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2001-09-07 | 12:16 p.m.

I knew it would be bad. So here it is, being bad, and I'm just miserable.

I am a mess today. I caught a cold, and then I got in an argument with my sister and cried all the way from Greater Lesserville to Lesser Loserville. I put my sunglasses on and tried to look like Jackie O, but I'm sure I failed miserably.

I wrote that yesterday. Too lame even to post it in the diary. Now it's Friday, and I can't TGIF because I'm still too F'ed to TG or anybody else.

My editor is breathing down my neck. He wants to put me on an interim schedule, which is a bit annoying since I haven't actually missed any deadlines. Stephen says he is being a control freak and extending it to me. But it feels punitive all the same.

(Stephen called me this morning and gave me the opportunity to vet all my grievances. What a peach.)

Duff went out of town on business yesterday. Except he left several days early so he could visit friends in St. Louis and Springfield. Then he will look up Barbie (of Barbie and Midge) in Chicago. This strikes me as unnecessary politesse, to visit your brother's sister-in-law, especially in a man who cannot be bothered to remember birthdays or send a Mother's Day card. It's not as if we're living in a Jane Austen novel here. But then, she does look like Barbie, and she's getting a divorce.

However, that's not what's bothering me. What's bothering me is the crush of work and the how-am-I-going-to-do-it-all. My mother is starting to grumble. She doesn't want to watch the kids as much as I need her to. If only I had a backup babysitter, but I don't. I don't know anybody. Maybe I should just tell my mother that I found a sitter. Then maybe she'll go into worried martyr mode and insist that she must watch them herself, because how can I leave them with a total stranger? It's a gamble, but it might be worth it. Does that sound terrible? Fine, then I'm terrible.

I am terrible.

Maybe I should call all my friends and ask them if they know anyone who'd be willing to sit. But none of my friends have sitters, either. Only relatives. Or me.

Doesn't anybody like to watch kids? I've heard of people like that. I don't like to do it myself, but that doesn't mean the practice is universally despised.

Oh, I should stop doing this. I'm just wasting time. I did turn in my restaurant review (way late) but I feel like I didn't do a good enough job on it. Then I think, Geez, you have to remember that they're only paying for half a meal plus $25! As Stephen pointed out, that's worth exactly half an hour of my time. (I think Stephen was being a bit generous there, but I'll take what I can get in pats on the back.) But I never get past the idea that everything I do should be something I can be proud of. The thing that pays $25 might get seen by more people I know than the thing that pays four grand.

Last but not least, I can't breathe through my nose.

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