Ugh. I still can't shake the epic nightmare that woke me up at 4:30 this morning and never let me go. I kept trying to fall back to sleep to make it turn out right (does anyone else do this?) but the horror just kept getting worse. Rape gangs roaming the streets, my mother raped and beaten and then, and here's the really ooky ooky part (like what the FUCK is my brain doing?), then my brother started coming after me. All the men in that dream were bad, every last one of them. I think it must have come from listening to the radio last night. There was a story about the disappearing women of Juarez, Mexico. Over 300 women raped and murdered in the last 10 years by some serial murderer(s).

And then of course once I was awake and without the comfort of good nice sleep, the other anxieties kicked in: no money (and it's christmas almost and we're supposed to be traveling all over the place and NO MONEY), fucking holiday lunch fiasco thing. That's it. Those are my worries right now. I think.

So today my plan is to rid myself of as many woes as possible so that I might go home light of heart. I've been looking forward to Saturday and Sunday all week. I plan to stay warm and make things.

Jeff rearranged the house yesterday--moved pretty much everything except the kitchen into the one big room which is the warm place so now we don't have to freeze to death just to be online. Plus it looks so friendly. I might show you some pictures if I ever get around to taking any.

Speaking of pictures, Jeff uncovered the pictures Brittania took of everybody when everybody was still here. Brittania and Ron and Dave and JB and Frances and Jeff and me and all them dogs. It's strange to look at them. I feel like I and we (or maybe my idea of the we in the pictures) am/are was/were such innocents. Like we didn't know what was possible, didn't know how radically the world could be altered, didn't know how far friendship could be stretched. It's strange to look at us all together in a way that's impossible to imagine anymore. I'm not sad about it--but then I'm not a sentimental person (I'm a black-hearted mamba). I do hope that the friendships that matter to me can become something new and good and strong. I also know it won't ever be like that again and that was pretty damned good, however unsustainable.

Right. I have to move along here little babies. Holiday planning is in my very near future and I think I might have to quit my job just to get out of it. Ok. I won't do that. But ugh. Bye.