duck-shaped pain

Three days into being back at work, and I begin to think that maybe I'm not suited to having a job. The coffee heated up in the microwave over and over again, the hum of the computer monitor, the daily chats with the FedEx guy: it all sort of gets to you after a while. I'll probably be fine next week, though. I've just been working such minimal and scattered hours when school is in session that I forget about the small, tedious moments that make up a typical workday.

My title, or at least the thing that I say when people ask me what it is that I do, is technical writer. Or, if I'm feeling long-winded, I say technical writer, editor and proofreader. Yet it's been ages since I've written or edited anything. My job seems to have veered off into administrative assistant-dom, a land I try to avoid whenever possible. Once you agree to do one task, my thinking goes, you're stuck doing that task forever, and having AA-type duties on your resume tends to keep you in that line of work forever, or so I've heard. But all there is to do are things like answer the phones, drafting letters (writing, I guess), etc., etc. Since we have no AA at the moment, I get stuck with doing such things. I guess I should be glad to have a job, since the job market is total ass here right now, and try to get some writing/editing work on the side if I can find it, but I am also really really bored.

I made a tasty dish the other night. I've never really cooked much with tofu before. I enjoy it at restaurants, but my few attempts to wrangle it myself have never been very successful. But the thing I made earlier this week turned out pretty good. I made a sauce by combining soy sauce, hoisin sauce, lime juice, sesame oil, cilantro, garlic and ginger in my blender. I chopped up some vegetables (mushrooms, onions, yellow squash), and saut�ed them until they were acceptably soft, yet still harboring some crunch. I then put them on a plate and set them aside. I heated up some oil in a skillet and put the tofu in, and let it cook over reasonably high heat until the tofu was golden in color. I turned up the heat and then put in the sauce, cooking and stirring until it reduced to a thick, syrupy consistency, and the tofu was colored a rich, reddish brown. I added the vegetables back to the skillet, and cooked the whole mess for a few minutes, then ate it over rice. Yummy.

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