10.07.01 - 10:45 a.m.

Watching When Harry Met Sally... for the millionth time and wondering where my week went, or where my month went for that matter. Bassett is no longer a teenager (and can finally dress herself), Charlene is married, I'm back in New Jersey and still don't have a job or a place too live. Part of me is depressed about my extreme failure and the other just doesn't care and is enjoying unemployment pretty well, actually. I don't understand, though. I know it's a bad time and all, but how can there be absolutely no entry-level jobs anywhere? Do I not try enough? Am I doing something wrong? Do I just not want it enough? I am going at this completely blindly and it's the first time I didn't stumble on the right thing almost immediately (academically speaking, anyway - life in general is quite another matter) and I'm sick of the frustration, I'm sick of the stress zits, I'm sick of the whole thing.

In better news, and to remind myself of the good things that have happened in the past seven days, it was so much fun to see my little Bassett in her little environment. We ate the mock duck at Lanvina, I went to get her smiley face DQ 'Bweee 20' birthday cake with Jonboggs and he asked me what he should get Dad as a thank-you present. To which I gave my now-standard reply: if his own daughters can't even think of anything to buy him, there is no way he'd need anything from anyone else. The man is worse than me, and that's saying a lot. And we hung in Jon's room watching the security cameras and Comedy Central and drinking lotsa vino (wooo! drunk sistor!) and making everyone think we're on crack with our sistorly talk. Fwee! Eeedlybop, ha ha. For a while I was sad for college and wanted to go back after seeing everyone with their brick buildings and even the dorms smelled dormlike, but then when Bassett started mentioning the paper she had to write on IDENTITY, I didn't really want to go back anymore. No more papers for me.

And I was sad because I had to leave her, but I got to drive to Dan's door and walk into the house and give him a big kiss. And - oh dear, what did we do on Tuesday night? - we got to see the Travis show at Radio City on Wednesday, which was amazing and Scottish and I was thrilled at being there for a real honest-to-God rock show. Frannie does a very good American accent, but Dan and I both failed at the Travis Social Experiment (the next day, pay it forward - do something nice for someone without expecting anything in return) when we forgot to help an ancient lady across a New York street. But we did go to FAO Schwarz and looked at all the Monopoly games - Simpsons, New England, Chicago, New York, Powerpuff Girls, Disney - and the remote control New Beetle with its own alarm beepy system. And the stuffed animals like ferrets and squirrels and sharks. ("I'm a hammerhead shark. I make no sound.") AND the motorized Brio train. Motorized! And the Magic Date Ball that lied to us by saying Dan was not my best lover, and which made him angry because I did not defend his honor quickly enough, and which I don't even know why I'm writing about here because now he'll remember it FOREVER.

And we went back the next day and bought the Mille Bornes collector's edition with the original 1962 pictures. Rock on!

I have absolutely no desire to talk about the apartments I saw on Thursday or the ordeal associated with that, except that I feel very bad for realtors who deal with me and I can understand why they wouldn't want to. I'm a picky girl with no money to afford any of these places anyway, so why should they even bother? They're probably sick of getting burned and wasting time with people like me, so what else should I expect? I'm a loser. La-hoo-zuh-her.

But today, which is also Leanne's 24th birthday, Char and Jon got married and I was actually truly glad I was there to see the ceremony. It's one of those things that seems right, not like Eileen's where there was a little Eeyore cloud of unease over everything because we were all thinking it wouldn't last (and it didn't). But it made me sad as well, thinking about all the things I won't be able to do at my own wedding. Specifically all the things that have to do with parents, since there's no way Dad and Moom are going to sit next to each other or want to walk in together, and it would be awkward to put Carol in the wedding, and Moom will want to be all selfless and say she won't even come at all, which is so wrong. And who would she dance with when the parents dance with the bride and groom? And I don't want her to sit there by herself either. So what else is there left for me to do but elope, I don't know. I don't have to think about these things but I do, that's me, to fill my head with insane worries that shouldn't even be there yet, and there's nothing I can do to change it. I am hard-wired for neuroticism. If that's even a word, but I'm not going to worry about it.