*Amanda's Diary*

I finished a story the other day, named it Alarm, and put it in the binder with my other stories. I read it last night, discovered a lot of typos, and then returned it to the binder again.

Today I woke to the phone ringing at 10 AM. I stayed in bed until the need to urinate overcame me and I got up and did the morning thing (contacts, wash face, change clothes). I was ten minutes early for I Witness. I cried throughout the whole show, because the kids were confronting their parents, and a lot of emotions were being let out. I get too involved, I've discovered.

I watched the whole hour of Total Woodstock Live, then two epidodes of Road Rules: Semester at Sea. They were in Africa, and I cried throughout the whole thing. I want to do something like that. I want to meet with diverse people; I'm tired of the same old people. I want to experience with different cultures, etc. I think, however, I would most likely cry too much.

My cousin Grant turns two today, so my parents drove up to rural Chicago for his party. I got online, talked to Kim, Raffi and Terry. I actually argued with Raffi. Now, I know this could damn well be my fault, but I swear he argues with everything I say.

First he talked about washing his car, and I just said I wouldn't do it because it seems show-offish and plus the car will get dirty anyway. It's inevitable. He argued back, repeatedly. He could have just said, "Okay," as I do. Then, he started to talk about The Blair Witch Project. Did anyone else watch the Indie Fest on MTV about a month back? I did -- the whole thing, three times. Blair Witch is an independent film; it was on the show. The directors were shown, talking about the movie, they said more than once or twice that the movie is fake. That's why it's called a "mockumentary," as in, a mock documentary, as in, fake. Made up. Not real. Raffi just went on about how he still thinks it's real, because he saw a website that said it was, and I know I was crabby due to the immense heat, but I just went off on him. Because he'll believe a website over the directors flat-out saying repeatedly that it's all fake. I read a huge article in Time about it, too. They talked to the actress in it. It seems real, I know. They made a website, sort of leading into the movie, etc., but it's all fake. All of it. The directors said that it seems so real because while the actors were asleep in the woods, people would go out and put up things to scare them. The actors didn't know what would happen, and they said that they really were genuinely scared. But Raffi didn't care. I hate when people contradict me. Then he said, "Sorry for disagreeing with you." As if I was angry because he disagreed with me. No, it was because he continued to argue with me. I wish people would just say, "Okay," and drop it. But people always have to have the last word. If I'm in an argument going nowhere, I'll end it. There's no use. It just makes me so angry.

So, then, I went to the grocery store for dinner, with a blank check of Dad's. There, I realized exactly why I do not like to leave the house. An actual reason. First of all, everyone stares at me, everywhere I go. That sounds paranoid, but I swear it's true. I'm not sure if there's something growing out of the back of my head or what, but people always look at me. Pulling into a parking spot, a woman stared at me. Getting a cart, a woman stared at me. I found a sale on MtD six-packs and while I grabbed four of them, a little boy stared at me. I walked down the aisle, and this little girl stared at me, then wedged herself between my cart and another car so that I almost hit her and her mother glared at me, grabbed her daughter and stomped off. Then this old woman stared at me as I grabbed some packages of turkey. Then came the check-out.

I took everything out of my cart and read the covers of the magazines while waiting for my turn. The bag-boy was somewhat good-looking, so I stared at my sandal as I tried to wrap my toe around the side of it. The total was $19.59. I told the cashier I was going to make the check out for $10 over, and she said okay. I ended up, since the number ten was going through my mind, making the check out for $10.59. She told my mistake and I changed it to $20.59. I figured this would settle everything, and then I realized that I needed to make it for $29.59. But it was too late as she handed me my extra dollar back. While we waited for the receipt to print out, I pounded my head with my hand. I am such a moron sometimes. I left the store as soon as possible.

So if I never leave the house again, I hope everyone understands.

This has been happening to me more than usual: illegal messages. Typically, when I'm updating a page, I get the little thing that says MSIE has done something illegal and will be shut down. Then it takes AIM and ICQ off my tray, MSIE closes down, and I have to open it right back up, and I can't open my ICQ list. Then I have to go all the way back to where I was before, redo everything that was erased when MSIE crashed, and I usually hit something. Right now I have bite marks so deep that they're bleeding on my left index finger. I'm just too crabby for words today.