diodon

On Halloween, a group of zombies held a protest for "Dead Rights" outside of the Chamblee CDC complex.

I packed up my office at work today. It was such wonderful and awful day - evaluating my time here by going through the only thing I have to show for it all – a big freaking stack of paper. Trying to decide what I need to throw out and what I should keep. It felt like throwing away parts of my brain – the only record I have that I ever knew any of this stuff.

I haven’t been through a big life transition in so long. They used to come rather rapidly for me – I never had a job for more than two years. I’ve been here for 6 years now, and the rut has gotten overwhelmingly fatiguing. I feel that my job has affected all parts of my life. I blame becoming so introverted on being locked in a room all by myself for 8 hours a day. I blame my diminishing interest in most everything I used to be interested in on the futility of every effort I’ve ever made to do a good job here. I know first hand what is meant by “working for the government sucks out your soul.” I know it is the right thing to do - to leave, but I’m fighting thoughts like, “You idiot. You make an amazing salary in a secure job. The economy is crap, people are struggling, and you are quitting to make basically nothing.” I feel like I’m just getting too old to take risks like this. But it’s when you stop living that you die, right? I really hope they give me my soul back when I turn in my badge.

I have a ticket (code) to Transformus that I'm not going to use. If anyone wants it, please let me know.

I'm going to the University of North Carolina next fall to get my PhD in Medical Anthropology! That's all. Yay!!!!!

A friend of mine asked me today to pray for a friend of his that died. I dodged the request, but have been dwelling on it for hours.

When someone asks me to pray, I usually just agree and meditate on positive outcomes for the person. But if you don't believe in a "soul", you can't really meditate on "good outcomes" for a person who has died. And I can't have that "moment of silence," because I didn't know the person and don't have anything to remember about him.

If a person asks you to pray for something and you like the person and generally wish good things for them, should you just lie and agree to pray so as not to cause undue upset in a hard moment like that? Or should you explain to them why you can’t pray? Or should you try really hard to find some alternatively that would equal a prayer? Or just be a chicken and dodge the question like I did.

I got nudged and saw I haven't posted for 69 weeks...after all that time I feel like my first post should be something monumental. Since that can't happen, I offer this:

Today, I worked hard. I have to be the technical monitor for a contractor who does stuff I’ve never done. So I have to sit with one person while they spell out all the things she did wrong and how she needs to correct them. After I'm pretty sure it all makes a little sense to me, I then have to go to the contractor and explain to her everything that has been explained to me. The contractor then asks all kinds of questions trying to clarify what it is they think she has done wrong and then gives all these explanations for why she really doesn’t think it is wrong. Then I have to take all her questions and explanations back to the original person for clarification. Once clarified, all this has to be re-explained to the contractor. I’ve done this all day – back and forth, back and forth. I feel like I'm on the phone relaying a message between two people trying to plan something. Why not just put them on the phone together? Apparently in my situation it is because they don’t like each other. So I get to be put in the middle of it. So much of what I do everyday for 8 hours a day just makes no damn sense whatsoever.

What should I record for history today?
I have a nice job with no one ever showing up on Friday? I'm good at it. People like me. Should I leave it for some stupid "dream job"?

If you don't have pets, you are very lucky. Poo is no fun to clean up from your bedroom at 1:30 in the morning.

I found the greatest book - "Refuse to Choose." It says that I'm a scanner and validates me for being a scatterbrained, indecisive, disloyal, uncommited flake.

I get to go to New York this weekend. Maybe I'll get to go to city, maybe not. Road trips are fun.

I've built alot of furniture in the last few days. The Ikea kind.

Blue pills give me arrythmias. Dammit.

I can't stop clearing my throat. It reminds me of being little and counting the sniffs of the woman sitting behind me in church. I remember counting over 500 sniffs.

I've learned something about myself. I'm definitely one of those ideas people. I love coming up with new ways to do them, but dammit, then they want me to actually do it. I'm a scanner! Won't happen.

I am declaring myself narcolepsy free! I was just told a story by a woman at work about how she went out last night to a gay two stepping club and stayed until 2 and had the greatest time. http://www.hoedownsatlanta.com/ And I'm realizing now how much of a value I put on sleep. It makes me miss out on so much life. I would never go out on a work-night! What a scandal! I'm always scared to death that I'll be tired, so I just do nothing. I plan my life around whether or not I'll be able to sleep when I want to. What if I get stuck somewhere that I can't sleep? Panic! Well, then, I'd better not go!

Okay, an exercise from one of my beloved self-help books:
If I weren't afraid, I'd:
Stop sleeping so much
Do something fun after work
Actually use the money I'm always saving for a vacation on a vacation!
Call my friends more often
Get off the rest of my meds
Go to the grocery store alone (I don't think that's fear, just laziness, kay, nevermind)
Just do more stuff in general alone. Again, this is one part fear, one part laziness. I'm losing my adventurousness as I get older. I'm just becoming so apathetic about it all. I used to be very carpe diem. Youth is being wasted on me. Can I blame this on narcolepsy too?
Have a baby? Decide once and for all that I'm not having a baby?

Okay, I'm bored with that.

Happy Birthday Puck.

I daresay that work has slowed down a bit, so I decided to post! This weekend was quite good (yes, Kitty - we got home okay, with only one small tragedy - Puck's pot got stuck in my pot!) I'm really enjoying getting to know the Pagan holidays and how they can help order your life. So Imbolc is about planning, I gather. And so I'm magically painting my terra cotta pot and then planting it with red chili peppers (after I find a way to get Puck's pot out of there)and red and pink flowers to symbolize my want/need to develop my sensuality and sense of self and my surroundings in general. Also, this year, I want to finish my toy PhD in Nutrition (at least the classes - dissertation may take a while longer), work on decluttering my life, pick one hobby that I will become really good at, (while not giving up on the other ones, because that just freaks me out and makes me sad that I have to give up one thing in order to love another), get a new job, go on vacation, finish the two or three projects I have planned for my house and keep in touch better with far away friends and develop and grow the new friendships I made. I think the hobby I will choose is music, because other people seem to like me doing that, and I like to make other people happy. No one really cares about the stuff I try to crochet for them but never seem to finish, or the jewelry I make that is much to detailed and over done to ever be worn by anyone as anything other than costume jewelry to a Mardis Gras Ball. Obviously, pottery was an expensive mistake. So, music it is. And music can help me with the whole sensuality/sense of self adventure too. Now, how do I get all this stuff onto that pot?

Last week might have been the most emotionally taxing week of my life. JR was depressed about moving out and about his family being displaced and about the horrors going on in New Orleans. Every time the news would come on, I'd cry, and then would try to comfort JR while I was feeling pitiful. But today is a beautiful day - not a single animal threw up or shit in the house and I got to work on time. Dare I say, it might be a good day? Okay, a better day.

People from New Orleans - pass this along

I ( )
have set up an online community to help coordinate housing in Atlanta, Georgia for victims of Katrina at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/katrinahomesatlanta

also:
If you need a place and you want to try to find a place in Atlanta, please post in how much space you need, if you have pets, etc.

If you have a place in Atlanta, please post in katrinahomesatl the kind of space you have, your terms for renting the space, how much, if pets are allowed, etc.

I am going to try to get a website with a database set up later today.

Please give the link for this community to anyone who you think could use it.

I just heard on WWL-TV that the controversial Wal-Mart in the Garden District has been looted, and the entire gun department was taken. I also read that people living in Jefferson Parish will be allowed to return on Monday to collect their things, then they will have to leave and not be able to return for a month. There are coffins floating - bodies being pushed aside by rescue boats, people fighting cats and dogs and snakes in the water. Gas and diesel leaking into the water.
We heard from JR's sister last night. Miraculously, his parents’ house in Slidell escaped damage. There’s no real news yet from LaPlace, but it looks like my parents’ house will be okay, if maybe a little roof damage or uprooted trees.
I’m in denial. I’m incredibly sad, but can’t feel it. People will be out of work – even away from their homes – or where there homes were – for months. A million people, refugees in this country. Where will they all go? Will they live in stadiums for months on end? I wish my house was bigger. I do invite anyone I know who needs a place to stay to stay with me until they can find a way to restart their lives. Or I at least offer my place as one of the stops on your rotation.
I left New Orleans physically three years ago. But I never left emotionally or spiritually. I still say “us” like, “Son of a bitch, it’s coming right for us.” My home is devastated. Yes, I realize how much worse it is for those who actually physically still lived there. God, I know that. We all knew how tenuous the safety of our city was. And on the whole, it could have been so much worse – that is unless they can’t fix the levees.
I’ve requested that I be allowed to go with the Rapid Response team. I figure NCEH will be going there – as that it is already being called a toxic waste dump.
I’m still telling myself, “It can’t really be that bad.”

1. Go here.
2. Pass it on.
( my answers )

I can't sit still! I've been sitting and waiting and getting all anxious about this weekend and it's almost time to leave and I'm about to explode! And I wanted to try a new little icon. Disease ones to come...

puck tagged me for this meme. 10 celebrities that that are so hot I can hardly stand to look at them.
1. Johnny Depp,
2. Colin Farrel,
3. Topher Grace, I'm sorry, I can't help it
4. Joseph Fiennes
5. Chang Chen
6. Vincent Perez
7. I miss Brandon Lee
8. Stewart Townsend
9. Micheal Vartner
10.And most importantly, Edward Norton!

Ask a question anonymously you wouldn't necessarily ask in person, or would want others to know you're asking, to me. I'll answer it in another entry, and you'll have your answer without having to admit you wanted to know it.

Wow. I had a really great weekend. My very first surprise birthday party (first birthday party, at all actually - well, that wasn't organized by my mom and attended only by my cousins, anyway.) Thank you to everyone who came and made me feel so special and loved.

Saturday night - helped me come to a conclusion I've been needing to come to for quite a while now. I'm finally going to cut that little piss ant out of my life. I've asked him not to contact me again.

So, We're at the club, and he has on this really thick sweater because it was a tad cool out that night. But you can figure on it not being cool inside a music club, right? Well, an intelligent person can, anyway. We're sitting at a table talking, and he takes off his sweater, having nothing underneath. And I start compulsively saying, "Put it back on, put the damn sweater back on - you'd better put it back on, put it back on, put it back on!" And he's just staring at me with those evil squinty eyes. JR had had enough of him, and decided to just go to the other side of the bar away from him. I decided we needed to just shun him, so Keith and Doug and I moved to another table. He just sat there looking all proud of himself for being so damn stubborn, when this security guard came up to him and told him to put it back on. He did without question, then put his head on the table to sulk. I went over to him and he pushed me really hard away from him. I don't remember what I told him, but it was alot of "why can't you just follow the rules? We are in public, you are just one person, you can't just do what the hell you want to simply cause you want to. You know what the rules are and you're just one person - you can't change them. I'll help you if you need me to, but if you don't say anything, I swear I'll go away and you'll never hear from me again..." Again just staring. Then another bouncer type guy came over to him and said. "hey, there's no sleeping in here!" and I told him that he wasn't sleeping, just putting his head down to avoid me and the bouncer guy just says, "there's no 'form' of sleeping allowed here!" I went back to the other table shaking from anger at this boy who is so not worth my time, I really know that, and he gets up and walks out - followed by the security guard and the bouncer. Keith bet that he'd get arrested, but that was the extent of the drama. I decided the next morning that I was going to tell him to never call me again, but then talking to mom, I felt bad for the dumb ass again - she theorizes that he pushes people because he figures they are going to go away anyway, so he just wants to see how much he can get away with before they do...Grrr. Thinking about it a little longer, I decided it really was the last straw. It was finally not a hard decision to make.

Sunday, I got my first cake with candles on it since I was a kid, too. I love my Henry. And my furries cooperated by holding in their guts for the entire weekend. Ahh. That was really nice of them.

In case anyone is interested in a temporary inventory job - this was just forwarded to me:

There's a project coming up in a week or three out here at
Lockheed. They're doing a wall to wall scan of a lot of bar-code tags
on computer assets. The pay is $10/hour, won't involve any heavy
lifting or machine moving - shouldn't involve any lifting at all
except for carrying a barcode scanner. There will be procedures to
follow, so all you need to know is how to read and how to press a
button.

Requirements are: Be 18 or over, able to pass a drug test, able to
walk around, able to read.

If you've got any further questions on this, please let me know.
This is a short-term project, from 27 June to 29 July. The shifts
will be either from 7 to 5 or 8 to 6, with alternating Fridays off.

Plus, the air conditioning works pretty well out here. Especially in
the basement. (Grin)

Jerry Lawson

We're going to Karaoke tonight at Brewster's: 3595 Canton Rd. Marietta, GA 30066

Attending will be myself, kittyavatar, beelzibob, puck, jupitercornwall, isarma, inwo, and keith_dragon. Come with us!!!

This weekend was very good but very hard to get through. Woke up at 5:30 Saturday morning to do my little Science Olympiad thing - this was actually the correct weekend, fortunately. I left that early because the girl I was helping out turned out to be quite the bitch, so then I tried for two hours to go home. Evil construction on I285. Then, tried for 4 hours to take a nap. This only gave me "blue brains," though (a term I came up with while being unallowed to take a nap in a dark room during sleep studies) and made me feel worse. But later that night I had fondue (which was very yum and makes me want to do the big party at the Melting Pot thing) and then went to a party where I joined my first polyfidelitous family. That's alwasy fun. Sunday, JR and I literally slept until 1:00 in the afternoon. Got up, looked at how pathetically disgusting our house was and then basically went back to bed.

I feel really bad about the state of my house at the moment. I feel like the whole thing is like making the bed, or picking up sticks (a chore my grandmother always made me do when I was a kid.) Really, what is the point when all the fur and mud and dishes and crap will just be back there in about an hour? I can no longer take passengers in my truck, unless they happen to not have legs. I think I actually have more dishes there than I do in my house. I hadn't realized how chaotic my life has been until I realized that I don't even want to go home anymore. I can't be relaxed there, can't rest there. And nothing ever gets done because I'm never there. Anyway, I'm going to think about this today and figure out what's going on and why I'm such a slob.

So, I woke up this morning to a story on NPR about the need for more Epidemiologists. But in my sleepy stupor, I just hit the snooze button. I hit snooze about two or three more times, and then again just as I noticed they were doing the same story I heard earlier again.

Then I started to think that it was a very good chance that I had dreamed that story. Because I've been getting anxious and angry that I've not yet been allowed to do Epi at the CDC, and why the hell not if they need more frontline people, especially epidemiologists?

So if anyone, by chance, heard this story and can tell me that it was in fact not a dream, I would very very much appreciate you letting me know what the topic was and any other details you remember. Cause if it was on the radio, I have some letter writing to do. Otherwise, dammit!

Just cause I wanted to know what someone thought of me, I have to put this on my journal. Who ever thought I'd think not having a lot of friends would be a good thing?

01. Reply with your name and I will write something about you.
02. I will then tell what reminds me of you.
03. If I were to apply an o'clock to you, it would be...
04. I will try to name a single word that best describes you.
05. I'll tell you the most memorable moment I've had with you.
06. I'll then tell you something that I've always wondered about you.
07. Put this in your journal.

So, I have finally registered for classes at Clayton College for Holistic Nutrition. I'm going to have a little toy PhD in a year, and can actually start charging people for all that nutrition advice I've been giving out for free. I'm very very excited. I think this is in my blood. It is something that I've consistently been interested in since I was a kid, it's what I do in my spare time anyway, and I think I will be very good at it. Even if I don't really ever do anything with it business-wise, I'll be glad for the new information.

In other news, JR and I just had our 4th anniversary. 4 years married, 8 years living together, 11 knowing each other. And we still really like each other. I'm amazed every day by that fact. I actually still find being with him quite pleasant. We planned to go to North Carolina to look for sapphires this weekend, but even though we decided that's what we wanted to do about 4 weeks ago, we failed to actually plan the trip, and come Saturday morning, we were still just lying in bed wondering why the hell are we still here? It made us mad enough to actually want to sit down and talk out why we've been so lazy about our lives. I don't know if it will make much of a difference. We tend to get fired up for a few hours about something, and then just forget it ever after. We get tired and need a nap as soon as we find out there's a party goin on outside. But dammit! I want to live a life that's got some passion in it, at least a litte adventure. I did a little Tarot reading about this for myself and got no where. Just that I'll regret it if I don't find some way to fit activity into my life. When I got my orientation materials in for Clayton, there was a brochure for a trip to China at the end of October. I've decided I'm going.

Also, I joined a band. It's been great fun. Even if we never actually play out - even though we do have a scheduled show for Dreaming - I don't care because I get to sing. I always knew singing made me happy. I just didn't realize how much. The band is not at all what I envisioned - the music is quite positive and very spiritual, not at all angsty like everything I've ever written. But they seem to like me and actually feel I have something to offer, so woohoo!

I'm sad today. And when I'm sad, I get extra extra sleepy. Like I've been crying and my eyes have swollen shut. So I took two desoxyn and went down to the pond to see the duckies. They helped out alot. The sun was shining on the water, and when they swam, it looked like sparks were flying out of their butts. It was pretty chilly, so I came back upstairs. The people I work with are so nice. They are all about my mom's age, and they all think of me as their daughter. And when I look sad they pat me and tell me that I should just take the rest of the day off to go home and pray about it.

Last night we watched that revalations show, and it actually was pretty entertaining. I remember my dad reading some stuff to me from revalations while we were visiting my grandmother in Arkansas one year and it scared the crap out of me, and ever since, I've stayed the hell away from anything that mentioned revalations. I think it's time to finally take a look at that chapter. Maybe it's as entertaining as the old testament. And while I'm watching this show, I really start to notice the amount of god shows they have lately. Yeah, I know, the pope died - and jeez, I've learned more about Catholicism in these last few days than I did in Catholic school. But there's also this Revalations show, that passion movie, the new crusades movie, csi and law and order focusing on god stuff. Those rapture people must be peeing on themselves. http://www.raptureready.com/index.php
This realization made me comment to JR that we really need to get the hell out of this country. The fear of fundamentalism taking over is looking more and more possible. And people are just letting it happen. But then I remembered a discussion with someone about how during and after times of war, society will become more conservative, more focused on religion (i.e. the fifties after WWII) So maybe it will blow over in a decade or so.

But then this conversation led to me admitting to JR that damn, I wish I could be one of these true believer people. I haven't thought about this much since I got on my meds, but my life would be so so different if I weren't so scared to die. JR then says, but we wouldn't be married if you were one of those people. And I have to admit, I'd rather be happy and ignorant than miserable and married (not that being married to JR makes me miserable - he's a great little atheist and I adore him to pieces.)

It’s so quiet here at work today that I think I might just curl up under my desk and take a little nap.

I’ve been doing so well at work lately. I’ve been making my supervisor so proud. That’s really odd for me as that I have a reputation for being quite flaky, hyper, late, undependable…All those lovely Gemini traits that make us difficult. Then I go and entirely miss a meeting yesterday morning. Came into work, actually a tad early, only to hear my Outlook ding to remind me of a meeting that started a half an hour earlier at an entirely different campus. Hung my head in shame...

I’ve been thinking about going to school to become a nutritional consultant. I think I’d be really good at it – I love telling people what to do, errhmmm, giving them advice, and nutrition is one of those things that I feel passionate about. But I thought I was passionate about pottery, and I ended up spending $1000 to never go to the studio, not even to finish the few pieces that I started on. My fears about starting school for nutritional consulting are that 1) isn’t the market saturated with alternative health practitioners? But I’d be better than all of them, right? 2) What if after I spend years doing this, I no longer feel motivated to get my real PhD? But why is it that I really want that other PhD? I always said I wanted to be a teacher, but would consulting be just as good? I think I have a bit of elitism interfering here – it’s not a real PhD unless it comes from a nationally respected school 3) I have no life now, but I’m going to sit in with some musicians this afternoon, and what if school interferes with that? If I could have either, an active band or being a nutritional consultant that actually gets paid, which would I prefer? I DON”T KNOW!

If I could only tell what I wanted in life, it would all be so much easier. But I can never tell what I think is most important. They are all important dammit! I want them all.

I’m hitting my quarter life crisis. What am I talking about; I’ve been in the middle of it for over a year now. I’m restless and impatient about all aspects of my life. Why can’t I make friends faster in Atlanta? Why can’t I just get a job that is actually on the career track I chose for myself? Why don’t I have any money to travel, which is all I ever thought I wanted to do in life? Why can’t I just settle down and have kids like a normal person? Why would I want to do that? Why can’t I just rewind me life to when I told the Peace Corps I was on meds and do it all differently from there? All the decisions that I feel I have to make swirl around in my head and confuse me to the point where I do just nothing. I think I’m going to register for class now.

Wow, I'm letting this guy get to me. The only thing that makes me emotional enough to actually have to write to feel better about it.

So the same religious guy I wrote about earlier has claimed in his blog that he is close to enlightenment. We had a considerable fight Sunday, one that I thought he should really probably go home and think about a little, but instead, he thought that he, was indeed, very close to being on the level of Jesus or Buddha.

How can someone that causes other people as much grief as he does even begin to think he comes close to being enlightened? He so does not know how to deal with people, that he has decided that in fact, it is spiritually better to just cut himself off from them altogether, and once he's done this, he'll be "enlightened."

I've always thought that, if this earth is a school, the way so many people think that it is, then, isn't the purpose of being here to learn how to handle being here? To learn how to be social creatures and to get along with the group. To deal with emotions, not cut them out. Not to remove yourself completely from all that living life on earth is and call yourself "enlightened," or in other words, smarter than all you poor saps that aren't.

My comment to his entry was this:

"Just as Christianity attracted the poor in droves because it glorified and
gave them a purpose for being in the wretched state that they already were,
you are attracted to solitary spirituality because for you, it is the path
of least resistance. Does that mean you are close to enlightenment?"

It wasn't as biting as I feel at this point, but since he didn't ask my opinion, I felt it was as far as I could go.

I want to be done with him. But that damn part of me doesn't - the part that wants to change him for some reason. I have to find out what my true motivation for wanting to change him is and get rid of it.

But duh, I love the drama. That is probably the real reason I can't be done with him. We fight too much.

I've been hanging out with a very religious person lately, and I am finding it extremely difficult. I can't tell what the problem is, though. Is it my rigidity, or his? It's like his religion has taken away all realistic human emotions and reactions. He doesn't believe in expectations, or relationships, even friendships, or any form of jealousy - I mean he says he doesn't experience them himself. He believes all he has to do is work on himself - that managing the people around him is unimportant. And if they don't like it, they can go away, and he's fine with them going away. He's always quoting from his books, and I can never tell if he's saying things that he really feels and believes or if they are just things he wants to feel and believe.

But because I really believe it's just stuff he wants to feel, I've become obsessed with trying to get the real him, without the religious mask, to come out. He is resistant. And we often fight about one trying to change the other. And yet we continue to try to find time to be together.

I'm feeling so incongruent. I've always prided myself on being open-minded and accepting of the lifestyles of others, and now I'm learning that it's not true. I'm not accepting. I feel that if you are intelligent, you'll see things a certain way. Of course I don't THINK this - talking from my head, I don't believe that at all - there are all sorts of intelligence, but when it comes down to who I respect and really feel is an intelligent person, I do feel that way. I'm sort of ashamed of that.

So why do I keep hanging out with him. Is it because of some twisted need to change him? Why do I feel I need to change him? Would that make me feel better about myself, make me feel accomplished? If I don't like him the way he is, why don't I just forget about him? I guess I really just am attracted to people who think differently than I do, even if it makes me nearly intolerable uncomfortable. Sort of like the women who are attracted to firemen because of their jobs, and then beg them the whole time to quit.

Last night, I had again this recurring dream that I'm coughing up chunks of my lungs. I tell my mom that I think I need to go to the hospital, but she's unconcerned and I feel helpless, and like I'm making a big deal of nothing. So I just keep coughing up my lungs, checking that I can still breathe every now and then.

It doesn't mean I'm going to die, huh? What about cancer, does it mean I have cancer? Or that all my cells have turned against each other and I'll be just piles of chunks the next time I wake up?

10 Things Meme
10 Things I've Done and You Probably Haven't:

1. Had my picture taken with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and two Surgeon Generals.
2. Lived in an UN camp in Northern Kenya waiting for a chance to go into Sudan and dodge bombs.
3. Discovered 3 new stelae in the jungles of Belize
4. Spent a summer as a carnie – and got to learn the language.
5. Marched as an honorary Lesbian in the Gay Pride Parade in New Orleans (and got to hand out lots of condoms at Southern Decadence)
6. Showed my true geekiness when I crashed the Society for American Archaeological Convention.
7. Planned a wedding and got married in less than a week.
8. Pulled Weird Al’s hair on Bourbon Street – I didn’t mean to pull it, but that was really dumb of him, don’t you think? Just walking down the middle of Bourbon Street like that…
9. Dressed up like Marge, Homer and Bart (not all at the same time) and danced around in Audubon Park, losing 7 lbs of water in one day, all for a measly $50.
10. Narrowly missed being kidnapped by a guy posing as the lead singer of The Guess Who.

I gave a presentation today to a bunch of people who didn’t want to do what I was asking them to do. Individually, they were very nice to me, but as a group, they intimidated the hell out of me. I tried to step out and talk to them all casually, but I had to keep running behind the podium for safety. It was really hard to be up there in front of only about 25 people answering questions that I had to basically make up the answer to on the fly because I know almost as little about what’s going on as they do. It does make me feel important to have to give presentations though, and I like to feel important. I was here until 7:30 last night. And have been almost every night since Christmas. I’m working much too hard for a government job! Good enough for government work does not apply to me. Everyone has gone home for two hours, and I’m still here. I’m getting to know the maintenance men rather well, though.

And I just got a call from my friend Sebastian who lives in Miami now. He’s on his way to DC and said he would stop by in Atlanta for a few hours to see me. It was so good to get that call today – I came into my office and saw that damn little red light on my phone meaning I had a message and I just collapsed into my chair with a sigh knowing that it was just and audience member from the presentation that didn’t get their question answered. But it was a voice who talked about his surprise at how official I sounded on the phone, like he knew me personally, and he didn’t tell me who he was until he had mumbled on for about three or four minutes. That was fun. I dream about getting calls from random old friends like that all the time, but it never happens. That nearly made my pounding headache disappear.

I never think that my thoughts are interesting enough. Even though I think other people’s thoughts are interesting enough. I’ve always thought that was the difference between an artist and the rest of the world. The artist has the courage just to put him/herself out there and not think about whether or not his/her work is interesting enough. While the rest of us think to ourselves, yeah, I could have done that. But did we? No, we didn't and we can’t for some reason. So, I guess I'll never be an artist until I can start posting more on LiveJournal.

I found Deadjournal this weekend while searching for info on the Dresden Dolls. Hehe.