the best imitation of myself

I sit at the computer but never write. What's the last thing I can remember posting?

It rained all day Monday. In the morning my mother mentioned a flood warning was going to be in effect until 8 p.m. at least, and it poured all day. I got up early for the dermatologist, who took less than five minutes to examine me head-to-toe and said both "you don't get much sun, do you?" and "you really shouldn't be living in Florida." WELL, IT WASN'T MY IDEA. I keep breaking out around my chin, something I'd never done before the start of the last school year; he gave me a prescription for that.

My mother and I brought Thai food over to my grandmother's apartment for lunch: it wasn't exactly a bad day for her, but a very quiet one. We left to run errands but stood downstairs for a long time, waiting for the rain to clear enough for our walk across the parking lot. We got batteries at Target and toiletries, and spent a lot of time in the travel-size aisle: dozens of tiny tubes of brand-name toothpaste and body lotion and contact-lens solution, all for a dollar or less. Keep a bag packed and be ready to flee at a moment's notice. We looked for nail polish at Bath and Body Works; we looked at CVS; we looked in Publix. We parked as high as we could and dashed between the car and covered sidewalks, the car and home, stepping quickly and carefully to avoid the deepest of the puddles. My mother made chicken salad for dinner and gjstruthseeker called to tell me to expect her tomorrow.

I slept in Tuesday and managed to do laundry and tidy up my room a bit before meeting malelia_honu for yoga. Our instructor admonished us for missing class last Thursday—it's nice to know we were missed. Afterward I called my mom to tell her I wouldn't be home for dinner and we headed over to the Galleria for sales at Victoria's Secret (where I never end up getting anything) and Banana Republic. I found a skirt that fit me for too much money and a skirt that didn't fit me for the right price, and in the end came away with only two plain t-shirts, white and black. We ducked into the Gap fifteen minutes before closing and ran smack into one of our friends from high school and her seven-month-old baby boy. She's married and the baby is adorable. She seemed happy, and I wouldn't have said she was happy when I knew her, though we hadn't been close at all: sullen, maybe. She seems happy now, confident and relaxed and happy

Jules came from dinner with her father to spend the night and we talked about the things around here and the things in Gainesville and the mysteries of the Harry Potter universe before we put ourselves to bed. In the morning I got up early again and headed out without breakfast to my doctor's appointment. They seemed glad to see me, the staff that had been there when I'd been there last summer, and I realize I need better stories. I have no boyfriends or girlfriends, no interesting plans, no anecdotes to share when people ask me to tell them what's going on, what's new. They did an EKG to check out my irregular heartbeat and the doctor gave me a clean bill of health and a note saying I could donate blood whenever I pleased, so perhaps now my dad will get off my back.

Mal met us for lunch at Einstein's at 12:30 or so, whenever I got back and we headed out again. Today was another perfectly rainy day, if more gray than wet. The humidity is fierce but the storms keep the heat down nicely. We sat outside at Einstein's rather than inside in the air conditioning and I dropped food on my skirt three or four times until Mal reached over and stuck a napkin on my lap. You can't take me anywhere. We browsed Bath and Body Works further down the strip (I am not swayed by packaging, but I'm certainly attracted by it: so much of their products are so well-wrapped, and I am drawn to the heft of the pots, the fonts of the text, the colors of the bottles, and the texture of the creams) and Payless right next door. I remembered my haircut appointment at two and Mal and Jules sat reading magazines while I got a badly-needed trim. I think it had been four months. It looks quite fetching now, though it won't fall half as nicely tomorrow.

Back at my place Jules sat us down and showed us the South Park movie, which both amused and horrified me. I laughed and my eyes bulged, sometimes simultaneously. (Someone brilliant made a Smallville vid, Lex-centric, to Saddam's "I Can Change," and it is, as you might have guessed, awesome.) We played some ball in the house; Mal left to rescue her mother from over-working outside and Jules stayed while we all ordered Chinese food. We watched, of all things, Super-Nanny (a much better show than I would have thought! the children are just as bad as I'd imagined, as were the parents, but she really does everything right) and then Jules went off to make her mother happy by sleeping at home tonight. We've made tentative plans for Friday, and Mal and I are doing yoga tomorrow and possibly seeing Cabaret on Saturday; I remembered too late that cousin M. is having my family and some other company over for dinner on Friday, but I can see if Jules would like to come along, and then we can do things both before and after. Too many thing and all at once.

Things I've read tonight:
1. the last 140 entries on my friends page
2. Part 26 (the latest and perhaps the best installment to date) of peter_and_fran
3. the latest SG:A and House recs at ship_recs (and elsewhere), including an untitled John study, a John/Atlantis ficlet, and Trojan Horse (SG:A); and No Exchange of Payment, Leave This Harbor for the Sea, and Dysgeusia (House)
4. isilya's giftedness ramble to which I am trying to formulate a coherent response
5. a column marythefan transcribed about Simon, his character, his sexuality, and what it all has to do with Jayne (Firefly)

Things I've saved to read later:
1. Ride (My Chemical Romance), the latest long story from synchronik
2. The Generic Slash Defense Form Letter (linked by cesperanza)
3. a metadiscussion of gender, sexuality, and fandom (linked by viggorlijah2).

I'd read them all but I'm too tired now to even want to. My mother gave me back The Tipping Point; maybe one of these days I'll read a book again.