Feeling: Wired. Tired.
Listening to: You're Pretty - "Finally"
Reading/Watching: Dragons of a Lost Star - last 50 pages

Today, I felt like my brain was out to lunch- work was slow and I was acting dain bramaged.

And this one woman kept pawing through the clearance items, asking, "do you have this in a smaller size?"
"I don't know, but check the bins, there might be one there."
"And this- I need you to get me this one in a darker blue."
"Ma'am, I'm not permitted to go through the clearance bins, I need to devote my time to helping all our customers."
"Could you check in the back to see if it's there?"
"Everything we have is on the shelves."
"But could you just check anyway?"
"I'm sorry, but I was here until three in the morning Sunday cleaning out the back and putting everything on the floor. I'm pretty sure."
"This one has a snag on the front. Will I get a discount on it?"
"Um, it's already marked down 65%. I think that's sort of the meaning of the word 'clearance'."

Radjafragarajitgrumpshftimrph. No, I am not going to dig to the bottoms of every single 34C bucket, looking for that specific bra, when there is no promise that we even have it. These things have been picked over for five days straight by vultures just like you. No, I am not going to go combing through the entire store to find it for you. Yes, there are thirty other customers here and five of them have tried to come up and ask me a question before you interrupted them each time. Please leave me alone and continue burrowing through your five dollar bras, and have a nice day.

Plus I could not for the life of me remember specific cash register functions for more than five minutes at a time.

Sigh. No wonder they only pay me five-fifty.

It doesn't help that last night I meant to go to bed at midnight, but a friend signed on, saying he felt "down" and when I tried to ask what was wrong, I got the brush-off.

Somehow, despite his taciturn doom-and-gloom comments, I wound up talking to him anyway, mentioning some really old, really painful memories, pissed off because he seemed to believe that because I am a cheerful person, my life must be constant butterflies and wildflowers.

Dredging up such ancient worries and childhood nemeses had me waking two or three times in the middle of last night, sweaty from nightmares. I usually try to push the petty stuff to the back of my mind, but since I've not thought about it for at least three or four years, it came back with a vengeance. This is hardly conducive to a happy working environment the next day.

But what bothered me the most, kept me awake thinking after each abrupt jerk from sleep, was the fact that after telling him all these things, after letting loose a torrent of bad memories that I usually avoid to keep my sanity, he just signed off. No reply. Not even a good night. Just gone.

So considerate. It's as if I stripped naked in front of him and all he did was laugh and leave the room.

Driving back from dinner with Bri tonight, I was singing my guts out with You're Pretty on "Finally," and she turned to me and said, point blank:

"Okay, honey, tell me what's wrong."

I was slightly confused, because I wasn't aware anything was, other than a somewhat bad day at work and being tired. "What do you mean?"

"You never sing like that unless you've got something you're dealing with, so talk."

It was then I thought about the late-night conversation, and realized just how much his reaction (or lack thereof) bothered me. Of course, I couldn't tell her this.

The crappiest part is, I'm relatively sure it's not even a blip on his radar screen, and yet for me it's been gnawing on my stomach, scratching under my fingernails all day. He probably thought I was talking about it in an attempt to win pity. I'm not even sure what my motivation was, since I only intended a few sentences to dispell his mistaken idea that my life is so perfect, and somehow it became paragraphs.

I guess I'm sick of this "my tragedy is greater than yours" crap. I'm sure it is- I'm sure, in terms of life struggles, you've probably got me beat. But you know what? I'm glad my tragedy isn't so bad anymore. Because that means I can get over it; it sucked enough when it was happening, and I don't want to borrow it for future good times, just so I can stay poetically depressed all the time.

There is more to life than bearing some secret pain. Life doesn't even begin until you let the pain go. So I need to admit I've not released mine, and work on living again. Maybe that will help bring a peaceful end to my bitter "I hate men so I'm staying single" summer of solitude.

Some greasy guy at the mailbox was giving me the "how you doin'" smile and nod, and kept staring at me as I drove away. It was creepy as hell, and I wanted to hide and wrap myself in six pairs of long overalls. I think I'm not ready for men, but boys are not ready for me. That is my paradox.

Now that I have neatly mashed together three entirely different topics, I'm going to bed. Nimsay and I are going to see Hollywood Homicide tomorrow.

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