Listening to a program on the radio - women who jump off the corporate fast track and forego the money to start their own businesses to achieve a better balance of business, home and personal life - I recalled similar thoughts. Why am I still doing what I'm doing? It ain't for the money, let me tell you. Is there not another way if I'm willing to change? I'm not spending the hours you need to spend to climb a corporate ladder - I'm a little old to be thinking about climbing a corporate ladder - but the hours I do spend are obviously not doing me good. I took a week off in December and I remember returning to work with the same depressed head I'd had when I left. Should this not be a clue? Should I double the anti-depressant?

Somehow I think we've heard this before.

How could you not?

The New Hampshire primary: they're saying Kerry, Dean, Edwards then Clark. I'll have to look harder at Kerry, look beyond the haircut, try to get beyond the sound bites. Same with Dean. Can Dean win? He certainly seems to have focused the pack. They almost sound as if they've formulated a plan more nuanced than just dumping Bush, not that I wouldn't vote for one of them "just to dump Bush". One must be honest here even with Homeland Security monitoring the web.

MSM has urged me to buy the car. I will probably not buy the car. I'll buy the film scanner and I'll put off buying the Nikon digital camera and see how the bonus goes in March. That should tell me where I stand.

You talk about the job grinding you down and then you talk about staying or going depending on a bonus. Does the money matter or doesn't it?

Bull shit.

Yeah, I think so too. Around and around. I'm seeing in my own journal all the elements critics have used to decry online journals in general. (Wah!!! I feel bad!) I'll get over it. Couldn't take me more than another decade. I'll get there, all of it described here in excruciating detail, and then I'll go live happily ever after.

Now you've got me worried.