How long does it take to stop talking like a teenager? I still pepper my speech with "like" and say "that sucks" even when I'm at work. I don't want to talk like this because I want to be taken seriously as a professional, but I can't help it. I wonder if these speech patterns will be permanent - maybe in a decade or so they will be taken as a demographic marker. But I'm not in contact with anyone who is in their late 20s or early 30s who spoke like a teenager when they were a teenager, so I can't do empirical research

I reach for a clip to put back a strand of hair that falls into my eyes, and the clip is red and sparkly. I look around for a clipboard and it has 4 years' worth of graffiti on it. As must as I try to pull off this grownup thing, my possessions betray me. And when I think I have it all under control, I refer to grownups in the third person.

Can't sleep. I'm glad Tuesday is a holiday. I'd be majorly stressing if tomorrow was the first day of a full week, but instead it's a little blip followed by a day off.