MY LIFE - OCTOBER

Friday, October 13, 2000

I'm not superstitious. I've never really fallen for the whole "it's Friday the 13th!" kind of hoopla that many might. I don't think too much of it and I don't really buy into the way people think that it's invariable that something weird will happen.

I don't worry about a full moon too often either. If something strange happens, it's just a coicidence, right? At least that's how I look at it. I just don't believe in things like that. I'm terrible for shows like "The X-Files" since I don't buy into the things they want you to believe. There's always going to be a reasonable explanation. That's my belief.

The two coinciding? Doesn't bother me in the least. Go on, bring on your worst superstitious fears. It won't scare me nor will I think something goofy is going to happen. Besides, I slept until 2 today, and that's nothing unusual, except that I didn't get up earlier because I didn't feel good. I had been fine yesterday, but today I had a splitting headache and I couldn't breath until I got cleaned up and took some medicine.

Nothing to worry about, right?

I went to work and got my paycheck when Lenny surprised me with what he told me. Since we don't have any coverage at all for next week at night when it comes to pharmacists, we might be closing early. I expected that he'd want me to stay and get my hours in, but he told me something different. He told me I could go to Berea and make up my hours if I wanted to and he wouldn't have a problem with it at all.

I almost fell backwards when he told me that. It was just not like him to encourage me to go work at Berea like that. It's like one sports team telling one of its players he/she could go play for their rival for a while. It just doesn't happen. I kind of stuttered my agreement and said I'd talk to Steve. I was in such shock that I forgot to ask him about splitting time between the two stores the week after next.

There were more strange things that took place today as well. When I went to go and take a picture of my car so that I could post it for all of you to see, I noticed there wasn't any film in the camera. I luckily had some film up in my room (don't ask why since my mom lost my camera earlier this year), so I put that into the camera. I noticed that the battery was low as well, so I decided to go get a new one.

I went to CVS in Berea and bought a battery. I got home, took out the battery and slapped myself because I saw that the camera took two batteries, not one. The damn things are over $7 each, so I decided just to change one. Then the film somehow jammed and I had to extract the film from the camera, thusly ruining the film and having to go grab yet another one from my room.

By the time I had gotten the whole thing ready, it was too dark to take the picture. I went upstairs, checked my answering machine, and found I had three messages. One from a friend, one from Norris Ford on my maintenance check-up for my car, and one that was just static. I checked my caller id and found that my friend had called moments after I had left for the battery and I got back after she said she would be gone in the message.

Just a weird, weird day.

Friday the 13th with a full moon? Just a coincidence. I'm sure of that.

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The popular consensus among those I ask is that this is their favorite part of the site to visit. For some reason, people like to read about what's going on with me and see how I'm doing. I don't know why. Aside from a few strange entries where you can tell it's late when I'm writing, there really isn't anything interesting on me or what I do. In my opinion anyway. I don't think I'm very exciting and I'm not usually funny here.

I try to come up with funny things to say in here, but my humor is more situational than anything else. I can't just come up with funny things to say. I need something strange to happen that I can take advantage of and make it funny. Like in conversations, I can come up with some strange stuff every now and then, both online and offline. When I'm out and about, I can come up with something funny on something I might see happen.

That's what I'm best at too. When I'm at work, I can come up with one thing after another on a decent day. If someone does something stupid or says something stupid, I can come up with something that will just compound things for the person on the receiving end. I can get myself into all sorts of trouble that way too, but it's usually worth the risk.

When I watch tv, it's the same thing. I can pick up on small, stupid things and turn it into a joke. But online, it's not as easy. Number one, you can't usually hear my voice, so you can't catch the sarcasm most of the time. I also change the sound of my voice if it will help with a joke and you can't detect that. You can't hear the way I might say something, which can be the difference between it being hilarious or just stupid. It's usually just stupid when online.

If anything online, I'm more serious about things. I write about the more serious things in my life because those are the things I remember most. I don't remember the silly stuff as much because I'm always doing something silly. It just blends together as the day goes on. It's harder to remember things like that. But if something serious or maddening happens, I'll remember it and write about it.

The one thing I think you can tell with me in my entries is if I'm crabby or not. I don't know why, but that's something that I think can be picked up on very easily. If I'm writing about how much people piss me off, that's usually a good sign that I'm crabby or just in need of a nap.

Not always though.

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There is one aspect of me that exists both when I'm online and in person. I rarely initiate conversations. I'm just not very personable and I don't feel comfortable starting conversations. When I first went online back in 1997, I initially began talking to people and making my presence felt, but it slowly disappeared as time went on. I think my personality overall affected how I was online, so instead of being loud and abrasive when in chat rooms and the like, I became much quieter, only talking when someone encouraged me to do so.

I think my online personality as changed a great deal over the three years I've been online. At first, I was loud and looking to talk to as many people as I could at first. I was in way over my head and wasn't really ready to deal with all the chatting. It came mostly in part because I was single and just tired of not having any kind of luck. I talked mostly to girls who were in my general area, trying to see if something could happen.

That was a mistake on my part. I tried too hard to do something that I just needed to be patient on. I eventually stopped talking to a lot of the people I intitially met and even disappeared for long periods of time. The people I did keep up with, well, they were people I felt comfortable with, but even then I wasn't talking to them as much. Then we dropped America Online in 1998 and most of the people I talked to, I lost track of.

Over the last two years I feel that I've just changed a bit with how I handle myself online. I'm more discreet. I'm not jumping into things too fast. I just don't want things to get so carried away that someone gets hurt because things are moving so fast. I feel the internet is a good place to meet people, especially if you're single. But you can't go flying into a relationship. Once you know a person better, then it might work out better, but you can't move so fast that you're going crazy trying to make things work.

I've made that mistake once and I'm not making it again. I'm willing to meet a person I meet online, but only if I'm comfortable with them. The people I talk to now, I'm comfortable with. But I'm not going to be comfortable with someone who goes to this site, loves it, thinks I'm cute or something, then e-mails me and wants a date right away. It won't happen.

It's just too risky and I don't like taking risks. I usually get burned.