(Quick note to anyone not on the notify list: Hi. I’m back. Hopefully on a regular basis. At some point soon I will do a catch-up type entry, but really there’s nothing new going on in my life unless spectacularly bad hair counts, so you’re not missing anything. Moving along:)

I don’t know if it’s a full moon or if everyone went a little crazy with the nice weather yesterday and then the deluge of rain today or what, but the crazies were out in full force at the clinic today. We had combative boyfriends, theological debates about whether Catholicism will eventually destroy all Protestants, screaming matches from opposite sides of a busy intersection complete with police intervention, the guy who squirts holy water on the sidewalk going a little crazy and deciding to throw holy water directly onto the escorts, and just to add some amusement to the proceedings, some kind of Harley-Davidson convention taking place a few blocks away so that we had giant burly men in tattoos and leather wandering up and down the street and occasionally getting in the middle of the theological debates. And all of this before 9 a.m.

I have decided that the one essential for surviving life as an abortion clinic volunteer escort isn’t actually discretion, self-restraint, passion about reproductive rights, or even the ability to be awake and cheerful at 7 a.m. It’s a sense of humor. It definitely takes one to cope with some of our regular protestors, particularly the fellow in the tricornered hat who insists on cornering all of the other protestors into theological debates and then stomping off in a huff because he considers them all heretics. (I won’t even get into what he thinks of the escorts, patients, and clinic employees.) Even the regular crazies shy away from Tricornered Hat Guy. He’s the uber-crazy.

Fortunately, the rain drove him away pretty early today. Less fortunately, I had to stand out in that rain all morning, and now even though I have changed into dry clothes I still feel cold and wet and sniffly. Maybe it was the extra drenching of holy water that did it. Either way, although I had vague intentions of either heading down to the AIDS Walk finish line to cheer on my friends, or going to the Science Center with Len and his little brother who’s visiting for the week, I am sleepy and cold and afraid of the crazies running loose today, and I think I’m just going to stay in this afternoon.

Several Netflix movies arrived today, including the most recent Almodovar film that I didn’t get to see in the theaters, so I think it would be an excellent afternoon to curl up on the sofa with a cuddly blanket, a mug of hot chocolate, and a stack of movies.

In other random bits of news, the unthinkable has happened and I have actually agree to set foot in Las Vegas next year, something I swore I would never do. Only for this particular group of people I’ll be meeting up with would I do this. So, although I fully intend to sit back and let other people deal with the actual planning of hotels and activities and stuff, I’m also curious as to what there might be in Vegas that would be fun for me to do. Reader-type people, if any of you have any good suggestions for things to do in Vegas (maybe things that don’t involve gigantic numbers of people, glitter, and Elvises, if such things exist in Vegas?), leave some comments and tell me all about them.

One of the many good things about very old friends is that they’re there when you need them, even if that just means “when you’re at your desk and bored and thinking about writing a journal entry but you’re too distracted by  to think of a subject.” So, Shauna has asked me interview questions, and I shall dutifully answer them, and voila, instant journal entry! Shauna’s questions:

1. What made you feel compelled to volunteer at an abortion clinic, and how has the work molded your perception?

This could be several journal entries on its own, and I think it will be someday soon when I’ve been doing it a little longer and have a better-informed perspective. But the short version is that while I’d thought about volunteering for several years, a conjunction of two things prompted me to actually do it.

a) I was starting to feel that my personal life was stagnating a bit, and upon reflection I decided that I the one thing really missing was the loss of a feminist community in my life since I graduated and stopped working at the campus women’s center.

b) Perhaps a bit more surprising, the war with Iraq. Most of the people I know were getting very polarized and politically active, and I was torn and couldn’t come down on either side firmly enough to get active about it. But I didn’t like feeling indecisive and helpless either, so I decided to get active about something that I did feel strongly about and could do something about locally. I don’t think I’ve been doing it long enough yet for it to have made any major changes in my perceptions. The only real change I’m seeing so far is in myself, that I’m much happier in general and feeling better about myself now that I’m doing something I really believe in again.

2. What do you like about the adult you’ve become?

Man. I’m still dealing with the concept that I might actually be an adult! But okay, I guess I am an adult. And I like that I’ve become pretty independent, that after being very sheltered as a child and spending most of my college years in a frighteningly codependent relationship, I finally feel like I’m my own person and have my own interests and opinions, and that while I like having a significant other to share things with I in no way feel that I need anyone else to complete me. And I like that I’ve mostly learned to handle depression so that even though it’s a part of me, it doesn’t control me. And I like that after a few years of thinking I had to be all cool and mature, I’ve finally recaptured the joy of being silly and childlike in some ways as an adult.

3. Describe your most memorable moment (or at least one of them).

This is the one that stumped me. I rarely think of discrete moments in my life. I tend to think in the big picture and have a hard time separating any one moment out from everything that caused it and happened because of it. I think I’ll have to skip this one.

4. Do you have a theme song? If so, what is it?

Hm. Not one that I could answer instantly with “Oh yeah, this is my song.” I do tend to think of Jonatha Brooke’s Annie as the song I would sing to younger versions of myself if I could. But I’m not sure what a theme song for me now would be.

5. How about a half-year recap, while you?re at it? Inquiring minds want to know, what HAVE you been up to?

See above re: stagnating. Really, not much that’s new. I’m still working in the psychology lab, which is definitely not a career thing but suits me well enough for now. I took the general GREs and did quite well, and am semi-studying for the psychology GREs, but I’m not really convinced that grad school is for me at all so that’s not something I’m pursuing terribly hard right now. The search for what the hell I should do with my life continues. I’m still living in my swank-yet-full-of-cat-hair apartment, because Len and I both got totally bogged down in other things over the winter and stopped house hunting. Hopefully we’ll start that up again soon, but his requirements are so specific that I’d be surprised if he actually bought a house anytime soon. We’re still together and I’m still in possession of my three cats.

There are only really two big new things going on in my life right now. One is working at the clinic, about which I’ve already written a bit and will write more soon. The other is that my little brother will be a member of this fall’s freshman class at my university. This probably also deserves an entry of its own, and I’ll write one soon. But the short version is that I’m thrilled he’s going to be here, worried that he won’t have the slightest desire to get to know me when he’s got a whole new college life to settle into, worry that he will want to get to know me and I won’t know what to say to him, and a whole lot of weirdness about my father and stepmother being a regular presence in my town from now on. They’ve been sending me all these emails asking for advice on what he’ll need to bring, and making plans to have dinner with me when they’re here for his orientation and stuff, and I’m thoroughly freaked out.

To add to the hilarity, my little sister is in the middle of her college hunt, and although she’s deeply in love with another school as her first choice, my university is currently her second choice. And she doesn’t want anything to do with my brother. So there’s a good chance I could wind up with two siblings in my hometown, neither of whom want anything to do with each other. Which is a recipe for disaster, or a sitcom, or both. But I’m trying not to get too worked up about that until it becomes a real issue.

Also, I have discovered that I should have been listening to Elizabeth all these years and watching Sports Night reruns despite the word “sports” in the title, because I am suddenly madly in love with it and desperate to get all the reruns on tape. But that’s rather less important news; it just happens to be my current obsession.

Attention: If you are my little sister, go away now and don’t come back until after your birthday. (Also, email me and let me know you’re reading this, not because you will learn anything new and shocking about me, but because if I knew you were reading I would be able to have fun sneaking in our in-jokes and knowing they’d make you laugh even though no one else would understand. Like, say, logs!)

If you are anyone but my sister, feel free to stick around. Although the main thing I have to say is that I am the best big sister in the world, because I found the perfect birthday present for her. I am not a very good gift-buyer most of the time, so it pleases me when I have flashes of brilliance. (Though they do not always pan out. Much as Len appreciated the thought behind receiving a half-dozen potted baby pepper plants from me a couple of birthdays ago, they were promptly neglected and died.)

My sister lives for tech crew and getting new carpentry tools. Her new screw gun was the highlight of her Christmas gifts. And she is deeply obsessed with the color green and always wears silver-and-green jewelry. So clearly the thing to do was to buy her a silver bracelet with a green carpenter’s level embedded in it. A little weird for some people I suppose, but I’m sure she’ll love it. I’m so excited that I’m going to bring it to New Jersey with me at the end of the month so I can give it to her in person a week late rather than mailing it to arrive by her birthday.

Which reminds me that in less than three weeks I will be in New York seeing Gypsy, and I am far, far too excited. As a diehard musical theatre geek, it is a deep sorrow to me that I have never gotten to see Bernadette Peters live in anything, so I am overjoyed about this. And clearly if she is still having throat problems and missing performances by then, I will have to fling myself over the balcony in despair. Or at least whine a lot, and then make myself feel better by trying to get rush tickets for Nine. I don’t know what has gotten into me, actually wanting to see something involving Antonio Banderas, but I really liked what little I got to see during the Tony Awards.

All of this is reminding me that the one thing I really miss about living in New Jersey, apart from the ocean, is being close to one of the major theater centers of the world. Pittsburgh tries very hard, and our Civic Light Opera puts on some decent shows, and we do get the occasional touring company — but it’s just not the same. Not at all. Though I haven’t seen many plays at the smaller theaters around town, so it may be that there’s some great stuff that I just don’t know about. I think that’s something I should work on this summer. I already have tickets for several CLO shows, so next I have to find out what’s going on in the non-musical world. And now I have probably totally lost everyone who reads this except for Melissa and Elizabeth, so I’ll stop musical-geeking. At least temporarily. I make no promises about my weekend in NJ/NY. Geeking about Bernadette might well ensue.

I suppose on some level I am usually aware that I am a bundle of contradictions (and hell, aren’t we all?), but it tends to amuse me greatly when I have those moments where I become consciously aware of some of those contradictions. I came over here to write an entry about the gradual lifting of my annual spring depression and now I’m starting to feel like a human being again, and I started typing a couple of sentences while cheerfully humming along with my MP3 player because one of the joys of my own office is that I can hum if I want to and I don’t have to worry about bothering anyone. And then I paused to actually think about what I was so cheerfully humming and bobbing my head to, and I cracked up when I realized that it’s the most depressing song ever. (And yet so cheery sounding! I love this song and Pete for introducing me to it ages ago, but when you stop to think about it, it probably shouldn’t be considered a cheerfulness-inducing song.)

But anyway, aside from the fact that I am newly re-obsessed with a song whose chorus is “I hope you die, I hope we both die,” I have been feeling awfully good for the last week or two, after several months of depression even worse than my usual spring depression. At first I was trying not to think about it much at all, because even when I am majorly depressed I still have the occasional good day, and if I get too invested in the notion that I’m finally getting better, then it’s just that much more of a let-down when I crash again. But then the good day stretched into a few good days, and then it was a good week. So I started cautiously sneaking up on the notion of being happy. Not so much thinking about it to any great extent, just sort of noting ‘Hey! I feel all perky and stuff.’

Last week I went to a barbecue at Len’s house and actually had a good time hanging out with people instead of hiding in the studio as I am wont to do. Of course, even when I’m in my best moods my socialization needs are still very minimal, but I think I’ve made the shift from “Oh god, if I have to interact with another human being I am going to scream and then curl up and die” to “I think I feel like just chilling out with at my place tonight, but I haven’t seen that friend in a while, so maybe over the weekend I’ll give her a call and we can watch the new Buffy DVDs or something.” And I’m sleeping reasonably well again (except for the whole getting-up-at-six-on-Saturdays-to-volunteer thing which I still haven’t adjusted to.) So although it’s a little too early to say for sure, I am cautiously declaring myself out of the woods and ready to rejoin the world of the living. At least until mid-July, when although I will no longer be depressed, I will be once again unable to leave my apartment because it will simply be too hot and humid to move from the comfy chair in front of the window fan. But in the intervening few weeks I intend to enjoy having my life back.

Of course, the actual having of a life may have to wait until next week. On Saturday I have clinic duty plus tickets to the CLO to see Miss Saigon, and more importantly, I must have an obsessive marathon of my new Buffy DVDs for the rest of the weekend. And maybe work a trip to see Finding Nemo into that somewhere. Although after I wrote that it occurred to me that all that stuff is having a life. Except maybe the obsessive Buffy thing. And even then, I’m hoping to lure Merewyn and Emily and their respective significant others over for part of the marathon, so I think that counts as having a life. I seem to have started having one again in spite of my best efforts to the contrary.

I’m off to sleep in a few minutes, and my mind is all over the place tonight, so just a few completely disconnected free-form thoughts before I sleep.

1) After three attempts that were thwarted by various occurrences, I finally managed to see Finding Nemo tonight. I now have much love for it, as I do for every Pixar film or short I’ve ever seen except, for some reason, Toy Story. I think the movie made me revert to about six years old, because I spent the entire ride home in the car wiggling gleefully and rambling about what kind of fish I would be if I could be a fish. I wonder if this is the sort of behavior I’m supposed to have grown out of by now. Also, why do people not turn their cell phones off at movie theaters? The people in the row in front of me had wiggly talkative kids, and the ones behind me were adults with cell phones, and the cell phone people kept taking calls and then bitching about the kids. Which was annoying as hell, because unless you’re at a midnight showing, I think when you go to a kids’ movie you have to expect to see kids. And it’s much more obnoxious to listen to a grown man chatting on his cell phone than to a kid enjoying and engaging with the movie.

2) I am sleeping all the time the last few days. I keep waking up, starting to get ready for work, and then deciding I need two more hours of sleep. And then coming home from work and napping. And then going to bed early. I haven’t been doing anything particularly exhausting, so I don’t understand this at all. Perhaps I am going into hibernation, at the wrong time of year and in the wrong climate and species.

3) Why did I not know that the movie that Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman are working on came out of the idea of creating a Labyrinth sequel? Even though it wound up not being directly tied to Labyrinth, that makes me far too happy. I enjoy it when my disparate pop culture obsessions come together.

4) I have managed to burn myself three times in the last two days in the kitchen. I almost never burn myself, so I don’t know how I’ve managed to mess up the same arm three times in two days, but I think maybe I should just stay out of the kitchen for a while. My stove is in collusion with my cookie sheet and they both want me dead, or at least minus my left arm.

5) I want ice cream. Fortunately, there is ice cream in my freezer, which makes this an excellent time to stop blathering at my journal and start getting some ice cream instead. And then sleep, in the hope that I can actually get up and stay awake at my normal time tomorrow, something I have failed to do for the past two days.

For someone who hardly ever bothers to remember the anniversaries of good things in my life, I am far too prone to dwelling on anniversaries of bad things and getting all morose about them. This is probably something I should work on, but I’m not quite sure how. I can certainly make an effort not to dwell, and I’m working on that, but unfortunately it’s not as if I can just will myself not to remember the anniversaries in the first place. I suppose it’s just one of the many ways I could use some improvement, that I’ll continue to work on and hopefully train myself out of someday. Though that’s not much comfort when I’m smack in the middle of the doldrums. (And here, as always when I use that word, I must stop and hum a chorus of “Don’t Say There’s Nothing To Do in the Doldrums” from the 1970s movie version of The Phantom Tollbooth, which not nearly enough people have seen.)

But continuing my effort to claw my way out of said doldrums, I must note that I had a really lovely Sunday despite the tiny black raincloud hovering over my head the day before. I slept in shockingly late, and then made breakfast for Len and myself, very yummy banana pancakes with turkey sausage and some very strawberries. A minor disaster was barely averted when Dimitri became determined to get maple syrup all over himself in an effort to get to some leftover bits of sausage.

Sticky-fur crisis averted, we went to the aviary and finally saw the baby penguin, Stanley, who is definitely not a baby anymore, but who is still very cute. (And mean and grumpy and generally disliking of people, which makes him all the more endearing to me since I enjoy people and animals who share my curmudgeonly nature.) I got to sit and chat with my favorite blue macaw, Benito, who is a total attention whore and very entertaining. (We also noted with much relief that the poor macaw who had been burdened with the groan-inducing name of “General Macaw-thur” has apparently had his name shortened to “Mac.”) And then of course there were all the other aviary birds, who were all interesting and beautiful, but we did rush through a bit because it was kind of crowded. Still, lots of fun.

We went to Mad Mex for lunch, and then what we had intended as a very quick errand became an all-out houseware-shopping extravaganza, encompassing both Bed, Bath & Beyond and Ikea. Many shiny kitchen items were acquired, and there was an impromptu purchase of an entertainment center, and a cheese guillotine, and it was all very entertaining. Both for me and for the Bed, Bath & Beyond employee who was laughing at me and my excessive glee upon discovering the cheese guillotine-y thing. Then the evening was taken up with my continuing effort to watch all the old Sports Night episodes. I’ve almost seen them all now, except for a small handful. I think I’m overloading on witty repartee, but there are certainly worse things to overload on.

All in all, a good antidote to the Black Raincloud of Over-Dwelling On Past Events. Of course, right now I’m under the Gray Raincloud of Fear Of Stuff I Have To Do At Work Tomorrow. I’m mostly perfectly happy to be helping to organize this big psychology conference for next year, but with my intense hatred of talking to strangers on the phone, I am rather fearing all the calls I have to make tomorrow. But once I get that big scary thing out of the way, the next few days should be smooth sailing, and then I get to visit my family and be spoiled rotten for a few days and see Gypsy and hang out with a bunch of people I know and love in New York, and one or two I’m looking forward to finally meeting, so I’m quite looking forward to the next week or so. As long as I survive all this phone-calling crap first. I simply do not understand people who still conduct their business by phone and fax. Why doesn’t the rest of the world understand that it’s supposed to be conducting all its business by email for my convenience?