I am eating a jelly donut. Because my car�s at the Honda dealership down the street getting $550 worth of brake and cylinder work done and when the tech called up with this estimate he also advised that I should start thinking about the timing belt too and the associated maintainence package to the tune of $911, I am stressing about about money � though here�s something to keep in perspective, whenever I say "stressing about money" you should read "stressing that Karri is going to call me up and give me a stern-mommy tongue-lashing for spending what she thinks is too much of what I have in my brokerage account, never mind that it is my damn money and I�ll spend it all up if I want to, I feel very strongly about not whipping myself into the drama of false and self-flagellating poverty and instead maintaining a basic self-affirmative standard of living"; but you kind of stopped paying attention at brokerage account, didn�t you, and it occurred to you, mildly, that I should just quit my bitching, and intellectually I know that you�re right, I should. I feel differently about money than most of my cohort and especially most whose stores of it are dot-com booty. Which mine sort of is � note: whatever you�re thinking it is, trust me, it�s much less, it�s almost not even worth referring to as "money" the way that is implied by Oh, they have *money* (you know?). I had what to me is loads of money for a few months back in the spring of �99, but I got into the market during the worst week possible in history, bought that high, and then there was a matter of income tax owed after all on a big chunk of it that I�d thought was exempt, later tax woes that also involved buying too high, and when you see shares of the company you worked for go as high as $55 before trading under a buck, you learn to be philosophical. None of that money was really mine in the first place. Karri would say I don�t take it seriously enough, and I would say, Yes, that is exactly it.

Then I see myself writing on and on about money and I find myself annoying in the extreme. Other possible looming money issue, and then I will change the subject with firm alacrity, is that I found out a few days ago that my current temp gig is over on September 27. They�d love to keep me and there�s a part of me that would love to stay, but after a class-action lawsuit a few years ago, limits were sent on the maximum number of hours one can temp in a single office during a calendar year. And, in truth, I don�t deserve one moment of woe-is-me on the end-is-near tip, because frankly there have only been maybe two weeks since April during which my job search could have qualified as half-assed; mostly its assedness has been measurable in parts per million. The fact is that I�ve enjoyed my time here. The people are uncommonly nice, the workplace is surreally devoid of politics, and although the tasks I�m doing are not commensurate with my skillset, the balm of being praised for simple competence has, I think, thickened my skin in such a way that I�m much better prepared now than I was back in April to jump back into the resume rigmarole. It�s been good for me to have a job the performance of which accurately reflects the pride I have taken in doing it right, and to remind myself that that�s a reflection of my pride in myself. Which, in April, I did not have so much of. I had somehow gotten into the habit of despising myself for not having a job, which naturally is not a salutary frame of mind in which to be looking for one, so you see how that can beget a nasty self-prerpetuating cycle. I type interview transcripts here � big deal, right? But a few months back one of the guys here said that mine were the most error free he�d ever seen, better than those of the professionals he�d worked with, and that he�d learned that he didn�t have to check mine over for accuracy, he could trust me and trust them and send them on to whomever needed them. How am I not supposed to feel good about this? I did a great job, I didn�t cost myself anything and I saved Craig some time. I guess I could roll my eyes and say, "Yes, but all I am doing is *typing*," and I�m sure there are times in my life in which I would have, but the point is that this job has reminded me I don�t want to be that eye-rolling person, not in the workplace and not in any aspect of my life. Also, Kelly said something I liked. When I met up with him for the alleged first date, I was talking about this job and, I guess because of the sector in which he works and his job title (I presume) and all that kind of capitalist-pissing-contest stuff, I realized that I�d started speaking in a self-deprecating tone, I�d put the rolling eyes in my voice a little bit. It was interesting to realize how reflexive was the manner of my response. So I knocked it off and kept going, and he said that this was the happiest he�d ever seen me talking about work, certainly more happy than I was when I used to talk about my "real," corporate, high-tech, health-insurance jobs at TankedStock.com and AcmeWidget.com, and that I seemed to be thriving partly because of the lack of moral ambiguity in the current temp job � that it�s not entirely an exaggeration to say that what I do here is help catch bad guys, and to be able to put one�s skills to work � whatever they are; what they are becomes less important in this context � on such a task is an opportunity most people never get. And maybe that�s rationalizing (and maybe that was ass-kissing), but I like that idea very much, and I like to think it rings somewhat true. I should admit, this temp gig is also good because no one has realized how fast I can really type, how fast I could really help catch bad guys, and the surfing slacking reading writing time has been positively luxuriant. It�s been, excuse what seems a pun, a working vacation for me, just when I needed it most. I�ve been extraordinarily lucky. And now my lovely working vacation will end just when I�m ready to get back to work, so maybe I�ll be in a position for luck to find me again. Cross your fingers for me.

(OK, mostly I am going to use the real names of people and places and proper nouns here in the Dishery. I reserve the right, however, to cling to a few of the Monitor pseudonyms. As ever, I�ll make this shit up as I go along.)

As I mentioned last time, I took copious notes towards another entry, one that would have built on and followed the one I wrote Wednesday morning. Near the top of the notes page in large block capitals is the word "inviolability," a mantra or a rallying cry or maybe a thematic concept for me to try to gather my thoughts around, the thoughts of the first two entries and the third and maybe fourth that were present in inkling form on the piece of paper I�m talking about. I wanted to get all that deluge out of me before I got around to the what-it�s-all-about declarations and real-world reorientation to which I�ve alluded. OK, I�ll admit it, I mean I wanted to to vent my spleen for a while. I no longer want to vent my spleen for a while.

I am absolutely exhausted from a week of almost no sleep, and I can�t write anymore today, all I�m good for is transcribing. But I�m going somewhere with this, I promise.