OK, then. I still have no internet, but I've decided that I can not go without Writing even one day longer. This, I think, is exactly the sort of delusion I should be doing everything I can to encourage. So, here I am.

I am interested to see whether or not I will eventually cut n paste all this into Diaryland. What is it I really get out of Diaryland? Do I actually enjoy the act of writing, or am I just hooked on the whole semi-exhibitionist deal? Do they have to be mutually exclusive? (Note to self: obtain dictionary. While moving, I tossed my old one because it was eight years old (eight years?!), and dog-eared as hell. Now here I sit, not entirely sure if "mutually exclusive" means what I think it does.)

Oh well. I'll just add the dictionary onto the growing list of things to buy someday when I have money. Several people owe me giant piles of money, but at the moment I've got about 35 cents.

Editor's Note: The following ten paragraphs have very little to do with money. Most Biographers, including the eminent Dr. Esolenos, believe Ana became momentarily overcome with all the things that had happened to her since her last regular entry, and that once she started babbling, she was unable to stop. The following rant has been preseved in the interest of journalistic wholeness, or integrity, or something. Readers should keep in mind that the events described all ocurred within the last two weeks, while Ana had no computer. The regularly scheduled daily entry resumes after the asterisks.

My car (My fucking new car!) self destructed about two weeks ago, and I had to give the nice man $380 so the wheels didn't fall off. It was horrible. As I was driving D. to work, we heard a funny noise. Later, as I was driving myself to work, the noise got suddenly a lot worse, and I could feel that I no longer had complete control of the car. I wasn't in the ditch or anything, but steering was more of a problem than one would ideally like, especially in a practically new fucking car. I got out of the car to investigate, and saw smoke trailing out of my rear wheel. Smoke. I shit you not. As my brain was trying to process this, there was a clap of thunder, and it started downpouring. Oh, how I wish I were exaggerating. One minute, I'm standing by the side of the road, and the next, I'm dripping wet, watching the last little plume of smoke drift up out of my wheel. I have never more honestly felt that God hated me.

When I told D. about it, he said we absolutely had to get out of NowhereLand. This was a warning that if we didn't escape soon, we never would. I was thinking exactly the opposite, and Christine and Arthur agreed with me. But we had already paid the security deposit, and events of the rest of the month convinced me D. might have been right.

At the casino, my fellow waitresses were suddenly dropping like flies. Nicole needed stitches in her hand. Judy pulled a muscle, and left in a wheelchair one night. Diana slipped and hurt her arm again. Bonita had to go to a funeral. It got to the point where I was half-afraid I would be struck by lighting befroe I managed to get the hell out.

After the car was all better, I made several trips to Cowtown with carloads of stuff. It was always sunny and clear when I left Nowhereland, and flat-out bizarre driving home. Insane 20-feet-of-visibility fog, with a state trooper following me for 30 miles. Buckets of rain, just for the 10 miles outside of NowhereLand.

And let's not forget about the day my kitchen tried to kill me. I was in the process of final cleaning of the NowhereLand apartment. I had cleaned the oven, the fridge and the freezer. While cleaning the fridge, I put all the alcohol in the freezer, including a bottle of Mad Dog. I decided I had earned a break. I turned the oven on, to preheat it. Smoke started trailing out. I remained calm. I reasoned I had used a lot of funky chemicals on the stove, maybe I hadn't quite wiped all of them out. I turned on the stove vent, and the air conditoner vent, and decided to let the smoke clear before using the oven. It wasn't even a lot of smoke. Hell, my tire had made more smoke than that, and that was in the middle of a monsoon.

Just for something to do while I waited, I planned to check the directions on my frozen pizza. I opened the freezer, and saw that the Mad Dog had exploded. I had just cleaned the freezer, and now there was nasty-ass green stuff and shards of broken glass everywhere. Sensing that there were Forces Beyond My Comprehension hanging out in my kitchen that day, I was very careful. I wiped down the freezer, and threw away each rag I used, to avoid cutting myself carelessly. I did not get cut.

To celebrate, I grabbed a soda out of the fridge. One of the glass slivers must have slipped down into the fridge. I cut my finger on the can of soda that had been punctured, spraying cream soda all over my newly-cleaned fridge.

I had already packed the band-aids, and I couldn't remember which box they were in, so I wrapped a rag around my finger while I wiped out the fridge with my right hand. It took a long time. I am left handed.

I went out on the balcony to have a cigarette. I did not set myself on fire. The balcony did not collapse. I was grateful. I went back inside to see if the oven was still leaking smoke. It wasn't. Things were looking up. I put my pizza in the oven without incident.

I had already packed the pizza cutter. I had already packed the pizza cutter. It seems like such a minor thing, but at the time, it was just too much for me to handle. It had obviously been a minor oversight that I hadn't managed to do anything to put myself in danger for ten full minutes, and I realized I had to escape before the Kitchen Demon noticed. That was when I decided to go visit Arthur and Christine for a while.

***

See, we had it all figured out. We could pay the rent for July, and still have like $500 left to hold us over until we had steady paychecks coming in again. But then there was the whole car debacle, which I'm pretty sure I've mentioned somewhere. (Teehee.) I had to put gas in Christine's dad's truck. I had to buy more band-aids. I arrived in Cowtown with $100. There was a yard sale going on down the street, and we really needed furniture. So I bought $40 of tables and couches and things. We needed a lot of stuff like toilet paper and dishracks. Our Cowtown friends eat out constantly, so we ate with them. We were at about five bucks of change by Sunday, but I started work on Monday. (I'm a waitress again, so I figured there was a pretty good chance I'd at least earn enough tips to scrape by for a few days. Oh, and let me tell you all about why I took another waitressing job...Oh, no you don't. Please? You're about to babble again. Focus, dammit. But I just want to tell them about the clearly insane woman. That's it, I swear. Oh and also about how Jack and Anne have me all confused about whether I should keep this job, or try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, and--You require much discipline, young Grasshopper...)

Anyway, Monday I went in, and learned that I started Wednesday. Wednesday, I made about $20, but then Anne and Jack wanted to go to Bitchen. Tonight I work, but I got the impression that I'm just bussing and helping out tonight, and may not make any actual tips.

It's kind of ironic. Several people owe me vast sums of money, but I'm scrounging for potato chip crumbs so I don't starve to death. We'll get our entire security deposit back from the NowhereLand apt ($200). When the place was checked last Friday, Marvin said he would notify the head office, and a check would be in the mail. The casino promised to pay me for all the vacation hours I never used on the check issued today($600). Christine told me once that they print payroll checks the previous Tuesday, but I suppose I can't really expect them to mail that until today. Perhaps it will arrive next week. In about a month, I'll get what's left of my 401K after the taxes are taken out of it ($800). By the time it's all assembled, I'll have spent all of it.

D. took Vincent's advice and signed up with a local temp place. He did the "monkey tests" as he called them yesterday morning, and was sent to work for JMS last night, but doesn't know if he's working tonight or not yet. Vincent says JMS hires all their full time help through this temp place, so I'm hoping it's a good sign he got to start right away, but of course, I can't help worrying that maybe it doesn't mean anything.

***

In spite of the general tone of this entry, I've been in an amazingly good mood for pretty much all of the week I've lived here so far. I love living near all of my friends again. Perhaps tomorrow I'll tell you all about them.

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