Donnatella Moss is in the business of making people happy. She works hard at it, and counts random acts of helpfulness like other people count sheep. There's no doubt she's good, and it's no wonder, really, since she's been working at it her entire life.

She can't remember when she started, when she discovered her uncanny talent for making smiles and laughs and thank yous appear out of thin air. She can remember making her mother laugh with a song or a flower. She remembers spending hours every weekend helping her father build things, or her sisters do homework. She remembers years of staying after school to help clean up after messy art projects, and countless trips up and down the highway with her 4-H club, picking up trash. She also remembers two years of working hard to put an ungrateful bastard through med school, but she tries not to think about that.

She likes being the helpful, cheerful one. She likes making people happy, because it makes her feel important and useful. Something's wrong, somebody's in trouble‹call Donna. She likes having a purpose, a mission, if you will. Standing here in the half-light of streetlights and traffic, she wonders when other people's happiness became more important than her own. For the past twenty-some years, she¹s worked body and soul to make other people happy, and where has it gotten her?

The West Wing is the ultimate place to be useful, but things have gone downhill lately. It's hard to fix things when you're dealing with terminal illness, omission of what some might consider crucial information, and reelection, all in one fell swoop. Strike one. As for her personal life, her parents are unhappy with her current setup‹she's working for a man they voted against, after all. And friends and boyfriends? See above. A girl doesn't have time for friends, much less to make them happy, when she's working 16 hour days. Strike two. And she certainly isn't happy. There you go, ladies and gentleman, Ms. Moss has struck out.

What with the whole making other people happy thing failing, maybe it¹s time she ditched that plan and created a new strategy, one involving more happiness all round‹but especially for her. If other people can't be happy, maybe she can. She just needs to stop waiting for other people to make her happy, and go find some happiness for herself. Yes, that¹s the idea. Pre-Halloween Resolution No. 1: Make Donna Happy. She'd better hurry back to the office, though. Josh will be yelling for her by now, and the Make Donna Happy plan will be harder to carry out if Josh is mad. The madder Josh is, the more difficult her life becomes. And the last thing she needs right now is Josh meddling in her life.

Because tomorrow, she's going to call Cliff and ask if they can ignore Congressional enquiries long enough to have another drink together. She might even explain to him about happiness.