It was not just a singing but also a dancing along to the radio drive home

That is a good mood. That is a "it's great to be alive" mood. I'm not sure where it came from. It wasn't a great day. I was ready to go back to bed (or back home to HBO on demand- new episodes of Oz are up this week) for most of the day. I didn't get a great night of sleep last night and it was a couple of snoozes morning but I showered and got myself out slightly after 8. I stopped at the market on my way into school to pick up healthy snacks and also picked up pretzels crisps and halvah, which aren't unhealthy but aren't exactly on my diet. I ran into a distant cousin and it was great to catch up, she told me that I look great and so cute, with my own style. That was SO nice because I felt like I got dressed really quickly this morning and I didn't really feel like I made an effort to be cute. After that I felt cute, I realized I was wearing a cute sweater that coordinated with my cute belt and I have sexy red toes. I stopped by Sophie's house to play with James for a minute and then went into the lab. I started the day off fairly well and I did some work on the survey I am writing and I e-mailed it to the appropriate parties and that was the last productive thing I did for a while. I just was ready to go home, I kept looking at the clock and assessing if I would make it home before the end of alternate side parking (oh the joys of street parking in NYC). I spoke to Joan and she asked me if I was down and I said I was just tired, both were kind of true. I stayed in the lab all day but I got very little done, I had a couple of discrete duties and I took the initiative on a couple of small tasks and did anything that I was asked to do but I had mostly checked out. I attributed it to PMS, which I think is true, I don't keep nearly as good track of it as I should. I took Midol from Meredith and used it as an excuse to eat excessively. After school I picked up dinner (including fries and onion rings) and took it over to Simon's, ostensibly to keep him company after his surgery while his roommate is away on business, but mostly because I had nothing better to do. While Simon was doing some work and I was watching SVU (it is my new obsession since I interviewed -and was accepted- at the rape advocacy program) in the other room, I was text flirting with Pacey and he invited me over. I decided that I wanted to go and I have to say, it was the best hook up we have ever had. It was fun and casual and we were both into it and I left feeling cute and sexy and desirable and I could see how having a FB could be good for my "regular" dating life. I had left a message for RTSS this afternoon offering to plan our date on Sunday as he seems really busy and I would rather plan something fun than do something lame, i told him to tell me a timeframe and I would take care of it. When I left Pacey's i had a message from him that he was returning my call and I could call until 12 (it was 12:30) or we would speak tomorrow. I smiled because I felt like my offer had been interpreted in the spirit in which it had been offered. Perhaps (just perhaps?) I am reading too much into a pleasant, short message. But I see how the way I feel about myself affects the way I perceive my interactions with others and I am starting to trust that if I offer something from a confident, breezy place, it will be seen that way. I don't know if it was Pacey or RTSS or the conversation i had with Aunt May on my way home (see below), but I drove home smiling, singing and dancing (with no regard for the perceptions of the other anonymous drivers). I thought about how excited I am to start class in a couple of weeks and training for rape advocacy in a couple of months and to have dinner with Holden tomorrow night. I also felt realy sick from all the oily food and I felt newly commited to my diet and made (mental) plans to exercise (perhaps swim) tomorrow at Aunt Karen's. I am not going into the lab tomorrow and I hope to see Becca tomorrow afternoon and to do some reading in the morning. I have a paper for lab, journal article for Sinai and one of my textbooks for next semester. I hope that I make inroads with some of them before I head over to Becca's. My original plan for the day was Oz and ice cream and I hope that this mood stays with me through the night and I spend tomorrow reading and writing in a local cafe and exercising and hanging out with people I love. Since it is pretty late now and I have to wake up pretty early on thursday, sleeping late is also part of the plan for a successful day.
Re- conversation with Aunt May, I'll try it as a dialogue as per Harry's suggestion. I had filled her in about everything I have been up to and we had also been talking about the kinds of communities that I would and would not live in in the future.
AM: You sound happy, I love hearing you happy. It makes me happy to speak to you when you are doing well.
Pause
Me: I think I am happy... I am excited about the career path that I am on, I like the work and I think it is meaningful. It took me a while to get here and G-d knows that I doubt myself a lot but I think I am doing well.
AM: You sound like you are comfortable with yourself
Me: Y'know, I am. And I have to say that it has been making dating much easier. Even if I don't like the guy or he doesn't like me, it is a much more enjoyable experience when I am feeling like me.

RCPAS Update- When I didn't hear from him yesterday, I thought that perhaps I wasn't going to. Which was apparently too much to hope for, I got a message from him while I was in the lab. After talking to Sophie and deciding to bite the bullet rather than live with this pit in my stomach, I called him back, but got him machine and then my phone died and I didn't get his return message until after my assignation with Pacey (he charged my phone for me as we have the same brand).