Yesterday began well: the little pharmaceutical company that I had a phone interview about a week or so ago asked me in for an interview on Thursday. A three hour interview on Thursday. I'm excited: the job looks fun; the company is a nice size (130 people; I'd be working in a department of about 4 or 5 people), and they have a good business strategy, which is keeping them growing even in the current economy.

I feel pretty good about my chances. My biggest flaw is that I don't really have as much experience in this particular job role as their ad asked for, and I figure that I must be competing against some applicants who do have that experience. On the other hand, I can point to a long history of learning complex tasks quickly on the job. And if they weren't willing to be persuaded to overlook my lack of experience, I wouldn't even have gotten to the phone interview.

So, we'll see how it goes.

Then yesterday got even better: I picked up Liz, and we drove down to Dario and Linda's new place in Santa Cruz. Fellow Clarionite Doug (the man largely responsible for our forever being known as "the squid Clarion") was visiting from Seattle. So, we had another Clarion micro-reunion. (I really love how often the West coast members of our class manage to get together. I only wish we could get those from points further East in on the action.)

We walked down to the yacht harbor, and on the way met a very talkative cat, a very talkative goose named Princess, and a very talkative neighbor with rose-colored glasses (who related Princess's life story to us. Poor lonely goose, always relying on the kindness of strangers. I'd have named her Blanche.)

Dario and Linda were splendid hosts, as always, and fed us handsomely on polenta with fontina, cabbage salad, good red wine, ice cream and coffee. (The four food groups: cheese, red wine, ice cream and coffee!) We talked about books, and got caught up on each other's lives and writing projects. We could easily have talked all night, but common sense prevailed: our hosts had to get up early in the morning, and I had to get Liz home to San Francisco and myself home to Berkeley that night.

The drive back had a slightly surreal feel: we drove long, long stretches of nearly empty freeway. Intermittent fog occasionally put us in a ghost dimension, with nothing visible except the black asphalt and the reflective road markers like a trail of breadcrumbs. Liz and I talked about writing and life, about balancing writing and work and school and family and social life, and all that stuff.

Dropped Liz off and drove across San Francisco on Geary. The streets were emptier than I think I've ever seen them - it was just me and a couple of taxi cabs until I got to downtown. Went to my usual entrance onto the Bay Bridge and discovered that it was closed for construction. So, I employed the Dirk Gently method of navigation: I followed some other cars that looked like they knew where they were going. Bingo: got me to a new entrance.

Considering that we'd spent a fair chunk of the evening talking about Douglas Adams, it seemed like a fitting way to conclude it.

Driving along University Avenue, I stopped at a red light. It immediately began to flash yellow, and I somewhat irrationally thought, "Ack! I broke the light! What did I do?" I looked down the empty stretch of University, and saw a bunch of flashing yellows. Then I realized that I'd stopped at the light at exactly 1 a.m., when many of Berkeley's traffic lights are timed to change to flashing yellow/flashing red.

Got home without further incident, and went to bed.

Spent much of this morning preparing for my interview. I've read over the company web site, looked at some of their SEC filings. Since the job involves preparing lots of documents for the FDA, I went over to the FDA page and reviewed the alphabet soup of acronyms involved. I can now explain the difference between an IND, an NDA, an ANDA, and a DMF. OMG!!! IM talking in TLA's. What a PITA!

My brain is now feeling a little fried. So I think I'm going to go sit in the beautiful sunshine someplace, with a very large iced latte, and read a Tanith Lee novel.