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safe to go back into the staff room on your break … She’s cute; she’s smart; she’s wearing a fitted shirt; she plays pool pretty well for a girl … It’s Kathy Virus Part IV : The Revenge .
    I would normally be cursing my stupidity for succumbing to yet another exercise in futility. In this case, though, if I could somehow manage to convert my Michaela angst into Kathy angst, it would be much easier to bear. Wanting Kathy but not having her is a lifestyle I could adjust to. It’s not like I hunger to inhale the amazing smell of the skin on Kathy’s neck and clavicle, because I have never experienced it in the first place. Hell, I don’t even know whether she has one.
    In contrast, wanting Michaela and not having her, havinginhabited a private universe with her, as the song goes, is untenable. So there. And this evening Kathy laughed at something particularly witty that I said and touched my arm. Phwoar. I need a beer. If anyone wants me, I’ll be in the bar, plotting my next Kathy-related maneuver, twirling my imaginary mustache. And studiously avoiding study.

September 22
    So much uni work looming. You can only hide from it up to a certain point—beyond which you are well and truly screwed. I was at that point at about this time in first year and vowed I would never return.
    Dad was rather peeved at me, as I recall. He seemed to take it personally. I don’t know why. I’m the one that will have to pay off the student loan debt for the subjects I failed. I suggested at the beginning of this year that perhaps he and Mum might like to pay my tuition for me up front like they did for Zoe so we get the discount. I can’t remember the exact wording of Dad’s response, but it was something to the effect of perhaps I’d like to go fuck myself instead.
    Yeah, well, you know. Guess I’ll be paying it off myself then. Assuming that I ever get a real job, that is. Maybe what Dad was really pissed off about was that he has a pansy of a son who is studying for a liberal arts degree instead of business or engineering.
    Must go and finish writing my essay on Stalinist Russia. In a surprise cameo by my tear ducts, I felt moisture crowding behind my eyelids the other day when I was reading about the purges. I can’t imagine. I don’t want to.

11 p.m.
    Sometimes I think the only reason Stuart is angling for Kathy is that he knows I am too. He’s a smooth bastard. All reserve and broad-shouldered strength. He may well be my nemesis. And my antithesis! How about that?
Harvey out.
    P.S. I have puny shoulders.
    P.P.S. And I’m okay with that.
    P.P.P.S. I’m not really.

October 5
    Exhausted and a little in my cups. Worked four to nine this evening, training a New Little on the registers. She’s one of the more interesting New Littles out of the bunch they just hired. Her name is Amelia, and what a funny little youngster she is. She demonstrates an advanced-level single-eyebrow raise. She’s amusing—all frizzy-haired and fiery. I suspect she can, like, construct sentences and read books. Here’s hoping she will go a little way toward Amelia-rating the vacuousness of her chain-smoking fifteen-year-old cohorts. ( Ameliorate —get it? Oh, there’s nothing like your own jokes, is there?) She’s a healthy mess of contradictions. Sense of humor? Check. Very articulate for a youngster. She hasn’t developed the ability to see past her own nose yet—takes everything seriously . Oh, adolescence, how much I don’t miss you. She’s smart and has reason to carry herself well. But she has this way of crossing her arms, gripping her elbows and looking down and sideways that screams “ill at ease!” to the world. Maybe all sheneeds is a good sensei to instruct her in the ways of, like, stuff. Maybe I’m the man for the job. Or maybe I couldn’t be bothered.
    I went back to Ed’s after work. We missed the last bus and had to walk all the way, cutting across the park and freezing our arses off. Living the