So, to catch up... I went back to work after taking almost nine months off. If my new coworkers find me distant, it's because I am making a mental note to look up the combination of prescription drugs Heath Ledger used when I get home.

I think I'm clinically depressed about working again.

I was late my first day and I showed up with my hair uncombed, nevermind unwashed. WhoTF is late for their first day of work? I have a seven minute commute and I was seven minutes late. That means my orientation had already started before I left my apartment. I'm so depressed. I'm actually going to use my work-provided health insurance to pay for the therapy I need because I'm working again.

The platinum lining with renting my soul to The Man is that I can now numb my existential pain at Macy's and shit. This weekend I bought Gourmet magazine. It had a tear-out card with New Orleans recipes. I spontaneously threw together the barbequed shrimp (and I will never be a good Southern cook because I couldn't force myself to throw in the whole stick of butter per person the recipe called for) and it was tasty. I didn't have all the spices, but I went out and bought them the next day. I also bought smoothing crap for my hair, a haircut, carmel highlights, lounging pants that I want to be living in like those halycon days when I wasn't working, tank tops I can wear without a bra and not look tacky, a huge pomegranite-scented candle and some travel-sized Colgates so I can brush my teeth at my Godforsaken job.

Oh, and last week I bought memoirs. Eat Pray Love, Julie & Julia and Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs, which I started with. Is it true that, as he says, the Sims cry and face the wall in despondence if you don't buy them shit? At one time I would have thought that was pathetic, but sadly now I can relate.

Maybe next weekend while I numb myself with plastic I'll throw in a copy of the game.