� Our Chicago correspondent, here. I should get a library card again.

I should be so so confident, right? I should be confident and cool, as cool as the other side of the pillow, because, yo, I am a badass. But such is not the case. My stomach roils and my hands shake and I feel preyed upon to start in now with the self-deprecation, to Gaitskill myself in advance and privately, before my job interview at 9 on Monday. Yeah, congrats to me and pass the Rolaids � after the messy sprint a few weeks ago of getting the application in, tracking down old colleagues and freshening references, and faxing 20 pages from the Gastro front desk with ninja stealth, it�s like I forgot what all that was about, what the goal was; I completed Job X according to spec and under deadline and then it was Miller Time. Then this morning I got a call from a number I did not recognize saying Well Miss Successful Applicant, we would like to see you for a one-hour panel interview sometime on Monday, and now all of a sudden I am terrified. I asked the woman who called me whether I should bring anything in particular and she said, "Whatever you think will impress us" and it occurred to me � right then, which is really bad � that when I related that exchange to other people I could make jokes about what would impress them: documentation from a restraining order I once took out, my pee test that was two standard deviations above the norm� but why would I make a joke like that, why would I even have the impulse to make a joke like that? I can do every one of the ten Essential Functions listed on the job requisition, I go both ways on IT and Creative, I can bring home the data and fry it up in a pan. I am so good in interviews � when I am not horrifically nervous, that is, so I�m going to have to snap out of this shit in a hurry � that, no brag, I often end up getting asked, "Don�t take this the wrong way, but why does someone like you want a position like this?" and then comes the part where I end up doing the equivalent of holding out a dented cup of pencils and trying to look hungry and, well, that is a scenario that my dignity and I would like to avoid from now on. And this is not a job like that so it would not be an interview like that, but that�s the only kind of interview I�ve had, except for the phone screen with the sociopathic recruiter at Amazon, since the one at AcmeWidget.com back in October of 2000. And why am I saying this as if making excuses for myself � again, in advance and privately � since none of it impacts the fundamentals, which is the me = badass equation that ninety-some percent of the time I have no qualms about making? It is not easy to be vulnerable and go on record as giving a damn, as wanting something. Or is it, and this is just the Vulcan in me coming out?

In the past few weeks of forgetting about the application � or maybe subconsciously I told myself, because this is something that was easy, Ha, that was a lot of wasted effort for something that couldn�t possibly pan out � I�d already set my mind according to an anticipated linear pattern of events. Dinner party tonight, camping this weekend, my dad�s visit, after that the full-course press towards packing and shacking during which I am ostensibly reading less (two more typos in the Costello btw), more camping, my yard party at the end of July, cleaning the burn marks off the kitchen ceiling and moving out of Casa Rebecca, settling into the half-my new digs, quitting Gastro, vacation, full stop. And then, I planned, I would go back to temping while also dedicating myself fully to not having to go back to temping for a good long time. I have no point with all this, I guess/I realize � I�m just whining. And seeing what I�m whining about makes me feel like a first-class tard, so I will stop.

Wish me luck, I mean to say. Wish me luck, please. I�m not going to write here tomorrow so that I can spend some time polishing up my writing samples and that sort of thing, so this is the last you will hear from me until at least Monday. I�m leaving an hour early today and going home to chop stuff. I am hoping that the combination of friends, pork a la bacon, Shiraz, and camping planning will set my mind a little more at ease. Then I�ll have a whole weekend to hinge myself back up and calm down and stop flagellating myself for asking for either an early-morning or late-afternoon interview because now I am the first person they will see in a full day of candidates and any figure-skating judge could tell you that�s the lousiest slot you can draw, you might as well kiss the gold medal goodbye. What is the worst thing that could happen on Monday? I flop and there is no Step 4, that�s all. And in a way, getting hosed for jobs you know you�re qualified for, real non-monkey grown-up jobs, hurts less than it does for the other kind, because if you do well at the interview and make clear that you�ve got the skills and they decide to go with someone else, then since the company is one you already respect because they�ve seen that you�re good enough for an interview, then you also have to accept that they had a respectable reason for their final decision. Does that make sense? (Or am I rationalizing?) It�s also a virtuous, self-affirming feeling to be allowed to fight at one�s actual weight, in such a way that it would be unseemly to hate the ref.

This week at Gastro I have been dealing with a twinset from Administration upstairs and the two-faced ho who is her Smithers. Today, fed up, I wrote a brief note to Dr. Blahblah outlining my grievances and pointing out that it�s ironic that the people who like to bust Gastro�s mighty front desk staff for not being attentive to the needs of patients and families � a memo went out this week that notoriously directed them to offer to hold all crying babies and ask the mothers if there is anything they can get for them, like they�re waitresses too � have no problem with demanding, on one day�s notice, that meetings be scheduled according to their convenience and in the middle of designated clinic time. I bcc�d Alicia and Deb, the main targets of the memo. Alicia wrote back, "You go, girl!" and Deb said, "Way to go, Norma Rae!" What is the worst thing that could happen? I quit this wretched monkey gig and go on three weeks� vacation. So, OK.

I liked this article in the Wash Post. Gephardt gets on my nerves because of his inability to face the fact that whatever his qualifications as a person or a politician, he has zero charisma and is therefore deeply deeply unelectable as President. He's the anti-Elvis of the Democratic party � even Gore tongued his wife on national TV. "Sipping decaf in the back of a minivan": that�s Gephardt, all right. May the gods strike me dead if anyone ever has cause to write that about me. Why? Because badasses do not drink decaf or ride in minivans, and I am a badass.