What the doctor should have meant: dishery.diaryland.com

Total freakin breakthrough! The scene: last night, Steve is driving the Honda home from the 9:30 show of "American Splendor." He says that after he sees a movie that makes a strong impression on him, he likes to sort of try on the identity of the main character for a while, react to things the way he imagines that character would to see if he or she is onto something that hasn�t occurred to him personally in the course of being Steve. I think I do that too, I said, but with me it�s less conscious. Steve: Right, like after you watched "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" you were wanting to get your teeth whitened and getting depressed about the lack of color matchiness in the bedroom. Me: Yeah, that�s it. I�m so suggestible, it�s one of my least favorite things about myself. Whatever anyone else is doing, I feel like I�m a failure because I don�t or can�t do the same thing, or maybe I�m an idiot because I haven�t thought of it already myself. Like, if I�m talking to someone who�s talking about how much money he�s making and what a gorgeous condo with designer sofas he�s going to buy, I don�t even realize at the time how gauche it is for him to be talking like that because I�m too busy hating myself that I�m not pushing six figures and deciding to collect Danish furniture, and I�m toting up every mistake I�ve made in my life that has added up to wherever and whoever I am that is not that other person. Oh, I should have gone to grad school like this person did. Oh, I should have taken the first dumb secretarial job I could have gotten, like she did. It�s really annoying, and I wish I didn�t do it, but I do. Steve: So you hold yourself up for comparison to other people, even random people, but it�s not within the realm of possibility that it could go the other way. Me: What do you mean? Steve: It works both ways. I�m sure that from time to time, people see you and can�t help making the comparison to themselves, that they have doubts too.

OK, so it�s not much. But it�s mine. So I am feeling a little better.

I�ve been sitting on fragments of a diary entry since last Thursday morning. The good news is that not only are we fully DSL�d again at the homestead, Steve also hooked up my hard drive to a switchbox and now I have Outlook and Photoshop and all my mp3s and I am happy. The bad news is that the temp market is still� well, bad; hence here I am on my laptop, typing in my slippers. The bright-side news is that damn does the bacon shack look good, hospitable even. Let�s be sure everyone understands, this setup is extremely bohemian. *Extremely.* It�s small and narrow, it�s not well laid out, there�s almost no closet space, and for several years it was the province of someone whose attitude towards dust and clutter is a lot less antagonistic than mine. The bedroom floor is painted green. It�s less square feet of living space than I�ve had, even on my own, since about 1995. But for all that I like it and I like the idea of it, this is a kind of self-funnelling that I feel like I am *giving* myself, focus focus focus. I was telling Vanessa on Saturday � her skepticism that the current setup will do anything but cause a breakup is most acute � that I never would have expected that I�d be the Pollyanna here saying No it�s all right, it�s not that bad, I have what I need. It is, though, and it�s not, and in such a small space and without the crutch of solitude I am less likely to sneak away from myself and have to waste time looking around.

I went to Teachers� Cocktails on Friday. Even considering the salary disparity, I might rather be a schoolteacher than a programmer. Even considering the glut of certified high-school English teachers who want to work in Seattle that is only getting worse as the economy continues its slow wasting death so the competition is bloodthirsty for full-time work, even considering that one of those with whom I�d be competing, a hypothetical handful of years down the line, is Rich. Even considering the fact that I�d have to take out like forty grand in student loans for the privilege of learning how to make attractive bulletin boards? Still very much working on that. I also like the idea of being a Latin teacher, but even though I have the equivalent of an undergraduate degree in that subject, Washington doesn�t have a certification exam for it � in order to take one, I�d have to go to California � and if the state doesn�t have the exam, I think we can conclude that they don�t have need for it, that Latin teachers are something they are no longer hiring. Public education is so depressing.

But then what about this: If I put myself on a budget of $xxx a month and dedicated at least forty hours a week to remaking myself as a programmer, Annie 2.0, I could do it in a year and at that point realistically vault into some kind of Test Plebe position (note from Devil�s Advocate: working alongside callow 22-year-olds) that offered health insurance and career stability with the possibility of eventual advancement. My rent is low, I have a ton of clothes and shoes, I should get into the habit of going to the library instead of buying books, and I�m easing into a full-on-panic-about-my-vanishing-youth diet so my booze bill will be going down too. Not everyone can toy with a prospect like this � sorry, I can�t bring myself to type "opportunity" � that relies on no income for a whole year, so I should count myself as lucky. Why then does considering it turn me to abstract thoughts of suicide? Is there something wrong with me?

But then what about this: What if I could manage to get together a gig as a Latin tutor, five or six schoolkids for an hour and a half a week or whatever? That wouldn�t suck, right? Since most schools don�t offer Latin � Steve points out that many private schools around here do and that they don�t require certification, which, argh, I suppose is something to keep in mind for some years down the line � then presumably there would be demand for any kind of Latin instruction at all, and maybe now that public education is becoming increasingly like an assembly line, test-centric, I could make a good pitch just based on Latin = better vocab scores. I don�t know, I�m just thinking.

Forgot to mention last time, Paul and Siri hate TV too. Yawn. Also, in his back-of-book column in the September 19 Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King makes reference to "�dull 'serious fiction' (think William Gaddis, Paul Auster, and their overpraised ilk)." Ha! On the one hand, fine, it is Stephen King, but on the other hand, how much would you love to be at a cocktail party with Stephen King and one of the other guests name-drops Wittgenstein in the manner of the narrator in "What I Loved," don�t you wish you could hear his reaction? (However I do not forgive King for � this is later in the same column � calling a novel "bighearted and as satisfying as one of your mom�s home-cooked Sunday dinners.") Elizabeth McGovern, in the print ads for the new David E. Kelley show that I will be missing, is almost unrecognizable. Has she had plastic surgery? Ditto Amanda Peet in the Gap ad on the back cover of the most recent Jane � she looks horrible, at best she seems to be recovering from a cold and at worst as if she was up all night doing cocaine. Good article by Molly O'Neill in the latest CJR.

A name I liked was available at Blogger so I took it. I have a lot to think about and do and get in order before I can conscionably think about beginning to make something happen over there. Someday maybe.