As I just told my father, I am currently annoyed, shading into aggravated, and if this keeps up much longer, it might just edge all the way up to full-out pissed off.

What, you may ask, has me so peeved?

I shall tell you, my brethren and sistern, because I can't sleep when I'm pissy, and I need to get to sleep.

Tonight, so that I might sew the seams of my tent with the machine instead of with the machine plus the labor of the bruises on my hand, I went to Walmart to pick up a packet of heavy-duty sewing machine needles, so that they would not break when I attempted to sew through three layers of duck canvas.

I got there at 9 since most sections of Walmart close down at about ten.

So since I'm essentially clueless about sewing machines, since it *is* my mother's machine after all, I ask the clerk lady what kind of needle I should get.

She hands me a packet after a minute.

I look at the back of it, and read that the needles contained therein are suitable for heavy-weight knits.

Now, I might be wrong about this, but I'm fairly sure that cotton duck canvas doesn't really count as a knit fabric. Polyesters do; things that make you think of t-shirts and sweaters do. But I don't think canvas does.

I eventually find a packet that proclaims it is suitable for duck canvas, and is also suitable for the sewing machine (or at least matches the numbers on the needle I brought to the store with me).

So I buy it. I also buy some thread that I think will be stronger and heavier than the fabric I have been playing with here at home.

I get home, and I goof off and talk to my boyfriend and read about piercings and tattoos and scarification et cetera as research for my Sociology paper, which I eventually decided on a whim would be on teens and body decoration as personal identification, etc. blah blah blah.

I finish reading one of the three books I checked out, flip through another and realize that it is essentially a book I read at Hasting's during the month of March, and set it down.

I go into the sewing room, set myself up, and begin.

Only because it's the first time I've used this needle and thread, because I feel like being cautious I suppose, I start by hand-cranking the damn machine. Again. (This is what gave me the bruises last night, just so you know.)

The needle doesn't catch the second thread. (I don't know what you're supposed to call the thread that runs underneath the machine, so this is what I'm calling it.)

I mean, it did a few times, but mostly it didn't.

And when I tried to go back and make it, it would break the thread.

This happened three times.

I said screw it, I'm going back to the old thread, this stuff is obviously a waste of my three bucks, maybe I'll get a refund out of Mom or Dad.

Same thing happens with the green thread now. Obviously the problem is actually the needle.

So... you know... I'd go back to the original needle, only it's gone and disappeared.

Like I said. Getting closer and closer to pissed off.

I tried sewing a little bit by hand, but it's very slow - even slower than when I sewed my cloak, and that was with me being careful - at least the damn needle went through the damn fabric then.

Arrgh.

Mom's supposed to be coming home tomorrow. I really really really hope that she can fix it and make it all better.

That's what moms are for, after all.

(Yes, I know that someday in the not-so-distant future - but distant enough - I, too, shall be a mother. And when shit like this happens, I know I'm not ready to be the goddess to somebody that all mothers are. Just the sex goddess that I already am to somebody. Wink wink.)

It's midnight. The thought "It's late, I should go to bed" just crossed my mind.

Damn you, society, for forcing me into your mold of a responsible adult / early riser.

I am *so* getting a tattoo soon after my birthday.

Now I just need ideas.

Anybody who can draw, please be a fabulous person and draw me a combination white tiger dragon? I would worship the ground you walk on, bake you cookies, buy you presents, something crazy like that. I seriously would.

Well, if I liked the picture anyway. ;)

(Yes, Meridian folks, this includes you, although you'll probably have to share the presents with everybody else. Unless y'all have your own system of dealing with stuff like this. I know of at least two or three of you that are artistic enough to have gotten word of it as far as me... if that sentence makes any sense... which it probably doesn't. I need sleep.)