I need a hug. Only I'm not sure I could let go in time to get back to work. I pull a lot of my energy out of other people, and the winter, the endless grey and the cold, the frantic running around, just drains me even more. I love cooking and making things and going to parties, but at the end, my little rechargable batteries are depleted, and lately I've had this terrible jones for human contact to get some of that energy back. I imagine this must be what an addiction feels like--a need strong enough to change the way you behave, but it's an odd loss of control--"Dammit, Spotty, it's not like there's anyone else in the back seat, would you stay on your side?" I'm waiting for "Aren't you a little old to sit in Santa's lap? Five times?"

It's worse because of the social chill of my house, my life--Badger and relationships, there's just a lot of problems there, he's always alone, or hoping that this is the one that'll be good, stay good. Butterfly's break-up--it's like the house echoes even when there's twenty people there. And now my mother is breaking off with her boyfriend of a year, and I've always been there for her, but she's so needy now--she begged me to come to the christmas eve church service with her, and I said no. God that stings, but I feel terrible sitting in the house of God with the mixed emotions of love and anger I have toward my former religion, and the part where everyone gets up to go to communion, I'd just have to sit down, and in a room of 500 people that all still regard me as a good Christian, that's nearly as awkward as going there without a shirt or something. So she's going alone. And my baby sister broke up with her boyfriend of two years, and he's kept control of her old social circle, and now she--the center of her friend's lives, the hub of the wheel--is alone, too. Maintaining my warmth and strength in, emotionally and socially, the nearly infinite cold of deep space. It's actually refreshing to see two people who care about each other together--usually I dislike public displays of affection, but they're like space heaters right now.

I'm acutely feeling the draw of energy from people. I can be Butterfly's support, hear my mother's pain, hug my sister, but I can actually feel the tax on my system. It's so strange, it feels more like something from a second-rate sci-fi story than any emotions I've dealt with before. Like spending Essence in In Nomine, or giving Gnosis to a spirit in Garou, I could just check off the boxes that show how many Warmth Points I have left to spend. Very strange sensation. Anyway, I've blown a lot of time today, I should get back to work.

Actually, I'm going to pick up October from the airport :)