Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2003 | 9:50 AM

Yesterday was a strange day. It started off badly and ended very well although nothing of note actually happened.

I�ve been working at least sixty hours per week for the past however many weeks and yet I am always flat broke because I am paying off debt and saving to move and because Harvard still insists on taking my rent out of my paycheck even though I have paid well beyond what I actually will owe for living there (they will refund me the money in mid September�fat lot of good that does me now.)

Anyway, I was at my second job when suddenly this wave of anger and incredulity washed over me. I started to feel really resentful. I was tired and broke and so many bad things have happened in the past and blah blah blah. I got so violently upset sitting there that I had to restrain myself from getting up and tossing a chair across the room.

And then for some odd reason, I thought about my Godfather, who saw his entire family shot in the holocaust and who worked his way through college and law school�a real self made man. He was such a dear sweet kind humble man and I suddenly felt really ashamed�like ashamed in that way you are when you�re a kid and you know you�ve done something that�s really going to upset your mom.

Because I am a spoiled brat and I have no right to complain. My life is filled to the brim with good things and blessings and I am only experiencing some discomfort now as opposed to real trauma.

So then I started thinking about all the good things I have in my life and all the possibilities for the future.

This upcoming year is going to be really really weird. I can sense how weird it�s going to be�which doesn�t necessarily mean bad at all. In fact I think it�s going to be significant, but I have this acute feeling that a bunch of curve balls are going to come my way.

I�ve been thinking a lot about my relationship with Angus, which is so ambiguous. It exists in the netherstrata of relationships where there are no rules and there is so much yet to be discovered. There is no real term for what we are. It�s a love affair and it�s a deep friendship and it�s all sorts of things, but one thing it�s not is exclusive. I have to realize that it is highly likely that he may start dating someone exclusively while I�m living with him, and if he does, I need to learn how to deal with that. Our friendship is so important to me�I don�t want anything to fuck it up and I don�t want anymore time wasted on being jealous or blindsided. I have made so many mistakes in the past and I have been hurt so badly and hurt others and I don�t want that to happen ever again. It took me a long time to realize just exactly how much I love Angus. And now that I have I want to protect that. There is probably no one in the world whose love and friendship I trust more, whom I can actually be myself around, and who takes me for the person I am and really and truly loves me. Yes, we�ve had problems�major problems. And I don�t by any means think we are out of the woods. We�re walking into dangerous territory.

I think I just have to maintain my focus on my own goals and aspirations and make sure that life doesn�t revolve around that relationship. I have to make sure that I spend lots of time with other people and lots of time doing my own thing. I have to make sure that I don�t let my own sense of self worth rise and set with what he�s doing. This is a BIG challenge for me and I�m really terrified. When I think of what a RELATIONSHIP is, I think of this terrible destructive machine that annihilates and ruins everything in its path. I know that sounds terrible, but that�s what intimacy means to me. It means the opportunity for being destroyed and betrayed and derailed. This is a bad way to think. It�s not how I want to view the world.

How do you change your worldview? It seems like you have to have a different kind of experience in order to see things differently. True, there was Ivy. And I will forever be thankful for that. I did and do adore her, but it wasn�t a long-term intimate encounter.

I have this terrible feeling that I am never going to be able to trust enough to really be with someone else. And I�m afraid I�m not going to be able to trust myself. There were so many years where I really didn�t like who I was at all. I mean, every hole and insecurity was consistently on display, all of my shadow side exposed, all of my weaknesses and ugliness, and finally rto the point where there was nothing left but that. It was such darkness. After being alone and making up my own life as I go along, I rediscovered so many good things about who I am. I don�t want to lose that. Not to anyone.

Maybe I should become a nun.