� a sign on the tank of the giant sea cucumber (Parastichopes californicus) at the Seattle Aquarium

(Lay off the smack, Jack. Drink H2O, Flo...)

New Mountain Goats album available. Guess where I didn't order it from. I have been especially liking "Cold Milk Bottle," from "Sweden," lately, as in singing along, loud, in the car.

This is so horrible, that I haven't written anything all week and here it is Thursday night late and I need to get some sleep tonight and wake up in time to be at the temp job by eight tomorrow morning. I think I should start reminding myself that as much as I sometimes don't feel like writing, later I feel worse for not having done so. Monday and Tuesday I was preoccupied � not in a bad way � and then on Wednesday Rebecca and I walked downtown from Capitol Hill and went to the aquarium and then I had my first meeting (appointment?) as an official client of Number Two, and then after that I went to Vanessa's and watched cable TV for a few depressurizing hours. Then today I speculated that on my first day as the gastro-assistant I'd at least be able to steal some time to throw together a diary entry, usually not an unreasonable assumption, but what I did not realize is that I was in for a day of training, like I'm in for another one tomorrow, from the sourest, bitterest, backstabbingest old office lady ever, whose vitriol I maybe could have handled if I'd had any space away from it except my paltry half-hour lunch. You know, people like to tease me about being a cynical hard-boiled bitch, and, hell, I'll even put that on myself and dance around from time to time just to make them laugh, but I'm always taken aback, and a little embarrassed, by how being around someone who's like that for real just absolutely flays me, makes me desperate and shaky and on the verge of tears. This woman, Kathleen, all day long everything she said was at least somewhat tainted by her shitty attitude. Me: "OK, so how am I getting the information to put on Dr. Y's calendar? Is he going to be telling me that?" Kathleen, hissing, weirdly vicious: "You'd think so, wouldn't you? Because that makes sense, right? But no! This office never does anything that makes sense. Nobody has any idea what's going on, ever. Every three months there's this big meeting and we get all these new procedures to follow, but nobody ever does. It's hopeless and there's nothing you can do." She talked trash about everyone and then smiled and put on the kindly-grandma act every time one of them stopped by the office to chat. Worse, she's one of these people who likes to crucify herself over her job � she acts like she's sooo put upon and taken advantage of and unappreciated and everyone else in the world is (a) a moron who is (b) out to make her life miserable. Like, she had to order a document holder for one of the nurses, and she couldn't find it in the Boise Cascade catalog. She was all sighing and throwing up her hands and huffing and shoving chairs, wasn't it just like the ergonomics consultant to tell her it was in the catalog when it wasn't, she was sick of taking this abuse, this was just typical, etc. � and I said, Oh, how about I'll call Boise Cascade customer service and see if it's just become available and isn't in the catalog yet. She sneered, "Yeah, like that would work. I don't know how I'm going to get this information, and then of course it's going to be all my fault when it's not here with the rest of the order, everyone has to be treated like a queen around here..." and while she was still muttering like a crazy person I had talked to friendly Charles and confirmed that my guess was right and also obtained the elusive item number for the purchase req. Just from being around her all day I was exhausted; the effort of holding off the reflexive osmosis by which I would have assimilated some of her bile had utterly depleted my equanimous smiley nice-temp attitude, and I was a zombie. All I wanted was to go home and sit in a hot hot bathtub in total silence, but unfortunately for me I had committed to going to see Sherman Alexie read at Green River Community College, so instead there was much stress about getting to the carpool pick-up on time and then... oh, forget it, it's not important. I'm home now, and soon I will be in bed, bundled up, reading "The Saskiad." And then when I wake up, I'll have only one more day of Kathleen.

And you know, I don't even know what that old coot is talking about. Nobody in the office seemed like the devil incarnate to me. Doctors are busy and don't have a lot of time for chitchat, and when you're getting reimbursed for your time by insurance companies, obviously you are not going to spend it in filling out your own expense reports � let's keep things in perspective. The office is lovely, as nice as those of the doctors, with a door that closes and one wall that's window, and it does sound like there's downtime to slack. Kathleeen admitted to playing video games. Coffee stand on the premises, lots of neato medical journals to look at with grisly pictures of various internal organs. In the afternoon it was especially galling to have to listen to her go off, because I had talked to the temp pimp around lunch and found out that I might not be there through the end of next week after all, I might only be there through Monday. Say what? Oh, she explained, all innocence, you must have misheard me, I said that next Friday was the outside date though it was only confirmed through Monday, I asked for your time commitment *in case* it went that long. On the one hand that made me furious, that is barely treating someone like a human being, but on the other hand � this is me trying to be philosophical � what can I do, I'd probably be treated as badly anywhere else, and as long as I'm not starving, I shouldn't give myself one more thing to be angry about. I'm starting to pull myself together, though. If I have some time this weekend (am a bit overbooked already, and that is before I include the possibility of MC Paul Barman at I-Spy on Saturday) I'm going to do that super-admin version of my resume and suck it up and start applying for secretarial-type hooha. There is one big reason why this prospect doesn't make me depressed, and I will tell it next time, when I am not starting to crash. Also maybe I will tell something about how things went with Number Two, though here is a teaser: abandonment issues, as in: I told her the suitcase story. (Who knew?)

Catharine pointed out earlier this week how ironic it is that the book in question was "The Fountainhead," and I can go her one better: last Saturday night when Jeanne and Todd and I were at the Low show, Jeanne asked me what the phrase "pearls before swine" meant, and in explaining, though I had forgotten that Todd was reading it, I quoted what Dominique tells Howard, You�re casting pearls before swine without getting so much as a pork chop in return. Ha. Also, on my PC I am drafting a letter to him that I�ll copy out longhand and mail, and because I gave the file his name, as I continue working on it Word inquires, "Would you like to save the changes you made to Todd?" Man oh man, would that I could.

I'm getting my tattoo this weekend. Suddenly � again, not in a bad way � it has become absolutely necessary.