OK, I am sorry to pull the narrative rug out from under you, but I�ve decided that there�s no way in hell I can go out and be the pathetic chick alone at the club tonight, even though I had the show all picked out and everything. Reason for this is that I�ve just spent an hour or so calling around various Seattle temp agencies and am suddenly feeling the need instead to be the pathetic chick alone at my desk this evening for another stint of online job-search whatnot. I talked to voices on the other end of the phone at twelve agencies before I lost the will to live, and here is the tally:

• Intake appointments made for next week: 2
• Resumes I have to fax tomorrow: 2
• Profiles I have to create online tonight: 2
• Resumes and cover letters I have to send out tonight: 5
• Bitchy little queen who told me it didn�t sound like I had the skills for front office work but if I really insisted he would be willing to meet me for a courtesy interview the next time he had a free hour, which was on October 15: 1

• Of the above, people who were even sort of nice to me: 1
• And, in the Signs Of The Times department, number of temp agencies listed in this office�s 1999 yellow pages that I discovered to have since gone out of business: 4

Vanessa says: �I know this doesn't help the bleak money/career situation, but to help your dignity a little more; remember that this is happening to *a lot* of smart, educated people with a lot of good work experience right now. It's just the economy, stupid.� Calculator Brain reminds me that even in the total total absence of even the shittiest-paying temp work, I can survive (cue the Gloria Gaynor?) for x number of months, so with some degree of shit factored in, from an economic standpoint I am downright in clover until, like, next spring. When I broke things down back in the Monitor lo these many months ago, though, I thought I had it covered with Minister of Information, Calculator Brain, and Secret Heart, but it turns out there�s some part I missed, a part that wants to talk like one of Kushner�s angels and say I, I, I, I, I. And not in the sense of �I want health insurance,� either, so shut up. Oh, I don�t really want to write about this. I want to remind myself, and keep reminding myself, that one�s job or lack thereof is not the end-all be-all, like the same way I don�t think less of Joe (hell no) for having got the boot from the Tank, my nearest and dearest do not think less of me, and maybe they will even think more of me if in the downtime it seems I have coming up I make them copious baked goods. I want to go to the movies and sit there in the dark for a few hours, I want to go running and also to investigate the case of my mysteriously disappeared ass. I want to listen to Freedy Johnston on a rainy Thursday morning and, ooh, to start putting the Christmas cd together and go see bands without getting all hey-big-spender about it. I have to remind myself, these courses of action are still available to me, I am not obliged to punish myself by withholding them for being ungainfully unemployed.

And now, what the hell, it is time for a pathetic confession. In a seldom-used corner of mind, there�s this idea, this fantasy, that one of these days, something really good is going to come through for me, the kind of great job where I feel can�t-miss about it and so do the people interviewing me and we end up sitting across the conference table blinking at each other in surprise and delight as if we�ve just fallen madly in love on a blind date, and then I say to myself, Oh goodness wasn�t I ridiculous and histrionic and horribly too hard on myself in my diary all that time when I was planning for my ignominious eight-dollar-an-hour career as a receptionist in Burien and then you say Oh goodness you were, it all seems so funny in retrospect, but now I�m thrilled for you and am wishing you all the best in your nifty new job and then it�s a slow fade out with, I don�t know, maybe even Freedy Johnston playing over the credits. (Thank you for your time!) The problem is that I don�t know whether it�s good or bad to hold onto that fantasy � was I right or was I right about it being pathetic � or I should say to have it, because frankly the having is not a matter of choice and if I could eradicate it I would, in a New York second. Good because it represents the holding out of hope for the really good thing and the belief that good things exist and that I, I, I could have them and because it illustrates an insurgency against the constant temptation of cynicism; or bad because it�s only going to make things more painful when I finally accept my fate as a nameless faceless back-room word processor in Eastside Gaitsk-hell? Don�t know.

Maybe some of the collective shit I took from temp agencies was karmic payback for being a little bit mean, this morning, to the chick from upstairs who�s transferring down to this office starting Monday. I know I�m only a temp here and have no right to get territorial or protective of the people in this office, but I did not appreciate her attitude. She sighed deeply and rolled her eyes when, in response to her question, I told her that all calls had to be logged in detail rather than shunted to voicemail, and she wondered whether it was really necessary to transcribe the statements verbatim with vocal tics and all, if perhaps she couldn�t just get the sense of the conversation and be done with it. Um, no. So I got very serious-like and told her that since there was a great deal of legal liability associated with this position and this office, I did everything absolutely according to protocol lest I be held accountable for the slightest mistake. Blah blah blah media calls, blah blah blah police, blah blah blah private investigators � true stuff, though I chose and weighted my words for the strongest, most daunting impact. I said, confidentially: �I mean, maybe it�s not such a big deal if just once you forget to write down a case number on a message slip. But I sure wouldn�t want to have to find that out the hard way, if you know what I mean.� I also did not appreciate her workday attire of hoodie over too-small midriff-baring tank top and look-at-my-thong jeans; please to respect the professionalism of this office where everyone has been so good to me, please. Everyone is terribly gloomy and fatalistic about losing me, ha ha. I told Bill that it�s very simple, HR has to advertise for someone who is a perfectionist above all, who couldn�t not document vocal tics if he or she tried. He agreed but did not sound hopeful.

I was having trouble devising an outfit for tonight anyway. No brag, but I just don�t have a lot of unflattering schmattes and clothing that draws attention to itself in a bad way, and since I am not on board with buying vintage just for vintage�s sake like these girls in the grandma dresses, the vintage articles I have are so below the radar that you wouldn�t necessarily know they�re vintage in the first place. Many years ago I decided that my fashion credo would be never to wear anything that Ingrid Bergman would not have worn, and with the exception of a few designated hoochie-mama items like the sequined tube top that only see the light of Saturday night and never the fluorescents of an office, I have stuck to that; I keep it in mind every time I go clothes shopping and I would probably do well to do the same when I am out among other ladies who are peacocked out � I dress the way I do not because I�m asexual compared to them but because this is the way I want to dress. Period. Ingrid Bergman was one of the sexiest, smolderingest ladies in history, and you can take your prom dress and shove it. I was poking around my closet last night and the closest thing I found to what I pictured the original lonely girl wearing was a black chiffon cocktail dress from the �50s that I wear over a black sheath slip. But, one, it would not repel scenesters, and, more importantly, I like the dress, the dress is nice, I would be disrespecting it by hauling it out and making it, even for one night, the vessel of my bitterness. I think the better option would be something that doesn�t hide the flesh or make me look bulky but is cringe-inducing along the lines of some of Courtney Love�s more ill-advised ensembles, not a car crash but a train wreck, see? Or maybe I should backtrack to �vessel of my bitterness� and ask myself again just what exactly I hope to accomplish here, whether maybe what we're seeing is my impulse when things get bad to cast myself in performance art as a distraction. Is there ever a state of mind and state of affairs to which making oneself ugly is the appropriate response? Don�t know that one either, though I will be trying to figure it out. So anyway, tonight we�ll stay in, Freedy and me, and I�ll deploy a lot of thank-yous and click a lot of �Apply For This Job� buttons and we�ll see if we can�t feel less ugly by bedtime. Maybe some ice cream. Last night after dinner with Vanessa � ate too much and drank almost too much and then we had to flee Septieme because Don wasn�t on and they were playing that Portishead album that gives both of us all kinds of uncomfortable visceral flashbacks but overall a nice time and one during which I felt like a respectable human being, hooray � I came home and got into bed almost immediately and was asleep probably by 10:30, so cozy under the wool blanket and comforter, knocked out. And Vanessa reminds me that sleep is my friend, always a refuge from whatever besets one (plus so good for the skin!), and that there�s nothing wrong with bedly escapism especially when one would otherwise be fretting or crying all night. Also always reliably there during the dark lonely nights of daylight savings and the DL? Cable TV. OK, I might be starting to feel a little bit better here. I think I can post this and get back to work, put in some compensatory effort for scaring the new chick and make some headway cleaning out the In box she�ll inherit. I think I can make it until five without tearing up. Cross your fingers. I will too.

Last night�s dream was that somewhere in my house there was a secret answering machine. Mechanical details are hazy, naturally, but the deal was that the machine I knew about was only recording about a quarter of the incoming messages, maybe less. I found the secret machine and was listening to weeks� or months� worth of messages and the fact that they were there was an amazing epiphany: so *this* is what I�ve been missing.

Oh, and Lady Elaine? Fuck you.

(I am digging the guestbook action lately. Thanks, online pals, I'm glad and I'm lucky you're around.)