They stare at me while I stare at you.

In spite of taking Halcion fully two hours ago, I haven't gotten anywhere near sleep so far tonight. I feel physically wide awake, so for once it's not my brain running in circles to keep me awake. I have no idea what to do. If it wasn't almost midnight and rainy, I'd go for a walk or something. There isn't really anything I can do with physical energy while everyone else sleeps.

I think I do have to get out of bed. It's a terrible idea, but it's better than lying here, looking at the ceiling.

I ended up going with Scott to take Cordelia and her friend to the restaurant. The plan was that I'd wait wherever he and I ended up for dinner until after he took the 3-4 kids to the dance. We had trouble finding a restaurant and ended up at Seva, a vegetarian place. We tend not to go there because my food options are severely limited by needing to avoid tomatoes and peppers and walnuts and peanuts and eggs.

I ended up ordering a cup of soup and two sides, asparagus and sweet potato fries. The soup wasn't edible by me, and Scott didn't care for it either. The menu said 'butternut-apple bisque,' and I couldn't taste either apples or butternut squash. It went more toward the savory end of flavor, and I couldn't place the herbs, so I didn't force myself to eat more than a couple of spoonfuls. I was concerned that the soup contained something that would make me sick. The restaurant ended up removing the soup from our bill. We hadn't asked them to. I'd have been cranky about spending $4 on a cup of inedible soup, but I did order it, so...

I also got dessert, banana cheesecake. It was recognizably cheesecake, but even though I could see banana chunks, I couldn't taste the banana at all. Scott tried it and also couldn't taste the banana, so I'm again puzzled. I think that, when something with a particular flavor is in the name, it's weird not to be able to taste even a trace of that in the food.

Cordelia's only comment about the dance was that it was loud and that the music was terrible. I'm not sure if the latter refers to sound quality or to song choice.

Scott's parents have reserved a house for a family vacation next summer. They didn't consult with us about potential conflicts first but did consult Scott's brother and sister, so we're a bit puzzled. We won't know for at least another month whether or not Scott can get that time off, and I'm pretty sure that the timing will mean that Cordelia couldn't do choir camp even if she wanted to. (Though Scott thinks the location of the house is actually kind of near Interlochen.) Scott's parents have promised to 'help' us with the costs but want us to tell them how much we can afford to pay. Which is both reasonable and burdensome because Scott finds it shaming.

To be honest, I'm not sure we can afford anything but gas money and our share of the groceries. I'm not convinced that Scott will be able to tell his parents that. He was able to say, months ago, that we couldn't go because we couldn't afford it. Now, we can't just not do it. We have to figure out what we can scrape together and ask for the rest. I understand why Scott's parents want everyone there. They're both 75 (and will be 76 next summer), and their oldest grandchild is 18 and in college. The odds of getting him to come to future family vacations aren't really all that great. The odds of Scott's parents being up to such a vacation in three years, five years, ten years... Yeah.

Is it weird that I feel that 'tell us what you can afford, and we'll cover the rest' is more embarrassing than 'because you can't afford it, we'll cover the expenses'?

I tried taking two Halcion tablets last night (adding up to 0.5 mg) and slept well. Barring a couple of trips to the bathroom, I didn't get up until around 10:00. I even slept through Scott getting out of bed. I'm not sure how much of that was complete exhaustion and how much was the medication.

Scott has managed to repair the bathroom sink. It wasn't exactly broken, but the stopper had broken, so we had a gaping hole down the drain. Now, we have a strainer in place. There's no longer a way to seal the basin, but that's not generally something we've wanted, so I don't think it will matter.

Skyline's homecoming dance is tonight. Cordelia's going with a group of friends. They're planning to get dinner first at some place that we've not previously heard of. Scott's driving them to the restaurant and from there to the high school. He's not supposed to have dinner in the same place as they do, but he needs to stay nearby in order to retrieve them when they're done. I can't go along because there will be four kids to wedge into the car somehow. Scott plus three is comfortable. Scott plus four is... feasible. Scott plus five is impossible.

It's a pity because it would be really nice for me and Scott to be able to get dinner out together tonight. The dance starts too late for that to be feasible after it begins. Him coming home to get me or to bring carryout is theoretically possible, timing wise, but we have no idea how long the kids will take, and I think it would be good if Scott were nearby in case one of the kids doesn't have enough cash (they're 13/14 years old).

The dance is 'semi-formal,' and tickets are $28 each (not per pair but each). I have no idea what that money is paying for. Gold plated paper plates? Silk ribbons instead of paper? It's not like they're paying a band.

I slept really, really terribly last night. Every time I started to fall asleep, I had reflux issues. I had had some vanilla ice cream, and that made the reflux not be of the burning kind. I just kept coughing and jerking upright. Sleeping on an incline doesn't help. Not even sleeping upright helps. The trigger seems to be me starting to fall asleep. That somehow makes something in my body relax enough that the reflux starts.

I know perfectly well that the thing I need to do when that starts is to go and sit upright for 30 to 60 minutes before I try to lie down again. It's just very hard to get myself to do that when I'm utterly exhausted and desperate for sleep. I think I finally managed to sleep about 3 a.m., and I really couldn't get myself out of bed when it was time to get up to help Cordelia get ready for school. I have no idea what would have happened if Scott hadn't been able to step in at that point. I'd probably have managed somehow. I just have no idea how.

Scott came back to bed after walking Cordelia to the bus stop. We both slept another four hours. I'd have liked to sleep longer, but I had a horrible headache and knew that I needed to get up to take my medications. I still have the headache, and I can't tell if it's due to lack of sleep, due to menstrual stuff, due to stress, or due to something else I haven't thought of. I've taken naproxen and have had caffeine. I've also eaten. Cordelia has an appointment in two hours, so I don't think that a nap is going to be possible.

I tried to nap this morning, but by the time I finally relaxed enough to maybe be ready to fall asleep, it was twenty minutes before I had to be up to go to an oncology appointment. I'd had 2.5 hours when I lay down. The appointment was fine but took much longer than I expected because I had to wait twenty minutes to check out afterward. I'll be going back in four months because the nurse practitioner I see picked up on me being nervous about waiting until June to check in. I'm not sure if she quite understands that I don't trust mammograms right now because the mammogram didn't see the lump until six months after I first found it.

I got a flu shot while iI was at the appointment, and it's really hurting this year. Moving the arm at all is unpleasant. The nurse who did the shot put it very high up on the arm. I actually thought she was going to put it into the joint itself.

I'm really glad that Scott didn't work today because parent teacher conferences were grueling. Cordelia's geometry teacher and social studies teacher both had really, really long lines. It took an hour to get through the line to see the geometry teacher and almost as long to see the social studies teacher. Scott saw the business fundamentals teacher without me, while I waited in line for the social studies teacher.

All the teachers seemed pleased with Cordelia. We found out that a couple of the teachers had mailing lists that we weren't on due to Cordelia having been at Community for those three days. The geometry teacher told us that we weren't the first to express unhappiness with 8th grade math at Cordelia's old school. I got the impression that the other parent(s) were also concerned about their kid(s) not having the necessary fundamentals.

The business teacher seems to have talked Scott's ear off. Scott was gone for quite a while for that. Scott says that the teacher is frustrated by the kids who don't understand the difference between writing a ten page research paper and preparing a presentation.

I think my body is starting up another period. The last one started on the 27th, so this is much sooner than is normal for me.

I suspect I'm not going to sleep much tonight because we bought food at Wendy's before the conference. I basically fell over in exhaustion a bit before the cleaning lady left, and we had to get something that wouldn't take long and that might give me enough oomph to get through three hours of conferences. The burger did that much, at least. I was still pretty dead on my feet until about an hour after I ate, but now, almost four hours later, I'm still pretty awake. Unfortunately, my digestive system isn't happy. The timing is bad for any of the things that might help relative to my medications. If I take everything now, I can have vanilla ice cream in an hour which might help (about a 75% chance).

Just have to make myself stand up again...