Last day of work today.

At work, people are puttering, cleaning, e-mailing, doing whatever to put off doing anything important. That is, those of us who are still here. Someone just walked up to me and said, "Y'all are still here? That's crazy!" No, it's called "not wasting any more vacation time than I already have to, thanks." My boss and I ended up yakking for like an hour yesterday while she went through crap in her office, and I ended up telling her all about my relatives. She was properly horrified. We had one person who got forced out in my area due to stupid work rules right before the holidays, which is annoying and crappy. My boss is annoyed with that, as well as how we're all getting screwed on vacation time.
It's always weird to be on campus during non-school, non-finals, non-right-before-school time. So quiet, so empty. Which I enjoy until I realize that I can't go to all of the stuff I normally go to because it's either closed or has shortened hours. It cracks me up that they make such a biiiiig deal of having this office open for students during this time, and I just went down there and nobody was there.
Today is just such a waste of time. No one's mentally here, no one cares, it's just killing time and thinking of all the things I could be doing instead of having to work. Though in my case, I'd have to be at home earlier, so I suppose I'm grateful for the extra day.
But still...dammit, it's only 10:22 as I type this. I can't get into the groove.

Last night of being at home fully was last night. I'd figured at some point I'd have to go over to Jess's to drop presents off, but got a quickie "Can't talk, do it after the holidays" e-mail. This gives me a slight vibe of worry, but then again, she's juggling one more kid than usual and things are probably zooey there. Oh well, I needed the time to do stuff last night- finish off my Farscape for the week and pack. I'm actually proud of how little I managed to pack for a week and a half gone. (For the record: big suitcase, which I also manage to put most of my knitting into; overnight bag for when we're at Aunt Susie's for New Year's, the dirty clothes bag because hey, free laundering; laptop bag, backpack. Oh, and the rest of my wrapping supplies here because I'll probably be up till 4 a.m. tonight wrapping the other gifts Mom will discover at the last minute haven't been wrapped yet.)
Mainly I enjoyed the quiet, downloaded a few more warped holiday tunes, bought some more e-books so I don't run out of reading material while I'm gone, converted my horoscope thing into a Palm document (yay), lounged around reading actual books, and snuggled with Penny. I probably should have had some alcohol while I still could, but then again, I'll probably need it more AFTER the holidays.

Last day of playing Kingdom of Loathing without interruption for awhile. Anyone who's been a player longer than me, if you can explain to me what the hell "Crimbo" is beyond (a) something one of the Beatles said on their holiday fan albums and (b) some kind of funky outfit, please do so, 'cause I'm still kinda at a loss. I guess I'll have to use adventures in the gym/Shore during the holidays anyway because I won't have time to sit and wait for it all to load.

Last day of good net access. I hate being completely cut off during the holidays. When I'm not at some relative's house being tortured with hot pokers and incessant "where's your man yet?" questions, we're most likely out at stores. And even when I am home, getting online is a pain. My options are:
(a) use parents' computer with DSL,
(b) use my laptop and my own dialup account,
both of which have major problems.
If I go with the first option, I have to (a) first ask parents' permission to use their computer, (b) wait until Dad is out of the bedroom and distracted, because whenever he comes into the room he gets very upset to see me touching his precious computer and thinks I will break it immediately, (c) clean out the computer chair and clean off the desk so I can GET to the computer, (d) go through dramatic rigamarole about turning the damn thing ON, and then (e) muddle through using it because it's on handicapped-person settings half the time, which makes typing difficult. And even then, my time's limited because at some point, Dad will have to take a dump, come back in, yell at me for touching the computer, and then ahem, make the bedroom an inhospitable environment.
If I go with the second options, it's easier except for (a) the ONLY phone line I can disconnect in the entire house for dialup use is the kitchen phone, (b) which means I have to move the computer about any time someone wants to eat, and I have to disconnect the answering machine in order to use the line, and (c) Mom bitches me out most of the time for hogging the phone line so relatives can't call us. I don't see why the latter is a problem, mind you... but Their House, Their Rules.
And either way I get bitched out for going online and not paying attention to them. Plus my cell gets no reception in the valley we live in, so the only time I can even get/make calls is when I'm in a car where the parents can hear everything I say. I feel so cut off, and I AM cut off. But what can you do.
Anyway, today's also the last day of my being able to make regular Holidailies posts until the 3rd. I may very well write entries, but who knows when I can post 'em. I hate to break my (so far) perfect record, but it's out of my control. Dammit.

When I get home tonight, I begin The Hours Of Suspense- i.e. at what time will my parents actually show up? Mom usually thinks she'll arrive when I get off work, but usually they don't make it until 7-8ish. So I end up online or something, trying to do fun things alone while I still can, yet keeping packed enough to be ready at a moment's notice. I was planning on watching the new Farscape DVD I thought I'd have today, but I checked my queue's schedule (for the record: just mailed one out this morning, mailed my other two Monday and Tuesday) and the two I'm due aren't even shipping until today probably. Must be coming from some other distribution center. It throws me off, since usually it's so 3-day-rotation (mail, ship, receive). Now I'll just have to find something else to do. Or maybe (hahahah) I'll get lucky (hahahah) and Mom will actually show up fairly timely. She told me Tuesday she was hoping to get off around 3 from work, then go pick up Dad and start out early. However, the "pick up Dad" factor means she'll be leaving by 5 or 6 if she gets lucky, so...hah, probably not. Hell, one year I got an entire reindeer painted, DRIED, and wrapped before they showed up.

This year, since Farscape isn't an option and I don't know where the paint is, I think I'll be occupying myself with the tree-huggin-hippie-crap again.

Last night on chat, Zamfir told me what someone had told her about problems with meditation. It was along the lines of, "Cutting off thoughts is really hard, so just kind of let them go by like leaves." Which was quite helpful, all things considered.

Later that night after all the packing was done, I decided to try the meditation thing, Psychic Living-style. I got my items and made a circle with them on the bed, read the incantations, and did the deep breathing.
Thing is, it actually rather worked. Which is not to say that I had any sudden insights come into my head last night or anything, because that didn't go on, but I actually meditated for a bit. I felt the "tingles" (or whatever it is) that the book claimed you are supposed to get from reading the incantations. I managed to keep mostly blank and calm and tingly during the time of meditation. I was pretty dang impressed with myself.

I woke up at 4:30 a.m. having a coughing fit and after that, I couldn't get back to sleep. Incredibly annoying to already be on sleep deficit and then to be woken up with a damn cough... even after it finally gave up the ghost, I was wide awake. I decided to attempt to meditate again because well, I had uninterrupted time and quiet, but this time I just didn't get into it. Maybe I was too wide awake and hyper or something, but mentally it didn't kick in. Meditation for me may be something I should do before bed, not after.

So after I dug up my old copy of You Are Psychic! out of one of the boxes (I know the title is cornball, but it's really good. And the dude who wrote it went to MIT and is a sciency-type. You wouldn't figure that, eh?) and started reading it. I love his take on the psychic reception areas (vision, hearing, feeling, intuition). I'm pretty much a poster child for an example of a Prophetic, i.e. those who "just know" things out of the blue- hyper, always has 10 fingers in 15 pies (don't ask me how that works anatomically), on the move, constantly has thoughts buzzing and is yakking a lot, think in parentheses because once you have a thought it has to be expressed NOW, etc., etc.

And the cool thing is, he has a bit in that chapter on how Prophetics don't usually think they can meditate because shutting off their brain is so damned hard. And what did he say to that? DON'T cut off your thoughts because that'll totally screw you up, but just kind of stick that channel of thought to one side while trying to focus. I like that.

I kept reading. The way he explains that Prophetics should try to get information is pretty much "imagine a funnel coming out of your head, shift awareness to above your head, see what you pick up." This is another one of those things I've tried in the past and never had work. I'd sit there, "funneling" and get nothin'.

But here's the thing: there was a bit in there about how one could use the funneling technique by thinking about a person you were having difficulties with and then asking how you could best deal with them. Something like that, anyway. I checked my watch, and I still had 10 minutes or so before I had to get ready for work, so I gave it a shot. I decided to ask about Mom and how I could help her.

And I actually got something. Seriously. And it was a PICTURE, too, which has never happened to me before in my life. And I'm pretty sure I didn't make it up, because it was NOT something I would have thought of on my own.

It was: a picture of fish, floating lazily in the ocean. Just a gently waving picture, with the word "calm" in there somewhere, or maybe that was just what came across to me.

I nearly dismissed it as a "Hm, why am I thinking of fish? This makes no sense, why am I zoning out" thing, until it occured to me that that was the answer I'd been um, fishing for. Or at least, this was a thought so out of the blue from anything I'd think of ("You should be a nicer person, Jennifer! Do all of her cleaning!"), plus I don't do mental pics, so that that had to be the answer.

This pleases me no end: that something FINALLY WORKED!

Of course, now that I've got such a strange answer, the question here is, what do I do about it? Am I supposed to get Mom an aquarium to gaze into? Take her snorkeling? Buy her a pretty picture of fish to stick on a wall?

I don't know, but it may be very interesting to find out, eh?

Though you know what I should have done? Asked how the hell I should act around the PITAS tomorrow. Maybe I will once I'm home alone.

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