I haven’t really felt like writing lately, so random bulletware it is:

• An article about the possible Google IPO that I edited appeared in Newsweek International Edition a couple of weeks ago. (OK, it’s not as exciting as it’d have been had I actually written the thing, I admit.) They expect you to pony up some pesetas to read it online, but my company is getting reprints, so I can add it to my portfolio and show my parents.
• I took a 2003 rollover vacation day last Friday and managed to get a lot of errands and spring cleaning-type stuff done. Not on the official agenda was a teary meltdown when one of my coworkers passed my name along to someone who was hiring a Web content writer. For some reason, this set off a sort of panic attack at the thought of actively job hunting, let alone figuring out what I really want to do when I grow up. D. was his usual sane and comforting self throughout the episode, offering hugs and patient, gentle suggestions about options I may not have considered. I know I should try to find some job that would make my stomach hurt less, but after seven and a half years at this firm, my soul has been squooshed into a complacent nubbin of inertia — and somehow every other thing in my life that spawns insecurity becomes magnified. Luckily D. isn’t one of the things I have any doubt about, and he’s canny enough to let me blubber out my anxiety before suggesting courses of action. He could teach a graduate-level course in boyfriending.
• My parents are planning a visit this fall — ’twill be their first since I lived in Princeton, N.J. — egads, I’d say at least 10 years. I’m excited about showing them around La Ville des Haricots — my mother’s never seen our fair city. Too bad my father’s knees are completely shot — I’m not sure if he’ll even be able to sightsee much. I wonder if you can subscribe to cable TV for just one month?

We had Teresa and Ted over for dinner Saturday night, and went to see a matinee of “Hellboy” yesterday. (It was all I could do to keep from accosting the parents with teeny kids I saw in the theatre — I guess it wasn’t as gory as “The Passion of Christ” is reputed to be, but certainly violent enough. Those monsters would have found their way into nightmares at that age. True, I had nightmares about the giant spider on “Gilligan’s Island” and hid behind the sofa when Margaret Hamilton showed her face on “The Wizard of Oz,” so maybe my degree of wussiness has been bred out of the species by now.)

• Everyone should buy the Beauty Pill’s The Unsustainable Lifestyle right this second. I was not a fan of the song “The Cigarette Girl from the Future” when D. put it on a mix tape about a million years ago, but their new album is witty and diverse and good listening.

I’m going to take off before someone in my pod gushes about how light it it at 6:00 p.m.