(Tom) Riddle of the Week

This little stumper was given to me during my Google interview this morning. I can't seem to figure it out:

I give you a coin.
There are three doors.
You have to devise a way to choose a door, such that the likelihood of choosing any one door is exactly the same for each of the doors.

You can, but do not have to use the coin.


Needless to say, I didn't get it, but my interviewer didn't expect me to. He just wanted to hear "my process".

Sleep on that.


In other news, I finished Harry Potter 7 today. I must say, that even though it's a book like any other book, it does symbolize many many years of my life either reading or in anticipation of reading. Finishing it was bittersweet, but not as melancholy as I expected, and (shyly) hoped.

Challah gets delivered on Tuesdays

BIG crisis at work. Kevin (the owner) has decided that things aren't working. The servers aren't self-sufficient enough. We need more order. We need more camraderie. His solution: Diana. Well, Di, which is her self-proclaimed nickname. She used to woork at Doc's Marina Grill on the water a quick walk downhill from Nola's, where the food's so bad we won't refer walk-ins there when we're no longer seating. They don't empty the trash in their bathrooms at night. The owner (of Doc's, mind you) was caught fucking one of his teenage waitresses on one of the front tables after hours by his middle-aged downtowner wife. Point being, the entire place is covered in salty harbor swank, and by extension, so is Di. She has her nickname tattooed on her hand, and some indistinguishable swatch tatooed on her left fake breast, just slightly below any lycra neckline. So Di is trying to bring order to our little halfway house, where every respectable Bainbridge girl makes a short summer pitstop between here and there. Except for Jade. And, boy is Jade freaking out. Jade has working there pretty much longer than anyone. She's only 222, but she works five doubles in a row per week, she's engaged to a rehaber, she has Chinese symbols tattooed on her foot (if I had a dollar for every one of my co-workers' tattoos...) she used to be a cheerleader. Jade is the type of girl girls like me hate. She's 5'2", blond, big boobs, big eyelashes, diamonds and a tiny dog. She stepped out of Nicole Ritchie's handbag. But, for some reason I really really like Jade and I feel bad for all the shit Kevin (the owner) gives her to do without paying her extra for it. I feel bad that he brings in a "manager" who Jade basically trains without getting the title of manager. Jade works hard. Despite big boobs big eyelashes, tiny feet and face, people come to the restaurant to sit at Jade's tables. Nobody comes to sit at my tables, that's for damn sure.

I have another interview at Google on Monday. They're flying me down to San Fran, which will be nice, b/c I'll get to see Christine and all them fools. Nice to get a change of food serving pace.

I get to see GirlTalk again tomorrow in Seattle. I'm stoked.

Hockey Mask

I'm embarrassed to admit, that, in my job search, it's very important to me what I'm going to say to people about what I'm doing.

So, what are you doing now?

I'm an administrative assistant for a boring company.

Oh.

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So, what are you doing now?

I'm an editorial assistant for a design magazine.

OH! Which one?!

Dwell.

OH! MY!

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So, what are you doing now?

I'm a law clerk in San Francisco.

Do you want to go to law school?

Thinking about it.

Do law clerks work a lot?

No free time. Never.

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It's scary how much stake I'm putting into those 3-6 lines of interaction.

Sicko

I hate our healthcare system. And I hate that a movie can wrap up all the imperfections and fucked up parts of it and then make me feel incredibly helpless when I leave. I know I'm getting breast cancer at some point in my life. I hope I have health insurance to pay for it. I hope I don't have to move to France to do it. I hope I live to be old. I think I'd make a good old person.

Waiting on Someone (s)

I love my new job. I know you should never judge anything by the first day, be it good or bad, but my first day as an actual waitress was really fun. They started me out on the booths, the small two-person tables in the restaurant. I got tripped up a couple times here and there, but, as my boss says, those are growing pains, and we soon grow out of them, or soon they're not longer as painful.
I love the people I work with. I forgot, being at Stanford, an environment where everyone is pretty much at the same station of life you are, or at least in a similar mindset, or of a similar ethos. At Nola, everyone is different. Some people have wokred there for five years, some for two weeks. There are two guys I went to high school with who work in the kitchen. I never talked to them in high school. Literally not once. One of them used to do dip in sixth grade and spit it into his sweatshirt sleeve. Now, when I see them at work, I'm so happy. Like I could make up for "lost time" by talking to them over the bar where they set the food when it's ready.
I love being on my feet all day. Not really, cause my feet hurt like a riot right now, but there's something to be said for working REAL HARD for the money you make. It was my frist day and I made $130 in tips, but about $90 when I tip everyone else (the buser, hostess, bartender, kitchen). Not bad!
One of my coworkers told me I looked Caribbean today. No one can ever pin point what my nationality is. It was kinda awesome.
It poured today. I love the way pavement smells after new rain. Like wet dust.

With

I think 'with' is my favorite word. It's the least lonely word on earth. Like I take my coffee with milk and sugar. Like she is coming with. Like I am with you; we are with each other. You cannot reduce or take me from you or drink my coffee burnt and black unless we're with-out. Out is the swinging door with. Out takes swigs, makes tire tracks behind, hauls memories with. We are all without on every bike we ride.

I joined the gym today; did a step class and a yoga class. It was my first yoga class ever. I'm becoming a sixty year old woman, slowly but surely (aren't we all?). I got to the place in my book--we all know this place--where it's no longer something you read before bed, or something you pick up when you're bored, but something you HAVE to read or you'll go mad. Something that haunts you and you feel unsettled with something in your life and you try to remember what it is, and it's just the damn book with its chaos and wanting. It's when 200 pages isn't enough to resolve it all. It's when you love the characters more than they love each other. And my characters' world right now is so small I swear I could crawl inside it. My world feels just as small. Being home is a blessing. I only make small dents in the world.

I have a sign by my computer I made that says "Write Everyday." I wonder if this counts as that kind of creative writing that I meant, or if this is just a trifle, a drop in the proverbial pond (or pool?) of obsolete inanities of life. But, it's my life and I guess that's exactly it. What I make it; what it is. Me with me.

Bainbridge, Je T'aime

I spend a lot of time getting organized so I can do things. I rearrange my desk and make sure items make right angles, then I can start my work. Chaos breeds creativity and I strive for the anti-chaos. My computer is so slow that the words on the screen come out after I type them, like a ghost writer.

I am living on Bainbridge with my friend Will's parents. Correction: I am living on Bainbridge with my ex-boyfriend Will's parents. We dated the summer between our junior and senior years of high school. I spent almost every day that summer in this house. Only I wasn't writing in blogs then, if you know what I mean. I never know when to make the transition from calling them my "ex boyfriend" to my friend. I suppose there isn't a hard fast rule, but I'm sure someone somewhere holds themself to one. Maybe I should only refer to my most recent ex-boyfriend as my ex-boyfriend. But, in that case, is it Dave or RoJo? Are Dave and I broken up? Am I visiting him in New York? RoJo is also in New York. It's all very confusing. Or not. I love all the boys that were my ex-boyfriends, still, to this day, which doesn't necessarily mean anything except for maybe my penchant for holding on. For trying to isolate the way someone used to feel about me. And this title "ex-boyfriend" doesn't include all those in between. Those I don't know what to do with. Those who exist like the pictures you take on digital cameras, turn the camera around, decide you're making a funny face, and delete. Like it never existed. No feeling at all.

I'm coming to terms with the transition. It's starting to make sense. All of a sudden dorm rooms seem ridiculous. Parties? More so. I found my post-college dream job today: working as a Editorial assistant for Dwell, an architectural and design magazine in San Francisco. I would die to have that job.

I love having nothing to do on a Friday night. This is an utterly bizarre feeling. When I'm not surrounded by would-be party-ers, I feel no remorse for "missing out". No tug. These days it's a slow roll back to normal.

I saw Paris Je T'aime tonight at the historic movie theater on the island. It's 18 short films by different famous directors (The Coen Bros., Cuaron, Gus Van Sant, etc.) about Paris, why they love Paris, love in Paris. It was cute and quaint, like a series of dainty short stories. And, yes, it made me want to go to Paris. But, I'm sure that if any of the times I've been in or out of love were chopped into bits and made into a seven minute short, it'd make you want to come to Bainbridge, or Stanford, or Berlin. It's the city, sure, but it's the love, yes. If you knew about me, you'd ask why everything has to come back to this. I have no idea. But it all revolves for a reason, right? I'm definitely going to the gym tomorrow.