I wrote this part yesterday, right before I fell asleep, again:

I think I have a story. It�s about a house, an old house. How very agoraphobic of me, eh? I think it may also be about the town and memory. I hope it's short, I'm going to be bitchy if it decides to be long.

I�ve been sitting here thinking for a while. I woke up at 9 am, decided to fix the last of laptop issues, which involved a tremendous amount of clicking on links that led nowhere. I apparently, while unsuccessfully attempting to install/download Real Player 11, ran my virtual memory into oblivion. It froze. And when Windows resurrected itself, stopped my download, and told me it was expanding my virtual memory. It has worked amazingly well since then. I even played some online video games. It still doesn�t do extreme multi-tasking very well, but that is not so important as I just need this thing to type up last minute papers at school or in bed when I'm too tired to sit up, and I need to go online at school, and email, and IM people during class�shh. Actually, I can't do that in my English teacher's class if she's there; she kicks people out and withdraws credit for the day. My college takes attendance, like it's 5th grade, and each day usually equals 1 point/percent off your final grade, they only allow 3 missed days before you drop a half to a whole grade, depending on how the teacher grades. Needless to say, I don't need that.

Because I was up so early, and only got 5 hours of sleep, I of course fell asleep by 7 pm. That hour renewed my sense of�sanity, and I�ve sat here since then, staring at this screen and wondering why stories don�t choose me the way they did before I "got an education." Or met W. I'm not sure which to blame, although, blaming the man makes for a much more interesting story.

That was yesterday, as for today�

It renewed me till I talked with W, and fell asleep� But today I'm bright n perky�sort of. And my cat is being a pest.

I did briefly talked to W last night, he is not done with the letter and was in a really bad mood. He told me the letter is really hard for him to write, and when I asked him if it's because he has a hard time saying anything good about me, he told me no, refused to discuss it or accept any possible help, and said that he would tell me when he is done with the letter. I mainly wanted to ask him about a helicopter that I don't think I wrote of.

On Saturday night around 7pm, a black and white helicopter hovered outside my apartment, circling back and forth twinkling with red, white, and blue lights so common to emergency vehicles here. The lights were across the hood and tail, and there was no landing gear. It didn't look like the military aircraft, and the hospital helicopter is bright red, as is search and rescue � I've seen all of those. The news helicopters blare the letters and colors of whichever TV crew it is, and it was not the news. When it turned, there was a distinct star emblem on the white door. I watched it for a long time, 20 minutes maybe. My mom left to get the mail and said she saw a plume of smoke, just as a fire truck went past down the road. After the smoke dissipated, the helicopter came back and circled over my apartment for a half hour. I have no idea why, other than they probably saw me. Why they would want to waste that much gas to circle over my apartment, is kind of strange though.

As it began to rain, they flew away.

Anyway, W told me the only helicopter that is black and white here is the State Police. Being that there was no news report on this, I'm wondering exactly what was it that was burning in the area that is very close to where an isolated field is.

My morning this morning was made a little bit better by a brilliant black and yellow swallowtail butterfly seemingly admiring its own shadow reflection on the pavement of the parking lot. It was easily 6 inches across, if not more, and just fluttered in one place as its shadow gracefully followed each movement. It was so big that, at first, I thought it was the male oriole, who has finally announced his presence to the ladies. I wish butterflies lived longer than they do.

I remembered part of the dream I had on Sunday, and it involves a small explanation. The central library here is closed for a month because it's being renovated. In my dream I was in that library, and so were a lot of other people. You could still read the books, but they were not allowing anyone to check them out. The book I wanted was Life with Father, by Clarence Day and I was looking for the book that the movie Meet Me in St. Louis was based on, but the title was much different. It was something like My life at the World's Fair�I dunno, it was weird. (I will acknowledge that both of those films/books were based on real life events, and that it was probably a sub-conscious hint as to what I should be writing of). This little girl was looking for a book, and couldn't reach it, so I gave it to her. The library looked much different. The wooden shelves in the children's section were not zig-zag as they are now, they were lining the walls with rows of books in front.

It just made me remember that I was pissed when I first came here that the libraries here waste so much space by having fully blank walls where there could be bookshelves. In Seattle all of the libraries I went to were fully lined with books floor to ceiling, and also had rows in front of them as well. It's amazing how many books that old (now demolished) library, which was smaller than my current central library, had so many books because of that. But I'm a book-whore and I don't think most people in this town read much at all.

My mom is out today. She had intended to get her re-cert for food stamps done, but with all the stress of no one doing their jobs, and the food stamp office requiring way more than they are legally supposed to have, being that we're not working, it stressed her out and she forgot our paperwork. So she called me pissed off and blah. She later called me informing me that a 2 lb brick of cheddar cheese is $14.00 at the store now. Good god. I could buy a goat and make my own cheese for that price. Anyone who says that this country is not in a depression like it was in the 30's has their head up their ass. The Gov't just won't announce it because they don't want the stock market to crash. Again. But all the signs are around � everywhere. And this time our country owes money to China and Saudi Arabia � whose fine Democratic status will fully forgive our country when it can't pay the billions back�I'm sure. Moving on�

Last night at 1am, I saw a medium-sized black and white tail-less dog running completely happily through my building's parking lot. Because of its markings, it looked exactly like a cow. It was cute in an odd way.

I'm stressing out over my essay. The only reason is because if I could do everything I've outlined on it � as in change my school and the suckiest of its policies (many of which violate federal law) I would, but it seems like the bureaucracy is protected by another level of bureaucracy. So now I have to maintain a fa�ade to protect that sucky bureaucracy, and pretend I'm not doing that. I'm not really capable of being fake, if I cry I do � deal with it. If I know something is unethical or illegal, I don't pretend it's not happening. So, it will be interesting to see how I deal with this school directly.

My apartment manager, who barely said sorry for not being there for our appointment, just announced that this building will be a prairie dog sanctuary. The inept manager has hired an ecologist and they're going to grow foods they eat in the field out front. It's interesting how the contractors of this town despise the lil guys and would kill them if the locals allowed it. But all the locals have prairie dogs in their yards, frequently fall into the enormous holes, and instead of trapping them and moving them so it doesn't happen again, they protect and feed them right there is the fields and yards. I personally adore the little critters here, I haven't seen a rat or roach in 5 years, and I'll take prairie dogs, poisonous lizards and snakes, tarantulas, and beetles to roaches and rats any day. The only thing I'm freaked out by are the wolf spiders, because I've seen those hairy guys being the size of my hand, and they're aggressive. And rattlesnakes are an obvious problem on my side of town, as are the men� And I'm not about to crawl in a shed or under a house to get bit by a black widow, so I have little to fear with those ones. Oh the plague outbreaks and warnings are interesting, but that's usually involves the squirrels. NM is the plague capitol of the U.S. because of the squirrels. Lol. Anyway�

I thought for quite a bit this week wondering how I, a supposedly "hot" chick who can fix PC's by herself, carry on intelligent conversations, am getting straights A's (ignoring the A-) and am aware and "cool" and obviously believe in domesticity and love traveling with others, and god�I would be so grateful, and I would not be a boring wife. I'm also not a bitch. (Ignoring the 14 years I was pretty much stuck in the house) How am I not married?

Oh well, I have some of that domestic goddesshood to partake in, so I'd better start cleaning my room before it gets dark. Here's to being agoraphobic!

~e