Okay, checklist for the day:

1. Finish and turn in chart for Dr. Emmons. Check.

2. Finish and turn in three arrangements for wind and strings. Check.

3. Take in friend who got kicked out of her home for daring to tell her abusive mother "don't hit me." Check.

......o_O

I liiiiiiive..

*ahem* and now that THAT'S out of the way, I had an interesting almost-date. Dang, this is weird...

Starts with Dave. Dave sits next to me in class. Teases me. Steals my food and plays with my computer. Just.. goofing around - or so I thought. o_O Then, last week, he gets a girlfriend; which girl is a friend of mine, so I'm quite pleased. Then the next day, he's next to me in class and is acting all... weird.

Dave: *after much sullenness* "I'm taken now, you know."

Me: "Oh, I know. It's a good thing."

Dave: "Not that YOU ever gave me the time of day!"

Me: .....??

Class started. All was well until he leans over and types on my laptop, "YOU need a boy friend." Okay, now - enter Nate.

Nate is a friend of mine here at school; he's been a REALLY good friend for seven years. I trust him totally, and he trusts me - it's a really neat relationship. And well, I'd been thinking; of all the guys I know, he's someone I could definitely live with for the rest of my life. I don't have a "crush;" not in love - becuase allowing THAT when not reciprocated hurts like HFIL - but I thought that... well, if he wanted to give it a try, I would, too. So I blurt to Dave, "Well, I can think of SOMEone."

Dave: "Who? The Governor?" (don't ask me why he calls Nate this - they're best friends. Leave it at that.)

Me: "....yeah...."

Dave: "I'll put in a good word for you." And he LEAVES.

I moderately panicked; I didn't want Nate to think I was "after him" and close off the friendship, or something. However, it turns out that I didn't have to worry. Dave talked to him; and Nate didn't believe that I wanted to date him - as Dave informed me the next day.

So I said, "Well... I do."

Dave grabs my arm and runs me up to one of the offices upstairs; calls Nate.

Dave: "What're you doing tonight? Okay then, you are going to the music building to meet someone at ten o' clock for a Valentine's date. Yes you are, don't argue with me. Don't you worry, you know who this person is." and he hangs up.

Me: O_O

Dave: "Wear something nice." *cackle* And he walks off.

Well, long (very long - sorry about this) story short, I go; and Nate's there at the appointed time, looking spooked. Turns out this is because LAST year some moron set him up for a huge practical joke including love notes, roses, and no acutal date -but that's another story.

Nate: "....Ruthanne? What are you doing here? You're usually home by this time."

Me: "I'm here to meet YOU."

He all but passed out. So, I ended dragging him off; we went to Friday's, since it was open. He paid for the meal. I explained how I felt. He explained that he viewed me as one of his greatest friends, confidantes, prayer warrior - but "romantic" didn't enter into it.

Oddly enough, I'm not upset. It was almost like, "Hey, you wanna?" "Nah." "Kay."

....but it gets worse. Enter Nick.

Nick... I'm sorry to say... was my fiance 8 years ago.

Now, there's nothing WRONG with him. He's a really sweet guy; very nice - will make someone an excellent husband. But... he's... okay, how do I say this...

He's dumb as mud. It's just... Nick. ^^;; Anyway, he comes up to me - is working in the SAME PLACE AS NATE (something in the water, it's gotta be...) and asks me if I wanted to just... go to dinner sometime. Just as friends. To catch up. So I said, sure.

...and then he proceeds to inform the waitress (read: not me) that he wanted me to date him again and was hoping to get me interested.

Me: ............
Me: ............
Me: ............
Me: ............
Me: ............

Long story even longer, I drove him home, the whole while hearing about how I'm beautiful and intelligent and adult and any man would want me. o_O

....right. Which is why none have for the last FIVE YEARS. But anyway....

One more weird thing happened to clinch the strangeness of all of this. Remember Dave? And that sort-of-almost "YOU could have had me" comment? Well, I fear it's been confirmed.

The very next morning, his girlfriend approached me in the hall.

Erin: "What do you think of Dave?"

Me: "Um...he's a great guy. I like him a lot."

Erin: "But are you interested in him romantically?"

Me: "um...no. He's too young for me. I'm TWENTY SIX."

Erin: "...are you sure? Because you and he are really close..."

Me: "Um....no....."

Erin: "I thougth maybe you were jealous of me and Dave so you went out with Nate."

Me: *weirded* "Um... no...."

Erin: *eyes me distrustfully* *walks away*

Ahem. And there you have it - my story, in which three perfectly sane men lost their minds for a quarter of a week. o_O

The end.

Thanks Manzai. this DOES rather help. ^^

How You Know You Have Crappy Health Insurance

You're given a pedal-powered dialysis machines.

Use of antibiotics deemed an unauthorized experimental procedure.

Head-wound victims in the waiting room are on the last chapter of War and Peace.

You ask for Viagra. You get a Popsicle stick and duct tape.

Annual breast exam conducted at Hooters.

Exam room has a tip jar.

You swear you saw salad tongs and a crab fork on the instrument tray just before the anesthesia kicked in.

You're forced to use a second-hand rectal thermometer.

Take two leeches and call me in the morning.

The company logo features a hand squeezing a bleeding turnip.

Tongue depressors taste faintly of Fudgesicle.

Covered post-natal care consists of leaving your baby on Mia Farrow's doorstep.

Radiation treatment for cancer patients requires them to walk around with a postcard from Chernobyl in their pocket.

Pre-natal vitamin prescription is a box of Tic-Tacs.

Chief Surgeon graduated from West Hollywood Upstairs Medical School.

Directions to your doctor's office include, take a left when you enter the trailer park.

Doctor listens to your heart through a paper towel tube.

Only item listed under Preventive Care feature of coverage is an apple a day.

Only participating Physicians are Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine.

Only proctologist in the plan is Gus from Roto-Rooter.

Plan covers only group gynecological exams.

Preprinted prescription pads that say Walk it off, candy ass.

To avoid a time consuming and expensive throat culture, the doctor just French kisses you.

Recycled bandages.

You can get your flu shot as soon as the hypodermic needle is dry.

Your primary care physician is wearing the pants you gave to goodwill last month.

24-hour claims line is 1-800-TUF-LUCK

Costly MRI equipment efficiently replaced by an oversized 2-sided copier.

Enema? The lavatory faucet swivels to face upward.

Can I just say that having good friends is an amazing thing? I just had a call from someone who lives far away... but is close enough to be my sister. It's wonderful to me how distance doesn't dim REAL friendship. Man - I hope you guys get to experience this some day, if you haven't already.

Woo... okay, that was FUN. ^_^

Here's the gist - I've known Nate for seven years. He's one of my closest friends - and I have confirmation from him now that I'm one of his. We've laughed together, cried together, prayed together, held one another up through pain - you get the picture. ~_^

Now, nothing is "happening" at this point. This was definitely a date- although he didn't expect it - and now, the ball so to speak is in his court. I'll be sure to give you details tomorrow when I'm not absolutely falling over with sleepies.^^

Suffice it to say that determined friends are a scary thing... O_O

I... have a DATE. O_O

Only he doesn't know it's me because his best friend didn't tell him. Erm... more details later. *attempts to Make Self Pretty*

[what I learned today]

Betcha didn't know that love is like a box of chocolates.

[/what I learned today]

*waves tiredly* I live...

...this semester is going to kill me. >_<

*waves tiredly* I live...

...this semester is going to kill me. >_<

Thanks a lot, you guys. I feel a lot better today; I have to say that this is one of those times when I love being at a Christian university.

All day long people have been coming to me, hugging me, praying with and for me. Even people I don't know very well.

" Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you." That's 1 Peter 5:7 - and you know... it's really, really comforting. Say what you like about psychological cruches or whatever; this reality (well, it is to me ~_^) helps me to find my "center" or whatever you want to call it. At the moment, though I'm still worried, I'm actually fine. Which is good. I went to bed last night feeling absolutley ill. >_<

And thanks for the compliments, Crono! *laughs* I'm glad you liked the ending... I wasn't completely satisfied with it, but I have to say in many ways it WAS a more free genre in which to write; after all, Star Wars is more "grownup" than DBZ. ~_^

You're moving, Leareth? Gah... well, good luck! I gave up on the free webhost deal; I've got one right now that gives you tons of space for between 4 and 18 bucks a month. Definitely affordable. ~_^ This is including bandwidth and crosslinking - they ALLOW it. Check it out, if you're curious.

And I SO need to catch up on everybody's blogging! *chuckles* But at the moment, I have to write two arrangements for strings tonight and then do a chart on a book for Friday. Wah, I have no time...

I.

HATE.

HMO's.

Perhaps it's just ones in southern California; I don't know for sure. All I know is that my dad is in danger now of dying. And he can't do a damned thing about it until Thursday.

Basically, here's what we have: father who has a double hernia. HMO that sends him to FOUR different specialists because they want to be SURE they have to fork out the money for an operation. Finally, last Friday, they took him in.

Today, Tuesday, he's still bleeding.

Now, my father has friends who are surgeons; this is a good thing, because they warned him of the dangers of this, and his HMO did not. Specifically speaking, the fact that he's STILL bleeding means that something is NOT RIGHT in there.

That, most likely, there is a hole in his sutures somewhere. Which means that if his double hernia succeeds in slipping back out (which it is in danger of DOING thanks to said hole), his stomach will split, his intestines will rope out onto the floor, and he will die.

My father went in. Sat down. Proceeded to wait for six hours before they put him in a waiting room.

Journey over, you say? Ah, but wait -

TWO MORE HOURS went by. Finally, a general practitioner showed up who said, "gee, I dunno what's wrong. I'm not a surgeon." When asked if he could fetch one, he had to admit he wasn't sure. He went to check.

The answer was no. No one could see my father until THURSDAY.

Long story short, they sent him home. Didn't even warn him to be careful.

So now my father is sitting, barely able to move, STILL bleeding, and not even going to SEE the damned surgeon until THURSDAY. He't not really an emergency, according to my HMO.

And people wonder why SNL makes jokes about these groups killing people.

Slight warning - TMI ahead. Too Much Information...

....I'm overtired. So sue me. ~_^

Woo... I. Love. This. Computer. It is SO much smarter than I am! ~_^

The concert went well - with one...ah, minor glitch. My apologies ahead of time, guys...

Suffice it to say that my skirt did not come in - i.e., the skirt that I wore today was not mine, and one that we will be returning. To elaborate further, I couldn't alter it or cut it or do anything else -

Which was bad. Because it's three sizes too big.

Now, in a way, I'm grateful; three sizes too SMALL would be unfixable. As it was, this was a close one. See, it was ready to fall off my hips anyway; but to boot, it's looooooooong... waaaaay too long to wear. The material is weird and foofy and the cut is VERY flared, so I couldn't pin it under - I tried. So, I did the only other thing I could think of.

I stuffed the edges of it into my bra and pinned it there.

I'm sorry if this is too much information for some of you; but I've never had an experience like it, and I really felt the need to share. Ah, share with folks who don't really know me OR my bras. Takes a load off. ~_^

Anyway, this plan worked rather well. Tucked up that high, the skirt was still long enough that I tripped twice, but not during the concert, so that's okay. One safety pin DID pop open during rehearsal, but I didn't yip too badly...

And the solo went well. ^________^ I feel good.

And now that THAT's over... I'm going to go and do some regular blogging. And reiterate that Planet Namek is going away. Which, to my mind, is just WEIRD. o_O

Woo, okay... *runs by for a quick report*

I got a solo and our concert is tomorrow but I have no shoes so I'm going to have to get them BEFORE the thing begins and I'm happy to say my dad's surgery went well although the spinal thing they did freaked him out a little and my grandma is about the same and my new computer came and it's out of this world and Windows XP seriously rocks like the other Windows products were SUPPOSED to and Planet Namek is closing down so you'd better get any files you want off there before it's too late and I SO need to get to bed.

There. ^_^;; Did I mention that Seishirou is hot? ~_^ *warning of upcoming rant on THAT one....*

Eek. Well, Vega, it's... erm...

You'd make a very interesting person. *chuckles* Hm... maybe we can CHAT about it... *hopes for more time tonight...*

Heh heh heh.

# 1 Watari Yutaka
# 2 Hisoka Kurosaki
# 3 Muraki Kazutaka
# 4 Tatsumi Seiichirou
# 5 Tsuzuki Asato

I'm more psychotic than you are! ...wait, is this a GOOD thing? o_O

We have my 86-year-old grandmother, who has apparently has a series of small strokes in the last week. She blacked out in her apartment.

Mind, you, she's not in the hospital; I'm not even supposed to KNOW that there was a problem, except that my dad wisely decided that 26 is old enough to Know The Truth. Gods. I can't imagine how this would have been if nobody had told me ANYTHING until way after.

Secondly, said dad is going in for surgery on Friday - double hernia. His, erm, colon fell out. Or something. o_O

...which surgery, by the way, means he CAN'T come to see me in February as he planned. No traveling for six weeks. ;_;

Part three - my tendonitis has not gone away. Now, please understand; I'm a PIANO PERFORMANCE MAJOR - I really can't have a hand that doesn't work. So, I go to the doctor; what does she say? "Don't use it."

Um... right. Mostly haven't. So... it should be getting BETTER, right?

So... that brings me to where I currently am. Doing REALLY well in all my classes - except for piano service playing, accompanying techniques, studio class, general recital, and the three folks/groups I'm accompanying. All of whom are... ah, screwed. *coughs* Feh.

I think that's enough grousing from ME for one day... I'll blog for real tomorrow, friends, I promise. I'm just not up to reading anything else tonight, not after getting this newest information. Gods, I hope my grandma's okay....

Woo. New blog.

Woo. SEISHIROU. *edit* *was ALMOST happy for the rest of the night...*