I was up all night, till 4 am, unsuccessfully looking for three lost/misplaced things that mean the world to me. These are things which are not replacable.

The least important of these important things is a very old handmade-looking crochet hook. You can laugh, but it was beautiful and made of some sort of steel, and from the 1800's.

The second least important is a charm bracelet that I bought to replace the one my grandma had for me but refused to give me unless I saw her - this was after she was verbally abusive to me, and after I wrote her off. So I bought my own, and added silver charms to it for years.

The first and only thing I am in tears over not being able to find is a book. It is a bok I was given when I was four. I'll explain.

When I was four, me and my mom were homeless pretty much the whole year. Between her nervous breakdowns, we shelter hopped every few weeks to few months. We moved so much that year that it took till I was about twenty-three to figure out that I remember living in at least 6 places in two different states that year, though my mom is sure there were more. In one of those shelters, a woman named Gabby had lived for a while, paying rent for a room to stay longer. She had a bookshelf with some books on it. I remember her, she had curly dark brown hair, and was very kind to me. A few days before we left again to go to another shelter, she asked me to come to her room because she had something to give me. She told me that she once had a daughter, and that she read her a book to cheer her up whenever her daughter felt sad. She opened a tiny orange book and read the inscription she had written to me. Something like, "May this cheer you up on a blue day, Gabby" My mother read me that book as we shelter hopped. And later on, I always felt the kindness of her when I read the book, and I do not lie when I say that book got me through more than one really blue day. The book has drawings throughout of little boys and girls playing in flowers and on swings and playing dress up. It is really beautiful. It is in poem format and is all the things you can think of to be happy for in the world like, "dandelion puffs that blow in the breezes". It remains my favorite book in the whole world...and I don't know where it is.

I've cleaned most of my whole room, I've looked in all my drawers, my boxes, through my papers, through my school things...I can't find it. I'm so scared that I may have accidentally thrown it away, though I can't think of how. I mean, it's bright orange. But where is it?

My room suddenly feels so overwhelmingly big, and I, being agoraphobic, cannot handle this.

I haven't lost everything that doesn't mean anything to me. I still have all that crap in boxes.

I feel so lost right now.

I also wanted to write of my day yesterday, but it feels so much less important, for some reason.

My attempt at it, just the same:

My friend P had called me back to talk to me, but as I'm waking up at 2 or 3 pm now, I missed his call. When I signed online, he was online too so we chatted a few minutes before he left for work. He said something to me that made me feel better about myself immediately. He reminded me of something I used to say to him, that agraphobia is the only sane response to the insanity of this world, and he told me that even though i'm alone now, I've stayed true to myself. In the agoraphobic sense, that is true. I said to him, "see, this is why I need you around more" He then told me something that really shocked me as it is my one annoyance with him (besides the pot and drinking). In short, he told me that he is tired of the partying and socializing, and that it seems very impulsive and compulsive and fake and self-centered, and that he doesn't think he'll be living in the other SF for very long because of this. I was speechless for a bit afterwards, as his gf loves that city and hates this town and probably would not move back here if he did, but he said he had to go and wanted to talk to me more very soon.

I thanked him for letting me know he's still around, and he told me I'll never lose him, he promises. Something tells me I'm going to end up really weepy when he comes to visit next month.

I went outside and laid in the sun for over an hour. My cat had wanted to go out on the porch and, well, it was very hot in the afternoon, 85, 28C, I think. I got a bit sunburned, to my delight...I may be agoraphobic, but who says I have to be as pale as one? While I was outside, a gigantic silver plane flew over so low that its silhouette from the shadow moved across the ground and it scared the crap out of my cat who ran back inside the house and was paranoid of everything that made noise for over an hour afterwards. I'm thinking he thought it was a really big bird. I myself was thinking it was coming in for an emergency landing on Cerrillos road (it apparently was not), but because of this, I got to see it as clearly as this photo (I stole) shows (the one I saw was much more beautiful though, grr, for not having my camera handy):

I briefly IMed W lastnight, he was back to his usual not-talking self. I described it to W in as much detail as I could. One thing I have gotten good at since kowing W is accurately describing airplanes. So I said, 4 engines, silver, U.S. flag on the side, looked very old, possibly military, rounded everything, retractable landing gear, and it wasn't deafening despite the 4 engines, and asked W what it was. He simply said, "I love that thing, it's a WWII B-17" I googled it, and sure enough, there it was.

So there you go...

I watched the movie Juno lastnight, and it was hard to watch. For me. I think I need to stay away from movies that have relationships in part or as a whole of a main theme. I don't want to feel that right now, and movies make me feel that closeness again. Re-live it...and it's W I re-live it with. Need I say more? no.

I haven't pulled a hair out in two days...oddly enough. I have to vote tomorrow, which means I have to go outside and walk a few ?sidewalkless blocks to get the to the voting place. As much as I would like a woman president, I don't like Clinton. She seems menopausal and bitchy and self-righteous, McCain also seems menopausal, bitchy, and self-righteous...so my vote goes to Obama, who seems to me more like a human, and because of his racial background will most-likely not be a foreign or domestic dictator but a diplomat (diplomacy is key in peace), plus he's not old enough to be my grandparent.

Okay, I gotta get back to looking for a needle in a chasm...

~e