Especially when I feel like an elementary school girl tucking myself in bed at 9. The only difference is that I’m not being dragged to bed kicking and screaming.

And that’s mostly because I’m lucky to stay awake long enough to actually make it to bed.

I know I owe a post about my idiocy, but it’s gonna have to wait.

I <3 epiphanies.

For reals, y’all.

Nope.  Not one word.  Well, I wrote in my journal, but I don’t count journaling as word count.

This past Monday, I started my new job.  Which requires a badge.  Which means I can’t actually get where I need to be working until that comes through.  Which means I’ve spent the past three days essentially jumping through hoops, filling out paperwork, taking psych evals, and doing even more sitting around.

Today, that sitting around proved to be the most productive span of time I’ve had in a long while.

See, the whole key is to look like you’re doing something.  Even when you’re not, you have to look like you are.  Even though you’re waiting and sitting and waiting some more.  Bringing a book is frowned upon for whatever reason.  I don’t feel like dragging my laptop around because that would probably be frowned upon, too.  So, I took the time to finally map out my next play.

Seriously, in about 3 hours I wrote the basic framework from start to finish.  It’s not perfect, it still needs a ton of work, but having the general framework is a long way toward getting the actual script done.  When I wrote Bethany and the Belfry Bat I just wrote it.  I had an idea of characters and a general thought to the overall progression of the story line, but I had no clue how the script ended.

It took me 3 years to get it to the point it is now, and it could still use some tweaking.  3 years!  I don’t want to spend another 3 years writing a single work.  Having a clear idea as to start, middle, and finish will hopefully go a long way into cutting that time down significantly.

Anyway, I found it kind of funny that I spent so much of the past 5 – 1/2 months not writing a thing and then when I’m bored and waiting around trying to look busy I get a huge chunk out in one fail swoop.

Seriously.

The questions like “have you ever heard voices?” or “seen things that other people don’t see” or “have you ever wanted to hurt or kill anyone” really make the test difficult.

Well, not difficult, exactly, just weird.

Because I hear voices in my head, see things that other people don’t see, and have wanted to hurt or kill people on paper (with my anger at another person being the precipitating factor) especially if I’m in the middle of working on a project.  Is it weird that I felt dishonest that I answered in the negative to those questions?

I understand the reasons for the questions, but at the same time they point out a very big flaw, in my opinion, in these psych tests.  Because there is no wiggle room for anyone who, like me, uses the creative process to vent whatever emotions are apparent.  If I’d answered those in the affirmative, there’d be hell to pay with no recourse or opportunity to explain.

There’s got to be a story in there somewhere.  :-)

I don’t get it and in here somewhere I think is a miscommunication.  And trying to further expound on it will surely only make it worse.

Really.

Didn’t even take a shower until 5 o’clock.

Not sure what was going on – think a minor stomach bug because I felt fine when I woke up this morning, albeit a bit congested.  But that’s been going on for weeks.

Which makes me wonder if it’s possible to  spay or neuter every plant available.  Or whatever.  I just wish they’d quit doing it and spreading their nasty yellow misery all over the place.

Which leads me wonder what in the heck pissed off Mother Nature today?  Earthquakes and tsunamis and insanity, oh my.

Personally, I think it’s Al Gore’s fault for creating all the global warming broohaha hysteria, which is completely unnecessary.  Do we need to take better care of our planet?  Absolutely.  Do we need to fall prey to the absolute egotistical assumption to think that we’re even remotely responsible for climate change nee global warming?  Absolutely not.

It’s no wonder She’s raging.  I’m just happy that the devastation isn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

So just as I was about to start being better about blogging, I start my gig on Monday.  You know, the one that I had, then didn’t.  I have it again.  March will be spent dragging my tail out of bed at 5 am, which is so not my idea of a good time.  Come April, though, I’ll switch to the blessed insanity of night shift and will be working 72-hours a week for about 2 months.

It’ll suck for my social life, but since I don’t actually have one at the moment, it’s aaaaalllll good.  I’m sure I’ll be ready for one after this gig is over.  Right after I spend a week or two getting myself back on a hellish day schedule again.

I guess I really shouldn’t complain.  It’s keeping me out of the poor house for a couple of months.

There are other instances, however, where I apparently didn’t look far enough ahead.

See, I used to be a cryer.  If I was tired and got aggravated, I’d cry.  If I was happy, I’d cry.  If I was even the slightest bit sad, I’d cry.  The worst, though, was if I got pissed.

Ever try to tell someone to take a flying leap when you’re all red-faced and sobbing with snot running out of your nose?

I know… ’tis not a pretty picture.

Most of the people who’ve known me as an adult haven’t truly seen this side of me.  Oh, there were times I cried, but for the most part I’d have to be upset to the point of considering hari kari, and it didn’t happen so much when I got mad.  At least not when I was around other people.

It’s been like that for years, and when I started feeling run down all the time, it almost never happened.

So, here I am, after having spent the past 10 years feeling exceedingly crappy, finally feeling light years better, and wondering why my emotional state seems to be all sorts of insane.  Take the past couple of days, for instance:  I haven’t slept well, and every time I lie down to take a nap I get interrupted.  If it’s not my dad it’s the lawn maintenance crew or the doorbell or the phone.  I swear there’s a universal conspiracy that every time I’m determined to cuddle up in bed and blissfully sleep for an hour or three the party line starts yakking and thinking up ways to ensure it doesn’t happen.

Before it would just make me cranky.  Today it made me cranky and gave my dad a window seat to an emotionally-charged outburst laden with the whole red-face, crying, snot thing.

Who would’ve thought that as soon as I started feeling better I’d revert back to a number of things that drive me absolutely insane.

p.s.  I still haven’t gotten a nap in.

*sigh*

This is due to an unfortunate incident between a naked sevenish-year-old me getting ready to take her bath and a ginormous wolf spider that crawled out of the bathtub drain when I turned the water on.

To say I freaked out would be an understatement.

To add to the horror, my entire family, including my older brother, came bolting in the bathroom to find out why I was screaming bloody murder.

Did I mention I was nekkid?

I will kill spiders before I try to capture them.  Usually with whatever shoe happens to be handy.

The other night it was a flip-flop.

I feel no particular qualms about snuffing out their creepy little lives.

I do, however, have this momentary fear that the spider clan will rise up in retribution, cocoon me in my sleep, turn my insides to mush, and slurp out all the good parts.

I caught up with one of my oldest friends last night, who I’ll call D.  It’s been about 4 years since we’ve seen each other – the last time I saw him I’d just moved back from California.  We talk or text semi-regularly, but catching up in person has been a rather elusive endeavor.  He has a family and doesn’t live close by anymore.

Anyway, over really bad decaf at IHOP, we played catch up.  And during our chat I told him that I thought I’d be married with a family long before now.  We laughed at my dating history because, quite frankly, it’s an absolutely blessing I never married anyone I dated back in the day.  The word “disaster” doesn’t even come close.  I made the most atrocious choices when it came to dating.  The biggest giggle came when we reminisced about T. and how he and I had run into D. one night at the mall and T. couldn’t get me out of there fast enough.  He practically dragged me out the door into the parking lot as I was trying to have a conversation with D.  It wasn’t until after that particular nightmare ended that I found out that D. had laid him out one night when I wasn’t at the club we all used to frequent on a regular basis – this physical altercation had apparently transpired only a couple of days prior to the mall encounter.  And in retrospect, T. most decidedly deserved it.

Oh, we laugh about it now, but in those days everything was high drama.  We were all kids, really, doing things none of us had any business doing.

Of course, we still have our moments of drama, but it’s different now.  We’re all grown up and handle things far differently:  I’ve lost my penchant for club fighting, for one.  Back in the day I’d give you a black eye if you so much as looked at me funny.  Instead, I now internalize everything and trust only a select few to give me good, unbiased advice.  Not everything has to be as open and as transparent to everyone like it was back when cheating, breakups, who was dating who, and other dramas were an open secret to everyone at the club.

Mostly, though, I keep my own counsel these days.

I know I deserve much better than I allowed myself to have when it came to dating.  The funny thing, though, is that when I found pretty much exactly what I was looking for, I still got my heart shredded, even if it was by unintentional claws.  In retrospect, I understand why it happened (well, I have a good idea that hasn’t yet been confirmed) and know full well it really didn’t have anything to do with me (again, based on the aforementioned good idea) which is why, after a number of years, I still find myself in love, albeit cautiously, with someone who I should probably not invest any emotional energy into.  And yet, I still find him to be the one I want to turn to when I’m having a bad day.  I want to talk about goofy stuff and laugh at inside jokes that I refuse to bring up because it reminds me of what I want and what I don’t have.  I want to have honest conversation instead of dancing around the issues.  I want him to trust me when he’s had no reason not to, instead making me pay for what someone did before me.

If I thought it was a smart thing to do, I’d tell him all of this myself.  And yet I can’t out of a sense of self-preservation and a guarded heart.

The interesting thing to me, though, is that I’ve obviously matured in the past 15-20 years.  That sounds kind of funny since I’ll be 39 in just over a month, but since I still pass for 25 and don’t act my age unless I absolutely have to, it still surprises me a bit.  I guess what I mean to say is that I don’t jump at situations that I wouldn’t have thought twice about when I was in my 20’s.  This means that not only has my impulse control gotten much better, but I also recognize the ramifications of heading down a certain path.  While something may be what I want more than anything else in this world, I know that it’ll never have a chance to be anything other than pseudo-gratification and a poor substitute if I accept anything less than what I want or deserve.  This holds true for him, as well.

But dammit to all hell if I still don’t want to throw caution to the wind.

And the whole thing makes me cry, it’s just so fantastic.