02-18-03 @ 6:57 am EST

My putting things off always seems to make me look stupid and I hate that. :( I was supposed to read and review something for somebody here...but I kept putting it off, and when I went to check up on it today I think they've made it private. That happens to me too often. I hate how I put things off until it's too late. I realize they probably don't much mind, else they wouldn't have made it private, but I still feel stupid for saying I would do that and then not getting around to it. Even if it had not been made private, knowing me, I probably would have clicked on it, gotten bored (not because it's boring, but because I'm so scattered), and wandered off again without commenting.

I have a zillion things I have been meaning to read and have even offered to read, but I just can't seem to bring myself to focus on any of them.

What's worse is it's similar with my own writing. I open something up to work on it and then lose interest. I thought for sure I'd be more focused now that the serial's out of the way, but I find I just want something steady to work on again. Without it, I'm lost. I need structure or I get nothing done. But at the same time, I've been wondering if RTMI should be put out whenever I feel like it, instead of once a week. I can't make up my mind.

Or decide what to work on in the meantime.

I feel stupid.

Other things that have me feeling stupid:

A friend of my mom's, who has WebTV, discovered that a lot of the most recent messages--practically all of them, in fact--in my guestbooks were in fact hidden porn ads. The people had used an HTML trick to hide their links and they were visible only on WebTV. I went into Dreambook and sure enough, I could view the HTML code used and it was all sorts of stuff about adult pics and cracks and animals and teenagers and all sorts of lovely things. There were some non-adult links too, but most were adult. And on WebTV they just SCREAMED across the page in huge type. I'm so embarrassed. I THOUGHT those dumb "Great site" messages were hinky but I could find nothing inherently wrong with them until now. (I guess the most recent one, "Love for everybody," should have tipped me off--they weren't even bothering to hide their intent anymore, but I didn't understand it.) I didn't even know there was a tag that could hide links. The thing is, unless the user has WebTV, they cannot see or even click on the links. So what is the point? What good are they to these morons? It's not like I get tons of visitors to my guestbooks anyway...the most recent "legitimate" posts to my MI site are from November, and I think one of those was a porn Spammer just testing the HTML waters. What sort of business do they really hope to get from Spamming MY guestbooks?

Needless to say I have turned off the HTML so they can't hide the links anymore; so they'll be visible for EVERYBODY to see, but at least I can get to and delete them faster. I hate people like this; what good is this that they're doing? Like a bunch of horny morons will traipse into my guestbooks, view source, and copy and paste the URLs into their browsers?

Oh, my heart just started doing its slushy sludgy thing again...ugh...

A second thing that has me feeling stupid is just me again. Last night Ma could NOT get my hair done up right, and the more times she has to do it, the angrier the both of us get. I was crying an awful lot and I felt so stupid. I am 26 and should not have to have somebody else do my hair for me! Eventually it got done and I went in the bathroom for a while to put gel on it and wash my face, I had been crying so hard. Ma then came in and hugged me. :*( She rarely does that; she probably knows I don't like to be hugged, but she's never done that before, hugged me when we were both so obviously mad about it. (Well, me, I was more embarrassed and ashamed than angry, but I thought that SHE was.) We usually end up sitting and steaming for a good while before bothering to talk again.

I told her I was sorry, though I know that's not nearly enough.

After separating she said, "I want to show you something I've been walking around wearing ALL DAY." She pointed at her own hair and it took me a minute to realize that THAT was what she had been talking about.

"Your hair?" I said. I was admittedly confused. She played with a little curl or something that was sticking out...it looked okay to me, because she has a perm, and honestly, the way other people's hair looks doesn't bother me much. It's just my own hair that can never be right.

"But it looks right on you," I said.

"No it doesn't," she said. "I've been walking around with that sticking out ALL DAY. But I'm not getting all mad about it."

I can't believe she was even TALKING to me about this. She never talks to me about this! We always just argue and leave it at that. "I wish that my hair didn't bother me so much," I blurted out. "I know it's a stupid thing to be so obsessed about. I wish I could obsess about something that doesn't affect somebody else--like my foot or something--then I wouldn't have to bother everybody else with it. I'm an adult and I wish I at least knew how to put my own hair up, but I can never seem to get it right...and I hate the way it looks, even though that's stupid and nobody sees it but us..."

I kind of wandered off while I was saying this, and the thing ended at that. I guess she was no longer mad at me. Though I'm mad at myself. My eyes are starting to sting as I type this; she's never bothered talking to me about something like that before, so now I feel like a speck of dirt. Why do I have to be so stupid about things? Hair is hair; it would not kill me to wear it less than perfect. I have pics of myself from high school, junior high, and I'm wearing it so that if I wore it that way now, I would be aghast. But back then it was okay for me to wear it like that. What went wrong? Why is it such a bother for me now? I do realize that this is an obsession/compulsion of mine, but I've been able to overcome some of those before; so why does this one persist so badly? Why am I so afraid of trying to conquer it?

I used to burst into tears and stuff wads of paper towel into my ears so far that once one of them got lodged in there, just because the TV would emit this high-pitched whistling noise that bothered only me. I got over that. It doesn't bother me anymore. I used to scream and cry and bash my fan against the wall and turn it off and swelter rather than listen to the little tiny erratic humming/creaking noises it made because they bothered me so much. I got over that. It doesn't bother me anymore. I used to collect TV Guide and whenever I lost or missed one I was devastated. Then I sifted through them and tossed them out and I got over that, and it doesn't bother me; I don't even buy TV Guide anymore. When I find an old one lying around now, I don't even have to look through it before throwing it away.

Yet I persist in missing sleep and re-recording programs I already have on tape, over and over, just because of one tiny imperfection in the recording...

And it takes me ages to get to sleep, because I just CANNOT get comfortable enough, everything has to be just right, so I toss and turn even though nothing is wrong...

And I throw screaming fits if I can't get my hair put up just right.

The first and third one really bother me, and I just can't seem to work up the courage to overcome them. And the third one is the worst because it affects others--Ma--and Dad, when he has to hear it--my compulsion wouldn't be so bad if I shared it only with myself. Why do I have to continually foist it upon her?

How come I can't put up my own hair like other people do? I've spent hours in the bathroom trying, and it never works. I can't get it right. Ma has even tried to teach me, but it's like my wrists just can't bend the right way. How others do it is a total mystery to me.

Even if I can't do it on my own, how come I can't find another way to wear it? Like down? Nobody sees it but my family and me. It looks like crap, but why should I even care?

And even if I HAVE to have it put up...why can't the first time suffice? Why does it have to be absolutely perfect? I see women wear their hair in tails on TV and they have lumps and parts sticking out and crooked parts and everything but it looks NICE on them. Why does it look so HORRIBLE on me?

Even if it looks bad, why should I even care? I have a million other parts of my body that look a whole lot worse than my hair, but I spend a whole lot less time worrying about them. True, that's because I cover them up...but still, it's just HAIR. Dead cells.

I feel awful that I impose on Ma so much because of something so dumb, when I have overcome similar things before, things that seemed impossible to overcome while I suffered from them. I wish I could gain the courage to overcome these, but it fails me and I hate that I'm so annoying. That I cry like a spoiled little kid when my hair is not put up right.

Now you see why I don't feel like an adult, why I don't feel I should even have the rights of an adult. Because mentally, I'm not.

I wasn't depressed when I started writing this, but I'm sad now...I'll get over it...I just wish I could say the same for these dumb problems of mine. If I had to worry about something, why couldn't it be something WORTH worrying about? The country could be at Red Alert and I would still be more worried about whether the cable is going to go out or whether my hair looks okay. :(