Gidget, it turns out, is gallstone-free. The ulcer is still a viable possibility. She's giving her stomach a bland diet, and hoping for the best while she works to get her latest two projects underway.

One of our clients, hereinafter referred to as the "Woofmen" because I'm obnoxious that way, is starting up a second arm next month. Services similar to what they already do, but different enough to justify a stand-alone business model. Once they roll out, that's the third client leg (lots of body parts today) we've been wanting!

The other client, hereinafter referred to as "Senior Central" because invention is failing me at the moment, wants to branch out into "social networking" in a big way and, later this year, is going to pay Gidget to manage their overall "social network" presence.* * (I, of course, will be doing the actual work. I'm not sure Gidget would know a social network if one invited her over for tea.)

Fingers crossed for these two projects, folks! They're the last building blocks needed in The Gidget Co.'s "we just want to pay our bills and fire our crazy bosses" concept. Between these two and the "increase in the cost of services rendered" notice Gidget delivered to Woofmen last week, we are this close to our goal!

Yesterday I lunched with Gidget and Vela. I shared what little 'Nut gossip I've gathered, Vela dissed her crazy new company, and Gidget bemoaned the incestuous tangle of business relationships and politics (turns out that a VP of Senior Central runs a PR agency on the side and this agency handles the PR for Woofmen) that's currently causing stop-and-go traffic jams on her road to financial independence. No matter where you work, there will always be Issues.

Today's lunch indulgence was a mélange* of smoked turkey, 1/2 slice of cheese, dill pickle slices, and brown mustard. Without precisely being back on a diet, I'm making an attempt to cut down on the fat and increase the nutrition in my diet. Should I find myself in danger of starving to death in a couple of hours, I have six crackers I can eat to keep body and soul together until dinner time.

No, not my most scintillating post. My head is broken. Even if you're borderline obsessive-compulsive, I maintain that there are times when your brain just can't deal with any more bits of stuff, and this is one of my times. If I have to spend one more minute trying to figure out how to raise some statistic from 0.99% to 1.01%, I may run mad.* * * (This, yes, is why you're getting two blog posts from me this week.)

Boring story short--there's a pair of Eastern 'Nuts we'll call Tom & Jerry. Tom & Jerry were part of one of the shared marketing cooperatives with another 'Nut until they decided it was a conspiracy to steal all of their leads. Two weeks ago they asked for info on their new campaign's performance, I sent data showing that it was improving every week, and they requested a conference call for a more in-depth discussion. Today, an hour of my life I'll never get back again, boiled down to, "it looks good."

Why, I ask (in vain), why do people feel that wasting the precious hours of my life by forcing me to read them simple lines of text is okay?

I provide ten lines of data. For each line, I include the analysis, "This is from X. This number is up. Up is good." Or, "This number is down. Down is good."

How can they have the nerve to call me up and say, "What does it mean that this number is up? Is that good?"

I hate people.

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* It might not be. But it's a good word.

* * Don't even get me started. "Success" at social networking has to be achieved before you try to make a buck with it. Unless you have the world's sexiest new teenager product. Why can I not get anyone to understand these things?

* * * I mean, I know how. But it involves running two reports and breaking the resultant data down into four groups, each of which has about fifteen subgroups and then you check the numbers individually and in context with each other to decide which bit of what to change and I just can't face doing that one more time this week.