Looopy (yes with three O's)

This post really begins on Monday night. After falling asleep on the couch in the afternoon (seriously, that couch is death sometimes) and waking up late in the evening, like around 10:00, I knew my schedule would be a little screwed up. I also knew that I couldn't just go right back to bed because I *had* to get my taxes done, having put them off until just about the last possible minute. That meant I had to try and do them by myself online, a prospect so terrifying that I procrastinated on it for weeks. Luckily, Guinevere was once again on chat to keep me company and help me through this horrible ordeal. But the taxes were done, and I think they were done correctly, and I even got a notification by e-mail that the IRS accepted my submission. Yay to that.

But then what? By the time all that was done with it was *late*. And I had to be to work by 5 AM, like usual. Well, I could get a couple more hours of sleep, I thought, but upon laying down on the bed I was WIDE AWAKE. The later it got the more awake I was, until we got to the point where I'd be worse off in the morning if I did fall asleep for such a short time as opposed to if I just stayed up through. So I stayed up through.

When I pulled into the parking lot that morning I thought for sure I was doomed. I was feeling tired and I was fully aware that I'd been up all night. But as the morning went along, and I got into my groove, I totally forgot how long I'd been up, and by the afternoon I had a strange energy. Not only that, but I was loud, funny, and talkative, and I was joking around with the gang, being an obnoxious jerk to Cooter (yes, he was supposed to be suspended that day, but Mike told him to come in; the first day was postponed to today instead), and so forth. It was great. Maybe I should stay up through more often.

Come afternoon I knew I'd be in trouble if I crashed right away. I'd never get myself back on a regular schedule. I decided to last it out as long as I could and try to get to bed at the regular time (as if there is a "regular time" for me). So I screwed around for a while in the afternoon, got my cable situation fixed (I was under the assumption that my cable was out for the last week due to non-payment, but when I called them to set up the arrangement, they told me it hadn't been turned off yet -- I rebooted the box and it was back on. Weird, man), went to the store, and then came back to watch as much of the freshly arrived fourth volume of Fate: Stay Night as I could make it through. That turned out to be two episodes. By the third episode my eyes were so heavy I was missing minutes of the story at a whack. So I paused the dvd player, rolled over on the couch, and I was out, baby. I woke up at 12:30, stumbled in here, went to bed, and now everything is back to normal.

The truth is, however, that I remember very little of that afternoon's activities. I was out of it wicked bad.

While asleep on the couch last night I missed a phone call. More to the point, I missed Jen's ninth attempt to contact me. She did, however, leave a message this time.

Here's the strange part of it. "Call (***-****). I think it's someone we both know, and she wants to talk to you. And she can tell you how to get ahold of me. Bye."

Now that's downright weird, even for Jennifer. And it's unsettling in that it can be decoded any number of ways, which I'll now explore.

But first, and I'll say this before anyone else does -- I'm not even really back in touch with her yet and she's ALREADY playing games with me, for fuck's sake. What good reason does she have for not giving me a way to get ahold of her her-freaking-self? Is it that hard to leave a return number in a message? Unless, of course, she's afraid that I won't call her back ... and perhaps thinks wrapping it in a mystery will engage my curiousity. I can't speak to the first part of that, but she would be correct in the second part. I am curious.

Anyway, let's begin.

-- The phone number isn't one I recognize, nor has it appeared on my caller ID. It looks like a cell phone number to me, too. It could belong to anyone. I'm not ruling out the odd possibility that it's her own cell phone either.

-- "I think it's someone we both know..."
a) It's actually someone we both know, meaning someone we've met and/or worked with. Even though I was involved with her for six months, it is a narrow window of possibles. Stacy? She's also one of my Myspace friends, and could easily get ahold of me through that. Becky? That's her friend from Rugers who appeared that night in White River Junction. But she works first shift now, and if she had any inclination of talking to me, she could easily do so. The other Jen? It's possible, but I wouldn't have the first idea why. Unless the intent of that isn't so much getting in touch with me, but instead acting as Jen's mechanism to get back in touch with me. I'm drawing a blank on any other candidates.
b) I should also look at it from the perspective of it being someone that Jen *thinks* we both know, who she actually does know, and thinks I probably know. Who else would Jen believe we both know? Someone from Rugers maybe? If I'm right that she's in Newport, she could have met anyone from there anywhere else. And that person might know who I am. I don't know.
c) Similar to item B, someone she's met somewhere around Newport, like who maybe works at a store I frequent, who doesn't actually know me, but has met Jen, and has heard her stories about LSI, Rugers, and possibly me, and might recognize me from the telling. "Wait. Does he always wear a hat? Does he buy a lot of chocolate milk?" If I've come up in Jen's tales, she's probably established that I live in town and work at Rugers, and it could happen that something about Jen's description of me sparked some recognition. I don't know.

I don't know why what should be simple dealings with Jen always turn into some Chinese puzzle box. I'm not sure what she's trying to suck me into here. If I decide to call that number it could be anyone on the other end of it. And what's Jen's endgame here? What is she after? What is she trying to do? Is she just using this mysterious person as a pawn in trying to get to me? For all I know, she's trying to set me up with this person. I haven't the faintest idea.

And is Jen starting to remind anyone else of Alyssa JUST A LITTLE BIT?

Cripes.