wake up.

Waldo- What the…?

Me- Did you sleep here last night?

Waldo – Golly, I don’t know what the heck happened. My conference call started, I began talking and the next thing I know you woke me up.

Me- Ummm, I think you put yourself to sleep. Shocker. Well you better get up, you have to get your PowerPoint ready for the fundraisers meeting this afternoon. Oh, speaking of that, I scheduled a voluntary root canal for later today so I won’t be there. Talk to you later.

10:00am- Plowing through my to-do list, Aaron’s only been in 47 times so far, glad to see my talk with him about coming in here less often has sunk in.

10:10am- Not bad, Aaron’s only been in 64 times today.

10:20am- Email from a volunteer asking what happens if he calls someone for a solicitation and he realizes the person has Alzheimer’s. I tell him I’ll check with our expert on soliciting alums/parents with Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia.

10:21am- Call Rachel.

10:56am- Great. Email from CJ telling me my weekly fax from Matt, Rachel’s husband, is downstairs. Reading the weekly fax from Matt is probably the lowlight of my week. It all started a few months ago when Matt left me a voicemail at 1:00am in which he said:

“Cory you have got to help me out. I can’t take another night with her. All she does is sit there frogging and if I have to listen to her read one more chapter of Harry Potter to me I am going to use the Avada Kedavra spell on myself. I am begging you to be friends with her and take her off my hands a few nights a week. I got Andrew and Leigh to do it for awhile and they loved it so much they went into hiding in South America for six months before resurfacing in California. Then Bob did it but he moved to an Indian reservation in NY. Josh was pretty good for a few months after that but then he moved to Rochester. Who moves to Rochester? I have also used Eric Russell, Ali Kauffman, David Greene, Bob Zimmer, Susan Detri-Souve and I even asked Ralph Rosenberg. He didn’t know anyone named Rachel. You’re my only hope.”

Ever since that fateful day, Matt has been faxing me a grid of the primetime television shows for the week. He underlines the times when he’d like me to invite Rachel over to watch TV at my place. He circles the times when he really, really needs me to invite Rachel over to watch TV at my place. I think those are the nights when he has Debbie over to his place. Needless to say,the grid is always covered in circles. But, because I’m a nice guy and because Matt needs a break from the drudgery that is his home life, I do him a favor when I can.

11:05- Wonderful, Bruce just walked in and for some reason he has a huge welt on his head.

Me- What the hell happened?

Waldo- I don’t know. I was sitting at my desk at about 10:30, practicing my presentation for the meeting and the next thing I knew I was laying on the floor, my head was throbbing and it was 11:00.

Me- zzzzzz…..zzzzzzzzz

11:25- Me- What the…? Bruce, wake up. You put us both to sleep just from talking about your presentation.

Waldo- Really? How did that….?

Me- Shhhh, just stop talking and leave, I’ve got too much work I can’t take another nap. Oh wait, one piece of advice. If you want to make sure people don’t fall asleep you should get a screen saver with a floating square on it. Set your laptop so that the screensaver comes up after being idle for 10 seconds. I guarantee everyone at the meeting will be wide awake.

11:45am- Run home for lunch. As I approach my door the upstairs neighbor comes by.

Me- Hey, what happened to you the other night?

Neighbor- What?

Me- I told you that I had a “friend” from work over for the 5th time this week and I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted you to start a fire while we were watching The Office and burn down the apartment building so I could get rid of her. I told you I had the insurance all set. You’re killing me.

Neighbor- Oh yeah, sorry about that. Someone named Bruce called my apartment while I was eating dinner, it was a wrong number and I only talked for him for like 30 seconds but the next thing I knew it was 3am. Hey, I like that new welcome mat on the floor there.

Me- That “friend” I told you about knitted me a sweater but, as you can see, no one would ever wear that so I thought I’d put it to good use. I think it’s perfect; it really soaks up the mud.

12;30pm- Stop by Starbucks for a quick iced tea. When I worked in CC I would usually sit here from 9:30-4:30 or so. Man those were the days. As I stand at the counter waiting for my drink I notice a stack of CDs. Not CD cases, just the CDs. I ask the barista what they are and she says they just got a huge shipment of old CDs from a record company; apparently they couldn’t sell any of them. Starbucks has decided to use them as coasters. They can also be used to prop up the leg on a table if it gets wobbly. She said she didn’t know the name of the group but she thinks one of the songs is a cover of that classic hit 99 Luftballoons. Who the hell would do a cover of that?

12:35- Still laughing with the barista about the 99 Luft Balloons.

12:45- At dentist for voluntary root canal, you have no idea how much I am looking forward to this. Aaron walks in and says that he wants a root canal too, thinks it will be an awesome experience that can’t be missed.

2:00- Back at work after the most painful hour of my life but still less painful than the fundraisers meeting.

2:15- Knock on my door. Great, its one of the CC officers. I don’t know who any of them are but I humor them by allowing them to talk to me. Although, they don’t know that most of the time when they think I am paying attention to them I am actually talking to someone on my cool phone headset.

CCO- Do you know who worked with the 10th Reunion the last few years?

Me- No, I don’t remember his name.


CCO- Well I couldn’t really find much info and it looks like they didn’t raise a ton of money. I found this little graph showing the results of the last few years. How do you raise negative dollars in a reunion?

Me- I don’t know. I don’t remember the guy who did the 10th but I do remember that we traded him to the University of Rochester for a stapler and 50 of those dumb picture cubes.

CCO- Why would you want cubes with pictures of Rochester?

Me- Look, that’s all they would give us. I asked for some post it notes and they said take it or leave it and I couldn’t pass up the chance to get rid of him. Now can you please leave? I don’t work in Class Campaigns so I have things to do.

5:00pm- Wow, the rest of the day flew by. Kris Davitt, my office neighbor and the new Assistant to the VP came in a few times, which was annoying. I started talking about football and other guy stuff, that got her to leave. Well I still have a few more hours of work but I think that’s enough for today. Make sure to check back again soon for more updates. Thanks for reading.