And now, we come to the crux of the matter.
I know I'm more than a bit tardy with this, but I got whatever supercold/flu that Dirk had. Today is the first day I managed to drag my butt to class, and the first day I checked my e-mail.
Thursday afternoon, I did Claire's english homework for her. I wasn't just being nice. I was bored and I figured that Claire would feel indebted to me for a while if I did this for her. Philanthropy has never been my strong suit.
Dirk was still sick on Friday, so I spent a lot of time at his house, as my father was home. I bought him these candles that looked and smelled like chocolates. We went to Ruby Tuesday's for Ice Cream in the evening, and I went to bed early because I had to wake up at 4 the next morning. Oh, and I cleaned Blitzkrieg's cage out. Poor thing, Genghis tried to claw at her when I was taking her out, and she screamed. She stuffs her cheeks to the point where she looks like a short cobra.
My tonsils were swelling up pretty badly the next morning, which is the first symptom of Dirk's disease, but I hauled my butt out of bed to the commuter lot to meet Ron, my ride to the Camping Trip. I made it there okay, and it was a semi-enjoyable ride. My only problem was that I couldn't seem to fall asleep, because we kept talking. I'd only gotten about 4 hours of sleep the night before.
We got to the mountain we were to climb, and I had to readjust my pack. As usual, I was the tail that wagged the dog, with the exception of Ron. I hate hiking, I really do. About halfway through this "adventure", I started blanking out and telling myself that none of this was really happenning, that I wasn't really there. It got drizzly, and my feet were aching, as well as my back. No surprise....we went almost straight up the mountain for two miles, then up and down the rest of the way. For a while, I was walking ahead of the teacher and Ron, but behind the rest of the class, so that I couldn't see them anymore. That scared me, because I started imagining I could hear voices whenever the wind blew through the dried underbrush.
Five minutes before we got to the campsite, some nice boy took my pack from me and carried it. We set up our tents, I ate my MRE, and I tried to call Dirk via cell phone. No reception, but I wasn't completely surprised. It also started raining, so I went to bed at about six.
I was woken up at 10:30 by loud voices and a flashlight beam hitting the side of my tent. I grumbled a bit, then crawled out to see what was up. Besides, I had to pee. I found a group of about six or seven people sitting around an orange glo-stick. We weren't allowed to set a fire, because there hadn't been any strong rain in the region, and the underbrush was dried out. I sat and talked to them a while, then went back to my tent to sleep.
I had the oddest dream, possibly because I woke up every half hour or so for the rest of the night (rocks were digging into me).
I was sitting at a desk, talking to Don Simon Ysidro (a small pale vampire from the Barbara Hambly book, "Those Who Hunt The Night".) Amazingly, I could read his thoughts as though they were printed on paper before me. Then, I was looking at a transcription of his thoughts, and I realized I was reading only one set of his thoughts, indicated by black stylized bats. Those were his psychic thoughts. There were red stylized bats that I couldn't read, and he whispered in my mind that these were his "immortal" thoughts. He was amused by my curiousity, and explained that I would not be able to read his immortal thoughts until I became a vampire. I sat in the library, staring at him standing on the other side of the desk, and listened to the silence of midnight. And I wondered what would happen next.I woke up on Sunday morning at 7, and left the campsite with Ron at eight. We walked the rest of the way (about 1.5 miles) to the cars in about an hour, and I called Dirk on the way home. I got home at 12:30, showered, then picked Dirk up from work. I think we got something to eat. Then, I dropped Dirk off at home, and went home until 7.
On my way home, I passed Krisco, and she saw me. She looked like she was about to cough up demons, whilst I, as usual, had a half-mocking smile on my face. What if we're determining now how we'll look for the rest of our lives? Will Krisco always look as though life's played a cruel joke on her, and she's angry about it? Will I always view life as a bad joke? All I know is that if Krisco keeps making faces like the one I saw, her face is gonna freeze like that one day.
That night, Dirk and I went up to Tower. We've gotten calls from several potential band members. Before I picked Dirk up, Katie finally got in touch with me. It seems she wanted me to meet her new boyfriend. He seems like a nice guy, although a bit quiet (don't I always say that?). One thing that got me is that I was going full steam, chattering and joking away, and I was getting no reaction from him. When I'm going full steam, either I'm gonna piss you off or make you laugh. Indifference is rare. Other than that and the fact that his toes are purple from wearing Birkies (Birkenstocks) when it's too cold for them, he seemed like a great guy. He hurts Katie, though, and I'm gonna make him wish he'd been aborted.
Monday was...dull. I started getting sicker very quickly. I managed to get to one of my classes, where a friend of mine, Sharon, told me she'd run into Krisco over the week-end. It seems the only reason Krisco's boyfriend, Billy, is still going to school is that Krisco "makes him". As in, she threatens to break up with him and quit giving him rides everywhere. Sad state of affairs.
Tuesday, I called in sick for work, and spent most of the day miserable. I also picked Dirk up from work in the morning. Unfortunately, he didn't wake up very easily, and I got hysterical, mainly because I was sick and lonely. The whole argument ended at his place, when I brought him home, and I handed him my keys and told him I was walking home. I couldn't hit him, I couldn't yell at him, I couldn't tear out my hair, I couldn't hurt myself, and I couldn't say anything that would get a non-mocking response from him. So, I made a new outlet....that brought him around pretty quick.
Tuesday evening, I told my parents I was going to Gaithersburg to return Mary's backpack. In reality, I'd called Mary and found out that she didn't need it back...so, I stowed the pack and tent at Dirk's place, and we went in search of a McFlurry. They're sadly hard to find. One place didn't sell them, and the next had run out of ice cream. We finally got one at about 9:30, just before I had to be home.
Today, I finally bought my parking permit, went to class, picked up my present from Katie A- (I forgot it at her house last week-end), and bustled Dirk off to work.
I'd like to say I'm proud of Roachboy. I e-mailed him about the $60 he owes me for the cell phone and he agreed to pay it. We'll see. Meanwhile, there's still the issue of the thousand dollars I'll never see.
(11:34 pm)Okay, folks, this is a shout-out to all the people I e-mailed in the past couple weeks: I'm lonely, and I'd appreciate it if you'd write me back. I'm not going to be specific....you guys know who you are.
I stopped by Katie's on the way to Weight Watchers. She's really not very enthusiastic about the Aerosmith show on Friday. I guess I don't blame her. It's a damn expensive ticket, and she could use the cash. She may sell it. I'm definitely psyched, mainly because I had to wait in the dark in the middle of the night for the goddamn tickets.
I was practically chirping this afternoon, even though I almost crushed Dirk's balls a couple times by accident. I don't know what contributed to my good mood.