First, let me say this. I am currently unemployed.

From November until just about two weeks ago, I had a great job. I was doing associate-level work at a top 15 law firm, a place where I would never be hired permanently in a million jillion years. I worked with a bunch of great people (except for one off-the-charts ridiculously annoying guy), I was forming good relationships with a couple of partners, and I was making substantive contributions to the case.

Then we settled. A win for the client, but the death knell for contract attorneys.

They kept me around as long as they possibly could, and I felt very good about that. In fact, we went through a rather alarmingly convoluted charade in order to send Annoying Guy packing without letting him know that I was actually staying on for another couple of weeks.

But the money from the client ran out, and there's just nothing you can do about things like that, and so I was done.

On my last day, though, a Friday, I got a call from my agency, saying they wanted to send over my resume for a new position at a new firm, paying $2 more an hour than I was making (which would be my highest rate so far), it would include some travel to California, and would last four to six months with a good possibility of going permanent.

Except now it's a week and a half later and I still haven't been in for an interview. I feel like my agency is probably not sending me out for other jobs because they really want me to get this one, but I can't wait around forever for this firm to get its act together and call me in. I mean, my cable could go at any moment.

So last week, on day two of week one of no job, I was sitting on the couch eating fajitas with Michelle and watching "24" (which I have not watched all season, so thank goodness for the lovely pause button on the TiVo because I think I hit it every five minutes to ask her questions about what was going on), my computer started clicking.

As you may have noticed, I was not using the computer at the time. I was eating fajitas and forcing my friend to explain a half-season's worth of biochemical terrorism. I was a good ten, twelve feet away from the computer when it spontaneously started to make noise.

Not generally a good sign. So I went over and shook the mouse, and got a blue screen that said "Unable to write to drive C:/", which was puzzling, as I was not trying to write to drive C, I was not trying to write to anything.

So I did what one always does, I turned everything off, waited a few seconds, and turned it back on. It went into Scan Disk, and in the middle of that, the machine started clicking again, the Scan Disk froze, everything froze. So I did what one always does. I turned it off again, waited a few seconds again, and turned it back on again.

This time, I got the black screen of disaster. It said something like "Unable to locate Hard Drive." Um, what? It's in there, I know it's in there, it was in there not four short hours ago when I did the last thing I would ever do with it, which is print a cover for a Sports Night soundtrack.

Turned it off, turned it back on, still nothing.

Things become a blur at this point. I called Gateway, waited on hold for like twenty minutes, and then talked to a not-very-confidence-inspiring guy named Walter, who told me I'd have to buy 30 minutes of time with a tech for the low low price of $50. Of course, I paid it. I called the number Walter gave me, waited another twenty minutes for a guy named Jeremy, who walked me through a few things on the machine, and then told me I was, essentially, fucked.

Which is how I ended up lying on the floor in front of my computer table, sobbing, at 12:30 in the morning. I didn't know what to do. My stomach was one giant knot, and my mind would not stop racing with everything that was gone, gone, gone.

In the days immediately following the computer disaster, my father and I both made some phone calls and discovered more or less the same information, which is that there is no guarantee that anything can be recovered from my old drive (the clicking was apparently a very bad sign), and if anything can be recovered, it would easily cost a thousand dollars to do it. Since I don't have anything on there that can be considered critical, I am going to pack it up and send it to Elise's husband, who will take a look at it and see what my prospects are.

So, yeah. First I lost my job, then I lost my computer. It was not the greatest week of my life.

But then on Friday I went to Philadelphia to go see ice skating with Melissa, and that was good. Greg had gotten her tickets to Champions on Ice for Christmas and, being the gentleman that he is, told her it would be perfectly okay with him if she wanted to take someone else. (For that, and for going to pick up the greatest pizza in the world instead of making us wait to have it delivered, he was deemed a prince among men.)

It was a beautiful day on Saturday, the sun was shining, it was warm and spring-like, and we strolled into the arena with a good half-hour to spare, plenty of time to get snacks and look at massively overpriced merchandise. Once inside, however, we realized that we were perhaps the two dumbest people on the planet, and certainly the two dumbest people in the entire arena.

Why? Because we didn't bring coats. We were at an ice show, for crying out loud, and we didn't bring coats. All the other people had coats. Some had hats, gloves, blankets, and there we stood, no coats, no hats, no outerwear of any kind.

Needless to say, we froze. I had a hot dog and coffee, even though that could be the most disgusting food combination in the world. During the second half, we huddled our hot chocolates to our chests and tried not to hate everyone else who was smart enough not to be fooled by the mild outdoor temperatures into thinking that they would not need coats at a show that involves a giant sheet of ice.

On the plus side, Phillipe Candeloro took off his shirt. Nothing wrong with that.

On Sunday, I went home and spent some time with my parents. It was Easter, we ate ham, I tried to go buy a new hard drive but fortunately decided to check the Sunday circulars for Best Buy and Circuit City and discovered that you cannot buy a hard drive on a day of resurrection. So I watched the Masters golf tournament with my parents, and even though most people would rather stick pencils in their eyes than watch golf, it was an exciting finish. Then we watched Easter Parade, which I had never seen before and despite being something of an American classic was also rather silly.

I came home on Monday and bought a hard drive and, I will have you know, installed it, all by myself. Fortunately I had hung on to all the crap you get with a new computer, so I had the system restoration discs I needed to format the new drive. I then started e-mailing people regarding software I actually paid for to see if I could get it again, re-installed the software for my camera and my mp3 player and my Clie, and am now trying to pretend that everything is back to normal.

Which of course it is not.

no photoshop. no pictures.