1. I am reading "The Moviegoer," "The Mountain Lion," and some Greg Palast.
2. I saw "Judy Berlin" and, at the Big Picture last night with Jeanne, "Nowhere in Africa."
3. Roger Ebert made me laugh: "Apologies to Keith Richards for confusing him with a drunken drag queen, and vice versa."
4. Steve and I are getting, sit down, satellite TiVo installed at the bacon shack on Friday afternoon, so I get to cut out around eleven Friday morning and go hang out waiting for the cable guy. I think that mint juleps sound like a very fine thing to drink while hanging out waiting for the cable guy. So you know where Vanessa and I will be on Sunday night � better late to the season than never. Steve told me to remind her to bring the moisturizer.
5. I gave Art my diary URL. Hello, Art, if you are reading. There seems to be some confusion on the streets as to the extent to which I use these pages as a broadside against those who sometimes exercise me, and I would like to clear that matter up posthaste.
6. Plus I may be testing what it might feel like to want an audience. Outlook hazy, will keep you posted.
7. Here�s a phrase that also made me laugh, or rather snicker, from a link on the top page of the online NYT today: "a window into the early work of Russell Crowe." I cannot explain why those words spelling out that concept induce mirth in me. Yet they do.
8. And here�s how spacey and shallow and preoccupied I�ve been lately: When, at some other site, I saw the headline "Taylor reportedly to leave next week," I was briefly confused and the Taylor I pictured was Elizabeth.
9. Terry and I got into a friendly fake-catty pissing contest Friday night over who was the more righteous Monty Clift fan. I think it was a tie, although I also think I get style points for my boozy tribute to E.T.�s courage immediately after M.C.�s storied car accident, how she ran down the hill in her party heels and, at the scene of the crash, crawled into the wreckage and reached down her best friend's throat, pulling his teeth out from where they were lodged so that he could breathe. So heroic and so punk rock; even with brains on her dress Jackie Kennedy had nothing on Liz.
10. Reading a list of the seven facial emotions that have "very clear" facial signals � anger, sadness, fear, surprise, disgust, contempt and happiness � I was surprised by the separation of disgust and contempt. Then I realized that my surprise was on account of how often I�m in the presence of a condition that encompasses both of these things. What is the name of that condition, as embodied by whoever�s embodying it? And is this an unfavorable comment, somehow, on my social life and the disgusted-and-contemptuous circles with which I am/have been (mostly the latter, so that�s something, anyway) involved?
11. Speaking of disgust, William Ian Miller�s book on this topic is wonderful.
12. And speaking of unfavorable comments, how about the practice, on Friendster, of writing a so-called testimonial for a friendster of yours that is actually not a testimonial at all � is in fact, well, mildly contemptuous? That hurt my feelings. I mean, not that Friendster is anything but played out.
13. That last comment was merely dismissive and judgmental. It was not contemptuous.

Yesterday morning I left a memo in the Wife of Bath�s mailbox, something along the lines of Please consider this my two weeks� notice, and to it I affixed a less formal Post-It explaining that the formality was only because I wanted to keep things legal and that if she wanted to call and less formally chat I would be happy to come up anytime. All day yesterday I waited for a summons that it seemed increasingly incredible did not arrive � I ran into Adam last night at QFC and said something about a tree falling in the forest and no one hearing it � which I am not too proud to say hurt my feelings as well, and then finally this morning it did. I poured a glass of water and went up in the elevator, and although for a moment I considered just glossing over the bullshit and playing like my wanting to quit and my wanting to go on vacation were more closely related than they are, I ended up telling her everything that is wrong and bad and vile about this job and some of the people around whom the job gets done; she�d told me on the phone that she had about half an hour available to meet with me, but I looked at my watch as I was getting back on the elevator and I had been in there for an hour and 20 minutes. The upshot of that meeting is (1) well, at least Dr. Blahblah is nearing retirement age and (2) after I�m gone, the position will probably be rewritten as the monkey job it is, because it�s based on information from Dr. Blahblah that the Wife of Bath wrote the job description, and what he told her is not what has been going down. Which is a nice strategic play on his part because if you advertise for a monkey you are not likely to get a stellar chimp like Yours Truly, I would like to see a monkey try to correct Dr. Blahblah�s Latin sometime. I like the Wife of Bath and her no-nonsense hair and her excellent diction and her forthright New-Englandy manner, and in a way I will miss her. (And in a way, of course, I will be taking ferries all around the Greek islands and I won�t miss her or anyone one little bit.) She was sympathetic and said all the right things, like that she was sorry all the bullshit had come down on me, she�d had no idea it was that bad, and that she wished she could find a way to keep me in place but it sure did sound like I�d non-negotiably had enough. (Bonus: she manages lots of temps, she said, so that if upon my return I�m back on the rolls at the agency that placed me here, I should call and let her know so that she can ask for me. Just as if I were a hooker! I told Vanessa, but you understand that�s only the situational defensiveness kicking in, me preferring my own contempt to what might be yours as I start over with the temping yet again; it is nice to be wanted, in any capacity.) I pulled out most of the stops, informing her that morale here is completely in the toilet and that a few of the most valued warm bodies are looking for other jobs and would leave in a heartbeat and that Smithers and Mr. Burns are universally reviled. This was funny because the Wife of Bath had just talked to Burns a few days ago about this clinic, and her take-away is that Burns is proud of what happy workers we all are and how much we respect the direction and discipline � this is the no-open-toed-shoes broad � she has instituted. Ha. The Wife of Bath was horrified to learn of Dr. Blahblah�s open disdain of women surgeons, predilection for fag jokes, etc., and I like to think that this isn�t just because she�s thinking liability, that it is because she�s a good person. (Sidebar: she told me that she has a doctor pal about Dr. Blahblah�s age whose medical school, when he attended, offered what amounted to finishing-school classes for doctors� wives, lectures and field trips and reading assignments intended to inculcate them with a sense of the cultural responsibility and requirements of being doctors� wives. For instance, it was expected that doctors would become patrons of the arts and, e.g., buy season tickets to the symphony, so the wives were given music appreciation classes and short lessons in opera history so that during intermissions they would be able to make informed yet deferential conversation with the other doctors and wives � keeping in mind that although the wives were allowed to know stuff, only the doctors could have opinions about it; it was the wives� job to move the conversation along and provide the doctors with a steady stream of topics about which they could opine manfully. Appalling, no?) Anyway. I�m quitsville. Just over eight more days at the Gastro desk minus Mint Julep Friday, one of them spent in monkey-training. No one knows but the Wife of Bath and the HR people who will receive the brutally but predictably impersonal form I had to fill out checking off my Reason For Job Termination (#22, Personal), I keep walking around and talking to people and debating which is the better way to handle x from now on, and the whole time there�s this giddy sense of already having escaped. I feel undead but in a good way. Tomorrow I�m going to spend some time on resume stuff and getting back in touch with the temp agencies � or maybe only one of the above, I don�t mean to punish myself � and I have more things to say here, eventually, maybe, but for now I�ll pat myself on the back for having got back in the game and produced this entry, and I�ll call it a day.