sleep, and lack thereof.

Last night was not a good night. Sore throat, of the evil kind that sort of sneaks up on you and kicks your ass. I had difficulty breathing, couldn't get to sleep and stay asleep, was always thirsty, and waking up to run to the restroom every fifteen to thirty minutes. My throat was dry, dry, dry. Water didn't help. At one point I raced, almost crying, into the kitchen for a glass of orange juice, which helped temporarily.

Work sucked. I was in severe pain from my throat and some sore spot on the side of my tongue, perfect for ramming into my teeth while talking. Did I mention that I'm market research? Telephone surveys?

Fortunately for me, work let out an hour and a half early. It sometimes does at this season, which is not the busy season. Still, I am to expect ten to fifteen hours of pure pained work hell in my future.

There is a rather clueless female type at work who has somehow gotten the idea that my name is Diane. This is the same clueless female type who is apparently trying to get a clue, but will not let go of her preconceived notions -- even though she knows nothing on the subject, the few ideas she does have, gods help us all, are absolutely technically correct... She's been corrected that my name is not, in fact, Diane, a good four times....

Came home and almost immediately crashed. Got finished reading The Soulforge and Brothers in Arms, some semirecent Dragonlance (Weis, Weis & ususal writing companion). Decent books. I will have to point them in Darkside's direction, and make pointed inquries after my poor Illuminatus! trilogy, which currently lurks within the terror that is his room.

Still in pain. Hopefully better by Monday.

For Memory's Sake -- a 2001 Sept 29 e-mail concerning Darkside

> > Darth Gets Lectured Every Morning On Dragon
> > Ball Z by 22-Year-Old Best Friend
>
> I'm sorry, but...you're going to have to kill him,
> her, or it. There's no cure.

Him, and too cute (martial arts body, hair that belongs long) to be killed. The temporary measure I've come up with is allowing him to surf the web all he wants and look for Dragon Ball Z pictures, while I am distracted by how very decorative he is, and then *out* of the computer lab, distracting him by arm-wrestling with him. I am attempting to finagle a date to see LotR when it comes out, and ditto with Star Wars. It's slow going, though, given that this is one of the guys out there who really needs to be hit with a *big* stick. He's the one who wears his work uniform to school three days a week, and wears his Darth Vader shirt one of the other days. On the fifth day, he typically wears black jeans and a black dress shirt, and looks ever so yummy.... those days I have to put a muzzle on my inner Malkavian...

This one's nice, and he doesn't give me that nagging subconscious feeling that someday he's going to hurt me while I'm sleeping, unlike my former fiance, he of the evil mother. My best friend and I have lightsaber duels in the courtyard at school, and the parking lot at my apartment complex, because there's nowhere else to have them... and we have breakfast together at school sometimes a good four hours before either of us has to be in class....

We shall see if I can seduce him to the dark side or not. I may be too late to do much seducing, though -- he's already chosen "Darkside" as a nickname...

On a slight tangent, what do you get when you pour M&M's and Skittles into the same bowl?

JL, Darth Edita (Darth Spent The Better Part of Friday Morning Looking Up All the Words That Began With "In" With Darkside)

Cut & Paste Fun

How sexy is your name?
According to studies, the first letter of your first name reveals your sexual identity ... What do you think?
( Pointless, and of interest only to quiz junkies, the hardcore variety. )

Bad Part of Town

Before I babble about the first part of my afternoon/evening shopping excursion, I have to babble about the last bit.

After getting home, I decided to go out and snag some more interview/ Real Job clothes at Wally's. I took the bus down 19th ave, and wound up getting off at Glendale, where I thought was the right corner.

Turns out that I was wrong.

Anyone who's been to Phoenix and knows the area semi-well probably ought to know that the corner of 19th Ave & Glendale at approximately 7:45 pm is really not somewhere that a delicate female person such as the Lunatic really ought to be, especially not when joined by a two-days ex-con Christian proffering Bibles.

Eventually, I got up and walked over to the bus stop for returning home, figuring that I'd missed my window of time for going shopping, since this is a Sunday and the buses stop running early. Good thing I did so, because I think I caught the second to last bus coming my way. I would not have liked to walk home from 19th Ave & Glendale at this hour of night.

Can anybody say that the Lunatic's not going further than half a block from home late at night without an escort? I knew we could!

Shopping

By the time I finally got myself motivated and moving today, it was about 3 pm. I went to Sam's Club to get some shopping done -- marinated mushrooms, some other random junk, and Interview Clothes. Summer's here, the Loony's lost some weight (whee!) and I wound up with a sleeveless crinkle-dress in black & white floral design, a white shirt that doesn't fucking fit!! and a black stretch tanktop. I will be returning for more crinkledresses (the style, according to the shelf, was "broomstick dresses", which was very amusing...) and more black stretch tanktops. I got the seal of approval from Adam, and two thumbs up on the tanktop from Marx, which was cool. We'll see what Darkside thinks.

Next order of business: some bras! and skirts! and good pants! and jeans!

Alone.

Discovered something very important about myself today.

I fear being left out by my friends.

One of those deep down deadly childhood things you can't do much about. Never had many friends, and I was always the one who rarely got to participate in the friendship things that kids in the US do, from the '80's to the mid-'90's. Any party or sleepover had to be planned what felt like a month in advance with my mother. I didn't go to movies or anything.

I'm sure that had I asked, had I made it known that doing these "normal" things were important to me, that I would have been allowed to participate in them, subject to intensive scrutiny of the people and places and events by my parents. But I never got up the nerve to. And eventually people stopped asking me, because I never wanted to.

But I wanted to.

These days, I'm sure there are things going on. People are having parties, going and seeing movies, hanging out with friends... and I can't go. I have school. I have work. I have responsibilities at home. I have no money. I can't go.

Nobody else seems to let this sort of thing stop them. Adam goes out with friends all the time. Neighbor does. Even Darkside has enough of a social life to make me envious at times.

...But... I've got an apartment. We have a LAN. There are no hard and fast bedrime rules for anyone but Nephew.

So why come the only people who come and visit on a regular basis are the Viking, occasionally Neighbor, marxdarx, R, and Adam's friends?

I fear being alone. I fear being excluded. I don't mind leaving myself out of things by my own choice... but I always want that option.