I just read that Julia appears to be pregnant with twins. I am holding my breath with anxiety: Twice as many things that can go wrong. Twice as many miscarriages that might happen. Twice as many babies might die.

I keep reading her because her writing is so lovely. She is like a wonderful secret that the publishing world hasn't discovered yet, my very own Lorrie Moore.

And yet, she makes me anxious. I want to drive to Minnesota and slap her. I am so glad that she is pregnant, but if she loses them and if she does this again, I will do it. I will drive up there and slap her.

I said that last time too. And the time before that.

But twins.

I just found a rather large sliver of wood on the floor right next to my foot. As I bent over to pick it up and place it on the coffee table, I was briefly tempted to jam it into my foot, hard, so I wouldn't have to go running today.

We were walking home from the Kum & Go tonight and I was smoking a cigarette. But I started to feel breathless, so even though I hadn't smoked very much of it, I tossed it into the street, and shifted our bag of chips, dingdongs, candy bar into my other hand. If he noticed that I had tossed my cigarette away, he didn't remark on it. I looked at the puddles on the street, leftover from many rains today, and wondered what would have happened if one of them had been gasoline instead when I flicked the butt away.

I can't sleep tonight. Again. Probably because I had to lie down at 5, so very tired. We had sex and I came for a very long time, and I felt like I could have cum for an hour. But I thought he probably wanted to get to sleep at some point.

I have a phone interview with a recruiter tomorrow morning. That was pretty stupid. I don't want the job. I am not planning to relocate. But I couldn't let the ego stroke pass me by. Or something.

Tonight, lying in bed, I was feeling restless, bored. I want to be noticed, I want to be famous or loved or just seen somehow. I want someone to feel some curiosity about me. I know the best way to get this is just to live my life and have it be as full as it can be: at the point that I no longer care whether or not I am seen, I will be seen.

I worried and fretted in my bed earlier that I am not fully present in my life. I am half-way into the computer world all the time, at every moment. I can't stay offline, always moving from site to site, checking, checking, seeing, seeing. I don't do anything anymore. I don't eat out of my fridge. I don't feed the cats. I don't cook dinner. I don't fold the laundry. I hire someone to clean. I am no longer fully engaged in my physical world. I have managed to eliminate the need to do anything but hold the laptop and type.

There is something seriously wrong with this. I need to unplug more. I must. I must get out to the studio and use the paints. Think about things that I can do with the children so they will learn to do more than just look at computer screens. This is a sickness. I need to fully engage, do the laundry, vacuum.

This morning, I cooked eggs for the children and made hot chocolate and last night, we all went to baseball. I ran four miles. Today, we walked to the gas station at midnight. We made love. I started a book. It isn't as bad as I'm making it out to be. But it certainly could be better.

Jen Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Now, I live here.