This Is a Diary Entry

Woke up at 4:30 from a dream where an old friend of mine, who in real life claims she has given up sweets cold turkey (anyone else now thinking of cold candied turkey, or is it just me?), decided to go to a gathering of rich and famous folks who had decided that the best way to deal with chocolate cravings is to collect around a large table and collectively eat as much expensive chocolate as humanly possible. In the dream, she told me that she was only going to the meeting because she wanted to hang out with celebrities, but clearly it was all about pigging out on the chocolate. This being one of those dreams where I switch personas for no apparent reason, I even ended up as one of the famous piggish people (don't ask which--I don't know about famous people) and got to eat one of the fabulous chocolate-chunk cookies. (I've had better.)

So anyway, woke up at 4:30 and was too cold to go back to sleep. Thought about turning on the space heater, but that would have required getting out from under the covers, stepping around used Kleenex (congestion also interfered with sleep last night), and generally being colder before I could get warmer. Finally gave up at 6 a.m. and spent the next few hours trying to get feeling back in my extremities.

Bundled up in as many layers as I could stand, I braved the elements (air: cold; earth: cold; water: frozen; fire: not evident) and went to the psychiatrist, who surprised me by not trying to push newer and scarier drugs on me. Got a new script for Ritalin and went on my merry way.

My merry way led me to Border's Books & Music where, after sighing over a Peter Himmelman CD I hadn't realized existed, I bought a solitary dark chocolate Lindt truffle. ("Is that all you want today?" "Yes, I'm trying out that self-control thing." "Good luck with that!")

Waiting for the bus to go home, was pelted with itsy-bitsy snowballs falling from the sky. They were amusing. Bus driver arguing with me about the rail-to-bus transfer was less amusing, though he went on to argue with someone else and all was right with the world. On the ride home, alternated between reading the book I'd brought with me and watching the snow outside falling faster and fluffier.

As I was getting off the bus, a man about to get on said in a startled voice, "You're pretty!" It didn't occur to me that he might mean me till I realized that nobody got off the bus after me. I choose to believe he was referring to me because the random startled compliment amuses me. I choose to believe he was drunk because I am a realist.

You know how the stereotypical kid runs around in the stereotypical snowstorm trying to catch snowflakes on their pink and shiny tongue? This was the kind of snow where anyone who has their mouth open for more than five seconds (someone with a cold who's having trouble breathing through their nose, for instance) will end up with a mouthful of snow. Little snowdrifts formed on my glasses and eyelashes.

Came home, chatted briefly with landlord ("There wasn't supposed to be snow, was there?" "I'd heard there was a chance, but with no significant accumulation." "It's accumulated on you!"), ate my truffle, threw virtual snowballs at people, got a surprise month-after-Christmas present, went to store for toilet paper, bought Pringles at last week's sale price because someone had left the label up on the shelf, tossed the idea of "self-control" out the window where it got lost in a snowdrift, and munched on too many Cajun-flavored ("Do they grind up real Cajuns for these?") processed potato chip-like things. I don't know why I'm not sleepy.