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rose walker said Five in the morning and I made a phone call. Hey, Nicole it's me Eric. Are you having a good night? No, I want to go home was her response. That reply didn't surprise me at all. In fact she says this every night that she is at work and I usually have to turn the conversation to something a little more light hearted to cheer her up. Before I could do that however she went on to tell me how her boss was bothering her. He had given her something new to learn and she made a mistake because she really didn't care about what she was doing. That was enough to get both of them going at one another. He was upset with her for making the mistake and she was upset with him for giving her the project in the first place. This incident between her and her boss was nothing new to me. Whereas I try to ignore my boss, Nicole likes to antagonize hers. Very seldom does she refer to him by his name and regularly creates new and more insulting nicknames for him. To make the situation worse she likes to openly taunt her boss with these names and I've been a witness to one or two of these verbal battles. Of course her boss tries to take them into his office to keep them private, but voices have a way of carrying so I don't need to hear the story from her. In her boredom Nicole said that she was ready to push him to the edge. She wanted to see if she could make him send her home. In the past she has come close, but it has yet to happen. Before she could say anymore I had to cut the call short because he was within earshot of her, but she also said that he would probably leave in a few minutes so that I should call her back. When I called back she was able to talk, so we started with the weather. Sometime during the night a dusting of snow had fallen. It was the first time in weeks that there was any hint of white on the ground, but she said that it was far less than what she had heard predicted on the news. I asked if her son liked to play in the snow and that changed her whole mood. Oh, no, she said. Her little boy can't stand the cold. He shivers after taking a bath and hugs the towel for dear life until he's dry. It isn't as though the house is horribly cold, he just can't stand being cold and lets everyone know it. Of course this story is enhanced by Nicole providing her son's voice for me which is always cute. Mama cold. Mama cold. Last year he was too little to go outside, but she doubts that he'll like being in the snow this year when we get enough to last more than a day. The whole cold factor is too much for him. She then went on to say that he doesn't like to hold onto an ice cube so a snowball is probably not going to happen with him. Her big plan for this week is to decorate her son's room. The carpeting is being changed and once that is done she is going to transform the room into a shrine to Blue's Clues. I can't tell who'll be more excited by it, her son or her because she openly admits that she is nothing more than a big kid herself. ... I'm trying to remember when Nicole and I first started talking to one another. I know that it wasn't right away. When I first started at the company she was seeing someone else outside the company and kept somewhat to herself. Once that relationship ended, I think that she started to interact more with the people at work, but I could be wrong. What I do know is that her stories always make me smile and if either of us leaves the company it won't be the same. She has to be one of the most alive people that I know and part of me envies her fiance. Maybe if things had been different she would be with me and not with him, but I'll take what I can from her. Somehow I think that I could get very used to starting the day with her, but then again maybe I'm just letting my imagination get the best of me. ... For the past three days I've been reading this great book about the comic book series The Sandman. As far as I can remember I bought it months ago, but didn't have a chance to fully read it until now and I'm glad that I got it. The book is by Hy Bender and is called The Sandman Companion. Some people might not understand how a book can be written about a comic book series, but what Neil Gaiman created has to be the most complex and enjoyable series ever made in comic book form. No one else has been able to mix so many literary allusions and entertaining characters in such a way that he did. Yes, Alan Moore certainly made some great stuff with The Watchmen and The Swamp Thing, but Neil did something a little different. Neil made something that was almost entirely new using folklore from around the world and blending it with modern people and places. I had forgotten how great those stories were and I think that I might have to read all seventy five issues again. In the interviews Neil mentions some of the authors that he likes and I am now on a quest to get some books from Jonathan Carroll. Bones of the Moon is the book that I want the most, but it seems to be out of print wherever I look. Maybe I'll have to be content with The Wooden Sea. There is an excellent substitute for The Sandman being offered on the stands now although I have the feeling that most people overlook it. The series is called Lucifer and builds on the character that Neil fashioned in The Sandman. Mike Carey gives Morningstar some of the best lines that I have ever read and I am sure that they would make Neil proud. ... Sunday slipped away from me as I fell asleep before The X-Files started. It doesn't really matter that I missed the show when I still have most of season four on dvd to watch, but I probably should have stayed awake longer than I did. One would think that I could sleep through the night, but I can't. Over three years on third shift makes this a real struggle for me and I usually end up waking up every two hours or so. Naturally this doesn't leave me feeling very refreshed which is why I was able to call Nicole at five in the morning.
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