I know I want to write. I just don't quite know what I want to say. I have about a thousand and one things on my mind, a bajillion stories to tell, but nothing stands out from the rest. It's kind of like when you want to eat something, but nothing sounds good. You know? None of my words seem tasty to me right now.

I guess this is what people are referring to when they say, just write through the tough moments. Just publish something. Write something, to keep yourself disciplined. So, I'm writing. I'm slowing down for the day and just taking it easy, and it's kind of nice. Mostly because all weekend long, I've felt not-myself, and I am finally starting to feel normal again.

On Saturday, I went out to see a group of The Usual Suspects. I felt a little nervous about driving out to the city and was even having a moment of anxiety over the very idea of socializing. But once I was able to push past those feelings and get ready to go, I felt very excited and happy about seeing everyone. I'd seen nearly everyone close to a year ago at JournalCon, but seeing as how JournalCon was such a whirlwind of a time, I never got to know any of them very well. Some I'd never met before at all, but knew from the TUS boards or their journals. It's an odd feeling being around people you only kind of know. I couldn't shake the notion that maybe no one really knew who I was. Even if that were true (I'm sure it wasn't), everyone was super nice to me, and fun to hang out with.

I met up with the group just as they were leaving The Pirate Store, which is a unique place. I didn't explore it too much as we were getting ready to head out to dinner, but what I saw of it was pretty cool. We ate at a vegan restaurant, which was really good. Mo and I came up with a fabulous dessert plan so that we could both have cake and pie. So smart, we are. Afterwards, we walked down to a cafe, met up with some other folks, got harrassed by a psycho homeless guy (who frankly, was kind of freaking me out... I'm not used to the San Francisco crazies!), and headed over to one of the Suspect's homes for an impromptu party. It was great, except I kept feeling very strange, and didn't know what was wrong with me. I was too hot inside, but too cold outside. I felt hungry, but not. And I felt tiny waves of nervousness about trying to make conversation, which made other waves of anxiety roll in periodically. At one point, I seriously felt an anxiety attack coming on for no reason at all (as is the nature of anxiety attacks), but successfully managed to breathe my way through it. Anxiety is a fucked up thing to deal with, y'all. I'm glad mine's not worse than it is...

Anyway, I had a tiny bit of a Moscow Mule, which was really good. I'd never tasted one before. Ginger beer, lime, and vodka. Mmm. I still felt kind of wacky and headachey, so I stopped drinking it, and downed my whole water bottle instead.

We listened to cool music and had interesting conversations, and soon, it was time to go. I hugged everyone good-bye, except for one guy who was on the phone. I may have missed one or two others. Hmm. Oh, well.

I'm happy I got to tell everyone how nice it was to see them, especially our lovely guests of honor, Sasha and Selila, who are so fun and awesome. I got a ride back to my car with Mo and Ian, and was totally okay with leaving when we did, since I still felt kind of sick. I figured I was just hungry and would need some more food once I got home.

When I walked in the door, Joe was making himself a bowl of Lucky Charms. I said that's what I'd been wanting, so he handed me the bowl! He is so generous, that husband of mine! He made himself a tiny mug of Lucky Charms, since there wasn't enough milk left for another bowl. Two bites into it, I knew I couldn't eat it. I had a headache surrounding my eyeballs and just felt awful, in general. I put my head on a pillow to rest, and gave Joe my cereal. A few minutes later, I was running to the bathroom to puke.

And that pretty much set the course for the entire rest of the weekend. Good lord, was I sick! It was awful. AWFUL. I cannot remember the last time I felt that bad before in my life. I had a stomach flu in April that sucked weasels, but this weekend's mysterious malady lasted twice as long. Over 24 hours! It was brutal. The worst thing about it is that most of the really horrible stuff happened in the middle of the freaking night. So I essentially got no sleep until about 6am both Sunday morning and today. I woke up at 11:45am this morning after sleeping a few hours and finally felt a bit more like myself. And then I breathed a giant sigh of relief.

What the heck was that about, anyway? Jesus! At first I thought maybe it was a food allergy. I'm allergic to pistachios and artificial food coloring. There didn't seem to be any food coloring in the stuff I ate, so I called the restaurant to ask what kinds of nuts they have in their chocolate cake. But the guy didn't seem to understand my question. After pulling a few teeth, he told me there were walnuts on top, but since it was so hard to get that answer from him, I didn't bother asking about the pie. Walnuts, eh? Well, I'm not allergic to those. Or any other nuts, as far as I know. How bizarre. E. coli? Food poisoning? (I hear those are possible to get from veggies, but don't know that for sure...) Stomach flu from some unknown source? We may never know. Just in case, I'm never eating at that restaurant again.

God, being sick is the worst. I'm glad it's finally over. I'm also glad for Jamba Juice, which is the only thing I wanted to eat yesterday, and I'm even more glad for my darling Joe who went and got it for me. He's the best.

Did I mention how glad I am that it's over?

Hopefully sometime soon, I'll feel up to sharing more of my bajillion stories here on this page. For now, I'm going to go sit on my couch and be perfectly useless. It just seems like the right thing to do after my insane weekend. Rest and relaxation, here I come!

Oh, and one more thing... Yesterday, Seafoam turned one year old. Happy Journalversary to me! Pistachio-free cake for everyone. Except me. No cake or pie for a while, I think! Just honey-drizzled toast. And a nap.