Despite my best intentions my sleep schedule is still completely whacked. I stayed up until 2am last night reading The Beekeeper's Apprentice, which ended up being just as good as everyone told me it would be. I wasn't sure I'd like it, since I don't particularly like Sherlock Holmes (blasphemy, I know), and people kept describing it to me as 'really good Holmes pastiche'. Grumble, grumble, I won't like it, but since even AlexLit keeps insisting on it I'll give it a try. I got it from the library, delayed and delayed, finally started it; oh, this writing style is pretty cool and this is a neat main character, but the Holmesian identifying of all the details still bores me. I put it down for a few days, picked it up again last night -- and read the last two hundred pages all at once, marvelling at how real these people were and how much they cared for each other, and the awful things they had to go through to get to the good solid ending.

It's not a perfect book; there were flaws in the pacing and the big end plot-piece had some holes I noticed right away, but the emotional work was so beautiful I just didn't care. Now I want to get all the others, and since I don't want to take library books to Chicago I'm thinking of going to Future Fantasy tomorrow on my way to the airport, so as to acquire the rest of the books while taking advantage of the 20%-off sale that runs this weekend.

There was Norm today, after a week without due to his vacation. I hadn't meant to get into anything big, but bringing up all my nervous fears about Chicago opened some emotional doors and I was blindsided by just how huge the stuff in there is. We skirted around the edges, and I rambled on stream-of-consciousness like until I figured it out. It all has to do with Jim adoring his family and me being incoherent at best about mine, and it goes something like this:

1. Jim says cheerfully to me, "Let's go to dinner with my parents! It'll be fun!".
2. My intellect hears this and agrees. Jim's parents are fun; they're nice people and interesting to talk to. All of his family that I've met have been pretty keen.
3. My emotions, meanwhile, have heard something that sounds like, "Let's stand on the train tracks and get hit by the train! It'll be fun!". Panic! say the emotions. The world is unsafe. Jim has either become stupid or he's blind or maybe, maybe he's lying to me on purpose! He has to know that this is going to hurt and break and destroy me, he has to know I won't survive this, so he must want that to happen!
4. The emotions flail. I'm flooded with terror so overwhelming I can't even name it. Emotions I can't name are not to be felt, so I push it away as hard as I can and try to ignore it.
5. The emotions feel hurt and ignored and add more terror, trying to get me to pay attention.
6. Eventually the intellect steps in. Look, it says, Jim's family is great. Thanksgiving was just fine. July 4th was just fine. Everything will be okay.
7. The emotions consider this briefly, but such a patent falsehood isn't worth much of their time. You're lying too! We know the truth, we know we're going to be utterly destroyed by this and there's nothing we can do but be ripped apart and crushed and unmade.
8. The intellect peers at this and shudders delicately, like a cat shaking off a wet paw. You're insane. You're going to have a great time. What's your problem? Oh, I give up.
9. The emotions settle down, their point made. Calmness ensues -- until the next time Jim makes a casual reference to his family, that is.

Pretty melodramatic to read, isn't it? It's melodramatic enough to live that I wasn't able to look at it closely enough to name any of it until today. All I knew was that I was freaking out about the trip to Chicago and there didn't seem to be any reason why; I've travelled with Jim before and been around his family before and although there was the normal strange-new-people stress there's never been anything like this. Monday I knew I was stressed, so talked to Jim about it a lot, and by the end of that conversation I felt much better and like my needs were going to be met and stuff... which, come to think of it, is probably why it was safe to bring this whole thing out today and see exactly what it is. And now that I know, now that I've named it, I am able to see that it's just stuff from my past coming up, not anything that can or will happen now. My stuff, nothing to do with Jim's family after all. It might be rough, but I can completely cope with this and make sure my needs get met -- and knowing that I see that Chicago will be just fine after all.

The router to flick has gone to hell, so I'm going to put this up as-is, unedited and unkempt. It seems important to put it up before I go to Chicago, so everyone knows where I'm at, and so when I come back in a week to tell tales of my wonderful time everyone will understand just how good wonderful is in comparison to what my deep insides are still (quietly) expecting.

Back in a week! I may do entries on the days I'm gone and type them up later, or maybe not... I guess we'll find out.