� Nicholas Fraser, in "Darkness Visible: The intrigues of Alan Furst" (Harper�s, July 2003)

20 days including, after today, three Mondays. Pray for the silicon chip inside my head. Dr. Whipped, new in town and apparently unfamiliar with the category of reference materials known as maps, made a request at five to five Friday afternoon that I be at my desk Saturday morning to answer his call and provide him with directions to the location of his first meeting today. "I do not work on Saturdays," I told him, in as controlled a manner as I could. After I cried real tears about Gastro on two separate occasions over the weekend, Steve reminded me that there would be no loss of dignity in bailing out on my brave countdown and quitting early. (I typed "no shame" first but something else that happened over the weekend is I learned the extent to which that�s my word and not his.) I think I�d like to try hard not to let that happen. I�m scheduled to go to another one of these meetings next Wednesday at nine and I think I�m going to have a fake doctor�s appointment that morning; I got the invitation and the agenda last week and I was staring at it, shaking my head at my name�s incongruous appearance in the list of invitees, why are they asking me to come to this shit in the first place, when it hit me that perhaps I have become known as one of the hospital�s big fish currently in small ponds, a potential selectee to become a fish-in-waiting to someone higher up the food chain or more public than Dr. Blahblah � that�s how I�d characterize the positions of the other people at the February meeting � that is to say, their idea of someone whose administrative career they�d be willing to support: a Knit Separate just waiting to happen. I will not go to the meeting.

Steve likes Furst, I have never read him. On Sunday Popeye and Steve moved my TV stand and all the electronics that sit on it out of my house and into you know where. Oh, and my OED. There was some chafing when I found out that Steve thinks that it�s in very poor taste to evaluate oneself in a matter-of-factly positive manner, that though he does agree with me about the self-championing Armstrong he also cringes when he hears someone say something along the lines of, uh, I�m a top-notch editor. What you are supposed to say instead, you may wish to remember for the next time you�re talking to him, is something like I�m a decent editor or I don�t know, I guess I�m reasonably good. In a way it�s funny that I�m the one who�s willing to swagger and he is so genteel. In another way though it is disheartening because, I tried to tell him this, such objective descriptors of myself and my abilities are, while I flail at Gastro for treatment that is merely civil, kind of like a lifeline to me. No, fuck that � they are not kind of like a lifeline, they are not reasonably somewhat like a lifeline, they are a lifeline, they connect me to my secret real self who is smart and capable and, among other things, an ace editor. I rail against Lance and Kevin and a certain self-described natural athlete I used to know because they are arrogant windbags and more specifically because of their particular strain of arrogance, the equation of their subjective perception (which happens to be arrogant) with objective fact. Is it easier empirically to measure goodness of editorship than naturalness of athleticism or exuberance of boyishness? Yes, it is, and that is why I�m allowed to call myself a good editor. There are criteria. I meet them. What�s the problem? I don�t go around saying that I�m a good cook or a thoughtful friend � the only criteria that exist by which to evaluate those statements are (a) subjective and (b) inside someone else�s head. According to my rulebook, someone who eats dinner at my house can say that I�m a good cook the same way a sportscaster can say that, I don�t know, Randy Moss is a natural athlete, and that counts for something, sure, but it is not objective; it counts for something but it is not currency. I will tell you how long I went out running for but I will never call myself a runner. What I mean to say is that I�m not making this system up as I go along, and I would have been angrier about Steve�s mildly administered corrective had not its implication in that respect been so humiliating. And how does he expect me, and he does, to talk about job applications and interviews and the like if I�m supposed to for decorum�s sake be falsely and killingly modest about myself? I don�t understand how that exchange could be anything but the Japanese tea ceremony of adult human discourse, where he makes encouraging statements (because, I want to make clear, he does regard me as smart etc., if he�s never actually seen me display my editing chops I daresay he�s willing to believe I�ve got them), me humbly dissembling, Oh no Sir not I. There�s discretion and there�s humility, and there is the truth. Also what not to confuse are a full-on fight and on the other hand what is only a gaping philosophical discontinuity; maybe I�ll pick the former one day but right now my pride is too hurt and I will get some emotional bungee cords and be willing to suspend myself in the latter. But not in my diary.

Catharine, do you know what is coming up in two days?

I have more but my brain�s hazy, resisting the new week, and I�m not thinking as fluently as I�d like, so I�ll cut my losses and work on the chemical drawings. What I had wanted to write about today was pop culture, as in, What is it, what is the term generally understood to encompass? What is pop culture�s rulebook? When you declare your affinity for it, what are you pledging allegiance to? Take a look at this and I�ll try to make something resembling a point tomorrow.