2000-09-26 - 12:17 a.m.
What a week this has been, what a rare mood I'm in....
Wait a minute, this is nothing like being in love. Except for that sick feeling at the pit of my stomach. (Have I ever really been in love? I wonder sometimes. Maybe I'm in love now. Who knows? Even if I were, I certainly wouldn't put it in here. I didn't last time. Course, it was hardly worth mentioning last time, too. I'll shut up now. I'm getting way too cryptic in my old age.)
So anyway, this has been one hellish week. Not to me personally, but a lot of bad stuff has gone down to people I care about, and contary to popular belief, I'm not an uncaring jerk. Well, I am, but just not to the extent that some people would like to believe (and that I would like some people to believe.)
Sarah's grandfather died. I don't feel bad about posting this to the world, cause she did it already.
That was Tuesday, I think. Don't quote me on that, though.
Tammy's brother is in the hospital with a blood clot in his leg that's gotten infected.
Thursday, BT was laid off from his factory, along with his entire shift. Which I think is awfully pissy. He should land on his feet, though, as he's already eligible for unemployment, and he has about six months worth. I just hope we don't get sick of seeing each other around the trailer, what with me working only part time, and him working less than that....
Friday night, Dave and Alys got into a car accident (don't worry, everyone's physically okay, except for maybe a bit of whiplash.) The car's a wreck, and we didn't get to go celebrate Dave's birthday the way we all wanted to. Some birthday for Dave. Poor guy. He had to put up with a lot of us at his apartment wishing him good cheer instead. I know that would make me want to kill something, and maybe finish with myself.
I just talked to my mom on the phone a few hours ago. My sister has mono, and one of my dad's nephews (I guess that would make him my cousin. Wow. He really is my cousin, and I don't even refer to him as such, like I do for everyone else I'm related to. I once referred to my grandmother as my cousin.) Anyhow, he was killed in a car accident in South Dakota on Tuesday or Wednesday.
So it's been a bad week to be someone Ken knows and cares about. How's he doing, though?
Well, suprisingly all right. My dresser imploded a couple days ago, (yeah, you read that right. It just couldn't take it's own weight anymore. Cheaply made piece of crap.) I tugged really hard on the bottom drawer whilst trying to put laundry away, and suddenly, there's just a pile of scrap lumber there.
So I had to take all my clothes out and hang them in the closet while I search for a replacement dresser that doesn't cost more than $10.
Except that my closet rod wasn't very well put together, either, and fell out of it's holes while I was hanging up the excess clothing. So I got to reinstall that and hang up all my clothes for a second time. I even got to rewash some of them.
So anyway, my life has just had some minor annoyances, nothing compared to other people I could mention...and actually did, just a few paragraphs ago.
I'm waiting for the heavy end of the hammer to drop, though. When I got off the phone with Dave (he called me at 3 on Friday night to explain what had happened.), I tried to get back to sleep, but I couldn't. Part of it was the after effects of the adrenaline surge that I felt when he first said, "We've been in an accident." You know, the kind where your heart leaps into your throat and you hope no one has been hurt.
It takes a while to calm down after something like that, even if it is 3am and you're really tired.
But the other part of it was me running a mental tab of all the bad stuff this week has brought. Admittedly, I felt terrible for those affected, but part of me was also selfishly wondering, "What's going to happen to me when my turn comes? Will I get fired? Will I continue to just have a lot of little annoying crap happen to meuntil I kill something? Will I get robbed? Killed? Beaten up? What? What? WHAT?!?"
Needless to say, I was feeling very alone right then. I'd have given anything for someone else to be there, just to talk to about nothing and sleep next to, so I'd feel better. My poor Al Snow teddy bear was nearly squeezed to death that night. I was actually pretty scared. I almost cried. For a fleeting instant, I wished I was four again so I could curl up in my mother's lap.
Probably a good thing that I didn't get to sleep immediately. With a mental frame like that, my dreams would have been really, really bad.
Today at work, I read one of my favorite children's books, The Runaway Bunny, while I was doing inventory. I noticed it on the list, and when I found it, I read it. I nearly cried again. I came to the conclusion that you are never too old to benefit from having someone warm to hold you.
Oh my God, I've turned into a woman. (Before all you chicks out there start sending me angry e-mails, let me explain...you know what I meant.) That last couple paragraphs was so not me it wasn't even funny. I couldn't even have been parodying anything. There's something seriously wrong with me right now. (COuld it be the effects of being in love, turning my brain, such as it is, into some sort of spongecake? Only time will tell.)
Uh, Ken, it could also have something to do with the fact that it's 1am, meaning you've been up for what will be approaching 24 hours very soon. In other words, your tired, and you've stopped making sense even to yourself. What the hell were you trying to tell us with that last paragraph? Okay, so you've been feeling a bit more emotional than you usually are these last couple days...
A BIT more? That's like saying Marlon Brando has gained a BIT of weight since he was in Streetcar Named Desire. Come on, Captain Stoic of the Hedonist Squad, the guy who does not feel human emotion has nearly cried twice in 36 hours. Something is awry.
Was that another Marlon Brando fat joke I caught back there? We talked about this, Ken. And need I remind you the old saying about people who live in glass houses?
What, that they need to dress in their basements?
KEN!
Okay, okay. Fat bastards like me have no right to make fat jokes.
Good. Next time, I'll make you write it a hundred times one the blackboard.
Can we get back to the main subject, here, please? I was about to say that nothing that bad has even happened to me personally, yet. I'd hate to think that all this emotional garbage has been brought on by something like empathy and concern for my friends.
Could it have anything to do with some of the things you've been thinking about that don't get put in here because they concern people who might read this?
Yeah, maybe, but that's still weak.
What's the matter, Ken? Afraid of seeming human and vulnerable?
No, I'm just afraid of embarrassing myself. I mean, it's not like I can shun myself for being weak and stupid.
You know, I've just realized that we've been arguing for most of this entry.
I know. That in and of itself is a bad sign. We've never talked this long, Ken.
I know, Ken.
So shut up then, Ken.
Okay.
Anyway, I hope that everyone else has been doing okay, those people that I haven't heard from in a while. And even if they're not, I don't really want to hear about it. I figure, I'm still discovering this whole human sympathy thing. I don't want to ruin it by spreading around too much sympathy at once. Then I'll run out, and be right back where I started, only considerably more tired from running around doling out my sympathy to everyone. The next person who comes to me with bad news is not getting a sympathetic reaction. They're getting laughed at. I'm going to restore the old Ken by any means necessary.
I really should go to bed now. I've been typing for half an hour, and really nothing in this entry has been worth reading after the first couple lines.
Goodnight.
Ken
"...and bats rhymes with gnats and fool rhymes with cool and power rhymes with flower and orange rhymes with...nothing. Which is what I feel like without you."
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