08.08.03 - 3:36 p.m.

I spent last night making slaw. And scrubbing the bathroom. Quelle exciting life! Tonight has turned into something of a production, since I rashly invited Dan's parents to come up for dinner. What would have been an easy night of Whole Foods takeout is now me cooking dinner for six. Hence the slaw.

Do you know how much that little Segway icon in the corner of the Amazon site tempts me? It's like, "click me, click me, only $5000! You want to tool around on me, I know you do!" Why? Why would I even contemplate becoming a Segway rider? I can't even bike! Or roller skate! Yet it happens, without fail, every time I should be researching diet books. I think of the policeman in Central Park, or Tad Friend zooming around Paris, or the host at Captain Jack's in Florida, and I'm like, "That could totally be me."

And so begins the slow descent from 3:00....

Next week will be rather auspicious for me, not because my horoscope said so, but because I get to catsit for a coworker. Surrogate cat! Excitement! He (Cooper the Cat) and I have met once before, but under somewhat harried circumstances. (I was helping Coworker move and he was locked in a bedroom.) With any luck, he won't hold the fact that I didn't liberate him against me and there will be much cat/girl bonding over the next week.

Apparently he is a Commandable Cat - for instance, when you say, "Who's a special boy?", he knows it's time for treats and lets out a yowl. I want to teach him to respond to other phrases, like "FUCK!" That would be a nice, friendly thing to do, right?

One of the creators of The O.C. said of its three leads, "I think we wound up with a young Russell Crowe, a young Tom Hanks and a young Audrey Hepburn with these three kids." Um. Don't we already HAVE a young Tom Hanks? And isn't his name Colin?