>>From: Belacqua
>>To: Perdita
>>Subject: Re: a personless existence
>>Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000

I think I actually passed out from boredom last night. I was watching my Colts beat Miami (I don't know why I like the Colts...for some reason I like the Colts, the Bucs, and the Rams...all teams that had the worst records when I was a kid. I always go for the loser...) and I just realized I'm crazy because I watched the Colts beat Miami at like 6:00 and last night I was watching Dallas and New York, and the next thing I know it's 3 in the morning and the TV is still on. So, I just turned it off and stayed on the couch and here it is, quarter after 10 and I'm finally awake. If there's one thing that Remeron is doing, it's making me sleep for a long, long, long time, which is great now that I'm on a holiday, but it's going to suck when I have to get up to make it to school.

I think the government should hire me to administer torture to political prisoners to get them to talk. I'm so good at psychological torture, and I certainly don't have a problem with physical torture, either. But I'm really good at getting into people's heads and knowing what will set them off. Setting someone off isn't very far from getting them to crack because it's just a defense mechanism to scare you into backing off whatever you're doing. I could have been a god in communist Russia.

Wow. On a whim, I decided to check my grades, and all of them are in. I got three A’s and two B’s. I can't believe I got a fucking B in biology. That kind of sucks, but it had jack shit to do with my major, and in my major classes I got an A and a B, so that's cool. Somehow I pulled an A out of my philosophy class. There is something seriously wrong with the system if I can get an A by writing a fifteen-page term paper in five hours and still get an A in the class. But I'm not going to complain.

I hope your day continues to go well and I hope you can get some Christmas shopping done today. I miss you and I hope to hear from you soon.

I love you, Perdita.
Belacqua

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>From: Perdita
>To: Belacqua
>Subject: Re: a personless existence
>Date: Mon, 18 Dec 2000

Belacqua,

Ugh. I was really scared that I was gonna sleep right through my alarm today, what with all the sleeping I did this past weekend, but I woke up with little difficulty. I think I'm okay when I know I have to be somewhere doing something, but as soon as I have no previous engagements to speak of, I'm sure as hell not getting out of bed. I suppose sleep is generally a good thing, anyway, so as long as it doesn't interfere with
work, I'm all good. Of course, the whole vision thing is going completely wacko. I still feel like everything has heat rising from it. If I were living in a desert, everything would be perfectly normal, but seeing as how it's cold as shit outside, it seems a bit odd.

Fuzzy vision, fuzzy vision....

It's quite hysterical to me how these drugs work. The more they try to make me feel better, the more I realize I'm just zoning out. Everything's exactly the same, but the drugs make me numb. If everyone's walking around all the time with as little going on in their heads as they're trying to make it seem in mine, then it's no wonder I hate everyone. That would just be more adequately proving my theory that they all have shit for brains. But at least the keyboard no longer feels like pudding. I suppose that's a good thing.

Three days to do Christmas shopping.... I think I should go check out the lists my siblings and parents sent to me. Maybe if I get an idea of what I need to buy, I'll have some motivation to actually go buy it. Chances of that happening are quite slim, but it's worth a shot. Or maybe I could get my brother to drive me home since I'm gonna be going close to where he lives.... Shit. Christ, I'm fucking obsessing over this. I think the whole reason I'm so reluctant to go Christmas shopping this year is because of those damn lists. I generally like buying presents for people only when I find something that makes me think of them. If I see something that shouts their name or if I'm randomly thinking about it, then I'll go buy it. But this whole "here's my list now go buy me something" load of shit is just NOT what Christmas is supposed to be about.

Not that I'm into advocating what exactly Christmas is supposed to mean, but doesn't it seem stupid to buy things for people just to give them something? Christmas shopping to me is supposed to be about going out to find something personally picked out by me to give to someone specifically because it made me think of them. I'm much more likely to buy something for someone for no reason at all, if I've happened upon something that made me think of them. I can't tell you how many times I've fussed and fussed about what to buy for someone, and then I'll come to the conclusion that if I don't know what to buy them, I don't know them well enough to be buying them something. I think I’m just going to ignore the lists altogether and buy more personalized gifts. Whatever. It's just Christmas. It's just another holiday created by humans for humans. Whoop-dee-fucking-doo.

Alright, I'm off for another smoke now. I hope your day has livened up some. I'm glad to hear that your grades came out so well, even if it does mean that the system's dumb.

I love you.
Perdita