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2001-07-31 | 9:39 p.m.

Well, this was an interesting day. First I spent the entire morning washing sand for that fish tank, if you can believe it. I know, Trinity63, you told me not to use sand, but I'm trying to follow in my friend Frank's path, for reasons that are too long, convoluted, and boring to explain here. Suffice to say we had a conversation that went like this:

Frank: What kind of sand did you get?
Me: All-purpose sand.
Frank: You mean you didn't get washed HORTICULTURAL sand?
Me (hysterically): You didn't tell me to get washed horticultural sand!
Frank: Well, did you get it at the garden center?
Me: Yeah, sort of.
Frank: What do you mean, sort of?
Me: Well, it's a hardware store with a garden center.
Frank: I told you to go to the garden center�
Me: We don't have a garden center!
Frank: Okay, was it with the potting soil?
Me: Ye-ee-ah, well, it was kinda in between the potting soil and the building materials.

This is the point at which Frank sighs deeply.

Well, fuck me, I don't know. I asked for sand and they said they only had one kind of sand. All-purpose sand. Smallest size: 70 pounds. (Then when I got out there, I did see that they had washed playbox sand but the load-up guy wouldn't let me switch 'em because that wasn't what I paid for. And I didn't want to return the sand I bought because I was sure if I could carry a 70-pound sack back inside the store.)

So the upshot is, I spent my morning washing sand. Not that it did any good. I also went to the pet store and got one more goldfish and plants, but the only plants they recommend for goldfish are ugly. It's because goldfish destroy all other kinds of plants. So after about three hours of washing sand and worrying about the bagged fish and plants dying, I just decided to throw everything back in the tank and let it ride. If the fish die, so be it. I figured the remaining sediment would eventually wend its way to the bottom of the tank. As the day wears on, my hope is beginning to fade. It's like--what? nine o'clock at night, and the tank is still perfectly opaque, even with the light on. The kids are being all Operation Desert Storm, staring at the tank and saying, "Do you see one? I think I saw one!" All I have to say on the subject is: Hey, the fish are still moving.

Okay, you think that took a bite out of my day? It gets better. Moments after I turn my attention away from the fish tank, I foolishly download a cryptic e-mail attachment containing the Sircam virus, because I mistakenly imagine that some illiterate out there is trying to convince me to hire them for a book reviewing job that no longer exists. As the realization hits me that I am now faced with the certainty of my personal documents---My Documents!---being forwarded at random to all the people in my Address Book, I have a four-alarm panic attack. My muscles start to ache and cramp as the norepinephrine floods my body. Because I write most of my diary entries in .doc files and then past them into the Diaryland interface, it's easy to imagine my most personal thoughts and feelings being shared with all my business colleagues, not to mention a nice fat computer virus to go along with it---one with a 5 percent chance of erasing your C: drive.

Great.

I freak out completely. I start trying to do twelve things at once: run Norton Anti-Virus LiveUpdate, download a restorative patch at Symantec, move my document files out of the My Documents folder, rename all my address book files (of which there are a gazillion!), and shut down my DSL connection. Nothing works right the first time through, Duff gets all snarly with me on the phone, and I finally send a plea to Stephen: Please call me if you're around and talk me down from the ledge.

Which he does, because he is a great friend. He even resists the temptation to toy with me when I ask him if he has received any inappropriate e-mail attachments from me lately. He tells me I ought to wait until Duff gets home, which I don't really want to do, because Duff was such a PITA on the phone. Besides, I'm sure I can fix this myself. I want to have it all fixed by the time he gets home.

Which I do, luckily, because then I get this end-of-day e-mail from an editor at the computer magazine saying, Can you write this big monster thing for me? I'm drawing up a short list of potential writers and I need to know what you know about systems and games and digital media and I think as I write my reply oh, pick me pick me pick me! because it will mean thousands of dollars that I haven't earned since Christmas and then I can come out of the financial doghouse for a day or two and I am happy to be considered for the short list even if the only reason he thought of me was because Duff gave him my name.

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