Loveys: I check that Hotmail account maybe once a week. You�re nice to send me mail and you can do it any time you want. Just be aware that a delay in response does not mean that I�m ignoring you.

Here�s a sentence I wrote yesterday that has a very high ratio of monosyllabic words to poly-: I do plan to sit on my ass and watch a movie and try to get my cat to let me pet him. Refusing to analyze why I think that�s worthy of note. It occurred to me to change "movie" to "film" before I sent the words towards their destination, but that would have been cheating. (I was tired and sick-feeling yesterday after being out late at the Sunset and from my fretting that the wandering doc was going to want my head on a plate, so I was making Calgon-take-me-away plans for the eventide. Movie was "Happiness of the Katakuris," recommended, and, no, my cat still won�t let me pet him. When he is not being menaced, he cries and paces and cases the doors as if he�s in prison, and I imagine he�ll be converting to Islam any day.)

Amar is brill: "The average age at the show was 28 going on 40. I felt like setting myself on fire, in order to express the sentiment that I'd rather burn out then waste away. I wasn't sure if anyone would get it, though, so I settled for drinking heavily."

OK, so yesterday wasn�t as bad as I had feared it would be. Melissa grabbed the doctor as soon as she got into the office � late; bonus: no one said boo that I did not get in myself until 9:30 � and they were in closed-door conference for a long time. A bit later Melissa asked me if the doctor had apologized yet and also leaked that her intel is that the doctor is the opposite of not pleased with me and my work, and somewhat after that the doctor did come in and apologize for the tone of the e-mail she�d sent me from her trip, and she admired the on-monitor fruits of my pixelfucking so all was well. As a make-up present, I spent a long time building her a beautiful model of the genomic organization of her pet virus with the shitty graphics software I�m allowed to use � of the workarounds for which I am by the way and no brag rapidly becoming a master, spinning lead into Photoshop on a regular basis. (The champ is here!) My ego inflated by small victories like these, I kept working and stayed late in anticipation of a possible sailing excursion with Julian this afternoon, as in leaving early for it. Then I went home and cooked, including a batch of the roasted asparagus and some superbadass improvised cornbread, and then I went to Steve�s for the movie and cat, etc. Tonight I think he�s hanging with the Somerset and then maybe he will meet up with me later for the midnight showing of "The Thing" at the Grand Illusion, and on Sat nite Mrs. Roboto and I are going to see the same show that Amar did on Tuesday. I want to be the air critic.

The last time I saw the New Pornographers was the night I met Todd. (Today I am wearing the shirt I had on the day after the August iteration of my breakup with him, that I was wearing when I wrote this; note that I composed that entry in the old days and watch for falling pseudonyms. Later, out with my homies, I would forget to remember to count drinks at eight, and then on my porch there was something about my stomach in the shirt and something about, uh, Weird Al Yankovic.) I like to think of the beginnings of things, how even though the odds are that whatever is starting is going to go down in toxic flames there is always a part that seems so full of promise and that you can�t help believing feels precisely how the start of something that�s for keeps *should* feel, like the visceral excitement of picking up a book and the first two paragraphs totally rock your clock and there are several hundred pages of same to go � you feel on top of a roller coaster and on top of the world, and then you are on top at the same time as you are careening down into. Obviously this sensation manifests differently with the book than it does with the boy, but I maintain that at the level of genomic organization they are the same thing. At the New Pornographers event � and I can tell you what I was wearing that night too; this eidetic relationship I have to my wardrobe both amuses and shames me � after the meet-cute and towards the end of the night, the knot of Todd�s friends had drifted towards the knot of me and Vanessa and Patty and Art and Julian, and I didn�t know whether that was on purpose, I didn�t know how these things worked since I�d never given my number to a guy in a bar before and I didn�t want to presume, and Vanessa kept nudging me and gesturing bodily in the direction of Todd and crew, I remember thinking that she looked like a wiggly insect, teasing me, "There�s your new boyfriend! Look, he�s right there, shouldn�t you say hi to your new boyfriend?" And the band was playing, loud crunchy trebled-up alterna-pop that was tight as a drum, and Vanessa�s eagerness to be happy on my behalf endeared her to me hugely, there was no wiggly insect I would rather have had, and there was certainty in the bass lines as if they were the very, yes, imprimatur of history � imprimatur and permission, because there I was with two of my oldest friends as well as my newest and favoritest, and who I had just given my number to was someone who had seen me, known me, eleven years previously and then six years previously, it felt as though long ago I had had a secret friend, someone on my side, and that in a sense Todd had always been there � a wisher of good things for me � waiting to happen, and now he was going to be the good thing. That evening was saying nothing but yes. Neither Todd nor I had a pen, so I wrote my number in lipstick. How can something that starts like that ever go bad, how is it anything but the harbinger of the best outcome in the world? I�m so logical I�m part Vulcan, but, at the time, it would have been inconceivable to me. With Andy "Ratboy" B., how it started was me stopping for a chocolate malt on my way home from an evening movie and him asking me, while he was scooping someone else�s order, if I might like to go to a movie with him sometime. I was dizzy, overcome by bliss. The people ahead of me in line, who had been listening to us chatting, were beaming at me, happy for me, and I squeaked, breathless, "You have chocolate on your chin." I can still hear my voice, small and hopeful, pronouncing the "chocolate" the fussy way I do, syllables = 2.5. (Navy blue leggings, hot pink knit shirt with batwing sleeves, blue-and-white checkered vest with the silver buttons I sewed on myself, the socks with tropical fish on them. Irony alert: "A Perfect World.") Potential = 10; how could it have been otherwise? The people waiting for their sundaes seemed to know that they were in the presence of something to be honored. They felt it, so how could it not have been there?

I say I�m not an optimist, but really that�s a load of crap.

It�s TMI day here at Gastro. Dr. Carpool is being too forthcoming about her salary, Alicia�s in the process of getting a mortgage approved, Nurse Jenny recently shed a boyfriend and wants everyone to know that she is earnestly in manhunting mode as well as to know and be proud of the steps she�s taking towards self-nurture in this emotionally difficult time, and Nurse Rachel is very interested in these gainfully employed single guys with English accents to whom I have made reference. Deb, unbidden, sent me a link to the jobs page of a big local employer. Shit, is it that obvious? In the TMI department, I have been often felt angry + helpless + cranky lately when people who learn that Steve and I are moving in together take the imparting of that information as their license to advise + interrogate + cheerlead. Here�s a tip, unless you and are I tremendously good friends you are not authorized to wax lyrical on what you think our long-term prospects as a couple are or to employ phrases along the lines of "almost like getting married" or to ask where we�re planning to look � I�m onto you, you dumb sneakies, and I know that�s code for How much are you going to spend? and I am more offended by the attempt at subterfuge than I would be by the bald uncouth inquiry (though, sorry, I am still not going to enlighten you). This is what I was afraid of, it�s as if by having come out as someone who�s casting her domestic and financial lot with another human I have lost the right to privacy and volunteered for assimilation, like I�ve changed my voter registration and now I�m a pod person. And it�s interesting how even people who have no experience with this kind of lot-casting consider themselves experts on its execution, I must smile and nod and pretend to be appreciative of the input of not only those who deign to share their accreted wisdom but of those who, I suppose, subconsciously want some kind of confirmation that these avenues are not cut off to them, they explicate to me a map of places they�ve never been or seen as if this demonstrates their own worthiness of citizenship there. (Forgive me, I�m once-bitten-twice-shy about this kind of thing, and here is the part where I say to Mrs. R. and Vanessa that the conversations I�ve had with you on the subject, which after all I am the one who initiated and that�s mostly what I�m talking about here, are fully exempted from my wrath.) It is maddening. And if I try to resist, then this looks like defensiveness, which to the amateur cartologists of my acquaintance means that I am skittery about the shacking up � and that they are the intrepid explorers who have discovered this! � and then they want to take off their pith helmets and don psychoanalyst hats, and, argh, I feel like I can�t win. Only with respect to this one aspect of my RFW life, I vant to be alone. Can�t I?

Word is calling this diary entry "Document69." If you inisist, Tiger.

I like how that picture in the NYT today of Dick Cheney sucking icing off his finger makes him look like Dr. Evil. Note: If you have arrived at this page via a Google search for "Dick Cheney sucking icing off his finger," you�re sick and you need help.

I just poked my head into an informal conference of Dr. Carpool, Nurse Jenny, and Nurse Rachel. They all had nice things to say about my outfit and, ha, especially the shirt, and Dr. Carpool said that I am the hospital fashion plate. (Out of the corner of my eye, I could have predicted this, I saw Nurse Jenny blanch. More peacemaking on my agenda, argh again.) I just wrote about this to Steve, I think that my colleagues here somehow sense my countdown and they way I am holding myself in abeyance between dissatisfaction and dignified resignation, they are aware of a vague and far-off disturbance in the force, and without even realizing what they�re doing they are seeking to appease me. My hair, my outfits, my phone manner, my perfect spelling, my skillz wit da graphics, my rare fragrant bon mots � the compliments have been flying fast and thick and fulsome the last few days, I feel like a dear and spoiled pet. It is pleasant. I take it for what it is, which is still far short of making we want to reconsider. And that, knowing that, is pleasanter.

Weekend ahoy. Reader: have a good one.

(Later:) You know what, I don't know what I'm talking about. Todd Night wasn't the NPs, it was the Apples in Stereo. I am an idiot. This doesn't change any of the other facts related above, not materially, but I realize that my having flubbed one that's so central to my history calls into question my accuracy w/r/t the rest of them (though w/r/t Todd I am also congratulating myself for being able to forget). Take heed, I guess.