My First Day...

So I did pass my drug screening, in spite of my paranoid dreams and secondhand-ish date with the Thespian on Saturday night.

They asked me to come in at 2, in order to fill out the requisite Gannett paperwork and such, then the nice ladies in HR chatted amiably about Hawaii and my so-called reasons for moving away from there, and they snapped my photo, tacked it onto a badge, and shuffled my up to editorial--or, "The Information Center"--on the second floor.

I was told straight off that my immediate supervisor was no longer there. So the first editor greeted me and suggested I attend the Page One meeting, where a handful of other editors discussed what was worthy of attention for the next day, then they scattered across the newsroom and my initial editor left me with one of the senior writers to introduce me to the computer system which, we soon discovered, I could do nothing with until I had my official sign-in name and passcode assigned by IT.

So then IT came over, mumbled some weird tech-jargon and dashed off, when another editor came over and hospitably suggested we take a tour of the facilities.

And let me just tell you--the place is gargantuan! Each floor was a labyrinth of cubicles and departments, with glassed-in corner offices for the heads. Down in the basement, a factory of industrial workers moved in beat to the automated pressline, surrounded by surreal-sized spools of paper and vats of ink... I loved the smell of it at once.

There was also a cafe, two employee lounges and an exercise room. Then she dropped me back off at my "desk"--or just an empty cubicle--mentioned what my first assignment was going to be: The Art of Food & Wine Festival (Hurray! Right up my alley! But she also mentioned that we couldn't get started on it until the next day's press conference). Then she told me to scope around and get comfortable with the computer system. As soon as she left, the old-school dial-up phone on my desk rang loudly. I leaned over the cubicle in front of me and asked if I should answer it.

"Beats me," said anonymous writer dude. "I'm not usually here either."

After a while, I went searching for one of the editors for guidance, and was told to split--"Just be back by 9:30 tomorrow for the meeting."

So I left, lingering a bit outside the building to admire the sun setting over the San Jacinto mountains and the cream-toned colors of the desert floor. My mom insisted we meet at our favorite fancy (and gay, thank you) neighborhood bar and restaurant, Shame on the Moon.

While she showed off my badge to random passers-by, I tried to engage my gay-boyfriend crush of a bartender, Johnny, but was getting cock-blocked by the fabulous May-December couple to my right. We went home shortly thereafter, where I opened a mailed box of a beautifully archived book of all the Holoholo Girl columns I'd written at Maui Time Weekly.

I'll admit, I got a little choked up, scanning through the pages of debauchery and cheap thrills of life on Maui. Of course, doing this walk down memory lane over the din of spoiled Rottweilers play-fighting and spitting drool in every direction, my step-dad blurting out wine scores from the latest Wine Spectator and guffawing, my mother periodically shuffling off to crush more ice for her cocktail, all while I was thinking about the perplexing non-events of my new exciting career day... well, I hate to say it was a defining moment but...

"For every door that closes, another one opens," said Mom, suddenly.

Um, yeah...