So I haven’t written in *how long*?

I can feel myself fading out, as it were. The lingering joblessness, poverty and even more lingering winter horribleness are taking their toll on me.

I have this overwhelming sense of uselessness, worthlessness, ugliness that feeds upon itself. It’s smothering; I can see the logistics of it, identify the untruth and ridiculousness of it, and yet I don’t have the strength to pull myself out. I feel like I’m sinking ever further into quicksand, and the ocean nightmares have returned.

Mike does his best to rally me and cheer me up, but it kills me because he is so wonderful and I hate imposing this horridness on him… yet I can’t stop it! I would almost rather he went away — not because I want him away, but because I hate for him to see me in this state. I feel such an imposition; I can’t stand myself right now.

Some days I don’t think I’d get up at all if Fitz didn’t whimper from his crate.

I’m so angry lately and for no reason. It’s as if all the anger I deliberately squelched in my constipated childhood has suddenly arisen and taken over me completely and I walk around radiating bitterness and fury.

But enough.

Highlights of the past X weeks:

• I had an absolutely abysmal piano recital
• I had a rockin’ second interview for the Houghton Mifflin job, where I had to give a presentation on the fly and pulled it off stunningly
• I have been somewhat extensively hanging out, smoking hookah and playing Cranium with John (a friend of Mike’s friend Eric), who acts like #19 and looks like my ex-lover Lorenzo (my student from when I was running that summer program in 1998)
• I am working obsessively on a rather complicated PHP script that I’m writing for Tuesday night hockey (my ulterior motive is not only the several weeks of free hockey I will be accorded but the learning process so I can feel better about my resume which implies I know somewhat more PHP than I do)
• I held Murder Party #2, which was fun, because I got to makes lots of tasty food, but tough, because I have been having trouble holding myself together and acting cheerful lately, and because Brett ditched out on me
• I haven’t seen Brett in weeks, and he cancelled D&D and has disappeared into the void
• I have an interview tomorrow for a web developer position at Brigham & Women’s and I’m scared off my ass because I don’t feel qualified for the position.
• I told Bryant I wouldn’t be friends with him, and he wrote back this appalling email (appalling because it was so condescending and self-centered and naive) talking about how he was now the greatest, wisest thing and how it would do me so much good to interact with WonderBryant etc. — and yes, all the appallingness aside, it still broke my heart because I am retarded.
• Fitz has been banished to the gated-off smallest corner of the kitchen because he keeps peeing on the floor — though it might be due to a urinary tract infection which he is now on meds for.
• Mike is starting work this Monday: with Alphatech. For a *very* nice salary although only half time since he still has a 50% postdoc at MIT and isn’t sure if he wants to stick with Alphatech anyway. Now is the testing period.

I feel like I DESERVE this HM job but I want it so badly I’m sure I’ve already jinxed myself. I called up the lady I interviewed with today, and she said I’d hear by sometime this week, but I feel more certain than ever that I’m not going to get this job. I don’t know why I wouldn’t, all interviews went so well, and yet — I just feel it. I wanted it too badly and so it won’t happen. Ugh!

Till next month, if I can make it through…

Does anyone know why when you download music off Kazaa often the song, once downloaded, plays fine for about half a minute and then goes into all-out earblasting nothing noise? I figure it’s some sort of copyright protection something or other that has interfered with rips but I don’t know the specifics.

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Kettricken got into a big fight at the dog park today. There is this large black poodleish dog (owned by a middle aged Russian couple) that has absolutely no manners whatsoever. The first day we ever met it, it leaped upon Kettrciken and knocked her flat but she was on the leash so I pulled her back when she would have fought. She has hated it since that day so whenever I see it coming I leave with Kettricken and Fitz. This time I was letting them run around off leash and the poodle came into the park before I saw it and Kettricken ran for it and tried to kick the shit out of it.

Of course, it has about 60 pounds on her so there was no chance. The poodle’s owner looked mildly surprised but did nothing to pull it back from Kettricken even though the poodle was on a leash. When it clamped its jaws completely over Kettricken’s back, I ran in and yanked her from its mouth and got bitten for my trouble.

Even so, the owner had no comment to make. I stood there for a while holding Kettricken, blood running all over my hand to drip on the ground, and the owner didn’t say a fucking thing. He just smirked.

He was probably getting some kind of stupid macho delight in his dog trying to beat up someone else’s dog. Slavs!

That pissed me off. It’s true, after all, it was my dog that started the fight, and it wasn’t a good idea to try to separate two fighting dogs manually and I will accept the consequences of my actions (I wasn’t going to sit there like the other guy and watch ithe stupid poodle eat Kettricken!) but the owner of the poodle (which is an obnoxious not-trained-at-all poodle which goes around and squashes flat all the other dogs it sees while its owners smile indulgently) should have at least TRIED to pull his dog away.

Even Fitz hates and growls at this poodle, and Fitz really likes all the other dogs he’s ever met.