I have in my memo book a series of Post-Its scribbled over the last week, each with a few words or phrases that were supposed to remind me, when at whatever point during the day I sat my ass down to compose a diary entry, of something I�d wanted to address. I don�t even know what most of that crap was supposed to indicate. Darwinism + capitalism, it says. Votey. Triathlon. C. Flan � oh wait, that was the inaugural Caitlin Flanagan essay in the New Yorker, and by this time mostly what I have to say about it is *that�s* what she�s been working on since her hire was announced and the magazine released that teaser about the subject matter of her first piece?! That�s a lot of afternoon snack breaks you�ve been taking, Caitlin, you smug cow � Gadgetry x 2. Punc. Sigh. Here are some things that I have learned about myself: 1. On my own time, that is to say time I�m not getting paid for, I have become embarrassingly disinclined to write. This is something I need to cure, which is why a sunny Tuesday evening finds me on the sofa with a hot humming laptop on my thighs, seeking penance. 2. I am still a neurotic mess around the whole issue of not having a job, which was kind of the state of affairs late two weeks ago and early last because the people who offered me the contract forgot it had to go through Layoff Recall. The way that works is that a copy of the job req is sent to that office and one of the functionaries there distills it down to a list of the position�s five or six essential competencies, and then that list gets run against the database of everyone who�s been laid off in the last six months (a year? three years?), each of whom has a longer list of competencies attached to them, and if there�s a match then they have to offer the position to that person first. Or people, if more than one match comes up, and then they have to keep going down the line and only if all the layoff matches turn it down cold and sign some kind of waiver can they offer it to someone outside the Borg, which is to say Yours Truly. I didn�t find out until last Thursday afternoon that no one�s number came up, which on the one hand is a free week�s vacation and on the other is me deserving a medal for not chewing my fingernails off: so close, and yet so far, and having to go back to receptionist-level temping. Which thought is 100% ridiculous because if you will remember it was maybe six weeks ago that I wrote about how with the nugget of cash I recently found under my mattress I would be able to cut that cord for good, take classes for a while and get a pleasant part-time retail job and not be that kind of self-selling-short doormat ever again. (3. So I guess you could say that going-back-to-temping is the version I pull on myself of the babysitter�s threat to lock you in the closet or the basement.) Which, it is not lost me, amusingly proves true the old saw that as soon as you for-real stop looking for something, whoomp there it is. And (2) is reflected not only in the fact that for all the days I was off work and neither was my mom in town yet I did nothing but run errands and fret despite how fantastic the weather is but also in that now that I have a piece of paper telling me I have a desk and benefits for the next six months � whew, sorry � I am happy like a cheerleader, I am tingly all over with the fellowship of the employed, I am suddenly a smiler and a confident banterer in the hallways at work, I see myself in the mirror and I think my hair looks great. And not even a nest egg that would have been sufficient to turn me back into a schoolgirl could accomplish that. You think you know all the reasons you could possibly hate yourself, and then you back into a whopper surprise like that: well, OK.

When I finally returned to my desk (my desk!) Monday, there was a flyer on it from the yuppie gym that�s in the same high-rise, no joining fee and free classes and $45 a month if I signed up before Thursday. Confidentially, I�ll tell you it�s been torture to force myself to go to my ghetto gym ever since this happened, which if I am honest with myself I must also concede was only the last straw in a series of perv encounters on the premises. The Young Pervs� C.A. costs $49 a month, and here is what I was thinking as I held the flyer in my hand, studying it: Well, I�m going to be in this building for another six months, and it would be hella convenient to be able to hit the gym on my way home or even at lunch, and maybe they even have a rowing machine. Also: Baby, I�m employed! I *deserve* the yuppie gym like I didn�t before, hell yeah bring it on! Of course I am also a populist and I was shocked to experience myself thinking like that � the YMCA does a lot of good work in the community, blah blah blah and pass the Postum � and I considered and reconsidered, here was an excellent opportunity for punishment/deprivation and to prove to myself that employment didn�t matter and, ha ha, couldn�t change me (and isn�t that demented?), finally allowing that it couldn�t hurt to go check the facilities out. In the most demented corner of my mind I was probably also thinking that if they were especially luxe then the deprivation would cut especially deep, but let�s not go there either because it�s immaterial, I came I saw and I handed over my credit card. I joined the yuppie gym. The place is so dope, I cannot imagine how they make enough money to stay in business with monthly fees like that (I get the same rate if I want to renew after my contract is up). There are big windows everywhere with views of the city and the water, there is a steam room and a sauna, there is enough floor space so you�re not crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with the person on the next contraption over, there is a pool. There are rowing machines! And shortly after 5 pm when I went on Monday, when most gyms are packed to the gills, it wasn�t even what you�d call crowded, it was in fact kind of dead. Is this a perk of working in a building where there are lots of government offices and people tend to slack off early? Whatever, I will happily take it.

And yeah, walking home I did feel guilty � because, let�s be honest one more time, part of my elation and giddiness could be translated as Oh boy, there aren�t going to be any of those nasty ill-bred *poor* people at my new gym! � and I did roughly make myself examine, like you rub a dog�s nose in the pile of shit it leaves on the carpet, why it was that I apparently thought it preferable potentially to get hit on by a greasy overpaid Caucasian urban planner than by that underage, grinding palm-licker from the YMCA-going underclass. Later that night I effused to Steve about the rowing machines, the spotless airy facilities, and the well-lit pool that does not at all invoke a breeding ground for gonorrhea, and I told him he should come check the place out before the discount deal was off the table. (Oh, and the yuppie gym is closer than the Y is, and it has longer hours.) He agreed that it sounded posh but he turns out to be more of a populist than I am. He said something like, "Well, the Y does good work in the community, and someone should support that," which made me think 1. Ohh Steve is so dreamy, what a stand-up guy, I don�t deserve him; 2. Fuck, I am turning into a Republican and I don�t even seem to care; but then again 3. It also reminded me a little of Nick�s poor-Tom-Townsend speech from "Metropolitan," something to the effect of a hypothetical rich guy deciding that since Tom can�t afford a winter jacket, well, he simply can�t go to any more deb parties in a world that is so unjust. No offense to Steve (no offense, Steve). And rowing machines! I wanted something, and I took it. This may be bad in the socioeconomic-responsibility sense, but in a way, for me, it equals hitting it out of the park.

Here�s the other thing � here�s where I rationalize � I am not the spring chicken I once was, and for the past several months my carcass has been telling me and I have been ignoring it, "You know, you�re really going to have to start doing something about this mess." I am probably almost ten pounds over what I would wish to be (shutup, fat weighs more than muscle), and the days of being able to eat whatever I want, they are but a memory. This is another thing I don�t like about myself, I seem only able to deal with one strain of stress, one preoccupation at a time. For all the free time I had I could not write in the diary while the contract was up in the air and then while my mom was in town, and conversely now that the job situation is dialed I feel up to the task of dealing with my chub. (Yet another reason why I should not have kids. The task-based single-mindedness, I mean, not the fat thing.) I also suspect � I lied; honesty alert � that if in six months� time I am cut loose from the organization for which I now toil and cast back into however-ridiculous emotional turmoil, it will help a great deal if in my turmoil I am looking hot, if all those hours on the rowing machine and in the free classes have come home to roost.

Speaking of which. Steve was talking a few nights ago, I forget how this came up, about how the couples who seem able to make it work in the long term are those who are well matched � approximately the same level of smarts and looks, similar political leanings and years of education, families with approximately the same amount of money, etc. I feel like in this entry I�ve been on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-handing enough to set your teeth on edge, Dear Readers, but bear with me, I only have two hands more. 1. How is this attitude unlike that of my own past Mr. Brightside of 2002, who by the way if you want to know what he looks like, you should turn to the picture of David Foster Wallace in the Entertainment Weekly with Brando on the cover, which is such an eerie likeness that as I was flipping pages it made my stomach lurch? You remember him, the guy who had visions of me holding a calculator, adding up the ways in which he didn�t make the grade. It depressed me: although I am gaga for Steve, in a more conceptual sense this unexpected point of view from him deflated me and gave me a vague sense of oh-what�s-the-use. I yam what I yam and there must I ever be � you know? Now I am wondering, do most people feel this way? Was I deluded when I used to date rich guys and I thought that I wouldn�t get all unworthy-feeling about one day being a rich guy�s wife, that I�d make it up to him and make it even by means of roast chicken for dinner and monkey sex in our rich couple�s bed? Or is that scenario one of those wacky outliers in which I give myself fully too much credit? Is this what I meant about Darwinism + capitalism? If this is how the world is, then suddenly I feel a little more uneasy in it. 2. On the Fourth of July I went to a party at which there were a number of law students, not bad people I must hasten to add, and when their talk turned to their future careers, it was exclusively in the context of how much they could expect to make in their first jobs out of school. Seventy grand, ninety, a hundred, a hundred twenty. They were revising upwards, optimistic, as they talked with each other. I felt sick, I felt like an imposter, I felt something like hysteria welling up in me and pressing on the underside of my skin and as optimistic and arrow-true as I�ve felt recently about my own plan to get out of Seattle and get back to school � and more importantly, the why of it and how when I say what I mean to accomplish by it there is nothing to be ashamed of � I felt, myself, like the underclass, and suddenly I needed to go home. On the way there, walking with Steve as the fireworks began to pop, I was talking in two voices (I was also fairly loaded). The external one, familiar to regular readers of this space, noted how pitiful I am compared to those in my peer group or holy shit even younger, how I�m never going to make close to that kind of money in my life, how, fuck, if there�s that kind of money to be made as a lawyer then maybe I don�t have any excuse not to study to death so I ace the LSAT so I can one day get rich too. Who doesn�t like money? Who wouldn�t like more of it? That voice couldn�t quite express in drunk-girl words how the blas� attitude of the law students in a weird way made her feel guilty � guilty that for all the times she�d maybe-sort-of considered the possibility of going to law school, she had never quite been able to flog herself into a similarly detached and lofty frame of mind about it and what that career more darkly might entail. And, hello, that is damn demented too. But also there was the other voice, the soothing internal one that said There there, it was scary but it�s over, you never have to embarrass yourself by hanging out with law students or lawyers ever again if you don�t want to, you have lots of cool friends to talk to who occupy your more homely station, you�ll be happier with your own kind, people in the [redacted the next morning] figures with a terminal Bachelor�s are fine company too. And the second voice made me feel the opposite of deflated. It gave me something to relax into, a place that was shabby but clean and where I could be accepted for the low-earning, low-power liberal-arts type � but a nice liberal-arts type! with a good heart, right? � that I am.

I, I, I, I, I � ay carumba. I dig what I condemn. Whatever, it�s time for Jon Stewart.