~Continued
2005-01-03 - 7:00 p.m.

Can you believe it's the 3rd already? These holidays are going too fast...and I'm not doing enough/enjoying them enough. I don't mean I've been having awful holidays, but I feel so many days have been wasted. There are deliciously lazy days, and then there are the days that just pass. I've had too many of the latter. Getting up around 9:30am, eating pancakes for breakfast and watching episodes of Buffy would be deliciously lazy and relaxing. Staying tiredly in bed til at least midday and then moping round the house while Dad has cricket on the loungeroom and kitchen TVs (which therefore takes up all our usually living space, as the loungroom-dining room-kitchen area aren't separated by doors) is only unsatisfying.

Emma and I got to my cousin Megan's unit at around 3:45am on New Year's. It's not very far away, and Megan and her boyfriend Dario have gone home to WA for the holidays, so they were eager to have someone spend some time at the unit, keeping an eye on it and making sure it didn't seem deserted. It seemed pretty convenient. We stayed up for about half an hour, opening doors and windows to let the cool change that had just arrived after a very hot day and night go through the house. We watched some of one of Dario's Not the Nine O'Clock News DVDs. I did stretches and then we wandered off to bed. I did a logic problem from my logic problem puzzle book that I got for Christmas, and then went to sleep probably by about 4:30am. I woke up around 6:30am with the sun streaming through the blinds. Anyone who knows me very well is aware of how much trouble I have sleeping with light. Up til I was about 14 I liked having a small night light so I could see if I woke up. Since then, I've gradually become pickier and pickier, until the smallest glow from behind my blinds and curtains can stop me getting back to sleep early in the morning. I think I must have dozed for an hour or so longer, but by about 8am, the unit next door had turned their radio on very loudly. I consider this to be infuriatingly rude and inconsiderate any day of the week, but on New Year's Day I would have thought people would assume their neighbours had had a late night. I don't even seriously think they were listening to it. It sounded like they were listening to SBS, because they had something like over 30 minutes of Greek news on when I first woke up, then some foreign music, then French news, then more music, then German news! I find it very hard to believe that anybody educated enough to know Greek, French and German (which is a fairly unlikely combination over here, anyway - I'm more surprised at anyone know French or German than Greek) would be living in a teeny little unit in the Western Suburbs. I reckon they just turned it on and inconsiderately left it on. So annoying.

Anyway, after breakfast and wandering down to the shops to look at the few open shops at wedding presents for EmmaH and then having some lunch, Emma and I wandered back to Dianne and Tim's place. We were all really tired, and my back was aching, but we just hung around for a few hours. Dianne and Tim got a BBQ from Tim's parents for Christmas and they re-invited everyone from the previous night, along with one or two others, for a BBQ that evening. I would have liked to go, but I wasn't sure I was up to it. I hung around for a while trying to see if I felt better - and trying to get up the energy to drive home if I didn't. I began to realise that the reason my back couldn't get comfortable was not actually because I needed to do more stretches or walk around, but because of my period. This was doubly annoying because I had such a light period for about a week, and then, just when it seemed to have finished, BAM, heavy and pain.

So, in the end, I got home around 5pm on Saturday, after having some Naprogesic, and it was obviously the right decision. I was so much more comfortable and at ease, and I didn't regret not being out and sociable at all. I'm aware that the more time I spend with new people, friends of friends and so forth, the more comfortable I'll become around them. It just doesn't come easily, and the circumstances would've made it pretty unbearable. Actually, the thing that finally prompted me to leave was Snitchy Dianne. Tim had offered to burn some CDs that I wanted onto an mp3 disc so I didn't have to borrow Dianne's CDs and take them home to burn. They took a long time to copy onto his computer and, just when they'd finished and I asked Tim what I had to do next, Dianne wanted to talk about what he should get at the supermarket for the BBQ, and started snapping at me really rudely. I pretty much figured that I would despise to be around anyone who was going to talk to me like that - and make Tim feel bad about helping me - so I told Time pleasantly that I'd come round another time and thanked him for his trouble, and left.

Yesterday I was in a lot of discomfort over my cramps, as well as just being really tired. I decided to have one of those lazy no-shower days, glad just to mope around at home (and finding it hard to get comfortable anyway). Well, Dianne rings up in the afternoon and invites herself and Tim over, which wasn't really what I wanted to hear. I spent most of the afternoon on the computer on playing piano and it was only after a while that I began to feel a bit better and a bit more sociable and did a giant crossword with Mum and Dianne. I even got people to play Trivial Pursuit with me for a while after dinner, which was nice because I almost never get to play that, and I love trivia games!

Today I feel a bit better, but not quite well. I slept til about midday. I did wake up every now and then, but was so tired I went straight back to sleep again. It's pretty rare that I sleep that soundly that late, but I really needed it. I then didn't want to get up, so I read The Grand Sophy (Georgette Heyer) until about 3:35pm and then got up and showered. Now my hair is pissing me off because I was too tired to blow try it and it's going all half-curly, flat on top and unmanageable. I'm also finding that the computer screen is making my eyes a bit blurry, so I probably won't stay on for much longer.

I don't think I've really forgiven Dianne for snapping at me yet. I can see that she might've felt I was selfishly taking up Tim's time with something for me, when she had to get things prepared for her guests, but she also should have easily understood that I was just asking him a question and had no idea that she was trying to discuss something with her. I don't really care how tired she was, I was far more tired and uncomfortable, but I was controlling my temper and being considerate. I resent the fact that, just because I'm family, she feels she can talk to me like that. She basically hardly ever had time to speak to me when she was living at home, anyway, and now I rarely see her, maybe only once or twice a month at the most on average. It makes me a little sad because I feel that we therefore don't have so much to talk about, but if she's going to be like that, I don't really want to spend time with her anyway. I find it hard to be mad at people to their face, but it doesn't mean I don't get easily hurt and stay hurt for a while.