The bed and I flew against each other at sometime midnight. Seemed as if sleep came after a few hours of recalling humiliating life situations; it's more an uncontrollable tradition than anything. I heard a siren from within and followed it.

I woke up in the middle of the night sometime later, thinking it was my usual bit of waking up 5 minutes before my alarm. Somehow 3:12am and I were staring face to face, not having any idea why in the hell the other was there. I semi-promptly rolled onto my back and gnawed on sleep.

Waking up at 6am--in order to make it to Mt. St. University for a lab meeting at 8am--wasn't as bad as some mornings. I decided to treat myself and throw some breakfast burritos in. They tasted much better than the protein bar I usually have. I bitched under my breath about Dr. Zivago, passed into my car and awaited traffic.

The 110-North was miraculous. Cars flew along it like diarretic Valkyries, firing past at 70mph, 75, at 80. My hopes perked up. It was a beautiful morning with those Germanics in the muggy darkness.

Then I turned onto the 10-West. I didn't even have to guess, it was already emblazoned on a faded neon sign: "Accident, blocking left two lanes, Roberston Ave." The swamp of metal trundled on, taking 20 minutes to go a single mile. I eventually saw a battered green car to my right, sporting a fuck-wit male checking it out. The traffic cleared up after him. For a moment I considered pulling off, tapping up my license plate, driving back to park behind him, honk for about 5 minutes and then summarily beat the shit of him with my adoring audience in back of me. In reality, though, I just fantasized about slamming my passenger-side door against him several times and moved on.

By the time I arrived and parked in Westwood, it was 7:40. I jumped out of my car, slipped my trenchcoat on and jogged to the shuttle landing. Correction: I jogged past the shuttle landing and noted that noone was waiting for it (which normally would never happen). I decided to make my way to the next stop, where the entire fleet is parked, to see what was going on. The place was locked down tight. Only sounds of construction rang in the close distance. I wasn't afraid of being late to the meeting; I was straight pissed off.

From there I walked 13 blocks to the campus, having taken off my coat and sweating toward the end. The campus was dead. The thought occurred to me--"What in the fucking hell is this? Is it Martin Luther King day or some shit? Jesus Christ"...and so on.

And so I ran up the Psychology building steps, through the door, to the elevator and up to the 6th floor. I kept thinking of all the hateful and acidic comebacks I'd slap against Dr. Ziv if he even tried sarcasm.

I didn't have to, though: there was noone in the room. Right then I knew: yes, it was a holiday. And when I went downstairs and browsed netscape, irony smacked me: it IS MLK/Black Dude day today. I'd been reamed by the civil rights movement, thinking that there wasn't another holiday until Valentine's; I just forgot about the damned thing even existing.

I looked at the computer clock. 8:20am. I imagined looking at myself. I somehow had to justify driving out to the fucking place on a holiday. I wasn't in any mood for real news, so I read through netscape articles on relationships. Apparently not fucking someone else ranks the highest for males and females, with 'good in bed' and 'good looks' near around the bottom. By relationship, then, they must have meant 'marriage' or 'engagement'. Most singles I know are a hell of alot more shallow than that.

I IMed Dorknoodle about my possibly going out to Wisconsin and/or Michigan. He made the morning significantly better as we trashed pop icons. Sometime around 9:30, though, there he was: Dr. Zivago, poking his head in to say hi with all the emotion of a dead fish. You have to give the man one thing: he is committed to coming in to the point of being utterly bizarre (read the 'Christmas (wednesday) through saturday' section'). Unfortunately, he happened to come in just when I thought noone was going to be there--so I'd decided to update my journal. I know, I promised myself I'd never update at "work", but I thought it'd waste time. Thank God I'd only written a few sentences about the morning. I think he only partly glanced at the screen, seeing that and an IM window. I promptly deleted anything that could be tracked to that site after he wandered to his den. Only problem with all that is, for some wacky reason, it automatically enters in my username if you press 'd' at the log-in screen.

Do any of you know how to get internet explorer from doing that?

Anyway, let's hope he doesn't ever decide to be curious, try to log-in and press 'd'.

----

After that was more of the usual. Some well-meaning imbecile had come in on the weekend and changed the settings and desktop theme for the corner office computer. Dr. Ziv noticed and took a fuck of alot of umbrage to that being done (but oddly didn't blame me for starters, which was nice). He likes the resolution large since he doesn't like putting on his glasses. Since Adobe Acrobat had also been acting up, he concluded someone had "fucked up" the machine. I told him I'd run a full diagnostic. A downloaded version of Adobe Reader 6.0 and some superficial changes later, he was appeased--meaning that he no longer was complaining about it.

After that hour-long episode was some practice surgery with Cat and Hideyoshi. That went alright; pretty much textbook. Cat had earlier suggested we order pizza, though, so most of my mind was on lunch for the later part of it. As it got around to 1:20pm, though, I decided to leave for the freeways--which were both free of human debris.

----

The latest prize was waiting at home. I shirked my clothing like leeches and climbed into my white terricloth bathrobe. I began to download the soundtrack to this very entry, since it's been running through my head most of today.

At first I heard some gurgling noises that vaguely sounded like vomitting--lots of vomitting. It was coming from downstairs, where mom's living space is. I called down to her and asked if she was ok. I heard a chocked, vomitty voice percolate back up: "No." It sounded dismissive, so I just shrugged and went back upstairs. Several minutes later, through my headphones, I heard more shit again, this time more insistent. She was coughly yelling for help. I came down again. Apparently I was supposed to have come down the first time through some psychic understanding.

She was laying there inside her fashioned tent, gauzy opening beckoning me as she shuffled noises out. She asked me to find a trash bag since she'd puked a kleenex box to capacity. I got one. She put the box inside the bag (I guessed) and sounded horribly distraught when the bag seemed to be leaking. I got a zip-lock bag from upstairs and came back down. She asked me several times why I'd brought the bag. I'd guessed that the grocery bag wasn't leaking after all, but gave it to her by repeating it was for just in case.

She next asked for me to throw it away and to find something for her to vomit in. I searched the back-asswards kitchen drawers, smacking away Smeagol and large insects to claw at some tubberware and pots. I finally settled on a large metal stew pot. She found this adequate and gave me a plaintive "Thank you". I assumed she was dog-ass sick at the moment, so I wanted nothing more than to sequester myself upstairs or stay out photographing for the night.

I learned later, though--after deciding to ask her if she wanted to go to the hospital--that she'd had some bad eggs sunny-side-up. It was food poisoning, not a virus or bacteria. She kindof made conversation as best she could, losing her angry tone and speaking down toward the pot more than anything. I left her be and offered to periodically go down to check on her...which reminds me.

----

Good God but it's been a fucked day. I haven't had anything to eat since 6:10am. I'm going to check on mom and then eat something out.

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