candle for household peace still burning.

I was combing through a massive file structure where all the folder threads made my sinuses full of ick.

I woke up-ish, had water, adjusted postion, closed eyes again.

Aha! There was my brain file structure! It worked! Yay!

And then I was driving around with, um, people. Some teenager from my friends list. I think maybe weruletheschool, but I'm not sure. But she feels right. And somehow I and another girl ended up on a spacecraft donating plasma. But we were going through the donor screening process, and the screening lady was talking so very fast and incomprehensible, and I said, "I don't understand what you just said," and she said, "How much simpler can I make ' [whatever it was] '?" And I said, "I'm not stupid, just hard of hearing. Could you repeat that again louder?"

And the people began explaining the emergency procedures of the spacecraft, and if anything bad happened, we were to hide in that hole in the floor shaped like a plus. The donors and the doctors were the #1 priorities in terms of safety, and "those guys" would be doing stuff during the emergency. I think there was something like a slaughterhouse business going on? Because that's what was going on, and I got some blood dripped on me (hole in the floor, remember?) and I wasn't so keen on it, and I began climbing up and wandering around the spacecraft, which seemed to be very large, pencil-shaped, and made of rubberized fabric (thick).

And suddenly the alarm for a compartment being opened had been sounded, and suddenly it was one over from *our* compartment, so I frantically tried to get back inside, and I wandered through a maze of corridors and empty rooms, only to wind up in an administrative section. I hid in a closet, because I could seal those doors in case of another compartment failure.

And, somewhere in there, waking up happened. And now I'm awake.

Somewhere in that dream was something that I should probably call "the Rube Goldberg fraternity", because of the nature of gaining rank in the frat. Someone had triggered a novel device, and the events were still playing out. The fratboys wanted to come in the bathroom with me, so I had to hold the door closed even though it was supposed to be locked.

At parties, I tend to happily interact for a while, then withdraw to a corner, generally with my closest friends or a book, and stay there, happily watching the party progress.

I call this process "hiding".

This has happened since forever. A party goes on, and when I've had enough interaction, I withdraw, but not utterly. I'm still there, I'm still enjoying it, and spending any more time in the direct company of people who aren't my inner circle would be painful. I generally take a book along with me, so I'll have something to hide with.

At the Halloween party last year, there were quite a few people who weren't inner-circle. Bald Guy wasn't. The party was winding down, and I wound up in my room with Darkside, ralmathon, and Dawn. The party was just too... well... there were people there. So I hid. Darkside joined me, and I lay flat on my stomach on my bed, head nearly in his lap. It was quiet, and secure, and safe. When Bald Guy and evealone came in, they got shooed out, as they were People, and Darkside was Mine. Huge difference.


Earlier that party, something else had happened. I tried playing a silly fighting game with Darkside. He whipped my tail easily, more than once. Frustrated and disappointed, I retreated to my room in unhappiness, and sulked there for a while before he came and dragged me back out. That's a classic example of what happens when I feel left out of something -- I retreat, because it's something I want to do, and rather than be excluded, I'd rather leave.

It's sometimes hard to tell when the two differ, but they do, greatly. One's just my inability to be around people for more than a few hours. The other's me not feeling like a part of the party, no matter how hard I try.

So, I was chatting with popefelix...

popefelix (8:31:02 PM): howdy. :-)
azurelunatic (8:31:06 PM): Hiya.
azurelunatic (8:31:57 PM): Hee.
azurelunatic (8:32:04 PM): I'm about to drink the OSI MOdel drink.
popefelix (8:35:06 PM): oh dear. :-)
azurelunatic (8:35:18 PM): It's not half bad.
azurelunatic (8:35:34 PM): (Note at this point that I've only had two very small sips.) ( Read more... )

The coherency level dropped at this point, and then I went ahead and called the party at iroshi's.

I decided to call the party over at iroshi's, given that redshoeson and I weren't going to be hanging out after all. (Hey, life happens.)

So I called, and iroshi, starbrow, mcredneck, nalidoll, texasmeercat, amberfox, olliesmama, jdemorae, and ravensinger were all there. I spent a happy length of time being a remote part of the party, and got to "meet" olliesmama [link is locked] and jdemorae.

I quite likely should have met olliesmama back in the day when Shanna was an active member instead of an archive. (For the curious: none of her active functionality has been lost, and her personality has been allocated between garnetdagger and me. It's just that personality is a very fluid thing in this system.)

If anyone likes the writing of the Die Puny Humans guy, he's got an LJ story/novel running at mistersleepless, 0-2 of 60 episodes so far. (Episode 0 is an intro.)

Woke up to the alarm clock, or just before it. Well, it was before, because it was going off when I bleared out of the bathroom. I looked at myself, and myself said to me, "Self, you are not about to go down and give plasma at this hour of the morning after the night before." "Okay, okay!" quoth I, and proceeded to do all the things you're not supposed to do when you're trying to get back to sleep, to wit: reading e-mail and LJ.

My intrepid roommates (it's all the fault of the Gray Side crew, I swear, especially jenwrites) zoomed out on their way to catsit. I read, and then took a nice leisurely bath. Bath was followed by more computer stuff, with random bits of lunch (I do make a yummy stew, especially with votania doing the meat first!) and other things.

I was well on my way to getting the Temple Calendar done when the Viking called, in need of some e-mail checking. (Well, that became apparent after 20 minutes of assorted chattering...) By that time, it was time to head out to the plasma place, which I did.

On the way back, I ferociously debated burgers, but wound up with orange chicken and fried rice instead, which is happily scorching my mouth. Life is good.

My Pretty called, and we spent a half hour of giggling & so forth over this and that. By the way, Mt. St. Helens went off in May of 1980, and Reagan was elected the immediately following November. I'm a Gemini.

I told the Shawn stories about the phone and the microwave, the toaster, and the lawnmower.

Things are getting straightened out on her end about social stuff. *sigh* And Darkside is in Tucson, without even any sheep to keep him company, just relatives. (So, melcocha, if you see a charming young man answering to his description acting like a whiny teenager in the company of far too many relatives, you stand a chance of talking to the right guy if you ask if he knows Azure Lunatic.)

Poll #163899 Shawn Stories
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 7

I have heard the "That Idiot Shawn" stories about:

I would like to hear (or hear again) the "That Idiot Shawn" stories about: