9:18 p.m. Yeah, well. I don't know what exactly is wrong -- or why I feel so ... what? Sad? Happy-sad? Off-balance? Discontented? Jumpy?

I'm female. I have my excuses. Still, I don't feel as if I'm in the right place or doing the right thing ... no matter what I do. And today I've done all the usual things. I did not rob a bank or make a baby cry, and yet ... I don't feel right.

It could be that I should go on a nice diet. I think it's time. It always changes my thought process. There might be too much gunk in my brain nodes ... that's probably it. Or maybe I'm finally feeling that inevitable backlash of guilt now that the holidays are over.

I didn't do enough.

And I'm very, very fussy. People call and then get right off the phone. Birds scatter at my approach. I'm almost feeling negative. This close. Don't ask my opinion. I'm about to rip a room apart and rearrange things, or worse.

I don't know. I don't know.

I think I'm still in shock at how old so many people looked as they played their pricey venues on New Year's eve. Elton John and Liz Taylor, with the same collapsing faces under reddish wig hair. A lot of band members looking as though they've been in a deep freeze since their last hit; their outfits and attitudes nothing but unchanged replicas of the way they were.

Old Chili Peppers. Old Foreigners. Old Bee Gees. Old Rod Stewart on South Park. Old George Harrison, or was it Ringo -- fending off a knife attack. Bette out of breath. Barbra's upper arms ... not the way they were.

And then there are the ones who are fending off the intrusion of age with their own knife attacks, most notably Linda Tripp, who now looks exactly like a man. A more attractive man, but ... a man. So much work on her face and body, and yet the ugliest thing about her used to be the curled-lip snarl she had when she spoke. Was that fixed? Can you suck out all that venom?

And do you realize that now we don't have to worry any more about dying in any year that begins with a "19"? And yes, I've got it in my mind that I'd like to be here for the 2100s, just for the heck of it. Actually, I'd like to be here for the 3000s, but I realize that's asking a lot. Don't smirk. There's always plastic and titanium. Look what they did with Linda.

Ok. I'm not a very nice person. I'm getting on my own nerves. These are the very days and the very entries that give a daily writer a really bad rep. But, as Ri said in her New Year's entry -- I've punched the clock. I can go now.

I'm going to do something (animal, vegetable, and/or mineral) to change my mood, I promise you that. A decent human being will greet you tomorrow.