…She was clearly offended, as if I wore this skirt on purpose to tempt men. Horrified, I asked what she wanted me to do. She told me to “maybe” just sit at my desk the rest of the day. She also explained how whenever a woman wears white, she should always wear a slip. I left her office feeling completely embarrassed. I looked over at my cubicle neighbor, a chubby girl, who was wearing a lingerie shirt with tiny spaghetti straps that allowed her huge breasts to flop all over her keyboard and wondered how my skirt could be so offensive…

…Happy to break the monotony of daily name traces and the never-ending flood of emails from nutcases who would write to the CIA’s website asking about Jennifer Garner, I went off to my first real training class outside of the building for two weeks…

I have just submitted my latest work to the CIA’s Publication Review Board for approval. The first of an e-series, begun while I was pregnant for the second time. It seems pregnancy brings out my creativity. Even though I had a miscarriage, the story went on to completion. And I only mention my miscarriage because so few do, and I feel it is important to talk about.

I’m very excited to be writing more creative non-fiction this time around! I thought my creative writing skills had gone to waste, squashed permanently by working for the CIA for eight years, but I think I am gradually getting some of it back. You see, when you work for the CIA you learn to write like a robot – you HAVE to write that way – with as little personality as possible.

As a child I used to love writing stories. Now I feel as if that part of me is waking up from a very long slumber. What a thrill to see the characters come to life and make me laugh!

I have finally found a job that I love.

…Chester would sometimes entertain me with stories about Annie and Carina. Apparently the two of them would go out bar hopping and come back the next day to report their shenanigans to Security. They would run their stories of being followed by French intelligence at DC bars by Chester first to see if it warranted a report to Security. Chester would entertain their delusions, figuring that at least the security officer for the division would get a good laugh…

…As with all offices in the Agency, we of course had to have cake for as many occasions as possible. It did not matter if you were working on time-sensitive intelligence that could save lives, you had to stop and gather around a giant cake at some point at least once a month. Heaven help the individual who did not have a sweet tooth (like me) or was diabetic and refused the cake – your refusal would be so offensive to the women of the office and you would risk ostracization. I was not a fan of the cake, so I experienced many a forced-cake-eating episode during my time in this office..

…The usefulness of studying computer forensics and ethical hacking was questioned, although I’m pretty sure no one discussing it knew what either of those things were, and it was deemed a worthless pursuit… During at least one of these meetings an anonymous female officer insisted that she had worked with me in the past and snarkily implied that I was a terrible employee. I had no idea who this woman could be, but my request was doomed. All I could surmise was that she was one of the many people who were evidently offended by my presence when I had worked in CE years ago. Perhaps it was my rejection of cake…