Here's what happened on Friday:

We did some group improv in acting class. I got a little carried away and broke the no-physical-contact rules by "ganking" some guy while pretending to be a terrorist holding up an airplane. It was fun at the time, but I felt sick to my stomach afterwards. I felt like I wanted to just die. I was in such a foul mood on the way home, I could barely deal with anything. I really don't know why this is. Maybe it's natural reaction to being extroverted. I am completely introverted about 90 percent of the time, and during this exercise I just sort of jumped out there and did what I wanted to do. It seemed fun at the time, but the backlash in my mind later was a lot to handle. I still wish I could figure out what the fuck happened to me there. Well, next time I'm going to be part of the background. Inanimate. An object. Follow the leader. Maybe that's chickenshit. Oh well. At least I'll be trying the other end of the spectrum for a change.

Yeah. So anyway, later that night I got really drunk. I mean, room-spinning drunk. It was fun. I don't do it often -- maybe three times a year -- but when I do, I pretty much go for blissful unconsciousness. It was what I needed after this week.

Also on Friday, I went to help my history professor with his computer. He needed some shortcuts to put Italian accent marks in his papers, and needed my help to do it. I made 25 bucks under the table for that. Not bad.

It's so strange to be spending time with this man, in his home, given how much I deified him when I was first going to college. He is a well-spoken, classically educated man, and when I first attended his class, I wanted to be him. He was so incredible. Now we're friends, for crying out loud. I go to his house and help him with his computer, and watch him struggle with the Gordian complexities of AOL. Argh. His godlike status is taken away from him by knowing him. It is a natural fact of life, I suppose, that when you grow up you realize your parents are only human, and not gods. A very similar thing has occurred with my professor, my mentor, my hero. I don't know whether to be comforted by that or fall into despair because of it. Knowing me, probably fall into despair -- that's a little joke. I guess it's not so bad having human heroes.

So that's what happened Friday. Saturday I spent most of the day in bed, or goofing off. I also ran into an old friend on the Net that I hadn't talked to in five years or so... we spent all night chatting about old times, had a lot of laughs and a lot of reminiscing. It was good. I needed that very much.

Then, of course came work -- putting together those NCCE web pages for the School of Ed. It's a pretty slipshod job, all things told, but the information vacuum I had to deal with was pretty much a nightmare. Lost lists of links, emails with attachments in formats I can't read, and altogether just a muddy idea of what in Hell I was supposed to be doing in the first place. I can't really blame anyone for the general disorganization of the whole affair, but it's still just kind of annoying. I got it done, though, and that's what counts. We'll see if I'm ever hired to do anything again, and that way I'll know if I did a good job or not.

Misty told me something alarming over the weekend. She's always asking me if I wrote a journal entry. When I asked her why she was so interested, she told me she needed it to know what was going on in my head. I'm such a closed-off person, she tells me, that unless she reads this she doesn't know what my deepest thoughts are.

It could be we have a communication problem, her and I. That was something of a wake-up call, let me tell you.

Well, if nothing else, I guess I have a good reason there not to quit. That, and the guilt I feel when I see the hits on my page and know it's probably the same people checking back to see if I've done a damn thing. :) Sorry, kids. You knew I was a slacker when you undertook this journey with me. Didn't you?

So that was Saturday. Today, I finished off my work, put together this entry, and now... well, I don't know what I'm going to do now. Frankly, after sifting through all that web-page hell for the NCCE conference, I mostly want to drink some more, but I think that might be a bad idea. It wouldn't do to make that sort of thing a habit.

(pause)

I just got a call from my dad. Very strange to hear from him again, after all this time. It's never pleasant to have your own father seem like someone you never knew that well. I got a phone card in the mail from my sister the other day, too. Subtle hints perhaps? Maybe someone's trying to tell me I should spend more time talking to my family and less to anonymous strangers. Could be.

More later.

D.