08.23.02 - 5:09 p.m.

Dear Lizzie Grubman:
At least you got a decent picture accompanying the article about you heading to the big house. I'd be careful about making any comments about white trash while you're there. But maybe you've already learned that lesson.

I'm coming down with something. Something that I hesitate to call a flu or a cold, because that will only encourage whatever scurvy bug is in my body. Luckily, no one seems to care whether or not I do work today, and luckily I HAVE no work to do, so I can sit here thinking up clever comments for the diaries in my profile and whimpering quietly.

But I still have to drive to Allentown tonight for inspection of El Car.

And I'm still afraid of driving at night. I am beyond therapy. It will probably rain, I will probably be groggy and sluggish, some kind of large varmint will decide to bound across my path on a deserted stretch of 78, and it will all be over. I can't possibly get away with totaling a third car and living to tell the tale, can I? Morbid, morbid, morbid.

Oh, and because my name was linked to so many of Dad's credit cards and other financial whoozamadoos, his bankruptcy shows up on MY credit report. Thanks, Dad. Thanks for making me president of all those fake companies. You better be paying for my car insurance now.

OK. One more random thought. Today's mail contained this book, Why Paint Cats, about this movement of artists who, well, PAINT CATS using semi-permanent vegetable dyes and little teeny airbrushes. And it's apparently a somewhat controversial practice. Some people feel the cats are being exploited, others say they're raising awareness of feline rights and it's therapeutic to the owners...I just feel sorry for the cats. How can you act all independent and haughty when you're painted with a little Dali moustache?