January 03, 2002 | 12:20 PM

So today I am home sick. Nasty little cold. Exhaustian. You would think that after a fucking vacation I would be relaxed and renewed but this is not the case. The vacation, although having its high points, was really draining. I have to remind myself that in order to function, I need to spend time by myself. I think my body is now forcing me to do so .

I always feel vaguely weird when I call in sick to work. It's not like I call in all the time or anything. I'll probably only be using 1/2 of the allotted sick days this year, but I always feel really guilty, which is retarded.

I feel really bad a lot of the time when I say, "this is what I need to make myself feel sane/happy/healthy, etc". I spend a lot of time trying to find out what will make other people feel sane/happy/healthy and then I try to manipulate things to bring about those circumstances. This is called CODEPENDENCE and it is an ugly and excruciatingly exhausting way of relating. I am attempting to find my way out of it, but it's hard.

So I emailed Nancy K, Nancy T and Sharon telling them I was out sick and they haven't responded back yet, which makes me nervous. It's already 12:27 PM. Are they mad that I am out? What if something bad happened and I wasn't there to fix it?

errrraghhhh!!!! This is stupid. I am sick. There is nothing I can do about it.

Ok-- I am going to make myself some tea and watch bad televison now. And I am going to treat myself well.

More later...