See, I have been hit with the disturbing idea that I'm not just refreshingly cynical, which I always prided myself on being, but truly shiftless and apathetic. I don't know when that struck me, but it's been weighing on my mind the past few days. Like, perhaps my horrible attitude has been permeating into my performance at work, and in my class, and in my freelance, and possibly people don't see me as the can-do girl with mountains of potential, like I've always thought they might.

My co-workers, who bear most of the brunt of my grumpiness, however, gently told me they don't think I have a bad attitude. They say I just vent, and that's healthy and good.

I love them, even though they drive me batty.

The past several days I've had this virus/flu/cold thingy that everybody in the country seems to have right now. Hacking cough, sore throat, stuffy nose, headache, fever, general ickiness. I caught up on sleep and old "Sopranos" episodes, and invested in a new hardcover I can sink my teeth into: The Corrections, despite all the hype. It's fantastic, very smart, very perceptive, wickedly funny.

TT has favorite words and phrases. He uses them often in his conversations with people, I think to cover up nervousness, inserting them the way most people use "um." They include, but are not limited to, discreet, candidly, and kosher (which is a new one: "Is it kosher that I'm dumping all this work on you?"). It's a funny little tick that keeps me entertained.

OK, so back to bad attitudes. I have to organize my high school reunion. It's an arduous task that I've had 10 years to prepare for. I have no excuse. Suddenly, I'm panicking because it's March, I graduated 10 years ago in June, and former classmates are e-mailing me asking "What the fuck?" I don't object to organizing it so much, but I simply don't seem to have many good ideas. I would love to just have a little cocktail party or picnic or something and get it over with, but I've had several out-of-town people tell me they would never fly home unless there's a big-ass deal made of the whole thing, an all-weekend event. Lame. Plus I feel compelled to organize some committee, when I'm sure it would be easier to do everything myself. Oy.

I think the hardest hurdle to get over (not that I've even started doing anything on this) has been calling my vice president (I was class president, oddly enough). She was, as I remember, a very sweet person who was also extremely popular and therefore unapproachable; she's now married to a sweet and unapproachably popular guy from the class before ours. And I haven't talked to her in 10 years (if you even count what we did in high school as "talking"). And now I have to phone her at her suburban Midwestern home, and probably wake up her kids I didn't know she had because of the time difference, and carry on a conversation with her like we're old friends. And I don't want to. So there.