I'll give my words in one lesson

Today was alright, hung out with my folks, my mom's doing a little better. Walked again for the first time since awhile ago (I'm so descriptive). Got Friday off, I have a cache of paid time off I was saving up for school that I no longer need, plus we get more in June. I may or may not have made buddies with Julie's friends I met the other week. Two of them have friended me on livejournal (I have an acct. there that links to this, that I basically use to read my friends lj's), but sometimes people friend me on livejournal and I never see them again, I dunno. If you guys are reading, though, hey! I have a lot of time on my hands! Let's be best friends! I have caaaandy....... Well, I don't, but I could buy some. And give it to you!

Yesterday sucked, the U of I news sort of shattered any fragile semblence of coping with everything else I've fabricated in the last few weeks. Josh left me a sympathetic txt message when he read the blog, and I called him up to cry for a couple hours, which helped a lot.

No other news, I guess. Which, with my luck lately, no news is good news.

Awesome

So I didn't get into U of I.

I want my 70 dollars back. And the time I wasted writing all those essays.

afds

Today blew. I dunno why, it's not like I got particularly horrible people today or anything. I just felt like I was jumping out of my skin the whole time, which is just a symptom of being me sometimes, I guess. I couldn't stop looking at the clock to see if I could go home yet. The other shit thing is that when I had a day like that before, I could sometimes make myself feel better by thinking, "I can call my favorite person in the world when I get home, and it'll be okay," but I can't really now. And then thinking about that just got me depressed again. But the main problem was just being antsy as hell.

Yesterday was awesome, though. Julie was in town for this party with some of her friends and invited me over. And it was a nerd party, not a real party (i.e. games and talking instead of loud music and drinking) which made it totally awesome. Even more awesome is they totally got me. Stuff like this just makes me wonder why the hell I can't make friends most of the time, because I'll occaisionally go to a party or something like this and it just clicks, everyone loves me, I love them, shit is gold. Anyway, this is the first gathering I've gone to since my housewarming party, which wasn't even that great, and it's the first time I've really had fun and enjoyed myself doing something since the break up. So it was a really, really good day. And it was awesome to see Julie again, I miss her.

Another really fun thing about it is the main part of the evening was spent playing rock band, which the guy whose house we were at just got. I sang most of the time, because I'm kind of crappy at video games, but that was fun too, and you sort of had to have a strategy about it. And I was amazed at how many of the songs were actually pretty good, I think it must've been aimed for people my age, cause there was lots of grunge and stuff from the nineties. The older stuff was cool, like Blitzkrieg Bop (strangely, the thing I was most awesome at singing) and the newer stuff was good too, RHCP, Killers. I did try bass on easy, which was fun too, only my freakishly small hands hurt trying to reach the keys. Even creating our people was fun, my chick was a freakishly tiny angry black woman garbed from head to toe in neon pink. All in all: a very good day.

Susan experienced some shortness of breath yesterday and tried her inhalers but they didn't seem to work. So today we went in to see her Oncologist, Dr. Sriratana. We ended up over at Bromenn for Xrays which didn't appear materially different from when she had her scans. Then she had a CT Scan to see if there were any pulmonary embolisms, i.e. clots in her pulmonary system. There weren't but Dr. Sriratana thought one of the tumors in her lungs looked like it was pressing on a blood vessel. The recommended course of action is to go in Monday for a treatment (not sure what it is) consisting of an IV for approximately an hour, to be repeated weekly. She is able to breathe easier when laying down as opposed to being upright (sitting or standing) so he is probably correct in diagnosing a pressure problem. We tried to have the treatment yet today but it was too late. Hopefully, this problem will respond to the IV. It sure isn't fun feeling like you can't get air but her blood oxygenation is around 98 which is pretty good. Will let you know if anything else transpires.

So I guess I'm wrong again.

asdf

So my mom was supposed to start chemo again this week, but she didn't. She started feeling worse again. My dad thinks it's weird, since she was off the other chemo for awhile, he'd think she'd stay the same or get better. Personally, I think she might be faking. I mean, we can all agree she definitely feels like shit. But I don't think she wants to go on another round of chemo, and I don't really want to blame her. After what the first one did to her, when she was basically healthy, I don't think she can handle another round. Then on top of it, will it really help any? It's probably just going to buy her another couple months, if that. And since she has not really bounced back at all from the previous chemo... I think any time bought will be miserable time.

I don't know, she's very brave and strong. I would be crying every day. Hell, I do do that every day and my problems aren't as bad.

On the other hand I don't want her to die. When that time runs out... that's it. I won't have a mom anymore. I don't believe in god or heaven, and I don't know if she does either. That'll be it. She'll just be dead. I will never ever see her again and every time I try to wrap my mind around it all I want to do is curl up into a little ball and never do anything ever again.

Today was sort of meh. I had lady troubles, which always sucks. Then I went over to my parents house to be around my mom, but she slept most of the time anyway. Then, the major reason to go over there, is my dad and I then went to my sister's house to take the Phew to the Gamma Phi circus.

Which... did not work very well. I guess I just assumed he was normal, cause I am not really around little kids too much, but I was wrong. He must have ADD. Or some concentrated super ADD. I swear to god he would not sit down in his seat for one second. And all around us were little kids who stayed seated and attentive the whole time. Plus he didn't like the circus too much, though like I said he wasn't even really paying attention to the acts. Anyway the circus itself was pretty cool, but I began to get annoyed with him after awhile of this. Not to be a douche, cause I do love the kid, but he is totally out of control. He never does anything any adult tells him to, not even his parents. Maybe he is better about it in daycare, cause I can't see them backing down all the time like his parents do, but he can be totally obnoxious sometimes. It was a huge battle just to get him to eat dinner before the circus, and not just drink his pop and eat his candy.

I feel bad thinking things like that about him, because I do love him, and I used to like being around him a lot more. But seriously... if this kid was not related to me, I think I would've wanted to smack him numerous times, which in my opinion, is not really a good thought to inspire in most grownups you encounter when your'e a kid. Who am I to judge though? The precise reason I've never wanted kids is because I know I would do an even worse time raising them.

Dear diary, today I ate an enormous bowl of pudding.

dad

In general, I am bad at cheering people up. I can't tell you how many times I've had people just not like it when I try. Anyway, I'm beginning to think it might be a hereditary trait.

Today my dad came over to help me get my caremark card, which, I've been meaning to do for awhile. But then of course there were 18 different home improvement projects he wanted to help me with. Which, I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, I probably couldn't do any of this on my own and it is awesome of him to help, but I don't usually feel like doing them even when I'm in a good mood, and I'm certainly not in a good mood now. But we got through that.

Then he just started in on everything again. He and I have sort of been in conflict recently, because I told him that therapist said I should maybe try antidepressants. And I told him I don't know yet, but I have been fairly depressed for awhile. Except for a brief window when I started at Borders, I've pretty much been depressed since high school, and even then I wasn't really peppy mcpepperson. And again I got into how I think most of the choices I've made with my life suck, and I've wasted a lot of time so far doing jobs I hate, and I've acquired no marketable skills. Which, it's sort of an arguement, and it made me feel worse, so I ended up crying again. Which is the second time since all this started when we've gotten into an argument and it's made me feel even worse.

I know he's trying his best and all, it's just hard.

life

So I still don't feel awesome, but I am getting a lot better. I think the second email Josh sent where he said he hadn't secretly hated me the whole time did a lot to make me feel better, and when we finally talked and put an end to this whole thing. I've gone from crying all the time to being mostly normal most of the time, with a few unfortunate moodswings. They're getting less intense and less long, though. I've gotten to the point where I can usually distract myself with a mind-numbing game or talking to a friend. Ryan and Tina have been especially helpful in this respect, for which I thank them.

The stuff with my mom is still sort of there, but now that I'm not so upset about everything, I'm getting better at pushing it all to the back burner for now.

And I do miss Josh, so much. And I think we are going to still be friends. It just isn't the same though, and I miss him. But it's not constantly dominating my every waking moment anymore, which is good.

So as of last night Josh and I are officially broken up. He sent me another email that was nicer than the last one, basically apologetic for what a crappy person he thinks he is. I couldn't tell whether or not he wanted to break up so I called him until he finally talked to me. He said he did want to break up. He wouldn't tell me whether or not he still loves me, which I wish I knew. I told him I felt like he didn't really like me for a long time and our whole relationship was a lie, but he said he did love me for most of it, which made me feel better. We are going to try to be friends, which also makes me feel better. I already lost my boyfriend, I don't want to lose him as my best friend either.

However I still do feel shitty. I feel sort of bad that even though I do feel bad about my mom, I feel worse about my break up. I went to Borders yesterday because I couldn't stand being alone in this house anymore, but then there was no one good there. I realized I didn't belong there anymore, but I haven't found anywhere else I belong either, and that depressed me. I don't know how to belong again, the first time, it was a fluke. Then I just hung around various shops in the area, like Shoe Carnival, Petco, etc. cause I didn't feel like going home again, until I could tell they were getting annoyed with me hanging around not buying anything.

Today I had my first session of therapy, and I'm sort of underwhelmed. Her basic thing about the break up and my mom is to just keep crying and stuff cause I need to get all that out. Her advice about how I hate my job and don't know how to make friends is "you'll find that again someday" even though I explained that I don't even know what job I want, even the stupid stepping stone jobs like going into claims are hard to get into, and I don't know how it was easy to make friends one freaking time in my life, and if I knew how to make friends, I would have more already. She said to not worry so much abour work or no friends while I'm grieving my mom and my relationship. But it's all tied in. I feel defective, and not just because of how things went with Josh.

I have this thing like drunk dial at night when I'm trying to fall asleep, only its when I'm sad and sober. I've usually been crying for hours, and I feel like I'll go crazy if I can't stop it, and the only thing I can do is call someone.

So I called Josh. And I left a message that was basically like, "You owe me some sort of closure. If you are breaking up with me tell me. And do it over the phone, I deserve better than some crappy email breakup."

Then I called my dad, and we talked for hours. I think one reason I feel so bad about this whole thing is that I feel like I'm defective and valueless to everyone. Because I don't have friends, and employers aren't fond of me either. And Josh, being the only person not related to me (i.e. my parents HAVE to love me unless they're completely awful) who didn't think i was defective, going ahead and doing this to me, just pulled the rug out from underneath my feet. I'm not saying he shouldn't break up with me, because the email he sent me sounds like he's not liked me for a real long time. In fact, he should've probably broken up with me ages ago. But anyway, I think what I needed was just someone to talk to about this. I've felt so alone. I signed up for therapy for christ's sake.

Anyway this morning when I woke up, I didn't feel awesome, but at least I'm not crying constantly.

Of course, Josh has still not emailed me back or phoned me. Though to give him the benefit of the doubt, latter is probably because he's either at work right now and/or because he doesn't know I left work early yesterday/am not working today because my supervisor let me have some time off since I was crying on the phone.

Oh anyway, like I said, I don't fault him for breaking up with me, I just fault him for the way he's doing it. Secretly hating me for months, and not telling me. Then letting it all bottle up to the point where he kicked me out on our anniversary, lying about it not being something I did. Then torturing me with silence until I did a sad non-drunk drunk dial. Then sending me an email spelling out his loathing for me, complete with wild accusations. Then torturing me with silence again. Are you breaking up with me or aren't you? Just tell me so I can get on with my life.

If you are reading this, Josh, I meant it about still being friends. But yeah, I am kind of angry at you, and my blog is where I vent. So you probably don't want to read any entries in the next few days or so unless you like bitter recriminations against yourself.

asdf

So last night I was pretty depressed. I thought of calling a suicide hotline. I don't want to kill myself or anything, I just wanted to talk to someone. I cried for hours and hours. I was trying to be strong and not bother Josh while he was trying to be alone and work out whatever his problem was. Anyway I finally txted him "how could you do this to me again? I told you what it was like last time." Cause the last time we fought I cried and cried then too, and I told him what it was like.

Anyway I guess we're probably going to break up now. To be honest, I was already thinking about it. I can't take the crying all the time. I thought maybe since I still love him it might be enough to stay together, but I don't think he loves me anymore. He sent me this big long email that's basically about how everything I do annoys him and he doesn't like hanging out with me more than a day or two at a time because I get old pretty quickly. I don't really get why he started disliking me and the things I do, because I haven't really changed at all, but I guess that's his perogative. He can't be the only one who feels that way, as most of my other friends don't talk to me either.

I think where I work we get access to 5 free sessions of therapy or something, and I'm looking into getting mine. I don't think this crying all the time is probably good, because I've even had it when we were just having a regular argument.

more self pity

I guess it's finally hit me about my mom. At first I was worried that I wasn't sad or worried enough, but now I think about it all the time. Yesterday I visited her and got a bunch of recipes. I was originally planning on doing this when I moved, because now I have the room to actually cook. But of course she's been feeling too sick to do it with me. So now that she has a break from chemo, we've been doing it.

Anyway, what should've orig. been fun turned into this morbid thing where we could both tell that my aim turned from "get the recipes now that I have moved," to "this might be the last chance I have to get these recipes before you die." Some of them don't even have specific amounts, she was going to just cook them with me so I could see what the various consistencies were supposed to be. And every time she mentioned that, I was thinking about how she never would.

She, on the other hand, was amazingly chipper. More chipper even, than I've seen her without cancer, which makes me think it's a show. And also makes me sad that she thinks she has to put on a show for me. You are allowed to be depressed if you have cancer. I'm depressed and I'm not even the one with it.

Then on top of that, of course, I have the guilt from the difficult relationship and the off and on hating of her I've harbored in the past.

mother nature's bitch

I'm feeling somewhat worked over lately, by the world.

I have a shitty, low-paying job that I hate, and the way to move up is to take a slightly better paying shitty job that I would also hate.

My mom is dying. I try to be optimistic about this, but it's hard when the first run of chemo didn't work, and they orig. told us that if the first round of chemo didn't work it would be bad. Not helping is my pessimistic father.

All my friends left town and/or are not speaking to me.

Most recently, my boyfriend kicked me out (well, he asked, which is more polite, but I hate to use "asked me to leave" because it makes it sound like I had a choice) on our six month anniversary. He wouldn't even tell me what I did. When I asked why, he said, "well you did do some things that annoyed me, but mostly I just want to be alone."

All I have to say, is please god, mother nature, whoever: please, please, do not kill any of my other family members or burn my house down.

I'll play you a prostiTUNE on my WHOREmonica.

So today was an interesting day at work for a change. For basically two reasons.

1) Apparently my crappy geocities comic page* has been outed. A dude I somewhat know from training stopped me in the hall today and told me it was awesome. This made me feel good and bad.

Good: It is very flattering to anyone when anyone compliments their crappy geocities comic page.* Especially if they are as shitty at drawing as I am. It also makes me glad that there are other people where I work who share the same weirdo sense of humor I have. Okay, I sorta knew it about this guy already, we'd already had a brief conversation on UCB once, and caught him making a Bloodhound Gang reference too. I've never really been able to connect with him, or anyone I thought cool, because I am socially retarded, and it's hard to make friends with anyone anyway during 20 second snippets of conversation between calls. I asked him how he found it, and he said another dude from my training class told him, another dude I knew was somewhat cool already due to a few brief conversations months ago. So I guess it can only be good news that two people I thought of as friend material in the beginning (substitute UCB & Bloodhound gang with a discussion on TMBG, blowing up the building and another on clowns) think I am funny.

Bad: There are a lot of people that I do NOT want seeing this. I'm basically making fun of customers, talking about drugs, and or being creepy/filthy for most of it, which is probably something that does not look good to management. I tried not to come out and say which company I work for in them, but there are a couple that are indicative. And if it's that easy to randomly find it, I'll have to take it down. I saw the guy who supposedly linked it to the guy I talked to on my way out of work today, and wanted to ask him, but he was with a couple of other people who I don't know at all and hence don't know whether I should bring it up in front of them. Plus I feel weird going up and asking him anything. The first guy and I have stayed somewhat friendly (saying hi in hallways and all that) but the other dude and I never talk.


2) I had a long talk with my supervisor RE: what I should do with my career. He and I have been corresponding via email a little while, and I guess he decided it was best to just have an actual face to face conversation and get it all out. Anyway, I can't decide how I feel about the conversation. I mean, I'm glad we talked. I'm glad he showed an interest, because he seems to be very big on people asking for help before he gives it to them, whereas some of the other supervisors seem to be a little more proactive about helping their people. I don't know if it's necessarily his fault, because I've been shuffled around quite a lot since I started, but when I talk to other people they seem to know a lot more about the opportunities around (not so much promotional opportunities, but the things around the dept. I work in now that look good on a resume) than I do, and have already gotten on committees, and have talked to efficiency leaders and done a million other things that will help them out and I've just sort of gone in every day doing my job not really knowing I was supposed to know about and ask for all these things. Anyway, he's seemed sort of distant to me. So I'm glad I got to know him a little more, and I'll probably feel more comfortable asking him things in the future.

But as for actual career prospects I feel about as on the fence as ever. He seems to be pushing taking a job in claims. Not pushing, per se, he told me to feel free to go for anything else. But he sort of laid it out why it's way easier to get a job in claims than anything else at that pay level (significantly higher than my current one, btw) and how it gives me more experience to put on my resume and look good if I want another job at that pay level. He said I shouldn't be afraid to try it even though a lot of people I know (including him) hate/hated working in that dept. Things turn out alright! I might love it!

My thing is I'm already working with 18 year old kids. Which means I'm like 8 years behind everyone else, basically. I don't really want to waste more time on something I hate before I get a job I can actually like. I'm terrified of spending my entire working life doing shitty jobs that I hate and finally finding one I love like 5 years before I retire, and having it pass in an eyeblink because the older you get the faster time passes. And he was going on about positioning yourself so that when all the baby boomers retire you can shoot up to the top. And I'm afraid that I won't be in that position, and everyone else will just rocket past me and I'll still be doing shit jobs because I don't know how to get the right skills.

He also made me realize how freaking confused I am in general, I don't even know what I want. He asked me what I wanted in a job. What I want is a degree of creativity and to actually like the people I talk to every day, and interact with people I like every day. And he was talking about how librarian is actually more of a solitary job, if you're going into corporate library, and do I want to stay with the company or not? And I don't even know. I'm going to spend two fucking years and a TON of money on a degree I'm not even sure of. I wanted something like Borders but with more respect & above poverty level wages (not to mention no psycho tami), I guess, but that is probably not how it is, I don't even know. Academic librarianship sounds SO fun, but they're downsizing hardcore, corporate library seems to be the way to go with that.

I told him how I loved TV when I was in college, and how bad the reality was. He made me sort of feel like a tool for not sticking it out and getting better at driving, though I don't think he did it intentionally.

He told me about how he kicked around doing a lot of different jobs for awhile before he got where he was, and how it all turned out alright. But again that terrifies me, I don't want to kick around 10 more years hating life and myself and the jobs I'm doing before I can get into anything worthwhile. And he told me about his Dad, and how his dad had passion for his job and how he'd always envied it until he found out what it was about his dad's job that was great and how he could get it for himself in a different way. And he told me this story about his dad when he retired which, basically is the end of Mr. Holland's Opus, if you're curious, which made me depressed that there are people like that in real life who really make a difference in people's lives and that I'll never be one of them.

So it sort of made me depressed, which I don't think he was trying to do. But I guess what I'm supposed to take from it is that sometimes jobs you think won't work for you do, and if they don't that's okay too. And I should try for whatever I want (even though I don't know what it is) but I shouldn't rule out anything I don't want either if it could be a good move for me. Which, I don't know. I'm still about as confused and depressed as before.

----
* There's a chance that it's my crappy photobucket page which has less about my poop than on geocities, but more weird photos.

comiques!

new comic.

This is actually what I thought when I came upon that ingriedient in a bottle of shampoo. And I was like, "Hm, I don't think I want that near my hair."

Another one is the based on a conversation I had with my Roni, obviously.

Terriers

Today I was going around in my "Terriers" T-Shirt I got in like, Jr. High or Grade School. It is possibly the lamest article of clothing I own. It says "Terriers" then has a cartoonish picture of every breed, I can probably only recognize half of them at best (Schnauzer, Scottie, Jack Russell, Spuds MacKenzie, etc). But then I realized it is probably the COOLEST shirt I own, because of the Kids in the Hall Terriers song. For instance: studies show they (terriers) prolong old people's lives. Also, Napoleon had one to prevent misery.

Damn good times

Man, I say if you haven't ever took a 20 minute long crap with a hyper kitten in the bathroom with you who needs to be constantly entertained to stop it from attacking your legs, you have not lived! It wasn't unpleasant, per se, just weird. Anyway, the kitten in question is the Roni's roommate's. She's super cute, but crazy as hell.

Another thing I did in Pewhoria is visit Just For Fun which was this cool game store. I did have to admit to the Roni that that is one area in which Pewhoria beats out the B-Niz, because as far as I know we don't have any decent game shops. Anyway, they don't have very much in the way of normal games. There were a couple themed monopoly's, but that was about it. But they have a million interesting nerdy/dorky games. They have the Magic cards and RP stuff you'd expect, but the bulk of their stuff actually does seem to be random goodness.

They have all the Killer Bunnies, they have Rio Grande games (Bohnanza, Puerto Rico, etc), they have the Looney Labs games (Fluxx, Chrononauts, etc), an an enormous lot of ones I've not heard of. I think I could spend hours in there, if only reading the descriptions of games didn't get boring after awhile.

He also bought and cleaned strawberries for me and showed me Paul Rudd's buttocks.

what's up

Man... I wonder if in the last few weeks I've become borderline agoraphobic or something. Though, I hate to use that word, since I know someone actually agoraphobic, and it's a real problem, whereas I'm probably just lazy. Anyway, I've just noticed I don't really want to go out anywhere anymore if I'm alone. There are errands that I've been putting off months, literally. Even simple ones like going somewhere a block away for just one thing. Even fun things that require going somewhere I put off or don't do at all. I don't know, maybe I'm crazy. Even though it is getting better, it IS cold still, and I've always hated going out in the cold. It just always seems like going out is going to take this monumentous amount of energy that I just don't have when I'm alone.

Oh well, I'm probably full of it.

In other news, I'm pregnant. And now you can say you've seen the april fools joke with the least amount of effort put into it ever.