Why the hell do I do this to myself?

Here I am feeling like total crap, with a splitting headache, dehydration, muzzy-headed confusion, a body that feels like it is filled with lead, and a crappy mood, and all because I stupidly decided to nap during the afternoon, which I am trying not to do.

Well I am going to try to remember, really remember how crappy I feel right now so I can bring it to mind the next time I feel like taking an afternoon nap.

Sure, it might start off fine, but as I sleep, the heat of the day will increase, and it will bake the sweat out of me making me dehydrated, and I will end up feeling like total crap like I do right now.

Oh well, nothing time and a fair bit of rehydration won’t fix. Tonight, I go to the BCSFAzine meeting, and those are always fun. Hanging out with local science fiction nerds, browsing the snacks, and having wide ranging intellectual discussions. Phenomenal.

So I just have to shake this afternoon nap funk, get this blog entry written (so far so good), and get a shower, and I will be ready for more free food and friendly company.

Last night’s BBQ was a very pleasant experience. Attending were myself, Joe’s parents Joe Senior and Pauline, Joe’s uncle Pat, Joe’s sister Melanie, and Joe, Julian, and myself.

We had a lovely meal of roast beef (cooked on a rotisserie), mashed potatoes, and corn on the cob. These are three of my favorite foods, so already the evening was off to a good start!

And honestly, I think it is good for me to hang out with normal people from time to time. There is a warmth to their richer, fuller lives that is lacking in my sparse and chilly existence, and being with them and sharing their company lets me absorb a little of that warmth, and that does me a lot of good.

I have been an outsider for a long long time, always on the outside looking in. It is nice to be on the inside for a little while, and warm myself by the fire.

While I was there, I saw a video that one of Joe Senior’s brothers had shot of a bunch of his relations having a sing-a-long with Joe’s grandmother Lucy, Joe Senior’s mother, at a retirement home in Ireland.

And it was so sweet seeing all these people loving strumming their guitars and singing for this extremely aged woman in a wheelchair who could barely keep her head up any more. They all clearly loved her and wanted to reach her and soothe her in her last years, and it was all sweet and loving that I could not help but be moved at this kind of family closeness.

I have never experienced that kind of warmth myself. For some reason, our family was never all that close with the enormous amount of relations I had on Prince Edward Island. My mother would go visit with her family every Friday, but for the rest of us, it tended to be Christmas and maybe a weekend per summer total. Throw in my parents’ lack of friends, and mine, and my family’s disinterest in me, and I had a very disconnection and lonely childhood.

So getting to share in that kind of love, closeness, and warmth is a rare thing for me, and I treasure it. I only wish I could do that sort of thing more often.

It might help repair some of the damage all those years of isolation has wrought on my lopsided soul.

Then again, hanging with the nerds like I am going to do tonight has its own kind of warmth, too. Nerds are not exactly my family, but they are my tribe, my people. It is always great to hang around with people amongst whom I can just relax and be myself, which is something I cannot quite do around normal people.

Around regular folk, I always have to hold back the intellect and the vocabulary and the wackiness somewhat. Otherwise, honestly, I tend to spook them a little bit. I am just plain weird, what can I say? Then again, I imagine that with sufficient exposure, my somewhat chameleonic outer persona and my intense desire to connect with people would combine to make me better at being myself in a way that does not frighten or alienate people.

Before now, social anxiety has gotten in the way of that process, blocking it almost completely. You cannot adjust and adapt when you are too busy freaking out and hiding. But I am happy to report that my social anxiety was not a problem at last night’s BBQ.

Sure, there were some awkward moments where the conversation was not flowing naturally between people who did not know each other well, but I made the decision, then and there, not to take that on as all my fault and start freaking out because things were going badly, but to just calmly let it happen and accept it as a natural part of life, and let it subside on its own as I got to know people better and we all ate good food and relaxed amongst one another.

I felt a few stirrings of the old beast, but for the most part, I just had a nice, relaxed evening with nice, relaxed people, and I think it did my soul a world of good.

And I am looking forward to something similar tonight. Same ice cream, different flavour.

And every day, I try to let in more of what my soul needs so badly, and if that means letting my demons out one by one, so much the better.

To Hell with you ragged old beasts anyhow. I have let you push me around for too long, not even realizing that I had a choice.

Well fuck that. Everybody out of the pool. I am tired of your crap.

Last one out turn off the light!