I'm not at work. I'm not asleep. I'm not stoned. I've just finished two pretty damn hardcore books that I didn't think would be hardcore at all, and I'm actually a little frightened of my library now.

So, I feel I should be writing. None of the excuses I've used all week apply right now. Until I think of something better to do, I'm going to elaborate on all the things I'm not doing tonight.

1) I'm not working. Mary called me out the blue five minutes before I was about to leave for Work Part II, and asked me if I wanted the night off. What a silly question. Go, Mary.

This is really getting messed up. I used to kid about how only working one shift was practically a day off. But that's really how I feel today. Mary, for offering to work for me tonight, you are my new best friend. You rock my world. Even though I've had to pick up two of your morning shifts this week, you took the night shift today when it really counted. Working another double today might actually have broken me. I love you, Mary. I mean that.

2) I'm not asleep. D. has a crazy shift this week. 4:30am-12:30pm. He's actually enjoying it. He gets off work, and sleeps till 9 or so. Then, he goes and hangs out at Chez Dante till he has to wake me up to take him back to work. He says he's getting more sleep this way than he has in months.

Well, good for him. But I'm working normal morning shifts (and night shifts). So, I go to bed at midnight, try desperately not to wake up when I have to drive him to work at 4:30, then go home and try to sleep another two hours. It doesn't really work, of course. My sleep schedule is all screwy. I've been tired for the last three days. Two three-hour naps are not the same thing as one solid night's sleep.

I could have killed D. this morning. He came in at 3, and was trying to be all amorous. I tried (moving very slowly, of course, so I didn't realize I was moving, and therefore awake) pushing his hands off me. He kept trying. He was rubbing my back, and stroking my legs, and all the other stuff I normally like, and damn him to hell, I was waking up. I would have slapped him, but that would have meant ackowledging to myself that I really was awake. Finally, I shouted, "GODDAMMIT! I DON'T WANT TO BE AWAKE RIGHT NOW!" He got the message, but it was too late. I was awake. Fully awake, at 3am.

3) I'm not stoned. OK, that makes it sound like I'm constantly stoned, and it's some sort of major event that I don't happen to be high right now. It's not like that. Of the four things I'm not doing right now that I've been doing every other spare minute this week, smoking is a very distant fourth. It's just that both times when I happened to be high this week, I wanted to write, but I managed to convince myself it was a bad idea.

I've seen the stuff I write while I'm fucked up. It's embarrasing. William S. Burroughs, I am not. I draw funky pictures, but that's about it.

4)My library is messing with my head. Something Wicked This Way Comes really got to me. I'm not sure why. Freaky freaky book. Dust Witch. Poor Miss Foley. *Shudder* So, for a change of pace, I started reading one of the books my Gramma had recommended to me. Dude, it was all about people murdering kittens and psychopathic dead twins! Jeez! What the fuck, Gramma?

***

So, what did I do today? I worked till one. I raced to the laundromat, and then to K-Mart while my clothes were being washed, because I wanted to get as much done as possible in the three hour span I thought I had. I was home by three. I read till 3:35, then realized I really couldn't avoid getting ready for work one minute longer. I got dressed. I lit one more cigarette. Mary called.

I finished the psycho Gramma book, waiting for Lusy to call any minute to tell me Mary got hit by a meteor on the way in, and could I work after all. She didn't. Then, I just hung out online for three hours. It seems like so long since I did that.

Ahh. I am now ready to work tomorrow. I don't even feel so tired anymore. God bless you, Mary.

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