We got the apartment, hooray. We got it despite the late-game manifestation of an incident from Steve�s checkered past, the kind that even when it is long gone apparently leaves its spoor on a person�s credit report (hint: tort). But the landlord guy, Patrick, sounds like he might have had a reckless youth himself and in any case he was willing not to be a hardass about it, and if I say I don�t want to date upstanding citizens because they bore me, well then such as these are the lumps I am going to have to take. I think we sign the lease and give Patrick some more money one night next week, and then we�ll paint during the first week in April and move in that weekend with the help of our able-bodied friends. I�m so desperate to get out of the bacon shack, I confess, I�m barely keeping it together. There is no more humor for me in the situation, I feel like I�m living in a cage and everything about it makes me murderously disgusted and angry. In college I worked for a while with a girl who had Crohn�s disease, and she told me that she�d learned to speak softly and move slowly because the condition was so unpredictable that she never knew what would set off an attack, sometimes all it took was someone addressing her in a sharp tone of voice and she�d have to race for the bathroom. She was majoring in accounting and working towards becoming an insurance actuary, she told me, because survey after survey had shown that this profession had the lowest incidence of stress � all you did was perform tasks over and over, you could work for years without ever having to learn anything new. Before she�d gotten sick she�d wanted to be a gym teacher, but after the diagnosis her doctor said Yeah, right and recommended the actuary plan. Then again, maybe she was exaggerating, because it was for Scary Gary the caterer that I worked with her, my memory of this conversation is so clear because it took place inside a walk-in freezer in the middle of summer as both of us scooped perfect spheres of vanilla ice cream into little silver bowls, and catering at the Knights of Columbus Hall was no place for someone who needed to guard against stress or getting yelled at. I digress: the point I was trying to make is that at home these days, or even in the moment of realization that that is where my day must eventually take me, I think I know how she felt. It�s as if I�m pulling myself around me, safe and tight, making a cocoon. I�m afraid to go running, even, because I�m afraid that the surplus of stimuli will wake up the house-hatey thing that by my recent physical and intellectual stasis I�ve drugged to sleep and then I�ll run around breaking windows, screaming like a crazy person. Another reason I�m finding it so hard to write here? The thought�s crossed my mind. I guess we�ll see what happens once I�m living somewhere else.

And *then* I start worrying that about the new place I�m getting my hopes up, I oughtn�t to expect such a sea change because I will surely end up disappointed. Ha ha, I�m a mess, I am. Steve often says that things never go as badly as one hopes nor as well as one wishes. I realized over the weekend that I don�t think that�s true for me. In terms of the wishing I�ve only been a victim of the big hard letdown once in the past few years � and I know this is easy to say in retrospect and you don�t have to believe me, but even as I was wishing I was also looking on in horror, what on earth was this credulous idiot stranger doing inhabiting my skin? � and I�ve been pleasantly surprised, like, dozens of times, most recently on Saturday afternoon at the end of my last class when the instructor told me to go ahead to meet Vanessa at the movies instead of fixing a few bugs in my final project and she�d still give me full credit.

I have a teleconference at four and since I�ve been getting home late and not sleeping well � work is exhilarating and terrifying in roughly equal measure, I have way more responsibility and discretion than I should and in these early stages of information-gathering I feel under enormous pressure not only to succeed but to meet my own expectations � well, I need some coffee. Reader, I bid you a fond adieu.