Yesterday, following a visit to the gym, I spent most of the day submitting to blog directories. I don't know if you've ever done this; if you want people to read your blog, it's not a bad idea. The blog you're reading now is in only one directory, and since I don't keep track of it in any way, I don't know whether that directory drives traffic or not. However, I do know that the blogs which I have put in directories as a plyer of The Dark Art have more readers and better rankings on the SERPs than those which, for dark reasons, I have not.

So I was submitting my clients' blogs to the directories. This is dull work. Linkbuilding is not all dull. Much of it involves tracking things down and persuading people and strategizing, all of which are fun for me. But submitting is a matter of filling out forms... over and over and over. The challenging part is paying enough attention that you don't begin to make errors.And not getting testy over the fact that you've just typed acres of stuff and then they tell you that you can't submit more than one blog for a single domain or something.

In the course of five hours of submissions, you will encounter many many captchas. Those are the little codes you have to type in so the robots on the other end will know that you are not yourself a robot. Some have distorted letters for you to type in, and some have hard to read ones with little distinction between the letters or numbers and the background. I don't care for those. I have to peer at them. I like the ones that require simple math, because they seem ingenious and don't rely on your ability to distinguish  a distorted j from a distorted u (or was it a v?)

Then I did some keyword development and a little minor web design for Client #7, chatted briefly with Client #2, checked everybody's stats and analytics, and made a bootless attempt to learn Corel Draw without reading the book first.

Not perhaps a frolicsome day, but a satisfying one.

I made Chicken with Caramelized Onions and Tomatoes for dinner. This is a delicious recipe from the Sonoma Diet Cookbook. I don't know why modern cookbooks have to give their dishes such completely transparent names. Isn't it more interesting to cook things like Shrimp Wiggle and Potatoes Anna than things called Chicken with Tomatoes and Onions?

The boys were not at home. That's why I was able to cook this without having to fight with anyone over it. My husband added lots of salt and ate it, and then watched a cooking show on TC and said things like, "See? She left the fat on!"

The Sonoma Diet begins with 10 days of greater strictness, known as "Wave 1." You are not supposed to eat fruit, for example, because that will help you lose all desire for sweets and refined grains. I have eaten fruit. Our local growing season is not long enough that a person can be cavalier about berries. Heck, I've eaten cake.

There was a time in my life when I was very strict about simple carbohydrates and saturated fats. My doctor told me to do that, and I am pretty biddable, so I did. There was no point at which my doctor said, "I've changed my mind. Now you can eat pizza and ice cream." There was also no point at which, if pizza and cake were present, I happily munched on snow peas instead.

I am not sure at what point I quit being strict about what I was eating. I think maybe my life got too complicated for me to pay attention.

So in theory, today is the tenth day, and I can now move on to eating fruit and dark chocolate. However, since I have not perfectly followed the plan, do I have to start counting the ten days over every time I eat things not on the list, in which case I will be in Wave 1 at least until the end of the melon season. No, then come apples and raspberries. Yeah. I'd have to be in Wave 1 till Thanksgiving, at which point I'd have pecan pie and then --

Forget it. I have lost four pounds, and shall continue on to Wave 2. I may be more successful with following Wave 2.

With both Erin and the Flowers and Leaves Shawl on the needles, I went ahead last night with a Prayer Shawl, since I didn't want to fall behind on the Summer Reading Challenge. Have you ever seen anything so pink?

 I made some more jewelery yesterday.

The earrings are supposed to be helping me improve my wire wrapping skilz, which my husband finds scandalously bad. He has lectured me kindly but firmly about this a couple of times now. I figure my hair will cover a lot of the wire anyway, and no one will look that closely.

The bracelet is a bit excessive, I know. Therefore, I intend to make it even more excessive. I need another source of beads, though, one with more fruit and flowers. And leaves. I really like leaves.

On Thursday I went to the downtown bead shop, where there is a strong scent of patchouli and people sit

working on their beads and discussing how taking lotus root has made them feel wise and open to the universe.

On Saturday I went to the bead shop in my own zip code, where I found an old friend working on her beads and we had lots of nice conversation.

I can see that a person could, even though many of the offerings have prices like seven cents and thirteen cents, spend a lot of money in a bead shop. Or multiple bead shops.

If I stick with earrings, I shouldn't be able to get into too much trouble.

Otherwise, I was mostly pretty lazy yesterday.

I had to finish reading the second weekly book for the summer challenge. I also had to weed the garden a bit. I should have weeded the garden a lot, but it was hot out there.

I have some darker rose buds starting. I actually have four different roses out there, but only New Dawn has bloomed so far. This could be because New Dawn is such an aggressive creature that is has strangled all the other roses, or they could still be suffering from the strange winter weather.

I also have baby squashes and cabbages, lots of lettuce, and a few tomatoes sitting greenly inside their vines.

Today I have a half day for Client #6, and web sites to set up for Clients 4 and 7. I need to make a change of strategy for Client #1, and do a little routine maintenance for Client #3. I currently have no work from Clients 2 and 5, but I would like to do a bit of study on the programs Client #2 wants me to use.

If I think in terms of probability trees, where each event branches off into a little twig of a possible outcome, then at this point there are a lot of possible paths which could lead to my continued successful self-employment.

So far, I have had no further responses to my various job applications, though of course it is not the season for hiring in education, where all those potential jobs live.

However, looking (in my mind's eye) at my probability tree, I think I would be wiser to spend any additional time available in seeking out further clients, rather than peddling my resume around.

Not that I have much additional time available, given that I want to keep up on the Summer Reading Challenge and conduct a normal life.

JewelE19 asked about the arguments for God. John Allen Paulos, in irreligion, deals with twelve. He divides them into "Four Classical Arguments," "Four Subjective Arguments," and "Four Psycho-Mathematical Arguments." The classical arguments include the idea that the universe had to start somewhere, the argument that the universe is so cool that it must have been intentionally designed, the argument that the universe is so absolutely perfect for us humans that it must have been planned for us, and the ontological argument, which holds that we wouldn't have the idea of God if He didn't exist.

I've never been impressed by the ontological argument, though I guess it was pretty big in the 17th century. The Goldilocks argument, that the universe is so perfect for us that it must be intentional, has a logical flaw: it's like hitting billiard balls at random and getting something in a pocket, and then saying, "I meant to do that." You just can't argue from what has happened that there was no other way it could have happened.

As it happens, I am going to be reading about the beginning of the universe with my Sunday School class this morning. Paulos and I are in agreement on a point here: something seriously unusual took place at the formation of the universe. Paulos says something unusual took place, and it needn't have been God. If God is presumed to have been around in the beginning without any prior cause, says Paulos, then the world could also be supposed to have been in existence all by itself without any prior cause in the beginning, and that is true. Some versions of quantum cosmology, he points out, "explicitly rule out a first cause [or] imply that the Big Bang and the birth of universes are recurring phenomena."

Sure thing. There is no more evidence for those cosmologies than for the one that starts, "In the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth." Believing that there is no first cause, or that new infant universes begin as bubbles from the surface of old universes (Paulos doesn't mention that one, but I like it) requires faith, just as believing that God created the world requires faith. Paulos, being a mathematician, can't even claim that he has recently discovered proof of the Trousers of Time in his laboratory; in fact, he remains agnostic. His point is simply that, while the beginning of the universe may be a bit surprising, that doesn't mean that God did it.

I am not arguing with anybody's faith. I would like the evangelical atheists who present this argument to recognize that it isn't an argument against the existence of God. Anyone who is looking for the beginning has to accept that something different from what we can observe is or was going on. There is not, at the moment, sufficient evidence on the subject for anyone to choose one Big Idea over another on the basis of evidence. You can pick God, or multiple universes, or you can conclude that there isn't enough evidence to answer that question.

You really can't claim that people who accept the Big Idea of recurring universes are rational and people who accept the Big Idea of God are superstitious yahoos. Especially if you don't know any more about quantum physics than  Paulos and I do.

I do find the argument that the universe is super cool fairly convincing. Paulos actually dismisses this one by including it int he claim that the universe is so complex that it couldn't have come about without planning -- the famed "blind watchmaker" argument. Paulos points to the existence of economic systems, which he imagines creationists would agree had come into being all by themselves. "These people accept the natural complexity of the market without a qualm," he says, yet find the complexity of living things evidence of a Creator. He's wrong there, by the way. Those people believe that God created economic markets, too. "Creator God, still creating..." you know.

I don't think it is the case that eyes prove God's existence by their compexity. If you are willing to ignore the first causes question, then it is entirely possible for evolution to explain eyes. However, evolution -- and I actually understand the theory of evolution, unlike a lot of people who talk about it [rolls eyes] -- does not sufficiently explain music. Some music, maybe, but not Handel. It also doesn't sufficiently explain the human conscience. I've written about these points in some detail before, so I won't do it again. I'll just give you a statement of faith here. To me, the surprising fact that people are creative and try to be good is explained better by the theory that God is creative and good, and gave us the desire to be these things, than by any of the other theories available.

I am not a mystical kind of person, as you probably know. I don't believe in soy's magical health benefits or government conspiracies or extraterrestrials, or indeed in anything for which I don't have strong evidence. In the case of the first cause of the universe, we do not have the option of choosing the Big Idea with the strongest evidence, because we don't have any evidence for one over another. We all have to go on faith, or be agnostics and refuse to choose any Big Idea.  If a better explanation of Handel and altruism presents itself, I will be glad to hear about it. Until then, I'm going to go with Creator God as my Big Idea.

We are singing in church today the old song that goes, "Over my head, I hear music in the air. There must be a God somewhere." I may be the only person singing it who finds it a cogent argument.

I think I get some of my best ideas while walking.

It was while I was walking that it struck me that I needed to simplify my thoughts on these conversations with Client #6. It is true that most of my reports to clients say things like, "See these excellent results you couldn't have gotten without me" or "Here's some information you did not previously have." When talking with the Chief Technical Officer of a company that has crossed the two million mark in links (yep, Thursday night), I don't have anything like that to say.

But the real message in a report to a client must surely be, "You are not wasting your money." Client #6 is not having me do a link campaign because he doesn't know about SEO, but because he doesn't have time. Nor does he have anyone in his firm who is paid to do that. He's on page 2 of Google for a particular search term that he feels he should be ranking for, and it irritates him. His board kind of feels like a company with two million links shouldn't be paying for a link-building campaign.

So when he called me yesterday while I was on my walk, I jumped right in and told him that I was making three high-quality requests per hour (I didn't do the math for him, but that's what it comes to), and that -- while I wouldn't normally even have checked for results yet -- I had a couple of links visible already, which struck me as a good sign. I know, and he knows, that most people he could have hired would not be achieving that rate on requests (I can read really fast, you see), and also that organic links wouldn't be targeted that well, so he could feel that he is getting his money's worth. He said that what I was doing was great. We wrapped up the conversation quickly, praise be.

It is true that I have signed a two-month contract with his company, but I remembered that he had said we'd try it for a week and see. Yesterday, it seemed to me, was his opportunity to say that I just didn't seem like a real Computer Guy and he was going to take back his contract. He didn't do that.

It was therefore with a sense of calm that I went out after dinner to read. Last year one of the Summer Reading Challenges was to show where we read, so I am showing you where I read last night.

And, since the chair isn't the exciting part of the place where I was reading, I am also showing you the views from that reading spot. Upwards there is a New Dawn rose. Downwards is a nice little forest of melissa and peppermint. Ahead is the vegetable garden, with clover and a good hedge of honeysuckle beyond.

The garden needs weeding pretty badly.

I was reading irreligion by John Allen Paulos. If you were considering reading The God Delusion, you should read this instead, because it is better argued and includes all the same points (except for the completely looney ones, which you won't miss). I am sorry to say, though, that there is absolutely nothing new in this book. I am a long-time fan of Paulos, and I enjoy a good mathematical argument as much as the next woman, but even I have gotten tired of reading this stuff.

I don't quite get why these books are still being published, in fact, if they are all going to say the same things. Perhaps publishers should say, "Well, yes, nice little discussion of coincidence there, but it's already been done eighty-six times, three of those times by you, so why not come up with something new instead?"

And yes, if you throw out the Bible and all personal experience (which Paulos, like Dawkins, does a priori) and try to prove the existence of God mathematically, you may well fail. If you try to disprove the existence of God mathematically, you will also fail, as Paulos concedes. Paulos quickly points out that you can't disprove the existence of anything mathematically, and gets back to criticizing the creationists, which is hardly fair. Creationism isn't an argument for God. And Paulos doesn't include my own favorite arguments for the existence of God, though he references books that include them.

No reason that he should particularly write about the stuff I find convincing (indeed, there is probably every reason for him not to do so). I was sort of expecting him to do something more than, or at least other than, calculations abot the anthromorphic principle, though.

I would like to say that I am not going to be working today, but that would be a lie. I am meeting today with Client #7, and I woke up shortly before 5:00 thinking about that meeting and had to get up and work on it a bit. I would like all my clients who need new websites to let Client #2 design and host for them. However, since I have not yet brought myself to pay for that, I can't exactly argue with them about their preferences for using free site hosting services. It just means that I have to find a good fit, choose the right template, and design it for them. I may do mine as well, and then I can have it redone when I am confident enough of my self-employment to spring for Client #2's fees.

The good thing about excessive work for freelance people, though, is that it is at least possible that I will earn more money because of it.

 However, I intend also to see to my home today and to attend a party and do stuff like that.

Yesterday's client meeting went well. I told her that I wasn't even going to mention my hourly rate, because I knew it wasn't in her budget. I told her that I had people paying me a good rate, but what I didn't have was assured, steady work, and that if she was prepared to make a commitment, I would work with her budget.

There have been several occasions when it has struck me that negotiating with clients has some things in common with courtship. My relationship with Client #2 reminds me, in some ways, of #2 daughter's relationship with her boyfriend. We're good together, and there are occasional hints of future commitment, but quite definitely no engagement. My Dark Art Light clients are casual dating partners, with a certainty of no marriage in the future, though one has said that she wished she could just hire me full time. I basically told Client #4 that I wasn't interested in a fling, and I expected a ring from her. The metaphor breaks down with Client #6, who is calling me again today. I am allowed to work five more hours for him this week (I signed a contract promising not to work more than the specified number of hours), so I hope that I will have a proper report to offer. Or maybe some good, insightful questions to ask him. 

Following my meeting, I did some Dark Art Light, and then had lunch with Janalisa. This was great fun, and had nothing to do with the Sonoma Diet. I had a cooking show last night, so following the lunch I took some time off. I traded in some old books and DVDs for a new book chosen entirely on a whim: French-inspired Jewelry by Kaari Meng.

I should say in my own defense that I looked at the shop's computer and business books with great seriousness before choosing this frivolous book.

I stopped by the bead shop, where everything has prices like 7 cents and 13 cents, so you don't feel extravagant about going there even if you are trying to be very frugal, and bought the things to make these pretty earrings. I went home, did not even turn on my computer, and made them before I packed up for the cooking show. My poor wire skills sure show in this picture, but I like the earrings a lot.

My husband came home while I was making them and manfully resisted the urge to take them away from me and do them right, even though I was using his pliers. "They're pretty," he said. "They look like you."

Don't you think romance between old people is sweet?

Most of today will be spent in plying The Dark Art for Client #6, but I also have stuff to do for Clients #s 4 and 7, so it is going to be a busy day. All my menfolks have the day off, so there will be a lot of asking them to keep it down, and then asking them to be a bit quieter, and then asking them if they would please just go away.

I'm taking the evening off. I am going to cook a nice Sonoma Diet dinner, ignoring the plaintive cries of my menfolks, who can cook for themselves if they don't like it, and then I am going to loll around and read.

My telephone conversation with Client #6 was not entirely reassuring. He says things like, "What's going on?" and then I say things like, "I'm requesting links. That ranges from pitching stories to NPR and Wired.com to directory submissions." And then we have a long silence. Then his phone cuts out.

Then he calls back and asks interview type questions like, "How do you follow up on requests?" or "Do you use bot submissions?" Fortunately, I had answers for these questions. But then there are long silences. His phone cuts out again, so I go outside in case that will help and call him back. He mentions a couple of SEO celebrities, I recognize their names for him, and there are more long silences. He is calling me again on Friday, and I am going to have to come up with something to say.

With my other clients, I can inform them that they now have twice as many links as they had before (over twice as many, in fact, Formerprincess), but with this guy, I would have to say something like, "You did have a mere 1,999,194 links, and now I've requested a further forty-three, and what the heck, pretty soon you'll hit two million."

Janalisa pointed out that the mere fact that the Chief Technical Officer, one of the founders of a company that went online in the prehistory of the internet, is bothering to call me at all must say something. And he did send me an email of notes on linkbuilding from a seminar he attended with a major light in the field -- and I was already doing just about all that it suggested. I found that reassuring. Maybe I should use more SEO jargon. Maybe I should claim to have tight code, although you, who have seen the inaccuracies of my lace, know that I don't.

I then had an IM conversation with Client #2, who was very happy with the materials and how the presentation went. "I've enjoyed working with you on this project," I typed, "and I hope we'll work together more in the future." He didn't respond at all. Of course, that could mean that someone walked into the office or he went to get a cup of coffee, just as easily as that he never wants to work with me again.

So I am getting to feel somewhat insecure, which is of course good for the old humility.

Client #4 is coming to my house this morning so I can show her things about her website. I have no idea what financial arrangement she has in mind, but I am frankly hoping for something steady. "Steady," in fact, is my primary goal right now. Before she arrives, I'll need to come up with a formula of some kind, balancing steadiness with an hourly rate, so that I can determine what degree of steadiness it would take for me to accept what kind of fee.

That is, I'm accepting a fee of $XX per hour from Clients 2 and 6 on the grounds that they are offering me relatively steady work, and will charge one-shot people more, should I ever have any of those. If Client #4 is prepared to offer a set amount per month on  a permanent basis, say, then how much would it have to be for me to offer her the same level of service as Clients 2 and 6? Ideally, I should be able to come up with a percentage. Then I could have my official hourly fee, and apply discounts: so much for an assured number of hours per week, so much for a definite commitment for a number of months, so much for actually putting me on the payroll...

I think it should be a really cool-looking formula, though, not a chart. It should have twiddly bits like accidentals in music, and possibly some parentheses. Then, when someone asks me my rates, I can just show them the equation and offer to plug in their variables.

Having a client come over also means that I have to tidy my house. What level of tidiness would you expect from a Computer Guy? Maybe I should add some pizza delivery boxes.

#2 son is going camping with friends, in celebration of the end of the school year. They are not taking any adults. They are all 16 or 17. I expressed some concern over this as he loaded his grocery cart with meatitude and sweetitude, but he said, "We have cell phones," witheringly, as though new technologies could be expected to change life entirely. Adults are no longer needed, and there are no more dangers, because they have cell phones.

 I'm approaching the day with some trepidation. First, Client #6 is calling me from the West Coast today to "check in." I am not good with the phone; it's on my list of aversions. I've improved with it a lot, but I keep remembering that this guy initially -- when talking with me on the phone -- suggested that we try it for a week and see. True, I have signed a two-month contract, but he could fire me, right?

I also have been chosen as the dealer blogger for an industry journal, in anticipation of my work with Client #4. The "in anticipation" part is the problem. I am meeting with the client tomorrow, to determine what she wants me to do and negotiate the contract and so forth. If we aren't successful with that, then I will be a dealer blogger without a dealer, and that will not be ideal.

Last night's choirlet rehearsal ended with strawberry shortcake (and yes, I ate it, though I turned down the ice cream cake #2 son brought home from work. There is just too much cake in my life) and some wild tales from the Elks Club.

Seriously. Apparently, the local Elks Lodge is a scene of gilded decadence. We heard about the elderly gentleman in his dinner jacket flanked by a pair of ladies in evening dresses, each with a hand on his bottom. And the well-endowed woman who pulled a fan from her cleavage after an evening of hot and heavy dancing. And the barmaids who keep the liquor coming without waiting for people to order. And the gambling den in the back room.

Their lives are way more exciting than mine.

I was somewhat excited about the lentil and brown rice soup from the Sonoma Diet cookbook, though I have to admit that, while it is delicious and satisfying, especially if you are eating in front of the computer as I am not supposed to, it is not as exciting as strawberry shortcake.

I made a large pot of it and froze it in smaller containers, since no one but me is going to eat it. I can have it for lunch, I figure, and make some more when I run out.

Okay. I am going to prepare for my discussions with Clients #s 4 and 6. It is entirely possible that these two will give me steady enough work that I will not have to do much else in the way of searching for clients. If I do things right.

No pressure, eh?

I had a very fun time yesterday plying The Dark Art. It is extra fun to have extra challenges, and the variety of clients is providing that. Getting the sample site up Google in a day and a half -- too fast for the rank checkers to keep track of -- was fun. (We now absolutely own the page, by the way.) Working with Client #6, who operates on a completely different scale from all my previous projects, is also fun. From him I am discovering the assumptions I've been making. So often, you're not aware (or I'm not, at least) of assumptions until they're challenged.

The particular assumptions in question would not, I think, be interesting unless you were also a plyer of The Dark Art, but it's like playing checkers with someone and then they say "No! We're playing chess!" and then a few moves later you notice that it's three-dimensional chess. Since we're in different states, the metaphor works quite well, actually. "I'll just jump a couple of squares." I say, and he wonders if I'm using a pawn or a rook. And thinks I talk funny. However, he did send some very positive feedback, so I am still having fun.

Just think how good I'll be when I've finished this project.

I showed you my workspace the other day, but yesterday I found that it is extremely helpful to have two computers going at once, so you can jump over and do something else while one is analyzing something. This also allows me to gaze out both windows alternately. I show you the view of the old computer from the new one. The stability ball makes a great office chair. What this does for the decor of my living room is not good, but as a Computer Guy I am above these things.

Meanwhile, my tutoring has changed from French to 20th Century American Literature and now on to biological warfare.

I'm helping my student do some research for a project due on Wednesday. We're on a very tight schedule. "This is the question we need to find the answer to," I say sternly, "Let's just look for that answer. Okay, this page is on something completely different, so we need to go back to the search results. See, we're finding completely irrelevant stuff now. We need to refine our query."

"Ooh!" he says. "Look! They threw dung! Gross! How do you think they threw it? With their hands?"

"I don't know, but we already have the Hussites and we need thirteen more items for the timeline," I say repressively. "How about if I search and you write it down?"

"Cool! The bubonic plague made people turn all black!" At this point he begins reading to me all kinds of details on suppurating sores.

"Yes, yes, I know, and all that is very cool, and you can read it later, after I leave. Right now, we need to scroll down -- look, the Russians threw plague victims at the Swedes! How about that one?"

The first instance of biological warfare we've found is the use by early South Americans of amphibian toxins on darts. I knew you'd want to know that.

In addition to work, I also had some success with conducting normal life.

I dressed before I began working. I sat down at the table and ate meals, Sonoma Diet meals in fact, and also got my second attempt at the scarf underway. This more elaborate lace is not only prettier, to my mind, but also more forgiving of my frequent errors. That is, I can fudge stitches here and there, taking in and letting out when necessary to make it look right. I really do like the edging of the Icarus shawl, though. Perhaps, when I get to that point, I will use that edging. This is Leaves and Flowers, with the solid leaves and the occasional lacier flower.

Today I will continue living a normal life. I intend to get to the gym, and to visit Client #3, and I have a rehearsal this evening. I have also just remembered that the Summer Reading Challenge has begun. The original challenge was two books a week and blog about them both, and that was a good size of challenge for me, so I think I'll stick with that. I am currently reading Dark Tort by Diane Mott Davidson, one in a series of light mysteries about a caterer who constantly encounters dead bodies in the course of her work. The most implausible thing about it, to my mind, is that people keep hiring her.

#1 daughter came to church with me yesterday. The junior high agreed to study science and religion for the summer, we had an odd moment when the organist began playing the amen right as the choir began singing the call to prayer, and the pastor spoke passionately about the importance of trusting God to send us in new directions. The work, he said, is up to us, but the outcome is up to God.

Then we had lunch, with a friend of #1 daughter's joining us. He is from Cowboy Land, so he said "ma'am" and "sir" to us a great deal, but did not pull out a six-gun or hogtie the dogs or anything. I remember how foreign students used to be disappointed because they came to the United States and we were just ordinary and never carried guns or anything. It was sort of like that.

We have to remember, though, that #1 daughter works for the District Attorney in Cowboy Land, so it is to be expected that she would have a more exciting set of stories than one denizen of the place could be expected to provide over lunch.

Then #1 daughter took Spicer and returned to Cowboy Land. I did one more page for Client #2, went tutoring (I had forgotten how totally creepy and excellent a story is William Faulkner's "A Rose for Miss Emily," and if you haven't read it for a while, you ought to), and then joined Partygirl for a walk in the park.

Our walk was a lot like a cocktail party, since we stopped to chat with friends every few feet, but we still did a couple of miles. The creek was high from the recent rains and we could hear its rushing all along, and walking over the bridges, enclosed as they are by green trees and vines, was a moist and luscious experience.

Partygirl started the South Beach Diet on Tuesday. I started the Sonoma Diet on the same day, but then allowed poor planning and assorted crises to derail it, not to mention eating pizza and ice cream all weekend, so she has lost five pounds and I have not. I am starting over again. Partygirl thinks she might shift over to the Sonoma Diet as well, though neither of the regimens involves sweet tea, and she has declared that she can't be expected to give up sweet tea no matter what.

And butter. You can't eat biscuits without butter, she said. You can't eat biscuits on those diets, either, but she is the one who has lost pounds, so I am not going to say a word about her biscuits and sweet tea.

I finally got home at 9:00, and watched another disk of Numb3rs and frogged the Icarus scarf, which is too plain a design to hide all my errors, and started the Leaves and Flowers scarf instead.

I am not going to be in crisis mode any more. I got up and dressed and I intend to eat breakfast at the table like a civilized person before I begin working. It is true that I am a bit scared about Client #6, but I have a plan, and I think it is a good plan, and I am not going to work feverish extra hours in response to that fearfulness. I've been hired for 20 hours a week, and I can do that and get in a bit of study on the new computer programs and also see to my remaining clients and still lead a normal life. I didn't have to file with the unemployment office this week, so I am not unemployed, and I don't need to be worrying.

So, yeah, I still don't know what will happen next, but the Unemployment Chronicles have ended.

Do you see my little dragon on the left? You can click over there and get your own amusing stickies. I am easily amused, huh?

I've been thinking for a while now that I needed a new computer for my current and possible future endeavors. A message from Client #6 firmly suggesting a new piece of software persuaded me that I needed a new computer before I start on my  contract with them on Monday. I checked the requirements of all the software that I need to use and added it up, wrote it down, and waltzed bravely into the computer store with #1 daughter at my side.

She laughed at my list. However, I could see that I needed 1700KB just for the software, before I even stored a single thing, and I had a 512K computer, so to me the list was key.

I don't know how people usually shop for computers. The parts are all alike, none of them seem attractive to me (and if there had been one with embossed scrollwork, I would have been all over it, too -- maybe they should consider this), I am completely impervious to coolness in electronics, so really I'm just there looking at numbers and asking about the level of social responsibility of the company.

I needed 2GB of memory and a reasonable size of hard disk, speed, and a word processing program, and I wanted to spend no more than one week's income.

The young man at the first store heard this, and immediately started talking about how they could install it for me at my home so I wouldn't have to bother with all those pesky cables.

The young man at the second store showed me the one I had found online as a starting point, and then showed me another that had 3GB and was a bit faster, for ten dollars more.

Of course, I bought it from him. I asked whether there were any special shelves of cheap, non-cool monitors, but was not successful with that. However, I am sure that I will enjoy my cool monitor now that I have it, even if I really had only wanted to spend $45 on a monitor.

#1 daughter dropped me and the computer off at home, and went to visit friends. I should have torn the box open straightaway and begun playing with my new toy. However, there was an important question to decide first: where to put it.

The kids were in favor of putting it in one of the bedrooms, and I gave this some honest thought. However, I like to work at 4:00 a.m. sometimes, and by 6:00 at all times, so I really don't want someone sleeping in the same room as the computer. I had to reject that notion.

We have a kitchen and a utility room, but I have sometimes had occasion to allow people to look at my work on the computer. How can I give the impression of being a proper Computer Guy if the computer is in the kitchen?

So it will have to go in the living room.

Therefore, the decision was between putting it into the place of the old computer, or leaving the old computer there and giving the new one the former home of the Mac, which belonged to the store and has therefore moved out.

The important question is this: which window would I prefer to gaze out of during the work day?

In the end, I put the new computer in the current workspace and gave the old homestead of the Mac to the family computer.

There were moments, as I plugged the eau-de-nile jack into the eau-de-nile plug or crawled around amidst the wires pulling cables through little holes, that I thought about the salesman who offered to come set it up for me.

But I did set it up, and then spent the afternoon installing all my software and taking out the resident stuff.

Not all of it, of course. Someone might want to play those games till they expire. But I don't want a screen saver with ads, and I don't want Yahoo for my home page, and I really hated the Welcome Center.

So there it is, the new computer. Not very thrilling, is it? They ought to get going on the scrollwork.

Still, it is much faster, and it contains all my needed software, and I look forward to getting to work with it.

I am singing the offertory in the early service at church this morning. The person who was scheduled to do so punked out (the direct quote from her email being, "NONONONO where'd you get that idea?" And the answer is, when she volunteered and I wrote it on the calendar), so I am singing a  song which I haven't practiced and don't particularly like, at an hour when #1 daughter will still be sleeping. Then I meet with my new Sunday School class, the junior high summer class. I am going to propose to them that we study religon and science.

This afternoon, after #1 daughter leaves, I have a page to do for Client #2 and some tutoring. With two computers in my living room, I feel like a Computer Guy. The continual presence of pizza boxes and my continued unfortunate habit of working in my pajamas adds to that feeling. And  I am very happy not to have to file a weekly unemployment claim today. Having dealt with my hardware issues and cleaned out my files, I will take some time this afternoon to figure out strategies for the resumption of normal life. For some value of normal.