No, actually today I was flat out doing chemistry, felt out of place, and watched some animee i.e. the usual routine.
The morning I got in early, raced around working on reaction, and attended a seminar. My supervisor has me working on another small area which I think is a bit trivial but which he is taking more than his usual interest in, so yeah…
At 12:30 pm I drove to and was very grateful to have the distraction and relaxation of a hair appointment. Shampoo and blow-wave to look nice for Red's 21st part tomorrow. I chatted to Felicity (the nail girl) and found that TGO made a profit of $300 from the Lake cruise, of which however $265 was subsequently stolen… Grrr…
I got back to the lab an hour later and got back to work. My swipe-card doesn't work yet so I borrowed one from the new German post-doc for the weekend. Her name (the post-doc) is Anka, and she's really nice. She's also about 6'2 so that's nice too except she's already married… ho hum… ;)
I decided to go to the Friday evening Chemistry social event, which is usually cheap beer and free food in the tea-room at the far end of the building. The staff that go always complain about our group who rarely go. We rarely go because at 5:30 pm on a Friday we are usually still working and it's a long walk there. However after deciding to at least try it, I discovered the other reasons I don't go was because it's quite boring and I feel utterly out of place there. Besides I had work to do.
For Red's present, Bridget and Heather had already done their own thing. That left me a little apprehensive about shelling out huge bucks if no-one else was going to chip in. I haven't heard back from Susan and Jules, so I don't know what's happening there. Red isn't quite the same as Susan, because Susan is "universally loved" whilst Red, like myself are more sort of fringe characters. Most people don't understand us and fewer want to make the effort, i.e. we're nice but weird…
I don't know, I admit that this sort of characterization is perhaps all I could have expected after outing myself, but it doesn't make it any less sucky. Coffee with Susan, Red and Bridget on Wednesday and I felt so much that I was killing the conversation. I couldn't bring up my joy over getting my student card changed, or how I'd had my electrolysis consultation, because few of them would understand and fewer would care… *sigh* Don't I just love being a statistical aberration…
But anyway, I got Red a pewter goblet with "Red - Always in our hearts" engraved on it. It actually looks quite nice (IMHO). I also picked up some more Progynova since I start back on the pills tomorrow.
As I was cycling back I stopped by the Animee club which runs videos on Friday evenings and I got to relax somewhat as I saw maybe 1 and a half episodes of some obscure but good stuff. Apparently there is an Animee movie fest on tomorrow, something I might indulge in perhaps…
Also on tomorrow at 10:30 am at Essen is coffee with Peta. She's back from the trip to see her Mum up in Brisbane, so it should be good to have a chat about all the fun and exciting news.
I don't know, it would be nice to have some day to day support from my other friends or even just some visible closeness. Except for Susan and Jules and Red, often I don't believe that the others take me seriously, that they are just humoring me and finding it best to keep me at arms reach… whilst I don't doubt that they would all be there if something awful went wrong, I guess I feel that… oh, I don't know, I guess I just want to be "one of the girls" but it's something I can never expect from people who know me when I was pretending to be another. Perhaps some think that I changed so radically from before, how can they ever trust me now? What sucks is that really, of all my friends, about the only one who can really appreciate my little happiness at small triumphs I will be having coffee with tomorrow.
Enough moping, to bed…