Ahahahaha! This time my dream made sense: my dad woke me up by typing, and I was like "huh?" and when I went over he'd been trying to figure out my screensaver password. So I typed it in for him. (well, that part doesn't make sense.)

And when I woke up, Heather Ratface was gnawing on a piece of wood... which sounds suspiciously like typing.

xD


My parents are at a funeral right now. One of the longtime bellringers, Pat, died on the 23rd. I never met her, but she'd been ringing bells for this corps for twenty years. That is an incredible amount of offering her time for the good of those who need help.

The strange thing is, for about a week before she passed away, she talked to both of my parents and another person who was helping us with the kettles, individually, about dying and how she wasn't afraid of dying, and how she wanted to go peacefully in her sleep... and then her daughter found her in bed, gone, just how she wanted.


My plans for the day depend heavily on how my parents feel when they come back. A trip to the outlet stores was mentioned, and affirmation was expressed when I mentioned going to Circuit City to spend my gift card (The Fall and Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, you shall be mine), and I think my mom said she wanted to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. But if we're staying at home, then I... am writing. Despite how I said I was going to take a break from it once I finished Advent/Yuletide/Heroes_Exchange. Because I owe Carol something. xD

I actually feel awake. I'm really glad about that. I haven't felt this alert after waking up in a long time.

It's probably not fair to blame insomnia now on espresso six or seven hours ago. Regardless of where the fault lies (my brain), the fact is that I'm awake now, still, after staring at the ceiling and cuddling with a cat and listening to all my voicemail (16 messages, I should check those more than once a week) and for god's sake I even recorded a new greeting, I'm cold and shivery and my mind won't stop going.

And so.

I've been thinking a lot about family and domesticity and settling. Not settling down, settling like a negotiation; "this is what I will offer and this is what I will give up." I've been thinking about how I'm bored with everything I can think to do to myself, and whether it's worth the complete awkwardness and uncomfortableness of afterward to let someone else do things to me. Because I'm starting to think I could settle for love without sex, I have few enough people I like enough to want to have sex with and if history is any indicator sex just fucks things up, and I'd rather have people I like than (maybe) orgasms.

Things would be a lot less messy if I knew I could settle for that in the long run. Literally and figuratively.

I've also been thinking about daddy issues, but not in personal terms, mostly just because Kristin and I mainlined Heroes all weekend and everyone in that show has some kind of daddy issue. And also I think I'm kind of in love with Noah Bennet, shut up shut up shut up. I wish it wasn't another two weeks until Heroes starts again. I want MOAR.

I have an appointment with Dr. Gitlin in five hours and forty minutes. I have to bring the cats to the vet in six hours and forty minutes. And still I'm sitting here in the dark, a little bit cold except for the warm kitten on my lap, and I'm trying to seperate out my useless fears from my honest worries, what's important from what's not going to change no matter how I want it to.

All summer long I've been losing weight, a pound here, a few ounces there. I'd almost made it down to 175 at one point. This morning I stepped on the scale and saw 187 and I almost cried. It's not all milkshakes (although those aren't helping), it's a good deal of doing nothing, and that won't do any more.

I'm probably going to be put on probation as of the 24th. So I should stop now. And I'm so weak because I've been trying to convince other people to stop with me, and I let myself backslide just because no one else will hold up, and I need to grow a goddamn backbone. I'm trying and it feels like no one takes me seriously. And I wonder if they should or if my wanting to quit is a big joke to everyone, like a punchline to laugh at whenever I pass on a blunt or protest packing another bowl. And then I wonder if I am just a big joke.

But Minerva knows I'm upset, purring and pushing her face against mine. Sunrise in an hour and a half, the growl of a freight train shaking the tracks behind my house, and hey, it's September 11. Six years ago this was a fucking gorgeous day at sunrise. Clear blue sky and barely a cloud. Six years from now this could all be meaningless. Six years from now, god, who even knows? The internet might not even exist then. Maybe I'll be married, or dead, or maybe I'll be up at ass o'clock in the morning letting a cat knead my stomach and making a self-indulgent, fearful, hopeful post to LiveJournal.

I guess we'll find out in six years. For now, I'm just trying to wear my brain down to the point where I can sleep, and if I can't do it with words I'll do it with hot chocolate.

I don't know what to do to make things better.

I feel like I'm existing on a superficial level right now. Like I'm too out of it, too tired or stoned or fucked up somehow, and I'm not comprehending reality correctly... like headphones badly plugged in, only getting one headphone track. Things seem like they should be good, but... something just ain't right.

I need to stop what I'm doing, I guess. What I'm doing is being a shiftless, brainless layabout, and what I need to be doing is the opposite of what's making me feel one-dimensional.

I want my world to be beautiful. I need to act in accordance to my desires for them to manifest. Life's not magic, things don't just appear, no matter how much I dream. And sometimes people can't be cheered up no matter what. But I can't do anything but offer advice that will be ignored probably...

My rat is coming to the apartment tonight. We're not done painting but I'll keep her clear of the paint fumes. The guinea pig looks like it's on the way out, poor thing.

I need to get my head firmly reattached. Sobering up is a better idea than getting more fucked up, I think.

Plz note that I almost died in the shower while thinking this through (I slipped on the tub and almost broke my neck x.x), so hear me out.

I know a lot of you guys are sick of Fall Out Boy. I've been told so. I've had people defriend me because of it.

It's my fandom. Okay? I don't bitch when anyone else talks about their fandoms. I don't say "God, I'm so sick of hearing about the Office" or "if someone posts something about CNN again I'm going to cut a bitch" or "what's the big deal about Battlestar Galactica?" (to name a few, not singling people out, just thinking about the big fandoms on my flist I'm not part of.) I'm not making you listen to them, I'm not saying they're the best music that's ever been made.

I'm saying I like writing goofy fanfic about them, and wibbling over them, and obsessively looking up pictures of them. I make layouts and icons because that's what people do with their fandoms. And I know there's not a single fan on my flist who can say otherwise.

So: if you want to hate, that's your choice. And if you dislike my fandom enough to get rid of me, well, I'll be sad to see you go.

Just take a look in the mirror, mkay? Fandom's about having fun, or it should be. And this fandom makes me happy in ways that other fandoms have consistently failed to do. I wish everyone had something this fun and worry-free to indulge in, without the constant drama that plagues other fandoms.

But, in the words of the immortal H.O.V.A.: "I'm like, fuck critics, you can kiss my whole asshole, if you don't like my lyrics you can press fast forward." Or, you know, something like that? Anyway, it's either talking about Fall Out Boy or Justin Timberlake. If anyone wants me to go on to the Prince of Pop, y'all just let me know.

You guys, this weather is getting so scary. D: I keep thinking about, like.. how my parents want the end times to come. And how a lot of really crazy people do too. And then I wonder if they're right and this is all just leading up to something that I'm scared of even though I don't believe in it.

I don't know. I get a lot of fatalism out of having that mindset around me because it seems like people who don't even believe it want to live that way, like we can just do whatever we want and it won't matter in a generation or three because hey, the world's going to end.

I'm not being morbid, I'm just saying... the weather's been freaky-weird all over lately. And sometimes I think about how things might just be too fucked up to go on in some ways and I don't know how the world's going to adapt and change and either accommodate and fix or ignore and let decay these things that are so wrong.

I'm a fucking bleeding heart is kind of what I'm saying. If god's vengeful enough to have the Earth go nuts then... I don't know. Not a caring god. Which doesn't fit with my view of the world as an ultimately fair thing.

I'm a heathen D:

And I don't know why I'm going off on this when I've been writing nothing but the usual gratuitous pr0nography but maybe it's just forcing my serious thoughts to clump up. Like kitty litter. xD Scoop.

Amber and Kevin say hello to the internet. :D

I got very nauseous from watching Guitar Hero earlier, and I'm still a little woozy. x.x Bedtime for a Dani.


(p.s. isn't there something in revelations about young generations prophesying? I don't know if that's massively inappropriate to say and I know people have been predicting the end of the world basically since the disciples, but.. I don't know. I'm probably going fucking nuts anyway. xD)

I've come up with a new theory: the reason people are so unhappy is because they don't lie to each other enough about the right things.

I think why people like me is because I have no hesitation in lying to people if I think that's the appropriate course of action. Hell, sometimes I do it for fun, just to see how long people will believe me (but I always fess up when I do that, and usually the lies are pretty fantastical then). Look at it this way: if my mother and father just lied about how much they liked each other, my house wouldn't feel like a war zone. If my sisters did the same thing, maybe there'd be a little peace. If people could just lie and say it's okay, maybe they'd get over whatever is making it not okay.

Or maybe I'm just an asshole. Either or.

Anyhow, yesterday I learned how to purl, and I started working on my stockinette stitch (messy. so, so messy and ugly: but still recognizably stockinette) on some yellow yarn Kristin had. I'm going to unravel the whole thing when I'm done and then do it again, which is going to suck, but I need to practice if I'm going to get any good. (Hell, my garter stitch still looks awful.)

Speaking of garter stitch, would anyone with an iPod like a cute monster iPod case for any December-arriving holiday? It takes me like two days to make them, and they just look like adorable little anime monsters when they're done (I'll post a picture later...) and I can do worse things than send slightly-sloppy-but-made-with-love things to my friends for the holidays. Also if anyone would like a postcard, I got eight from the Peanut Butter & Co, and I have some from the Kent DeLord house somewhere.

I always dry out in the winter, but my lips are already uncomfortably dry and it's only October. Looks like I'm going to have to do some serious looking-around at Bath and Body Works next time I'm there.

Another time it's good to lie: when you feel like making a cryptic, passive-aggressive comment in your LJ. So instead... Man, did you guys see Lost last night? That show is AWESOME!

...yep.

I HATE THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL SERVICES.

*ahem*

Probably not ALL DSS offices. I'm sure that somewhere, in a magical land, they're efficient and empathic and helpful, and they actually pay attention to the circumstances and needs of their clients. And people get around on unicorns and magic carpets, and there's universal health care that works...

Still, I'm not talking about magical fairy land, I'm talking about right here in Plattsburgh and/or the good ol' USA. Let me share a few stories I've heard over the past couple weeks, with the names omitted to protect the horribly violated.

1) Due to the privatization of prescription plans instituted under Dubya, a woman with serious health problems is unable to receive aid for a secondary condition caused by treating her first problem. Either one could potentially kill her-- if she stops the first treatment, she'll get really sick. But she's really sick because of it as well, and although the secondary condition is treatable, the private company now insuring her doesn't think it's worth $5000 every two weeks to basically save her life. If Medicaid was still covering her, this wouldn't even be an issue. But nope, gotta fuck around with the health care system.

2) Food stamp bitch 1: To receive food stamps, you have to either have a very low-paying job, or go sit in a room for 8 hours a day doing literally nothing. If you get a job, you get a pitiful sum after jumping through ridiculous hoops. But who has time to get a job when you're fulfilling a completely absurd condition of getting help in the first place?

3) Food stamp bitch 2: A family of five (two adults, three young children) were getting food stamps. The mother found a job, but wasn't able to actually start working for two weeks. DSS completely cut off their food stamps as soon as they found out she was employed, regardless of the fact that she couldn't get a paycheck for a full month after that. When she tried to explain this, the response? "Too bad, you have a job, you should be able to provide for your family now." This woman literally broke into sobs sitting across from me while she filled out the application for aid. (I ended up loading her down with eight very full bags from the food pantry, and them my mom went in and added two more. We're both complete suckers for tears, but even if she hadn't cried we would have done the same thing.)

I see cases like these all the time, not just working in the Salvation Army but because my friends are also getting fucked by the system when they need help the most. What the hell is this department for if they aren't actually helping people? It's the most inefficient and soulless fuckup of an excuse for a social service organization I've ever had the dubious fortune of actually helping people in the wake of.

I'm sure that it helps people. I'm sure of it. But all I see, and this is probably why I bitch, all I see are the people who don't get any help. The ones whose kids are hungry because they make too much for food stamps but not enough for food and rent and utilities. The ones who literally come in with the clothes on their backs and not too much else. And even here, we have our restrictions, but I do what I can to bend the loopholes in their favor, because that's what you should do when your purpose is to help people.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE.

Okay, this'll be the more typical 'this is what I'm thankful for' post. So, woo.

First, and most, and pretty much everything, I'm so freaking thankful for my friends I can't even say how much. The people that put up with my mood swings, my insecurity, my bitchiness, my complete inability to follow anything for longer than ten minutes, they're the best and I love them dearly. I just wish I was a better friend; I'm doing my best, and I'm glad they put up with me when I fail.

( the rest cut to protect the innocent and uninterested )

Also, I'm thankful for skillz. New layout skillz. Check it out: speccygeekgrrl.

Finished Closet Case; it was okay. Kind of not funny, kind of a let down, but okay. Still haven't finished Dharma Bums, sorry, Kerouac, but you're too much for my stunted little brain.

Just started Jarhead before getting in the shower; made it about thirty pages in. It's definitely different from the movie, which is good. I can't help but hear all the words in Jake Gyllenhaal's voice, which is also good. (unf.) There's a lot of sand in it, naturally; I kind of have the gritty just-been-roughhousing-on-the-beach feeling in my mouth now, even though I just brushed my teeth. So far, I like it a lot. I'll be surprised if it takes me as long to finish this one as it has, oh, anything else I've read since Half-Blood Prince.

My parents and sisters are leaving tomorrow to go to some Salvation Army event. Dad says they're leaving at 10 or 11, which means I should expect them gone closer to 12:30-- not that I'll be awake, unless one of them wakes me up before they go. But I'll have all Friday, all Saturday, and most of Sunday to do what I need to do. (Namely, cleaning.) I figure if I can get at least a trouble area or two in the house cleaned up, plus a quick vacuum in the living room (which will need to be done regardless, as parents gone = low-key party immediately now), I'll get some brownie points with my parents, which are always good, seeing as I'm still living here with them. Yeah.


So I was thinking about marriage, and kids, and happily ever after syndrome, while I was getting out of the shower. And I realized that I don't think it's odd for unmarried people to live together, whether they're a couple or just friends or whatever, because I haven't been able to imagine myself married since I was 14. All my future planning has been toward eventually getting a house with friends where we could all just be okay and not alone, because I guess I never really expected any of them to get married either. Which is retarded, but this is how my mind works. But since the first days I imagined this, my friends have changed a lot. Instead of having mostly male friends, I have mostly female ones now; I wouldn't want to cohabitate with any of the guys I know. I barely want to talk to most of them. Which is pitiful.

But basically my thing was that I'm setting myself up to be either a crazy cat lady or a crazy cat lady everyone thinks is a lesbian who's actually getting no action on either side of the fence. PITIFUL. But whatever. I don't even know where that was going, except for I'm never having sex again, people are scary, and I have no future. YAY.

....I had a point, but I lost it a long time ago. I'm going to go make my bed, and then tomorrow there is cleaning and some paperwork and laundry and possibly marijuana, and that's all before I go to the movies and the mall, even. Go me. I'm gonna get shit done.

eta: ...yeah, I made a Swoff Ravenclaw icon. Yeah, I changed the color of the book. It's four fucking a.m., give me a break, I'm incredibly stupid right now and I was tired of the Dr. Pookie T. Cancerpants Ravenclaw icon.

For some reason I am feeling belligerent. I want to start a fight. Not some pansy-ass LJ drama passive aggressive thing, I want to punch someone.

Don't really know why.

ANYHOW. Cleaning Rachael's room, which used to be my room, there's enough of my stuff in there to still call it my room except that's not me anymore. That's not who I am. God, I used to be such a dorkface. Beanie Babies everywhere, w0e, and clippings from Seventeen and other mind-melting insipid magazines. Notes from high school, middle school even. Why people confide in me I'll never know. Like David in middle school. Was his name David, even? Dated Lexie for a while. I don't remember, it might have been Jonathan. He didn't sign his note, but I can remember his face just from the note, the way he used to always get so excited about episodes of Felicity and Dawson's Creek.

God, I feel old. I found other things, like my first bottles of perfume, purchased at Afterthoughts in the Palisades Mall. Oh, I remember. Sniffing them, yeah, walking through Suffern Middle School's halls, sneaking off to cry after so many things in the auditorium. Little "thank you" cards from my teachers, when did I give them chocolate? The English teacher I adored, the Science teacher I was scared of and fascinated by at the same time. (Like Snape, but more Jewish, I realize in retrospect. Oh, roffles.) Little glass bottles I was always afraid of breaking. "Hyper," "Crazy," "Daring", such optimistic names, 'wear us and you'll get right past your shyness, your dullness, come on, put us on!'

An old feather. Raven? Crow? Dirty seagull? I don't know, but Oreo's fascinated with it. Such a strange kitty. I come home and find her up on my loft bed, how the hell she gets up there I don't know. Coming up to me, mewing, deigning to be petted for a moment and then struggling out of my arms to find someplace in the house to hide.

Cleaning, yes. I found my Chucks, the first pair I ever owned, bought in New York City on a high school field trip. Pale blue high-tops, laces traded for lilac ones from an old pair of roller skates. Not rollerblades, no, skated, foursquare wheels and heaviness. Size 11 cause that's all they had, a size or two too large for me but I wore them anyhow and loved them. Until they got lost, eaten by the closet, the only pair of shoes I've found both of in there yet.

Other things, pictures, letters, cards signed by Nana and Grandma that I'm so glad now I didn't throw away. The whole detritus of the girl I was in high school, tucked away in a closet and stuffed under a bed. And I'm pulling her out, exhuming her, poking through her bones and throwing half of them away to rebury the rest somewhere new.


...oh, fuck, is it snowing? Fuck.

I just organized my pictures folder. pre-college, 03-04, 04-05, and summer 05.


I can't look at myself two years ago. That's not me. I'm not her anymore, she was prettier and more idealistic and she had a purpose, or thought she did.


What turned her into me? Was it the stupid way she wore her heart on her sleeve and got it run through? Was it the pot? Was it the anime, the ramen, the dorm living, the sudden freedom?

Is this just genetic? Was she doomed to end up me the way all children turn into their parents, and it looks like I started out mom but am turning dad, running to depressed and fat and sleeping all day or wanting to.

Is this just me? am I doomed to hate myself more with every year, every failure to communicate, every kiss I wish I'd given or with I'd kept to myself, the moves I should have made earlier or not at all.

I have pictures of him and if things ever changed I would jump through hoops on fire to get the chance with him I never had.

I have pictures of the aftermath between breaking and being fixed and I was still more beautiful then than I think I will ever be again. I was miserable, I wanted to kill myself, but I was beautiful.

And it wasn't a very good fix. The patches came off, the pins wouldn't hold, the CD got scratched and the tracks are out of order and I'm all fucked up again with no Prince Charming this time to talk me through the late nights.


If I could do it all over again I would never have missed a chance to walk down those stairs, I think. I would have started sooner, I would not have let the internet be my intermediary. I would have been charming and coy and an open book waiting for him to write something on my pages, even just 'hi'. I wouldn't have waited until I was fucked up to make friends.

I did it all wrong and I wish to god I'd been better then. I wish I'd been more than a rescue effort. I wish I'd been more than a puppy saved from being put down, because I feel like an old dog now and it would have been more merciful to end it then.


I have no idea what I'm saying. Half of this is fiction, half is hormonal emotion, half is regret I will never lose until I forget his name and my own.

Write my epitaph now. "She always had a regret." I wish I'd given him what I lost anyway. It would have meant more.


Ai warned me this would happen, but I never listen.

would be a good title for something. I should run with it. I haven't indulged my mythology habit in too long.

I should hit the library. Grab some myth books, some Ginsberg and Eliot and something deep and incomprehensible I can force myself to have to focus on, something dense and looping around itself until it's hung with its own words.

I don't know what to do with words anymore. Most of mine seem to be lies, happy fronts when I just want to lash out with them and drive people away. And I don't know why I don't, because the ones I want to keep near me, I don't want to lash out at in the least. Just the people I should have cut ties with ages ago, the ones I have nothing in common with, the ones that make me feel angry just to think about. but I'm not the kind of person to lash out, so I'm sinking with these albatrosses around my neck, too scared to cut the damn things off.

God, fuck this timidity so much. I wish I was half as brave on the outside as I am in my head. I never would get into these retarded positions if I just spoke up and said "fuck off" once in a while when I meant it and not just joking around with the people I actually care about.

Also, I am a hypocrite and a bitch, and I'm starting to enjoy that. So. I don't know. Where do I stop being nice and start being a coward? I would take my bravery back at the cost of my niceness. Because being nice just gets you stepped on, and fuck that.


I just miss being able to sit in a room and focus on what people are saying. I feel like such a jerk because I'm a space case whenever I go out with Kristin and Amber and they deserve better of me than absent-mindedness and the constant "what?" I miss Kierstin and Carol and Maggie.


Today was okay. I'm still all worn out and stressy, all breakouts and oily hair and bleh. And I feel bleh. I want it to be November or at least not this week any more. I would like to skip the next 24 hours and go right to payday, to movie day, to sit-around-and-rp-until-ridiculous-o'clock day. Or right up to November and being on the greyhound heading south, the big event of my fall.

I'm just fed up and mean and annoyed at myself for not growing a pair and just getting rid of these life-sucking weeds strangling me out. People lead to stress lead to more stress lead to ranty self-accusatory hate-filled LJ posts, lather rinse repeat.


So in better news, I might be getting BPAL tomorrow. And today I got a nifty grey zip-hoodie from Old Navy, where I never shop, but it's soft and warm so yays. And I'm totally getting another one of the awesome hats via garbarella's talented fingerses, which I am excited about, and I should take pictures wearing the ones I have because hey, happy customer things are good for selling more things. (If any of you like awesome floppy hats, hit that lady up. I adore my berettamsnoods!)

And, um, Lost: I totally called it. Now let's quit with the Jackbacks and get with the OTHER plotlines.

CSI tomorrow! And OC, which I missed last week, and oh please you mean Ryan and Marissa haven't done it yet? Yeah, that's believable. I so need to catch up with that whole show. Like everything from 01x04 on. :D I am such the loser. YAY TV.

It's raining out. Raining pretty hard, really, and the sky is that perfect pearl-grey I only ever seem to see in memories of rainy days now, but there it is. On top of my chill acoustics-and-instrumentals playlist, with the warm and yummy scent of Miskatonic U filling my office, I'm pretty tempted to go ahead and say life is pretty good. Even my office cricket thinks so. (also he sounds very good with "Kelly Watch The Stars")

Except, you know, massive pain and suffering. Because the beautiful rain out there is the tail end of what flooded New Orleans. And all my work today has been answering the phones, people asking whether we're taking donations to go to relief efforts down there, and I just can't help wondering... you know, what the hell was going on in the minds of the people who built New Orleans?

On one hand, I can't help but think that a town built on the sheer force of human arrogance was bound to have something like this happen. What kind of idiot builds a town that could end up underwater even without a flood? The levees aren't failsafe, even without a hurricane to batter at them. (and what kind of idiot cuts funding to the levees, the only things keeping this city dry, and diverts the money to an effort which is mostly a waste of money anyhow?) New Orleans had this sort of disaster coming, sooner or later.

On the other hand, it's not the fault of the people living there that the town was built on stupidity. (wonder how many of them relocate to the center of the country.) And it sucks that so many people have lost everything, that there's so much loss of life and property and sheer history packed into what's now the New Atlantis. And I wish I could have seen it, just once.

I don't think that what happened was good, or proper, but it was inevitable. So there's my two cents.

And God is smiting me for them, because I just got a stabbing pain in my head! Woo! SMITEY!

thank you, Kristin, for putting up that blurb for me.

thanks, everyone, for your hugs and prayers and well-wishes.

My brother and I are okay. His car is fucking wrecked, but Jettas are sturdy little shits with good airbags and we're both all right. His arm is fucked up, bruised and scraped but not broken; we have identical contusions on our left thumbs. I have lovely flower-colored bruises on my knees where they hit the dash, and rug burn from the airbag deploying.

I still have glass and metal and plastic dust all over me, and I'm never going to forget the way the air tastes after an airbag hits your face. Never. This was just a refresher.

I don't think I ever want to drive a car. On the ride home that Erica gave us, my nails were biting into the plastic door handle. I'm sore and tired and headachey and hungry and scared, I want my daddy to be home right now please, I want today to go back to about 1:30 when Tom offered to drive me to the bank and I should have accepted.

But mostly I'm just glad that my little brother and I are okay.

(when we climbed out of the wreck he was so pissed he threw his hat on the ground and forgot to pick it up when the paramedics got him. he was sure he'd never see it again. we drove by the crash site, on the street I live on, and it was still lying on the grass. I got out and got it for him.)

I'm going to take a shower and have dinner and tylenol.

eta: Okay. The ultimate asskicker of this day? Once I got out of the shower I ate one, ONE SINGLE, chocolate munchkin donut.

And I choked on it.

Clearly, my life is far too stupid to go on.

Agh I hate needles hate them hate hate hate. But my bloodwork was quick, mostly painless (oh god I hate the feeling of HAVING A NEEDLE IN ME, ugh ugh ugh, didn't hurt but UGH), and afterward I got to sit outside and wait to be picked up next to a little old lady who confided in me that the mammogram room was too cold and she had "goosebumps bigger than [her] breasts!" Belgian roffles, yo.

And after all the fasting and crap for that, my mom still wouldn't stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way back. When I was little, I used to get french fries after every shot. Now I get blood drawn and I can't even get a bagel. xD She did make me an omelet when we got home, though. And I got to watch the Doodlebops before work. So score.

At work, jesus, ALL THE CRAZIES IN THE WORLD. I swear. Every single one of them. And Monika was like "I'm a ghost! Woooo." and ended up calling me fat. "Because the ghosts have dance parties in your stomach and that's why you're chubby!" So, yeah, that whole losing weight thing! :D :D *stabs small child in the head* Also, my mother is crazy. xD

Um. Lots of mail came in today... I got my BPAL shipment, omgyey! Tulszcha, which smells like doublemint gum if it were a perfect world and gum smelled that good, and Miskatonic University, which is delicious Irish coffee and old books. *writhes* Plus frimps, two of which went to Kristin's starter kit and onw of which I'm deathly afraid will go the way of Alice and Sudha Segara and turn into baby powder on me. I'm praying not, because it smells SO GOOD in the bottle-- Dana O'Shee, by the way, which is "milk and honey and sweet grains", and either milk or honey goes powder on me in the worst way.

Also, the DVDs my mom ordered for me came in-- Dead Like Me season two, which, woo, Callum Blue is one of those things that can lift my spirits any day. Hel-looo, reaperboy. xD


My aunt called tonight-- the one that's getting married in August-- and she came up with this thing where all of my grandmother's daughters and grandkids and her best friends will walk down the aisle with roses, and put the roses on the chair she should be sitting in, and then go sit down. As like, a preliminary part of the ceremony. And she asked me to write a poem to go in the program about how the roses are holding Grandma's place, and we know she's watching, and... I think I'm going to fuck it up. ._. I just can't... I can't even think about Grandma without getting all stupid and choked up. So this is going to be really, really difficult.

And everyone keeps asking about when school starts. And am I excited about going back. And I just smile and nod and lie, because how can I tell them all that "hey, yeah, I don't even know if I CAN go back, and even if I can I don't know if I want to." And I've been trying to type that for a full day now without being able to, so. There it is. I don't even know if I want to go back for the fall semester. Because from here it looks like I have to push a boulder uphill just to get back in, and that fucking thing is going to roll back down on me at some point in the term, I can tell already. And it's not worth the effort to get it up there if it's just going to go to hell anyway.

So, yeah. Still depressed. Still all fucked in the head. Still can't actually talk to anyone about it, because even typing it makes me start crying. Time to stop now, I think.

I was supposed to go to Derek's today, finish watching Casablanca, hang out, you know.

Sadly, as we were pulling into his driveway, he was leaving. So I hung out with Dennis and his friends all afternoon. Have I mentioned before what a trip my little brother can be? He's really a lot of fun sometimes.

So we cruised around, blowin' trees and listening to Snoop and sweating because Plattsburgh is hotter and more humid than the entire football team's collective balls, until we ended up at Friendly's for ice cream. Mm. I love me some Friendly's gummi bears. You know the little ones that are tangier than normal-sized gummi bears... yeah.

So for Dennis's birthday (two days after mine = Thursday), I'm going to give him pot and a mix CD, because I know he'll use at least one of them. xD Does anyone have any reccommendations as far as rap goes? That's practically all he listens to; while I want to make him a mix of GOOD music, I want him to actually listen to it, and he isn't exactly a big fan of Dylan or the Beatles. Maybe some Ramones, maybe some Clash, I'm trying to piece it together, but I need rap reccs like whoa. (hm. grey album version of dirt off your shoulder, maybe?)

Came home, baked off my skull, and saw no call telling me to come back, so I slept off the afternoon. I think the town just got more muggy, because there's no way I can sleep now, but I had no problem at 5:30...

I don't know how I feel about school starting in a month. I'm kind of looking forward to it, but not really so much. I just know I can't stay here. Being at home gives me the feeling that nothing I do here counts for anything; being at college makes me certain of it, and makes me worry that I'm getting farther out of touch with the real world, and just... I'm worried, honestly. That's all. Worried.

Anyhow. Too hot to sleep down here. I'm probably going to end up crashed on the couch with the air conditioning killing my ears. xD

Tomorrow I have a package to mail, and an apartment to visit, and a movie to watch with Pedro (and Amanda and Jamar? yes?), and dunno what after that. Then Tuesday... aaaaaaaaaah. Tuesday is my birthday and I don't actually have any plans, not solid ones anyway. Anyone want to weigh in?

I will not worry about things that are outside of my control.

I will not allow myself to be made to feel guilty about being happy.

I will not try to change anyone else; I have a hard enough time changing myself.

I will not cater to those who ask me to behave in a manner untrue to myself.

I will not make excuses for doing what I feel is right.

I will not be needlessly cruel; however, I will not waste excessive kindness on those who have proved they don't deserve it.

I will not drag unpleasant affairs out any longer than I have to.

I will not avoid doing what needs to be done simply because it is convenient to do so.

I will appreciate everyone and everything that makes my life worth living. I will not waste my time on those people and things that make my life worth ending.

My dad. I've been working on a post about him for days now. But basically all I have to say about him, if I have to boil it down, is that he always surprises me.

He's got insomnia-- might be a side effect of the PTSD, or the anxiety, or the depression. But when I can't sleep, chances are good he's got the TV on upstairs when I go to get a glass of water, and if I've got the TV on when he comes down he's as likely to watch with me as to go into the bedroom.

About an hour ago he went into the bedroom, asking me "Do you plan on working tomorrow?" Yes. Whether I'm rested or not, I have to.

And then he came back out and sat down at the family computer. I felt guilty, thinking I'd kept him up, but he said I wasn't to blame for it.

Then he asked me about some web address I'd never seen before. And told me to check out the blog on the page.

It was interesting to read, for sure; the X-Files fan in me liked it, and the ex-propagandist in me didn't think it too unplausible.

But the fact remains that it's ten of four in the morning and I'm talking government conspiracies with my dad. And I'm still not really tired. And I don't know who to trust in any case, can never tell when he's joking or when he's serious or when he's baiting me into saying something dumb, which he really doesn't do often at all but I think he's doing all the time, pretty much whenever conversation gets deeper than small talk.

And I have so much to say about him and no idea how to put it. And I wonder if I'm really my father's daughter as much as I am my mother's; it's so easy to see what she gave to me, but everything of him is less blatant, just hints-- the thickness of my hair, the freckles that all faded, the way I want to believe the best in people and give them everything I can to help them, the way I can't sleep and sometimes I just can't handle leaving the house. Nothing you can tell at first glance.

It's rare, but now and then someone will say I look like my father. And I have to wonder just what it is they're seeing.

It's so fucking WEIRD to think that I'm almost twenty. I mean, big deal, right? Most of my friends are past this milestone already. And twenty isn't anything important legally, I've got one more year to go before everything that WILL be legal IS legal for me to do.

But still. Twenty. 2-0. No more ones to start it with. It takes me so long to remember a new year on my checks and papers, how long will it take me to stop writing that 1 when the box asks me "age"?

And what does it really mean? Two decades? Seven thousand, three hundred sunrises, sunsets, give or take a few leap years? Thousands of books, hundreds of movies? Hundreds of thousands of songs?

How many friends? How many people know my name now? How many people have I made smile? Or cry? How many people have I loved, or loved me?

How many fears have I overcome? It doesn't feel like many. But I don't scream at bugs any more, and I enjoy thundrestorms. How many shooting stars have I seen? Or rainbows? More rainbows, for sure.

And how much do I still have ahead of me? How many kisses have I not given yet, stories haven't I written, jokes haven't I cracked? How many comments haven't I left on other people's journals yet? How many times will I vote, and will I ever be on the winning side? Will I ever be able to eat salmon again without getting sick? Or learn how to make sushi? Or really perfect the tree posture, or go to Europe, or try mushrooms, or grow a rosebush, or... I don't know.

So much to do. And really, twenty's a good age to be. Out of the teens, and all that angst and stuff with it. Not old, though. Life spans being what they are, I could be just a quarter through my life right now. (Knowing my family's medical history, I've got about a 50% chance of dying in my 60s. So it could be a third through. Still.) And I'm not even there yet, I've got-- what, seventeen days to go? Yeah.

July 19th. Seventeen days to go. I'm only going to be a teenager for a little over two more weeks. What should I do?! :3

So. Because I'm horribly self-conscious... I mean, because I want to make being friended to me a more enjoyable experience for you all.... okay, a little bit of both, plus the fact that hey, I'm going to have this journal forever now, I should at least see what people dig about it and work on making it more digable....

I present to you a poll! :D (Please indulge me. I'm heatstricken and sleepless and desperate for something to do.) So go ahead, be honest, be honest in the COMMENTS if you have to go past the ticky things and clicky things.

[Poll #522005]

Merci beaucoup and thank you for helping me make my journal a better place. :D