2001-07-02 - 10:54 p.m.

It appears, my online friends, that I'm going to be taking a bit of a leave of absence of sorts, as I've realized that because of my new job, every hour of every weekday is now accounted for.

See, my work schedule and the Concord Trailways bus schedule are kind of at odds with each other. I have to take the bus to get to my job and back, as it's in a town half an hour away, and I have no car. The only bus that leaves early enough leaves at 8 AM. My job starts at 11 AM. Then I have to catch the last bus returning to Belfast at 10:00 PM. While it's the last bus of the day, it's still the only bus that comes after I get out of work at 8 PM.

Meaning from the point that I get on the bus at 8 AM to the point I get off the bus at 10:30 PM, 14 and a half hours of my day are already accounted for. Add 8 hours of sleep and that's 22 and a half hours. Add the time to get ready for work and get to the bus station and back, and you have a full day.

And so, for those of you who only see me in Diaryland. chat, you're not going to see me on weeknights any more. I'll be on ICQ and AIM for short periods of time each night, but I can't go into chat on days I have to work the next day, so look for me Friday nights and Saturday and Sunday at any random part of the day I might be in there.

I'm still going to write in my diary as much as I can, but that's also going to require me to write entries before I get home, as waiting and starting them then will take too long.

And for those of you who actually care if you see me in chat or not, don't worry, because I'm working on moving into the town where I'm working as soon as possible, as long as I can get a place with a phone, so once I'm there I'll have part of my day back to myself.

One plus to all of this, I won't have TV or the Internet distracting me from my writing. Maybe it will work this time, and maybe I'll get something done. We'll see.