Eight Hours Down

Good god. I woke up at 5:30 am for no apparent reason and was wide awake so I just got up. Today was the day that I participate in the SFR quarterly managers' circulation velocity audit. What this means is that four times a year all the managers take one of the paper's circulation routes on a Friday and count how many papers there are in the boxes on that route. Normally the audits are done Wednsdays when we deliver the new papers (by "we" I mean the drivers. I don't actually deliver the papers) and we find out how many are left and then we know our "return rate," meaning, how many papers we moved (we move most of them). But a velocity audit, on a Friday, tells us how fast they move, which also is important information. So I'm always glad to participate, although it does mean 21/2 hours of driving around, stopping, parking, getting out and counting papers which, as you can imagine, is tedious. Also, I got a parking ticket. Also, I learned, since my audit included: Aztec Cafe, Zelie Cafe, Downtown Subscription, Santa Fe Baking Company, CD Cafe, Bike Mountain Cafe, Two Starbucks and many, many more places, that most people in Santa Fe, in the morning, are sitting around drinking coffee and reading the New York Times. They are not jumping out of their cars with clipboards and counting newspapers. On the bright side, I really love any activity involving a clipboard. It's like that scene from The Paper, when Michael Keaton says, "A clipboard and confident wave will get you in anywhere." This is true, but the confident wave isn't necessary. A clipboard and a scowl does just as well.
So, finally got in about 10:30 am, famished and exhausted and, at noon, took Zane, saver of cars and editor of arts, to lunch at Santa Cafe, where one of our former photo interns, Colleen, is a bartender. This was very pleasant except I'm at that time of the week (month? year?) where I seem incapable of making good food decisions and ended up having: fried calamari, a grilled cheese sandwhich, a bloody mary and a banana split (which, if you knew me, you'd understand this is not how I normally eat. I don't even really believe that anyone eats that like). On the bright side, now I don't have to eat EVER AGAIN. On the downside, it's unclear how I'm going to get anything else done today without either passing out or throwing up.
Had occasion to speak with the governor earlier (I can't tell you why, though; it's a secret) and asked him what was coming up for him in the future. He said he wasn't going to be speeding anymore. I told him I wasn't going to either.