That�s what I thought. Self-respect, kids � use it wisely.

My sister has taken to calling me up late each afternoon to check in with me and say hi, usually from her cell phone on the way home from work. (I should mention, congratulations are due to that lady for the raise she got this week, so now she will finally be able to stop hooking on the side; we are so proud of her and how far she�s come.) I have to say, this is the nicest part of my day. Why does it take so long to sink in that people give a rat�s ass about me? Also, I sent her some Mountain Goats cds, finally, after she�d surprised me during her visit by taking a fancy to "Tallahassee," and now she�s officially crazy about them. She is in the process of painting her room and she told me that the Goats are what she�s listening to as she does, and this is a nice image, too, my imagination�s equivalent of those hey-buttercup phone calls. Her favorite is "The Coroner�s Gambit" � I had been sure it would be "Sweden" and usually she and I are so simpatico that we can pick out each other�s favorite sentence in a whole book (no lie!), but that is her second favorite, and she allows as she may not have played it enough times for it fully to sink in. She also made an observation that I thought was mucho astute and in a strange way, this can�t possibly be right but the only way I can find to describe the feeling is to call it life-affirming; she was whining in a good-natured manner about how she�d love to be able to listen to the cds at work but her boss nixed it as not conducive to even a small-office (n=3) environment, and she said something like, "I don�t know what her big deal is. I mean, it�s basically folk music, is what it is if you think about it." And she was right, and my life � *my* life � felt affirmed in ways both large and small, and I missed her so much right at that moment that I almost started bawling. As if I�ve got any right at all to have a personal and emotional stake in the thing she�d just said about, hello, a band I happen to like, as if her judgment reflects even tangentially on me and my life. I cannot deny it, though, I felt entitled. Gratefully not greedily entitled, but, yeah, entitled.

Speaking of the cell phone � Tom, I got your mail and will start trying to reach you. I�ll call from the bacon shack if I have to. And speaking of simpatico, how nutty is it that you sent mail using the phrase "radio silence" at what may have been the exact time I was typing it for Thursday�s diary entry? Speaking of cds, hi you, and I will get that Acker/Mekons project in the mail to you tomorrow, and I think Ikara Colt too. Power to the people. Oh, also, Tom, you�re making way better money than I am.

I�m in that weird jagged mood today where I�m halfway feeling comfortably peaceful and que sera sera about how things are going for me � problems in mirror are not as monstrous as they appear � and halfway like I could not join a kung fu studio fast enough, since I�d like to punch the shit out of something right this second, just obliterate it. Halfway buoyed by the effects of that sense of entitlement and halfway self-contemptuous about having it. You know. A little bit in love with, well, everything, and also wanting to set it on fire and watch it burn. Maybe this is just the human condition. I�m going to watch "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" tonight with Steve, and you will excuse me if I give myself permission to smooth out the jagged parts with a little whatever-affirming self-medication. Weekend, whee.