"...You can tell a man who boozes by the company he chooses..."

2003-03-10 - 7:58 p.m.

I know it will be very disappointing for all of you, but I have absolutely no dream to report today. I have no recollection of anything that happened last night after I fell asleep. However, if you're really good, I might share some daydreams I've been having. Those are more interesting anyway, at least in my opinion, because my conscious mind is involved and therefore any craziness involved is a direct reflection of me instead of being shrugged off as just a dream.

Anyway, I've been awfully busy recently, starting with Wednesday night's volleyball game. Thursday I actually went to the gym. I did the 5K in 31:53 which isn't great but isn't too horrible for me either. Also of note on Thursday, did anyone else happen to catch the sunrise? There was a phenomenon that morning which my dad told me is known as a "sun pillar." It was caused by ice crystals in the air and it looked like a bright beam of light shooting straight up from the sun. I totally wished I had my camera with me when I saw it. I was coming down the bridge over the river on my way to work and looking off to the east I could see the mountains. The sun hadn't risen yet but the sky was various shades of purple against which the mountains were silhouetted. Shooting apparently out of one of the mountains was one huge beam of light. I don't know how else to describe it. I found some pictures of other sun pillars. I have to say I think the one I saw was prettier but you can find pictures here and here.

On Friday we had our last set of resident applicant interviews. There were only two interviewees and both were from UOP. I got out of doing the actual interviews but still had to give the tour. After they left we had to work on our rank list. It was due that night at 9:00. We had to list all of our applicants in order from the ones we would most like to have to the ones we would least like to have. And if we would really rather not have them we didn't put them on the list at all. It took us over four hours to do this. There were six pharmacists and three residents working on this. The good part was that we had pizza delivered. It was a little embarrassing that all except two of the UOP grads who interviewed didn't even make our list. Plus Thumbtack is a UOP grad too. It's making UOP look pretty bad. Oh well. I think match day is on the 20th so we'll find out who we match with then. Friday night I watched "My Big Fat Greek Wedding." I thought it was pretty good. It reminded me of Stretch. But then that's been happening a lot recently. More on that later.

Saturday was an ops day for me. I was working with Winnie, the pharmacist who is notorious for her abuse of residents. I haven't actually worked with her since July because we were on opposite weekends. But since Thumbtack left the whole schedule has been rearranged so I've been working with people I haven't really worked with before, like Winnie and Shan Yu. We were really busy all day, but it went well. I think I didn't really make all the nurses happy, but I don't think I pissed any off either, so that's pretty good. We were busy enough that I only took a 15 minute lunch and all day I only answered one e-mail. After work I watched "The Road to Perdition." Wow was that boring, but it had beautiful music.

And Sunday, well, I believe I already talked about Sunday, no need to go through that again. Last weekend I made my mom a tape for her car. It turned out really well except at the end of one side there was four minutes of nothing. So I fixed that last night. Turns out I just skipped a song which made the problem easily fixable. Another song had a strange blip in it so I downloaded another version that seems to be blipless and I will rerecord that tonight.

So I've been thinking about Stretch a lot lately. The non-analytical me wants him back. I keep thinking I would do anything to have him with me again. I would go wherever he wants. I would make an effort to be kinder and more accepting. I would do whatever he wants me to do. Anything just to have him hold me again. But then, of course, reality hits me. I think, "Could I really be nice for extended periods of time?" I am a very nice person, but I am also strong-willed and independent. Having a boyfriend definitely put a crimp in my style. And I also wonder did he love me because of my strong will and independence? Would changing all that change the way he feels about me? And also what about all those things I decided I couldn't live with months ago? Could I just change my mind about them and be able to live with them? And am I sure? Because the worst thing would be for me to fight to get him back and then change my mind again and put him through all this again. And most importantly, would he even take me back? Has he found someone new? Could we ever establish a trusting relationship again? And also, I feel like I could totally put myself at Stretch's mercy. Lay it all out for him, put it all on the line. I could roll over and take anything he wants to dish out. I can face him. But I'm scared to death to face his family. Stretch is as close with his family as I am with mine and really, who is worse, someone who hurts you or someone who hurts someone you love? The latter is much, much worse in my opinion. Owning up to his family would be very difficult. But I guess the most important questions are do I want it and does he want it? If the answers to both of these questions are yes, then I think we could work through the rest. So I need to focus on do I want it. I wish I knew. If he was to come up to me right now and say, "Euc, I want you. Can we try again?" I would say yes. I wonder what his answer would be if the roles were reversed.

When I went to Quincy and talked to the pharmacist there, he said that he is wanting to cut back his number of hours and that the other pharmacist who works there is an older gentleman. My recent daydream has been that the other pharmacist would retire and Stretch and I could both work there. Eventually he would sell the place to us. If this happened I would have everything I want. A small town, a secure job, a nice schedule, closeness to wilderness, and also a family of my own. I want that so badly.