Mashed up and random

Not much going on over here - or, rather, everything is going on, so nothing seems interesting enough to focus on.  I've been attending my journalism classes, stalking people to track down their mailing addresses at work, and volunteering any extra time at Occupy DC.  So, I've been pretty busy - enough so that I haven't bought groceries in a month.

I just buy gallons of cookie dough ice cream instead.

DC is a very strange town.  Everyone has a uniform that they wear (company uniform or business casual) all the time.  People go to their government jobs, go to happy hour and get drunk, and then go home.  It's like a Soviet Russia stereotype!

Which isn't ironic at all...

I'm making a short documentary right now with a group of students - it should be interesting.  After filming/editing all semester, I really appreciate the effort that goes into creating a film.

Occupy DC

I confess:  I drank the Kool-Aid.

For the past few weeks I've been volunteering 16-30 hours a week in the Occupy DC kitchen serving food, sorting donations, and doing clean-up duty after the kitchen closes at 10pm.  Adding what amounts to a second job to my life has been an exhausting and injury-filled process (sprained BOTH of my ankles Sunday).

And yet, it's so worth it.

So many awesome people with interesting lives and intelligent opinions exist -it's like the quintessential local coffeehouse - but with free coffee (admittedly, only when the generator's on).  Nobody is scared of initiating a conversation and the self-selected groups of people are certainly more diverse that anywhere else I've seen in DC.  Yeah, people drink, have sex, and occasionally smoke pot, but no more so than in my college dorm floor on any given weekend.  And the conversations tend to revolve around how best to incorporate democracy in a practical fashion, not what frat party will have the best (i.e. non-roofied) beer.  If this is anything like the 1960's counter-culture, no wonder hippies are so pissed that it went away. 

Be forewarned: Kool-aid is addicting.

My commute

I sashay down to the corner with heels clip-clopping, hitting the sidewalk past buildings tall enough to make the tourists and freshmen (the only people who bother to stop and look at things) crane their neck. There, the bus stop, a clear, plexiglass construction provides shelter from wind, rain, and cars for a quick lunch break. When the red Circulator roars up, I rummage through my bag to discover an errant dollar, smooth it out to feed it to the hungry fare machine, which slurps it up impatiently, and hurry to the back of the bus and sit on a colorful, itchy window seat and stare at the scenery - stacked office buildings with trendy, colorful restaurants and story-after-story of grey windows, white walls, and brown desks. An occasional glimpse of green plant lends hope for the colorful, but that may be a trick of the heart. On the other side of the street, parks occasionally lend life and dimension to the wall of offices, with green grass and statues of dead heroic figures. Invariably, they will be empty, except for the occasional homeless person, with layers of clothes and a garbage bag full of precious possessions. As the ride up K St. goes on, the buildings get less lavish and more imperial. More trash litters the sidewalk. Gourmet food trucks - painted bright colors and decorated with clever names park on the street - waiting for hungry workers to get a sudden urge for cheesecake, mac and cheese, Italian pizza, BBQ, and organic ice cream.
My stop is next - I adjust my grip on my briefcase and stand up - hurriedly flailing for balance as the bus decelerates. I avoid the hawkers looking for unsuspecting tourists, bounce across the street, then pick my way carefully over the grates, cobbles, and homeless people covered in tarps against the marble walls of federal buildings. I cross the street, avoiding zooming taxi-cabmen, and join the throngs of cubicle-dwellers, wait for someone to open the door to my building, and head to the elevator (10th floor, if you would, please) and get ready to work.

It's depressing how accurate this is...

(credit to smbc)

We Wear the Mask

Paul Laurence Dunbar wrote this and I think it's amazing.

    WE wear the mask that grins and lies,
    It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,—
    This debt we pay to human guile;
    With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,
    And mouth with myriad subtleties.

    Why should the world be over-wise,
    In counting all our tears and sighs?
    Nay, let them only see us, while
            We wear the mask.

    We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries
    To thee from tortured souls arise.
    We sing, but oh the clay is vile
    Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
    But let the world dream otherwise,
            We wear the mask!

Been Here Before - and it hasn't gotten any better

I remember every new-school first week I've ever had - preschool where I chased my mother back to her car crying the whole way, my various elementary schools and awkward hellos, middle school - I was actually happy for this one, because I got to hide among the masses, my first high school where I hid out in the library, my second high school sophomore year where I ate my lunch in the bathroom for the first week because I didn't have anywhere else to go, my first college where I researched politics constantly to fill the hole that was left by all my friends (and th3 Goofball) leaving to grand adventures without me, and my second college, where I didn't even try to make friends.  I remember the depression, the time-wasting, the renewed focus on classes, the awkward hellos and the desperate (while trying to seem not too desperate) pleas for friends, the moping, the self-pity.

I remember being able to escape home at the end of the day.

Now that I've transferred to the other coast, I'm back to square one, with added cultural barriers and strange customs and no one that I can talk to without hiding part of myself first.  Even after being here over a month, I still get lost and have no idea how to translate friendly faces into actual friends.  I can't go home - not for the weekend, not for Thanksgiving, not for Christmas, maybe not for summer.  I'm stuck in a small, creaky room in an old hall in a school full of pretentious, wealthy clones and freezing weather and I can't escape.

Well, I could, probably.  But I am not going to - and knowing that somehow makes it worse.

My addiction

 (empty wrappers from my impromptu snack-time today)

Just so you know, I can quit anytime I want to.

.

..

...

..

.

I just really don't want to quit.

Boredom

Living away from home is giving me so much more time to do things - I make meals, have a job, have enough time to do all my homework without procrastinating, have a boyfriend, and still have enough time to ramble around the city.  And I still get home before my roommate.  I'm not really sure why this is - do I need to join more clubs?  Get a job for the weekends?  Make actual friends?  Wait for classes to start warming up?  I don't know. 
I'm so used to doing everything, I don't know how to slow down and not do things all the time. 

And most of the weekend activities here seem to being getting "shwasted", going clubbing or hooking up with someone.  Not exactly things that interest me.  I've been creating my own Washington Wanderings, but there's only so many places you can go in a walking distance of a campus, even one in a city.  On the plus side, if anyone decides to come visit, I know all the places to go - and can probably avoid getting lost on the way to see them.

Boredom is dangerous

Civilization is the collective mass of rules created by groups of people with too much time on their hands.

(source: xkcd)

A Change of Pace

So much has happened over the summer - no wonder I haven't had time to blog (the same excuse I use every year, yeah?)  But, it's valid.  This summer I helped organize a Relay for Life, transferred to another coast for school (Gah!) and did every house sitting/odd job that I was offered for college loan payment money.  Hey - the 27 K loan I took out for the year's tutition isn't going to pay itself back.  I also had fun living on Del Taco and In-n-Out while roaming around with the Nerdster and testing my alcohol-related limits (sort of - I am really bad at measuring/remembering shots and I cut myself off way early).  It was also my first summer being aware of being poor - I've always had a job since I moved out.  This summer was a break from that - for both the good and the bad.

But now I am back, and ready to blog some more! 

Maybe I won't drop out of college after all...

Transferring stinks - especially when your first choice school got behind on the whole application process.  I got a call at 6:30 am with "good news"!  It should only take another 1-3 WEEKS.  (By which time some of my other schools require a decision.)  Argh.

I've been really tired and grumpy at the Nerdster lately.  Some of that was legitimate paaaay atteeentiooon to meee and commitment issue stuff, but I just realized that I've had three periods in the past 6 weeks, so PMS had to be part of it - not to mention the lack of blood in my body which makes me all tired and defeatist.  But maybe it's over?  Oh, please let it be over.

Classes are going good - I've gotten really lazy and procrasinate-y this semester, but hopefully that won't affect my grades.  If it does, well I get to start over next year anyways; any B I might get won't actually effect my new gpa.

I'm ready for summer - and I got a call back for a job that I applied for, so I might even have money to afford school next year!

Buzzed.

It's an interesting feeling; as I'm writing this, my belly is pleasantly warm and my mind is running a thousand miles an hour, while my body just wants to lie down and relax.

But then, I'm not sure how much of my current inclinations are due to the beer - I already was in a contemplative mood and, this has been a cramp-filled, ache-y day all over. I want to go and experiment by talking to people and seeing how much I have actually been affected (besides my keyboarding skills - this has been heavily edited), but something tells me that might be a bad idea.

So, I'mma just go back to reading depressing war stories for class. My Lai Massacre ftw!!!

Moar passive-aggressive waiting games

This is so unfair. And yet, I continue. This probably makes me a bad person. Just like not going next door to help my grandpa cough out his second lung does.

But I sold my soul to be a student a long time ago - essays take priority over life.

Th3 H0rd3

So, since my grandma has passed away, my family has been trying to take all of the stuff out of her house, so the bank doesn't take it when they take the house (reverse mortgages: a pain). Even though most of her stuff had been somewhat sorted, and we had already had one pretty successful garage sale, LOTS of random items remained.

Like 100+ sets of salt and pepper shakers.

Because my family is the closest to where my grandparents used to live, and my grandpa lives with us (and because my mom did most of the cleaning) most of my grandmother's eccentric things wound up here. Now, our house, already too full to begin with, is crammed with detritus. Shelves, chairs, tables, the floor - they're all covered. We eliminated many things, but $975 in yard sale money and four+ donation truckloads later, we still have a huge mess. It's bad enough that not only is my room the cleanest in the house, but when I moved in, my father came and admired how neat my room was.

And I'm not that neat. Or anything close to it.

I also think that the boxes and boxes piling up are starting to affect my family. It's bad enough that my uncle comes over everyday and makes comments about how badly we need to clean our house, but it's worse because my father can't function with disorder. This means that he gets twitchy and becomes an unintentional grouch. My parents don't feel like they can have friends over, so they don't hang out with people outside their normally scheduled lives, which doesn't help any emotional stress they're having. Now, normally I would suggest going through everything and eliminating the unnecessary, but I doubt that anyone has a forklift that big.

At least my grandma's house is empty now.

Apparently people who don't drink can still get drunk.

On Love.

...

In my head that sounded funny. So, as you can see, I'm seriously all off-kilter with my humor. Rather, more off than usual. The reason? Th3 Nerdster - This ain't some casual fling, methinks (yeah, he decided he's pro-me). I can usually shrug off the woozy hormones after a week or two, but I've known/been going on dates with him for a month and still feel the after effects. This is not normal and is both scary and exhilarating, which makes my capacity to do useful things, like research personal narratives on rites of passage that happen in the bathroom*, diminished. Which is frustrating, as is the loss of my spare time.

But I really can't complain because he's totally worth it. We really mesh well and, despite the struggles of having 2 type A personalities in the same relationship, we're managing pretty well (adjustment issues aside). But, then, how can I judge? I'm still (!) floating on Cloud 9.

*This is actually something that I need to do - no sarcasm intended.

Th3 T4lk

'Th3 Nerdster and I are in the middle of a Talk about what our relationship (I held off a whole five days, even).  I'm not sure where it's going and I really want a hug, but would settle for music, but the only songs I can think of now are going to not help.

I should have waited to do this, but I can't keep things off my chest and I really want a hug.

...

My writing has really started to suck since I became hormonal.

Labels and Patience

During our impromptu date to go see Wicked, th3 Nerdster told me that he was feeling conflicted - he *really* likes me, but is still hung up on his ex. Or who his ex used to be. So, we are "going on dates", but not dating, which I think means that we get to go out with other people (but neither of us will), and he doesn't have to feel guilty about still liking her. Otherwise, as my non-boyfriend, he's been acting more boyfriend-y than he did as my actual boyfriend. He's holding my hand, trying to spend all sorts of time with me, giving me hugs/kisses, asking me to go with him on mundane errands. (And I'm not complaining about this - I *really, really, really* like him and want this to continue). My problem is that I'm confused - I'm not really sure what's going on - are we together? Are we not? What's the future going to hold? Is he going to decide that he can't be with me because of said feelings? Duly realized, he's only had four days to figure out a crisis of a breakup he hasn't solved in four months, but I hate waiting. Right now I don't know where I stand or what's going on - something I've never been comfortable accepting - or accepting at all.

This whole waiting-for-someone-else to-call-the-shots-thing is so not okay by me - good thing he's worth it.

I really want to be a pirate so I can flail my sword at the evil viruses and say "Avast!"

T'is true.  Also, I should not read webcomics that give viruses to people.  Not cool, Girls With Slingshots, not cool,

So apparently my current English professor knows an old English high school teacher of mine.  Is there some sort of  networking program for liberal English people?  This was sort of freaky and weird....

In other news, I'm playing a passive-aggressive waiting game with someone.  I should feel ashamed or something, I s'pose, but, eh.  My winning is more important than potentially losing the prize, which could be a problem.  (Don't get paranoid; the person doesn't read/know about this blog).

Singing with gma

Today, during one of my required concerts for my choir, I felt my grandmother in the audience.  This would be plausible, except that she's dead and therefore not interested in such things.  I even thought I saw her for a second - until it turned out to be some other old lady.

The thing is, though, I wasn't the only one who was on the Grandma-was-totally-there-in-spirit train.  My grandpa decided that he was really sad, because she would have totally dug the concert and wasn't here.  It's okay though - he decided later that he was glad he wasn't also dead (what he's been hoping for since she died a few months ago) so he could hear me sing, because I have her voice.  My mother affirmed this and went on to explain how much my grandma dug musical theater and wasn't it a shame it couldn't have happened before she died.

Not helping the whole mourning process, family, thanks.  That being said, I really miss her still.  If she was here, she would have been all over that concert, dressing up, bringing flowers, asking why didn't the director realize my inherent genius and generally fussing.  And then we would have gone out to eat and sat and talked during the meal and on the drive home.  And we can't because she is dead and I messed up my song to her at the funeral and this has been bugging me for awhile and why I don't audition for solos anymore.

So that needed to come off my chest.....

So maybe I should get off of Facebook...

I don't even have a valid excuse for procrastination and I'm not stressed enough to start attacking the mountain of work I need to do.  Solution: to-do list.

• Finish essay blurbs for college apps
• Write essays for app to Best College ever
• Go on a date (meaning get pretty for date)
• Write poli sci paper
• Figure out Waste Land thesis
• Write Waste Land paper
• Shred papers on desk
• Finish moving
• Clean room
• Laundry
• Change my car's oil
• Pick up checks from work
• Eat (This really shouldn't have to be on my list, but if I don't include it, the chances of me eating anything decline by 90%)
• Avoid talking to my uncle
• Pay for choir dress/tickets
• Put in lightbulbs
• Trade chairs

Hrm.  Maybe I can make stuff happen after all.

Th3 Nerdster

I have a long distance artistic hipster boyfriend. Who'da thunk?

This past week has been a whirlwind of dates and midnight kisses and I really should go home right now, but I don't want to's. I realized it was serious when his parents gave me spaghetti with meatballs and I ate around the meatballs. Even more so when he invited me to play D and D with his friends (I'm a neutral good gnome wizard now). I've been introduced to his friends and parents, we've already been stopped by the police for being out too late (I think the policewoman was more shocked to find us fully clothed and talking than anything else). We've had the relationship convo - and both of us are willing to commit to it. I don't think I've been this excited for awhile. And it's totally going to continue.

I was going to do a long post

but I'm gonna go meet the Boy and adventure with him instead!

Nerdy hipster adventures in parks and malls and sundry places ftw!

ARGH

I was going to post an awesome picture of epic proportions, but never mind. The sizing's all wrong and looks dumb.

Update: It's now my desktop instead.

The breather

Finally I have a weekend off! It seems like for the past month, I've been stressed and strictly in survival mode. Scratch that - when you have to give a schedule to your friends of when they can call you, so you can actually respond, there is no seeming - it just is.

But on the plus side, I think I still have A's in all of my classes, three events up and ready for the State forensics competition next week and a whole bunch of applications that are ready to be sent in to various colleges. And most of my stuff is moved into my new room (which, ironically, is my old, old room). I'm managing to start seeing people again in both senses of the word and even usually remember to shower.

Life is going to get crazy again, I have no doubt - next week is filled with homework assignments, due dates, work , friends, and a huge tournament. But it's nice knowing that, just for a bit, stress isn't obligatory.

Got Stress? Want some of mine?

I had another mental breakdown today on my way to school - you know, after I got a speeding ticket and before I walked in half an hour late. After I was delayed half an hour because I was taking care of my grandpa all morning and before I found out that my common app is due tomorrow. After tournament weekend sleep and before my work shift. After my crying jag and before calling someone. After failing at STE and before, well, failing at STE.

Yeah, still stressed. But I'm pretty sure I don't have time to talk about it with anyone.

I don't normally post twice in a day,

but then I don't normally stumble across graphs that show what names get a person more sex partners either.

Enjoy!

Phenomomenom. Omnomnom

Weird stuff has been happening to me lately, besides the whole moving out, getting a new job, going to school two different places, and pulling 3 events from the middle of nowhere.

My car started to vibrate. But really, it did. My keys were out of the ignition, the engine was off, and it vibrated with a sound like a cell phone, so much so that I started to excavate for my phone before I realized that I was actually talking on it.

Dudes keep hitting on me. Even when I'm wearing baggy clothes and whatever hair. A note to the men of the world: really? Why then? Also, pick a different month - I don't have enough time for class and eating, let alone sleep (dating is so far down, it doesn't even get mentioned). I'm going to be crabby at you or socially awkward you out.

Like the men of the world read my blog.

A shelf in my new room always seems to vibrate. Nothing on the shelf moves, and the wall isn't touching anything that vibrates, so why would this make sense? It didn't vibrate when my grandma had stuff on it, so why start now?

I own a zoot suit.

Glee is being preachy about alcohol. Really? Glee? With the cussin', singin', dancin', sextin' nonsense plots, this is the themed episode? Pot was cool, sex was cool, cheating was ... okay, and alcohol's the nono. And the lack of songs hurts my heart.

Home. Which house is it? One has my clothes, the other my books and I sleep in both rooms. I'm not sure really which is the appropriate place to designate, but I feel like I need to designate and to put the label on.

Puns. I need them for a speech, because I (gulp) think they will make it funnier. Weird right?

Bad Blogger, I know.

But so many things have been happening this past month, it's sort of crazy:

1. Location, location, location: I'm moving back in with my parents, because my grandparents house, where I was living is to be given back to the bank.  This sucks because I liked liking on my own and not feeling guilty for not taking care of other people, but it does mean that I have better and non-dramatic roommates who are way more likely to do their own dishes.
2. Arguments:  Because I thought I'd have more time, I joined another school's Forensics team (not dead bodies).  So far I think that I will have no life, but my non-life is fun.  Plus I won first place at the competition on Saturday in my division.  Not bad, for my first tournament this year.
3. Schooling: This semester, I'm taking six classes, 3 at both my normal college and at the college where I'm doing Forensics.  This is because I both need to graduate and need 6 units to be able to compete on the team.  This has made my school load pretty heavy - especially since it takes an hour to get to the other campus (without traffic and speeding).
4. Relationships: I've just recently realized that I don't actually want one, right now.  I suppose I've known this for a while, considering how much I really haven't pursued people.  But the kicker came this weekend, where a boy, after an awesome coffee date, decided we were going out.  I had to tell him no and that I wasn't interested.  I realized that I really enjoy the freedoms of being single.  The flirting, the flaunting, the secret admiring of a certain cute boy with a spiffy trenchcoat and of the business major that keeps looking awesome and being intelligent, the not having to call and care all the time - I'm too busy for a boy and I'm glad that's the case.
5. Serial killers:  The show Dexter makes me depressed because I connect with him.  Why am I connecting with the emotionless sociopath?!?  Please tell me that other people connect to him too.  Please.
6. Old people:  Well, mainly my grandpa.  I'm his helper in the mornings before his nap and my school.  I move him around and feed him, put him on the toilet and help him brush his hair.  My mother feels guilty about this, but mainly because she thinks that his is the first penis I've seen.  I find this amusing.
7. Aesthetics: I've started to care more about my appearance and experiment with jewelry, makeup and cute clothes.  Next step: break my addiction to graphic tees.

Hey. I love you.

My grandma passed away this morning.  We knew that with a rapid Stage Four lymphatic cancer, her chances weren't good.  But, shit, no one expected it to actually happen and to happen so soon.  She was supposed to have 3-6 MONTHS, not weeks.  I still don't really believe it.

I'm going to miss her.

She was an amazing, forthright woman who didn't take crap from anyone.  Between her job(s), raising five kids, volunteering on various church committees, she still found time to be a truly generous person.  She was the old lady of the neighborhood who always had ice cream in her freezer, just in case any kids came by.  The mother and grandmother who always cooked too much food (like double or triple what was needed) for the amount of people coming, because she wanted them to feel loved.  The lady so assertive, she almost got excommunicated from the Lutheran faith.  That's not to say that she was perfect - she was very inventive in her ways of getting you to agree to what she wanted (she told us grandkids when we were little that if we didn't eat her snacks, we would become anorexics and starve to death) and created messes like nobody's business.  But, man, she was an incredible, awesome, powerful lady.

I dunno how I can deal without her being here.

You won't get the satisfaction

I really want to hide and cry, but I'm leaving my door open and rocking out to tunes.  Just cause I'm not the daemon Friend One portrayed me to be.  So I hope she has fun trying to avoid my untroubled and calm self when she goes to bed.  Cause I'm not going to crawl and I doubt she'd be satisfied with anything else.

But, local people, I would appreciate some rescuing. 

Drama llama came to visit

Friend One and I are having a Situation.  Hopefully it will be resolved before the end of the day, because I can't take much more of this tension-filled, awkwardness that leads to her writing back-stabbing comments about me on Twitter.

Okay, that wasn't really fair, but I dunno how much longer I can be rational about this.

Stupid drama.  No wonder some monks live isolated and celibate.

*Warning, censored expletives used*
Update (3:49pm): Four hours later, she came home.  And doesn't want to talk yet.  Frustrating.  Especially in light of recent Twitter feeds - I dunno how many are intended for/are about me.  I'm fairly certain that "Or you could ignore me and continue to be a little b****... Thats cool too." is, since she sent a similar message to my phone, but "C**t c**t c**t youre a c**t"?  No clue.  Since that is the one word that she despises above all others, whatever the issue is, it has to be pretty bad.  And if the "Sure, you may have my sloppy seconds" was about me, what did I do to deserve it?  Social media, you are not helping.
But thank you Internetz for helping me sit around until she decides to tell me what's up.

Update (11:40pm) She still hasn't emerged from her room.  I tried to go over and make peace, but she refused to let me in.  And vetoed the idea of having a list of transgressions before I could even get the sentence out.  She's shut me out and I have only vague ideas as to why.   This is why I dislike girls.

Update (next day, 5:37pm) After deciding to start a makeup conversation, Friend One initiated by saying that she wasn't going to apologize for anything, because nothing was her fault.  She brought out a list of complaints, and wouldn't let me interject anything until she was done.  About halfway through her list, she told me that I was not socially mature enough to be her friend and that there was no point in making up, because I was too hostile and etc.  The phrase "Little Miss Perfect" got thrown in there as well.  I feel like I should be more upset about this, but mostly I'm trying to figure out what constitutes being a "social retard" and why she thinks of me as such.

Trying something new

Whining is only interesting to the person doing it, generally.  Plus, it gets old quickly.  So here are some awesome things that happened to me today.

1. My mom called me today at 6:18, waking me up and letting me be productive the whole day.
2. A rainbow floated over my bed when I came home and chilled.
3. No work today and groceries got bought.
4. Spellcheck. Saves my life.
5. No pressing OMG-I-really-have-to-do-this sort of things due today.
6. Free food, pre-prepared all day.  SO awesome.
7. I have a coloring book for a textbook.  I'm in college.
8. I can almost walk normally on my foot (sprained ankle).  Plus, I have a really good excuse not to mow the lawn or exercise for a bit.
9. I switched my CD in my car to something awesome.
10. I found out I don't have to pay rent this month.
11. I got to take a hot shower and wear lazy clothes all day.
12. I can use six pillows and still do homework comfortably on my bed.
13. My roommate gave me a copy of the Quaran, so I don't have to bootleg it off of the Internets.
14. My grandmother ate real food without balking at it.

Hmm, this made me feel better.  Maybe I should do this more often.

Th3 Balancing Act

Drinking tea and staring at my braced-and-propped-up foot.  My sense of balance has always been off - of course I would jump down and *crack!* sprain my ankle.  It's not like I couldn't tell that my balance was going.; whenever I get tired or have a good, intense workout my inner ear takes a vacation.  But still, I was being ambitious and ignored the warning signs.

This seems to be a reoccurring problem in my life - not just being physically unbalanced, but mentally and emotionally off-kilter as well.  I seem to be going good, balancing work, school, friends, family and POI(s)*, when I (metaphorically) fall on my butt.  I HATE that.  It's just when I think that I can almost make my life work, something goes wrong and I lose someone/thing because of it. 

Maybe that's normal.  I dunno.  I just really want to be independent and alone and good at what I do.  I don't need to be perfect, just at least competent at the things I do.  No flaking, no failing, no forgetting.  This just in: yeah, that's not happening.  But facing, acknowledging that I can't do it all is hard.  Like really hard.  Like things-that-dent-concrete hard.

No wonder people bury themselves in sex, in alcohol, in friends, in relationships, in anything that they possibly can.  Reality sucks otherwise.

*POI - Person Of Interest, usually of a romantic nature

I'm maxed out like the credit card of a new college graduate

Today Friend One told me to "Have a good day!"  All I could respond was "... Okay"

Life has been really awful lately.  Just before Christmas my grandmother was diagnosed with cancer.  Terminal cancer.  Really fast, really bad, in-your-bones-and-you-just-have-to-wait-three-months-and-you'll-be-dead cancer.  Needless to say, our Christmas was not so fun.  My grandmother's only treatment option, besides waiting around to die, is to do chemotherapy and take a bone marrow shot periodically.  The cost of the treatment (with her insurance) is more money than my parents managed to save for my sister's and my college educations. 
Combined.

On top of that, I've been unemployed for the past month and have been living off of my savings.  Friend Two came back and took our depressingly quiet house and turned it into an orgy.  My sister yelled at me for not waking her up yesterday so I could take her job hunting and is really mad at me.  One of the friends that I have just gotten used to depending on for support has gone AWOL.  I'm already behind in my first week of online class,and our Internet is on the fritz, so I'm worried that it will go away at any moment.  And to put a cherry on the top of my stress sundae, my mouth is covered in cracked and bleeding cold sores that won't go away.

When I came home tonight after putting my grandparents to bed and talking treatment options with my mom, my door was locked.  While I was excavating my purse for my keys, the day's mail fell out from under the crook of my arm.  As if it was some sort of signal, everything began to fall to the floor.  The paper copies of my textbook, my coat, my peanut butter, my new shampoo, my phone.  I was left in a circle of destruction holding my keys.  At that point, I just wanted someone to open the door, to offer some sort of help.

But nobody came and I had to clean up the mess by myself in the dark.

This is what I feel like my life has become.  Everything feels as if it is going to pieces and I'm powerless to stop it.  All I can really do is try to mop up it all afterwords.  And that's all I'm capable of doing - I'm so stressed out, it's ridiculous.  I'm getting so snarky, I'm afraid that I'm going to start actually cussing somebody out, which is not my usual style (too unproductive) at all.

I'm so not ready for anything more to happen right now.  Oh, wait.  I'm applying for a third job (to start at the beginning of the semester, like the others) tomorrow.  Can't wait to see how that goes.