I will add comments. But as soon as I get a life that doesn’t involve staring at a screen 35 hours a week, they are coming down.

* * * * *

The map above my desk displays the Barbarian Migrations circa 300 A.D. The barbarians were divided into Goths, Vandals and Franks, all of whom I have dated at one time or another. (Goths: Kenny, Vandals: Robert, Franks: well, Frank.) I call it the map of the Boyfriend Migrations. Just thought y’all would enjoy that.

Last night I dreamt about the pool my babysitter used to take us to in the summers. One summer we – all twelve kids – discovered a very welcome surprise there: a little girl from another (rival) babysitter who actually wanted to hang out with us. In other words, a torture victim. We spent what seems in memory the entire summer hanging out in the grassy picnic area behind the pool, out of sight of adults, tormenting this poor child. One day we told her we all had evil twins. Then we left, and came back as our twins, and talked trash about our other selves. Left again, came back, demanded to know what the evil twins had said. Then, when she had betrayed the confidence of each and every evil twin, we revealed the startling truth – no twins at all! Just us all the time! Mwah ha ha ha ha! Another time we performed a ritual using her doll. Just give it to us, urged Wendy, later known as Wendy the Wicked. We won’t hurt it. During the sacrifice the doll was accidentally broken. Um, said Wendy the Wicked, thinking fast, Okay, close your eyes and count to twenty and when you open them your doll will be magically fixed. As soon as she closed her eyes, we all booked it out of there of course.

Look, I’m not proud of it.

Come on, like you were a perfect child?

Oh, shut up.

Baseball is the healthiest thing I do. There’s nothing like running around in the evening air, swinging a bat, pantsing Dustin and playing Ninja Cartwheels with Michele. It’s an all-American sport.

After several rounds of tandem cartwheels, Michele and I decided that next week we will bring a tape deck and my old Debbie Gibson tape — ah, Electric Youth! — and force the boys to do routines with us. Who among us can forget the joy of creating a routine? This was a very popular event in middle school. You guys wondered what we did at those slumber parties? Well I’ll tell you: we had routine competitions. (And lesbian sex of course. Lots of that.) Routines as I recall them consisted mainly of a lot of elaborate synchronized footwork and leaping over small end tables. Some of you never got over it and went on to become cheerleaders, gymnasts and Irish dancers. Whereas others of you never got over the lesbian sex part.

Anyway, last night’s baseball was comparatively injury-free. Michele got hit in the head with the tennis ball and Dustin appears to be suffering from a manly form of the consumption known as miner’s lung, but other than that everyone seemed healthy. Later we went to Pasta Pomodoro even though Jason hates it and everyone enjoyed some ravioli and an amusing story about Dustin, Berkeley Aaron and a couple of hookers in Texas.

Yesterday I gave this guy my number. I don’t know why I did it; we hadn’t even spoken. We just happened to be in the same coffee shop together. As soon as I did it I regretted it, especially since he then called me three times that day. I know it’s not fair to give a guy a number and then be weirded out when he calls it, but honestly I am a big fan of the two-day cool rule. When will I learn not to ask for stuff that doesn’t interest me? It’s like when I was a little kid and every time I got taken to Toys R Us, I ordered the Sea Monkeys. I just kept thinking they would be wonderful little talking playmates for me, like on the box. (Only children are lonely little freaks.) Each time they spawned into wiggly little sperm critters I was shocked and disappointed.

I am dumber than a bag of hammers. This just in.

The first candidate for my job is being interviewed even as I sit here manically typing. What a strange situation. I really feel I should be involved in the interviewing process. Oh, and instead of an “interview,” we should have an arm wrestling contest. Oh, and instead of me having to arm wrestle, I should make Tracy “Biceps” Miller my champion and let HER keep my job for me.

What I keep forgetting is that in two months it will no longer matter what job I have, because the majority of my time is going to be spent learning interesting facts about Joyce. Well, hopefully not Joyce, but maybe Forster. So except that I will miss Biceps Miller, all I really want in my next job is an opportunity to get paid for doing my homework.

Or, I could be an office manager for a charity assisting victims of ritual sexual abuse from cults.

In the meantime, I will continue to use my massive Chambrain powers to make photocopies, order office supplies, and be professionally pleasant.

“I’m very intelligent, you know,” I said.

“Well — you’re clever,” said Jon doubtfully. Seeing my stunned expression, he hastily added, “Oh, I don’t mind that you’re clever.”

I’m starting to notice a trend among my people — this is you guys, so pay attention — of abandoning the traditional mate-hunting methods of dating everything in sight. There seems to be a new method emerging, which (as near as I can see, squinting through my binoculars from here in the bushes) consists of having actual standards and waiting until those standards are met. Many of my friends go out every weekend to bars or parties, they regularly attend the gym, they go to school with thousands of other attractive youths: in short, they are out in the world, meeting the who’s who and other dregs. But they hardly ever come home with a phone number. And these people, these friends of mine, are to the last person attractive, intelligent, witty and kind. So what’s going on?

“Dating in California has reached new lows of timidity,” said noted psychologist Dr. Ruth Ascot-Bettentopher when interviewed in the March issue of Vanity Fair. “People seem more and more fearful of putting themselves and their feelings on the line. It might be due to increasingly prevalent media images of suspiciously perfect people living perfect lives; no one feels they can live up to what has become everyone’s fantasy.”

“But isn’t is possible that people are just no longer interested in the grueling round of first date, second date, third date, breakup?” asked the interviewer. “Maybe today’s youth culture is turning away from the sugar-pop mentality of Gen X and moving into a value system based on, well, things that are valuable. Maybe instead of focusing on the endless search for the perfect other half, these 20-somethings are putting their energy into artistic endeavors, or volunteer work, or their careers, or friends. Don’t you think the explanation might simply be that with the exception of a few throwbacks, kids today are just not interested in sifting through the morass of humanity, but are content to wait until they find someone shiny enough to be worth picking up?”

Dr. Ascot-Bettentopher considered for a moment. “No,” she said.

Seriously though, speaking as a Throwback Who Sometimes Dates, I can definitely see the con side to it. To dating I mean. I can count on one hand the meaningful connections I’ve made with people I’ve dated, and I only have two fingers on that hand after the meat-packing incident. “So if it these encounters are as repetitive and devoid of meaning as you claim, why do you continue?” asked noted psychologist Dan Small last night.

Whoops! We’re out of space. Guess I can’t answer that.

Sometimes I page through an entire book looking for the word “magician.” You hardly ever find this word in a magazine but it’s mentioned in novels more than you might think; in a newspaper tolerably often; infrequently in cookbooks. It is often surrounded by a disappointing sentence. In a Tom Robbins book it’s everywhere.

I’m starting to wonder how long you get before you stop expecting great things. When do you wake up, look in the mirror and think, Self, it’s over: the job that you have now is the job you will always have. Your income bracket will be increased with marriage, lowered with children, decimated with retirement. You will not be spectacular. You were not born to be an artist. You will never move to Paris.

When does that happen? Because frankly I’m not there yet. I still think I’m going to write a novel, despite the fact that about the only thing I write these days is this weblog. I still think I can live in the midwest and play guitar and wear a headscarf, or send weird crates full of small dried fingers home from a dusty unpronounceable country, or be a millionaire’s mistress in New York. I’m ignoring the fact that I can’t play guitar (though I do own a headscarf), I’m allergic to dust and I don’t have nice enough manners to be rich. These things are going to become unimportant once the epiphany hits.

I am a big believer in the last minute epiphany. I’ve stayed in all kinds of uncomfortable situations for too long due to this belief. Sure, I have a deathly bug phobia, but surely that will pass if I just stick it out in this roach trap long enough. Yes, you asked me to marry you on the first date and told me I wasn’t that bright, but maybe if we go out a few more times I’ll see your good side. Roommate wants a cat? Sure. What cat allergy?

Actually, that worked — I fucking loved that cat. Hey! My epiphany theory isn’t all wrong. That’s kind of encouraging. Do not lose heart. Here is a relevant quote for you to enjoy, from Carrie Fisher’s Postcards from the Edge: “She thought perhaps she was in the midst of an anecdote which, for reasons of proximity, she was not yet able to perceive.”

Think about it. And remember the cat.