01.24.02 - 5:35 p.m.

This week is neverending! I keep expecting it to be Friday, and it's just not, and every time I realize it's not my poor heart sinks a little deeper. If it weren't for the...well, there's really not much getting me through the day right now, so I can't even come up with a clever pick-me-up. Normally I'd get excited at watching people make fools of themselves in a remote location, but the new Survivor won't be on for another month, so I'll content myself with the increasingly boring shows of NBC. I don't care what all the critics say; it's time for Friends to go. As if Rachel's pregnancy weren't enough of a forced storyline, the whole Joey-in-love thing has completely pushed it over the edge. Jumped the shark. Whatever. Like they said on SNL last weekend, they're running out of combinations and you can CERTAINLY tell they're running out of plotlines. Let it die with dignity, please!

Speaking of dying with dignity, poor KMart is going bankrupt. Where will Dad get his film developed now? I must admit I only go to KMart when I'm in Johnstown, which doesn't make for a good association right there. Coupled with the fact that it's in the defunct Richland Mall while Wal-Mart gets to sit alongside the Galleria, it's hard to ignore the signs. Dying town, dead mall - the store was marked for doom!

Also, it's hard to ignore the kitschy allure of Target. (Tar-jay? How does one show French pronounciation phonetically?) As I read in an MSNBC editorial today, "You don�t feel poor or cheap in the aisles of a Target, the way you do in a Kmart. You feel like someone 'In the Know' who is getting something cool for a deal." Though I am both poor and cheap, I am never ashamed to say I got something from Target. Even Kevyn Aucoin publicly admits his devotion to the store! Now there ARE ghetto Targets (the Evanston one) and high-class Targets with better product selection (the Greensburg one). But all in all, they do a great job of catering to the masses.

Where the freak is Jack? I am going to pee myself.

I finally awoke from my email slump and answered the messages from friends that had been piling up in my inbox. I have few enough friends as it is - why alienate the ones who stick around? I did not, however, reply to the ones from Kayleen and Jim the Golfer. I have nothing to say to K and I don't feel like explaining my defection from the magazine world to her. And Jim, well, his email just pissed me off in so many ways that I couldn't even dignify it with a reply. Don't listen to everything my dad tells you about my life and accept his skewed view as the truth! We are not friends! You stayed at my father's house for two weekends and I was nice to you because you were a guest! We showed you as much of a good time as is possible in Johnstown, and that is the end of it. Butt out.

On a nicer note, some Italian man just said "Ciao ciao" to me on the phone. Hee! I am going to end every conversation with that phrase, and in an Italian accent to boot. Ciao ciao!