2004-08-24 - 5:28 p.m.

I am now having one of those kinds of days of work, where you begin to daydream about clicking your Puma�s together to wake up fully clothed, in bed, and in black and white. A small Scottish terrier would leap into my lap, licking my face, while whispering passages from Bridget Jone�s Diary into my ear. I�d look up into the mysteriously assembled eyes of my family, mumbling with excitement.

�And you were there. And you, and you�And Uncle Bufford, you were in accounting?�

�Well ain�t that the darndest! I can�t even count up my fingers, and such.�

The phone seems to keep ringing at the worst of moments, each chime like a small stab at my shattered consciousness, added to the collective bleeding of my sanity. Each time adding another pair of feet to what sounds like the entire population of China Riverdancing in my temples. Why it is the people of China have decided to take up another country�s national dance is beyond me, but there they are, with stiff arms and extremely loud clogs.

The pit that starts to accumulate in my stomach as I feel useless or overwhelmed, or like I�ve eaten too much shellfish � meaning, any shellfish � has now amassed into a small sea, around the size of the Red or Adriatic, though steaming and full of large green pustules not unlike the bog of Eternal Stench from Labyrinth. (Yes that movie can be appreciated outside of David Bowie�s tight tight pants. I hear they�re a big draw.)

With the festering pit in my stomach and half the eastern hemisphere hoofing it in my cranium the only thing I desire at this particular moment is to rest my head on the shoulder of a warm and accepting woman, who will understand my strange desire to play drinking games while watching the Olympics. (Any one says �Whoops!� or �That�ll be a deduction,� you down a shot of Yager.)

I remain somewhat bitter that the female gender has co-opted almost all head resting on shoulder rights. This is a new era, and a new time, where the women in this world can and should, be considered equals; receiving the benefits of equality - i.e. discount admission into welcoming bowling leagues - and the responsibilities they entail � i.e. the burden of being a momentary shoulder rest. It is an extremely lovely thing, and I can say, in my time I have come across a goodly amount of women who have extremely comfortable clavicles. Many, kind enough to let me luxuriate in them.

Sadly, most have now roped off said areas for other, more deserving heads, and I have none I currently have season tickets to. There are a few I can think of who would allow a momentary pause, but what is a clavicle if one cannot enjoy it for a length of time. A five second, deep breath and then back to business shoulder rest�merely a tease, reminding one of all the possible resting you could be doing, but aren�t, instead wasting your time filing your paper work in reverse alphabetical order after sorting them by origin state, and the color preference of their broker. (Oh, Kitty�s a sucker for Puce. It goes in that pile.)

For now, I have no choice other than to wallow in my rather drab rendition of a nervous breakdown. One expects a breakdown to include some kind of wailing, at least a short period of non-sensical rambling, and possibly a strong desire to drink tiger�s milk. Simply feeling bummed and sore and frazzled it just doesn�t come up to par.

I am currently considering dunking my head in the office aquarium in order to up my crazy quotient. Considering that we, in all honesty, have piranhas in that tank, I think this will be a strong step in the right direction. I wonder if they have clavicles?

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