Dear Diary . . . day by day

Saturday September 16th - Insane in the Membrain/ Nurse Betty/ Bookstore stories /Insane in the Brain
Burning Man
Photo Gallery
2000 I think I get mentally sick the way people get physically sick. I mean to say that sometimes, most of the time, my mental state is healthy. I can control my thought processes reasonably well, and if I think up the worst case scenario, I don't dwell on it too much, and I can funtion in my daily life. Most of the time, I'm like that.
But today is one of those days where I just can't help but think it's my brain that has the flu, not my sinuses. It began last night, somehow. I was planning on staying home last night, taking it easy, but my housemate threw a dinner party and I decided not to skulk in my room, not to try to socialize (I felt oddly unwelcome; usually it's not like that); I went off to see the 7:15 showing of Nurse Betty over at the Piedmont.
(That was an excellent movie, by the way. It was mostly light-hearted, but there were definite dark aspects to this film. Funny. A main character with whom I identified a little too much, but that only meant I was inspired and uplifted at the end. Unfortunately, I'm no longer in any sort of mood to wax poetic about this moive; my insights on it will have to wait.)
(After the moive I stopped in at Spectator Books to see what they had in their used sci-fi section. I picked up some more LeGuin, a Sheckley, and a dubious Gene Wolfe. While I was back there, a teenage girl came back, exclaiming "Ah, the good stuff!" as she approached the sci-fi. I smiled to myself. Then her unsavory boyfriend came back, looking side to side at the books, "There's a hell of a lot of fiction!" "That's science fiction," I told him, "all that, and the stuff in the next room, is the plain fiction section." He looked overwhelmed for a moment, then bored. She commented to him about Mercedes Lackey, "I love her stuff, but she's not very hard reading . . ." He rolled his eyes, "I'll be outside," he told his girlfriend, "don't take forever, ok?"
I couldn't help myself. "Do you want suggestions?" I asked, "I saw they had some great science fiction . . ." "Oh, I like fantasy," she told me. Now, I'm not a huge fantasy fan or anything, but I walked over to the B section and pulled down Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. "This is more like a historical fantasy - King Arthur tale told fromt he women's viewpoint - but it's full of magic." Her eyebrows creased at the word "historical" and I wished I could bite it back. "Well, there's tons of the Darkover series here, too," I offered, "it's a mix of science fiction and fantasy and there are just tons of books in the series. You might like those too."
The guy at the checkout rang me up over the coversation of the teenage boys waiting outside. One of the kids yelled, "And now, the best selling author of the Bible, GOD!" "Brilliant conversation out there," the clerk muttered. "I know; they make me feel old; did I ever act like that?" I commented. He looked at me oddly, then smiled. I couldn't help noticing how much he looked like Morgan Freeman (who is in Nurse Betty). "You remind me of a friend of mine," he told me, "just now . . . your voice, your mannerisms," he leaned over and checked out my long embroidered skirt, "you dress like her too. Her name is Pamela and I haven't seen her in years." "Oh" I said with devastating wit. I smiled, "that's nice." "I think I'll go home and write her a letter" he said.
This lead into a conversation about old friends. But I'm already way off the topic of this journal entry, so I think I'll end my parenthesis here and save that for another time.)
Where was I? Oh, sick in the head. So I stayed up late playing a DEMO version of Warcraft. Oh dear. Is there anything that makes you feel worse than to spend hours on a computer getting nothing done? I was burnt by the time I went to bed and I did not sleep well. Through the entire evening I hadn't felt well, and mindless activity simply underscored that feeling.
I woke up too early. I futzed. I cooked and ate some eggs, which is about the most I did all day. I went back to the game more than once. I tried and tried to take a nap, but I just tossed and turned. My head played mean tricks on me - today I honestly felt like I had more than one personality. Stupid, distrustful, worrying Heather came and baby-sat my body for the day, and I don't like what she did with it. I had great apprehension about seeing David in this mood; things have been going so very well between us lately, and I had this weird feeling that if I had to see him today, it might break that cycle.
Let's just say that I hope today doesn't count. Really. I just want today to be counted as a sick day. If you saw me today, well, it just wasn't me. It was that crazy girl who takes over sometimes. My brain is sick. I can't get control back right now. Maybe if I get a good night's rest tonight, I can fight for control tomorrow. Yeah - tomorrow will be a better day. It just has to be.
(Yes, the teenage girl took my suggestions. She bought the first three books in the Darkover Series. I didn't tell her that I hadn't read those - I've only read the ones about the Free Amazons. But I hope she likes them.)
Exercise log:
Eh. Gardened a little.
Writing log:
Sob.
I'm currently reading:
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angier
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The New Atlantis by Ursula K. LeGuin

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