Pink roses on my desk

One of my co-workers, soon to be former co-workers, left three pink roses on my desk and no, it's not for breast cancer awareness. It's for sorry-I'm-not-going-to-your-goodbye-lunch. Why, might you ask, am I having a goodbye lunch? Well because tomorrow is my last day at the Contra Costa Times. Too bad I'm not going anywhere cool. No, I'm going to Hayward. As in Hayward, Calif. As in covering local government. As in, say goodbye to business reporting until you start working at a place that gives you some respect. It's like that 80s song, give a little respect toooo-ooooh meeeee!

My mentor told me stop whining. I didn't even think I was whining when we talked, but then again, I think like two-thirds of my speech would count as whining and I don't even notice (really, I don't). When you have voice like mine, you learn to drown it out by age 4 or 5. I will apologize now to anyone who has ever had to listen to me.

Okay, so really what's going on is that I'm feeling stressed and I drank drip coffee this morning. Drip coffee makes me jitter like one of those spastic flies that gets stuck in your car on hot days. Lattes, on the other hand, seem to give me a buzz minus paranoid thoughts such as "I think someone's going to side-swipe me on the freeway" that result from drip coffee. I was driving to Mills today and suddenly started to panic when I realized I was driving 75 miles per hour. I was like, oh shit, I'm driving really fast! Yes, WTF is right. I promise I won't pull an Amy Winehouse -- I will stop drinking drip coffee!