Regina Noctis

I’ve gotta stop comparing every guy I meet to either or . They all come up seriously lacking by comparison…

This actually happened Wednesday. And it’s yet another time that made me wonder what it is about me that brings the freaks out of the woodwork.

I attract freaks. I always seem to get hit on by the kind of people that make you want to lock your doors. There’s only ever been one real exception to this. Even most of my boyfriends, in final analysis, had a very large dose of freak. There was only over one nice one, the last one, and that didn’t last too long, did it?

So, enough wandering off on tangents. Wednesday. Yes.

I had one hell of a time getting to sleep. I woke up, having slept right through my alarm, with about two hours of sleep all told between the difficulty I had getting to sleep and the things that kept waking me up. When I did finally wake up for the ultimate time, it was five minutes until the time I was supposed to be at work.

I woke up with a resounding “FUCK!!!!” Before I even opened my eyes, I knew it was too late.

I called in to work and explained to Sara what had happened and that I’d be late.

Since I was going to be so late, I decided to make myself a few minutes later by grabbing something to eat on the way. Figured I’d inhale it in the car while driving to work, and just skip my lunch hour.

To put this plan in action, I stopped at 7-11. While I’d have preferred just running quickly through a drive-through, I didn’t have any cash on me. So I stopped at 7-11, and I didn’t want to make two stops, so I just grabbed something to eat there.

After getting money and buying my food, I ran back out to the car, got in, and started it up. It was a warm day, almost summer-ish, so I had the windows down in the car.

A man was leaving the store as I was getting in my car. He looked either homeless or on the edge of it… Old, beaten-up clothing that looked like it was mostly held together by a single thread and a lot of hope. He had the flushed face with small broken veins that makes you think, “I’m dealing with a lifetime alcoholic here.” I’m not sure when the last time he chose (or had the chance, if homeless) to wash his hair was… it didn’t even look like hair so much as some strange fungal growth that was springing up exuberantly all over the top of his head. As for age, (since one of the people I told this story too asked, so others may want to know) I’m not very good at guessing ages, but I’m saying somewhere in the late forties or early fifties. Something in that range, I think.

Now, as an aside for anyone who might read this that doesn’t know already… I have a bumper sticker on my car. It dates from when the car belonged to my mother. She hates it when people put all kinds of restrictions on what they’ll eat and then expect other people to have to deal with it all the time. A lot of her ire, as a matter of fact, is directed at vegans. So, there’s a bumper sticker on the car that says “I EAT VEGANS.”

As I got in the car, this guy was passing the open front passenger side window. He called in through it, “Hey, I like your bumper sticker!”

Being the polite sort, I smiled and said, “Thank you.”

Maybe speaking, or the smile, was too much of an invitation to a stranger. I don’t know.

He leaned in close to the car and said, “I eat pussy.”

I was not expecting that, and he was looking at me expectantly, like I was going to say, “Hey, great! Get your ass in this car and let’s go!”

My reaction was more along the lines of, “Get the fuck away from me, freakboy, or I’ll run you over.” After a suitably shocked silence.

He walked off to toward the sidewalk, still glancing back over his shoulder with that same shit-eating grin on his face.

When he got to the walk, he stopped and stood there by the driveway. He knew that I had to go there if I was going to leave, and that I’d be stuck there for a little while. It goes onto a busy street, and it can take forever before there’s a break in the traffic long enough to get out onto the street.

When I saw him standing there, right next to where my passenger side door was about to be, I rolled up my windows and locked the doors before driving to the driveway.

Once I was there, he stood there leering at me for a while as I waited for traffic to let me through. He even made a move toward the door once. I saw him do it, and I saw a break in the traffic about the same time. Smaller than I normally would have liked. Under other circumstances, I’d have waited for a better opportunity. But I gunned the motor and dodged out across two lanes of traffic in order to make my left turn.

I swear, I put out some kind of signal that draws in the freaks and weirdos. I wish I knew what it was, so I could turn it OFF.

Dollies, as requested!

She Whose Dance and Person Are Magical

She Who Is Sweetness Incarnate

(unless she’s in the mood for one of the sniper-shot slams, and damn can she nail someone when she does that!)

And, because it reached out and grabbed me, and said “This outfit is HER. You MUST put this together!”

She Who Is the Lovely Gothic Goddess

Huge freak that I am, I wasn’t satisfied with any of the available heads for hair color/style… and wanted better matches in the clothing than I was able to find with what was there… so I used the handy dandy ol’ graphics program to force what I wanted after I had the basics in place.

And now that I’ve been fooling with this for the last two hours, it’s time for bed. It’s Hell Week again, after all. I needs my rest. From the way the funding bin exploded the last few days, I’m guessing I’m in for more 11 or 12 hour shifts Wednesday and Thursday, and possibly Friday as well.

Night night!

Okay, so, the dolls…

She Who Needs a Phone Surgically Implanted

In all her glitteriness… since I well remember all the glitter she’d be wearing, even at work.

She Who Serenades me at Work

Which I have to remember to email to her tonight. And I got serenaded briefly again tonight, by her and the night lead.

Faerie Who Is Sparkly and Pretty

One possible version. Could also be She Who Wears Dresses that Show Much Leggage (cause she does, and good leggage it is at that)

OR… since I had to be Libra somewhere in here, and couldn’t decide which was more appropriate for this last… Frog Who Jumps Around Yelling at Football Players on the TV

So there we go. Another evening spent fooling with that Dollmaker website rather than doing something constructive. And I’ll probably play with the site more, given the excuse. Anyone else want a doll? ;)

Enough fooling around with Dollmaker. If I keep this up, I’m going to have dolls for everyone I know. In addition to the lovely Witchie, I have dolls for She Who Needs a Phone Surgically Implanted and She Who Serenades me at Work. Enough’s enough.

For now.

Kinda sorta Witchie. Just wish that the pink was more appropriately colored.

Fooling around with the Dollmaker for a little while. Lifted the link from one of my brat sisters.

Me, in an ideal world. No glasses, no extra pounds. I wish.

I took your pictures from my wall
And I replaced them, both large and small
And each new day finds me so blue
Nothing takes the place of you

I read your letters one by one
And I still love you when all’s said and done
And oh, my darling, I’m so blue
Cause nothing, oh nothing, takes the place of you

As I write this letter
It’s raining on my windowpane
And I feel the need of you
Cause without you, nothing seems the same

So I’ll wait until you’re home
Again I love you, but I’m all alone
And oh, my darling, I’m so blue
Cause nothing, oh but nothing, takes the place of you

Note to self: Make some attempt to get up early Monday to get to post office and mail ’s pictures back to him

…but I am anyway. :D

Britney’s Wee Bit Of Bother

Pop queen Britney Spears fled for cover after having urine thrown at her as she filmed a TV ad.

The star was bombed with buckets of urine by angry neighbours as she sang on location in the early hours of the morning, according to the News of the World.

Residents staged their protest at around 4am in downtown Los Angeles, hurling bucket-loads at the 21-year-old singer as she performed in the street below.

Fled for cover

The star fled for cover in a nearby trailer and filming was abandoned shortly afterwards, the paper reports.

One resident reportedly said: “Sure, I opened the window and yelled shut-up – but I would never have done such a vile thing.”

But the resident added: “We kept hearing the same song over and over but what made it worse were two 100ft spotlights. They lit up our apartment like it was daytime.

Started screaming

“Lots of people in the block opened their windows and started screaming at her.

“Britney certainly didn’t deserve the bucket treatment. She’s a brilliant singer … but perhaps not when you’re trying to get to sleep”.

Last Updated: 10:08 UK, Sunday March 10, 2002

I wrote Jim back. The one that I originally wrote.

Now I’m going to take my melatonin and go to bed in an attempt not to get worked up again. It’ll probably fail, but it’s worth a try to avoid getting worked up again.

I was going to write both back, but one was difficult enough. I’ll save the other for tomorrow.

Well well… I seem to be attracting 48-year-olds these days.

There was Gary, 48, who wrote me email with a single “hi” in it. Nothing else. Because I’m generally at least somewhat polite, I wrote back with “Hi!” He sent one back saying “can i have your number so i can call you”

I politely explained that I’m not comfortable with handing out personal information like that to a complete stranger. I’d rather get to know someone before they have things that allow them to find me. It seemed rather abrupt to be asking for my number so quickly, and it set off warning bells.

He didn’t reply to that email.

Two weeks later, I got email from him again. This would be last Monday. This time, it was “hi how are you” and I politely wrote back with a pretty standard “Fine, and you?”

I got “good can i call you”

I’m sorry, but adding “how are you” doesn’t mean I’ve gotten to know him!

I explained again that I’m not comfortable handing out my number just like that. He didn’t reply.

I wonder if he’ll write again in another two weeks, and add a third sentence (without punctuation or capitalization, of course) and then ask for my number.

suggested that if he does, I go ahead and write that I’d be interested in setting up a meeting face to face… as soon as my outbreak of herpes clears up. That ought to scare him off.

I adore figbash.

Meantime, I got email from David, also 48. He actually proved that he’d taken the time to read what I’d written rather than sending just “hi” to me. He saw that he’s outside the age range I put down that I’d prefer… and yeah, 15 years older than me is a bit outside my preferred range. Maybe that’s shallow of me, but it’s true. I haven’t always let someone being outside my preference on something stop me… It depends on who they are more than anything. If there’s some kind of click, a feeling of connection. So, I may go ahead and set up a meeting with David. Despite the age. And despite the very bad associations with the name David from my past. After all, David Turner and Red Dave, to name the two worst ones, aren’t this guy’s fault, and he’s not necessarily like them just cause he shares a name with them. Despite my occasional theory that having a particular name seems to have at least some small influence on who someone is (I’ve seen many examples of people with the same first name having some very similar personality traits,) I’m not going to hold that up as a comparison in practice.

So yeah, I might meet up with David in person, maybe at Jumpin’ Java so I can hide behind Aaron if necessary.

Nice having a protective brother who works at a public place.

And then there’s Jim. Not 48. One year younger than me, actually. And this one is not a case of them writing to me. I spotted his profile, liked what I saw, and wrote him. (Oooooo, Christophine gets brave!) I just got email back… he’s interested in meeting. This is where the title of this post comes into play. I was fine with it, and now I’m a little nervous. Thanks to my long-time tendency to get attracted to people I already have as friends, and have had as friends for a while, I’ve never had this kind of need-to-make-a-good-first-impression pressure.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained and all…

But I’m going to have to think about this a little bit first before I write back. Get the case of nerves dealt with a little.

Wheeeeeeeee

This looks familiar, vaguely familiar
Almost unreal yet it’s too soon to feel yet
Close to my soul and yet so far away
I’m going to go back there someday

Sun rises, night falls; sometimes the sky calls
Is that a song there, and do I belong there?
I’ve never been there, but I know the way
I’m going to go back there someday

Come and go with me, it’s more fun to share
We’ll both be completely at home in midair
We’re flying, not walking, on featherless wings
We can hold on to love like invisible strings

There’s not a word yet for old friends who’ve just met
Part heaven, part space; or have I found my place?
You can just visit, but I plan to stay
I’m going to go back there someday

I’m going to go back there someday

I feel like I oughta say something, since this journal is here. What else is it here for, right?

Got nothing to say, though.

This things generally a place to gripe when I need to. And at the moment, I’ve got nothing to gripe about.

Maybe work tomorrow will give me something, inject a little vitriol for me to spread here. Guess I’ll find out when I get there.

But for now, I will obey the urging of the melatonin and go to sleep. Nighty-night!

I’m Satine from Moulin Rouge! Which Nicole Kidman are you? Find out!

Well, I’m packed. All that’s left now is to gas up the car and hit the road.

Off I go to another fun-packed weekend in Hellano.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and my cousin John will blow his brains out before I get there.

I’m still working on re-creating the story I lost to a virus several years ago. It’s slow going, for all that I remember the basic plot line and still think it’s worth writing.

This is the first page. I’m actually somewhere on page four, but I wanted to see what people think of what’s more or less the introductory page to the rest of the story. Anyone’s welcome to pick this apart. Constructive criticism is welcome.

Once an addict, always an addict, they say. There was a time when I thought I’d beaten those odds. The years when LSD was the focus of my life are so long ago. I’ve been clean and sober for more than ten years now. In the last six or so, I haven’t even craved my old drug of choice once.

Last week changed all that. Out of nowhere, I was hit with a sudden surge of nostalgia for those days. I remembered giggling madly over nothing, or running down the night streets with my friends, all of us dosed. I remembered how, even though each one of us on a trip had very different and individual experiences, there was a sense of connection during the hours that the drug flowed through us. Most of all, I remembered that, whatever else I might have been in those days, I was happy while I was frying. I found myself suddenly missing it with a kind of sick, bittersweet ache.

We’ve all changed since then. My friends and I are no longer a pack of rowdy teenagers and early twenty-somethings. We don’t have the freedom to spend all night awake on artificial joy. Somewhere along the line, despite all the fighting against it we did, we acquired responsibilities, jobs, families, bills to pay. We grew up. Not all of us are quite past the shock of this realization. If you know us, you can sometimes see a touch of bewilderment when we talk about our lives now; a kind of “how in the world did we get here” reaction. The last hurrah of our misspent youth staggered its way, drunk to the point of falling over, through several parties. Even those kinds of parties have gotten fewer these days, however. We are increasingly more mellow.

Of all of us from those days, I suppose I have the most freedom to indulge. While I do have my share of bills to pay and employment to keep, I have managed to stay less encumbered than the people I used to trip with. My job is only something to keep me fed and keep a roof over my head. It’s not a career. I have only the basic bills to pay, a small apartment, and no family to support. There’s not even a significant other of some variety to wonder where I’ve been all night if I choose to go out.

Last week, all these things, and probably others that I’m not conscious of, inspired an impulse purchase. After all this time, all the struggle to get clean and stay that way, I bought some acid. Four hits of it, currently wrapped in tinfoil and sitting in the freezer. They seem so insignificant, those little squares of blotter paper with a purple unicorn stamped on them. Such small things, to ruin over ten years’ worth of staying clean.

Now that I have them, I find I’m afraid to take them. It only took one trip, my first, to make an addict of me. The drug fed a part of me that had been yearning for something for a very long time. I can’t help but think, every time my mind turns to those little hits in the freezer, that one trip is all it would take to make me back into that. I thought when I bought them that it would be great to have one last experience. A real trip down memory lane, as it were. Once I had them, the thought of having that beast on my back again made me put them away. I couldn’t bring myself to throw them out. Some part of me stopped it every time I started. And that feeling, faint as it is, of needing to do this scares me, too.

The thought of those four hits in their foil prison is giving me no rest. I can’t seem to concentrate on anything. I think I’ve only been able to pay attention to any one thing for about five minutes before I have to be up and moving around again. I thought that maybe writing would get it out of my system. Sometimes writing down how I feel does that. This time, it’s not helping.

While I’ve been writing this, it started raining. I’ve been looking out at it sometimes, and watching the pattern of raindrops trickling their way down the window. I always wanted to trip in the rain, but I never did…

This is bad. I should flush those hits and get them out of my life.

I should, but I don’t know if I can.

Dinner, or allergy pill before my eye starts swelling again, since it’s a little itchy right now. That doesn’t bode well for the swelling to stay gone.

The pill will knock me out before I have a chance to do dinner, but dinner might mean that my eye is too swollen come morning for me to go to work, since there is an optimum time for me to take it and keep the swelling down but still manage to be awake despite the pill. With reactions like mine, timing is everything.

Dinner… pill… dinner… pill….

Some days I hate being a Libra.

Oh hell. I’ve got a very light version of the pill that won’t take care of all the swelling and itchiness, but will allow me to work. I picked it up today. I’ll be a zombie at work, but at least I’ll be working.

Dinner it is.

Ciao.

BILL?