I’m spreading myself a little thin. I’ve been working like a bitch for this Johnson, spending 12 hours a day data mining and hacking corporate data files, as well as the teaching thing on the side… skipping things like sleep, the gym, breathing… stuff like that. I figure that I’ll have time for that when this project is over, right? But, like always, the project just gets bigger and more encompassing and the fragging Johnson wants more and more. Today I slotted my cred stick and find he’s shafted me. Paid me less than he agreed to. He knows I can’t do anything about it. I’m stuck on the lower levels of the Sprawl, an inch ahead of the bill collector, so I have to bend over and take it. Well, I’m not a spiteful person… proud, defiant, bullheaded, but not spiteful. So, I’ll finish my commitment to the prick and move on. Time to consider a big move, maybe I should sell out and become a shill for the mega-global corps — although I don’t think I could handle being a corporate wanker… some Dilbert in a cube. The teaching gives me some freedom, but only as side income. As a novelty. I did start up my book again. I’m up to chapter seventeen. Maybe I need to break free and become an author. If I did well there, a book or two a year would let me live where I want, teach, travel… that’s a pipedream. I better just get back to that work I was doing. Work hard, drink, die. I think if I didn’t get the shaft once or twice a year, I’d miss it.