� John Darnielle, in the liner notes to the Mountain Goats album "All Hail West Texas"

I'm trying to be in the right place at the right time, but I'm trying to figure out where that is and when that is, so I keep driving around.

� Dennis Woodruff, in a filler bit I saw on AMC earlier this evening

The previous entry contained not a single molecule of instant pudding. For that, I like myself very much. As well I should.

Administrative note: Could the person who is running a script that sends mail to his or her Yahoo account every time I post a new entry please be in touch? Yeah, I keep an eye on my stats now, it sucks and I'm sorry. The reason for my presumptuous request for you to give up spectating and become an active participant in one aspect of this enterprise, which otherwise you must understand I would never make, is that I recently learned that this was Todd's m.o. with the Monitor, and unless you 'fess up I'm going to have to conclude that this is him too, the "Blissful ignorance is my credo" shot to hell I mean proved a lie one more time. If you can spare me from that disillusionment, I wish you would. Please.

So last night was great, though it's hard to go wrong out with Vanessa and Popeye at an establishment that serves liquor and provides a stage to the Long Winters. Both of those kids were in top form, Vanessa conversationally mentioning apropos of Popeye's imminent deployment that he is leaving her all his car parts and Popeye renaming the second opening band Arrogant Mouse. And the evening was not marred by the presence of Todd and date, hooray. Vanessa did call my attention to one of his friends who was for a little while standing next to us, the behalfness chick, but I didn't even look that way, myself, just in case she was going to shoot me some kind of a you-bitch look that might have made me cry � is that chicken of me? � and of course by "for a little while" I mean "until she got as far away as she could," by which I mean retreated to the bar. Sigh. I am not an animal! I am a human being! On the other hand, sigh but no cry. I had dressed to look female (Todd's date)-intimidatingly good but not slutty and as if I could kick some ass if called upon to do so: the red boots, scoop-necked black sweater, and a plaid Catholic-schoolgirl miniskirt that I rolled up a little higher to show off the tights, which were silvery with a herringbone pattern and semi-opaque; they make me look like a superhero, or at least a superhero from the waist down. Um. Dinner at Cheryl's delightful too, mostly old TankedStock.com associates who don't even blink when you matter-of-factly announce that you're unemployed and for whatever reason currently unmotivated to do something about it. I love it. There was unsexy Masters-and-Johnson-type sex talk on the subjects of masturbation and various physiological differences between the genders, that sort of thing, interesting and informative, and I learned maybe more than I would have chosen to about some of my fellow party guests but that's OK. The tights and boots were complimented. Oh, and Ian's wife, Melissa, who teaches high school, said that she'd be happy to tell me all about the UW program, including what they want to hear during the interview. Melissa also says that everyone in her program "who wanted one" (hmm) found a teaching job for the September after graduation and that English-teachery is for sure the growth industry, since so many of them are retiring and choosing not to return from maternity leaves and also on account of the incredibly high burnout rate engendered by the paper-grading workload; in fact, Melissa herself is among the burned, having switched to history. So how's that for an informed perspective. At one point Ian asked me if I was single these days and I said, "More or less," and Julian said that was an admirably accurate representation of both the brouhaha and my state of mind, he said that he was proud of me. Now Saturday night finds me tucked up at home typing and watching movies and writing in my freakin diary and then later I'm going to read my new books, on the surface the apotheosis of lame, but it's what I want therefore what I need and I'm doing it, so there. It is comfortable. I've been hanging out with myself today, walking places and doing some thinking, and I feel more settled inside my head than I have in a long time, and also I'm trying to shake this externally imposed notion that my preferred means of sorting and figuring things out is weird because of (a) how much time I dedicate to the project and (b) where the project gets projected. Like last night at Cheryl's Julian was giving me mild shit about how every so often he wonders what I'm writing about and clicks to the Dishery but each time he is assaulted by Too many words! You know what, this is my life and this is how I'm living it. I don't want to protest anymore that my writing isn't freakish on either the (a) or (b) tip, because doing so implies that the accusation I'm denying is worth my logical engagement with it. Especially now: I'm taking what I need, I'm doing what makes me feel some measure better. Period.

Also I had some e-mail from Catharine this morning. I'm thinking about that too, but I want to wait until I talk to her before I go writing about it here. Catharine, the following should not be taken as my having ignored what you wrote. You know what I'm talking about.

Here are some things I think would go a long way towards the ultimate goal of something approximating mental and emotional health, so I am going to try them and no-pressure see how things go.

1. I'm allowed to buy all the books I want. If I want to read something, and I know that reading makes me feel better, why should I deny myself that? It sure beats drinking. So today I bought Nancy Milford's biography of Edna St. Vincent Millay, new in paperback, and David Thomson's "New Biographical Dictionary of Film," which I've been aching for ever since I knew it was out. No more aching for me, not when I can prevent it. Haven't even cracked the Thomson yet but already I am in love with it because of the astonishingly vital "To Have and Have Not" still on the front cover, I know that scene and at the same time had no idea what it contained.
2. I'm seriously going to take some time off from scrambling for temp jobs. Key word "scrambling": I'll call up and say I'm available and I'll even be open to the one-day stuff, but I'm not going to get myself all worked up, and I'm not going to beg. I might need a week or a while to hang out and go for long thinky walks or runs and do some writing and dig into Thomson.
3. Runs are good � get me, two hours and five minutes today! � but walks are better.
4. I need to quit being so emotionally promiscuous with Todd. I need to stop talking to him the same way I talk to my friends who are propping me up through all this, being supportive, fucking *being* there for me. I have been trying to make him understand how I feel and what's going on in my head, and this is a lost cause, because how long was that again that I was telling him how I felt about him and the same things were echoing in the Monitor yet he refused to believe me? A very very very long time. Nothing I say to him now is going to change his mind about me or, rather, me-as-he-sees-me, which means that if he's going to get over his idiotic John Bayley syndrome, he's going to have to do it on his own and if he'd rather go out with one of his fawning indie girls whose brains and writing ability and more limited sphere of knowledge do not intimidate him, there's nothing I can do about that either except pity him for his cowardice and the fact that his comfort zone is mediocrity. And I've told him, I've been very clear about this, that contrary to what he wants I have no interest in Staying Friends after a hypothethical � and, hell, I'll say it, increasingly likely � dumpage. I told him that would hurt me too much. But that is only part of it: I don't dig cowards. I'm better than that. Why would I want to be friends with a mediocrity-seeking pussy who insisted, contrary to all evidence and testimony, that he knew better than I what I wanted and what mattered to me, who listened to me tell the biggest truths of my whole life and called them lies? With friends like that, who needs holes in the head, you know? Sorry, got a little sidetracked there. My point was, I'm done putting myself on the line for his benefit, especially because, limbo being limbo and hell being a distinct possibility, it's like squirting myself with more and more lighter fluid. I have been acting as though saving the relationship is my only priority and that I'll die if I don't. But I need to save myself first. (There, Catharine, do you at least like that? I made magic spinach for dinner, can you tell?)

Yes, and obviously (4) brings up the question, the differential equation, of when preparing to decathect becomes, in itself, a kind of decathexis � whether the previous paragraph negates the third paragraph of the last entry, whether my ears can�t hear me starting to cluck. Don't know, don't know. I've always been wildly attracted to the concept of inoculation. To me, the fact of its efficacy is almost impossibly gorgeous, perfected, as though an idea and the metaphor for the idea could be the same thing. If I had ever thought about these things while under the influence of a hallucinogen, I feel sure that I would have blown my own mind. Another thing I don't know: how is inoculation related to self-debasement and medicine to poison, and when? Is anyone still reading who remembers my writing about the katto ceremony last summer in the Monitor? Here's the excerpt again in any case, from an AP article published on June 14, 2001:

As a monarch who died tragically, traditional Hindus believe [Prince Dipendra] too had to have a "katto" ceremony performed on his behalf � as did his murdered father on Monday.

On Thursday, a Brahman priest deliberately defiled himself to assume Dipendra's woes. The priest, a vegetarian all his life, ate a meal laced with animal marrow before dressing as Dipendra and crossing the Bagmati River on elephant back.

At first, the elephant appeared reluctant to go. As Nepali dignitaries slapped its buttocks to send the bad luck on its way, the elephant turned tail and chased them up a narrow path.

Once brought under control by the mahouts, it lumbered across the river � this time to a fusillade of stones and rotting fruit thrown by the now vengeful onlookers.

The priest will be banished for the rest of his life, supported in exile by gifts and money donated by wellwishers anxious to rid the capital of the bad luck that has plunged the nation into crisis.

Behind the redirect page at the Monitor URL, I put up the first post-bustup entry, from back in August when I was still young and lovely, because it is not immaterial and because it is the truth. I took off a necklace that I happened to be wearing on Labor Day weekend when the DL got negotiated and had kept on, superstitiously as if to show the world my station and defiantly to show that I was showing it, ever since. Here's a link to the entry I wrote after Todd promised never to try to find my diary. Promised. Here I am, still trying as hard as I can to find and to tell the truth. In this, I have not wavered, and no one can take that from me.

When I got to the Crocodile last night and found Vanessa and Popeye, I gave them matter-of-fact instructions right away as to what we would do if we saw Todd and a date (no hello, I would try not to glance in their direction without making a spectacle of myself in the trying-not-to and they should try to position themselves so as to facilitate this, above all I would ruin no one's evening). Vanessa said, half questioning and half half-incredulous statement, "He's *dating*," and then in the moment that she looked at me before she had to look away, I saw in her expression disgust and anger and sadness and compassion and maybe futility, and I wanted to tell her No, it's OK, if it's what he needs then I want him to take it � but I didn't, because I have to save myself first, and because I recognized what all that was that had played across her face. It was behalfness.

Now that I think of it, I realize that I haven't cried all day.