1:42am

I've been sleeping 8 hours and now it's time for dinner (breakfast?). This week has been strange. My whole family is sick but me, and being determined not to get sick has meant the same thing it always does for me: sleeping as much as possible, taking lots of Vitamin C and E. But coming home at 5:30, going straight to bed and staying dead asleep til 1:30? That's strange even for me. The plan was to sleep for an hour or two, then wake up for dinner and to spend a little time with my family. They feel like they never get to see me any more and I feel guilty for sleeping through prime family time. I remember hearing my mother come home from work at about 6:30, but I didn't even open my eyes. She shouldn't have gone back to work so soon, the doctor told her she had bronchitis on Monday. But she had a homeschool class coming in and so she forced herself. I hope it doesn't turn into pnuemonia. I'll have to say hi to her when she wakes up.

I'm eating Cuban leftovers, and Cajun crab dip and crackers. If and when I do get back to sleep, I'm probably going to regret that choice.

Since last week life has been a blur of work, darkness, and sleep. I stayed home all weekend and cleaned and slept and did laundry and sewed. I didn't even do Augustine tutoring because it was Martin Luther King day. Well I did go out for Cuban food with my Converse little sister Carrie on Tuesday night - that was a wonderful, colorful two-hour respite from...I don't know what this is. Maybe it's seasonal affective disorder. Maybe it's real life, hitting me at last. But no, I think it's just that if I wasn't sleeping so much, I would already be sick. And I'm trying to conserve every bit of strength and health for the weekend - Pam and I are going to Atlanta on Saturday and staying through Sunday.

Strange dreams. Among them, I was hanging out at Converse's new senior apartment housing (circa 2011) where there was some cutting-technology and a kick-butt party. As I began to consume a little more alcohol than I ought, I made the connection in my mind between the consumption of alcohol and a really good party. The reason, I thought, that I had never drunk much at Converse before is because the parties/dances were all pretty lame and I didn't feel like it. Nothing to do with the fact that I am morally opposed to drunkeness or that I was underage and most of the time they wouldn't have served it to me if I'd tried. Good thing I was out of school now or I might have turned into a party animal.

Then it was morning and I was flipping through this huge stash of art I had produced in school that had magically appeared in file cabinets under the kitchen counter. Then I was on a message board for knitters and crocheters where people were offering free yarn and I was going through all the messages feeling the yarn (yeah that's right) and then I unraveled one girl's ball and thought, I shouldn't do that, what if all the people on this message board did that, then we would have a big mess! Because you can totally reach into a message board on the computer and mess with people's yarn.

Oh and then there were some completed projects, one of which was actually very inspiring. It was like macrame'd fringe, made in two tones of yarn that came together in a herringbone and tapered into points. Kind of reminded me of ferns, the way the two halves always catch the light differently and look like two different colors. There were sage green and brown ones, turquoise and brown ones, and heather purple and grey ones. One of the project's admirers had commented saying "There's a girl underground that will always love you" a direct reference to the Noah and the Whale song that at that moment happened to be playing through my mind. Now that was odd. I started to feel like something was fishy and awoke shortly afterward.
I've got to stop eating this crab dip. I can feel it burn all the way down. I think I'm going to go put away laundry, pay a bill, and then go back to sleep. I've got 7 more hours before I have to be anywhere.