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

I�m cold. Mostly I�m cold a lot, I�m the one wearing a wool sweater and scarf while you�re in a t-shirt, but this morning my fingers got numb almost as soon as I woke up; I have stuff to do, including mailing a check for the stewardship of my IRA to the brokerage firm that seems determined to run it totally into the ground by 2005 � you bet I�m bitter � but it can wait. Thanks to all who expressed sympathy or outrage or whatever on the personality-test tip. I was supposed to call the temp agency this morning to find out whether I made the grade and therefore whether there is an interview to be scheduled for tomorrow. The temp pimp is not answering her phone, and since I seem to recall that she has Caller ID, maybe this indicates that my psychological profile does not, after all, suit me to a career of message-taking and package-signing-for, which would please me greatly. But I am not optimistic, because as much of an ego boost as test failure would be, it�s the plain old truth that I am logical, analytical, a digger of details, and not much inclined to blow off directions because I instinctively believe that whatever I seat-of-pants come up with is going to be a better plan. This morning, Steve, speaking uncaffeinatedly and perhaps also underestimating the depth of my demoralization at having to take it, said something w/r/t the personality test about leaders and followers, how most people would like to think that they are the former and maybe it smarts to hear otherwise. That�s not it � I also told him that I�d never known anyone who claimed I�m a leader, not a follower who was not in need of an excuse, and thought that one would suffice (which could be another issue), for extremely poor organization and spelling skills � but, OK, without slipping into self-pity, it would be distressing to get confirmation that the habits of mind that I prize are considered by psychometricians those of the ideal yes man. No, man.

Also I�m rattled because after I wrote Monday�s entry, putting words and a voice and context to an issue I�ve been thinking about for a while and therefore making it real to myself and worthy of, yes, analysis, I kind of wanted to mull it over for a while, talk to Steve in the sense of Listen, I might do this � but due to a combination of oversensitivity to what others think of me and that ingrained sense of not deserving anything that might actually be enjoyable or pleasant, I�m feeling backed into a corner, like if I did get the interview and the offer, I would have no choice but to take it. There�s also the exigency factor: if at this point I said to the temp pimp, You know, I�m sorry to have made you take the time to score my test and everything, but honestly I�m filled with skepticism that this job is the one for me so probably it�s best if you withdraw me from consideration � well then I think it would be a while before she called me again, for anything. And is that what I want? Well, I don�t yet, I�d wanted to think about it.

You want to know what I want? Here. I want someone to sit me down and say� OK, I typed something, but I deleted it, because that�s a trick. Also ingrained in me or branded onto my skin as if the carpet burns had never healed is a lesson from Ratboy: If you have to ask to hear it, then once you do you can�t trust it, it might as well be bullshit. Dilemma!

And then this morning Catharine sent me an article about men�s vs. women�s responses to stress, the oxytocin stuff, that had in it the phrase "tend and befriend," and despite my cynical self this affected me, the big old boo-hoo coming back, how I wish that in addition to the hypothetical practical conversation I�d have with Steve about the possibility of giving temp work the bird I could sit around a bar table with a panel of ladies and put it to them individually and as a group, have them have at it (a) without reflexive bias towards me but (b) with kindness. I don�t know, maybe the (a) and the (b) just on their own are too much to ask. For instance, the article concludes, women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience. And I don�t know that I�m willing to go that far. Women are also a source of untrammeled hateful bitchery to each other, and oftentimes the special kind of talk women do when they�re with other women centers on the fat asses and uncool clothes and loser boyfriends of still other women who are not present. Maybe it�s just this semi-urgent despair that drives a person to mild utopianism, who the fuck knows.

What would give me the *right* to conduct myself as if I�m better than this job and of being at the mercy of admin-coord-ass temp agencies? And � inquired the good little schoolgirl � how would that kind of conduct be different from arrogance? Everyone knows that some job is better than no job, right? What gives me the right to posit that enjoyable and pleasant could be things I�m entitled to? I can�t figure out how much of me is asking these questions out of personal self-abnegating neurosis and how much is just Calculator Brain impersonally crunching the numbers. It makes me sick and panicked to think of myself working the temp-to-perm personality-test job, I�m not kidding; I�d hate myself if that were my life so much that I couldn�t bear to be around my friends, female or otherwise, because of the disappointment I�d embody and the stink of failure coming off me. But isn�t that what practical grown-up adults do � make compromises? Suck it up?

Also my car still keeps getting broken into, once a week or so. They turn the light on to rifle the contents of the glove compartment, as if there could be anything of value left in there, and then leave it on when they go, so my battery dies overnight and I keep having to get it jumped. Steve says I should give up and sell it. Maybe he�s right.

Update, 2:42 pm: Interview. Tomorrow at ten. Kill me.