After reading Jenica's blog I rethought my plans for blog entry. I was thinking of revealing my darkness, the thoughts of my psychiatrist this morning, our plans for my immediate future. But now I'll keep that to myself--I can solve my problems, I have his help and support, and it's a project that he and I are working on together. I said I don't really care about anything anymore. There was only a brief while that I cared that I survived my accident, the rest of the time it didn't really matter to me. He said that one of my reasons for living had died, one of the sources of great joy in my life was gone. That's certainly true. Other people have spouses, children, etc., which give them reasons to keep on going. I have a sibling I adore, a mother I'm devoted to, nieces and a nephew I love dearly, sister and brother in law I treasure, and lots and lots of dedicated friends. But I have no one to devote my life to, no one to throw myself in front of a truck for. Henry wasn't that person for me (thank goodness, I hear you all saying), but he was an integral part of the conglomerate that makes up my reason for living. So now I'm on the plateau of blandness that is my life for now. I don't care about much. Sure, I love autumn, the leaves are turning and the trees are starting to be very pretty. I'm trying to see the beauty. I had a lovely time sitting on the dock with my dogs, laughing at the chair and its contents slowly sinking into the water. I can laugh at things, but my humor isn't what it used to be. Dr. Rubin says this is probably temporary. WELL LET'S HOPE SO--I used to be a very funny person! I'd hate to not be her again. I miss me.

So in spite of my weak attempt NOT to repeat Jenica's blog, there I went, being dark. Oops. Well, I spent an hour probing my psyche, what do you expect? It was interesting to hear my psychiatrist describe what I'm usually like, though, I loved that. He said there is usually a spark in me, an ability to find humor in all situations and to laugh, but that is missing right now. We're teetering on the brink of a major depression, but we have ways to avoid it, not to worry. So I went to the drug store to get my thyroid medicine and my cholesterol medicine, and there was candy corn. My version of Jenica's circus peanuts, it turns out. I bought a bag of candy corn, a can of mixed nuts (thank you Molly) and a can of Starbucks' double shot espresso. And back to work I went, to work at breakneck speed doing the work of all 3 people in my department, since one clerk is on vacation and the other is out today because her aunt died. Zippity do did I ever unpack and check in those 12 boxes of books.

And the car saga continues. For those of you who missed it, the dealer did indeed deliver my new car on Friday, as promised, but it was not the color I ordered. Whether this was intentional, or an accident (as claimed), we'll never know. I looked at the car for 2 hours (after sending the drivers back to NH, too late to take the car with them), trying to decided if I could stand the baby-shit brown interior. The exterior was a champagne color, really quite nice, that I would have liked ultimately, but I could NOT stand the interior. So I called the dealer and said I didn't want the car. They offered me $200 to keep it. TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS. Fie! I said. Not enough to make me keep that car. So I left it at a friend's house in Plattsburgh and they picked it up on Saturday. They are looking for the right color (Magnesium--a dark metallic gray, with gray interior, which does NOT show every single paw print) and are delivering a loaner car to me today. The drivers left NH at 8:15 this morning, it's now nearly 1 and they have not covered the 150 miles to get here yet. Give me a break. I have no idea what they'll "lend" me but I have to turn in the Prius today. Oops, wait, they just got here, with a 2004 Accord LX, navy blue. Wow, they must really feel bad. I called the head sales guy up yesterday and yelled at him because no one called me from Friday to Tuesday to tell me what was going on. So this is their way of soothing me. Expensive cars always make people feel better, apparently. This one costs $20,000. Big whoop.

Tonight I'm having dinner out for the 3rd night in a row, the 6th time in 8 days. I love all these people, and each night is a treat, visiting with them (not to mention the food), but I do need to get on with my life. Tonight is people renting the camp below my house, she's a little older than I am and he's quite a bit older. Ken will be there, Bill will, and another friend whose husband died this winter. I haven't seen her if a few weeks so that will be nice. Last night I ate with the cousins. Cousin John, after who knows how many glasses of vodka, while we were watching the news on the hostage-killing in Russia said (oh-so-wisely) "Saddam used to do that all the time when he was in power." To which his son said, "He didn't just go into schools and kill people." I kept my mouth shut, but it seemed there was a glimmer of hope that maybe son Johnny is not a staunch Bush supporter after all. Or maybe I'm dreaming. But I mean really: how do you get from Checynian terrorists to Saddam Hussein? And how did John get to be on a first-name basis with him, anyway? What's up with that? So then we watched Jeopardy, always fun to do with your relatives, and cruised on into Last Comic Standing, during which I went home. They're nice people, aside from John's insistence on making grandiose asshole statements about what should be done with camp. And dinner was very good.

And now I must dive into the world of collection development, since I'm doing a workshop on Monday for our member library directors and staff on adult collection development. No, that's not developing adults, it's developing adult collections in small public libraries with no real book budgets. And I have to explain to them why you DON'T keep every single book and video that someone hands you as a donation. They won't like that concept at all. Someone else is doing the part on development and maintenance of juvenile collections. I only have to kill an hour, then we'll do a joint portion. I've done this so many times in the last 20 years I just have to pull my thoughts together, make up some acronyms they can remember, and off I go. But the director decided she wants to get involved in it (WHAT?) so I have to at least have some notes and something to hand out, and an outline by tomorrow, when she wants to meet with us. Rats.

So when I did spell check of this, it wanted to correct "Jenica's" to "geniuses." That seems appropriate, don't you think?