Aly took me to the strip again last night; we went to visit the Wynn Hotel, which was fairly impressive. It has a little forest inside and a singing frog somewhere outside. Definitely interesting. However, the hotel didn’t occupy us for long, so we were going to hang out with some of her friends; we were just waiting for them to text her back to find out where we could meet. So picture this: it’s slightly after midnight and Aly says, “I’m bored. I want to go to the park.”

“What are we going to do at the park?” I asked her, “Play on the swings?”

“Yeah.”

Duh. I’m just the passenger seat tag-a-long, so it didn’t really matter to me what we did. I had an extra jacket, so I was good to go. But somehow, some sense enters my head when we are nearly to the park and I ask her, “Aren’t parks usually closed at night?”

“Parks don’t close Jana.”

“Most of the ones I’ve been to have hours and people aren’t allowed in at night.”

However, as we drive up, we see the gate of the park open, so we enter. Big mistake. She parks and as we’re getting out of the car, we see another car driving up. A police car. Oh you better believe I was excited about that!! (Sarcasm) We don’t know whether to walk up to it or to go ahead to the swing set like we had planned. But the cops stop and step out of the car, and that simply ruined our swing set plan. They asked us to step up to the car so that the lights could blare in our faces and blind us and they started taking down Aly’s information. I was completely panicked on the inside, but surprisingly outwardly calm. Then they started taking down my info. Still pretty calm and pretty proud of myself for not getting hysterical.

Then my hands got cold. I’m just thinking to myself, what in the world am I supposed to do with my hands to keep them warm?? Fortunately, I realize (from watching so many episodes of Cops with Aly) that it wouldn’t be a smart idea to put my hands in my pockets. So I cross them and it keeps them slightly warmer.

It wasn’t long until they had checked us out and we were free to go, we just had to leave the park. They didn’t search us or put us in handcuffs or anything (which was good because I really might have gotten hysterical then), but that was the closest I have been to a cop car since I was 8 (I ran away from home; cops picked me up). It was a little bit terrifying. Maybe next time Aly will believe me when I tell her parks close!!

I was walking blithely to my last class of the day, immersed in thoughts of homework, unsuspecting of the disgust looming in my near future. From nowhere, I feel something hit my finger. Thinking it was nothing more disastrous than an acorn or a leaf, I look down. My thumb is covered in a brown, wet substance. It hit me what it was and I froze mid-step: Bird poop. I was halfway between my building and EM Lynn, so I faced a dilemma: go back to my building or forge ahead? I decided to go ahead to EM Lynn and was trying to think if I knew where anyone lives in that building so that I could wash my hands. When I entered the building, I pulled a flyer off of a wall and used it to wipe my hand off, and I eventually was able to wash my hands in a friend’s room. What a lovely way to begin the end of my day…….

I’ve been depressed the last two days. I don’t really know why since it hasn’t been an especially stressful week. Nothing bad has happened. There is no explanation for it other than that I am depressed. It’s irrational.

But it’s not the sad kind of depressed. It’s the angry kind. The kind where I hate the whole world for no good reason. The kind where I’m mad at people because they don’t care. Of course, I haven’t told them that I’m upset. It’s the kind of depressed where I expect them to know anyway. I guess that’s how it’s irrational.

It’s also the kind where I don’t want anyone to cheer me up. I just want to stay mad forever. That’s probably the worst kind of depression that exists because you just look for reasons to keep the feeling. And you find them everywhere.

I just don’t want to talk to anyone. I want someone to talk to me just so I can tell that person to go away and leave me alone (of course I never would, but I want to). I also want to tell someone just to have the pity they’ll feel. I guess it would be my way of attempting to get someone to make me feel better just so they don’t get the satisfaction of me feeling better (if that makes any sense?). I would stay upset just to be spiteful. Cruel, huh? 

It’s really hard to go to work and have to smile politely at people for 6 hours when you really just want to go home and dwell on your depression, wallow in it even. That stupid, enduring sense of responsibility!

I guess the good thing is that I never stay depressed for very long, no matter what kind of depression it is. I have an adamant way of finding joy in nearly everything.

I found this article on Yahoo. I thought it might apply to my comments on the iPulse and might help the situation somewhat. Check it out if you’re interested.

This was the most amazing weekend (sarcasm) ever. Well, no, I take it back. Sunday was pretty great. Saturday was long. I worked in the library in the morning, then from 4-11, I worked at Barnes and Noble. By myself. For the first time. Overall, I think I worked 11 hours on Saturday. Let me just say…wow. But it wasn’t really too bad except my feet hurt and I was so tired when I finally got home.

I worked Sunday, too, but only 10-3. I rode my bike for the first time to work. It actually wasn’t that bad. I did learn, however, how embarrassingly out of shape I am. My thighs started burning before I even got off of Military Trail. I’m surprised I’m not sore today. I expected to not be able to walk this morning.

After work, I came home, took a quick shower, and then Anand picked me up. I offered to help him install carpet in his patio. I got to meet Prithee and Kalpana (sp?), his sisters, and his mom. They fed me; the change from cafeteria food (though it’s not bad) was nice. I only ate in the caf once this weekend. But anyway. We installed the carpet until it got too dark to see, then Kalpana showed me a very interesting home video…of Anand…dancing. It was cute. He was embarrassed, naturally, but what else can you expect from a guy’s older sisters? (If it were my brother, it would have been a lot worse.) But his sisters were totally nice, and I didn’t feel the least bit uncomfortable (which is unusual when I meet new people). They’re a close family, and that’s a good thing. It was fun to see them teasing each other; I don’t see a lot of that here. Kinda makes me nostalgiac. I miss my family!

But it was a good weekend. I didn’t see my roomy very much, though. That’s weird because I always see her. I came home last night, and she was completely crazy, so hyper. I hope she got some sleep. She was out of the room before I woke up, though. Maybe I’ll get to see her at some point today……..

I had three different, horrible nightmares last night that were so bad they woke me up in the middle of the night. I haven’t had a nightmare in so long and I didn’t even watch a scary movie or anything. It just happened. I don’t remember one of them, but the other two were about dogs. One was a vicious dog at my house that had……egh….eaten another dog and had almost eaten my dogs. The other one I remember better, and it was much more gruesome. There was a man with his legs and arms tied to little stakes that were hanging in mid-air (which, now that I think about it, is impossible) and the his head was held by something. The rest of his body was hanging. (This is where it starts to get bad.) A dog, with very human like expressions, was going to jump up and down on this guys body until it detached from his head. Like I said, gruesome. I think it was some kind of torture. The worst part was, that this dream was so vivid. I never have vivid dreams; I always forget them.

 I’ve also noticed that most of my nightmares are about dogs (which I love, by the way). The last one I had was about two years ago. There was this evil, little bitty white dog with the most vicious teeth I’ve ever seen. Come to think of it, I think it ate some dogs, too. It had blood all over it’s fur and there was blood everywhere. I woke up so terrified of dogs that I was scared my dog (who was asleep at the end of the bed) was going to attack me if I moved. I actually cried when I woke up because I was so scared.

The bad thing is, these dreams stay in my mind. I constantly think about them. I have to consciously move my mind away from them and think about something else, something really, really good. If I don’t, I’ll never get back to sleep.

 Is it just me, or are there a lot of things disturbing my sleep lately?

I love sleep. Truly. I don’t do it all the time, but it is what makes me such a happy person. So why is it that I woke up twice last night before the sun even rose and am sitting here writing a blog at 7:30 in the morning when I don’t have class until 11? I have never had so much trouble sleeping in my life, yet according to my friend Anand, I have the most comfortable bed ever. Is it the bug problem? Could be. Aly found two yesterday while she was cleaning and killed them with massive amounts of bug spray. I found one this morning, already belly up (thank goodness!). But I don’t think it is exclusively the bugs. The whole first week of school I woke up at 7:30 every morning. And my internal clock is not primed to wake me up that early; believe me, I did not wake up that early this summer. Of course, the window of my room does face the east. Maybe my subconscious knows that I’m missing the most beautiful sunrises by sleeping in and it’s just telling me to wake up so I can start my day with something beautiful.