This is a story about why I hate people.

Mike and I had gone to Burger King for a late-evening snackage, and were on our way back home, about 9:45p.  Coming out of the Burger King parking lot, some fool was driving weird.  Not wreckless or crazy, just weird.  I pulled out and as I waited at the red light, I saw the fool coming up behind me rather quickly.  I actually braced for impact, I didn't think s/he was going to stop.

Out on the road, we came to a red light.  The fool's passenger - some middle-aged (probably drunk) guy was hanging out the window shouting at me, "Hey, Dixie! Dixie, where you at! Dixie! Where you at!"  The light turned red, and he kept on yelling at me hanging out the car window.

Even though I had Mike in the car with me, self-preservation mode kicked in and I immediately thought, "I do not want this person following me home, where can I go...?"   I turned left at the next stop light into the well lit Wal-Mart parking lot.  Fool and the idiot hanging out the window did not follow.

I absolutely hate that another person's bad behavior makes me fearful for my own personal safety.  That one person behaving like an idiot makes me want to run and hide; that some (possibly drunk) guy hanging out a car window shouting at me makes me feel that I have to go out of my way and inconvenience myself to prevent being followed to my home or being trapped in some place where I cant get out. 

I hate that assholes like that make me realize all too well how petite and defenseless I really am.  All I have are my wits, I could be physically overpowered by a grown man in an instant, no matter how hard I struggled and fought.  I hate having to live my life in fear of what other people would do, could do to me if I allowed myself to get into that kind of situation.

I especially hate that this was not the first time, nor will it be the last time, I felt scared enough to duck into some well lit and populated parking lot, just in case the asshole fool idiot behind me, harassing me, was really trying to follow me home.

This is one reason why it sucks being a girl, fellas.  When was the last time you were out and had somebody following or behaving strangely towards you, and the first thought that popped into your head was, "oh my god, I'm going to get raped"?

My birthday is shaping up to be a bust this year, and I am really disappointed about that.  I'm not even looking forward to my birthday, it'll be that much of a bust, and I LOVE birthdays!!

I plan my own birthdays due to a string of really lousy birthdays for several years in a row; my own family forgetting my 21st birthday, being forced to work, my then-boyfriend who I wasn't having sex with getting me skimpy lingerie as a gift which he thought would be funny for me to open up in front of my parents.  Other people fail at planning my birthday, so I plan it myself.  Ever since I took over planning, I've had GREAT days and so has everyone accompanying me.

This year I had two plans.  Plan #1 was to go camping down in Maryland.  Visit Antietam (the bloodiest battle of the Civil War), visit Winchester, Virginia (I have family there).   Do the history thing, it'd be fun.  If that fell through, Plan #2 was to do the New York City tourist thing.  I took Monday and Tuesday off work, we'd have plenty of time to have a great time.

Then reality set in, and I just want to cry.

I've got schoolwork deadlines on both Sunday and Tuesday nights; even if I busted my butt to complete the Sunday deliverables very early in the weekend, I'd still be stuck for Tuesday's.  Plus Mike has class Monday and Wednesday evenings that he cant miss.  If I switched my days off to the Thursday/Friday before my birthday, I'd still be stuck with my schoolwork due Sunday, forcing me to be tethered to a computer.

Crossing off Birthday Contingency Plans #1 through #27, I'm down to Plan #28 which is "celebrate with family".  July is awesome because the 15th is my parents' anniversary, the 16th is my brother's birthday, the 19th is mine.  Let's PAHTY!!  Except I cant.  The Winter's family reunion is always the third Saturday in July, and my parents are going to that because my cousin Patty is planning the reunion.  

"But," I can hear you thinking, "why don’t you go to your family reunion? Celebrate your birthday with your extended family?"  To that, I say No.  Birthdays are supposed to be happy fun times, if I attended this family reunion I'd spend the entire time spiraling downwards into a depression, culminating in non-stop crying for the next three days.  No thank you, very much.  (I think I've mentioned about how I don’t deal with death very well – the Winter's family reunion is a horrible reminder of everybody I've loved who's ever died and how their absence has affected the rest of the family.  Plus other familial issues that I'm not too keen on getting into right now.  So let's just say that the living family I *want* to be with will not be at the reunion.)

So celebrating with the 'rents is out.  That leaves me with a 4-day weekend during which I cant go anywhere or do anything.  I may as well reserve my vacation days and come in to work, if that weren't the most pitiful thing I could possibly do.   That's right up there next to putting a single birthday candle in a store-bought cupcake and singing to myself, alone in the dark.

I haven't had a bad birthday since I was 22.  I've always ensured that no matter where I was, I would be surrounded by family, friends, and loved ones on my day.  I've got 17 or 18 days (depending on how you count your days) to come up with something good; desperation is setting in.  

My birthday plan has to be inexpensive, permit for me to finish my schoolwork deliverables by Sunday and Tuesday nights, and have Mike back in time to go to class Monday night.  This sucks.  I may as well just resign myself to have a lousy birthday, for the first time in eleven years.  There's always next year, right?

My favorite thing about being home sick is Aspen.  She gets so concerned.  She's all "I sorry you feeling sick, momma. I know what will make you feel better.  Hold me!"  I have a purring uber-snuggly kitty following me from room to room, as I lie down on the couch ("scootch over, momma, I wanna snuggle!") then move into the bedroom to lie down in bed (*poke*poke* "momma, you're facing the wrong way. Roll over, and lift up your arm, I want under the covers").

Then she nuzzles her head under my chin, then looks up and sniffs my lips.  "I love you, momma."

I love you, too, baby cat.

All I seem to want to do right now is write.

Unfortunately, what I want to write is not what I should be writing.  I shouldn't be permitting myself to even THINK about this new writing idea until AFTER I complete what it is I have to complete. 

Gotta eat my veggies before I get any dessert.

Should eat some breakfast before I start eating veggies, though.  Cant do much of anything on a literal empty stomach.

Firstly -- if Heru-Wer were a human, He would be my Uncle Dave.  My uncle is a very John Wayne type fellow.  Just everything about him, hanging out with my uncle on his patio, musing about life and family and birds.  Uncle Dave has probably been the single most influential person in my life.  When I was 16 and considering college, he gave me a piece of advice.  He told me to "be well-rounded."  "Don't specialize," he told me, "don't limit yourself.  Be well-rounded, and there will be no place you can't go, and nothing you can't do." And I'll be damned if he wasn't right.  I strongly admire my Uncle Dave, and I credit to him all of my career-related successes.  I could go on forever and a day about my Uncle Dave, but I'll wrap it up for now and just restate: if Heru-Wer were a human, He would without a doubt be my Uncle Dave.

During my extra-super-long commute home from work today (aye-yie-yie the traffic!), I got to thinking as I normally do during my drives.  My commute is my "me" time and I use it to consider and think and meditate, and it is very much me-time.  I was thinking about the Netjeru in my life for whatever reason, I cant recall how I got there.  I have an MP3-playing CD player in my car, which I keep on random-repeat.  One disk, 185 songs, lasts me for months before I get tired of it.

So there I was, thinking of the Netjeru, when the next song comes on:  "Storm Coming (lyrics)" by Gnarls Barkley.  This is Set's song to me, I love it.  I sang along.  The next song to come on immediately after was "Things Happen (lyrics)" by Kirsty MacColl.  This is my song for Hethert!  I sing this to/for Her all the time!!

Not the first time one of Set's songs has been immediately followed by one of Hethert's songs; although not often, each time it occurs I perk up and pay attention.

The next song that followed: "Whistle for the Choir (lyrics)" by the Fratellis.  I thought "wouldn't it be funny if the Netjeru were controlling my MP3 player?  Could this be a song, my song, for Heru-Wer?  I have an affinity for this song for many reasons.  And my John Wayne-esque Uncle Dave, 45 years ago, this might totally be his song.  So, it's possible.

Next up was "Bongo Bong (lyrics)" by Manu Chao.  For Djehuty?  Uhm.. I guess.  Then I realized the singer compares himself to a monkey, which made me giggle.  Though I just love that for a song that is about playing the drums, there is no drum track in it at all.  Awesome!

Amun I have the biggest struggle with getting to know, He is very elusive, almost occult.  So I wondered, if these songs are songs for the Netjeru, what would the song for Amun be?  The next - and final (as I was approaching home) - song to come on random was "Follow Me Home (lyrics and video)" by Yonderboi.

So what does it all mean?  Does it mean anything at all?  Is the meaning that I am to chase my tail in circles trying to find meaning in random songs off a disk that I burned myself of 185 songs of my favorite music?  Probably nothing, but probably something?  But all good songs, and in the end, that is all that is really important.

And apparently Mark Knopfler wrote "Follow Me Home".  I had no idea!