It was a message from my predecessor, in which she suggested that the attached message regarding reading copies of books might be for me, not her. Entirely plausible. So I figured it might be important, that with a little effort on my part, it might eventually pay off in a contract for my employer. It crashed my computer, but everything seemed fine, except that the important printers in the building spewed nonsense for most of the day.

My point, and I suspect you can sympathize, is that I�ve spent most of today trying to reconfigure this monster (our IT fellow decided to upgrade to Windows 2000, while he was working on it) to make it more agreeable. I installed that foolish, cumbersome Real Player, but it won�t work, and the only sounds the computer seems capable of making now are annoying beeps that won�t stop, no matter what I do. Will someone just magically come take care of me? I�m so tired.

You�ll simply have to e-mail me to remind me of all of my favorite websites, since my bookmarks are long gone, too.

But the e-mail folders returned since lunchtime, so I�m relieved. Funny how much of our lives are conducted over e-mail these days. It was wrenching to think that I�d somehow lost forever what suffices for a written record of various life events. But they�re back. I assume. I�m afraid to look.

I�m also afraid of becoming the girl nobody invites anywhere anymore, because they know she�ll either not show up or that she�ll be big ol� drag. Granted I have my moments of intense and comical intoxication, but if I give that up, will there be anything redeeming left?

Okay, okay, I�m hypersensitive and still catching up on sleep. Everything is sharp and pointy.

Speaking of painful, enough of the dreams! A pal proposed that I�m dreaming of marrying unsuitable men, simply for the fact that I�m tired of dating or not dating and that I�ve been thinking of settling for someone imperfect, rather than the love of my life. That diagnosis freaked me out, but I think it�s just a byproduct of married friends talking about the lack of perfect people and about finding someone you think you won�t kill and making things work. But the fellows I�m turning up in my dreams are entirely wrong. That much is clear. So everybody quit pairing off. I need some sleep.

I don�t think there will be any tasty links today. Everything is lost. You don�t need me for that, anyway. You�re a big kid now, it�ll be okay. And if it all fails, try again tomorrow.