:: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 ::

11:31 p.m. Oh, but I do love the internet. It's a playground and a workplace and, if other people's stories are accurate, it's even a place to make money. It's true that lately the onerous specter of Big Bucks has been overshadowing the gentle domain of Big Dreams, but I have a feeling the dream will outlast the drama and the genii, now unleashed, will not be crawling back into her bottle so fast.

The idea of money grows like kudzu, however. This latest round of fast-buck passing was particularly virulent and although not a single not-even-copper penny came my way from it, I had great hope that one day I would open my front door and there, on the mat, would be that great big green pile of happy spending money.

It really seemed as if the money Claus was stopping off at all the other houses on the block; I was putting in the long midnight hours ... I had my wrists iced and taped ... I let everything else (including this journal) slide while I worked and worked and worked some more ... and yet each morning ... no money.

Plenty of meetings. No money. Lawyers involved. No money. Parties, lunches, even a go-round with that famous Nigerian scam ... but ... no money.

And I had big plans for it, too. A whole new computer system, for starters. Rugs, of course. A new roof that didn't leak. Oh, what fun it would have been, but it was not to be. And now, of course, I am paying the price.

It's just as well. It always is -- just as well.

I think a lesson I might learn from all of this is that I really should complain more.

I'll let the horror of that sink in, and just move on.