[glancing at cell phone. still no call.]


"Fours hours of 24 in the last two days, and you've posted nothing. I am disheartened."

--Troy Polamalu, aka Pulitzer Souljah


SPOILER ALERT (For all of you out there who care tremendously about this show, yet happened to miss the four-hour friggin premier during the last two nights...because apparently you people do exist. Crazy.)

















Frankly, I'm still stunned and speechless at the assasination of President Palmer. He was a good man, and he will be missed.

(Incidentally, I was just discussing with my friend Boozemyer, who after watching only his first four episodes of the show needs prescription ritalin to get ahold of himself, about what a controversial decision the writers made to assasinate the nation's first black president, gazing out the balcony of his brother's condominium no less, on the eve of MLK day. A nice tribute...or crass and inappropriate? Nobody's talking about this. There's a debate I'd like to see. Did I mention I have no life?)

Actually, that last sentence is, well, pretty true. After dropping the parents off at the airport yesterday, I woke up to an empty house and a giant question mark where my future should be. 'Still haven't officially heard anything from the paper in the desert - and yes that rumbling you hear is coming from the new pit of nervousness in my gut. You can be sure I'll be checking in tomorrow.


[checking cell phone. still no call.]


Beyond that, the only thing I can do is sit. And wait.


[...]


...Anyone read any good books lately? How 'bout drugs? Drugs are good, right? Look, all I know is I'm slowly going insane. All play and no work makes Jack a dull boy.


[glaring at cell phone]


Meanwhile, not to be outdone in our annual family contest of which Cronkite can visit the most impoverished nation in the Caribbean, the parents have flown to Port-Au-friggin-Prince, Haiti for the week. Really, that's not a race I'm trying to win.

That's right: They've settled into a sleepy retirement of golf, swimming, quiet reading, and delivering medical supplies and bearing witness to atrocities in mother-effing hopeless third-world countries. I swear, my parents have huge hearts and just a touch of crazy. On the drive to the airport, Dad tells me he had to convince Mom not to pack her solid pink dove T-shirt. ...To wear in a city currently run by street gangs. I think that's about when the panic set in and I almost flipped a bitch and swerved the car back home. I just hope the group they're with knows what the eff they're doing.


[checking phone. still no fucking call.]


Me? Personally I would have picked the Bahamas. My parents find God in the most God-forsaken parts of the world. Let's just say I don't.


**************************************************************************************


Best unintentional comedy quote of the weekend: I'm hanging out with my J-school friend Emily. Her husband has friends in town from Iceland, so when I enter their apartment I meet this guy Chris sitting at their kitchen table and say, "Oh, you're from Iceland?"

"No that's Thor," he says dryly. And not only is he totally serious, but he looks at me like I'm nuts when I start laughing.


[still not ringing...]


Emily got me in the door at the God's Country Business Journal - the publication that floated an offer I had to reluctantly pass on last week. Here are some snippets of our conversations when I was applying there:

"Should I call? Should I call?? How long should I wait? I don't wanna sound desperate...but I don't want them to think I'm not interested either. ... Hire me! Hire me please! Just hire me! ... "You wanna hire me? Really? What's wrong with you?

"They're awesome - such an amazing catch. Everyone has only good things to say about them, and there's absolutely no reason I shouldn't be more interested. But I dunno...I just don't have that, you know, that passion to go there. I'm just not excited about it. I don't know what my problem is."

Again, it's a wonder I'm single.


[ring, goddamn you, RING!!!]