07.25.02 - 5:57 p.m.

I don't know what to write about now that I'm done recapping the trip. Nothing that's going on seems worth repeating - I go to work, pretend to do important things all day when really I'm checking email and reading E!, then go home and cook dinner (or not), check more email and watch American Idol.

That show is crap-tacular, let me tell you. My viewing habits haven't reached Beth proportions yet, but it is becoming a Tuesday night staple. Hey, I still get to watch Buffy and Gilmore reruns if I want. Not like it's cutting into anything crucial.

Tonight I have to drag myself into the city for Melissa's birthday, which wouldn't be such a pain in my ass if I didn't have to take the g.d. bus. OK, I don't really have to take the bus. I could drive, if I hadn't completely sworn off driving in the city and I didn't want to worry about getting too drunk, not to mention finding a place to park since I can't afford parking garages and I can't fucking parallel park anyway. I wish I were good enough to drive in the city. I really do. But I can't. I'm afraid, and my insurance company still thinks I live in PA, so why tempt fate?

Plus, I have to go into the city again tomorrow for a work-related reason so embarrassing I can't even talk about it yet, and to have dinner with French. Who seems not to be a social reject anymore, since he's proctoring MCAT classes and made it through grad school and is doing something at Merck, but this could all be an act. I could show up and he could shout "Raaahhh!" and start smothering me with pillows and smacking my feet with his fist, or sticking rocks in my mailbox in homage to The Blair Witch Project.

Or not. After all, he was patient enough to teach me how to dive at the tender age of 21, and he was somewhat nice and normal when we went to his parents' house for the weekend. His poor parents. They were so quiet and...un-French-like. I don't think they knew what they spawned. But then I think of his Tourette's-caliber outbursts and I have to wonder. That's why I'm going to dinner, to see what kind of freakshow he's become.