Yesterday morning I went out through the house, picking up two months worth of piled-up mail from the kitchen counter (Cynthia will think that there has been a burglary!), and I ran into Katie on her way to school. I was struck by how beautiful she is becoming, and how filled with promise and possibility she is. I mean, she's fourteen, she is just a big bundle of potential, you can see it shining out of the ends of her fingers, all of this future ahead of her. And all I could think was that I wished that all of my future was ahead of me, too, that there was all of this potential in me, waiting to be realized.

When I got off the van and was walking up 8th Ave., I passed these two high school girls limping along, carrying these appalling looking text books, and I looked and them and I looked at the books and I walked off with a spring in my step. Hey, I may not have any potential waiting to be realized, but at least I don't have to go to high school anymore! I get to be a grown-up! I get to live my life on my own terms! I don't have to do homework or worry about grades or finals or anything, I'm living the life of Riley!

I'm not certain whether than makes me practical or shallow, but I'll take being glad about where I am over regretting the fact that I suddenly turned around and was 24 years older than I remember being just a minute ago, any day.

These entries have been awfully introspective the past few days, ain't? I'm sure I'll get back to talking about what's on TV soon, just hang in there.

I couldn't check my email practically all day yesterday, it was a nightmare!! Earthlink was down with a horrible downness and I was bereft and sad. Fortunately, the one email that I needed to get, from Omar regarding the fact that he wouldn't be able to make it to the movies with me, I did get because he sent it to my yahoo address.

I'm always yelling at people not to send me things there, that that address is only for me to check my hedgehog mail through, it's not to receive mail on its own, especially since I only check it when at work and not on the weekends, but I'm glad that he made that mistake or I would have been standing outside the theatre tapping my feet and cursing his name.

But o God, o God was it awful not being able to check my email all day! Of course, I did check it about every thirty seconds, but I didn't actually receive any email all day. The pain was almost unbearable, like when I'm looking at a twisted phone cord. When I would very very occasionally get an email to my yahoo account, I would practically levitate out of the chair, I was so filled with glee.

I called Earthlink a couple of times during the day to see what was going on, and each time the recording said that some people throughout the country would be experiencing difficulty in sending and receiving email, which was rather vague, I thought, like a horoscope that predicts that you are likely to ingest some sort of consumable during the course of the day, or if not, it is possible that you might breathe.

Finally I decided to wade into the queue and talk to a technical support person. Who said that yes, they were experiencing some problems, but to be assured that their technicians were aware of the problems and would be working feverishly on them throughout the night so that I could get my full course of spam and mailing list crap. Right before I hung up, though, he said, "Um, I don't want to alarm you, but it says that your account is closing down, perhaps that's the problem! Would you like to speak to a customer service representative?" Why yes, I would.

So back on hold I went, for over half an hour, might I add, until I finally got hold of a guy who said that there wasn't the slightest problem with my account, it was just fine and all paid up and so on, but that they were having relay problems in the NY area and that was likely the problem. Boy, I sure wished that the technical support guy had told me that rather than make me think that my account was shutting down and I'd get no more penis enhancement emails for the remainder of my days on this earth!

Immediately after I hung up, I was able to get some email for the first time all day, but it was only eight messages, which is not actually possible, since I get something over 200 messages a day and I hadn't downloaded a thing for 16 hours. All of it was dull and useless (but for Bart telling me that he is working on General Hospital tomorrow), but I read every one with gratitude.

Then last night I went to a screening of Chicago.

It was a free screening that I heard about from a friend who couldn't go, but I wouldn't have missed it, no matter how much I should have stayed at work and gotten things done. Feh on getting things done, I haven't seen a movie in months!

And my God, was it ever great. Queen Latifah stole it out from under everyone's noses, which was quite a feat, considering how amazing the three leads were. My favourite part was a tiny cameo that you Broadway fans will notice (it got a cheer in my audience) and my least favourite part was the fact that the best song was dropped ("Class"), but that was literally my only complaint.

I don't know how much you need to be a musical fan to like it, I think it goes wider than that. Hey, you'll like it if all you want is to see Catherine Zeta-Jones do a split!

Today's horoscope:
It's pointless to discuss tastes and preferences. Right and wrong disappear into a rainbow of gray shades. Put your own needs first for once; indulgence isn't only for others.

One year ago today:
I have no idea what happened with the others. I am completely self-centred in this show, it's about me and nothing can change that.

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