Of all the plexiglass panels in the office of Company X, there is one facing the front door that bears a frosty etching of our esteemed logo. I had wondered about the factory that made these special panels and about the box somewhere that must be full of them. I had thought that here was the scant remnant of proud architectural identity: a mere panel of etched glass, but a little stamp of authenticity nontheless. Today as I was faxing a stubborn invoice to Bermuda, I glanced up at this thing and noticed that IT IS A STICKER. One more reminder, darlings, that in the world of finance especially, nothing is real. As if we needed to be reminded of that.

In other news, great changes have been afoot. In the space of a couple of days, I landed a cute apartment and an even cuter job. The opera has also been in the ON position, absorbing every drop of evening I've had for the past couple of weeks, so I am predictably overcaffeinated and ready for sleep at all times. It's fun though. The tenor has to sing one of his arias in a bubble bath, and Ashley, Angela and I get to dress up as old west bordello girls and scrub his back and feed him whiskey and sympathy. We don't have to sing, which is good because of the corsets (eighteen inches, Mammy!). Anyway, one of my favorite parts of hanging out in the theater is passing through the corps de ballet locker room. The ribbons of their shoes slither out of the bottoms of all the lockers and there lingers the faint scent of cigarettes. They post unabashedly self-affirming notes and photographs of handsome male athletes. (The techies post witty things of the shocking/European variety and the orchestra folks tack up cartoons from The New Yorker.)