as you may, or may not, have noticed, the site has gotten a little pale overnight. i discovered yesterday that this new design is condusive to radical colour-scheme changes on a whim. this is just what first came to mind. i like the cleanliness of it. too bad if you don’t.
also, way down at the bottom of each greymatter-generated page you will now find a search box. go ahead, search! really. the only catch is that it only searches greymatter-generated pages and i only started using greymatter february first, so you’ll only get results from entries dated 2.2.2001 and newer.
i have a dentist appointment in an hour an a half. that has nothing to do with tweaking this site. i just wanted to share.

rick seems to think i’m down. i tried to convince him i wasn’t, but he wouldn’t be swayed. that got me to thinking whether i really am all right or not at this point in time.
the conclusion: no. i’m not.
the impending transit strike is looming large and freaking me out. i like stability. i like knowing that i have a job to go to, no matter how bored i may get with it, and that i will get a paycheque every other friday. we’re going to be affected in some manner, but no one knows to what extent or for how long. i think that is what bothers me most. no one knows if it will be for one day, one month or one year.
i’m also suffering from a bout of spring fever. i want to go somewhere and enjoy myself. i’d go away during the strike, but i have to save all the money i have squirrelled away in case it lasts overlong. right now i’m waiting for the last week of june which is when i will be going to seattle. only eighty-plus days to go. i wish my car was in half-decent mechanical shape… i’d just get in and take off somewhere.
then there are the personal issues. i’m afraid of leading one boy on, terrified of losing another boy, and wondering why a third is going to such great lengths to get me. i can’t even pretend not to care about it right now. i’m learning to deal with it all, but it’s right under the surface waiting for any chance to bleed into my thoughts and corrupt my denial that everything is fine.

sometimes when i’m lying in bed at night and the neighbour’s porch light is bleeding through my blinds, i stare at the smoke detector on my ceiling. in the gloom and hypothalmic haze, the pattern on its casing takes on a kokopelli shape and often worries me into restless dreams.
then there are the waking moments; the brief periods of consciousness amidst the rem cycles and muddled perceptions. when i refuse to believe i’m not flying or falling; when my eyes won’t stay closed against the reality pummeling itself into my brain. i’m grateful they don’t last long.
the daydreams are the most disturbing. they’re the most tangible because imagination takes over and carries me away, without a care for where i want to journey. the encounters are so vivid i can almost convince myself the situations were authentic. most often it would be preferable if they did occur; i’m much more bold inside my brain.

it seems my mom stayed on this side of the water sunday night. i got a call from her yesterday afternoon to tell me that she and cousin brenda wanted to take me out for dinner. my first thought, considering the state my head was in, was “no fucking way”. but, i’m a good daughter and said sure. as soon as i hung up the phone i took three extra-strength tylenol in hopes that would take the edge off the ache.
dinner was good. i managed to get them to agree to go to my favourite chinese restaurant. they were very pleased with the quality of the food and even more so with my picking up the tab. brenda seems nice enough. she thinks her daughter and i could be sisters. i hear that was a big topic of conversation at the last family reunion my mother attended.
i got home and didn’t do a lot. i was very much overfull from dinner and still a little headachy. i was also on a bit of an adrenaline buzz from the work i was doing for paige, so i was restless. i eventually got out the bad beginning and finished reading that. by the time that was done i was ready for bed.
my life is just so exciting i could puke.

i just read my car insurance renewal notice in its entirety (instead of just reading how much it will cost) and discovered i do NOT have to take my car through air care (emmissions testing) until next year!
i’ve been stressing about what i’d do if it didn’t pass again this year and i had to pay more money for more repairs which i can’t afford right now because i’m trying to save shekels in case of extended picket action. this is like getting whipped cream on your hot chocolate when all you ordered was coffee, black.

after eating a few too many chocolate covered peanuts before bed, i had a restless sleep and woke this morning with far too much lethargy and a nasty headache. i’m being stubborn and refusing to take any tylenol to relieve my pain, so i’m sitting here wishing the clouds would thicken up because the sun is starting to really hurt my eyes. i shouldn’t have left my sunglasses in the car.
the weekend was definitely less than stellar. friday night was great: dinner and cards at meg’s. during one round of buck, mark was my partner and he completely screwed up the first three hands, causing me to lose the game. i kept riding him about that all night long. i’m usually the one who gets picked on by him. it was empowering to turn the tables. saturday: mom came over. the less said about that the better (it wasn’t *horrible*, but it threw my whole mood out of whack). sunday was a write off. i wasn’t rested from sleeping on the floor and it was miserable out. i didn’t do a lot, except eat. i was starving yesterday for some reason. at least the crap i was eating was healthy crap, until i got the chocolate peanuts.
my plan this week is to go see crouching tiger, hidden dragon some time this week. maybe i’ll ask dean if he’s seen it. it’s one of those movies i’ve wanted to see since i saw the first clip of it, but i just haven’t gotten around to going. that and anyone i’ve wanted to go with has already seen it. bastards.
by the way, paige is my buttercup-scented hero.

i got a crushlink notification this weekend. so, i went to see if i could figure out who my crush was this morning. i tried this before my morning coffee, so it took me far too many tries to figure out who it was.
why am i telling you this? well… if you read this and got an email telling you someone has a crush on you, it was me. =)

“I don’t know. I love him. It’s great. It sucks. I have hope. I’m stupid for having hope. I don’t have any hope. He’s leaving, I shouldn’t bother; he’s leaving, I should seize my last chance. I should leave him alone. I should tell him how I feel. I should crawl under a rock and die like the bloated, mentally incompetent cow that I am.” — squirrel bait

i’m recovering from having my mother stay over last night. hopefully, the shell-shock will have worn off by tomorrow. although, i’m probably not helping myself by watching the oscars.

do you ever stop and wonder if we’re actually here, on this planet, living the lives we perceive?
sometimes i wonder if we’re just not characters in someone’s well-written novel. or computer generated sims, at the mercy of some pimply-faced 14-year-old who is up past his bedtime, staring, unblinking at the screen, watching us run around like we’re actually real. what if we’re someone’s science experiment, being kept in a constructed environment, our every action being monitored, with different tasks/problems orchestrated to test our skills? what if we’re someone’s pets? a “human farm” belonging to an alien child… and earthquakes are him shaking our container; floods, him pouring water in the top; hurricanes, his blowing furiously at us?
it makes me feel so small.

i buried a few old and rusty hatchets last night in a conversation with dan. it was long, long overdue. we’re both glad it got done. i think i’ll be able to be more comfortable with him as my friend without all the innuendo he used to put into our relationship.
had a really great night talking with a couple people i haven’t had the chance to banter back and forth with for quite a while. i miss that. i miss them.
again, it seems that all these people from my past are popping up in my life again. neall emailed me the other week, my talking with joe and dan, rick’s been more communicative lately, susane’s been around more, and the other jason was even around the other night. it just seems that they’re all coming out and wanting to reconnect at the same time. is it spring? maybe the cosmos is trying to help me realize there are people out there who like me for who i am and miss me when i’m not in their lives.
i’m also starting to think that maybe i should talk about what troubles me more often. i had to tell a couple people at work about what’s been bugging me ’cause they were asking about it and i really didn’t want to answer as if it were all okay because then it would just come up again. i just wanted to nip that topic in the bud. so, i told them. they were all very supportive and sympathetic. i didn’t even feel placated. i really think they were genuinely upset for me and my plight. that hasn’t happened in a long time, if ever.

i’ve had too much sugar and sunshine today. my head is killing me. oddly enough, i’m physically perky and energetic from the neck down. and, despite everything, i’m in a surprisingly non-bad mood. i still don’t want to do any work though. the pile just keeps getting bigger and i just keep on procrastinating.
oh, did i mention they’re saying we’ll probably be unable to work because of pickets for three months? yeah. mmm. i guess i’ll have to get a job at mcdonalds if i want to eat, ’cause strike pay will barely cover my base expenses, if i’m lucky. i’ll take in my “drive-thru all-star” award when i apply… they’ll have to hire me!

or are lyrics to mainstream music getting really explict? i remember hearing “closer” by nine inch nails for the first time and being shocked. when i was in high school, i was revered because i had the un-censored version of 2 live crew’s “me so horny”. maybe i’m just getting old and conservative…

“Because there is a part of us which believes we are unworthy of being loved, we pick people to love who are incapable of loving us back. You just have to realize this so that you don’t wake up years later and discover that you do deserve it and that you passed up the opportunity waiting for something that would never happpen.” — (horribly paraphrased) from queer as folk

so, i had to stop at the gas station to get some cash from the atm for lunch. while i was there, i thought i’d get a coffee. while pouring my coffee, i thought i’d bring in some timbits (donut holes) for the office. i’m such a nice person.
i’m halfway though my coffee (caffeine & sugar) and i’ve had four timbits (sugar & fat) and now i’m a little jittery. it’s going to be a long, long, long day.

and i thought i was getting over it. it was my own fault, though. i should have known better… i’m amazingly stupid for such a smart girl.