birthday dinner was cool. thanks to everyone who showed up (and even those who couldn't)! i had fun. my friends are crazy. :)

today i am fucking tired. i need to go christmas shopping after i have some lunch. on my way home, i encountered a woman asking for directions, and it made me kind of go, "oh my god." i don't feel like retyping it from its irc origins, so here you are:

[emily] oh my god.
[emily] ok, i was just walking home.
[emily] i was irritable cos i'm tired as fuck and need to eat and drink coffee, right?
[emily] so i'm almost to my building, and this lady stops me.
[emily] "excuse me, do you know where a hospital is?"
[emily] i tried to explain how to get to the main uw med center, which is the same complex i work at, but it's a little complicated from where we were.
[emily] and then she said something like, "that's ok.. um.. how about a church, or something, cos i need a bus pass. when my husband beat me up, he took all my money."
[emily] and i was like, oh my god!
[emily] "um um um.. well.."
[emily] i tried to explain again, but failed.
[emily] and i told her i would walk with her but i was really really dead and she said that was ok, she didn't want someone to walk with her.
[emily] and then i remembered that there is a piece of the med center like two blocks from here and told her how to get there.
[emily] so i hope she is ok.
[emily] but that was bizarre.
[emily] and no one is here to hear my story.
[Chris] Emily, she was trying to scam you, probably.
[emily] wtf, she wasn't asking me for money or anything.
[emily] she wanted to know the way to the hospital.
[emily] very not pushy.
[emily] she looked not well.
[Chris] Hmmm.
[Chris] I'm a bastard.
[Chris] :)
[emily] and not like black eyes not well, like red marks under her eyes.
[emily] yeah, i know, i am pretty cynical too.
[emily] i dunno, this just struck me.
[Chris] Red marks under her eyes?
[Chris] Hmmm.
[emily] yeah, i dunno.
[Chris] That's speed.
[emily] like blood vessels popping under the skin in weird red marks.
[Chris] Yeah.
[emily] hm.
[Chris] That's either alcoholism or speed.
[emily] still, doesn't mean she wasn't beaten up. :P
[Chris] Nope, it doesn't.
[emily] drugs are no excuse for not helping someone asking for something simple when they need it.
[Chris] I dunno. Yeah, I would of told her where the hospital was, but it sounds like she got your attention with asking where the hospital was and then switching to a bus pass.
[Chris] I've heard that one before.
[emily] chris, she just kinda mentioned the bus pass in passing.
[Chris] Hmmm. Well I hope she is okay.
[Chris] I shouldn't act like such as hardass.

for some reason, "things we said today" by the beatles is stuck in my head...

this week? rules.

so far, i've been bought dinner each night. last night, chris took me to pete's pizza for some deathly delicious calzone. tonight, jenny insisted that my presence at home was a sign that we needed to go to tokyo garden.

tomorrow i'm going out for greek. mmm, greek.

thursday imdb is buying its interns a late lunch for the last day. also at imdb, chris and i did manual labor involving packing games to send to people imdb does business with as a holiday/thank you gift of sorts, and so the guy in charge of that gave us each two passes to loew's theaters. woo!

i need to go pick up paychecks and deposit them. i am worried that my account is going to get overdrawn (or come very close) if the $21 in groceries i bought last night and the $46 cable bill check clear pretty soon. i think i'm safe, but still.

jenny has been watching "that 70s show" all night. hee. funny! i hate tv, but... funny!

last day of newswriting today. my prof is retiring. he was an awesome prof.

today was also insanely rainy half the day, then bitterly cold and windy in the evening. yay for weather.

i need to finish christmas shopping. i need something for my mom, possibly my aunt, and finish getting stuff for jana. woo.

ohmyfreakinggodit'salldone.

well. the classes aren't, but the work is. so the easy part is all that's left to come.

my group's presentation today went rather well. the class adviser, or whatever she is, who only comes on presentation days to ask obscure, difficult questions of befuddled presenters, walked in about two minutes into our intro. we were the last group to present. instantly, everyone was more on edge. she failed to ask us any questions at all, though.

my paper for that class was also printed out at work today. 13 pages. i kind of like it reasonably well, too. i might even... put it on my writing page! why, that would be the first thing there since i've started college. it's really not bad at all. probably completely disinteresting to non-psych people and blah even to psychologists, but it's something or other.

i wrote the finished draft of my prostate cancer story all day today. i was able to speak briefly with the guy from the american cancer society. the story isn't what i want it to be yet, but it's good enough to turn in, i think. i suspect i will also put that puppy online.

so...after all that...did i do a happy dance? only in my head.

rather, i took a bus up to 15th and 50th, walked to chris' apartment, knocked on his window, and he took me to an early birthday treat dinner at pete's pizza. mmm, delicious calzone. mmm, delicious post-calzone death. it was stuffed with pesto, artichoke hearts, roasted red peppers, and an insane amount of sweet delicious melted mozzarella. chris and i were unable to think of true food item, save fried twinkies, that would not be good smothered in some kind of cheese. and i'm sure some sick fuck loves cheese with their fried twinkies.

tomorrow is jana's big fancy concert, and i told josie i would try to go to be some kind of normalcy buffer or something (long story), but anyway, i kind of really don't want to go, partially because i am not especially interested in the concert (i am such an unsupportive friend!), and partially because the last thing i want in life right now is to involve myself, even a little, in social drama.

wednesday is, as previously advertised, my goddamn birthday, and half of everyone can't make it to dinner. honestly, that's fine. having ten people show up at a restaurant just isn't good form, as far as i'm concerned. but they are all strongly implying i should go to christine's concert directly following dinner, which, again, i want to be unsupportive and not go because i'm fucking tired and not interested. i mean, sure, i want to see everyone, but i dunno. i just want dinner and a little friendliness and then i want to sleep.

maybe my desire to sleep is merely colored by the aftereffects of a very stressful week. i am dead fucking tired. i have a hell of a time getting to sleep (at least when i'm alone) and at the end of the day i'm just wiped out. so probably, i'd be allllll for going to concerts featuring my friends singing stuff i am not incredibly excited to hear (hi, guys! i love you, and i have enjoyed concerts in the past, i swear, i just suck right now! and usually!) if not for this whole being exhausted thing. right.

i don't like obligations. i don't like making other people feel they have them for me and i don't like being made to feel like i have them to other people. i like to do things because i honestly want to do them. is that so wrong?

listening: quasi - repetition

hmm... i might not get one of those interviews in. argh. i might try to work on this story even after the deadline, just to make it better, talk to more people, etc., and see if there is somewhere that might want to, y'know, buy it.

...

yeah. long shot. until then, i will use what i have to write the story required for my assignment.

so that's all i have left to do. i went through the minidisc recording of my only interview and took three pages (back and front) of notes and direct quotes. i think i could write a whole damn story on that guy, or even just on his involvement, or whatever. politicians (and he is a politician) are fascinating characters, if just for their inherent politician personality.

man. luna is playing san francisco again soon, but not seattle! wah. i like luna.

if anyone who reads this didn't get an email from me and wants to come have dinner with me on my birthday, that would be cool. 6pm at the continental. delish. this is not a birthday party, just some dinner. dinner, dammit! mm, greek food.

anyway, coffee time. COFFEE. blessed beverage.

listening: luna - i know you tried

having been recently reminded that i do, in fact, have friends, i would like to say hello to them. some of them read this occasionally. so, hi, i love you, i'm sorry i've been so stupid-busy.

also, my birthday is wednesday. i'll finally be 21. let the magic begin. the magic being the ability to go places to see some music and maybe dance a bit. why, i could even imbibe alcohol if i so desired (which i don't). everyone i know who is of at least that magical age tells me it isn't that big a deal, but they do things that take advantage of 21-ness, so they lie. 21 to me means the freedom to enjoy entertainment that was previously restricted from me. i don't like being told i can't do things. it's the principle of the thing. and the concerts.

hrm. i probably have a lot i could talk about, but most of it's stuff i shouldn't babble about because it's personal and/or gossipy. i save that for in person talking! hee.

listening: jane's addiction - had a dad

ooooooooh, i just had some coffee and it's making me want to write sentences without spaces so you can just HEAR the squealiness evident in the words. it's also making my hands twitchy. i love coffee.

so! i might still be screwed a tiny bit, but i am MOSTLY UNSCREWED as of JUST NOW!!

friday i was killer productive. i found a speech to attend that was actually INTERESTING! about peacemaking given by a quaker lobbyist. i had dinner with my mom and brother and chris, whom i was bribing to attend the speech with me. i just finished writing the story. it's probably not fabulous, but it's a story based on an actual speech i attended, took notes, and taped, so that's better than nothing at all.

on friday, i also finished my psych final paper (except for the abstract, which i wrote today), complete with charts and proper formatting and all that shit. that's due wednesday, but i will print it tomorrow at work. i am going to print a lot of crap at work tomorrow. they might not be happy with me, but i do not care! i can easily pay if necessary. i also had a stupid assignment about reviewing someone else's draft and having mine reviewed by peers that i finished for monday. our group presents monday as well and our presentation is ready to go, i think. i am reading the results section, which is very easy. yay!

so all i have left is my big story. i have one interview (which i should review and take better notes on and use as the basis for my story outline) and need to conduct one or two more tomorrow morning. i can talk to another member of the washington state prostate cancer coalition and i'm hoping to be able to talk to someone at the american cancer society (a specific individual mentioned to me by multiple individuals). after that, i should have my story, and i'll have the 2.5 hours of work to write it. 22 paragraphs. i can do it. i hope. and then i'll be done!

done done done done! i will do a happy dance then.

yesterday was kevin's birthday. he's an old man. he didn't want to leave the house all day. he showed me some sega games (i moderately enjoyed myself playing rampage once i got the hang of climbing buildings and eating people to avoid dying) and we arranged phrases with the "hippie" magnetic poetry set i got him for refrigerator magnets. he made some food i was quite suspicious of--marinara with tofu and black beans over fettuccine--but it turned out to be pretty good.

i just dropped a pretzel on the floor. dammit.

so, i think it's about time that i did that whole outlining my big story thing with the one interview i do have. yayexciting. almost done!@#

listening: jane's addiction - standing in the shower, thinking