Roots and Bricks

2003-08-06 - 4:16 p.m.

It's amazing how some people can make you feel loved just by acknowledging your presence. It's like they radiate love and just having them turn your way is enough to warm you, at least for a little while. I'm lucky enough to have one of these as a dear, close friend, but yesterday I e-mailed another one who I only know through Diaryland. I thought for sure he had no idea who I was and so I kept my e-mail very short and to the point, trying not to annoy him with my prattle. Today, I received an e-mail in return. That in itself was more than I had expected. But in the e-mail he told me that he did, in fact, know who I am, even if only barely, and instead of only briefly answering my question, he went into some detail. I'm trying to think of a way to describe the way his e-mail made me feel, but I'm not having too much success. "Loved" is not the right word. Perhaps "worthwhile" is the word. Thanks for taking the time to make me feel worthwhile.

It also amazes me, sometimes, the number of diaries that get shut down or locked just because someone who knows the writer in real life managed to find it. What really amazes me is how the people who find these diaries react to them. Maybe they don't understand that they're reading someone's diary. If it was a paper diary, you wouldn't expect everything written in it to be complimentary, why is it different with an online diary? I think I'm fairly safe from this kind of persecution. I don't think anyone I know will find it, and even if they did, I don't think they'd be upset with me. They might be a little shocked, but I don't think they'd be upset.

Today I actually got out of my chair and ran some errands. It feels good to be productive sometimes, even if I didn't do anything major.

The first thing I did was go down to the local blood center. As you may recall, last time I tried to give blood I was rejected because my hematocrit was too low. They did the test where they drop a drop of your blood into the blue copper solution and its supposed to sink within a certain amount of time, but my blood just bobbed around near the surface. Since then I've been taking a pre-natal vitamin every day (even though I'm extremely pre-natal). Today when they did that test my blood dropped like a rock. I was so happy! So I got to donate blood. I was doing it today because I wanted to donate before I go out of the country. But I asked the phlebotomist there and she said that I can feel free to gallavant around Japan because it's ok to give blood after going there.

From there I went to the post office and mailed a book to someone on Swappingtons. I just posted that book a few days ago and right away someone wanted it. I also went to the bank and got some Traveler's Cheques for the trip. And now here I am, nothing to do again.

Except an interview. You know, the interview thing that lots of people in Diaryland are doing. Here's how it goes:

1) Leave a comment by ten o� clock tonight if you want to be interviewed.

2) I will respond; I�ll ask you five questions.

3) You�ll update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.

4) You�ll include this explanation.

5) You�ll ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

My interview questions are from Heather:

1. What led you to becoming a pharmacist? Now that you�re there, are you happy with it? Or would you rather do something else?

Most people who are pharmacists have someone else in their family who was already a pharmacist and talked them into doing it, too. But that wasn't the case for me. Basically during my entire young life, I never really knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. But when I got to high school it became time to at least choose a major. I was confident that I could do whatever I wanted to do, if I put my mind to it. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but I knew what I didn't want to do. I sort of fell into pharmacy by default. I loved science in high school, especially chemistry, so I thought about being a chemistry major. But what do you do with a chemistry major? I did a little research to answer that question and most of the answers were not things I wanted to do, except one--pharmacy. I did more research and found a pharmacy program which would allow me to get my Pharm.D. in five years if I worked hard, so I decided to go for it. I still didn't know pharmacy was what I wanted to do so I even took extra math and science courses as an undergrad in case I decided to change my major. But as I learned more about pharmacy, I discovered all the different aspects of it and I fell in love with it. I still feel I made the right choice and I'm very happy with my decision. Would I rather do something else? Sure, I'd rather be a professional volleyball player or one of those people who works for the forest service and hikes around packing a chainsaw clearing fallen trees from the trails. But practically speaking, no, this is it, I'm happy.

2. You�ve spoke of your regret of cutting your ex-boyfriend loose. Yet I remember your entries from around a year ago where you were annoyed with him and looking for a way to break up with him. Do you think your feelings of loss are truly valid about him? Or are you at all remembering things better than they were because you are somewhat lonely now?

Believe me, I've thought of that before. And in fact, I'm 95% sure that my feelings of regret over breaking up with him are directly related to being alone right now and I'm sure I'm glossing over some of the things I found so annoying. The problem is, just because I know these things are true, doesn't mean I can make myself feel that they are true. If I found another guy to love me, I'm quite sure Stretch would be completely out of the picture again. I do, though, think that if Stretch and I were to give it another go, we might be able to make it work better than before.

3. So what do you like about living in California? What do you dislike? Do you think you�ll ever move?

I love California. I should qualify that; I love Northern California. The best part is the weather. It never snows, we never have hurricanes, we rarely have tornados. From my house it's an hour to great skiing and an hour to the ocean. We have big cities and small towns. We're diverse. If you want to do it, you can do it here. We've got it all. Unfortunately, the cost of living is high here. Also the people aren't particularly friendly to strangers. We're not rude, necessarily, we're just not friendly. I noticed that a lot while I was travelling, especially in the south, the people there are just so much friendlier. I could also do without Southern California being attached to us, but I'm sure we'll never get rid of them, they do outnumber us quite a bit. I do think I'll move. Preferrably sooner rather than later. It's not that I don't like it in California, it's that I'm ready to go out and try other things for a while.

4. Describe the most exhilarating experience you�ve ever had.

When I first thought about this question the things that came immediately to mind were experiences such as riding the Superman rollercoaster at Magic Mountain, winning the state championship volleyball match, or saving someone's life during a code blue. But no, those types of things aren't the most exhilarating things I've ever done. For my first Valentine's Day with Stretch, I enlisted Tigger's help and recorded a song I had written for him. I wrote the lyrics and the melody and Tigger played the piano while I sang. Stretch and I hadn't been together, really, for very long. On Valentine's Day, back at his place after a dinner date, I gave him the recording which had the song's title "You Make Me Go Crazy" on the cover. He thought I had recorded a bunch of country music for him to make him crazy because he doesn't like country music. He was surprised that I wanted him to listen to it right then. So he started playing it. He listened, I watched. I wasn't totally sure how he would respond. Would he like it? Would he think I was going too far too fast? That was the most exhilarating moment for me. I felt as though I had placed my heart on the chopping block and the cleaver was in his hands to do with as he pleased. What would his reaction be?

5. What is your relationship like with your family?

I've got a very close relationship with my family. My parents are more like friends than parents at this point. I have some issues with the way my dad treated me when I was younger, but basically now we pretend that those things didn't happen, and we get along just fine. Although they are friends, I rarely talk with them about personal issues. This has always been true. I've never talked to them about guys, not even when Stretch and I were contemplating engagement, I've never talked to them about my career plans, I didn't tell anybody the first time I got my period, and I've never told them that I love them. My main complaint now is that they are over-protective.

My brother is three years older than I am and we were always very close growing up. He was about as mild-tempered as they come so I was always the one starting the fights, although we rarely fought. He was always my best friend even though he was always so much better than me. While growing up, "Why can't you be more like your brother?" was a phrase I heard and resented quite often, but my brother never lorded it over me and I never blamed him. I'm still getting adjusted to having his wife be the most important girl in his life.