Three-plus times the per-day average yesterday. Whatev. My great-aunt tells me that the reason my dad bought a house bigger than he would seem to need is that Gail�s going to quit her job and move to PA with her two kids and also that she has no plans to work once she gets there. I realized last night that the missing piece in the "Sure I live here on Beacon Hill!" fa�ade is my cat. Ha ha, imagine if I�d forgotten this and my dad got to my house and asked, Where�s Marcus? Uh, he must have run away, and, oh wow, he must have taken his food dish and litterbox with him. As we used to say in high school � give it up for the AP! � *that* would be a funny one. So I told Steve last night that I needed to borrow Marcus back for the weekend and he said fine but then as we were working out the details he suggested that on the other hand, I could �fess up as to Marcus�s current and my soon-to-be location and avoid the whole feline-intrigue segment of this week�s stressathon, and I don�t know, I�m so fed up with the bullshit, mine included, that I just might. Must think about it though.

Christ what a day I�m having. Something about Boise Cascade fucking up and sending us forty boxes of something instead of forty units � add a pissed-off lab attendant, a summer intern who didn�t tell anyone she was going on vacation this week, the return of Kathleen, a project coordinator for all of the above who lives 1500 miles away, and oh by the way forty big boxes stacked in the conference room including from the tabletop to ceiling so no one can use that room for meetings, and it is a veritable recipe for farce. I had to get a measles booster since my blood test came back from the lab showing insufficient antibodies for the hospital�s satisfaction, and I had to wait around in Occupational Health and then get painfully stuck in the adipose and I could feel the serum gurgling around in there for a while afterwards, which made me nauseated. I won�t even go into the one about the lab coats and the purchasing order. All the doctors are either out or on non-vacation � interviewing for positions they�re secretly not interested in while staying in swank hotels, eating like kings, and getting in a few rounds of golf � or on attenuated summer schedule that lets them leave early; when I left yesterday at five, I was the noble straggler, having stayed long after everyone else had gone, but if I get the same opportunity today I�m leaving early for sure. Laundry in car, will stop on the way home and take care of that and go guest-in-house food shopping during the wash cycle. Then go home, make bed, put clothes away, finish tidying room, assault my memory�s dignity by forcing myself to open up the old old FrontPage installation on my PC and hack around for a while � if there�s time; that might slip until tomorrow � then collect Vanessa for Long Winters show. Oh, and eat. And you have received my briefing about tomorrow. Monday night Steve and I already have plans to go to the impeccable new liquor bar at the 611 Supreme and drink a toast to my dad�s visit being over, and you are invited to join us. I�ll be at the bar, weeping into my double bourbon.

I saw "Wings of Migration" last night. It was beautiful and inspiring and all that, but four years for those 90 minutes? You just know there�s some charitable foundation out there with a sour taste in its mouth. Then I felt bad for even having had such a thought � maybe I should have gotten stoned before I went to the theater. There was a preview for some godawful-looking mess of a movie starring Bob Dylan, Chris Penn, Val Kilmer, Christian Slater, and Mickey Rourke. "It�s Night of the Living Has-Beens!" I whispered to Steve, but he was not amused. "You�re so catty," he said. Yes but only when it doesn�t matter? Only when something deserves it? I had a dream last night that I lived in New York and was pals with the Gawker chick but I had to be careful because she was also a friend of NYC Lisa, and I knew that if Lisa found out that someone was being nice to me she�d put a stop to it and have me chased out of town by pterodactyls. Two nights ago I dreamed that there was a new bar in Seattle that was like Axis only for cool people, like if Linda�s merged with Axis and could charge $36 a pint for beer. That was what the new bar did, that in fact was its gimmick, and damn if all the indie scenesters weren�t lining up outside, wanting to be in the scenestery club of people who�d spent $36 on a drink and lived to roll their eyes in mock self-deprecation upon relating the fact, loudly, later. It was the hottest ticket in Seattle, the closest thing we get out here to what you�d have to call a cultural phenomenon. Steve�s friend Jennifer organized a big party at the new bar, and on the day the invitations arrived at the homes and desks of her A-list, I got home and found a little pile of papers on my desk as if someone had broken into my house and put them there. It was a map to a bar next door to the new one, which seemed to be a regular old regular-priced setup � there was a menu and beer list too � and a note from Jennifer suggesting that since I couldn�t afford the new bar, maybe I could hang out at the other one and every couple hours we could make arrangements for a few people from her party to come out and meet me on the street and chat for ten minutes at a time. I was standing there, tapping the note against the upturned fingertips of my other hand, thinking, Huh. Should I be insulted?

It�s Kate Hudson with Naomi Watts in "Le Divorce," I just found out. Foul ball! Also, speaking of cultural phenomena, what is up with nads in the news? The Liz Phair song, the Maria Flook book � is this a trend? Are we embarking on a brave new age of orchidophilia? Alert Jodi Kantor, stat. No, I have not started "The Lovely Bones" yet, but I promise promise promise that I will have read it for Book Club. July 10 deadline, you do not scare me. Steve can�t go hiking on Saturday because he has to go to a funeral.

You people are not updating your diaries frequently enough. Don�t you know how bored I am? Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Man, do I need to eat something.

Back on Monday. Thank you for your kind words and good wishes � I appreciate all of them. Have a fine weekend.