the tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters

I was off today, but instead of doing anything productive, I've just been really lazy. I didn't visit Grandma, rike my bike, clean the apartment, or give Sable a bath. All I did was sleep in until noon, make a YouTube video, and eat one big meal. Now I feel so lethargic and bloated. The weather channel said it would rain all day today, but it never did, though it was extremely windy and cloudy.

Last night I stayed up late making notes on the story I'm planning to write for NaNoWriMo. (Only two days left! Eek!) I wrote until my hand cramped -- and by the way, I'm putting all my notes in this awesome notebook I bought from work for only 85 cents -- but I'm not satisfied. I meant to do more work on it today, but of course I haven't done that, either. I think that most of my outline so far is good (or good enough for me, anyway), but I don't think that it will be nearly enough to meet NaNoWriMo's word requirement of 50,000 words. I'm also worried that the ideas will sound good in my head, but when I actually try to write them, they'll come out all wrong. But I guess I should stop worrying and just go with it -- after all, that's part of the whole purpose of NaNoWriMo. I'm always writing stories and never finishing them, but if I can stick with this, it will almost certainly be the longest single piece I've ever done.

I have a series of recurring dreams in which I have some pet rodent that I really don't want, and I neglect it horribly, never cleaning its cage or feeding it, until it starves to death. They're pretty disturbing dreams, because I wake up feeling so guilty. I had the dream again a few nights ago (it was a pet rat in this one) and was telling Sara about it. Me: "And you know what the really weird thing was? I don't know why, but I think the rat's name was Ryan White." Sara: "Rebecca! That's horrible!" Me: "Well, I don't know why that was its name. I didn't give it that name."

Mom called me Friday evening, wanting to know where Adam was (she has to know where he is at all times). She says that he's not answering his phone and she can't get up and look for him because she threw her back out and can't get out of bed. I'm pissed (why is she calling me? how should I know where he is?) but offer to drive over and see if he's walking up and down the street, which he usually does at night. Mom snaps, "Oh, don't even trouble yourself. Just do whatever the hell you want," and hangs up on me.

About an hour later, Mom calls me again. She's lying in bed, with debilitating back pain, can't find Ben or Adam, and needs me to go buy her some wine, which apparently is the only thing that can ease her pain. I'm tempted to say, "Sorry, but I don't trouble myself, I only do whatever the hell I want," or "Oh, yeah, where are your precious sons now?" or "Remember that time in 2007 when I had asthma so bad I couldn't even talk and Sara asked you what she should do and you yelled at her?" But instead I just go out and buy her the damn wine.

On Saturday I did my laundry and visited Grandma (who was having Aunts Bello and Sis over for lunch; they were like some crazy old Cajun ladies club). It was supposed to be my day off, but Nice Manager called me and all but got down on her knees and begged me to come in that evening, because the mid and closing workers for the front end had both called in sick. So I figured what the hell and worked close. One of my co-workers bought me this awesome French-themed photo frame magnet to thank me for coming in. 

Today Sara and I cooked ourselves a delicious breakfast of biscuits, bacon, and scramb. Then we visited CJ & Company, bounced on their trampoline, played with their puppies, ate their brownies, and altogether had an awesome time. Oh, and on Friday afternoon, I went to a garage sale down the block and three shirts for only a dollar. One of them I really like and am wearing now.

Sara and I actually went bike riding together last Thursday. I veered into front of her, she fell off her bike, my chain popped off, and her earphones got tangled up in her spokes and ripped apart, but other than that, we had a really nice time. (I finally used up the film on my disposable camera, which I'd been meaning to do since I took Eva to the water park back in July. Now it'll probably take me another three months to remember to get it developed.) Anyway, it was good that we went bike riding that day, because I think it's rained every day since. Blargh.

It rained on and off all day yesterday, so I stayed inside and organized the hell out of my room. I had started to go crazy because I felt so cramped and had so little room for stuff. Turns out that I just never throw crap away. I cleaned all the crap out from under the bed (which took the entire length of my arm, from each side, and then some) and the bottom drawer of my dresser. I'm using this cigar box I found in the parking lot to store all the little things I keep on top of my dresser. It took me forever to get the smell out of it, but I finally did, and it's quite a nice box. It makes my dresser look so much neater. I compiled a box of stuff to take to Goodwill, but of course with all the rain, our street had turned into a river again, so I wasn't able to go. Maybe this weekend. I found a lot of pens while cleaning, and I want to get us a new pen cup.

I also called the benefits/insurance hotline for my job yesterday, because their open enrollment period is right now. The woman I spoke to was extremely nice and helpful, and if all goes well, I should have coverage starting December 1.

After seeing only two movies all summer (Star Trek and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince), I now want to see three. Where the Wild Things Are looks really cool and kinda weird, and Paranormal Activity looks scary as hell, especially for a big wimp like me. I don't think I want to see it unless I go with Sara, because she's almost never scared of these things. Zombieland seemed very juvenile at first, but everybody says that it's really funny. And of course, it has Abigail Breslin in it, and Little Miss Sunshine handles a firearm, bitches!

I had a terrible stomachache almost all evening yesterday. I think it might have been some pre-packaged pork meat that I had at Grandma's house, because I started feeling nauseous within five minutes of eating it. It got so bad that I had to make myself throw up sometime in the a.m. of this morning. But I did feel a lot better afterwards.

Things at work might be coming to a head regarding the only manager (the only one out of six) that I really hate. Yesterday a girl who works in her department told me that she and another co-worker are considering quitting, because the manager is just that much of a bitch. Said manager also made a bitchy comment to me yesterday morning -- which is not news, because she says rude things to me (and other workers too, although she really seems to hate me especially) -- but this time I fired one right back at her. She has not tried to give me any of her crap since, but it's probably just a matter of time.

I'm off tomorrow! I really need to clean my room, organize my various piles of crap, give Sable a bath, and vaccuum, so let's hope I'll be able to get all those things done. Maybe watch a good movie too. I borrowed The Philadelphia Story from Grandma. Grandma: "Isn't it about gay people?" I think incredulously, OMG, an old movie about gay people? With Cary Grant in it? Really? No way and start reading the back cover before I realize (duh!), "Oh, no, you're thinking of Philadelphia, Grandma." And Mom is supposed to be taking Sara and me out to dinner tomorrow tonight, but we'll see if that actually happens.

I used to have a file of poems about October, and there were some pretty lovely verses in it, one of my favorites being: "Suns and skies and clouds of June / And flowers of June together / Ye cannot rival for one hour / October's bright blue weather." But lately I had begun to wonder whether all those poems lied to me, because last week was almost nonstop rain and washed-out gray skies -- bleh. But this week the sun finally came out! I think of it as Mother Nature's birthday gift to me. Today Sable and I went for a nice afternoon walk around the block, admired the neighborhood Halloween decorations, met a very sweet poodle who lives in the corner house, and tried to make friends with the black cat who lives down the street (she is gradually letting us get closer to her, but she hasn't let me pet her; she seems more scared of me than of Sable).