You: "Credulous." Me: "OK." See how fair I am?

I think I have a microtalent for, this is difficult to categorize, talking to upper-management types in a way that to them strikes an agreeable balance between competent and endearingly kooky. Yesterday when my manager stopped by to say hi � unf. not to deliver the only news I�m interested in right now � and I told him that I was "immersed in the major and minor arcana" of a civic program that three of my now-four latest projects concern, I saw something like unexpected pleasure flicker across his face when I said those words, he walked away smiling after we chatted, and weirdly-this-may-be-badly the event, in the sense of it having objective value on account of John�s reaction, made me take more pleasure in myself than I�d felt in at least days. "Badly": note possible tie-in to the practice of life as performance art to which I�ve always been susceptible, the one that in its yearning for exactly that kind of objective value tends to flip the bird to the validity of subjective � that is to say, the performer; that is to say, me.

Weekend. 1. Two new summer dresses including one strapless and was also persuaded by my libidinal shopping companion to buy a pair of ridiculously teeny denim shorts, so here also begins some kind of Thighmastering exercise program, woof. Which is actually fine because I�ve been a desk potato lately, engaging in the particular manifestation of the object-subject problem above in which I begin to let things go to hell simply because I can and then I become interested in the precise distance to hell, what might the endpoint be, and somewhere along the way I lose track of the fact that what�s spiraling downwards is my own self. So I don�t think most people can tell, and the shorts are a size 6 (and I am vain), but it�s been a while since my hamstrings have been stretched out but good and my dogs set loose on the sidewalks of Squire Park. 2. Michael Moore movie. At 3:30 on Saturday, I bought four tickets for the 6:10 show and these were the last four tickets available for the whole day. 3. Drinking on porch Sat night with neighbors Sarah and Jason, the first time I have talked at length with either of them. They are so in love with my cat that they are excited to be his keepers next month while I�m in MD for Catharine�s wedding. Works for me! I had been prejudiced against Jason because he often had friends over during the NBA finals and for some reason I managed to be out of sync with the timing of their cheering and thought that he was a Lakers fan. But no, it turns out dude is from Michigan. Also he works for a large locally-based online retailer and in his professional capacity can get free books, and he told Steve and me to clue him in with an ISBN number to anything we want to read and do not want to pay for. I could give the poor guy ISBN numbers for days, I barely know where to start, I feel like a potential rapist and his offhand offer has paralyzed me. Sarah, who has a job that sounds a lot like the low-rent paralegalling I did many years ago, is "not on the lease yet" but will be soon. From their apartment they have roof access and will be hosting some fireworks-watching next weekend, for which we may join them if we�re back from Vanessa and Popeye�s. 4. Abortive hiking trip Sunday in the course of which it was revealed that the Mountain Loop Highway, which in places turns into barely two-lane dirt roads, is not only not a highway but that when there�s a concrete barrier across it does not fit the conventional definition of a loop either. One of the downsides of living in a state with forests and mountains and so much geological loveliness is that the risk of can�t-get-there-from-here is very real. It�s Green Mountain next weekend for sure. 5. The vacuum cleaner is busted.

Oh, and I am not divorced from cable after all � I called to cancel and the operator offered me one of those we�d-really-like-to-keep-you-as-a-customer spiels, and when he got down to the non-digital version of all the channels below 100 for about one-third what we have been paying for the last few months, I bit.

Developing: Unless I conduct myself like a chimp in a meeting tomorrow with the hiring manager for the security project, it will be mine. The reason I couldn�t cram for a hypothetical interview two weekends ago is that the job req was yanked down after only being posted for a few days, which suggests � to those of us in the cynical this-is-how-the-government-works know � that it�s at the HR layaway desk waiting for none other than me. That it is mine to lose. And if I got that project, Dear Reader, do you know what else I would get? YES. I am trying to throttle back my optimism, but I�ve already been told that I should take off Thursday and Friday while my status conversion from contractor-without-bennies to contractor-with works its way through the various channels and systems, which in turn suggests that my adequate self-presentation at tomorrow�s meeting is a foregone conclusion. Also there are now five new e-mails in my Inbox connected to another Homeland Security grant (n = 5). Thump-thump, thump-thump. Tune in tomorrow, when my microtalent for the charmful yet brainful schmooze will be putting the rubber to the road.