Thursday morning, I received an e-mail asking me to come in for a job interview at the venerable (nameless) university. I immediately accepted and received boundless support from TT, who got me the interview in the first place.

Thursday afternoon, we received an e-mail from our kick-ass new VP of Marketing, beckoning us to her office for a sudden meeting. Only six of us were invited. At the meeting, VP announced that Olly, the Corp Comm Director with Multiple Personalities, and the two Cute Young Things who worked for her all got laid off. Correction � "their jobs were eliminated." VP recognized their questionable existence and did something about it. Unheard of, in the corporate world.

March 14, 2002. The day that things got interesting.

Then I found myself in an enviable position. The university job (did I mention it pays shitloads of money?) still sounded great, but now I didn't feel like the alternative � staying put � sounded so bad anymore. I opened a good bottle of wine that night and danced around the kitchen a lot. A. said he hadn't seen me so happy in months.

Friday I had my interview and wasn't really nervous. Except when one of the interviewers embarked on a line of questioning obviously indicating they're looking for somebody way more technical than I. But the word is they liked me, and I have a phone interview with another person tomorrow. Yet I remain calm and patient.

So I had a dream last night. I think I've been feeling slightly guilty lately (unjustifiably, of course) that I had one of the greatest experiences of my life, my cross-country trip, with my slacker musician ex rather than with A. I dreamt that A. and I were heading west together, that he was driving and that I slept through most of Kansas and Colorado and woke up just as we entered Utah. We seemed to be going for speed rather than sightseeing. We stopped for the night in the middle of nowhere and stayed in a ramshackle cottage, and I think there was some kind of lurking danger � hooligans or gangs or something, I'm not sure why. But there was fear and trepidation. Then we started driving on the 100-mile stretch of road with no exits in Utah and realized we didn't have gas.

I think this dream was triggered by A.'s mother asking me if I drove west by myself. I lied and told her I drove with a friend. Which is technically true, but somehow seems like a fib seeing as how I happened to have had intimate relations with that friend.