1. This James Surowiecki piece. To which Mrs. Roboto�s wonderfully tart and spot-on response was as follows: "I'm not sure I entirely agree with this article. I mean, is it my fault that your standard breeders are getting into bidding wars over big houses in the suburbs and thus driving up their cost of living? And anything that refers to children as a 'public good' puts me on edge." (Steve added, "Gawd, you know who's going to be paying down the huge Social Security debt? Those little kids across the street who are being beaten and yelled at!")
2. In this article from the Post last week, about the ridiculously rich couple throwing themselves, as a 50th anniversary party � so, all right, maybe they are a little bit entitled � what looks to be more of a celebration of their wealth: "But they embarked on a new and unusual adventure at age 47: two more children, from two surrogate mothers." How many different ways is it inappropriate to call that an adventure? Exactly how much money do you have to have before your ass, to the news media, automatically becomes crawl-uppable?
3. Recently I saw a brochure put out by the American Vasectomy Council or some such organization, Is this the right decision for you? or something like that, and in the section that itemizes everything that you dudes need to think about, are-you-really-sure, there�s a bullet point that asks, "After your children are grown and have left the house, will you be lonely?" Oh, gosh, that�s a good point, maybe I will be. And when I am, the best course of action will be what these concerned urologists seem tacitly to be endorsing: I will combat my loneliness by � say this as Steve Buscemi in "Ghost World" � having some more kids. Unbelievable.

I�m testy and some new developments at Gastro, a textbook case of getting out just in time, are making me angry. I don�t feel like I want to write anything here, lately, until it�s late afternoon and I suddenly feel like I do and then I have to rush, which means that the writing is not so good and I don�t get around to what I�d wanted to. I think the diary scene is going to suck until the end of the week and then it might suck but differently next week while I�m running around and cleaning ceilings, and then I�ll be away and then I may discover yet another way to suck after that while I am (1) registering with temp agencies, (2) flagellating myself while waiting for my first assignment and then for subsequent assignments, and (3) in temp Hell, which who knows how long that will last� but I am trying not to be a defeatist about it, or at least not so much of a defeatist. I talked to my great-aunt today and she asked me what I was going to do when I got back, and when I told her, she said, in a casual tone of voice that I was so grateful for � because it implied that there was no other possible outcome, that her encouragement ought to seem perfunctory to me � "You�ll be fine." For a moment I luxuriated in the simple fact of someone else�s faith in me at the same time as I was humbled by it � would I, would I really, could I dare to assume it? � and then I got the more accustomed sense of the opposite of luxury, the sense of having to lay in provisions, and I told her she could keep on saying that; I invited her to say it any old time she pleased. This made her giggle, because she thought I was joking. Deb, who on Thursday was the only one who knows I�m through on Friday, found the secret too tasty not to share, and now Melissa and Alicia and Nurse Rachel do too, though because of the new developments I mentioned above I am in a highly fuck-youish mood towards HR and the doctors and a few other warm bodies and I am trying to keep it on the QT in order to spring it on them as heartlessly as possible. That�s spiteful and I�m kind of sorry I�m not a better person, but man do I relish the thought of how much things are going to screech to a halt her next week. Also, the ladies want to take me out for some adult beverages Friday directly after work and before Steve and I get dinner, and that sounds just fine.

Words I�m overusing lately: "perfunctory," "polemical," "occluded."

Over the weekend I sold my sofa and the table and chairs that in Casa Rebecca had been banished to my kitchen ghetto in the basement � thanks, Craigslist! On Vanessa�s advice, I listed them dirt cheap so that I�d be guaranteed takers and therefore guaranteed to have them out of my house well before my evacuation date of August 22. I also thought that by lowballing myself I would be helping someone out. I pictured, for instance, a version of myself from several years ago, like maybe when I would have been moving from the Ballard apartment into the Capitol Hill one I shared with Allison and the prospect of a decent sofa on the cheap would have been an unimaginable rapture. Almost immediately upon posting the ads I found myself in an e-mail dialogue with a grad student who was interested in the table and chairs � OK, very cool to let grad student have table and chairs � and then I got a phone call from a woman who stressed that she was desperately � desperately! so that was good too � in need of a sofa and wanted to come by and check it out as soon as possible. Well, ha ha on me and my snooty Tom Townsend do-gooderism, because it turns out that the grad student, returning to school after a corporate phase, owns her own house outright in her distant hometown, and the single-gal sofaless chick was in the process of moving into the house *she�d* just bought and needed things to fill it up. But the grad student was funny and smart and entertaining company, and since I�d had to postpone our Beacon Hill meeting on Sunday morning, I went and got pastries, and she stayed to eat them with me and drink some tea and talk about how hard it is to meet intellectually engaging people around this burg. And other things, too, of course, because after a while all you can do about that one is throw up your hands and change the subject. Part of her research concerns memory and I told her about my mom and the Halloween costume that never was and she seemed delighted by this story and asked if she could use it in a lecture. The grad student and I traded notes on friendship brush-offs we�d received since coming here, Sorry, but I have enough friends right now and I don�t need any more, and, here�s the thing, I think it would be fun to hang out with her sometime, but the possibility was not explicitly broached in the course of her visit, and as she was putting the table and chairs in the back of her truck, she seemed to be in a hurry, and I was struck dumb by fear that it was because she wanted to get the fuck out before I did get explicit, and I didn�t say anything. So now I am not sure what to do.

You won�t guess this from this entry and I�m sorry about that too, I had a nice weekend. I moved stuff, lots of it, and I read for solid hours (Vanessa, I finished "Good Faith," will drop it at the library tonight) and went to a movie and I cooked in Steve�s kitchen and even tried out some new recipes. Oh, and on Friday I did make it to Ross, and in addition to a couple of the trashy little shirts I�d been fixating on I found some non-trash too. Actually a lot of it: I think that was the first time in my whole life I�d taken seven things I liked into the dressing room and they all fit � including a BCBG shirt marked down to $20 from $110, score.

Oh, it�s late. Trivia tomorrow. Tonight I don�t know yet.