Regina Noctis

Charon ushers you across the river Acheron, and you find yourself upon the brink of grief’s abysmal valley. You are in Limbo, a place of sorrow without torment. You encounter a seven-walled castle, and within those walls you find rolling fresh meadows illuminated by the light of reason, whereabout many shades dwell. These are the virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptised children, and others unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. You share company with Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Socrates, and Aristotle. There is no punishment here, and the atmosphere is peaceful, yet sad.

The Dante’s Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell – Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Inferno Test

There’s a dessert that I’ve been addicted to for a number of years, the Seven-Layer Cookie at Max’s Opera Cafe. With the works. A huge rectangular cookie that combines several types of cookie… oatmeal, coconut, nuts, chocolate chips… an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of cookie. And if you get it with the works, they heat it so the chocolate chips are nicely gooey, top it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and your choice of hot fudge, hot butterscotch, or marshmallow sauce. I have had it with each of the sauces individually at various times. But the way I thought it best was the time I talked them into giving me a little of all three sauces at the same time. It went from great to decadent.

Since and I started going to Cold Stone, I have periodically been trying to create a combination that approximates the Seven-Layer Cookie with the works. I got very close this time around to the right amounts of various things mixed into vanilla ice cream. Of course, I have to substitute caramel for butterscotch, since butterscotch is not an option at Cold Stone. But still, it’s getting close. Seven-Layer Ice Cream, one of these days, I’ll figure you out.

Inspired by a post from , who posted the information for her sign, I went and dug up a site for Native American birth signs.

Crow

Birth dates: 22 September – 22 October.

Earth influence: The Falling Leaves Time.
Influencing wind: The West Winds. Totem: Grizzly bear.
Direction: South-west.
Predominant elements: Air with Earth.
Elemental clan: Butterfly (Air) Clan. Function: Initiating ideas
Birth and animal totem: Crow.
Plant totem: Ivy.
Mineral totem: Azurite.
Polarity totem: Falcon.
Affinity colour: Blue.
Musical vibration: A natural.
Personality: Charming. Friendly.Good-natured. Tolerant.
Feelings: Sensitive.
Intention: Justice.
Nature: Co-operative.
Positive traits: Idealistic. Romantic, Diplomatic.
Negative traits: Indecisive. Frivolous. Gullible. Resentful.
Sex-drive: Strong.
Compatibilities: Otter and Deer.
Conscious aim: Partnership.
Subconscious desire: Harmony and beauty.
Life-path: Harmonisation.
I Ching trigram:Chen. Thunder. Desire for achievement.
Spiritual alchemy: Yang predominates.
Must cultivate: Decisiveness. Constancy. Impartiality. Inspiration..
Must avoid: Indecision. Uncertainty. Inconsistency.
Starting totems: Crow. Grizzly bear. Butterfly. Ivy. Azurite. Falcon.

Indecisive, moi? Never. :D

Damn, I forgot how strongly I react to these things. This is almost like those few seconds before surgery, when the anaesthetic was kicking in, but hadn’t yet knocked me out. I don’t recall being this in need of sleep any other time, and that includes the crash and burn after the bout of insomnia that lasted ten days on no sleep.

I bet I don’t even manage to read more than three sentences before I fall asleep with my book open on my face. What a lovely thought. Sleep that sudden and that deep is always a lovely thought to a constant insomniac.

Good night. Falling over now.

*thud*

Coughed myself awake. Again.

This thing is not fun. It’s rather disgusting, really. All the coughing and sneezing, and the results of those. Ick.

Sore throat, too, perpetually getting sorer with every bout of coughing.

I’d had this bad enough before the relapse set in. Then, after a brief bit of feeling better, this. It’s about twice as bad as it was last time. And I don’t have time for this. I need to find a job.

It seems that I’ve given this to Dev as well. She wound up at Valley Med because of a combination of this thing and the tightened, stressed muscles she had from the accident. All of us who weren’t actually injured have been aching a bit. Her doctor explained to her that it can sometimes take days for the tension of muscles jolted that badly to finally release. Meantime, we get to ache and have headaches and such from it. Whee.

On the good side, though, the hold has finally been released on the last deposit I made to my account, and I’ve got another check to deposit. Those few days where I had $12 in the bank weren’t fun, but that is over. For now, at least. I’ve still got car insurance to pay, but it should still leave us something to live on until the next unemployment check arrives.

I’m going to go rummage through the medicine cabinet and see if I can find any decongestants. I used up the ones I knew I had. But I think that there is more in the medicine cabinet. I hope so, anyway. I’d like to be able to sleep for more than three hours before I cough myself awake again.

Meantime, while waiting for those to take effect, I can read more of the book Dev brought home. She got a pre-release copy of The Face by Dean Koontz. I’ve tried reading his stuff in the past, and didn’t like it much then. But it’s been years, and I decided to give this one a try. So far, I’m loving it. I’m having a very difficult time putting it down, for anything. Skipped meals, sleep delayed, chores ignored, all because of this book. Either my tastes have changed since the first time I tried Koontz, or the intervening years have improved him as a writer. Maybe some of both.

Off to crawl into the book.

All the stressful things that have been happening over the last couple days have given me a relapse of the flu I had last week, and was just getting over by the weekend.

Dammit.

Once I finally did fall asleep, I slept long and deeply. As it turned out, that was a good thing. I needed the rest for what the day became.

As with Easter, everything seemed okay in the beginning. slept on the couch, her son Ben on the loveseat. The two of them and were long up by the time I woke up.

I started the job hunt of the day, interrupted once by Ben. He wanted to get online to register for a contest being sponsored by WB Kids. He neglected to get the address of the contest site, however, and the WB site didn’t have a link to it. So he went off to mope and I continued hunting.

Shortly afterward, I heard Dev giving him what for. He’s been told, over and over, that the couches in the living room are new and not cheap second-hand things that could be treated like a set of monkey bars without getting any damaged than they already are. He’s been reminded time and again to stop climbing on and over the couches, stop jumping on them, stop putting his dirty shoes all over them, etc. He keeps testing those boundaries, trying to push them. He did it again today, and Dev had quite a talk with him about it. In the middle of the talk, he tried to sneak some more candy, when he’d been specifically told not five minutes before that no, he couldn’t have any more.

Angel had been sleeping on the couch again, knocked out by the painkillers and muscle relaxants she’s on. The noise of all of this broke through her drugged condition, and she gave Ben one of those Looks that all mothers the universe over seem to be capable of. But the family counselor was going to be coming over, and she knew that, so she let it lie until the counselor arrived. She’d been wanting to have a session about Ben’s increasing tendency toward respect issues.

When the counselor arrived and Dev and I had cleared out, the session started. Ben, even though he kept protesting that he didn’t want to argue, alternately tried to completely avoid the issue and lapse into stony silence, or tried to escalate things into an all-out fight. Angel did a pretty good job of not letting him goad her into yelling, though her control slipped a couple times. Ben reached the point where he was whining, yelling, and swearing at her at the top of his lungs. So, the counselor took him out of the apartment for a while, to talk with him one on one.

When they got back, however, Ben began acting out even worse than he’d been doing before. I heard him hollering at one point that he should be able to climb over the couches all he wants, since he wasn’t going to hurt them anyway. I wanted to go out there and point out to him that every time he does it, and every time he jumps onto them rather than sits on them, I can hear the couches creaking badly. I can hear the wood of the frames straining under the punishment. These couches are only a few months old. The last thing I need is for them to start sounding and looking like they’re ancient and on the edge of falling apart. But I held my peace and stayed in my room. I knew that my insertion into events wasn’t going to make this already bad session go any better.

Ben announced that he wanted to be left alone, and ran into Dev’s room. She was unhappy about his decision that he was free to do as he liked and hide in her room, closing her out of her own bedroom. Angel and the caseworker did their best to get him to come back out. Eventually, he did, and tried to run away out the front door.

Angel had been told to remain resting as much as possible by the doctor, to give her injuries a chance to heal. She wound up having to face him down at the front door, holding it shut to prevent him leaving. So he charged back into Dev’s room and slammed the door shut. Angel and the caseworker followed him in there. Shortly after the door was again shut, there were raised voices coming from inside once again.

That’s about when Tami arrived, with ice cream. I’d been craving just some good, plain vanilla ice cream almost since the moment of the accident. Tami was kind enough to indulge me (thank you again!) Dev, Tami, and I stayed in the kitchen, talking in an attempt to drown out the yelling, and eating chocolate-dipped pretzels as fast as we could scoop them through the melted chocolate.

It was in the middle of this that I again almost went and inserted myself in the situation. I heard Angel yell out in pain. Instead, I gritted my teeth and stayed in the kitchen. I kept telling myself not my family, not my problem. I haven’t been asked to contribute, I’m going to keep my nose out of it.

That’s about when there was another knock at the door. Ross, Angel’s ex-husband, had arrived. Angel called him to come and pick her and Ben up. Even though she’s supposed to be on a 48 hour concussion watch, she didn’t want to inflict Ben on Dev and me when he was acting like this. She didn’t feel it right that we were having to deal with him when he was acting like this. So, Ross went into the room. Shortly afterward, there was yet more yelling.

At this point, Dev couldn’t take it anymore. She went in and explained that this was her sacred space that they were filling with all their negative energy, and it was time for them to leave. And they packed up and left. Good for her to stand up for her right to her own room.

The difficult part was getting Ben to leave. He was flatly refusing to go unless his mother handed him his bottle of water. It wasn’t okay that it was being carried down to the van with everything else. It had to be given to him, or he wouldn’t leave Dev’s room at all. So Angel went back into the room, and the second she was in, he ran out. He was refusing to stay in the same room with her if he could avoid it, preferring to scream and curse at her across the apartment.

His water bottle was sitting just outside the front door. The second he was out there and saw it, he threw it down the stairs. I heard it hit metal, so it probably hit my car, parked down at the bottom of the steps. It was well after dark, so I knew I wouldn’t see much of anything if I went down to check for damage tonight. But when I get up tomorrow, I’m going to have a look then.

This is the second incident in less than a week where Ben has gotten out of hand. The last time, Angel was in fear of him. So much so, she called the emergency case worker hotline, and the police. He was throwing things as well as screaming at her, threatened her, ran a door over her foot, and threw himself into a wall. I wound up driving up to Fremont on that night, to give Angel another adult to be around.

But it’s brought about a discussion between Dev and me. And neither of us can deal with moving there if he’s going to be like this. We both know that Angel needs other adults around to help her to deal with Ben. And I know that I could be capable of it. Many of his behaviours remind me very much of the time when I was the emergency relief for a nanny who specialized in emotionally disturbed children. But taking a few shifts is very different from living with it on a day-to-day basis. Dev’s got problems with high blood pressure, and I’ve been developing some heart and blood pressure problems of my own under high-stress situations. I don’t need to live with someone causing such a charged and stressful environment on a regular basis. These bouts of acting out didn’t happen at all when Ben first moved back for the evaluation period, and that’s when I agreed to the move. I could deal with him, and actively liked him, then. And while I still like him now, I don’t know how long that would be likely to last if I’m around behaviour like this often enough.

So, Dev and I have had serious second thoughts about moving. And I think that we are coming to the conclusion that we will not, after all, be moving to Fremont.

Right now, I need to unwind rather badly. After the hours and hours of fight that have happened here, I’m tense. My shoulders are tight and painful, and that’s on top of the ache in my arthritis from the jolting we got in the accident.

The accident, of course, has been another point of stress. I’ve been feeling I could have handled it better. Fortunately, called earlier, and talking with him about it helped me to stop my usual beating on myself for something like this. I have little twinges of it still, and likely will continue to for a day or two. But I’m not constantly feeling like something… or everything… I did when dealing with the accident was wrong. Thanks, Drew. I needed that talk.

In addition to all of this, an ex-lover of Dev’s who’s unable to leave her alone, as she was asked to do, pulled some stunts that could jeopardize Dev’s job. And when told that it was inappropriate and to stop that, she laughed at Dev. So, a message has been passed along to the friend speaking with that ex-lover of Dev’s. Dev cleaned the message up in translation, but essentially, I told the friend to inform the ex-lover that, if she steps one foot out of line and does anything else to jeopardize Dev’s job, I will personally rip her from limb to limb.

There’s just too much shit going on to remember I’m supposed to be a pacifist right now. I’ll remember it next month, or something.

And, finally, I felt that a letter of explanation needed to be written to someone, and did so. I’d been considering it anyway, but a conversation that was later reported to me made me feel it had become a necessity. So, I wrote it, and was probably far more bitter in it than I should have been. I’m sure that it’s going to come and bite me on the ass later. But it’s done and sent, and probably read by now. There may or may not be a response. I don’t know. And I’m not sure whether I prefer the limbo of not knowing what the reaction to the letter was, or would rather have the reaction and so have that bite happen for sure.

So, with everything, I’ve got aches everywhere. I don’t usually go for massages. Generally, massage just makes me more tense rather than less. But for the last half hour or so, I’ve been obsessing on getting someone to rub my shoulders.

But, since there’s isn’t someone available for that, I’ll settle for stretching out and doing a little meditation.

Today began crappy. I got woken up three hours after I got to sleep. I could have slept longer, but some misunderstanding on the part of and meant that I was gotten up early. Very early for me.

It got better from there, fortunately. Fortified with much caffeine, we hit the road for San Juan Bautista. We were a little later to Angel’s family’s barbecue than the family would have liked, but we were there in time to get drafted into helping with preparation, so I don’t think that they have too much room to complain.

The food was excellent, and I had a good time, in spite of being surrounded by kids. I managed to reach into a space I can only manage to find once in a great while, and put on my good-with-kids face. I don’t know where this comes from, and it certainly masks the truth that I’m unhappy with being surrounded by kids. But there were several of the group of children that were very charmed by me, followed me around, and thought I was great fun to have a tickle-fight with. Which, of course, I always won since I’m not ticklish. I may not be a very maternal sort, but I can play the part when I need to look good for a friend’s family. And the adults at the party were fun. All in all, it was a good way to spend a day.

Then the ride back happened, and partway home, events took a decided turn for the worst.

We’d gotten off of 101 to grab something to drink at a drive-thru. When we were heading back toward the highway, the decision was made to head to a different route and drive it back up, since we’d taken 101 down.

So, I was driving along a road in Gilroy, heading toward our new route home. I was approaching a stop light (corner of Forest and Leavesly, if anyone knows Gilroy and cares.) The light turned yellow when I was still far enough away that I knew better than to attempt to squeak by. So, I began slowing for a stop. That was when I caught the flash of movement in the review, movement that struck me as wrong. I glanced up, and saw that some guy had been driving close to us, at high speed, either didn’t notice that we were slowing down, or didn’t intend to slow down himself. He attempted to go around us to the left, but I knew he was too close to make it. So I released pressure on the brakes to lessen the impact and managed to haul around the wheel toward my right, to make the impact at more of an oblique angle and reduce the force of it further. All of which, as it turns out, did help. The only thing he did to my car was to put a streak of white paint across the bumper.

He pulled alongside, and said that there was nearly no damage, but we could pull off so I could take a look. We turned off of Leavesly onto Forest and parked. He was parked ahead of me, so I couldn’t tell if there’d been any damage to the front passenger side of his car. I checked that the kid in the car was okay (and I should have checked everyone, but I was running on adrenaline after the impact and didn’t cover all the bases as well as I should.)

I hopped out of the car and the guy and I walked around to the back of my car. Sure enough, faint white streaks of paint. Not the slightest sign of even a small dent. Since he’d been going pretty fast, and I’m sure there could have been some pretty impressive damage if I hadn’t reacted as I did, my measures seemed to have made everything all right. “Seemed to” being the operative words there, as I found out immediately after.

That was when Angel finally made herself heard. She couldn’t move her head. Her neck was hurting, and she was having chest pains as well. She could barely talk, and had strained to make herself heard back where I was standing.

Dev checked on Angel. I’d been just about to start the formalities of getting his insurance information when Angel called out, so it got put on hold while we talked with Angel to find out what was wrong.

The moment the guy heard that Angel was injured in the accident, he sprinted for his car, jumped in, and tore off into traffic on Leavesly. I was half in my own car at the time, trying to ease Angel enough that she wouldn’t be in so much pain. The next step I was going to take was to get out her cell phone and have Dev call the ambulance while I got the guy’s information. But I saw him heading for his car, and knew I’d never be able to stop him. So, while I was trying to help Angel, I told Dev to grab a pen and get the guy’s plate.

From there, we had the whole circus. A call on the cell to 911, a truck full of paramedics from the closest fire station, followed a couple minutes later by an ambulance, and then Gilroy PD to take our statements, physical description of the guy, description of the car he was driving, and the license plate number. By the time the interviewing officer was done, he let us know that the car’s registration had been pulled. And, of course, since the guy took off like he did, and it was an injury accident, that makes his little stunt into felony hit and run.

While Dev, Ben, and I were talking with Gilroy PD, paramedics and EMTs put Angel into a collar, got her slowly and carefully out of the car, and strapped her to a backboard. Then off she went in the ambulance. The paramedics assured us that, since there appeared to be some kind of neck and/or back injury, they were going to give her a smooth, easy ride to the hospital… no swerving madly through intersections, nothing that might jostle her. We got directions to the hospital, and arrived shortly after Angel was wheeled in.

While she was being checked, we gave what information we could to the hospital staff, and then went out in front of the place to use Angel’s cell. We called the social workers, we called Angel’s ex-husband, we called the babysitter for Ben, we called since he’s a friend, works in the area, and might be able to stop by for emotional support and, possibly, to bring food to us. None of the three of us were about to leave Angel there at the hospital to get food.

And we waited.

Eventually, we were let in one at a time to see Angel, starting with her son. That was a good thing, because Ben had been worrying himself sick over whether or not she’d be okay.

I remember when, at a slightly younger age than Ben is now, my mother was in a car accident. I’d come home from school, and sat at home for hours getting more and more worried that she wasn’t coming home. No one told me anything until about three and a half hours until after she’d been admitted to the hospital. And then it was a nurse who would only tell me that my mother had been in a very serious car accident and had been brought to the emergency room, and my father would call me later. Despite my attempts to get her to tell me if she’d be okay, the nurse would say nothing more than that, and finally hung up on me. An hour later, my father called, and all he would tell me was to go over to the neighbor’s house and stay there until he came to get me. He wouldn’t tell me anything either. So I spent that entire night convinced that my mother had been injured so badly she was dying. It turned out to be something bad… compound fracture of her left leg… but nothing like what a child’s imagination can conjure in circumstances like those.

So, since a mother-being-injured incident brought back memories of my childhood encounter with that, I was relieved to see that the hospital staff not only let him in to see her as soon as they could, they also made sure to keep him (and us) informed of her condition, what injury she’d sustained, and the severity.

As it turned out, the jolt of impact had seriously strained the muscles on the left side of her neck, left shoulder and arm, and left side of her chest. The same muscles that were damaged and weakened by the two minor strokes Angel had a few months back. So it was painful, but it was nothing that was seriously going to harm her in the long-term. They also diagnosed her with a mild concussion and dehydration. So they pumped her full of electrolytes, monitored her on an EEG until they were sure there was no serious problem from the minor concussion, gave her pain medication and muscle relaxants, and sent her home with us.

Getting her in and out of the car was an adventure. She passed out completely under the influence of the drugs while we were attempting to get her in the car. Ben ran to get a nurse, but she’d come to and was situated in the car before the nurse got there. All the way home, Angel kept up a stoned running dialog. If I’d had room left to be amused by anything after the accident, I’d have been chuckling. Angel stoned is very cute and very amusing.

Then we got her home, and Devon and I together managed to get her up the stairs. Devon walked beside her, supporting her, and I walked immediately behind her to steady her and help give her boosts up the steps.

Angel’s now ensconced on the big couch, Ben on the loveseat. They’re both asleep. Devon went into her bedroom to pass out herself. And I, longtime insomniac, have had a stressful enough day and little enough sleep going into it that I should be ready to sleep myself. But I’m wide awake. Like caffeine, adrenaline takes a long time to wear itself out on me. I will be wide awake and ready to take on the world… and then drop abruptly over a cliff, all at once, and need to sleep for the next ten hours. No telling how long it’ll be before I find my cliff, however.

Drewkitty was talking about coming over, to check up on all of us. Unfortunately for him, it seems that if he does, he’ll only have me as company. The still-slightly-amped version of me, anyway. And achy version, as well. Though only Angel got injured in the crash, the jolt was enough to annoy my arthritis. And then the long wait at Walgreen’s, standing around while the 24-hour pharmacy filled her prescriptions, didn’t make it any happier. So now, I ache in all the arthritic places around my lower back and hips.

Thank Goddess that Devon and Ben weren’t hurt, and that Angel wasn’t injured worse than a lot of badly strained and painful muscles. All of that is the important part. I’d like to see the guy get caught and treated to what he deserves, sure. But more than anything, I’m glad that those three are, or are going to be, okay.

One of the novels I was a member of on Pan Historia is now under new management. I found this out shortly after I decided that I was ready to get re-involved with the place. Of the people I enjoyed writing with there, only one seems to be carrying on, mostly over on the Shalahar Ring novel.

Three of my friends, from what I’ve been told, are just tired of the shared fiction there, and that’s fine. After all, I took a vacation from it lasting many months. I was getting burned out myself. And, of course, life had a way of getting in the way for quite some time. It’s just too bad that, when I finally reached the point where I felt I had the time and energy to devote again, it was only to discover that the friends I had there are, for the most part, ready to leave completely. If I’d known it would come to this back when I started my long hiatus, I probably would have fought off the symptoms of burnout for longer, so I could enjoy the interactivity of writing with these folks.

One of the novels that they’d started, the Voyage of the Intrepid, is now under new management. The changeover is still going on, really. But I decided that it wasn’t someplace I intend to write any longer, with so many of the people I liked there gone. So, I just removed my two characters from the novel. They won’t be continuing with the storyline that was going there, anyway. They’re starting from scratch, as if everything that’d gone before never really happened, from the looks of it. There was so much that was good in the old storyline. Sorry to see it go.

Well, c’est la vie. I’ll probably slowly bail on most, if not all, of the rest of the stories there over time. Only having one person to play with plot kinks and such just isn’t much fun. If I’m going to be that limited, then I might as well be devoting myself to writing things strictly on my own.

It was fun, though, while it lasted. And it’ll always have some fond memories.

The last bout of experimenting with dinner…

2 cans pineapple juice
1/4 cup soy sauce
3 cloves garlic
6 slices fresh ginger root
1/4 teaspoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
4 frozen skinless boneless chicken half-breasts
1 tablespoon cornstarch
2 tablespoons water

Combine all ingredients except cornstarch and water in a baking dish. Bake in the middle of a preheated 350 degree oven, turning occasionally, for one hour. Remove the chicken from the sauce. Combine the cornstarch and water in a small bowl or measuring cup. Pour the sauce the chicken was baked in from the baking dish to a saucepan. Bring the sauce to a boil, add the cornstarch mixture, stirring, and stir until sauce thickens and turns glossy. This should only take a few seconds. Spoon sauce over the chicken. Serve with steamed white rice.

I normally don’t have any problem remembering these things, though all measurements are approximate, so will never be repeated exactly. However, I had two friends request that I start writing down my experiments, so they will definitely not get forgotten.

Well, here you both go.

15 hours. And I’m thinking about going back to sleep. I guess I shouldn’t really be surprised, though. The last time I’d slept before finally falling asleep around 1 this morning was Wednesday afternoon, and that was only for 2 hours.

There are many things I’ve been thinking about, and could write about. But that seems like too much effort. I’m still very tired.

You’re Notorious!

Which Duran Duran album are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

But I thought I just had one big trumpet, and parted it down the middle? :D

I amNyarlathotep! The 999 forms of Nyarlathotep are a point of meditation for the true initiate. It is through these manifold faces that the secrets of the universe are made known. Called “The Crawling Chaos”, Nyarlathotep is the disembodied ego of Azathoth and thus the universal “I” of known reality. Some of the many documented forms are; Father of Knives, Nephren-Ka, the Black Man, the Beast of the Lashing Tongue to name a few.

Which Great Old One are you?

click here to find out which asian action superstar you are!

You are Jackie
Chan! you like to take risks. you live for the moment. you are a thrill-seeker.
At heart, you’re a really nice person.
you funny, charasmatic and full of energy. although sometimes your goofness
gets you into trouble, your
drunken boxing skills are fabulous! just bring a pot of rice wine with you.

Since my sleep disorders and near two years of working a night job haven’t been cooperating with the idea of me going to bed a little earlier, I started working on turning my schedule around by going the other way. Staying up a little bit later every day, getting up a little bit later. This kind of thing comes easier than managing to get to sleep earlier.

However, my attempt to do this coincided with getting sick. And it’s that lovely type of flu that makes you tired all the time.

I’m mostly over it, now. The headache and sore throat are gone. But I’m still tired.

Yesterday, I went to bed around one in the afternoon. I’d been slowly creeping up on this for a number of days. I woke up at about eight at night. Seven hours of sleep, that’s a relatively large amount for me, the Queen of Short Sleep Insomnia. Average for me is generally somewhere between four and six hours of sleep, with occasional bouts of sleeping for nine to twelve hours straight.

So, getting up when I did, getting as much sleep as I did, etc, should mean that I can make it at least until one again without too much trouble, right?

Wrong. I can barely see straight. I can’t really see what I’m typing at the moment. I’m just assuming that my touch-typing is not letting me down.

I’m giving up. I’m feeling too miserable tired to even make it as late as I did yesterday, much less a little later than that. Probably the tag end of what I had, since I didn’t allow myself to sleep all that time that my body was urging me to while I was sick. I kept on going in spite of it, and now I appear to be paying for it. I’ve been feeling dizzy and vaguely ill from exhaustion for about an hour and a half now, and have been fighting it off. But I’m out of fight.

G’night. And who knows, I might even get another good, long sleep this time. That’d be very nice.

What the hell are they thinking?

Never mind. They were only thinking in dollar signs. This is Hollywood, after all.

http://www.petitiononline.com/no2jlo/petition.html

I’ve taken the Purity Test, in various versions, and various numbers of questions, several times over the years.

I still remember the results that amused me the most. Two friends from my college days. They were the best of friends with each other, and when it came to the Purity Test, they were direct opposites.

Kenji, 2% pure. And Tull, 98% pure.

I remember Tull griping about not being 100% pure. It was the whole having friends and showing affection to friends that did it. In the platonic relationship section, he had just enough examples of that to drop his score 2%. Poor baby.

They were both minor celebrities in the group when their scores became known. The highest and lowest we’d seen.

I’ve always been middle of the road. But every year brings me a little bit close to Kenji.

It seems that my writer’s block is dead again. It’s about bloody time!

Writer’s block, and then seeing , and then recovering from Lynx, and then writer’s block, and then stressing over losing my job, and then writer’s block. I haven’t written a word in a long time. I think the last time I wrote anything was early July of last year.

I’m actually most of the way through something for Pan Historia. I’ve just got a few things to tie up in it, and then I can post something. And there, at least, it has been since early July that I wrote anything. I checked through the old storyplay posts in the Shalahar Ring novel, and the last one I did was something like July 3.

Besides all of that, I miss my friends from PH. Roger I still get the occasional email from, and and put the occasional post in their journals. But I haven’t talked to any of them in ages. I keep thinking I should call people, but they’re all long distance, and I’m too worried about how little money I have coming in to cover rent and bills as it is. I know that with Urquhart in particular, phone conversations tend to last hours and hours. I can’t afford that until I have another job. So, calling folks will just have to wait.

I’ve also had the urge many times in the last couple months to call . I haven’t spoken with him outside of the sporadic email since just after we broke up. But that’s long distance, too.

Dammit, I need all the friends to live locally.

That’s it. You’re all moving here. NOW. :D

It’s on. Fucker’s gonna get thoroughly reamed.

(And no, that’s not anyone who I know reads my journal.)

Don’t fuck with the people I care about. It’s a damn good way to make a bitter enemy out of me.

I hate that. I really prefer turning the clock back during the fall. More sleep!

Speaking of which…

G’night! It’s an hour later than I thought it was!

I can’t believe I’m still fucking awake on 1 1/2 hours of sleep.

Guests arrived just when I was starting to consider a nap, and here it is, approaching two in the morning, and not feeling like I can sleep now.

Somebody want a sleep disorder or two? Cheap? I think I’m tired of having so many at once.

Got email from one of the companies I’ve applied to. They’re interested in what they saw in my resume and cover letter, and the email said I’d be contacted for a phone interview sometime in the next 72 hours.

And just arranged an interview with a place up in Atherton for Monday.

Come Monday, I also need to check back with the direct-hire specialist at Spherion and see how she’s doing with the position she had in mind for me.

This new resume has made a huge difference. I don’t usually get so many replies on applications when I look for a job. I’m glad I took that week to go down to Delano and cuss and discuss the resume with my mom. So far, her advice has been solid.

Keeping my fingers crossed that one of these interviews will turn into a job.

It looks very likely that and I will be moving in with in Fremont a couple months from now. We’re starting the packing/transportation thing now, getting stuff out of here that we don’t need right this moment. We’re going to do it the leisurely way, so there’s no last-minute rushing about. Or, at least, not a huge amount of it.

One of the first steps will be clearing out the carport. This month is the city’s take-anything trash month. So we’ll be hauling a lot of stuff out for them to take, and things that are still functional will get walked over to Good Will. Any past residents of this place who may still have stuff stored down there should contact me in any of the various ways you have available and let me know if there’s something you want to keep, before trash pickup on Wednesday morning.

, I know that I owe you the deposit money, payable if I decide to move out, as we agreed when you moved out. Since I haven’t yet found a job, I may be a little late getting it to you. But rest assured that I do pay my debts, as quickly as I’m able.

We should know for sure in the next few days whether or not we pass the background check required by CPS. Since Angel’s son Ben was a ward of the state for a while, and he has just recently returned home, this is required. It’s looking good so far, and I don’t anticipate any problems with it. But it is the first hurdle to be cleared before we can move.

This move will mean less rent for all three of us. And, fortunately, Ben is old enough, intelligent enough, and mature enough for his age that he doesn’t trigger my usual reaction to children. He’s become one of the few children whose company I’ve been able to enjoy. Three of my younger cousins were among the first I could deal with. Then Valerie and Jacob, many years ago, were the first that I wasn’t related to. They were the two kids I took care of when I was the emergency relief for a nanny who specialized in emotionally disturbed children. They had their issues, that’s for sure. And I adored them anyway. Psycho cousin’s two elder children are special to me. Paige I liked, the one time I met her. And now Ben. Not that many, considering the number of children I’ve wound up dealing with at one point or another. But I’m glad that Ben is one of them.

Besides, he adores my cooking. Always a good way to convince me, appealing to my ego when it comes to my culinary skills.

In some ways, the thought of moving again is hard. I have always hated moving, and I’ve done so often in spite of that. Mom’s always been a bit of a gypsy at heart, so we bounced about all over the US, and then down into Mexico. After I was out on my own, I had to move several times in one year before I got here. And I’ve stayed put, fought to do so, several times since. And, of course, this move means being further away from the friends I have remaining in the area. In spite of all of that, the pros outweigh the cons.

For someone who hasn’t led a very settled life, and who loves to travel like I do, you’d think moving would be easy. But it isn’t. I’ve always wanted a more rooted existence, and I have hated to move more each time I’ve had to do so. There have only ever been a couple times I was relieved to move, rather than resenting it. Even when I think about travelling, it’s always with the idea of someplace to come back to when I’m tired of roaming. Someplace that says home to me. But I’ve always been just settled enough that someplace will start feeling like home at last, and just transient enough that I wind up leaving it once it finally reaches that point. It’s been a strong, if unspoken, factor behind my refusals to move to San Diego or Seattle when I’ve been asked to by friends I love. The thought of moving, after all these years and all these moves, is reaching something approaching phobic.

Which, actually, is a part of why I’m agreeing to this. Like flying in spite of acrophobia, like singing in spite of stagefright, like wearing contacts despite my unease about poking things into my eyes. If something bothers me that much, I always feel the need to face it down. I will not let my life be ruled and controlled by fear or pain.