One more thing about Steve and then I will shut up. This is a funny one. In a meeting this week, he accidentally said "Orwellian" when he meant to say "optimistic." Ha! And here is my funny thing about this office. Yesterday a patient�s mother called with a medical emergency while I was right near the front desk, and Alicia put her on hold to compliment me on my shoes. And as regards the Diaryland vs. hospital cage match, evidence would seem to suggest that I was wrong about what I thought happened two Fridays ago. I did not realize that the clock on the server-stats page is as wrong as it is. I am feeling the lingering effects of the aversion therapy, however, and am still a little squeamish about going into the same kind of detail and invective about the hosp that I did in that day�s entry, which maybe is a good thing, but then again I tend not to know a good thing when it bites me on the ass (rowr!) and I will probably be back up to the same old crabbing and blabbing in no time. Also when I get around to it, I�ll unlock all the back entries.

I�ve been here since November and have as yet resisted the cafeteria. I buy a carton of milk there every day but that�s it. (And how you know I�m hardcore about this is that the cafeteria serves bacon.) I bring my lunch in Tupperware or I eat fruit and crackers, and about this habit I feel virtuous and proud of myself in a way that only seldom crosses the line into smugness. Today was rice and beans and chicken with my mole sauce � Mrs. R., I still owe you and your Mr. some of that and will bring you a (frozen) brick when next we meet, as well as those Kelly Hogan cds � and a bag of broccoli. I forgot to eat my breakfast, which I guess gets bumped to pre-quitsville snack and is some combination of yogurt, a grapefruit, a banana, an Asian pear, and a mango. If you bring in extra stuff at the beginning of the week, you will always have something nice on hand in case you get hungry. See, I really do try. This program of lunchtime fascism has proven to be the easiest way I know to fight the good fight towards a reasonable diet. Today there was to have been catered lunch courtesy of a pharmaceutical company and the rep cancelled so everyone sent out for pizza instead and as I type I can hear them down the hall, laughing in the conference room. I heard the word "sexuality" � it�s all girls in there, including the wonderfully bawdy Nurse Rachel, and it sounds like the bawdy fun�s a-poppin�. The other females in the clinic, who often eat lunch together like that, almost never ask me to join them, and I can�t decide whether I mind or not. All other things being equal, I don�t like leaving my desk at lunch unless the weather is lovely + I have a full hour + there�s somewhere nearby where I can go sit on the grass and read, and that condition is not in effect here. I do like the time to read, check the lies, make any phone calls I need to, type like this, work on whatever personal project I�ve got going, and have a chunk of quietude in the middle, especially, of a day full of dumbitude; and, OK, it is convenient not to be eating in the company of others when what you�re doing on your lunch break looks to anyone passing by exactly like what you�re doing when you�re back on the clock. Not to put too fine a point on it. Also, in every workplace I�m a lot more reserved � this is two parts nature and one part once-burned effort � than my colleagues are with respect to my personal life. I consider discretion an underrated virtue, and I am not comfortable sitting around that conference room table and producing the show-and-tell on the same level that other people are, though I have become very good at ducking inquiries and keeping up such a steady friendly stream of chatter that people often don�t realize all that I haven�t said. (Then sometimes they subconsciously interpolate, which is another kind of workplace problem.) If you want to know how many dudes I�ve slept with or how many times a week I get laid or how much money I have or who I voted for and why, you�re going to have to hire a private detective, because I�m not talking, and I like to avoid the scenarios in which I am likely to be the victim of an attempted information hijacking. On the other hand, it would be nice to be included, or to be acknowledged as being wanted for inclusion. (To paraphrase: "I don�t want to eat lunch with you girls, I just want you to ask me to." Yeah yeah yeah � I protest that�s not quite what I�m saying, but I do know how it looks, and how when I try to explain the difference I sound like I�m splitting hairs and who the fuck knows, maybe I am.) I sit and write in my diary at midday and virtuously drink my calcium and eat my fiber and my protein with mole sauce and sometimes a note of melancholy sneaks in and these are the things I think about. About the mole sauce, by the way, I am 100% entitled to smugness, because this stuff is amazing. It took about five hours and trips to three specialty stores for provisions, and I will make it again.

All the standard psychological tests have on them a question along the lines of Do you feel that other people understand you? Of course you�re supposed to answer yes, and I suppose that there are people in the world who would give that answer and mean it, though I don�t think I know any of them � now I�m wondering if I do and my mind is running down the list of names of everyone I know, suddenly off its tether and rudely presumptuous, trying to guess who among them feels understood: if you do, will you let me know? � and sometimes I think that I have the right to a more resounding Hell No than the general populace and sometimes I disgust myself with what seems unforgivable hubris for the self-congratulatory narcissism that even entertains the question. Excuse me while I go dust off my Smiths records, you know? Bah.

Next time, maybe: dinner at Jeanne�s, how it wasn�t what I expected. I want to write about that now but have been a bad, bad temp this week so-what-else-is-new and should spend a few hours getting shit done. My clothes are in my trunk and I�m hitting the Laundromat on the way home. I go by my own book and I evaluate my own evidence: it matters to me to be able to find myself virtuous, or even capable of being motivated by the desire for virtue, and I will continue to seek out these small opportunities to remind me of small good things about myself.

(Later: Why is it capital-L Laundromat? Why is it capital-R Realtor?)