Tuesday, July 25, 2006

yay, apathy. eh.

class. over soon. in 12 hours. lots of happy hour'ing going on afterwards in celebration. so tired.

alvin and i finally for the last time for real broke things off tonight. i haven't talked much about that on here lately because the process of deciding to get divorced has looked like this: separate, decide to get divorced, try to work it out, decide it won't work, decide it might, get back together, break up (repeat). it's a rather prolonged, annoying process and i'm pretty sure my friends are all like, what are you doing?! why is it taking so long? so i just try not to talk about it. the only thing that makes me feel better about this is that my therapist said it's completely normal, it's just been a more external process for me than for some people. some people apparently go through this back and forth thing in their head and then make a decision, so no one hears about all the back and forthness. freaks. i'm all about external, obviously. i broadcast the minute details of my life on the internet and it doesn't get much more external than that.

anyhow, alvin's happy about getting back together with his girlfriend, whom he had broken up with to see if we could work things out (nope, can't). i'm all kinds of tired and wanting this to be over. he was so happy when we made this decision he nearly choked on his dinner. then he text messaged his girlfriend. it would have been nice if he could have waited until, i don't know, i was out of sight, but no. yay for them. they can have each other. i'm actually at the point where i don't care. as much caring as i've been doing the past few months, there's something to be said for that.

Monday, July 24, 2006

reject.

three years and five months ago on a rainy thursday morning when i was living in this same house, i walked through the kitchen and ran into a chair with my foot--my left foot--and broke my little toe. it turned black and purple and hurt like hell, and it hasn't been the same since. the bone is all fucked up and it hurts when it rains. and months later my toe nail fell off, completely unprovoked. that was when i knew that was the reject toe, and if it weren't necessary to keep it in order to walk and to maintain toe symmetry it would so be out of here.

tonight while mocking my sister, because she was mocking me (she started it), i walked through the kitchen and did it again: i hit a chair in the exact same location with the same toe. lots of screaming commenced and shannon was kind enough to get some ice for my foot in between bouts of laughter. this is totally karma because my mom used to break her toes all the time and i used to laugh (i was young; i thought it was bizarre that she broke her toes with such frequency BUT NOW I UNDERSTAND). i'm not sure that my toe is broken but it definitely isn't feeling good. really, it's hard to tell what's up with it since it's still messed up from the last run in it had with a chair. it hasn't turned purple yet so i guess that's a good sign.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

if life were a musical.

it's saturday night and i'm home alone watching rent, the movie. the musical movie. i'm antisocial and he movie's kind of lame but i'm liking the aloneness, especially since it means that no one is complaining that i'm making them watch a bad movie.

i kind of want to sing all of my conversations now. i want to be like the characters in this movie and sing about how cold it is since my heat was turned off and how i can't afford to pay rent and how my T cell count is low. is it horrible that i'm amused that the HIV/AIDS support group is singing about their problems? is that supposed to be funny? this is why i love musicals. they're completely ridiculous.

speaking of ridiculous, shannon's boyfriend was hanging out in her room while she was at work today, and at some point while i was otherwise preoccupied with nintendo i heard fuck! fuck! fuck! but since it takes more than that to get my attention when the legend of zelda is involved, i ignored it. pete later told me that loomis--shannon's snake--had escaped and was busy fighting off the kitties. he put loomis back in the aquarium and i've been completely paranoid ever since. i keep checking on him to make sure he's still in there, though if he got out again i don't know what i would do (leave the house?). shannon's not all that helpful, either, because when i was like, dude, your snake escaped, she was all, no it didn't. what snake? loomis isn't venomous, but he is about three feet long and waking up with a snake in my bed is going to make the stove-peeing cat look good.

ETA: okay, i suppose if rent people are going to insist on dying, i'll quit laughing.

Thursday, July 20, 2006

everyone should be like me.

this week has been crazy busy, with presentations and papers and more papers and classes and sitting in coffee shops all day writing papers and racking up huge tabs. i asked the professor that is making us attend classes the day after classes are over what's up with us having to be in class on a non-class day, and she didn't like that question so much. so. there will be class next wednesday, and i will be there.

i'm trying to convert shannon to the dark side--social work, i mean. she needs a major, i like to recruit people to my school, it's a win-win situation. everyone should be a social worker. i think she's halfway convinced. it's either that or she's going to get a psychology or english degree, and i tried to explain to her that getting a liberal arts degree is about as useful as not having gone to college at all, which i'm sadly familiar with. i cried the day i got my diploma, and not because i was happy. my diploma says i have a bachelor's degree in liberal arts. it's like UT wants to rub it in just how useless my degree is. they couldn't even bother to mention that i have an anthropology degree, not even in fine print at the bottom of my diploma.

word on the sunscreen.

this makes me sad. i hope dooce is okay.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

no lo comprendo.

the only thing more amazing than the number of group projects i am required to be part of for school (one per class, at least), is the number of interventions that need to take place because of the group projects. i never expected so much conflict. it's so bad that i think we should be required to take a class on it. maybe something like, how to deal with that one person in your group who won't do any work when everyone else in the group is totally non-confrontational (and working their asses off to pick up the slack) in a way that won't ruin your entire semester and/or your project and/or your reputation. yes, that.

school is technically over july 25th, but for some reason that i'm not comprehending, one of my professors is making us attend our two-and-a-half hour class and turn in papers on july 26th. this would be THE DAY AFTER THE SEMESTER IS TECHNICALLY OVER. i think we need to point this out to her, because, dude, no.

Monday, July 10, 2006

happy 26th birthday to me!

one year closer to 30, which i sekritly look forward to.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

ghosts, perhaps.

my parents came into town and took me out for a pre-birthday dinner celebration sunday evening. there were presents, in the form of many gift cards, and for some reason i ended up with three birthday cards from them. one from each parent and one from (i probably shouldn't admit this) their cat. they were trying to cheer me up. it worked. except the cat, when he wrote in the date of my birthday on the card, he got it wrong. he was off by four days. for some reason the cat wrote july 7, which happens to be my parents' anniversary. which, incidentally, i totally forgot about. maybe he was trying to tell me something? my mom corrected the date on my card and apologized. for the cat's mistake.

i'm not sure i should precede what i'm about to say with what i just said, because i don't think i'm lending any legitimacy to my next story, or to anything my parents say ever. anyhow.

during dinner we had a discussion about the status of the ghost in my parents' house. i always forget about it, which is probably a good thing considering it's one of those things i don't need to remember when i visit. growing up, my sister and i were scared of the master bedroom. we didn't go in there much and when we did we always ran through it because it was creepy (i still avoid it). it never occurred to me that rooms aren't supposed to make you feel like that; i just accepted it. the room only got creepier after shannon and i saw an outline of a person walking through the bathroom on several occasions. as a child i remember thinking, kids see things! i'm just imagining this! years later when we told our parents about it, they were all, yeah, we see it too. and i was like, what do you mean YOU SEE IT TOO? really, that's not an acceptable answer. normal parents aren't supposed to corroborate ghost stories, they're supposed to tell you you have an active imagination and that your house isn't haunted. at the very least they could have lied to me.

so far the only paranormal activity i'm aware of has been the bathroom ghost sightings (why the bathroom? why?) and doors opening and closing on their own. my stepbrother just visited my parents for a week and was so freaked out by the door to the guest bedroom opening by itself that he refused to sleep in there and slept on the living room couch instead. he's 39. and otherwise well adjusted.

the ghost thing isn't surprising considering our house, our entire neighborhood really, was built on an old indian reservation. i tried to research it to find out which tribe was living there and has taken up residence in our house, but there were quite a few so i'm not sure who to attribute the ghostiness to. this sounds like something out of a bad movie. a bad made-for-tv movie based on a stephen king book, like maybe pet cemetery, only with people instead of cats, and less death.

Friday, July 07, 2006

keywords that lead to my blog, part III

  • stalking objectification
  • objectification and oppression of women in marriage
  • katie llama trent reznor
  • beagle bark dysfunctional
  • do female rabbits thump
  • incessant sniffing and licking in 13 in beagles
  • macramae how to
  • deviance and therapy
  • how can i stop my cat from peeing on my belongings
  • how to get a beagle to stop barking during the night
  • should i become a flight attendant
  • perpetually sarah
for the inquiring minds that want to know: the cookie was v. good.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

library.

i'm at the library, ostensibly writing the introduction to this super long group project paper (one of two) that is due in a couple weeks. i'm having trouble writing. the introduction. why can't i just blog for a grade instead?

i have this cookie i want to eat, but it's so freaking quiet in here that i'm hesitant to even try to open the wrapper because it's loud and it sounds like i'm opening a cookie. the library people finally decided that it's permissible for students to bring in drinks with them as long as the drinks have lids, but cookies are not okay. it's bad enough that i have to type in here. it's all echoy. and my stomach is making all kinds of loud and unacceptable gurgling noises.

also, i'm completely distracted by the sign next to me: DO NOT LEAVE LAPTOPS AND VALUABLES UNATTENDED AND AVAILABLE FOR THEFT!

i think it's the "available for theft" part that keeps drawing me in. i never thought of my belongings as being available to be taken--shouldn't it be clear that they're unavailable for the taking because they belong to me? i thought so. the girl a couple seats away took the top portion of her laptop with her (the monitor/keyboard) so the sad, empty laptop shell is sitting on her desk with some other stuff that is totally available but not worth thieving.

this is not unlike the parking permits that UT issues, the ones that hang from your review mirror and have printed on the back: REMOVE VALUABLES FROM CAR AND LOCK DOORS TO PREVENT THEFT.

it seems strange to me that we put the burden on people who have belongings not to let them be stolen. i understand why it's necessary, but locking your doors doesn't prevent theft. it merely deters it. that wording always bothered me.

okay, i need to quit procrastinating and find a way to covertly open and eat my cookie.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

i'm so not down with this.

i realize it's probably unfair of me to complain that alvin has a girlfriend, but the part of me that is complainy is all kinds of wtf? about it. i called him tonight because the past couple days have been kind of unhappy, and i thought that since he's the main cause of my recent unhappiness then he can help fix it or at least maybe say something, anything, to make me feel better. he wasn't helpful, really, and i didn't necessarily expect him to be but i thought i'd try because everything else i'm doing? it's not making me feel any better. the new girl was at the house taking care of him because he's not feeling well. (i've been replaced with a newer model. i'm expendable. i know, i'm the one who left. but still. people wait longer to replace their dead pets with new ones than he waited to replace me. just sayin'.)

the one thing that made my evening okay was that in the middle of being extra upset, david came home with lots of tasty food from central market. he asked what was up and i said i was plotting my death--i'm not, far from it, i just enjoy making bad jokes at inopportune moments--and he said that what i needed was chips and hummus. so he kept me occupied with food until i quit crying, not unlike how you would treat a cranky two year old. regardless, it was sweet.

so. relationships are stupid. mine, especially. i hate what this is doing to me, particularly since i thought i was okay. i really want to hate alvin and i can't because alvin's totally unhateable. i want him to be happy, just not at my expense.

Monday, July 03, 2006

i'll get over it. later.

so last week i met with my therapist and i was all, life is good! i have nothing to complain about! and she was like, you seem to be making progress, but you know you're not going to be this happy all the time, right? and i was all, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?

yeah. so then the weekend happened, and i hate everything again. everything everything everything. just saying. that i hate everything.

Saturday, July 01, 2006

when amicable divorces go bad.

i've tried several times this past week to call alvin and see how he's doing, but he hasn't answered his phone. until today. i can only assume he was feeling extra spiteful this morning when he finally decided to answer the phone and tell me that i'll never guess what he's been up to, and oh by the way she's hanging out in bed next to him, and that's why he has been incommunicado this past week.

i'm happy that he's happy. however. the manner in which he decided to relay that piece of information was unforgivably vindictive.

i don't know whether he realizes it or not, but he just declared war.