10:49 p.m. This picture is a psychological test. If you had to be one of these two people, who would you want to be? The interviewer or the interviewee?

I've been both. But if I'm not holding the microphone or the pencil or the tape recorder, I feel underdressed. I like walking around with a camera. Name tags and press passes make me all warm and gushy inside.

I believe I was born to run down the center of the street yelling the news to the world. If a story is happening around me or near me, I get all tingly and tense until I can "report" it.

I use the dismissive quote marks around the word report because up until a few months ago I was a reporter without portfolio, an interviewer without my microphone plugged in. But no longer. Now that I have my very own web page, I can tell you the story, the real lowdown, sort of.

Take today, for instance. Here, in the isolated and balkanized world of the online journal, rumors are bubbling about who's on the much-coveted Diarist.net Awards list. Third-quarter nominations. Knowledge is power. Information is king.

It seems that the email went out on Thursday and those who should know have been notified and the rest of us will just have to wait until November 4th, which is Thursday, to find out who's hot and who's not. Who's wired and who's tired. Who's wheat and who's chaff. You get the picture, right?

Well, piecing together the nominee list before it's officially announced is where all the real fun is for someone like me. Suffice it to say that I realize I am performing compensatory behavior. I also realize that no matter how much I wish it were so, there's absolutely nothing, nothing wrong with my email system.

It works. I've tried it. I emailed myself and it arrived just fine. So I sort of have to accept the fact that a particular bit of happy email did not get lost in the airwaves. And I sort of feel bad about it, I do; I admit it. But I have ways of coping.

For example, I vacuumed up a storm today. All the rooms, all the rugs, all the corners and edges. I did the laundry and changed the sheets, cleaned the kitchen; you know the drill. The whole time I'm thinking, thinking, thinking. After a while my mind drifts and by the time I unplug the extension cord and put away the machine, I have had a little mental vacation.

I know these things don't really matter in the greater scheme of things, but in the lesser scheme, which is where I work and live, they matter mightily. I know all about how important the actual work is, rather than the recognition of same. I do. Really.

But I once wrote, a very long time ago -- maybe in a yearbook quote -- that I thought the most musical word in the English language is "Congratulations." I still think that. I always will. Even if I say it, rather than hear it.

And I know that some days you get the award and some days you get to give it. Some days you win and some days you jam a soup spoon into the Hagan Daz.

But I always, always look on the bright side. My house is clean, again. It's probably going to get a whole lot cleaner before this week is finished. And I can always interview the winners. Learn the secrets to their success.

As soon as I find out who they are.