I gave my diary URL to Ian, since he asked a few times and seems unlikely to be a jerk about it. No, not alt-country Ian, the other one. And Julian gave it to Art. Are you guys reading? If so, well then welcome and stuff, I guess.

A good thing to listen to when you are feeling jittery and irritated like I did last time I wrote, it turns out, is "Side of the Road" from the Lucinda Williams album that I will now like even better than I did before because I associate it with crossing the Astoria Bridge. (Insert joke here about how the view from the Brooklyn Bridge is comparatively atrocious.) Sometimes a girl needs to drive around in the rain at night and get in touch with what�s inviolable. I�m still sticking to my policy of no details for you, but I think you smell what the Rock is cooking here. The Rock was cooking up a storm until at least Kilborn last night and the night before, which after the non-cooking late night of Sunday meant that I was wrecked, so I made up an "appointment in Bellevue" and slept in, then got up and cleaned the kitchen and strolled into Gastro about eleven. This was very nice. And today's early quits because I have my 5:30 with Number Two. It is funny, so seldom during the week between visits is my-experience-of-myself as someone who�s seeing a therapist. Or, worse, in therapy. In Therapy � you know? I feel like I need it a lot less than I thought I was going to feel like I needed it. I don�t think about it, actively, much at all. I mean, I�m not evading the program of trying in general to get my shit more together, I just don�t want to get caught up in the conceptualization of this process as a journey, both because I really can�t stand that word like that and because I�m uncomfortable with how it suggests that this is the main thing going on in my life right now, this is the forum in which progress will play out and be measured. But no, that�s not right either, because how am I going to measure progress except in terms of the shit getting more and more together? I don�t know, maybe I�m trying to come up with some kind of policy statement when all I mean to say is that I don�t want to be one of those people who�s all, My therapist says this, my therapist says that, well I was talking to my therapist the other day and she had this really interesting theory� It�s private stuff, people � show a little dignity. I don�t want to be like that. And since you ask, since you�re wondering, most of what Number Two and I have talked about so far is just my personal history, events and impact, that kind of thing. You would probably find it disappointingly mundane to listen in on a session. I say things and she says, Has it ever occurred to you that�? or You�re making a face like you think this is all very amusing, but what are you feeling when you�re telling this part, if you let yourself have feelings about it? (um, actually she says that kind of a lot) and then I go Huh, interesting, she�s got a point and maybe we talk about her point and maybe we don�t, and then the ripples of huh-interesting � as distinct from, My therapist had this really interesting theory � percolate through me and, I hope, because this is what I�m paying for, eventually start to permeate and thus revivify. However, it is not a spectator sport.

Let us say that you are sloping around with someone and a guideline of x dates per week has been proposed and deemed reasonable. I am always leery of this kind of thing and never bring it up myself (and, ha, there goes my passive voice) � you know my position on love vs. algebra � but the truth is that I recognize in myself a tendency to fall into romantic inertia, and I get out my calculator willingly when Mr. Man wants to talk numbers. Now here is the question: let�s say the two of you are separately busy for a fluky string of days and it�s getting close to the end of the week. Is it an imperative to make it all the way to x by Sunday, maybe scheduling two nights in a row as if it�s an all-you-can-eat buffet? Mind you, I am not complaining. Complaining is definitely not what I am doing about a hunky and endlessly interesting individual seeking to spend as much time with me as possible, let�s be very clear about that. On Monday, as part of a discussion about flirting that maybe I will revisit here sometime, Vanessa told me that I seem to be less possessive about guys than most women are. It is true that this is sometimes a bad thing, and I suspect it is also true that the long leash I afford them gives my boyfriends more room in which to find things to feel guilty about, which they then project onto me, insisting that I am The Jealous One in the relationship. If I think about it, it is funny, incongruous, that such a delicate flower as myself on the self-esteem tip should be as unjealous as I am. To me jealousy feels like poison. And you also know how I feel about making the decision to trust someone, and having that decision be like signing up for the whole program. Sign up or sign out! No, that�s awful � I am sorry, I don�t mean to reduce to slogans something about which I feel so strongly.

I�m going to continue this next time. I do want to start writing shorter and oftener and to have this iteration of that project be the one that succeeds, and now I have to start getting ready to go. I half-have a theory that shorter entries full of shorter sentences will make me more popular around here, and I am a quarter inclined to put my test plan into action.