I�m in a horrible mood today. I hate how everyone I know has so much money (themselves and/or families; I realized last night that over half of the people I could immediately name as friends have parents with two or more houses), I hate them for taking it for granted and for their grotesque habits of consumption, and I hate myself for how I can�t help keeping track of these things. And of course I hate Gastro.

So that�s about the size of it. And on the bling-bling tip I do not mean you, Dear Reader, mercy no! I think this hatey state of mind has a great deal to do with the last part; how excruciating it is, after an especially good episode of camaraderie and conversation, to get up and step into the ever-fresh Hell of knowing that I have to come here � I never know what�s going to set me off.

Oh. I just (12:33 pm) got e-mail from Mrs. Roboto, and now I have figured out what � cryptically � set me off. I wonder why I didn�t think of that before. Now I am angry and depressed and shaky all over again, but it cheers me to have identified that to which I generate these things as antibodies, it is good to know what I am not. Thanks, lady. I owe you a drink.

The good time was had at Linda�s. We hauled out Camille Paglia and her "arc of transcendence," god I feel so old, and bloviated on men�s and women�s typically different attitudes towards the acquisition of knowledge, like What is the goal? Though perhaps to suggest that there is a goal belies a masculine orientation towards even addressing the question of difference, yes, no? I enlightened the assembled on phallocentric logic, my alleged devotion to which when I was in college used to earn me, from my friends who were more inclined towards Women�s Studies courses, a mix of condescending sympathy and flat-out enmity. During that time I thought it was hilarious that Paglia and I have the same birthday. The panel�s conclusion? This is all unsubstantiated, anecdotal generalization, you understand, but something about how men are more rapacious, give me this and give me that, I-will-conquer-and-possess-you � they want to make information their bitch. Women, on the other hand, want to find a way to orient themselves with respect to the same information, they want to relate it to their personal experiences, make it relevant and make it their friend.

(With respect to the recently publicized algorithms that analyze text and determine whether it was written by a man or a woman, what do you suppose is the neuropsychological explanation, then, for men�s less frequent use of the first person? Intuitively it�s counter to the model above of male as hunter, do you see what I�m getting at? Is it because once the information is theirs, they have assimilated it?)

If I sound condescending or dismissive, I don�t mean to and I�m sorry � it�s no secret that in conversations that hinge on the exchange of facts I�m much more down with the dudes. I�m so much the way I am, rapacious and competitive � mostly self-competitive, the last several years � that I can�t even conceptualize whatever is the opposite of phallocentrism. Like, how would you even get up in the morning and take a shower and brush your teeth? (There goes the phallocentrist with the practical questions right away, my college acquaintances would tsk-tsk.)

I am trying to get at something without explicitly spelling it out. The thing is, can I claim to be rapacious without there also being implied prey? I want to be the way I am, this particular way I am, without it having to be a weapon against other people. OK: "other women." If it�s true that I acquire information � sorry to cast the matter in such clinical terms, I don�t know how else to express it � in order to make it my bitch, I do not acquire it to make you my bitch too by virtue of the fact that I have it and you don�t. But, hold on, I used the word "competitive," am I trying to wangle an ex post facto rationalization? No I don�t think so because I am not cool with executing a competition unless there�s at least one other person who�s bought into it. At Linda�s last night we had all anted up for the same hand. If you try to force people to play a game they aren�t equipped or don�t want to play, then you are a bully. Or worse. In my offline life, my meat life, there are a lot of ways of meat-talking and of meat-being that were accessible to me back when I read "Sexual Personae," say, that are not accessible to me now. It happens � no one�s life is perfect, and you get older, you make compromises. When I am seized by the coffee-shop-intellectual fervor of rapacity, I let that run its course with me and then I�m done, and if I need to feel the wind in my hair or remember what blood tastes like, I come to my diary and I concentrate very hard. The way in which I want to have pride in myself as a predator has nothing to do with wanting to hurt and defeat others. I do not want to hurt others; here is where I come out as an albeit masochistic female when I say that I want others to be comfortable and happy, to have pride in themselves too, not to have a shitty time. In fact I think you will agree that the evidence shows that I want not to hurt them to the extent that I�m willing to put myself in a cage. I am an excellent student, big deal, and I am also a good person.

It�s weird, as I type this I�m sort of realizing the value I place on the latter, maybe even � no joke, this is heresy � at the expense of the former. It�s bizarro world!

Good people do not deserve to be torn down.

What does a diary feed? If my name is not here, am I allowed to give an answer other than "ego"? I know what I am not.

No camping this weekend. A certain two-person subcommittee of the Paglia group decided that the amount of rushing around that tonight would have to have encompassed would have made for frayed nerves and an inauspicious start to the hike and also that in general they need to start being substantially more focused on packing and organizing and moving. Which is good, because as you can see my nerves are frayed already. I feel like I�ve been exposed to psychic toxins � I take these things so personally � and I need to drink my psychic orange juice and take care of myself for a day or two.

P.S. "Hermetic." I meant to use that word yesterday about Sebold's author photo and I kept forgetting, argh.