03.31.03 - 5:42 p.m.

Today, the white Kitchenaid mixer is on sale for $99. That's a substantial savings over $249, but I'm stupid and willing to pay one hundred and fifty clams more for something that is orange. Also, we just bought bedroom curtains and the new espadrille striped duvet cover and shams (Dan: "Speak English!") yesterday, so one more household item isn't really in the budget right now.

And I don't really have any more money for food until Friday either, but that's neither here nor there. I should have enough soy-based products in the freezer to last me through the week.

I am depressed. Again. I really feel like I'm inching closer to the edge of a nervous breakdown every day, like when I nearly cried today. Why, you ask? Because I was informed that I'd have to help with two more solutions sidebars per issue. Which adds up to about 10 more solutions per issue, and I think we all know how much I looooooove my solutions assignments to begin with.

I can just keep telling myself that it helps me write concisely, precisely, blah blah bullshit which we all know doesn't really matter to me in the grand scheme of things because what is my grand scheme anyway? To devise a way to NOT WORK, but in the meantime I sit here stewing day after day because I am too weak and confused over what I want to look for something new. Also because I'm afraid that I leave things too easily and that I'm a quitter. On the other hand, I feel like I am dumbly loyal and will put up with too much just because it's easier than complaining and doing something about it. So what am I? Bipolar?

Maybe I should stop listening to Hard Candy. That might have something to do with it too.

So as of tomorrow, I will write one new solution every day. Not just copy/paste the kernel of an idea, either. I'll work on grammar and syntax and clear description and subheds, and if I discipline myself like this, I'll never run out of the goddamned solutions that will follow me to hell. Seriously. I'll be in hell and Lucifer will hoof over to me and be like, "Hey Casey, what should I do with all these charcoal briquetttes?" And I'll be like, "Well, Beez, you could place them in the bottoms of your garbage cans and in your fridge and freezer! They absorb odor just as well as baking soda, and after about a month, you can switch them up and still use them on your Barbecue of Doom! How 'bout that? You'll never have to buy boxes of baking soda again!"

Apparently that solution really works. I don't know. I just write the things.