I am oozing garlic from every pore.

Eating oh, 15 cloves of garlic or so will do that to you.

I got to my hotel room at the Hilton New York and went to order room service, only to be told that 1. it would be an hour before my food got to me, and 2. it would be cash on delivery.

What?

Yes, since I had not put down a credit card for "incidentals," I'd have to pay cold hard cash.

The hotel last week made no fuss about charging room service to my room account. Paid for, of course, by Mighty Big Firm. What's this shit?

So I canceled my order and called Miss D, who promptly came charging uptown, took me out to a tapas bar, and cheered me up over crab cakes, crostini (with aforementioned garlic cloves), and some damn good Syrah. Oh, and gave me a cigarette as well, which was gladly received.

I'm on the 40th floor of a massive hotel, but I'm thinking longingly of my cool dark room in the boutique hotel I was camped out in last weekend.

One gets used to luxury very, very quickly.

Miss D calmed me down, offering common sense advice and details about the job that made it seem palatable. And the Syrah did a nice job of banishing the whiny, teary hk for the night.

Tomorrow's Mighty Big Firm is known for being "quirky." Whatever the hell that means. It has the reputation of being quite amenable to moving associates around the globe, with a smile. That's appealing. In my on-campus interview with this one, my interviewer was interested in my language skills -- a good sign for international work prospects.

I am hoping that I will click with this firm, because it does seem to have two very important traits (for me): international scope and nice people.

I hope I like it.

Now I'm going to read a little of my psycho murderer novel, which I checked out of the undergrad library in record time, with Charm patiently waiting for me so that we could get my ass to the airport on time. As it was, I missed my 5 pm flight, but got on the 6 pm. As G.K. Chesterton said, you can only get a train if you miss the one before it.

Charm, who graced me with a visit yesterday, and I woke up to an enormous crack of thunder last night. It sounded like it was right over the building. Bit scary, actually -- I was glad she was there. But neither of us got particularly good sleep last night. I hope I shan't be too tired tomorrow. I'm planning on going to the gym before the interview at 10:45 am. Hopefully that will put me in an "Eye of the Tiger," go-get-'em mood tomorrow.