Why is it that when the most is happening in my life, I write about it the least?  Well, let's start a couple of weeks back.  I was having a terribly stressful time.  My aunt, Penny, kept having me write these ridiculous petitions to stop rumors that the man who controlled her lease would not be allowed to reject renewing the lease to her restaurant.  This is a rumor that she started herself, because he stopped being friendly after she decided to sue him because of mistreatment during the Phish concert.  I don't know if there was mistreatment or not, but when Penny gets on something, she obsesses about it and that's all she'll talk about for weeks afterward.  Even her lawyer stopped taking her calls because she was hounding him so much.  So she kept having me write petition after petition about differently related things, and I was going nuts trying to avoid even talking to her.  Then, like clock work, her sister, Aunt Wanda, found out that I'm the only person in the family that knows anything about computers, so she decided to try and involve me in her new business.  Apparently she signed up for an Internet scam where she had to pay two hundred dollars for a search engine where she would earn a commision, but she doesn't know even the first thing about how to even turn on a computer.  She thought she would be selling merchandise, but I had tried to explain several times that there was no merchandise.  She had pretty much paid for an advertisement for the company she bought the search engine from, except the actual search engine was just in the corner of the web page and the rest was a big ad to buy a search engine.  Big scam.  Luckily they accidentally put her name at the top of the page by accident, and she got terribly paranoid that the disability private investigators that have apparently been after her for years (like they have nothing better to do) would find out and she would get in big trouble, so I don't know if she asked for her money back or what, but she stopped asking me to help her with it.  So for a little change of pace, I decided to audition for a talent show that is being held as a community project in Orleans, Vermont this month.  Having only two karaoke CDs, and both of them consisting of only Dixie Chicks songs, I picked out an upbeatsong that would be easy for my voice range.  I had to climb a flight of stairs when I got to the old building, and then waited while these little kids practiced their skit to the song Wake Up Little Susie.  When it was my turn, I was a little apprehensive because I was told there would be an PA system set up, but they told me that it would only be there when they did the dress rehearsals four weeks from then.  So I played the song on the little radio while about thirty people watched.  Nobody really said anything or even clapped when I was done.  Even the little kids got a participation clap!  Then the woman who runs the show ran up to me and said, "Where did you come from?!?"  I said Newport, and everybody laughed.  She said that I didn't need the PA system, but if I wanted it, I could have it.  They were all just so shocked, and they said they were still looking for a theme to the show, and that my song would now be that theme.  So Some Days You Gotta Dance is the new theme, and from what I understand, I'm now one of the main acts.  On my way out, the woman who was heading it all invited me to join the Church choir she is in, but I declined, and she said that she had another idea and she would let me know about it.  So all of that was very exciting.  Then more drama happened.  Curt and Mom got in a fight one night while I was out.  I guess he said some pretty horrible things, untrue things, that were just mean and bitter.  He's been butting heads with both of my parents lately, and this just went too far.  The next morning, Mom had a nervous breakdown over it all and it looked like Curt would be moving out.  But then I guess he apologized at some point, and most of the drama ended.  Then, almost immediately, my friend Meggan called with an invitation to come down to visit her in Georgia.  Her school was having a dance, and she wanted me to be her date.  I told her I would think about it.  She offered to buy the plane ticket down there and I could stay with her.  Mom was all for it.  She insisted that I needed to get out and meet more people, so a little apprehensively I accepted.  It's not that I didn't want to go, but I always feel weird accepting gifts like that, especially something so big.  Well, the flight left at 5:45 in the morning, and I had to drive four hours to Boston before it would take off, so I tried to go to bed early.  So Aunt Penny's spider senses must have gone off because the same night, she decided that she wanted to come over and find a widower husband online, but she's really loud and insane and I couldn't sleep more than ten minutes or so in the four or five hours I tried.  So I left and had a fairly uneventful trip there.  When I met Meggan at the airport, I was surprised.  She didn't look at all like the pre-op pictures she had sent me, even though she had insisted before that she looked exactly the same.  She was certainly much thinner than any picture I had seen.  So we went back to her place and later picked up her little daughter, Bekah, who is just the most adorable little child you could ever hope to see.  She does have a stubborn streak that seems to run in the family, ha ha, but that girl is sickeningly cute.  So I slept for the most part on the first day, and the second day we hung out and went to Meggan's school for a barbecue and skit show put on by the Juniors.  It was absolutely hilarious, not to mention a feast for the eyes compared to the girls here in Vermont!  So the following night was the big school dance.  Meggan helped me pick out an oufit to wear, which considering the options, was harder than it looked.  Everything I had was from before surgery and disgustingly oversized, but we made do with a little ensemble.  Meggan looked outstanding to the max!  Her dress was just tight enough and her hair was classicly curled like something out of the fifties.  So after going to a fondue restaurant where we accidentally didn't order fondue, we got lost in Atlanta on the way to the hotel where the dance was.  Finally we found it and went in.  I met a million more of Meggan's friends and said hi to the ones I could remember.  We danced a little bit and I was sweating cold soda bottle on a summer's day.  We went back to the table, and after a while, Meggan and all of her friends wanted to go dance some more.  There were so many tables, chairs, and people that I decided to hang back and relax at the table and figured I would try to battle my way up there eventually.  Well, I was sitting alone at our table and there was a girl sitting at the table next to me.  She was alone, too, and had been for some time.  We kept making eye contact, but pretending like we weren't looking at each other.  Finally I decided enough with the fourth grade attitude and went over to introduce myself.  When I got up close, I noticed she was crying uncontrollably.  She told me that her boyfriend had broken up with her and that she probably wouldn't be very good company.  I told her that there was no reason that such a pretty, sweet girl should be sitting alone at the event of the year.  After a couple of minutes, one of her friends came up and tried to convince her to go dance with the group, but she refused and seemed to be encouraging her friend to let us talk.  So finally I invited her to go for a drink.  She said no at first, but I told her she would be doing me a favor by not sending me back to my table alone, so she agreed.  We both got a fuzzy navel wine cooler and were really getting along well.  She started smiling, then laughing, and before I knew it, she wasn't even getting any sad looks in her eyes.  She had the cutest little smile.  Well, at one point, Meggan came back to check on me, and I introduced them, but they didn't know each other and Meggan went back to dance some more.  I felt guilty for leaving Meggan to go dance alone, but she later told me that she was having a blast with her friend's date, so she didn't really mind.  So anyway, Kat gave me her info and we said good night.  Then the last day or so, Meggan and I just hung out a lot and went shopping.  We had a good time, and she kept tickling me.  It wouldn't be a big deal except I am the most ticklish person in the world, and I can be a sour puss when somebody won't stop doing it.  So she dropped me off at the airport and had a long conversation about me with my mom, who she called as soon as dropping me off.  Neither of them will tell me what they talked about really, so I'm left guessing.  I had a great time with Meggan and I hope she comes up to visit me in Vermont sometime.  And on the plane I met this older woman, Joni, who travels a lot for work.  She's fifty-one, but looks like she's in her mid-thirties, has no kids and has never been married.  We really hit it off, and she said she would contact me the next time she's up this way, but we'll see.  So since I've come home, not a whole lot has been going on.  I just had to get back in the grind of things and pay a lot of bills.  Phew, I'm tired!