So, today's kind of a big day.

I'm meeting someone for dinner tonight, and a social activity tomorrow. Sort of a D... no.

We're not using the d-word... it's a "just friends" kind of thing... but I think the d-word applies... it's just a d-word with no complicated expectations other than having fun spending time with someone special.

Which is probably a good thing, since this is my first real d-word sort of thing... ever. Ever.

I was very nervous and excited yesterday. Today, I think I feel... bemused, maybe?

Even with no complicated expectations, all sorts of new feelings have been coming up all week. It's fun to be experiencing this, but scary too... I don't know how to interpret these feelings. I don't know what to do with them.

I talked with a girlfriend about some of the feelings, and she said, yes, that's pretty much what it's like to feel like a teenage girl.

In honor of the occasion, I decided not to dress like a slob today... so far, two different girls have gone out of their way to tell me I look "cute" today. Which is cool. It's really interesting how different I feel because I'm dressed "nice". Even though it's what most people call "casual", it really does change my whole mindset.

Just a few more hours to wait...

It isn't hot in my office. So why am I sweating?

53. Should the following be exterminated:
pants that create the muffin-top look on women:

It finally occurred to me to just Google for it... "muffin-top look"...

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/gossip/story/330221p-281994c.html

I guess that will teach me to read my Glamour more often, huh?

For the record... I have no objection to the pants themselves; however, I do have some minor complaints regarding the bits of me that fail to fit into them. This is, sadly, the reason I can't wear my very cute size 8 jeans unless I've starved myself almost down to size 7, and is one of many reasons that the bare midriff look will never be seen on me, ever.

And I'm leaving work early today... I'm going shopping for jeans!

1. Name someone with the same birthday as you.

Jesus. Well, close enough.

2. Where was your first kiss?

I don't know yet...

3. Have you ever seriously vandalized someone else's property?

Not that I can recall... unless you count that time that I was two years old and disassembled the vacuum cleaner. But, I mean, if they didn't want you to take it apart, why did they put screws in it?

4. Have you ever hit someone of the opposite sex?

Not since early childhood.

5. Have you ever sung in front of a large number of people?

On TV. Guam, 1976 or 1977. You probably didn't see it. It was a play. I played one of the seeds. My line was "I'm growing!" Somebody else played a farmer. I'm pretty sure there was a musical number in there somewhere, too. First grade was cool.

6. What's the first thing you notice about the preferred sex?

Preferred? Wow, these questions are complicated. Um... their sex? Or, is the question, what is the first thing I notice AFTER I notice that they're of the preferred sex? Which brings us back to: preferred?

7. What really turns you on?

That's on a need-to-know basis... but depending on my current neurochemical state, the time of the month, the phase of the moon, etc.... well, let's just say that sometimes it doesn't take much!

8. What do you order at Starbucks?

I've only been into Starbucks once. I didn't order anything. Yuck.

9. What is your biggest mistake?

Mistakes? Too many to count, too big to measure, too late to fix.

10. Have you ever hurt yourself on purpose?

Yes, years ago. I'll always have the scars, too.

11. Say something totally random about yourself.

I cried at the mall yesterday.

12. Has anyone ever said you look like a celebrity?

Andy Hertzfeld. But that was a long time ago.

13. Do you still watch kiddy movies or tv shows?

No, never. On an unrelated note, The Land of The Lost DVD sets rock!

14. Did you have braces?

No.

15. Are you comfortable with your height?

Thrilled! Thank god I'm not tall.

16. What is the most romantic thing someone of the preferred sex has done for you?

Hmm, not sure... see question #6.

17. When do you know it's love?

I don't know. I hope I will.

18. Do you speak any other languages?

Tried and failed at least three. My brain doesn't do languages well.

19. Have you ever been to a tanning salon?

No, but I've erased EPROMs with a UV eraser... Is that close enough?

20. What magazines do you read?

Consumer Reports, Nuts and Volts. I subscribe to more but they're going into a big pile at the moment.

21. Have you ever ridden in a limo?

I don't think so. I was in an amphibious landing craft on a couple of occasions.

22. Has anyone you were really close to passed away?

I was holding my mother's hand when she died. And I still cry over losing my friend Beth to breast cancer. So, yes.

23. Do you watch mtv?

In the 80's I did. And for a brief time in the 90's when they ran Aeon Flux and The Maxx.

24. What's something that really annoys you?

People who drive their car as an expression of their ego.

25. What's something you really like?

The light and fresh air in my new apartment.

26. Do you like Michael Jackson?

Probably not... I do feel kind of sorry for him, given that he's obviously spent his whole life surrounded by people who have left him very messed up.

27. Can you dance?

No. And would probably refuse to try.

28. What's the latest you have ever stayed up?

Two or three days. I remember the doctor telling me "eventually, you will fall asleep." Insomnia sucks.

29. Have you ever been rushed by an ambulance into the emergency room?

No the only time I was in an ambulance, they were taking me from the emergency room to a mental hospital... and they didn't rush, they drove at a more or less normal pace. I suppose. Actually, I wasn't really paying attention to how fast they were driving.

30. Do you actually read these when other people fill them out?

Yes!

31. Number 31 appears to be missing?

Yes. Yes, it does.

32. What are your car/truck radio buttons set to?

I don't know; I gave up on broadcast radio a decade ago. I guess they're set to whetever the previous owner of the car had them set to.

33. When you're completely burned out, what's a good way to recharge (other than sleep)?

I haven't found one... I've been burned out for years.

34. What's your favorite place that you've travelled to?

Japan

35. What do you want to try that you haven't yet?

See questions 2,7,16,17, and possibly 31.

36. Five things you love to eat, and five things you hate to eat?

Love: Japanese food, pepperoni pizza, cheeseburgers, fries, a really good salad. Hate: lemon-flavored Zone bars, "low fat", high fructose corn syrup, and anything that's trendy/gourmet/pretentious.

37. Did you learn to drive stick or automatic first?

I've never driven a stick. No plans to, either.

38. Do you like board games?

Occasionally, and only if the people I'm playing with are fun and non-competitive.

39. Tell me your opinion about gambling.

There are much more entertaining ways to waste money.

40. How many dictionaries do you own?

One: Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary. I had another dictionary, but I got rid of it, since it was falling apart. Someday I'll replace it.

41. What's your favorite medium to work in?

Right now I'm working mostly with solder, and cloth. Not at the same time.

42. What was your undergraduate major, and was it always that or did you switch?

EECS, then CSE, then Math/CS. EECS to CSE was because they split EECS into ECE and CSE. I only changed majors by choice once, and I didn't change subjects.

43. Worst physical pain you've been in?

I'm not sure... even when I got hit by the minivan, it didn't really hurt that bad. Although, in the weeks that followed, the muscle spasms that twisted the broken bones against my rigid cast were rather painful.

44. Who's your best friend?

I really don't know anymore.

45. Was high school good? Why (not)?

It was okay... people mostly left me alone.

46. What kinds of music do you like best? Get specific, if you can.

Between the RIAA and digital rights management, music isn't really fun for me anymore. And it's too much work to find new stuff that I like.

47. Last three CDs you bought:

I don't remember... but most likely, those were the LAST three CD's I'll ever buy. Which actually makes me sad.

48. And conversely, what kinds of music would you rather never hear?

Rap.

49. Five favorite movies:

Too many to list, and too many I haven't seen yet.

50. What's something other people like that you just can't get into?

Um, almost everything.

51. When you want to look good, what do you wear?

A sweater?

52. When your heart breaks, how do you put it back together?

I don't. Just choose the biggest remaining piece and move on.

53. Should the following be exterminated:

white briefs: the boy kind or the girl kind?

blue eyeshadow: no opinion

pants that create the muffin-top look on women: the what?

flip flops in the office: someday, whem I'm brave enough

54. Were you a Boy/Girl Scout?

Yes, oddly enough, I was a Boy/Girl Scout! Didn't know it at the time, though.

55. Can you swim?

Yes, but I haven't in, oh, twenty years or so.

56. Tell me your guilty pleasures:

I'm not really guilty about those sorts of things anymore.

57. Do you have a library card?

Yes, two.

58. What's the best present you've received in the past five years?

A car.

59. Do you have a favorite:

Painter: Kandinsky

Sculptor: my friend Priscilla

Photographer: David J. Nightingale

Writer (fiction): yes, but I won't tell you his name yet, giggle!

Poet: Walt Whitman... there was this guy I met online who was a college teacher... he was teaching Walt Whitman. He couldn't handle the fact that I'm an alien. Sigh. See question 35, and "Leaves of Grass".

Writer (nonfiction): Dunno... maybe Jared Diamond?

60. You're in a strange city for the weekend. What will you do while you're there?

Probably attend a conference, and shop.

61. Are you thrifty?

Sometimes.

62. You bought tickets for a cultural event. What are you going to see?

The apocalypse. My understanding is that it won't be televised. Go figure.

63. What's something you're hanging onto that you don't need anymore?

Hmm, I don't think I should say on Slashdot... giggle!

DSL Line: remains up and functional. Built-in firewall appears to be configured appropriately now.

Server box: installed and ready to go, after some struggle to get the box patched... but needs server software.

Dual Boot Box: It should really be *duel* boot... XP put up quite a fight, but installed ok once I could get the installer disk to boot without crashing. The linux side... some struggle to get the box patched. Had to wipe and start over to get it to work. Sigh.

G5: boots. And that's about it. Needs to be cleaned and rebuilt. Maybe next weekend; I'm sick of computer chores at the moment! Aren't all of these machines supposed to work for *me*? For the moment, it's the other way around.

Soldering: done. And some drilling. And even some hot glue action! Results... not bad for skills that are fifteen or twenty years old. I definitely need to get a magnifying lamp, though, and the lighting could still be better at my work table. The output from the circuit is... much clearer, more uniform interference than before. Oh well, it's a start. More research is needed... but I knew that. Actually, that's kind of the point.

Sewing: didn't get around to it. Will make time this week. I have enough eyes and furry material for at least three or four stuffed animals, but I've yet to try even one! You'd think I could at least crank out a tribble cyclops or something! I also have enough material to try a large bag or purse.

Crying: no tears this weekend. Too busy... plus a routine change in my meds probably helped too. Doesn't help the situation, though. I'm learning to cope.

Phones: not being answered... I'm not really in the mood to talk to people these days. I did talk to Dad though. Grandma's in the hospital, and nobody's sure what's wrong; these days, she's incoherent enough that she has trouble explaining what hurts and how long it has been hurting. Poor dear. I should really go visit.

Yawn... that's about all that happened this weekend... and now it's Monday. Yuck.

A quiet Saturday morning... (yawn)...

The DSL gal and her pals back at the home office did manage to get my upgraded DSL service back on the net, so I'm back in business net-wise.

After several false starts, my Fedora box is now patching itself; unfortunately I never did manage to convince it to use the updates I dowloaded and burned to DVD, so everything's downloading again. What-ever!

And my G5 is getting the first of several new installs of Tiger; I hosed it last night by running out of disk space during a software update. The silly thing has almost half a terabyte of disk space, and I managed to make it run out of disk space! It needs to be partitioned differently, so as soon as I can boot it, I'll scoot some files around so I can repartition the boot volume... and then reinstall again.

And then the Fedora/XP box needs to be bult, too.

A boring day of computer chores. I hate computers. But once this is all done, it should *stay* done, at least for a while.

I cried several times last night... but I seem a little better today. I can't really expect things to improve much, but I expect my outlook will probably continue to improve for a few more days, It turns out that it's possible to find a little happiness even when things suck; this is something I wouldn't have believed a few years ago. So I guess I've learned something at some point!

I also have some soldering and sewing to do this weekend.

Well, the DSL *gal* finally showed up. She was really, really nice! And now... I don't have internet access at home. Sigh.

First, she couldn't remember the password to her laptop. Then, I couldn't remember the password to my DSL account... I have it safely written down in a little book that I haven't seen since I moved; I don't ever *use* that password since my Airport Extreme has always handled the PPPoE logins for me. She tried to call and reset my password, but their password-changing thingy is down... so at the moment... nothing.

Theoretically everything is set up properly, though, and once they get my password changed, it should all just start to work.

Then I get to try to configure everything properly, with a gigabit internal network and a linux firewall/router. Fortunately, I've been struggling with this same kind of junk at work for a while now, so I don't really anticipate any difficulties... but many, many more annoyances.

On the plus side, the new DSL router came with the cutest pinkish purple phone cable! Unfortunately it's about 20 feet long, and my DSL box is about two feet from the phone jack, so I'll just save the pretty cable for something else. It also came with a yellow ethernet cable, but I already bought several yellow cat6 patch cables. On my network, yellow cables will be for the "dangerous" outer part of the net, while blue cables will be the comparatively-more-secure gigabit-capable side.

Sleep in until 6:30am
Eat Breakfast (granola bar, tea)
Shower etc
Eat Second Breakfast (another granola bar)
Surf the net
Fail to boot FC4 on Shuttle Box
Fiddle with Shuttle Box
Find new IDE Cable
Successfully install FC4 on Shuttle Box
Brunch (sandwich)
Study schematic for varactor-tuned FM transmitter
Briefly thumb through book chapter on antenna design
Sweep balcony, cleaning up icky snail stuff
Assemble patio furniture the snails were hiding behind
Sweep balcony again
Surf net again
Slashdot journal entry

... still no DSL guy. He's supposed to be here between 8 and 12, so I guess he still has one more hour.

Wow. Now I've gone two months without a journal entry. Sigh.

Some of you may remember my "giving up" entry from several months ago?

It turns out that, having given up hope, there just isn't that much to say.

Back when I still had some hope, I could talk about all the hard work and interesting doctor visits and whatnot, and maybe sneak in a few bits about my hopes and fears for the future.

Now that I've lost that hope... there just isn't that much that I feel like talking about anymore.

I moved. The new apartment is wonderful. Unlike the previous apartment, this one is full of air and light. I can watch the sun set from one of my windows, and through another I can stay in bed on a quiet Saturday morning and watch the bees wander through the little flowers on the tree outside. And on a really hot afternoon, the air conditioning is wonderful.

The twenty minute commute to and from the new apartment has turned out not to be a problem. I've managed to get to work by 7am just about every day, which is much better than I did when I lived down the street.

The living room and dining room are basically empty, and may stay that way for a while, but since I rarely ate at my former dining room table, and nobody ever really comes over to hang out at my place, there's not a lot of motivation for me to spend the extra money to fill the place up.

The bedroom is a bit sparsely furnished; at the moment, the bed is an inflatable one. I may try to upgrade that in a couple of months. But, even with that, I still think it's pretty. The dresser-ish thing turned out pretty well, although the white and pink gingham baskets I used for drawers are perhaps a bit too little girly, but I like it anyway. I have a real clothes hamper, too, for the first time in 20 years or so.

The work room is the only room that's close to fully furnished. There's a spot for the sewing machine I bought and am learning to use, but so far I've only had time to make two pillows, a small bag, a very small prototype of a quilt that is definitely NOT a potholder despite being the same size, and, by accident, a case for a Palm III. (It wasn't meant to be a case for a Palm III, it just turned out to be the perfect size... if I needed a flimsy red gingham case for a PDA!) The electronics lab is in good shape; I finally found an adequate cart for my oscilloscope and my frequency counter. On the computer side of things, the gigabit wiring is all in place, but I've been having some problems with the Shuttle box intended as the fileserver. Someone from SBC should show up tomorrow to upgrade my DSL line for static IP addresses, and I'll probably spend the weekend struggling with Fedora and XP.

I'm teaching myself to study again; also on my agenda is to try and finish my degree in 2007, but I need to re-learn how to hit the books. In preparation, I've picked some topics that are technically challenging, but more interesting than calculus. Ironically, most of these subjects would be easier with a stronger background in... calculus.

So you see, it's not that I'm depressed and moping around... in fact, I haven't been this productive in decades. But none of it means anything to me. I've just found ways to keep myself busy, really.

The cover story for all this is that I'm trying to get up to speed on a variety of different things in order to both finish my degree and facilitate a career change in the next couple of years.

The only catch is that I don't have any reason to believe that this will happen. It makes a good story, though, and it sounds plausible enough that people seem to believe it.

Well, it's Friday night, almost 11pm, still somewhat hotter than hell, and my air conditioning is still two weeks away, so I'm... baking.

A girl at work gave me two thingies of blueberries, so I'm making Blueberry Bread. Actually, the recipe is from allrecipes.com; I searched for "Blueberry Bread" and found a recipe called "Alienated Blueberry Muffins" and I decided that since the recipe had my name on it that it was A Sign. Unfortunately, the muffin tins were lost in one of my pre-move purges, so I'm making two long, rectangular muffins. They need another ten minutes or so in the oven; then I'll just have to get the apartment to cool down enough so that I can sleep.

Cleaning my current apartment is proceeding at an acceptable rate. Wednesday was "inside of sliding glass doors" day, and the frightening gunk came in a variety of colors: yellow, green, blue, grey, black. Guess someone should have cleaned those more than twice in eleven years. Thursday was "sweep the porch" day. Friday was "outside of sliding glass doors" day, and the gunk was mostly black dirt. Those doors/windows are now somewhat clean but will probably merit a second pass. I still don't think they'll be *clean*, but they will be less embarrassing, and perhaps acceptable after eleven years of wear and tear.

Still remaining: dining room window. Kitchen. And... moldy bathroom. Ugh. Fortunately I've attacked the mold a number of times in the past, so it's only yucky, not frightening.

I'm getting very excited about my new apartment. Today I found out that the complex has a web site. I downloaded the floor plan for my apartment, then flipped it around in a graphics program since mine is a mirror image of the one on the website. Then I discovered that the pictures on the website are the same layout as my apartment, and are oriented the same way, so I now have a better idea of what my particular apartment will look like. (I haven't actually seen it yet; there was someone living there when I applied to rent it. I'll probably get to see it before I sign the lease.)

I spent entirely too much time today daydreaming about decorating my apartment!

... the bread just beeped. Er, the timer on the microwave beeped, letting me know that the bread in the regular oven was ready. Except that it wasn't. Not surprising, given that my rectangular muffins are bigger than the ones in the recipe! I'll give it another six minutes.

From the apartment web page, I discovered that the kitchen in my new apartment doesn't have a built-in microwave. I was bummed until I realized that meant that I would get to buy a brand new microwave, and I can get anything I want, since I'm not stuck with the built-in one like I am here! What will I get? Well, let's just say that I derive entirely too much pleasure from watching my food spin around in circles. I hope they still make that kind. I'm actually not all that picky about "even heating" or the necessity or lack thereof for a turntable; I just like watching the food go round and round!

Sometimes it just doesn't take much to amuse me.

... bread beeped again. It turns out the loaves aren't the same size, which is fine. The small one is almost ready. The big one needs some more time. I put them both back in.

In case you missed the earlier entry about this... I got rid of almost all of my old furniture in preparation for the move. I'm currently sitting in the only remaining chair. I also have a wooden stool, a kitchen stool, and a compact folding bed for sleeping. The "big" computer table is a cardboard box with a large (18x24?) clipboard on top of it.

... beep. Small loaf is ready to come out. I'll give the big loaf another five minutes. Oops, it looks like I turned off the oven three minutes ago. That's ok, there's still heat in the oven.

So I'm going to need new furniture. I haven't figured out what I want to get. On the one hand, I want to keep everything small and super-lightweight to make my *next* move easier, on the assumption that that will come in less than another eleven years due to my rapidly changing alien self. On the other hand, I'd like to live in a *furnished* apartment and not live with a cardboard box as a computer table for the next decade.

A tentative list: a small dining room table with four chairs, some sort of lightweight sofa-like thing for sitting on in the living room, and maybe another chair, too, coffee table, something to put the tv on, some sort of video display for watching tv on, some small folding bookcases for the few books that aren't in storage, a bed or futon sort of thing for the bedroom, a dresser-ish thing with a large mirror I can sit down in front of, and a chair for that, and some folding work tables and a good chair for the computer/work room.

I'll wait and see what happens, though. I can survive with the furniture I have now, so I'll try to take my time and choose my furniture carefully.

... beep. Large loaf is out. They both look good. I'll let them cool for a bit before transferring them to a cooling rack.

Fortunately, the new apartment will be just down the street from a whole neighborhood worth of shopping, including furniture stores, both cheap and horribly expensive, I suspect. It will be fun to get to know my new environment.

I'll also need curtains, sheets, towels... gosh, I'm going to need a lot of stuff.

I'm going to get a new laundry basket. The current one is from college (1986). Maybe I'll just break down and buy an actual hamper!

This is going to be so weird. I've never done this before. The current apartment... um... wasn't really decorated. Former Self wasn't into that sort of thing. It was simply crammed full of functional crap that made the space feel cramped. Honestly, it would have made anyone feel depressed.

One of the first things I did after the brain chemistry got fixed was to ditch about half of the furniture. The great purge of the last couple weeks merely got rid of the other half.

... the bread is cooling on racks... except for the chunk I'm eating. It's actually a little sweet, but not bad over all. I think it will be even better once it has cooled. Yum! And made with whole wheat flour, and half splenda, too!

Hmm, I wonder if the bathroom has a door, or needs a shower curtain? I wonder where the phone connections are? I wonder how big the windows are? I need to find this stuff out... I should call and see when they'll be ready for me to see MY apartment, as opposed to the model.

It might be nice to get new dishes, too. There's a built-in china hutch. My current dishes are a plain-white set that my parents received as a wedding present, forty years ago. They're rather generic, and rather indestructible, unless you happen to try to microwave a potato on one of the plates, in which case they violently explode. So I don't do that.

Yawn... well, it doesn't seem too hot, so I think I'll wrap up my blueberry bread loaves and head towards bed. I have a lot of cleaning to do tomorrow.

I didn't mean to go three months without a journal entry. Honest, I didn't!

A brief summary of what you missed: I was really sick back in April. A friend had to drive me to the emergency room, and we ended up spending all night there. The following week I had screaming headaches but managed to drive myself to the emergency room at 4am, and then later I had to follow up with my neurologist. The general consensus was that all of this fuss was "just" a virus, but it took me about a month to really get over it all.

I actually wrote a couple journal entries during that time, but... well, there were pain pills for the screaming headaches, and I'm not quite sure where those journal entries went... they'll probably turn up someday. Oh well.

So, what's new?

Let me start with the bad news.

I really have given up hope on the whole alien issue.

People will misunderstand this. I haven't told anyone in real life yet, for just that reason.

The logical question that everyone would ask me, if I were to tell them, would be, "oh, so you've decided to go... back?"

This is the fundamental misunderstanding that everyone has about me. That place that they refer to as "back" is someplace I've never been, and someplace I've never even successfully *pretended* to be. I wouldn't know how to go there, and can't think of any reason why I would want to try.

That's not what this is about.

When we finally figured out that my brain chemistry was badly goofed up, and managed to fix it, the whole world changed. I changed too, allegedly. I began, for the first time in my life, to have hopes and dreams for the future.

As time passed, and I learned more about myself and the world I live in, I struggled to try to see how I could turn those hopes and dreams into reality. I looked at where I wanted to be, and what I needed to get there, and couldn't help but notice that there were massive pieces missing. As time passed, I failed to see how to fill in those missing pieces. I also started to look at what had changed about me since the brain chemistry was repaired, and what *hadn't* changed. I realized that some of the things that hadn't changed yet probably wouldn't ever change, because they simply weren't changeable. They were *me*.

Panic started to settle in. I've actually been in and out of that panic state for six months or more.

Those hopes and dreams are all gone now.

In part, this is for self-preservation; the panic was terrible, and I don't cope with anxiety and frustration very well.

There was a significant grieving process I had to go through. I had never had hopes and dreams for the future, so it was quite painful to have them die.

So, to make a long story short, that's what I've given up on. The future.

What's really funny is that despite this massive change to my outlook, nobody in real life has noticed. I've even explained it to my therapist. She doesn't get it.

I think the reason she doesn't get it is that I'm continuing to make progress, and she sees that, and merely notes that I seem very pessimistic.

And I certainly do continue to make progress... but I no longer believe that it will make a significant difference.

I also freely admit that I simply don't know what the future holds for me. My life could turn out wonderfully for all I know. But that will depend entirely on factors out of my control. The missing pieces are not something that I can do anything about, and aren't really a justification for optimism or pessimism.

Now, here comes the really odd thing.

I am, strangely, in a really, really good mood these days!

My therapist thinks I'm a bit pessimistic, but my take on the situation is a little different.

I'm screwed and there is literally nothing I can do about it. I've worried about it, panicked, given up hope, and grieved. And cried. A lot.

But, having accepted that, and dealt with it... I'm actually rather excited about moving on!

In a strange way, declaring things hopeless has been rather liberating. When I was struggling to figure out how to make things come out "right", or even "ok", I felt terrible that I couldn't figure out how to make that happen. I felt really stupid for not being able to figure everything out. I felt weak for not being able to handle it emotionally.

But, having accepted that the situation is hopeless, regardless of any effort or action on my part, I feel a lot better! There isn't anything I can do, so there's no longer any need for me to worry about it! Yay!

So, I'm moving on. Literally!

I've spent the last couple months packing and storing most of my worldly possessions, moving everything that I can do without for the next couple years into storage in an industrial park north of me. A few favorite pieces of furniture went into storage too, but most I'm just giving away. The friend who spent all night in the emergency room with me got my dining room set and my bookcases. This morning I'm waiting for the Salvation Army to come and get the rest of the unwanted furniture, which will leave me with one chair and a folding bed.

My apartment is starting to look very empty... I'm kind of surprised to admit that I really like it this way! I hadn't realized how cluttered this apartment has felt.

Last weekend, I went apartment shopping, and on Sunday, I found what I hope will be the perfect new apartment for me! I'm scheduled to move on the 6th of August. I got the credit approval later the same day; I explained the whole alien thing to the leasing guy and he was totally cool about it and said that it would be fine. (We're still trying to explain the alien thing to the credit reporting agencies... sigh.)

After I move I'll get to redecorate! I'm actually going to try to get just a few pieces of fairly small, lightweight furniture, and not cram the new place full of crap too. It's a good thing I got rid of the dining room table, though; it wouldn't fit in my new dining room.

The new place is an extra $200 a month, but for that extra money I get a much quieter neighborhood, an apartment on the second floor, on the end of the building, with air conditioning, a fireplace, and two bedrooms!

I also get a much-needed change. I've been in my current apartment for eleven years! The bathroom has no ventilation and I have to blow-dry my hair in the kitchen. I've been hoping to leave for the last two years!

Oh, and it will be the first apartment I've ever had that doesn't have a scenic view of a parking lot. (In my first apartment, my dining room window had a view of the parking lot, and the kitchen had a view of the dumpster! In this apartment, the dining room looks out over... a parking lot. The new apartment doesn't have a breathtaking view, but it's parking-lot free!)

There are a couple issues I'm worried about. I'll have a commute for the first time in my life; probably about 20 minutes. On the freeway. I think I'll manage; millions of other people do. The new apartment is in a neighborhood that I couldn't consider living in without a car; the nearest bus stop is about a mile away.

The other thing worth worrying about is brush fires. Two years ago, the neighborhood lost ten homes to a massive brush fire. On the other hand, the fire they had last week didn't reach any buildings. Although they did evacuate the apartment complex that I'll be living in! I'm not particularly worried, though, most of the stuff that means anything to me is actually in storage, which is in another neighborhood entirely, so even in the unlikely event that the building burns down, I still won't lose that much! (And my therapist think's I'm a pessimist... sigh.)

I guess I should explain a little more about getting rid of my furniture and putting almost everything else in storage. The real motivation behind that isn't redecorating, it's mobility. I've been working for more than a year to get ready to move, and I had so much junk that moving would have been immensely painful. Now things are cleared out to the point that it will only take me three or four car trips to move everything, and I'll be able to move all by myself. I won't have to rent a truck, and I won't have to pay movers or coerce friends into helping me. And, in eight months, when my lease expires, if I want to move again, I can just pile everything into the car and move again. I won't be trapped in the same apartment for eleven years again. So I'll be looking for small, lightweight, easy-to-move furnishings when I redecorate.

This will give enough flexibility so that, in the unlikely event that some hope for the future decides to present itself, I'll be able to take advantage of it, and not be tied down with stuff.

So, if I'm working very hard to be ready for a future that I don't expect will appear, does that make me an optimist or a pessimist?

The week before I move I'm going to visit my family for the second time in my new car; one of my missing journal entries detailed my first trip. Short summary: I made it there and back again with no problems, but I did hit a tumbleweed, and I ran over a beach towel that fell out of someone's boat.

After I move, I've got a variety of projects that I may start to work on. I'll probably start working on calculus; if I can re-learn enough, I can go back to school and finish the one course I need to get my degree. The course is only offered in January, though, and I don't think I'll be ready in time for 2006, particularly given that there's probably going to be a lot of other stuff going on, so the earliest that could happen would be 2007. (I almost can't believe that I used to be a teaching assistant for this stuff!)

I was working on learning Cocoa programming for Mac OS X in my spare time, but that kind of got pushed to the side as moving-related activities took precedence. So I may get back to that. I'd like to learn to do device drivers and electronics and embedded stuff again; I've been reading about it lately had apparently forgotten how much fun it is!

I'm thinking about buying a sewing machine; I have a terrible urge to learn to make stuffed animals. Maybe the beanie kind. Not sure yet; I'm still debating this one.

Maybe I just have the urge to make stuff. I'm not sure. But I think, once I'm settled in, I'll follow those urges a bit and see where they lead. I don't have anywhere particular to go at this point, so I may as well explore a bit.

So, is it really such a terrible thing that I've given up hope? Not really. Life goes on!

Last weekend was kind of eventful.

I decided that I needed more driving practice, and the best way to get it seemed to be to just drive! So, I got up early, before the traffic got busy, and drove north.

I ended up in San Juan Capistrano. The place where the swallows come back.

Actually, that was my tentative destination all along. About ten years ago, I had a job interview in Orange County, and since I didn't have a car, I had to take Amtrak instead. I got off the train in San Juan Capistrano, where my potential employers met me and gave me a ride to their offices. They eventually did make me an offer, but at the time that I didn't want to leave my fun and interesting job to take a less interesting job working for some old Cobol programmers in a strange town, particularly since they made me a rather unflattering first offer.

So, anyway, I had been to San Juan Capistrano before, and it seemed like a nice place to visit, and not too close, but not too far away, so I decided to try driving in that direction. I was quite surprised how quickly I found myself actually there!

I parked at the train station and walked around a little bit. Mission San Juan Capistrano is just up the street, and I went to look at it, but discovered that it actually costs $6 to visit the inside of the mission, which seemed fair enough, but then I checked my purse and discovered I had only brought $8, and I was a little apprehensive about going all the way home with only $2. So I walked around the mission instead, and took some pictures around the outside. I also tried holding my camera up and taking some pictures over the wall, but none of those pictures turned out to be usable; I guess it must be copy protected or something! :-)

Then I went to a little souvenir shop and bought some souvenirs; fortunately, they took credit cards! I bought a postcard to send to my Dad, and a fridge magnet for myself. Oh, and a small pink turtle to commemorate my first long journey (it's a long story).

I thought about having lunch there, but decided that I'd rather get back early instead, so I left. The drive back was uneventful too, except that I got my first taste of stop-and-go freeway traffic.

When I got back home, I sent Dad the postcard: "Dear Dad, thanks for the car! Love, Sarah". I put a stamp on it and mailed it so he'd get it right away. It wasn't until later that I realized that you have to actually put the address of the recipient on the card too. Sigh... snailmail is soooo complicated! Oh well, better luck next time.

My Saturday trip ended up being about 125 miles.

Saturday's trip had gone so well that I decided I should go somewhere else on Sunday. I went (drove!) to a local bookstore and bought some maps.

Where to go? Hmm. Well, let's see, San Juan Capistrano turned out to be pretty easy. Let's pick something a little scarier. Where can I drive that would be a little more of a challenge. Where's the scariest place I can go for a one-day trip?

I didn't have to look at the map. There's only one place that scary and that close.

Los Angeles.

Well... ok.

So, early Sunday morning, I got back in my car, and headed north again.

The first part of the trip was just like Saturday's trip. I went through San Juan Capistrano. Actually, I got off at the same exit, but this time, I went to a fast food place and bought something vaguely food-like to eat.

At that point, it was only raining a little. I fiddled with the windshield wipers and headlights in the parking lot, to make sure I understood how they worked.

After breakfast, I got back on the freeway and continued on my journey.

As I got closer to LA, it rained a little more.

And then the traffic slowed down quite a lot... as I passed my first big accident.

That was a more than a little scary. Four cars on the left shoulder, plus a fire truck and a couple of highway patrol cars. On the right shoulder, another car, another highway patrol car, and a very freshly-beat-up SUV with dents and scratches on the sides... and roof.

I drove past, resolving to drive very carefully.

A little later, as traffic sped up, the rain increased, to the point that it was hard to see the car in front of me. I started to get rather frightened, but decided to just keep going and hope for the best.

Eventually the rain let up, or I drove past it. That was about when I came to the biggest, most crowded part of LA.

And then there was this truck... a very big truck.

In retrospect, I could have handled it better. It was a learning experience. And nobody got hurt. But it scared me quite a lot, and by the time I felt safe again... I was in the wrong lane. A few seconds later, and I was on the wrong freeway. There wasn't anything I could do.

I got off the freeway at the next exit to try to get back on the freeway going in the other direction. The neighborhood was scary. I immediately got back on the freeway again. Still going the wrong way, but now quite freaked out too.

I saw an exit to another freeway that claimed to be going east. East sounded good. I went east. Not really knowing where I was going.

After a few miles, the neighborhood looked safer, so I got off the freeway, pulled into a little strip mall, and checked my map.

East was good. It would eventually lead to the freeway that would take me home.

So, I went east. After an hour or so, I found the freeway going home, turned on it, and headed South. No problem!

Then it started to rain really hard, again! And I was starting to get tired. But I was on my way home, so there wasn't much else to do but stick with it.

Eventually, the rain stopped again. I pulled off the freeway to take a break, and bought a chocolate milkshake at a fast food place. Yum! Back on the freeway, I continued on my way home.

And eventually, the landmarks started to look familiar. Before I knew it, I was at my exit... and back in my neighborhood!

Wow, I drove to LA and back! In the rain!

On my way home, I stopped to get gas, and checked the mileage for my big adventure. 250 miles. 36.7 miles per gallon.

When I got home, I took a nap. Actually, I took a nap for most of the afternoon. I was exhausted!

Later that night, I called Dad. First, I told him about the trip to San Juan Capistrano. Then I told him I'd driven to LA.

He was just thrilled. I could hear in his voice how happy he was. I think he had probably been a little worried that, even if he bought me a car, I still wouldn't drive it.

Honestly, I was worried about that too. That's why I decided that I'd have to drive to work every day. That's why I drove to San Juan Capistrano. That's why I drove to LA, too.

I think I'll keep making some day trips on the weekends for a little while, at least. I'm feeling a lot more confident, but I need it to become routine.

This weekend, I'm thinking about going east... I've never really been east of where I live. Not more than 15 minutes away, anyway. So there's a lot to explore that way.

There's also plenty to explore locally that's still kind of scary. I need to practice going to regular places too. Places like the grocery store. Local stores. Fast food places. Crowded places.

But, to make a long story really short... it looks like this whole car thing is working out!

I had my minor surgery today. It took longer than I expected.

I chickened out and took the shuttle from the campus to the medical center. It just seemed easier that way.

I arrived twenty minutes early, as instructed. Found a bathroom... five minutes gone. Wander around like an idiot... five more minutes gone.

My notes said "3rd Floor". Found the third foor, roughly where one would expect a third floor to be... but couldn't find an office that looked plausibly like the one I wanted.

Had a conversation like this: "Hi, I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be..." "Okay, what's your name? ... Date of birth... (much typing)... oh, ok, you want the third floor, ambulatory care center." "Ok, where can I find that?" "Registration, First floor."

Huh? The third floor is... on the first floor? Um...

She's pretty insistent... so I go down to the first floor. Five more minutes gone. I find a desk marked "Registration" on the first floor. Stand there for a while. Wait for the woman to get off the phone. "Hi, I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be... " "Okay, name ... etc... you want the ambulatory care center, third floor".

Um, I just *came* from the third floor... they said come down here... ?

Several confusing minutes later, it is finally revealed that "ambulatory care center" is their name for "that other building down the street..."

Well, someone *might* have pointed that out! I've never *been* to the "other" building before!

And now I'm late.

Ok, quick, out of the building, down the street, find the other building, find the elevator, up to the third floor... aha, this looks like the right window!

"What are you doing here? You have to go to registration first. First floor."

Okay, things are starting to become clear. Annoying, but clear.

Down to first floor. Registration window. Take a number. Wait five minutes.

"Hi, i have an appointment today and they said I need to come down here..." Give him my medical card. Typing. Typing. More typing. What the heck are they typing, and couldn't they type it ahead of time? He's not asking me for any information... I have no idea what he's doing.

Then he looks confused. "Who is so-and-so?"

Oops... FormerSelf creeps back into their computers. I thought we changed all of that.

I briefly explain the alien thing.

"Oh, ok... " I ask why everything hasn't been changed yet, and he tells me, "well, this is different, because you're having a procedure done."

Ok, whatever.

Finally, he hands me a sheet of laser-printed sticky labels which are apparently the magic token I need to be admitted upstairs. Back up the elevator. Hand the woman my magic labels. She tells me to go through the door into the waiting room and have a seat.

Success! I'm now in the waiting room, and only about ten minutes late.

In just a couple minutes, I'm invited in to the treatment room. Given a "gown" and told to undress from the waist up. Same old drill.

The young doctor comes in; the one I saw two months ago. She remembers me from my last appointment, two months ago. She asks about the driving thing! I tell her about my lessons and my car. We chat. She's nice.

Various preparations occur. The supervising doctor comes in too. Both examine me, and together they discuss various options for carving me up. Eventually they come up with a plan. Supervising doctor leaves. I talk with the other doctor a little more. I sign the necessary forms. And then I ask for a little potty break before the excitement happens.

Finally everyone's ready to start. I lay on my tummy and they start sticking me with needles. Lidocaine and epinepherine, buffered with sodium bicarb. I like that the young doctor is telling me stuff. She goes slowly. I don't even feel the needles.

After a bunch of shots I can't feel... more preparations. Adjust the lights. Tape my hair back. Set up stuff that I can't see because I'm on my tummy. Supervising doctor comes in. Nurse comes in.

The actual surgery starts. Painless, thanks to the injections. But not silent. Snip, snip, snip. It sounds like someone trying to debone a chicken with fingernail clippers. Periodic tugging. I listen to them talk: "can you see..." "oh, there it is..." "do you want to..." "no, I don't like to do it that way..."

Ten minutes go by. I start to feel a little pain. "Um, I'm starting to feel that..." "Okay, we'll fix that..." Pain goes away.

Twenty minutes... thirty minutes. Ok, it's out. Wow, it's big, they tell me. 3cm x 2cm x 2cm. They'll show me afterward.

Next up... electrocautery machine. Which isn't turned on. Ok, now machine is on. Beep... sizzle. Beep... sizzle. Five minutes worth.

Actually this was a part I had been worried about. You know how they usually tell you to stop taking aspirin for a couple weeks before surgery? Well, I was told *not* to do that; my neurologist would prefer that I keep taking it. Ah, the joys of having a stroke in your 30's. But the doctor knew about it, and said that she could handle the surgery even with the aspirin. And apparently, she was right.

Okay, electrocautery done. Next up: two layers of subcutaneous stitches. I'm starting to get tired. I lay my head down and close my eyes. I could actually fall asleep, I think.

Ok, now stitches to close...

Supervising doctor leaves. Actually, she's gone in and out throughout the event.

Next, adhesive strips to support the stitches...

Young doctor holds up a small bottle with a pink and white chunk of stuff in it. Oh, that's what they removed. Wow, it *is* a lot bigger than I thought it would be.

Young doctor leaves.

Nurse starts to assemble pressure dressing... another ten minutes. We talk about the alien thing while she works. Her daughter is a makeup artist. She recommends spa pedicures.

Ok, finally, I can get off the table. Ow, my chest hurts, and I'm a little wobbly and disoriented. I manage to get both feet on the floor. I wander over to the mirror to look at my back. There's a white lump the size of a golf ball back there. That's the pressure dressing.

The dressing is waterproof, so I can take a shower. I'm supposed to leave it on "until it gets too annoying". They predict two or three days. No exerting or stretching my back. Limit activity. Come back in two weeks to have the stitches removed. Young doctor tells me that if I have problems I should call the operator and have her paged, except that she might not have her pager with her this weekend, since she's not on call. If she doesn't answer the page, I'm supposed to ask for the on-call doctor instead.

And... I'm on my way out. Two hours after arriving. Gee, I didn't think it would take that long.

Find another bathroom... then back to the shuttle stop. Back to the office. Adventure finally over. Big sigh.

I arrived back at the office at roughly the same time as the pizza arrived in the conference room! A nice treat.

Unfortunately, my morning had worn me out, and I was too tired to really get anything done. I ended up skipping out a couple hours early, which was fine, since I've put in extra hours every other day this week due to my efforts to avoid traffic in the morning.

Driving home went ok. It turns out that there's a lot less traffic at 3pm.

When I got home, I tried to take a nap, but I was a little too tired and a lot too tense. It's been a long week. And my back was starting to hurt, finally.

Friday night social thing is out of the question... too tired. Maybe next month.

My Saturday morning drive is still a possibility, but may get cancelled due to rain. We'll see what the weather is like in the morning.

Saturday night social thing will also get skipped, I'm guessing. I need quiet time alone to relax this weekend.

I've driven to and from work every day this week. So far, it's been fine; I haven't had any problems.

I think I'm settling on a standard way to get home; it's not wonderful, since there's more traffic than I would really like, but it's ok.

Today turned out nonstandard, though. I left a little early, and there was a huge amount of traffic just outside the parking lot. I waited and waited for a chance to make a left turn, but more cars just kept coming. Finally, I gave up and turned right instead... which wasn't the "right" way, but at least I was moving. Taking the scenic route ended up roughly doubling the time it took to drive home, but I live close by, and an extra ten minutes isn't really a problem.

Actually... I kind of enjoyed the drive!

I also discovered this morning that the traffic is quite a bit heavier at 7:30 than it is at 7. Even so, I had a chance to get a really nice parking space, but blew it by just taking the first space I saw.

The place I really should to park is much further away from my office than my "current" lot, but, sadly, there's way too much construction going on to make that comfortable right now. Maybe in a couple weeks. We'll see. The extra distance would be nice; I'm no longer getting the exercise I used to get from my 30-45 minute walk every day.

My next task is to figure out what to do with my weekend! It turns out that due to working extra weekends, and coming in at the crack of dawn every day this week, that I'll be completely caught up at the office, at least time-wise. So, I can take a weekend off!

Except that, tomorrow morning, I'm having a tiny little surgery, so I'll be spending the weekend with a hole carved in my back, and probably a bunch of stitches, too. If it hurts too much, I'm just going to stay home and cry.

But assuming that doesn't happen... what to do?

Friday night I have a... thing... that I could go to. A dinner thing. With other people. A social sort of thing. I went last month and was rather astonished at my own bravery for doing so! I *could* go, but there are several possible strikes against it: I'll have a hole in my back. I'll have to drive there during the tail end of rush hour. I'll have to drive back in the dark (a first for me). And I'd almost certainly end up getting back late-ish, at least for me. And I'm soooo tired, and dealing with large numbers of strangers is very tiring for me.

So, that one's on my schedule as a maybe.

Saturday morning I'd like to go for a long drive on the freeway. I want to leave early, early, early so that I miss most of the icky traffic. I've already picked out a destination (I think), and the car is ready... and I need to drive more. The more I drive the less painful it becomes.

Counting against my Saturday morning adventure would be the thing on Friday night, because I wouldn't get to bed early enough. And the whole hole-in-the-back thing, but hopefully it won't hurt that much by Saturday.

Saturday night I have a different thing I could go to; I really should go because I haven't gone in, oh, a year or so, and I'm sure at least a couple of people wonder what ever happened to me. It was difficult to go to that event in the past, because the buses don't run late enough to let me get home. Not a problem now, but I would have to drive back fairly late, in the dark, on the freeway (another first for me).

I don't really have any plans for Sunday, but another long drive in the early morning would probably do me a lot of good.

At some point this weekend, I'd like to go get one of those squeegee things, for cleaning the dew off of my back window in the morning. It's getting annoying to use my fingers.

I may or may not need to go grocery shopping. Honestly, I have no idea; this whole notion that I can buy whatever I want, in whatever quantity, and not have to worry about carrying it home, has simply thrown my shopping planning completely off kilter. I have plenty of food, but I may be out of some staples. I'll need to look into that. But, if I recall, I'm not supposed to carry anything for several days after my surgery... something about bleeding to death, or something like that. Guess I should ask tomorrow.

So, those are some of the possibilities for the weekend. I might also just stay home all weekend; I still need to finish my needlepoint penguin, and after all the excitement of the past few weeks, a little quiet time would be very welcome.

I drove to work again this morning. The newness of the whole thing has only worn off a little bit, which isn't too surprising, since I've only done it twice. I got to work early again, and got a really easy parking space again.

The day went ok; I got more sleep last night so I wasn't so exhausted. The thing that needed to go live went live. All was well.

But by lunchtime, my palms were all sweaty, because I knew it would soon be time for me to leave on my Big Scary Drive to my therapist's office. My first time on the Big Scary Roads by myself, during the day, in actual traffic.

I left my office at about 1pm. I thought that this would be way too early, but as it turned out, I didn't make it out of the building and all the way to my car until 1:15. I'm not sure how that happened.

So, I drove... out the parking lot, down the street, onto the freeway... all the scary stuff I've now practiced a half dozen times.

It was ok. No problems. Traffic was pretty light.

Well, I did kind of get stuck behind this really slow truck, which I thought was just fine because everyone else seemed to want to go 80 or so, but then I realized the truck was full of fertilizer or manure or something like that. Yucky. Fortunately, the next exit was mine.

Made it off the freeway safely, down the road, into the parking lot at therapist's office, park.

Wow, I made it? Wow! Cool! Time? 1:35.

This is kind of funny to me. My first appointment with my therapist was almost exactly two years ago. I was terrified, didn't know where I was going or why, and wasn't sure whether or not I'd be able to get there on the bus. So I prepared... many, many different maps. Printouts from therapist's web page... printouts from the bus company's web page... printouts from yahoo maps... all encased in clear plastic page protectors (well, what if it rains!). I took the whole day off work to make the journey. And I left at 8am... for a 2:00 appointment. Or maybe it was 1:30. Something like that. I would arrive by 9:30 or 10:00, and hang out in the public library for three or four hours.

The first six months or so were like that.

The following year, I would generally leave work around 11:30, which was the longest I could stay at work and still leave a margin for error in the bus schedules. I wouldn't get back until 4:30 or 5, so I still missed the whole afternoon, but at least I didn't have to take the whole day off.

So, here we are, two years later... and I can make my epic journey in... about 20 minutes.

Evidence of progress, maybe?

I thought about this as I sat in *my* car in the parking lot. Yes, it appears that things are changing. Progress is being made.

I went up to the therapist's office and waited for her. She was on time, but I was early, so I sat in the waiting room for 15 minutes or so.

I had a lot of fun telling her about the car thing. She didn't know about any of it. It was only, oh, four weeks ago that she met with me and Dad. She didn't know he bought me a car. She didn't know about the driving lessons. She didn't know that I drove to her office.

I had a big grin on my face as we sat down. I told her I had big news. I pulled my car key out of my purse and showed it to her. She knew, in general, what it meant, and was suitably impressed.

I spent the next half hour telling her about all my driving adventures over the past few weeks. She was very happy for me, and glad to hear that I was working so hard on this. We actually talked about the driving thing the first time I saw her; I don't think she'd ever had a client that didn't drive. (Which isn't surprising; the bus service to her neighborhood isn't all that great.)

We spent the rest of the time talking about other random stuff. (Translation: stuff I'm not really ready to talk about in my journal yet.) Actually, I was a little bummed that it took me so long to talk about *what* happened, that I didn't have any time to talk about *why* it happened, or what it meant, or how I felt about it. I think I'll make my appointments a little more frequently, now that I can get there a little more easily.

And then we were done... and I was back in my car. Back on the freeway. Driving back the way I came. Before I knew it, I was back on campus, and back in my office.

Total time? About two and a half hours. Compared to the five and a half hours that the bus used to take, that's not really bad at all!

I noticed two significant things on the way back.

First, merging onto a freeway still scares me to death. I'm still not confident enough in what I see in the mirrors. I'll have to work on that.

Second, I was quite surprised to find... I was a little disappointed when I got back to the office. I was actually starting to enjoy the drive!

I really enjoyed getting back to work early enough to have time to actually do more stuff that afternoon. I cleaned up some logging that I hadn't been entirely comfortable with (good), but by the time I finished, the program would simply quit when asked to process a request (bad). Some debugging will be in order tomorrow, I think!

The drive home from work was a little better; I took a slightly more obvious route, which was straightforward until I ended up in a rather peculiar lane and was unable to determine whether it was a left-turn-only lane or a left-turn-or-straight lane. I wanted to go straight, but the only arrow I could see on the pavement looked a lot like a fuzzy left arrow that needed repainting. So, just in case, I turned, which was fine, and now that I think about it, is probably the best way to go, but at the time I felt very confused.

The rest of the week should be quieter and less eventful; I don't have anything special planned. Just driving to and from work like everybody else!

I'm sure I'll get used to it too... eventually.

My first day driving to and from work went ok.

I woke up really early to avoid traffic. I left about ten till seven. There wasn't much traffic. The giant pothole along my route that I had made a special note to avoid... was apparently filled in within the last couple of days. When I got to campus, the parking lot was pretty much empty; I parked in a super easy space. My driving instructor would have said it was too easy.

So, it went really well... other than the fact that I got up two hours too early, had a stomach ache all day long, and was so tired that I struggled to get anything done at work.

Work was kind of a disaster all around. The main database machine had a hardware failure over the weekend, so I had to wait for it to come back before I could finish some important stuff, but that was okay, there's always plenty of other stuff to do. And then the air conditioning in the machine room died. And one of our sysadmins dropped a tape drive on the floor over the weekend (which means, goodbye one tape drive). And another sysadmin is going to have to have one of his cats put to sleep.

So, all things considered, *my* day went pretty well. I was tired and my tummy hurt. I cleaned up some code in the morning, added a couple features, and closed a potential security hole. Later in the afternoon, the database came back, and I finished up some important stuff that will probably go live tomorrow.

Oh, and Dad called at lunchtime to ask how my drive to work had gone. Isn't he sweet?

Ten hours after arriving, my tummy and I were ready to go home. But... oh no... I'll have to drive home, huh?

Well, maybe I'll just stay at work forever...

Sigh... ok... let's try driving home.

In all fairness, it went just fine. I got home safely and managed to park in my tiny parking space just fine.

The fact that, um, I got sort of lost on my way home from work... well, that's not really important, is it? And, well, it's only a five minute drive from work to home anyway, so how lost could I really get? I found the right road eventually, didn't I?

In my own defense, though, they *have* changed the roads over there quite a bit. There's a new parking lot, and I wasn't familiar with how they redid the roads. Now that I know, I probably won't make that same mistake again.

I also discovered that "the back way will be easier" isn't necessarily the case. Apparently, a *lot* of people think that, and they're all on the very crowded road at the same time. I almost missed my turn because I couldn't get into the right lane. I'm not very good (or brave) about tight lane changes in traffic just yet.

And then there was the fire truck, and the paramedics... I'm glad they figured out how to wiggle through that mess of traffic! I would have pulled over, but there wasn't anywhere to pull over *to*! There was a bus beside me, and a truck in front of me. I just stayed put. The fire truck zipped right by without even slowing down. Must be handy to be able to drive on the other side of the road, against traffic! But how scary! I don't think I'd want to drive a fire truck.

All things considered, I think tomorrow I'll try to take the short way home; it can't really be any worse, I don't think.

But the scary part for tomorrow... I have an appointment with my therapist. 2pm.

I'll have to leave about 1pm; 1:30 would probably be fine, but I need to give myself plenty of time for my first attempt.

I know exactly how to get there. Down very long, fast, downhill surface street, then onto the freeway, stay in left lane, immediately change to other freeway. Lane change to right to get out of fast lane. Drive a bit. Lane change to left to get into lane that isn't the fast lane anymore. Drive some more. Exit. Up very long, fast uphill street. Don't miss the left turn. Change lanes. Turn right. Turn into parking lot. Park.

The whole thing sounds so easy... if it weren't for the other cars, I think it would be. Maybe it will be anyway.

I guess I'll find out tomorrow, huh?