Dinner at Jerry�s last night, a beautiful poem as per, and he and I traded the coordinates of our respective web presences � I will ask him before I link, for discretion is ever our policy here � and I was talking about how I still haven�t been able to pull this thing back from the brink since the self-esteem crash of early July and what better reason for a new entry than (a) wanting to put one�s best foot forward for the benefit of the new and friendly eyeballs plus (b) ooky moment, cataloging of plus (c) manifestation, recent, of the closest thing Yours Truly has ever had to the opposite of a self-esteem crisis. Two things that make me a counterintuitive candidate for this kind of web presence are my embarrassment at unsettled circumstances (mine), how I feel foolish telling the story until the story is something that can be *told*, as though the existence of irresolution is due to my own personal shortcoming, and also my slavish devotion to The Record such that whenever something�s resolved and I do feel like I can come back and tell its story my brain chemistry or something obliges me to recite every detail of its coming-to-fruition in a way that frankly bores even me. Ever onward in 2005: that too is our policy here.

I shut myself up in the code cave all day and evening last Saturday and Sunday and cranked out something like eighteen application essays and I pushed the Submit button for the last deadlined one on Wednesday night. On Monday morning I got an auto-mail from one of the schools to the effect of thank you for your interest and decisions will be mailed on April 1, and this startled me; since the onerous administrative burden of the application process had been lifted from me, the sense I had, after all the one that counts, was of a story that had ended, and I�d forgotten how much there was yet to be played out. Am I playing coy with the names of the schools because I�m afraid that people will judge them and think me less than smart or out of a principled but misguided (and, OK, maybe slavish and prissy) commitment to discretion? Not sure. Both? Also I feel that it is unseemly to assume that anyone gives a rat�s ass. I have two interviews scheduled, for the first and third weekends in February, and I have to set up a third, I�m thinking the second weekend in March, that I might try to make a twofer because another, in-person-interview-not-required school is only a few hours� drive from where I�ll be staying. The mood at this web presence, I will confess, is one of cautious optimism. At one school I am invited to something called the Dean�s Weekend, which Vanessa, who got invited to one when she was applying to law schools, tells me is a signal that a body is being considered for scholarship money. The itinerary is extremely regimented and a total irony-free zone that dictates modes of dress for different events and interviews, so that one must be simultaneously an intellectual force to be reckoned with and a pretty Barbie doll � it�s a bit of a cognitive disconnect for me � but for the right price I�d show up wearing a Carmen Miranda outfit, ready to cha-cha. I also got an interview at my I-don�t-stand-a-chance-at-getting-in-here-but-if-I-were-a-more-compelling-applicant-this-is-the-kind-of-place-I�d-be-applying-to program, the place on the other end of the spectrum from my safety school, which on the one hand is not a big deal because this particular institution only wants to interview the iffies, the aces get in without it, but on the other hand, that is much better than I expected plus weekend in New York with my sister, what the hell. (That�s not as much of a hint as you�d think it is. Is that a hint too?) I have the right outfits and I don�t get rattled at interviews, so it looks like the school situation, while unresolved, will ultimately resolve itself in such as way as to engender not only satisfaction but also frequent-flyer miles.

I�d want to eat glass if I thought any of this was coming off as braggy, by the way. I�m trying to be careful lest there be any ambiguity on that score.

And what happened with the work situation is that the counteroffer came back of at least twenty hours a week at least until the end of the fiscal quarter, which I decided was substantial enough to hang my hat on. I dropped two classes, one that I liked but that hews closely to the text so with that and the instructional cd it�s the next best thing to being there, and one that was populated almost entirely by greasy fanboys who have no business taking an introductory course in the subject matter and who like to take up class time with is-not-is-too-is-not debates of various points of expert-level arcana, so that the semester was bound to be less a class than a long competition, with the instructor an indulgent Bert Parks, for the title of greasiest greasy fanboy of all. I got hosed on the late-drop penalty but I do feel that something larger was transacted that ameliorates this, uh, sacrifice. At work I�ll be working on some of the same stuff I have been and also, my manager pointed out at the nego confab, a new project that�s just begging to be talked about at school interviews because it sounds that good; it has "33 million dollars" in it, damn. (His acknowledgement of the full range of my mercenary interests gave me increased respect for him.) The deal is Monday through Fridays, eight to noon. Historically, eight has been a very difficult mark for me to hit, but I can leave at 12:30 and still be at my 1:00 class, so there�s a little wiggle room. I�ve still got the 1:00 every day but Tuesday and then math and German in the evenings. This all seems doable, even suspiciously doable. Like, what is the catch? I get to (1) keep my old job and get a snazzy new one added on and keep my health insurance too; (2) run down my savings account less than I thought I would; (3) take classes and be a student and have full use of school facilities including library and gym; (4) compensate for the inconvenience of evening classes by having a chunk of time in the afternoon to run errands or cook that I can also use to make up the work hours I�ll lose on interview trips, and (5) be as sure as a mammal can be that I�ll get into a school I�ll be happy going to and that eventually will carry me forever away from the indentured servitude of contractorship. I even get a double weekend, because Monday is a holiday and I mistakenly said I couldn�t start back at work until Wednesday, when this turns out not to be the case, I misremembered what time my haircut appointment was. Do you know how long it�s been since I�ve let myself get the Sunday paper and some pastries and then just come home and enjoy a few hours of leisure with them? What is the catch? Is there no catch? My mind reels at the possibility. I would not recognize that life as my own.

Jerry, hi. Here�s the entry in question, if you�re interested.