We went to a cookout today at a friend’s house, way the heck out in the middle of nowhere - I think their address is Manassas, but they’re not really near anything. I got slobbered on by multiple dachshunds, failed to really entice anybody to play Guitar Hero (I did try it once without the sound, and it is possible), and had a bit too much butterscotch schnapps. I’d never had it before, and it was goooood. It’s only about 7:30pm but I am exhausted, so it will probably be an early night.

Today at the conference I chatted for a long time with people I don’t know very well. We were working the booth for our employer, but we never see each other so we’re not familiar with each other. And the whole time I wasn’t sure if I was being socially appropriate. I felt like I was putting on a veneer of normality…pretending I was social when I’d really have been fine on my own. I often assume that the other person is laughing at me in their head, that I must look silly and be making a fool of myself. But I don’t know, because I think they thought I was fine. It’s very strange, and I think I do it a lot in social situations.

It has been a very social weekend. Yesterday we attended a surprise birthday party for a friend, and we were also the “keep her out of the house while everybody else arrives” component. Part of that involved a computer show, where I bought a LCD universal remote that hopefully will reduce our five remote controls to one. The party itself went pretty late.

I spent today with my dad (eudyptes); we went to Arundel Mills mall and had lunch, saw a movie (Cars), and did a bit of shopping. I had a really good time, I like spending time with my dad. I got about 30 minutes at home before going with A and her little sister (who lives with us, you may recall) over to their parents’ house, where we had cake and drank and chatted. (Okay, yeah, this entire second paragraph was written while still under the influence. Good thing I didn’t drive, because I’m not sure I could drive the three miles back home.)

I love you, eudyptes - Happy Father’s Day!

I hate how my ADHD affects my emotions. If something bad happens, I get over it fairly quickly because I forget about it. So if I have a fight with someone, I am ready to make up fairly quickly, and they usually are not. Fights that go on for a day or more just destroy me, because I am so far past it by then and I just want everything to be okay again. Sometimes the ease with which I get over things is beneficial, but mostly it’s not because other people don’t work that way. Combined with my low self esteem and tendency to catastrophize, the longer something goes on the worse I assume everything is. I hate it.

Something I forgot to mention about this weekend is that at one point I had no fewer than six of my most favorite people all in front of me at once. I happen to have a lot of favorite people, but not all of them are local, so they don’t all usually come together like that. (Granted in this case most of them were locals, but it was still a good feeling.)

Also, the NGLTF dinner went amazingly well. At one point I asked fairerhiannon beforehand if she was nervous, because I was too, but I think we both did a great job. We’re pretty sure there were no deaf people in the audience, because the event wasn’t advertised as being interpreted, and it wasn’t filmed for posterity so we were just signing into the ether. I focused more on matching register than message, and I got really into it - then afterward, somebody came up and said I’d done a really good job, and wanted my business card! He turned out to be from the Washington Mystics, the local WNBA team…I’m not sure what he wanted me for but it will be interesting to see where that goes.

I’ve been feeling disassociated for a few weeks, and it’s getting worse. I’m losing touch with dear friends, regular friends, and acquaintances. I’m taking things far more personally in message boards than I usually do. I’m just feeling so damn sensitive to everything. I’m letting activities I enjoy fall by the wayside. What is going on?

Also, I have ditched Knoppix for Ubuntu, which is much prettier. I don’t know if I can get it to recognize my built-in wireless card without installing the OS, though, so dual-booting may be in my future. Mmmm, partitioning.

I had a very smoky day Saturday. It started out normally enough, then I left around noon for Baltimore to interpret for the Maryland Leather SIR/boy contest. That went fine and I had a reasonably good time; the contest itself was quite short but there was a lot of entertainment interspersed between contest segments. There were good lip syncing drag queens and bad lip syncing drag queens; I couldn’t do much with them because the recorded music was unintelligible. There were a couple of live vocal performances and I did the best I could with those. At the end I was exhausted and I inadvertently let a butch lesbian manhandle me a bit. I could tell she was trying to pick me up but I was too tired to figure out that what I wanted to say was “no really, I’m not interested.” It left me feeling kind of violated, and unfortunately this is someone I will end up working for in a couple of months.

I was super tired when I got home, but I had a date tonight. An acquaintance had invited me out (she changed the venue at the last minute) and I didn’t want to go because we weren’t supposed to meet up until 10:00, so I knew it would be a late night. But I had time for a little nap and I felt better after, so I went out. We were meeting up at Bar Nun, which is on U Street. It wasn’t a bad time, and the diet coke with absolut vanilla was very good, but it was a little smoky there. I felt bad for leaving early, especially since she had paid my cover, but I was just so tired and my eyes were burning from the smoke.

So I am going to have to take another shower, my second today, before I can hit the hay - if I don’t, my pillow will stink. Ah well. I got over yesterday’s anticipatory anxiety and I went out and was social. Small victories.

After several months of promising, I finally dragged myself to Dyke Night at the Eagle. I wore black jeans, my $15 Payless pumps that have lasted me a zillion years, and a tight black t-shirt that says “I do bad things” with a smiling bunny. preppyperv was the first person I saw when I got there, and she gave me a great hug. I hung around a bit and chatted with pegsioux, liquidamy, and a few other people I’d met at least once before; I also got to meet bias_cut for the first time. leatherboydre came in and went upstairs to do her bootblacking work, and I had a good time chatting with aidan_boi_x for a long time. Eventually I drifted upstairs, chatted more, and met more people; I paid $3 for a can of soda, listened to gossip, and met new people.

Finally I decided it was time to leave, and I started saying goodbye. Of course it took forever - there were a lot of people to say goodbye to - and I also got caught talking to a deaf man who had come upstairs to go to the back bar where the regulars hide out when the place is overrun by lesbians. I was starving, so on my way back to the metro I stopped at a 24-hour CVS to buy a snack to eat surreptitiously on the metro. I made my way from there to the top of the metro escalator, from where I could see…the gates were closed. I’d forgotten that it was the middle of the week and the metro wasn’t open late! I started hurrying back to the Eagle and sent an instant message to aidan_boi_x but didn’t get any response. I called preppyperv because she was the only person in my phone’s address book who was at the bar. She showed herself to be the most caring person in the world by answering the phone: “Meredith, are you okay?” She had seen me come up on her caller ID, knew I’d left about 20 minutes ago, and figured I wouldn’t be calling if there wasn’t something wrong. It turned out she and pegsioux had already left, but she suggested I go back anyway to see if anybody there lived in Virginia. Once I got there, I went back upstairs and plopped myself down to catch my breath. A woman I didn’t recognize came over to ask if I was okay, so I mentioned that the metro was closed. A woman nearby overheard me and asked where I needed to go; it turned out she was going that way anyway so she gave me a ride! It was actually a nice trip home, she was very friendly and dropped me off as near to my car as she could.

I certainly hope to go to Dyke Night again. I had a really good time, even if I did come home reeking of smoke and with sore feet. I loved seeing my friends again; I hadn’t seen anybody in several weeks. In fact the only thing I would change would be the metro mistake…next time I will have to leave a bit earlier. Other than that, though, I had a great time.

With all the family and work stress I’ve been under, the social life I thought I was developing has taken a real dive. I haven’t wanted to go out at all for at least six weeks. I have wanted to see preppyperv and
pegsioux for a while now, and I keep promising aidan_boi_x for a while now that we’ll get together, but I have yet to actually do it. I forgot all about kayaking with the Pirates this week, too. I’m doing okay online - I respond to e-mails, participate on a few forums, play some games - but when it comes to real life I just want to stay at home and not interact with anybody other than A. All this makes me think that I should probably get my ass out there and do something, but the courage I need to do so has been elusive.

In other news, I think I might have found my ultimate job, thanks to an anonymous tip. I really want to be a government employee.