Me and Dooce are on the same cycle or why I missed the computer simulation about system models

Things I'm not good at: remembering what people's cars look like, having any idea when my period is coming.

My first clue is when I suddenly start crying and feel that life is really not worth living and wondering how I will make it through the next 80 or so years. So, last night my teacher says something to me and it makes me cry. Luckily only one side of me is weak; my right side. I don't know what this means, but sometimes if I am trying not to cry but can't help crying, only my right eye will cry. This is very useful if I'm a passenger in a car, as I've had many opportunities to discover. One side of me can be relentlessly leaking while I'm carrying on a normal conversation with the ignorant driver.

Last night, I tried to pass off my crying as something in my eye, and this could have been a success. I also used my time honored tradition of thinking of a rock. I don't know why this works for me , but it helps. I even drew a picture of a rock on my notebook paper. Yes, I'm a 30-something master's student and I was trying not to cry in class by repeating everything my professor said in my head while looking at a picture of a rock, so I didn't have time to say to myself, "Nobody likes me!" As I said, this could have worked. Then my professor, who had continued teasing me, 'cause we're just that kind of fun loving class and I can (usually) take it, came up to me during the break and said with his kind little eyes, "You know I was kidding, right?" My averted eyes and non-committal mumble caused him to repeat. Then my classmate next to me tried to joke with me. I had to hurry and leave. Don't look at me with kind eyes when I'm thinking, "rock!"

I rushed down 3 flights of stairs to a bathroom in the basement that I found when I was new and didn't know where my classes were. Yes, it was where I remembered it from 2 years ago. The whites of my eyes were both bright red, and I started sobbing witht he gasping breaths and everything. Then it was just unrecoverable. My face was blotchy and wet and the sight of my crumpling face in the mirror was making me laugh between sobs. Then someone knocked at the unisex bathroom door. A man with a long beard, a red bandana, and some peircings was leaning against the wall waiting. I hoped he didn't think the unflushed stuff in the toilet was from me.

Outside I was suprised by a beautiful sunset, which always helps. The air was crisp and I walked quickly towards my car, thinking, "I'll look in the mirror of my car and if I can look like I wasn't crying I'll go back to class." Unfortunately, I got in a crowded elevator full of psychologists. They were talking about feelings and how you should just express them. Everyone got off at another floor except me, and one little dark-haired lady. Do you know how you can hold it together as long as no one speaks to you? Or if they at least speak to you in an impersonal tone of voice? "Are you ok?" She asks me. Still, I manage to nod and not cry. "Do you want to talk about it?" I don't know what I mumbled. "It it helps, I am a psychologist." Well, thanks a lot lady. Now you've done it. I just started sobbing, my crumpled blotchy face beyond help. True to form, I felt despair of life ever being worth living for the rest of the night, and to top it off, Tivo messed up and did not record Gilmore Girls. Sometimes it's the little things that count. I have to go back to class tonight with the same proffesor. The friend I went crying to, who also made me cry again, has advised me to say that I had a lot going on that day and had to leave, and that's why I missed the computer simulation about system models.