Eric wants me to ovulate now. The idea of constantly knocking boots for a week or so every month got old for him rather quickly.

I'm brittle. I don't want to be around people today (and believe me when I say that they shouldn't be around me, either), but I have no choice. I'm being as polite as I can possibly muster, but it's all adding up to sickly grins and terse responses. Even my buddy Jamal, the mischievous junior high kid with the penchant for teasing, couldn't bring out any good feelings in me today.

One of the teenage pages with whom I'm rather friendly started to follow me down the stairs when I was going on dinner break. I knew what was coming; she was going to tag along into my office for some "girl talk." As kindly as I could, I said, "I am so looking forward to this break. My throat is killing me, and I just want one hour to be all by myself and not have to talk to anybody." She got the picture.

I'm so afraid that I'm going to bum the storytime kids out. When I had my afternoon group today, I prefaced the stories with the caveat that, due to my lost voice, they'd have to be extra-careful not to talk while I was reading. They were so quiet! I hope the younger kids tonight are as patient with me; last week, one of the little girls had a meltdown halfway into the first book, but her mother quickly removed her from the room.

One of the circulation clerks says that I now have what she had a few weeks ago, and it took her ten days to be completely over it. Ugh! And it's going the same way, incidentally, as the whole broken toes incident went: "Oh, have you lost your voice? How did you do that? You know, I had strep throat once..." and so on and so forth while I grin and nod and try to keep from just walking away, leaving their mouths still flapping.

Later...

Okay, I'm going to vent. This evening's storytime went great, but that's beside the point. I rarely have enough going wrong in my life to warrant, to my way of thinking, a whine session, but I just got pushed straight over the line.

One of the little girls in the storytime is exceptionally precious. I'm prejudiced in this respect; she looks exactly like me. At two years of age, that is. Same face, same curling red hair. She also talks and sounds like I did at that age; I know this because my mother, in the pre-video era, dogged my toddler footsteps around with a microphone and a tape recorder. This child is me, and it's hard not to be taken with one's younger, more naive, self.

After the stories were over tonight and we were saying our good-byes (this was the end of the "Cabin Fever" session), little Karen came up and grabbed my hand, then refused to release it. Her mother picked her up, but she clung to me, saying, "I want her!" Karen's mommy had to carry her out crying, as I stood there, feeling like crying myself.

I'm struggling to conceive a child. It's exceedingly likely that my child will have an appearance similar to Karen - red hair runs in both my and Eric's families, and I got it from both parents - so something in my mind chose to fancy what it would be like if this child were actually mine.

I'm not crazy; I know she's not mine, and I'm not going to turn kidnapper anytime soon. Still, I guess I must have formed a special bond to this child, because it hurt so much to see her little face crumple into tears at having to leave me behind.

I haven't slept well lately, with the exception of last night's drugged slumber. I'm physically drained, and suffering multiple stresses: we're out of Pokemon books again, Stalker Teen Mandy is following me around, and I actually found dead bugs in my chicken soup tonight, after having eaten part of it. If I'm delusional, at least I have good reasons for being so.

Oh, and whoever gave Jamie Lee Curtis the idea that she could write children's books should be hung by their big toenails for a few decades. That's the last you'll hear of me on that subject.

Vent over. I want to move on. I wish the whine had served its purpose and gotten all the negative feelings out of me, but I fear that I'm not really going to feel better until I'm feeling better. Mayhap I'll load up on zinc lozenges tonight. The vitamin C drops seems to provide temporary relief, as does the lovely, lovely grape juice.

I'd love to be able to take a day off and do nothing but lounge in bed. Too bad, it's not going to happen. I'll probably be even more brittle tomorrow...

Maybe I'll feel better if I give in to my newfound urges, race across the library, and slay the evil Mr. Skittish...well, maybe he's not evil, but he certainly is annoying.

I don't really mean that. Bad Carrie! I just want to go home and sleep!