The Ceiling

Autonomy and Catagorizing

2010-02-01T11:51:00.005-05:00

One of my friends is engaged. I feel old. I've known him since he was 17 and now he's 27 and engaged. Blehhhh. I'm happy for him. I think he's been seeing this girl for a year. It sounds like they're really good for each other. It just makes me feel like I should be getting married or something. Like I'm doing something wrong with my relationship to not be married, even though I don't want to be married right now and neither does the Boy.

Its strange and kind of annoying how people are pairing up now. I know its hypocritical for me to say, since I'm in a relationship, but its like you can't see your friends without it being a group date. Nothing is a one on one conversation, its all a group thing and if you're single, you're the 7th wheel and I feel for you. No wonder everyone is afraid of being alone. Its more difficult because most of my friends are guys and when you're in pairs, it seems like all the girls are supposed to be friends and all the boys are supposed to be friends and that's not really how it works. I got really pissed not too long ago when Al and I went to a friend and his girlfriend's potluck in celebration of her birthday. It was great and I met a second college friend's girlfriend who was really cool and we talked about farming and travelling and all this neat stuff. Anyways, on the way out my (male) friend who put on the potluck and my boyfriend joked about having a "Guys Night" at some point. I said that I wanted to go on the "Guys Night", and Al replied that the definition of "Guys Night" is that there's no girls invited. He said, "Well, I go out with the guys and you go out with the girls." This seems highly unfair to me since all the guys are my original friends and all the girls are their girlfriends who I am becoming friends with. Its not to say they aren't cool or that I don't like them, they're actually really awesome and smart and chill and I certainly want to hang out with them. Its that I feel excluded from an event that takes place with MY longstanding friends simply because I'm female and I resent it. Not to mention, many of my friends from college met Al through me after I was already good friends with them. Bah Humbug!

Finally, the one thing I enjoyed about single-dom was just being me. In a couple, you become so and so's girlfriend. On my own, I get introduced as myself. When I was with Danny it was super obvious and annoying. I met alot of people my freshmen year of college and there was one person in particular that I would get mad at because he had literally met me on three seperate occasions in my buddy's room before he met my boyfriend, but after my boyfriend met him and introduced us he acted like he had never met me before. Like, Oh, nice to meet you." When I was alone and saw him, he said hi to me and what's up and chatted. When I crossed paths with him while with Danny he all but ignored me completely. It was a little wave to me after saying "Hey man, what's up", talking only to Danny and then saying, "See you later man, have a good one" and walking away without acknowledging me at all. I am just me, regardless of who I'm with. Don't introduce me as, "Al's girlfriend", just introduce me as "C". That's who I am.

This kind of became a rant and it was supposed to evolve into something else, but whatever. No surprise there.

Frustration

2010-01-30T12:14:00.003-05:00

I finally lost my cool last night. The bf took me out for a lovely dinner at a sushi restaurant and treated me to shrimp tempura and three different types of sushi and some sake. It was great and even the parking ordeal was easy. There was a garage nearby that charged zip for the first hour and then just 50 cents per hour after that. I was in a good mood.

After dinner, we paid and walked out to the parking garage. I was parked in a corner spot in a parallel style right where the garage made a left turn to continue upwards. A spot that had been empty in front of me now had a large, expensive looking black luxury car in it. The black car was parked in its spot in a way that made it clear the person hadn't cared enough to fix it after initially pulling in. It was literally about a foot and a half hanging out of the lines on its left side, and these spots were pretty generous.

Getting out of my spot should've been really fucking easy. There was a no parking zone directly in front of me, so there was room there, and normally someone in my spot would only have to turn left and they'd glide right out. Instead, I had to maneuver a 20-point turn because some bastard thought it'd be cool to park in the middle of the goddamn lane on an angle. Awesome. Starting to get annoyed that I had to nearly scrape my rear end on the cement wall of the garage just to leave, I put the car in park and ripped out my school notebook, taking out a loose sheet and scrawling, "You park like an Idiot" across it. I slapped it on their windshield, finished the last 3 bits of my 20-point turn, and left.

Honestly, I'm embarrassed that I kind of suck at parallel parking. I will sit in my car perfecting it for 15 minutes if I have to because parking shittily not only makes you look incompetent, but screws up everyone else who has parked near you. The spot these people were in had ample space to move around in to get closer to the wall. They just put in zero effort and I'm sick of these people. Now, I don't love confrontation and even just leaving a note makes me feel kinda crappy, but for chrissakes, try to be a more considerate person, that's all.

Hickey #10

2009-04-21T09:00:00.002-04:00

"Can I get a ride out to tha big building?"

"Sure, one moment."

"Someone beatcha up bad."

"What?"

"Yer neck."

"That's a birthmark."

"Ah. It looks lahk a hickey."

"Someone will be by in a moment right there to give you a ride."

"Ahkay..Sorry..It looks like someone was suckin' on yer neck."

"..."

Classy.

Hickey #9

2009-03-17T10:42:00.001-04:00

Two customers are leaving and the male customer says, "You should change your pillow!"
I look at him like, "what?", and the woman with him points to her neck. What the hell is that even supposed to mean?? Idiots

Hickey #8

2009-03-16T09:39:00.001-04:00

Yesterday a customer looked up from reading his papers, smirked, and said quietly, "Birthmark or hickey?" My coworker said he wouldn't be able to stay calm if someone did that to him all the time, but at least the guy gave "birthmark" as an option. If I was ever wanted for a crime, they wouldn't have to spread pictures of my tattoos. They would just say "Looks like she always has a hickey."

Hickey #6 and #7

2009-03-09T07:42:00.003-04:00

A customer came up and winked at me like a thousand times. These people, its like they're having uncontrollable muscle spasms. I totally expected it from him, but instead his buddy came up and asked "Did you fall down or something?" The other guy kept his head down, surprisingly, and I explained politely. That was a week or so ago.

Yesterday I had a customer that I was chatting with and he asked me if I "had a cat" and motioned to his neck. Very smooth. No, no cat. I should've just said no, but I explained because I was already talking to him and brought up the time some girl said "Gnarly hickey" at Dunkin' Donuts. Um, thanks?

Hickey #5

2009-01-09T11:12:00.003-05:00

The second the guy came up to the counter I swear to god the first thing out of his mouth at me was "Is that a hickey?"
I said no, its a birthmark, and didn't talk or look at him anymore because it's so aggravating at this point. Shutuppa your stupid blurty mouth.

Hickey #4

2009-01-05T08:28:00.004-05:00

"Is that a rash?"
"No..Its a birthmark"
"Oh, so its not a hickey?"
"..."
"No, it's a birthmark."
"Oh, heh...
...I have one too but I can't see it" (On the back of his head)

Mark said we should start putting quarters in a jar every time that happens.
I think that'd be an awesome idea.

1980

2009-01-03T06:14:00.003-05:00

Wow, I can't believe I didn't post anything for December. Suffice to say, nothing extremely interesting happened but probably more interesting stuff than I usually write about else I wouldn't be writing. I gave the Boyfriend his snowshoes and he was quite happy. He mentioned snowshoes offhandedly for the second time the day before Christmas Eve. I gave my sister the moccassins. I gave my older cousin an Octupus bracelet and my younger cousin this sick guitar chords book. There was minimal drama from the Boyfriend's family although the night started off with a bang. Usually its a process of his mother complaining about something and making it epic right until the last moment, gift exchange, and then more inflammatory comments from his mother, usually towards his sister. This time we actually sat down in a restaurant and had a nice time. Unbelievable.

The next day I went to my dad's family party and tried to make conversation with the relatives I see but once a year. Nothing really notable, I made out with some cash and wine and I'll be sure to book some dance lessons at this place my father's cousin's ex-husband told me about. He has a small part dancing in the ballroom in the beginning of True Lies. Look for his head.

So what did I get? I got a new pair of brown pumas, a couple sweaters, money, a hot hat and matching bag, jewelry (made and bought), a hatchet I can't wait to try out, and a shake flashlight. There were a few other things but that's what comes to mind now.

I slept through the New Year at the Boyfriend's place and that sort of sucked cause his mom has cats and the fur is fucking everywhere. The next day we cleaned up and saw "Yes Man", which was pretty good. They have the characters body-blading at the end of the movie and I so want to do that but they don't sell these suits currently. Look up "Rollerblading Suit". We drove around randomly a little before that. Later on we played "Go", a game he likes which he received from his sister. We hung out a little and watched No Reservations: Saudi Arabia and then he peaced cause his mom isn't around tow atch his dog.

Oh, I forgot, he's got a new car..kinda. He bonked his Cutlass into a phone pole and even tho there was barely anything wrong, the car was totalled according to the insurance company. He kind of internally flipped in his own way, but I started looking up cars on Craigslist and we found many for cheap. I spent one of my days off that week driving him around to prospective new cars. We found a small 1993 Saturn and he ended up buying it. It was a stick shift and he's never really driven too much stick shift, so I was having a heart attack all the way home. Problem fixed! Now he just has to register it and get it inspected....Still....

I'm in a "Survival" mood again. I wrapped up this book called "Mutant Message From Down Under" and it started off really cool and then I looked the author up online and she's like a giant crazy liar and everyone in Australia hates her for it. Kinda ruined it for me. I finished it just cause I was already reading it but I ordered a book about a guy surviving in the Alaskan Wilderness. Should be better. I also ordered another book by Jhumpa Lahiri cause she's fuckin awesome. Like I said, I can't wait to use my new hatchet and chop up some wood and make a big bonfire.

Right now I am sitting here remembering how amazing my bed was this morning. The blankets were perfect and neat, the space heater was just the right temperature, and it was basically a travesty that I had to leave. Hmm, what else. I went with my mom to the Museum of Fine Arts yesterday after work and checked out mostly the Asian Exhibits. I didn't want to ask whether I could take pictures or not but I should have. On the way home I learned more about Ritchie, my mom's teenage boyfriend in the 70s. They broke up in like March or something with a wedding scheduled for June 1980 and my father convinced her to marry him by November. So let's recap. My parents sort of got together around March, my dad pushed for a wedding after 4 months, my mother declined saying she had just cancelled a June wedding, and instead they got married after dating for 9 months and the wedding had been planned by the end of summer. That's not moving too fast. Course then they waited 5 years to have yours truly. Interestingly, my father broke off an engagement to a woman named Linda at the same time my mom left Ritchie, and what's even funnier is that he was trying to get my mom's attention for months before this. I wish I had a complete and detailed timeline. I'd be interested to see how this all went down as I would want to watch a movie but unfortunately things don't get documented quite like that. You learn bits and pieces of a choppy story that no one wants to fully tell, so you have to put the puzzle together yourself and even then one or both sides could be riddled with lies and cover-ups. But whatever.

I miss my bed. Oh, warm, smooth bed. Oh warm, ..warm space heater. I miss you so.

Family Tree

2008-11-24T19:31:00.007-05:00

I got a lot done when I got home from work today. I vacuumed, mopped, and dusted the whole downstairs. It looks great and I fully intend to be the Shoe Nazi until Thanksgiving Day.

Tonight I brought up the fact that my dad never had real spaghetti sauce until he was in college. Up till that point, he only knew to put tomato sauce into pasta because that's all his mother had ever done. My mom's husband listed off several things that his mother killed in the kitchen before he was taken elsewhere to eat and discovered most of the food wasn't horrid; she was just screwing it up.

I asked my mom if she had ever "discovered" a food after getting out of her house and she said that besides Chinese take-out, her house was where people discovered new foods. Her family was Portuguese and apparently my Nana made stuff like Octopus soup and Rabbit and a few other things. her father, my Avo, used to make her peanut butter and banana sandwiches, which isn't as odd or Portuguese, but its something I remember.

Apparently my nana had been pregnant with my mom when she and my Avô came over from Portugal in the early fifties. They were so poor and had so little to eat that my nana would starve herself and save the food for my Avo. When he got home from work she would tell him she'd already eaten. It got to the point where my Avô took her to the doctor and he said neither my nana nor the baby were going to live. The one he probably didn't know about for awhile, I'm not sure. He said that he had just moved from Portugal and not a year later the doctor was telling him his wife and unborn child were going to die. Of course they didn't, somehow. Frankly, my nana was probably the most sickly person I've ever met. I only recently learned that she had a tumor in her throat when she was a teenager in Brazil and it was operated on. Back then. Oh my god. On top of that she inherited diabetes and was on dialysis from a few years ago until her death in 2003. I recall her having a mild heart attack a few years before that. I know that as a young woman she was told she had a tumor in her breast. She prayed it away, I've been told. She sat in her room full of fear and prayed. I was also told recently that she had to have a metal plate put in because her ab muscles weren't strong enough to hold her guts together by themselves. Its some crazy shit.

I think my Avô was born in 1934. I don't think he knows exactly when he was born, but we celebrate a birthday, so it must be close. He was good-looking. I've seen black and white shots of him from when he was 18 on his wall. He grew up in the Azores and we actually visited his house and looked around inside while we were there on our trip to Portugal in 1999. My nana was born in Portugal and there is an elaborate story about how the family had been rich but when they moved to Brazil they lost all their money somehow. Don't ask. They eventually moved back to Portugal and my grandparents met. He would've been 21 when my mother was born. Holy shit, he got married at what age? And moved to a different country at 20?? I can't even imagine doing that. People and places are different though. And at 21 he was told his wife was going to die. Um, yikes.

After that the next thing I know is that my mother didn't know English until kindergarten. Kids would make fun of her and she had no idea what they were saying. She thought she had something on her face. She had mad banana curls that were super cute and really soft and her aunt was taking care of ehr one time and got sick of trying to brush her hair so she took her to a salon and got them all chopped off. They never grew back quite the same. She still has them in a bag somewhere. Her parents were very strict to the point of not wanting her to ride a bike or take swimming lessons. To this day she can't swim. Her mother was a pretty angry woman it seems. She mellowed out when she was older but I've seen her get mad. I guess now since I've written this much about her I'll talk some about my dad.

I think I know much more about my dad's upbringing because he's a storyteller, but I probably know much less given that he tends to distort periods in his life that make him look weak. Either way, my Grandma was born in 1912 or thereabouts. She always lied and said she was born in 1913. I don't know why one year makes all the difference. She met my grandfather on a cruise where his and his brothers band was playing. They called themselves the Marsh Brothers because they knew no one would be able to pronounce our name. There were four brothers and two, my grandfather and the other middle child, were identical twins. Their parents had come over from Germany and their father left their mother I think. Something about a fish market and stuff, I don't know. I mean that's where he worked. Anyways, her nickname was Liepzen or something. It was pronounced Leap-shin and it meant "Darling", but as I hear it she was anything but. But let's get back to the cruise. my Grandma's mother had the balls to stand up and ask my grandfather if he was single. My Grandma was wicked embarressed. Later he met her out on the deck and later on he told her that he had been rinsing with Listerine and she happened to come out when it was still in his mouth. He didn't want to spit it out in front of her so he swallowed it. He had been married before, so they had a small marriage since her parents dissapproved, but later on they had a larger wedding. At the age of 40 she had my father and a year or so later, his sister. My father has commented on how he can see why his father never wanted to put the effort into disipline because he could never imagine dealing with a child at the age of 40 and up.

Anyways, I'm going to continue this later. I'm getting carpal tunnel. Hopefully I'll also find out more and have more to add as well since this is more of a spewing of the little I know and less a story.

Hickey #3

2008-11-24T09:05:00.001-05:00

Maybe a week ago the owner of a company my company works with came in to drop something off. Although he's seen me before and is probably already aware of it, he decided to now bring up the subject of my birthmark. Like this:

"Is that a lovebite?"

"No, it's a hickey"

"Yah, a lovebite"

"No- I mean..its a birthmark, but everyone always asks if its a hickey"

"Oh, I thought you were just getting too passionate or something, haha"

Ha-Ha-Ha, you're so funny.

Now I'm starting to use the word hickey, argh.

Boring Blog Stuff

2008-11-24T08:40:00.000-05:00

So I tried to move to Wordpress yesterday because it seemed like they had so many more options for layouts and an individual private blog post feature which Blogger does not have. If I want posts to be private here I have to make the entire blog private and I don't want that. I also wanted a nicer looking template but it turns out that with the free Wordpress your template choices are incredibly limited and they suck anyways. I might just keep the other one for private passworded posts and this one for public posts although in all the purpose was sort of defeated. Oh well. I also decided to change this template and used the only all black template to form a base for a masthead that I made out of a picture I found online with Photoshop. It still has little white outlines and I thought of fixing the size so it fit into the right side of the outlines but i kind of like how it looks flowing out like that. Okay, I'm done.

Middle Aged Women in College Classes

2008-11-22T09:20:00.007-05:00

I just read a Wide Lawns post that is so on the mark and everyone in college needs to read.

I'll tell you who gets on my nerves the most though...In every single solitary college class I have taken in the past five years there is always without fail the Middle Aged Woman Who Will Not Shut Up. I hate this woman. I can not escape her in her seemingly infinite incarnations. She always shows up to every class. She never, ever fucking stops talking.

Go here http://widelawns.blogspot.com/2007_09_01_archive.html and scroll down until the title "I Hab a Bad Code". About halfway through is the part about the Middle Aged Woman who Won't Shut Up. Its completely true.

Vinh I Know You're Out There

2008-11-19T18:14:00.010-05:00

When Vinh put a clock-radio in the second bathroom, the guys thought it was a marvelous idea. They could check the time and play music while taking a shower and not be stressed about whether they might be late to class. He built a little cardboard shelf for it and everything, positioning it in the corner behind the toilet, right where you could see it from the shower or if you were taking a whiz. Well, if you were a dude, which they both were. Boyfriend and I shared a bathroom at the very end of the hall with A, and Pool Boy and Vinh shared the smaller bathroom halfway down the hall, closer to the living room. Let me draw you a diagram because I can become very convoluted with these things.

There it is. If you can read the tiny print, then cool. If not, down the left reads "Vinh's Room, A's Room, Pool Boy's Room, Boyfriend's Room. And then the top bathroom is Me, Boyfriend and A, as previously mentioned, and that lower one is Vinh's and Pool Boy's.

Also, I'm sure you're wondering why I'm using Vinh's name when I never use any real names. Cause fuck him, that's why. And you'll see why.

So ANYWAYS. In that second bathroom you can see the toilet, the alarm clock radio, and the shower. It looks like a messy box. Sorry about that. So fast forward about a month. Its coming up on Halloween. We're all pulling costumes together last minute, except for Vinh, who is putting the finishing touches on a paper-mâché mask of that creepy little character from the SAW movies. I guess his name is Jigsaw or something.

The story starts with a bang, at least from my point of view. Me and Boyfriend were taking a shower and got out to dry off (no, there is no sexy shower part) and got wrapped up in towels and opened the door. Boyfriend was still using the mirror or something and as I opened the door to leave I nearly ran right into Vinh, who was leaving his room. You see how the doors to our bathroom and his bedroom line up. They did better in real life than in my drawing. He was walking down the hall to ask Mr. Pool Boy a question and Pool Boy had just entered the second bathroom for his own shower. Seeing as how Vinh was going to come back in a moment to get back in his room, I opted to stand in the doorway to not crowd the hallway and wait to leave until he was back in his room. While I waited, I glanced into the room through the still open door.

There was an image on the computer of white tile and a light switch. In fact, it looked quite similar to the tile and light switches that graced our bathrooms. But of course, every bathroom looks like that. I heard Vinh knock on the bathroom door down the hall and it was like the noise was echoed. I heard Pool Boy say "Hang on!" from down the hall and on the computer screen a big hairy chest entered into the picture frame, which, of course, was really a video. Nuts bundled in hand, I saw Pool Boy's hairy Italian chest curve around the door next to the light switch as the accompanying vocals came from down the hall. "I'll be out in like ten minutes." Awestruck, I stood in our bathroom doorway trying to process what was happening. The door shut and the hairy chest left the picture. Vinh walked back down the hall toward me and as he proceeded to enter his bedroom, I stammered, "Is that a camera??" He slammed the door behind him. Um, I think that's a yes.

Boyfriend and I walked down to his room and shut the door and I turned and said, "There's a camera. There's a camera in Pool Boy and Vinh's bathroom." Boyfriend laughed. I said again, totally serious, that there was a camera and I had seen Pool Boy's torso on Vinh's computer. Boyfriend laughed a little quieter and more nervous-like and accused me of fucking with him. I insisted and told him exactly what I saw and he became serious. We got dressed and listened for the shower to turn off. When it did we were all over the door. "Pool Boy, get out here, get out here now!" "I'll be out in a minute." he said. "No!! Now!!"

Pool Boy opened the door in a towel, still sopping wet and quite confused. "There's a camera in there" I said. "What?" "There's a camera; it's pointed towards the door and the shower; it's over there." I said, and inadvertently pointed right at the now suspect clock-radio. We toyed with it for a moment and saw that there was a little tiny circle for the AM/PM light, but there was one below it with no specified purpose. We left to let Pool Boy get some pants on. When he came out, we were waiting and he was holding the clock-radio. "Dude, it says on the bottom of it, 'AV Video Device'." He took it apart on the counter and sure enough, the little unspecified circle was a little window for a tiny camera. But how was it getting to the computer? More importantly, why had we never wondered what that random wire was that came out of it and was taped to the wall? Oh.

Pool Boy decided to confront Vinh, who had been in his room with the door shut now for about an hour, and yelled for him to come out to talk. I wish I could've watched him sweat as he saw a full view of our giant faces surveying the "clock-radio" on his monitor. It's actually something we joked about later on, because how did that look? But back to the story. Boyfriend told me we should go into his room and shut the door even though it occurred to me not too long after that my butt was on there several times and so were many other peoples' asses and dicks but let's not get caught up right now. Pool Boy basically asked Vinh what the fuck this was all about, gesturing at the dissected clock-radio, and do you know what that kid said? I bet you can't guess. Here it is. He said, "Dude! Why did you break my clock-radio!!?" Pool Boy, paralyzed in stunned disbelief, didn't even react as Vinh bundled up the parts and ran the clock-radio, or should I say hidden camera device, back to his room. Later that night, when no one was around to see him, Vinh grabbed some of his stuff and high-tailed it down to his old dorm to seek refuge from friends who didn't know yet what had happened. According to most, he told them he was having a fight with Pool Boy or something.

The next night I got a call from Pool Boy, who had finally decided to file charges, and good on him for doing so. Since I was the witness, they wanted me to come down to the station. I took way too long getting there as I assumed he was at the town PD and not the Campus PD, where he, in fact, was. There was a reason for this but I'll talk about it some other time. Down at the station I wrote up my own statement on a computer and got asked a bunch of questions by a cop. One of the most awesome parts about this was that we got to keep a copy of our statements and both of them (written separately) observed that I had identified Pool Boy by his extremely hairy Italian chest. Classic.

Apparently the Campus PD down there are fucking imcompetantes (I might've made up a word) because every so often, Vinh would come back to the place to get more of his stuff!! It was fucking everyone up and everyone would get tense and distracted and no one could do work or all that other shit you do at school. The day after Halloween my Bettie Page wig and my favorite very cute black pumps were missing. I had specifically remembered taking them out of my ride's car Halloween night because they had been such a fucking bitch to carry and I had placed them, wig and all in the shoebox) behind Boyfriend's bedroom door. Now, pretty much every time we left the apartment, I would lock the bedroom door because my parents are paranoid and they raised me to take extra precautions to protect my stuff. That said, it wasn't anyone who didn't live at the place. Pool Boy wouldn't have done it, because why would he? A wouldn't have taken my heels even as a joke because again, why would he. Neither had ever done anything very weird and neither had a girlfriend to give pumps to. Even so, I searched both their rooms, with their knowledge, to make sure I hadn't gone in there to talk and left them there. Last one down was Vinh, who, we now knew, liked to watch our friends dicks as they took a piss. Hmmmmmmmmmmm.

He left one night, shortly after the confrontation, and left his door wide open, something he never did. He had spent the day in there cleaning. Figures. I knew that by now, I wouldn't find anything, but went in to tinker around anyways. I peered into things and under things, trying to avoid actually touching anything that belonged to the pervert, and when I was satisfied they had been put elsewhere, I left. He came home that evening and accused me of going into his room while he was gone. He had the evidence on a camera he had set up by his computer and was now accusing me of going through his stuff. I denied "going through" anything of his but admitted to being in his room. He continually told me I had been going through his stuff, to which I responded with a "No" and then to lead me into admitting to going through his stuff, he told me I had been in his room, to which I said that yes, yes I had because I was looking for my shoes. In his frustration of not being able to get me to fess up to "going through" stuff, he kept raising his voice until boyfriend, who can be very loud when he wants to be, yelled from the living room that that was enough and to leave me alone. With a frustrated and mildly sheepish look, he left the doorway and went on to his room down the hall. How ironic that someone blatantly caught taping our nether regions and who definitely stole something by deduction (and by putting the damn puzzle together) would attack me over walking into his room. If I did "go through" his stuff then what anyways? Oh, arrest me. I guess when you think about it it's the guilty who decide to start attacking people for stupid shit.

So through the tension we tried to cooperate with the cops who said their plan was to bag him in his room for questioning, confiscate his stuff, and then have him taken out of the apartment. That was the plan, but whenever Pool Boy would call them to tell them he was in the apartment, they would say they'd be there in a couple days; they were working on something. I think he actually heard them laugh once, as if they weren't even paying attention but someone was making jokes in the background. One day at around a two week point they came in and made a mess of his room, gathering up his computer and cords and the camera he had used to "catch" me "going through his stuff". He definitely got rid of the clock-radio camera and geez, he had plenty of fucking time, didn't he? Finally, FINALLY, he came in one day in a suit, paraded down the hall by his parents and a man who I presume was his lawyer. Actually when you think about it, that may have been punishment enough. I took a class senior year for the hell of it and it was known by classmates as "Gaysians". Frankly, it doesn't seem like Asian cultures are incredibly accepting of gays. Like normal gays. Not gay people with sneaky cameras. So I guess I'm just hoping the embarrassment of his Vietnamese parents knowing that he was secretly filming dick is on par with the absolute horrible-ness we had to go through because of his dark desires. Hehe, dark desires.

So anyways, it took them about 2 hours to clear out and we haven't seen him since. One of the most retarded things about this ridiculous situation was that even with the knowledge of what happened, people said some stupid shit. The most ludicrous thing I heard out of anyone was from some dipwad named Craig who was invited to some lovely beirut at the apartment. The dialouge went a little something like this:

"Hey Craig, we're having a party on Friday, wanna come play some beirut?"

"Oh, maybe. Is Vinh coming?"

"What? Why would he?"

"Oh, I don't know. I just didn't know if you were going to invite him."

"::Stunned silence::"

That might've been the worst part. That we could tell people exactly what happened and they'd say something stupid like that. Some of them acted like those people where a rape victim has come forth and they just don't believe her and scold her for saying such things. Or him. It happens. No one did exactly that, but a couple people just kind of acted like they didn't believe it and we were just saying crap cause we were all in some big fight. Over what? Oh, I dunno. Maybe a fight about Vinh filming our privates? Nah, that couldn't be it.

Fifteen years from now Craig will be entering his cubicle. His coworkers, bored with the same old same old of the everyday office life will have put an amateur gay porn site up on his computer. He presses the button and sits down. As his screen comes up his face turns white. His buddies, previously glancing over his cubicle walls, will fall apart with gales of laughter at the horrified expression on his face. Little will they know that his color has been drained not from a penis popping up in front of his face, but from knowledge; the knowledge that that is his penis. His 22 year old penis taking a piss in a dormitory bathroom years upon years ago. "Oh" he'll think, once words come back to him. "Oh."

It wasn't just Pool Boy. It was everyone who ever used that bathroom, and let me tell you, everyone who ever came over to party used that bathroom because it was the closest. Pool boy, Me, Boyfriend, A, Craig, that blond girl Craig is destined to marry and divorce, and everyone else you can possibly remember.And for all we know at this point, the kid got off scot-free. Given the lax attitude the cops had when we talked to them, if they ever got him down to the station, it went a little like this: "I'm going to cover my eyes and count to ten and I just hope no one kidnaps you..1...2."

So anyways, that's the story of Vinh and his secret dick-camera. Maybe sometime I'll follow that up with the time A ripped the apartment apart just a couple weeks after the camera incident. He got taken out of the apartment almost quicker and he hadn't sexually assaulted his roomates, if you will. That just shows you where the university's priorities are.

YouTube Try a Little Tenderness

2008-11-17T19:51:00.004-05:00

Yesterday I finally got my new monitor working. I bought it basically brand new off a kid at work. i was sitting there talking about how I'd been looking for an lcd online and I found a brand new one for $100 on Amazon and it was the best find yet and he said, "I have one I'll sell you for 50 bucks. It came with my computer but I use my tv as the screen, so it's been sitting in my closet for 2 or 3 years." I pounced on it and brought it home but it said on the screen that it couldn't play that "video". I asked about this to the Ex and he told me to fix the resolution and the hertz, so I did but then it just had a colored box bouncing around the screen. I tried a couple different things but they necessitated me hooking up the giant monitor again and then detaching it and hooking up the lcd but then turning the computer off by shutting off the power, which isn't good and eventually I gave up and shut it down because I have a very short fuse with computers. My computer is positioned right by the stairs up to my loft and it really wouldn't take much for me to just kick it right off the top step, especially given my short temper as of late.

Back at work I explained the current situation and my buddy told me that he'd seen that before and it just meant the cord was hooked to the monitor and the comp on the wrong ends. He also said he had tested it before bringing it in to give me and he's not someone I would ever think could sell me anything broken, so I believed him. I had also thought of this myself but was so tired of messing with it at the time that I didn't bother to try it out. That's what I get for being lazy I guess. Anyways, I went home and tried it and the monitor came right on and now I'm back in business. I'm happy cause even though I like saving energy by using the basement computer, I miss my photoshopping.

It was also just in the nick of time because Boyfriend was around that day (Sunday) and he had brought wine, bread, cheese, and a log for the fireplace. So thoughtful. I'm trying to get in shape and he brings alcohol, carbs and cheese. What a guy. I'm just kidding, it was great. He's also registered on Pandora where he can set up his own radio stations (it's free) and he put on the Otis Redding station. Go to Pandora and make yourself an Otis Redding station because you will hear so much good music. Its also a great way to find new music that you'll love without having to ask your friends for their crappy opinions. Again, kidding...sort of. So we listened to Otis Redding in front of the fire and I got a great massage. My boy knows how to do it right. He just has to do it more often. I'm so romantic that for the first few minutes I was throwing used tissues into the fire for fun. That'll get it going. I got to sleep in as well and that was great in itself.

Port-a-gee

2008-11-17T19:47:00.004-05:00

Me: Well, I was telling him how I was Portuguese and-

Boyfriend: You are not Portuguese.

Me: Yes I am, I'm half Portuguese.

Boyfriend: You aren't Portuguese unless you were born there.

Me: Fine then, I'm Hisportuguese.

Hickey #2

2008-11-17T19:45:00.001-05:00

About three days ago, let's say November 14th, a customer asked me about my "hickey". When I told him it wasn't one he apologized more than once and I said it was fine cause he didn't just keep on making jokes about it like every other jackass.

You're So Gay and Your Don't Even Like Boys

2008-11-13T18:32:00.005-05:00

So I've been wicked busy lately. Between reading and throwing a fit about everything I haven't had much time to get on here. It started with the Chemistry. If I can't at least understand something right away it bothers me and I'm automatically a failure. My week, which sort of starts in the middle of the actual week, started horribly. I got the Physics test back and got a 92%, but on Thursday I got the Chemistry test back and got a 60% and he added, with a little smile, that I needed to talk to him. After class I asked him if he was free next Thursday after class and, suddenly much more serious, he said that he wasn't but he could do Wednesday after class. So I agreed to that and walked to my car in angsty tears over having to ask for any help. On Friday Boyfriend was supposed to come out after his last class and, in classic C fashion, I made possible plans for him to take me out for sushi when he got here. I did some reading until he should've been here and then read for another hour and called his house. And he picked up. And I lost it. Your brain knows you're being a piss-ass, but it still only lets negative things out of your mouth. So he was going to be another 2 hours and I flew into a rage and whacked some books with my brush until it snapped, kicked my sneakers across the room, and chucked my lighter at the closet, where it make a nice "crack" sound and ricocheted into the bookshelf. I haven't seen it since. I'm at least smart enough to break stuff that doesn't really matter. And then I took a nap so I wouldn't have to wait around for the next two hours in undiluted rage. When I woke up he was another extra hour late but showed up shortly afterwards, saying the route he took had only one lane open for a bit of the way. We did go out for sushi, but he didn't have his cash clip on him and I paid with the promise that he'd pay me back. He is good for it, but he hasn't yet. So romantic. Anyways, we had a nice time.

So the next day he was fixing up his car with a friend and to pass the time, I offered to take his smelly puppy to his moms for a bath. Long story short she screamed like I was murdering her as opposed to bathing her and by the time I left my last nerve had broke and through mall trip and everything else I had a hard time not tweaking the fuck out. Sunday was a lot better and I attribute those 48 hours of mental instability to what basically adds up to detox and massive unusual PMS that I rarely ever get ever ever ever.

This weekend Boyfriend finally bent to my complaining and poking of his stomach and stopped calling it all a "food baby". I know he sat on a couch eating nothing but Pepsi and microwaveable pizza and kept the tae kwon do body he had gained two years before, but its all starting to catch up to him now and with the overgrown hair looking quite disproportional with the loss of his beard (and living on of his moustache (all for Halloween)) he looks like a giant hick. He finally admitted that we were both looking pretty frump to the dump and we agreed to 20 minutes of exercise a day with a variety of activities. He's taking the dog for twenty minute runs and doing something on top of that and I started out walking on the treadmill in the basement while reading chemistry and tonight I walked and ran for an hour and burned 500 calories. Then I stretched and did twenty crunches and now my left shin hurts and that's never good. My diet today was much improved as I snacked on edamame and apple slices with cashew butter (not that great) and I should do better not having Halloween candy in my room anymore. I found it very useful to play loud music off of youtube, mostly dancing stuff. I'm addicted to "Just Dance" by Lady GaGa, "Gimme That" by Chris Brown, "Paralyzer" by Finger Eleven, and "Let it Rock" by whoever and Lil' Wayne. Oh and I can't forget "Disturbia". In addition to this amazing amount of exercise I bought a waxing kit at CVS today and did up my eyebrows like a fucking pro. They look awesome and I can't believe I didn't rip half of one off or inadvertently wax a lightning bolt in there or anything. It gets rid of all those tiny hairs that take forever to get with tweezers and don't all come out anyways. And then you just do some cleanup with the tweezers! Its soooo addicting, waxing stuff is. If I could get paid to wax eyebrows I probably would ditch all my other ambitions and shape eyebrows for a living, but I think you need to know how to cut hair and do makeup as well and I don't care for that. Yes, its fun to cut hair, no, I don't normally do a good job of styling it, and no, I don't want to put up for cosmetology school. Is that how you spell it? Who cares.

I don't know how I thought of it, but I was just remembering how I had to stop someone at work from putting aluminum foil into the microwave. I was at the office one day, and Desperado let me know he was leaving his spot for a couple minutes to microwave some food he'd gotten that morning and I said okay and he walked away. A few seconds later I got a bad hunch and jumped up and ran down the hall and yelled "STOP!!" when I reached the kitchen door. His tin foil covered food was halfway into the microwave and I yelled "You can't put aluminum foil in the microwave!!" "You can't?", he said. "NO!!!" I shrieked. "Oh, okay, thanks", he said. Dude, the guy is in his early 30s. He doesn't know not to put foil into a microwave? He was ready to set the building on fire and had no idea. How is this possible? Not a month later, also at work, Ms. Singer hesitated and then asked me, "Is it okay to put Styrofoam in the microwave?" "NO!!!!!" This one is in her late 20s! How have these people not suffered dire consequences of ignorance already?? GOD.

Its probably all because of my mom saying that everything is bad for me. "This chapstick has petroleum in it. I don't know if you care but I don't want to use it; do you want it?" "These Biore cleansers use hairspray to pull the crap out of your pores and it just makes more build up; do you want them?" So she's setting me up for disaster, eh? "Almond butter is better for you than peanut butter." "I don't know why C is eating that, she knows diabetes runs in the familyyy." After almost every bite of the last burger I ate I would ask her, "doesn't that look a little pink to you?" She was getting aggravated with me but she's the one who made me this way.

Oh, haha, one more funny thing I keep forgetting about. Surely everyone has heard of Katy Perry by now. That stupid song "Hot and Cold" is on KIS 108 ten times an hour and I don't even listen to the whole hour straight through. Anyways, it came on when Boyfriend was in the car, and him and his schmuck friends love Katy Perry and her songs "Kissed a Girl" and "Ur So Gay" and a couple weeks ago he said exactly what I'd been thinking forever; that being that "Hot and Cold" and "Ur So Gay" were written as if she had gone out with my Ex. That will only be funny if you know me personally I guess and if you do, please go on youtube and check both of these out because its soooo truuuue haha. I just didn't want to be the first one to say it.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy the Josh Groban Christmas CD. He's dreeeamy hahaha. He's got those nice brown eyes and a great voice, obviously. I love his "Vincent" and apparently he does the vocals for the "real person" Beauty and the Beast with Streisand. I'm in a Christmas mood, can you tell. Its not too early for Christmas songs. BTW, who sings that version of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" that starts with the "bum bum bum baduh dibum", if you know what I mean and you probably don't. It was probably in McCauley Culkin Home Alone movies. The second one. Maybe.

Anyhoo, I'll sign off now and sing along to some youtube instrumentals because they are so fun.

Masthead

2008-11-10T10:25:00.002-05:00

Not that anyone cares, but I'm trying to eff around with images to create a masthead. Right now I don't have access to my computer but I'm trying to make something pretty with Susan Seddon Boulet's art and some text. More and better to come.

Stop Spending Time with Your Kids to Have More Time to Spend with Them?

2008-11-08T12:31:00.004-05:00

Something that bugs the hell out of me are these commercials with premade cookie dough, cut and ready to be laid out on the pan. The commercial implies that when the cookie dough is already made for you, you have more time to spend with your kids and less hassle. I was about to attack them for basically saying that everyone is dumb, but a lot of people are pretty dumb and would eat that up. Don’t enough people ignore their kids or let them waste their time playing video games and watching TV and not bonding with them ever?

When I was younger, we made cookies a decent amount, more often for Christmas. We mixed the dough, used our own plastic box full of cookie cutters and then designed them with sprinkles (we called them jimmies back then), colored sugar, and best of all those little silver balls that were probably full of mercury and not edible in the least. We have pictures and home videos of making these cookies and it was fun. What memories are kids these days going to have? If they’re lucky enough to make cookies at all it will be something like, “We put the cookies on the pan and then we ate them. And that’s how my eating disorder began.” And maybe the ADD too.

Speaking of Christmas, we used to go all out. We baked little shapes to paint and hang up on all the livingroom windows, and there were a lot of freaking windows. It looked like this but brown wood and not jutting outwards like that. They were also higher up since the house was a split-level and the livingroom was on the second floor.

We had angels and Christmas trees and snowmen and candy canes that we baked, painted, and put on little gold string to hang on each window. We put one of those electric candles in all the bedroom windows, had garlands up the stair railings, had Santa Claus' sitting around and put ceramic sleighs and trees that my grandma had made on the lamp tables. We had wreaths hanging everywhere that we had bought and poked little pieces of fabric into to decorate. The tree was lit and decorated with everything we had and the angel my mom sewed a long time ago with her and my father's initials was put on top. Our stockings had all been sewn or knitted by my mother with our names on them and we all dressed up, usually in red, for Christmas Eve and then again for Christmas Day. In fact, my sister and I wore dresses our parents got us for Christmas Eve and then the next day for our father's extended family's Christmas Day party we wore new dresses that our maternal grandparents had gifted to us the night before. The house was always thoroughly cleaned up before any Christmas decor went up and we played the Roche Sisters' Christmas songs while we decorated and then again while we opened gifts.

And now parents can't even roll cookie dough??? Are you effing kidding me???

A Pink Horse and a Red Phone

2008-11-08T09:12:00.011-05:00

When I was little I reaped the benefits of having no cousins. My mother's sister and her husband weren't even married when I was born but he saw me as his first niece and went out and found a gigantic stuffed horse to give me as a birth-day gift. Its pink and I used to be able to sit on it. Apparently my uncle had to have someone get up on a ladder to get it and he couldn't have just any pink horse; it had to be that pink horse. This picture that I found is actually pretty similar if not exact:

It was pretty much exactly that size and eventually its legs went out underneath it and it couldn't stand up anymore. They got married probably a couple of years later or less. My aunt probably would've been around 21 years old when I was born. I think she's my godmother and my maternal grandfather is my godfather. She carried me for my baptism and I was quiet the whole time unlike the other screaming mimi babies.

When I was about 4 they took me to Canobie Lake Park because my uncle had paid-for tickets for a company outing and they didn't have kids of their own. I was wearing light denim overalls with mint green clasps and a green and blue striped shirt and I sniffled the whole time. My aunt kept asking if I had a cold and I kept denying it. We went on the teacups and they were my favorite ride. For the rest of the outing we kept trying to find them again because I loved them so much, but we never were able to. Now I realize that was probably on purpose because we could've just looked at a map and also, the teacups are probably sort of lame. I thought they were awesome though.

I remember their apartment in Cambridge and how their bedroom was at the end of the hall. They had a bright red dial telephone and my uncle had weights lined up next to the bed for working out his arms. Once, my father, a pretty big guy, asked me who would win in a fight between him and my uncle and I said my uncle. My incredulous father asked why and I said, "He lifts weights!" They moved out of that apartment into my grandparents old apartment building and then my sister was born. We'd have sleepovers on the diningroom floor with all our stuffed animals and when we got up my aunt would make us french toast. That was my favorite food by her. I also remember thinking my uncle had skinny heels and watching him swallow vitamins and hoping he wouldn't choke because I think he did get one stuck one time. Not majorly.

Four years after my sister was born my aunt had me announce to the family at Easter that she was pregnant. Nowadays they live in a giant house in Connecticut and we see them at holidays and call them for birthdays. My aunt sends cute stuff to us randomly, like the rock hard cookies I got in the mail the other day. They were still good; I ate them all, its just funny. They have two kids and a dog and my uncle started his own business, which is cool and I'm going to learn about that soon. Anyways, there are perks to being the oldest: Christmas gifts, attention, new clothes, theme park trips. This post doesn't really have a point though, its a little more documentary.

Harpy Bitch

2008-11-07T08:21:00.002-05:00

So it seems as if the acupuncture is helping in some areas and not enough in others. I’ve been getting angrier and more irritable as a result of new stress from Chemistry and from a new lack of help from other Chemistry. I’ve hated bad drivers about ten times more than usual in the last few days and I wanted to throw my Chemistry book at the wall while I was doing my test but it’s borrowed and I expressly promised my lender that I was a wonderful possessor of objects and I always took care of my things. Obviously that was not an option.

On Wednesday my package showed up but the fact that it was from Canada prevented them from just leaving it on my doorstep and instead they left a note telling me they had stopped by and the item needed to be signed for. I could pick it up after 4pm and the post office closed at 5pm. With a sliver of hope in my heart I looked at the clock. 5:07. I was ready to throw something but I didn’t. I expected that they would come back the next day at the same time and when they did, they handed me a package from my aunt and a package for my mom and her husband. I halted them and asked them about my other package and he said it was at the post office to be signed for and I could go down right now. Yah, that would’ve been fine except my car was at the dealership for the third frikkin’ time. As the door bounced shut and the postal guy walked away I yelled with frustration (I walked away from the door first). After two seconds he drove back and asked to see my ticket thinger again. He said he could bring it by tomorrow and I told him that was okay and no thank you. He came back just to tell me that?? I threw the little note at the couch and it slowly flitted down to the cushion. Not the effect I was hoping for in my compounded rage, but the expected one I suppose. Thankfully I was able to get ahold of my mom and she picked it up before 5. Its ironic, she always complains that I never pick up my phone, but I can call her 5 times and get her voicemail and her phone is ATTACHED TO HER GODDAMN EAR.

Oh, I forgot. The acupuncture has been helping my skin clear up. Ever since my old job I’ve broken out a little on my forehead and its finally looking a little better.

So now I have Physics and Chem reading to catch up with and Boyfriend is coming out tonight and he better be planning to take me out for a sushi dinner if he knows what’s good for him because he hasn’t taken me on a date in near 8 or 9 months now. Probably more. I’m being generous.

Acupuncture for This Obama-Girl

2008-11-05T19:41:00.008-05:00

So I guess I'll start off with the obvious: Our new president will be Barack Obama. That's pretty cool. We're going to have our first black president, as long as a KKK member doesn't shoot him first. All the good ones get shot- Lincoln, Kennedy, others I can't think of because I'm not really a history buff and pull stats out my ass... Anyways, I think its exciting and just because, I went out and got the Globe and the Herald to document this day. isn't that what people used to do? They drag out old newspapers and say "Hey, I was there", but only sort of, cause really, I was watching from my bed. I was at the polls though, so you can count me in on that. Everything I voted for won, which was pretty neat. Question 1 didn't pass, so my mom is happy- she's a teacher. Question 2 passed, which decriminalizes small amounts of marijuana, and I voted for that even though I don't smoke. I feel like a minority in that way; I don't smoke weed but I don't think other people should not be allowed to. It seems like a stupid waste of money having it be a criminal offense. And now I don't have to be worried about boyfriend driving around with a bag haha. I have a "no weed in the car" rule when I'm with him, but that can fly out the window now. I can only imagine Extravaganja and 420 this year and I'm surprised UMass didn't literally go up in smoke last night. THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN. 65% of us decided that shit was dumb and smokers should be able to carry an ounce or less. It could be amended or whatever, but hopefully not. I wore my Marley sweatshirt today to celebrate. I stayed up long enough to see McCain's very gracious and eloquent concession speech. That speech made me kinda like the guy again. He quieted the boos, faulted himself for not winning more votes, and emphasized how we all needed to work together. I listened to a couple more little snippets and the national anthem after that and then dozed off. I woke up around 3am to newspeople showing snips of Obama making his speech and shut off the light and TV. I can just watch it now on YouTube.

In other news, I had my weekly acupuncture today and my tongue was red on the tip and splotchy on what is apparently known as "spleen 7". This was assuredly a result of fucking Chemistry, which has been my primary, if not only, stressor. Goddamnit, Chemistry, why do you have to suck so hard? And why are you so difficult to avoid typo-ing? I'll be lucky if I get a 60 on that test. OH, my other stressor was the fucking bitch who sniped my parking spot that I was waiting for with my blinker ON. Why do people suck SO BAD? WHY? I made the rounds and there were literally no other spots and I had to back out of this little narrow parking area and some woman comes whipping around the corner as I put the car in drive and oh did I ruin her day by making her stop her car for two seconds. The bitch shook her head at me as I pulled forwards so I shook my head back at her because oh, maybe if she wasn't speeding around a parking lot like a maniac she wouldn't have had to hit the brakes because someone was backing out of a line of spots. Moron. So I walked in for my appointment in a sour mood. I swear to god, I could write an entire blog just bitching about shitty drivers and the awful people they come off as when they are in their car.

Back to the acupuncture- I decided to focus on my stress and on my back again, as a maintenance thing, and got stuck in two places on my wrist, one of which she seems a little anxious about and told me to take a deeper breath than normal. I looked at her like "Ummm.." and she was like "Oh, it won't hurt, its just a very tight point." It didn't hurt any more than any normal points, but if I had no feeling in my wrist and could only have judged from the way she monitored my facial expressions I would've thought that I should be in a great amount of pain. I asked what, pray tell, was that point for and she said "It's very calming. I know, weird, right? So much anxiety to calm down." When she pulled up my pants to do the points on my calves she mentioned how I had great pants for acupuncture. I always wear bell bottoms and they fold up easily. I told her about the Hot Topic raver pants I had worn in high school and how these were simply a denim version of those, but more attractive, I think everyone can agree. Anyways, I got poked in two places instead of one on my wrists, my regular spot on my hands, my regular calf spots, my regular feet spots, and two new places around my ankles which, I believe, were for my lungs. It was a great treatment, especially for being 20 minutes long (longer than normal) and I didn't have any problems where I usually have at least something that is making me anxious. Here is a nice little picture I messed with so you can all see where these crazy people like to stick me.

All the red spots are "Let's Jab C!" spots. I've had significantly less troubles with Jaq than with Kat, but I have to remember that Kat was dealing with some very different problems of mine. Still, Jaq seems to do more new spots, but that is probably due to their different supervisors. The right wrist spot was weird and a little painful after the needle had been taken out of it, which was strange, but it went away. She worked on my back and there were very few but still significant trouble spots but they got fixed up. Its a good sign that there are less every time. I totally fell asleep all weird on my pillow and that probably accounted for it. Jaq also gave me patent herbs today for my allergies. She fixed my itchy eyes with acupuncture for the most part but my nose is always bad. They were only 7 bucks so I said sure.

Oh! To digress for a moment, I watched "The Whale Rider" last night and it was such a good movie. D always told me about it, but I'd never rented it. Its about a girl in a Maori tribe whose grandfather is searching for a leader to bring the tribe up to its original awesomeness and he's disappointed by his own eldest son for not being that leader and for not having a son to be that leader. The girl is, of course, very devoted to knowing the ancient chants and stories and ways of fighting, but he looks her over and even is angry with her when she tries to be like the boys. Its right up my alley right now and I recommend it.

Speaking of tribes, my Indian moccasins came in the mail today and I was still in class so I missed them and have to wait another day, arghhh. I could be wearing them right now!! I got Boyfriend's gift in the mail, so I'm going to wrap it up soon. Its nice to be getting that stuff out of the way early. Tomorrow I'll get my stuff after class from the post office and read all that stuff I didn't read this week as catch-up while my car festers at the dealership. I made juice tonight and its pretty bad. I made kale, carrot and apple and pear juice last night with a few strawberries thrown in and it was great. Tonight I had to work with kale, carrots and some old mango. Not nearly as good. In fact, outright bad. Bleh. But you bet your ass I'll choke it down.

The reading is completely overwhelming me and I just want a break. I've decided to take next semester off if I haven't mentioned it already. I miss my regular books and my Chinese medicine stuff I was reading. Now its all this science crap I don't care about. I can never drive out and I can barely ever see my friends. Boo Hoo.

Oh, I remember what else I was going to talk about. My weekend. This weekend I went to Merst for a Halloween party because the next day I needed to go to my cousin's confirmation in Sunny California. Oh wait, no, not Sunny California. I meant to say Make-You-Feel-Bad-About-Your-Status-In-Life Connecticut. That's the one. I'll talk about that next time, as my neck is getting sore.

Election Eve

2008-11-03T21:11:00.001-05:00

Voting in Massachusetts starts at 7am and goes until 8pm. FYI. NO, YES, YES

Sleep Paralysis

2008-11-01T11:49:00.000-04:00

I don't think I've ever written about this before but its sort of interesting. I think it started in late high school. I would have dreams where I was staring at whatever I'd been looking at on the wall before I fell asleep. I felt like I couldn't breathe very well and I would try to wake myself up out of it. I would try sooo hard to move one of my limbs and would eventually get my arm to move and wake up. Sometimes the things I saw were warped and I saw a face instead, or someone laying next to me. One time I saw a face and when I woke up it was Boyfriend's hair. It was the shadows and textures making shapes. Eventually the fact that I could only see one thing and couldn't move around in the dream clued me into something a little terrifying. I wasn't asleep.

I realized that I would wake up, or, to say it better, my brain would wake up. I would wake up and see what was in front of me, but not be able to move, and since I was really actually still physically asleep, sometimes what I saw was warped. My body still thought I was asleep and that's why my breathing was shallow. I guess that's all well and good when you're actually asleep, but to me it felt like suffocation. When you fall asleep your brain kind of paralyzes your body to keep you from harming yourself, for example, by falling off your bed and such things. It was fucked up and I had to will myself for what seems like forever to move and kick myself out of sleep. Sometimes it would happen as soon as I fell asleep, almost like those dreams you can't get out of.

At some point I saw some sort of documentary on tv that described such a thing and called it "sleep paralysis". They showed artwork where there were little red demons sitting on women's chests, holding them down. That looked about right. It happened ALOT junior and senior years of college, and its mostly trickled off since then. Its scary because even when you know there is someone next to you, you can't ask them for help and from what I've seen on YouTube, nothing they can do seems to help anyways, at least not in severe cases. I watched a video where there was a woman making noises with her throat and her boyfriend, who was filming, explained that she was probably telling him to add something to the film but he didn't know what she was trying to say. Its only happened occasionally in the recent years, but I can tell you right now it fuckin sucks. It reminds me of when my sister was really little and she used to get night terrors. My parents couldn't try to wake her up because anything they did would just add to the night terror. I remember a specific one where she described being on the deck with my aunt and me and mom and no one could get a jar of bees to open. She tried and it opened and all the bees flew out into her face. I saw a documentary on tv of that too and people have to take drugs for it. They get up and walk around and end up hurting themselves because they're asleep walking around their house. And then there's sleepeaters and that's a whole nother thing. Sleep problems are just crazy shit because everything you experience is happening in an alternative world.

Boyfriend and Birds

2008-11-01T11:31:00.003-04:00

One of the specific things I focused on during my two month long seperation with Boyfriend was the strange things he said that I felt no one else would even think of, his thoughts on robins in particular. There were more than a couple times where I wailed to my mom about what he said about robins and how no one else would ever say anything like this. He said that robins were the birds that reminded him most of dinosaurs because of how they ran across yards while other birds hopped. Who says shit like that?

There's No Shortage of Shitty Drivers

2008-11-01T07:20:00.007-04:00

Speaking of driving, and I always have plenty to say about that, I always have to deal with bad drivers on the way to school. No one knows where they're going in the downtown area which serves as the midpoint between me and school. There are particular lanes markings with arrows for if you want to go left, go straight, go right, and there's always someone in one where they don't belong. Nothing can ever run smoothly.

There was one day where I was on the opposite side of an intersection where we both had a green light and people were waiting to turn left. Wait, I already messed up this story- no one was waiting for anything. Despite watching myself and others driving straight forward, some ass turd decided to take a left anyways. We on my side got cut off. That was stupid by itself but even worse was the jerk behind him who pulled up on his ass, stopped before he took his left, saw us, and still cut us off. He did the go, stop, go thing as he saw me coming towards him and he had plenty of choice left before he got in front of me and plenty of time to see that it was a bad idea. He pulled up, curved, so that we were almost face to face and bumper to bumper. Front bumpers that is and since he was in my way by now anyways, I had to stop my car. His wife gave me a nasty look as he edged by me and hopefully I had already beeped because she can go fuck herself. I just tried to take advantage of my right of way to drive in such a fashion that abides by the law. The icing on the cake was that since I had to sit there and wait for this moron to get out of my way, I ended up sitting in the middle of an intersection when the light turned red and getting beeped at by someone who now had the green. Fucking fabulous. I wanted to flip them off, but once again, I haven't made it to that stage of road rage and I'm trying to resist any forward movement in that department.

Whenever I complain about idiots getting in my way or cutting me off or whatever, Boyfriend says something to the effect of that whoever has the bigger balls is going to get their way and I don't have to pussy out. That sounds dangerous to me, but since I've been getting more and more aggravated it's actually been a more successful option.

You know how when you are on a two lane road that merges into a one way, you kind of need to do a zipper pattern with the cars in the other lane? It's basic, like having good manners or like learning to share and stuff in Kindergarten. You go, then I go, then you go, then I go. Everyone in one group takes their turn with everyone in the other group. But not mature adults in vehicles oh no no. I got some woman who was trying to double up and piggyback the car in front of her. The double yellow line was to my left and she was to my right and you can be assured right this very second that she wasn't getting away with it. The SUV in front of her had zippered itself in in front of me and she was trying to follow him. Seeing as how I wasn't going to make space in between the SUV and myself for her discretion and I certainly was not going to drive on top of a double yellow line, it would've been best for her to back off and file in with the rest of us in her zipper position. But of course that's never how it goes. Instead she punched the gas abruptly over and over again in an effort to keep up with the SUV but not hit anything. I could see her in my rearview being pushed in closer and closer to the side of my car but still she would not relent. I stayed close to the SUV, decided not to pussy out, and watched her struggle to try and shove me out of my spot in line. This was a sort of wide one laner; it fit two cars at least, but finally I saw the end of the line: side-of-the-road parking spots. If she had kept going she would've driven into the rear end of a parked car. She finally relented and I could see the nasty look on her face and her mouth moving behind me. Eventually the road got wider again, but only because there were parking spaces with no cars in them. I watched in my rearview as she used the parking spots as her own personal lane and decided once and for all that I was definitely dealing with someone who had a touch of the crazy. Eventually she had to pull into a long line of cars to go straight while I pulled into a shorter line of cars going straight that were to then go right at the subsequent light and I can't say I was unhappy to be away from this person.

When you're on the road, please realize that cars have people in them and that manners still count. Even 4 year olds know how to take turns.

Bitch, Bitch, Bitch

2008-11-01T06:42:00.007-04:00

When I drive to work, the way my exit off the highway works is that rather than turning right to follow the road, you pull up straight to the lights, which puts you on a different route. The far left lane is a straight shot and the lane to the right is more like if you were on the left side of the turning section and decided at last minute you wanted to get off the highway. Its also for if you're driving up and see that the light might turn green and would prefer to blow by everyone rather than slow down.

Here is a diagram for your viewing pleasure because that reads in a really confusing way.

SO. The far left lane is the correct way to go. Everyone else merges right unless you decide to cut off an entire line of people and then you take the right side straight arrow. Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mention that both lanes merge into one on the other side of the lights. Well, they do. I say you know what? If you're a fast driver and you don't want to wait for everyone, then by all means use that right lane. I hate people blowing by me too but if you want to go faster than everyone it makes more sense and I can understand.

What happened this morning was a little different. I was at the front of the left lane and someone was in the right lane. When the light turned green, he raced ahead and got in front of me. Okay. And then he drove down the road wicked fucking slow. Torturing me as we went. My question is why would you try to get in front of everybody if you're the slowest car of us all? I'm going to open my own driving school and its going to involve failing you if you're a flaming moron who doesn't know how to work with others. It will be a required class for everyone with a license and your insurance will go up without it. I think I'd cut out at least 50% of the traffic on the roads right now.

Kids Costumes Suck Nowadays- Come On, Parents!!

2008-10-31T20:59:00.007-04:00

Tonight is Halloween and, in typical C fashion, I spent the evening stressing out and poring over a Chemistry take home that made me very seriously consider suicide. Chemistry is not my cup of tea and if I fail the world might just actually and finally end. I'm sort of surprised that it hasn't before. I wonder what it all means...

After I sat down and got all my notes spread out on the table and had my tea and honey and pens and calculator, someone rang the doorbell. I wondered if they were selling Girl Scout cookies or something. That's how much Chemistry fucks up my brain. When I opened the door there was a cute little kid in a tiger costume. I had to apologetically tell his mom I didn't have any candy. Which sucked. So I grabbed my keys and drove down the road and grabbed some and came back and pulled over near the family, who was putting the baby carriage away in their trunk and who were also now looking rather confused. I told them how I'd meant to get candy but forgot and they reminded me so here it was. I didn't want to be the weak house who had the lights on but was not handing out candy.

Some little kids came by and were super cute, but some big kids who I never see around the complex were doing the rounds too and they were much less pleasurable to give candy to. They only looked down at their bags and their outfits were lame 50% of the time. The first larger little turd was just wearing a red shirt with numbers across the front. I guess he was an inmate? I don't know. What I do know is that my mom used to slave over a sewing machine on the floor of our den for weeks to make quality costumes out of fabric and patterns. Everything I ever wore for Halloween was hand-made by my mom. So, let's see how much I can remember.

Years Old:

1. Pumpkin

2. Elf

3. Nun

4. Fairy Princess (I couldn't decide which one.)

5. Wonder Woman

6. Wonder Woman again

7. Stegosaurus (The costume was purple with yellow spikes and plates and some kids dad during the school Halloween parade said to his kid, "Look, its Barney!" and I was so pissed. Barney is a purple and green Tyrannosaurus rex with yellow spots Goddamnit. Don't you fools know the difference??)

By the way, I just realized right now that the name "Tyrannosaurus Rex" is derived from the word "Tyranny". Wow, this is one of my Cheerios moments. And also, how the fuck did my mom sew upright-standing stegosaurus plates?

8. Jasmine (of Aladdin fame)

9. Jasmine again, cause why the hell not.

10. ?

11. ?

12. Witch

13. Witch

And then in more recent years- I was a genie my Junior year and I looked DAMN GOOD. I was going to be Bettie Page senior year, but I wasn't confident about my homemade top, despite the fact that it made my boobs look crazy good. Last year I threw together a last minute Cruella DeVille and a customer at work told me how that's who his 10 year old daughter was going as this year. Figuresss. This year I'm going as Aeon Flux and I hope to god I don't gain 5 pounds in the next 24 hours. I think I'd definitely have to kill myself then. Or drink copious amounts, which I might do anyways. Hey, I guess it'll all work out!

By the way, what was everyone else?

Parents Can: Be Lying Jerks/ Make Things Interesting

2008-10-31T20:43:00.004-04:00

This is another story about the bullshit my parents fed me when I was little that I wholeheartedly believed until I was told otherwise years later.

When I was about 4, my father started quizzing me on three questions. He said it was very important to know the answers to these questions because if you didn't you could not graduate from pre-school. The questions were these:

1) Who is the greatest band of all time?
2) Who is the greatest solo artist of all time?
3) Who won Wimbleton in 1987?

The answers were as such:

1) The Beatles
2) Bruce Springsteen
3) Jimmy Connors

Can you guess what we listened to in the car on roadtrips?

Anyways, I believed him when he said one had to possess this knowledge in order to make it out of pre-school, but since I was 4 it didn't really concern me too much. Plus, I always knew the first two. I only forgot the second repeatedly. One day nearing the end of the year, my father came early to pick me up. He sat on one of those tiny chairs while he waited for class to finish up and the teachers all sat us down in a group to talk to us.

They said, "Today, we have three questions for you. Number 1: Who is the greatest band of all time?"
I raised my hand and they let me answer, "The Beatles."
"Good. Now, who is the greatest solo artist of all time?"
I raised my hand again and got to answer, "Bruce Springsteen."
They asked about Wimbleton too, of course, and I failed my father by completely blanking. Johnny something? Some boy in the class knew it was Jimmy Connors. I knew I was fine nailing 2 out of 3 and thought it was funny how they really did ask those questions in pre-school.

Not that I thought about it often enough to have come to any kind of realization, but it was at least 5 or 6 years before my father told me that he had come in early and requested that the teachers ask us all that and it was only at that point that I knew the truth.

Don't think for a second I won't mess with my own kids like that because I fully intend to if I ever have any.

Me and D Rip Apart a Video

2008-10-29T21:23:00.002-04:00

D: You know the song

D: but the video elevates it to an entirely different level.

D: Total Eclipse of the Heart

C: I definitely remember this gem

D: Have you seen the video?

C: yes

C: it was on all the time in the 90s

D: because if the song is a gem the video is crown jewels

C: I love the blown open shirts

D: Ahaha, and the absurd dance numbers.

C: dancing ninjas. Nice touch

D: Pornography has a more coherent plot

C: yah hahaha

C: is she supposed to be a teacher at a boarding school for nocturnal gay men?

C: they learn to make shoulder pads there. It's a vocational school despite all the extracurricular activities

D: I'm not sure, honestly.

D: It would make a fantastic porno

D: By fantastic I mean fantastically kitschy

Buddhist Wisdom

2008-10-29T20:55:00.001-04:00

I'm going to start putting daily quotes from the little Buddhist Wisdom book I bought as my "about me" every day.

This Is Why the World Hates Us

2008-10-29T18:48:00.009-04:00

Hm, so I have a post to write but first I have a quick disclaimer. Since yesterday I've been getting a sharp, throbbing pain in the back right of my head in just one particular spot. Its very random, so if I suddenly stop writing, you can just assume I've had an aneurysm. Now then! Moving on!

So I went to the mall yesterday. It was awful. The mall used to be so fun. I was never a mallrat, but it might've been different if I had one solid family living in one spot near my friends. Speaking of which, just to digress for a moment, I'm currently dealing with a situation which I will describe in a second, private post, because I have a particular policy on here. It will be the starred post; use this link and if you want to read it then friend me or whatever. ::Link will go up soon:: Anyways, the trouble started the second I was in sight of the mall. By the way, Old Navy went well and I got my Halloween costume and its hot without being whore-ish. Sort of. Hehe. I was driving in the leftish-straight (shut up, Boyfriend) lane and I needed to merge right for the upcoming right turn I needed. The light turned green and I put on my blinker and pulled forward. The car to my right could've sped up or slowed down, but instead in ran right next to me. I sped up to pull right in the front, so it sped up. I slowed down to see about getting behind it, but, seeing how I was not trying to get in front of it anymore, it slowed down. I sped up again to get into the lane, so they sped up. God I really do fucking hate people so much. So I missed my turn and had to find a different way in, which wasn't very hard but its the idea of it. If people could ever cooperate and be civil we'd get so much more done. I have my own policy and, while its also critique worthy by some, it makes sense to me. Here it is: If you don't have your blinker on, you're an incompetant asshole and I'm not slowing down to make room for you to cut me off with about 3 inches between our cars. If your blinker is on, I will manuever my car to help you be where you'd like to be. Unless you're a shitty driver and then I'd be afraid to have you anywhere near me so pull into my lane at a significant distance behind me please and thank you.

So I had now made it into the parking garage. Why is she writing about the parking garage, you ask. Well, because the idiocy just seems to multiply once you get into a parking area. This was no exception and I was on the first floor just 2 seconds into the garage itself before I came in contact with an idiot. It was one of those people who sees someone pulling out of their parking spot and recognizes opportunity. Except they were also the kind of person who doesn't back up and make room for you to reverse out of the spot but instead pulls up on your ass and sits right in your way. I drove up and it was then that they decided to back up about a foot. They had plenty of room, as I was not too close yet, but once they parked themselves for good (still in the other driver's way) I started feeling like a jerk and drove right on up. They still had room enough to back up some more, but not the plentiful amount of space that they'd had originally when it would've made fucking sense. So. Fuck them. Finally the poor driver of the smushed in car got out and drove away and I was free to go on my way. Except not, cause someone didn't know how to pull forward into a parking space. ARRRGGGHHHHH. Before she (yah, I said it) could pull back up and make a twenty-point turn I snuck around and parked myself a few yards away. Not to sound like a dick, but I saw the woman (of course) getting out of the car and walking across the parking lot and it was worse than I thought and since I'm not the only asshole around here I'll just let you deduce what that meant.

So holy shit! I made it inside! Finally! I walked though JC Penney and that was pretty horrible in itself. I saw a fleece sweater, made for an adult woman, with a frosted blue and turquoise and rhinestone snowflake pattern on it that would've been only borderline acceptable in 1991...for a ten year old. Or maybe your grandma. Jesus JC Penney! At least try to pretend your customers have some fashion sense! And just an fyi, I was wearing Step-Dad's old sweatpants, rolled at the waist, with a tank top and a sweatshirt my Boyfriend used to wear in highschool. That his mom got from a consignment shop. That now has stains on it from paint and probably maybe food or something that I've dropped on it. And I've sneezed on it in the recent past because I had a cold. I don't think that stained, I guess its just sort of gross. And I was still stylin' enough to make fun of the items in JC Penney. That's bad. I tried to take a picture of the aforementioned sweater, but my cell phone is retarded and it wouldn't let me. I've deleted like twenty pictures and it still says the memory is full. That's going back to the store, have no doubt about that. Argghh, the store is in the mall where I was!!!! Well, I'm an idiot too. Moving on then.

I got out of JC Penney without puking on anything and almost got run over by a team of old ladies. Don't you love how when 5 friends go to the mall they just spread themselves across the aisle? PICK A LANE, LADIES. I drove on straight ahead because I wasn't going to stop and start and stop and fumble around them to continue walking. They could just pick a lane. There were, as usual, hordes of teenagers, and then there were the old ladies who don't know how to dress their age. I went by one woman with her hair dyed dark and a dress and coat on that matched lengths above the knee, black tights, and black ankle boots and honestly, she'd look hotter if she took her age into consideration. Instead she decided to wear something for a 40-year old or less and look like a wannabe joke. I actually passed by that snobby 50-something year old character with the sunken cheeks and botoxed forehead and gaudy makeup you see in movies! You know, the one carrying around the dog and looking down her nose at, say, her new daughter-in-law and doing a half-british/ half-I'm not sure what accent. It was sort of funny. They actually make you?? Had no idea.

I walked back and forth in the mall looking for a Halloween store in which to buy a part of Boyfriend's costume but, alas, there was no such thing. Besides Spencers. Damn that fucking place is scary. Hot topic has become a joke but in Spencers you nearly expect someone in a hockey mask to come up behind you with a knife. I didn't mind leaving. So once I knew my search was futile I kind of meandered around, since that's what you're supposed to do at the mall anyways. Meander and buy, buy, buy. I saw the pumas I wanted in a store, greeted the clerk standing at the door, walked over and checked the price, visibly gagged, bade the clerk adieu, and walked back out. A ways away I saw a real live puma store and, naturally only expecting something worse, made my way over there to find the same shoe for five more dollars. They have so many goddamn manniquins in there that I almost jumped when I saw two real people talk and move. Ugh. On the way over there a fucking bird flew by me from the rafters and I was like "Ahh! Was that a fucking bird??" Um yes, it was. So anyways, I came out and went to turn left to wander the rest of the mall but I was so disenchanted with the mall by then that I didn't even want to see what else there was.

I was interested in one store on the way back, so I stopped there with no intention of buying anything. The store is called Teavana and its got (what else) tea and tea kettles and tea accessories and books on tea and tea cups etc., etc., etc. I mulled around and a nice saleslady asked if I'd ever been there before and I said I had, a year ago. Apparently that made me less sellable because she left me alone after that. I checked the price on the smaller version of a kettle I bought somewhere else and it was laughable (a "Teavana Exclusive!" my ass). I made my way over to the books and looked around a found a cute little square book that had a Buddhist quote for every day of the year. It was inexpensive and I liked it, so I bought it and avoided the depression that comes with leaving the mall empty-handed which is another damneable trick of the mall. The girl at the counter was nice and cheery and asked me if I wanted any tea with that, which confuses me since I had looked around the whole store already and if I wanted tea wouldn't I have picked some out and brought it up with my book? Instead of saying that I just said no and then proceeded to be even more obnoxious than I would've been had I just commented on my lack of tea and the reasoning behind my confusion over her question. My mother would've been appalled (and was when I told her about it later) but I have much less tact than my mother and in fact less tact than most people it seems and I actually had the gall to say, "Do you sell alot of this stuff?" which of course they do and she responded in kind, to which I continued, "That little shogun teapot over there is 69.95 and I got the larger one at Homegoods for 20 bucks." I knew she didn't care and couldn't do anything about it but I guess I just wanted to tell her as an fyi and maybe she might think its funny because she maybe knows how ridiculously her employer prices their items but there's also the chance that after I left she was like "did you hear what that girl just said?" to her coworker. Whatever. I was nice to her and refused a bag and thanked her and told her to have a nice day too, so hopefully I wasn't a heathen in the world of consumerism. Hey, everyone's looking for a deal. Maybe her discount is shitty. Actually compared to Homegoods regular pricing, her discount would be hella shitty no matter what is was. And the tea? I didn't check their price on that but I'm willing to bet I could buy the same tea in bulk for a fraction of what they're selling it for in cute little containers with a cheap pasted copy of a famous painting of a samurai on the front.

ANYWAYS. I got back out to my car and drove home and actually listened to half of that song from the nineties that's like "I'M COMING OUT, I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW, GOT TO MAKE IT SHOW- I'M COMINGG" but only because Nickelback was on every single other station I tried I swear to god. When I got sick of it (after thirty seconds) I tried again and found "SOS" by Rihanna, which I love, and stuck with that. For once I was incredibly happy to leave that plethora of consumerism which is the dreaded mall and I can assure you that I will not go near the place during Christmastime and possibly ever again. Boycott the mall!!

FIN

My Acupuncturist is Cool (and Educational)

2008-10-29T14:44:00.001-04:00

Okay, so I was right and wrong and my acupuncturist's name is Jaq and not Jack. I'm learning that she stutters less when I don't look her right in the eyes constantly, which is convenient because i have a tendency of not looking peple in the eyes all the time while I talk to them. I tend to look at them and then all over the room and then them and then the ceiling and then them and then something that catches my eye. So I have no problem with this. She probably has more trouble with the stuttering when someone is staring her down or something, which makes perfect sense.

I'm finding that I like her better than my last acupuncturist for a few reasons. Number one is that we just seem to be on the same wavelength to begin with and the next is that she will take a needle right out if I say its still hurting. She'll try again with a smaller needle, but the point is that she immediately gives up with the original one. She is also really cool in the way she'll explain things to me and not just say, "That point is good for congestion" when I ask her abut the specific point. For example, I have told her in the past about how I had asthma until I was 8 years old. Today she asked if my palms were still sweaty, which is a really annoying and inconvenient thing that's happened on and off since I can't remember how long ago anymore. I made mention of my recent allergies which have accosted me in the nose (as usual) and the eyes (only slightly less usual). She responded to all my symptoms by asking about the sweaty palms and stating that the palms were connected to the lungs which also, of course, had to do with my asthma and allergies. I love this girl. I had no idea about that because I'm just like every other schmuck. Another thing she said was that there was redness around the needles on my back and she said this enthusiastically. Um, yeah I don't know what that means. She told me that it meant that qi was coming up around the needle points and that that was a good thing, obviously. Very cool. Lastly, I mentioned how I always have trouble with certain front points on and off but have much less trouble getting back points treated. She explained that the back is the yang side of our body which means it is in excess and the front part of our body is the yin part and we are much more protective of it, which I think can make sense even to someone who doesn't know or want to know anything about acupuncture.

Another funny thing is that she asked me if I had a new haircut and that seems to happen every couple of months while my hair is growing out, which is sort of funny. Anyways. Last night I did the majority of my Christmas shopping. I won the item on Ebay that I'm giving Boyfriend and I bought my sister and mother's gifts as well in one foul swoop. To Do lists are easy when they involve buying stuff you don't actually need. I also succeeded in picking up my Halloween costume yesterday and boy, oh boy do have some stuff to say about the mall. And surprise! None of it is positive.

I Love Bed.

2008-10-28T10:27:00.000-04:00

Tell me you wouldn't want to sleep here. No, convincingly.

I Remember...

2008-10-28T06:52:00.001-04:00

When I was younger I used to use my dad's nice felt tip pens to draw with. He would bring home giant piles of that printer paper with the little holes down the edges and I would be instructed to use pencil but I stole the felt tip pens every time. He bought them to do work with or math or whatever the hell it was he did. But no, I would take them from the jar of pens and use them to draw foxes and unicorns and mermaids and girls with different fashionable dresses (read: slutty clothing).

I remember that the red and black markers were always out of ink but the brown markers were always great. There was a reason for that. Now I would use any of them if it was just pouring ink, I like how smooth it is and what a nice line it makes. Back then I thought brown was a yucky color. I remember how when I drew women and mermaids with cleavage, my dad would ask why there was a "worm crawling up her chest" and how I'd get annoyed when he said what a beautiful drawing my sister had made and how she must be the artist of the house when I had just given her a drawing lesson.

I'd get irritated at those silly coloring contests they'd give kids around Easter or the xeroxed pages of Bozo the clown. I'd color it in perfectly and would get nothing. it was the kid who scrawled green all over the clown's face and made the sky purple that won. I meticulously colored inside the lines and made everything the correct color. maybe they thought my parents did if for me. ::sniff:: In talking about clowns right now I just went online looking for some and found this guy, who seems pretty cool and young. A graduate of a clown college, wtf? I should be one to know there's a college for everything out there. I like the thought of a vaudevillian act.

Speaking of clowns, my aunt dressed up as one for my fifth birthday party. I don't know how, but I didn't realize it was her until my mom told me 3 years later. She honestly looked more like a ghoul in a clown costume because she painted her face white and then made big black patches around her eyes. She had a bucket full of confetti and it was pretty funny because she scared the shit out of my mom by going into the kitchen, turning on the faucet, and then coming out and acting like the bucket was heavy and subsequently spilling the confetti everywhere. My sister was already crying because my aunt looked scary and because my sister cried at fucking everything. It was a success, all in all, and for no money, at that.

My sister cried when she got bumped out of her seat playing musical chairs at my 6th birthday party. My sister cried when Brandon spilled his orange soda on her lap at my 7th birthday party. My sister cried when my parents hired a big yellow chicken to accost my aunt at her 28th birthday party. My sister cried at our kiddie Halloween party for reasons that I can't remember. My sister cried when we jumped off the stairs into the snowpile on the bush and her leg went through into the bush and she couldn't get up. My sister cried when my parents let her up into the attic with me and my mom and she realized the attic is significantly higher than the floor and she wailed "Diddyyyyyyyy" at my dad. My sister cried at everything. She probaby cried in some episode with a mall santa like every other kid on the planet but I can't specifically remember that.

Well that post veered off in another direction, eh?

I'm Irritated By...#4

2008-10-27T06:47:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I witnessed yet another display of human idiocy and inconsideration. Yaaay.

Dogs love to run off. I didn't really like the dogs in Italy, but I did think their behavior was better. They seemed to always be calm and they stood by their owners and just chilled even when you called to them. It was disheartening though, that they didn't even seem to want to come over and be pet. In America, dogs are crazy. People raise them to go nuts about everything. "Do you want to go on a walk??", "Hiiiiiiiiii! How was your daaaaay!?", "Oh you are so cute, aren't you?! So cute!!!", "Time to eat!!!". Its our fault. That's why I like that S.O. is so strict with his dog. I want her to be calm and able to behave. But she's reaching the terrible 2s. Of dog years. She's about 8 months and she's starting to ignore us when we tell her to come.

Yesterday, we were walking in the woods and we came up on a guy with his german shepard. They were running around like crazy, but they stayed in the area and it was fine. Then the dogs saw two other dogs walking with two women down the trail and ran there and back. The guy got his german shepard and kept him by his side but our dog kept running around like a rabbit and ran off again. S.O. was calling her and calling her and calling her and the women she was walking behind just kept walking. S.O. walked off to go retrieve her and bring her back and I sat down on a log because I had a headache. He turned the corner out of sight and I sat. And sat. And sat. ...And sat. Finally I got up and started walking after where he had dissapeared. Eventually I came to a fork and didn't know which way to turn, but I thought I heard sounds to the right and went in their direction. After another minute I ran into S.O. and the dog. He was annoyed. The women had just kept walking. Like they heard him calling repeatedly to the dog and they saw that the dog was following them, but they just kept walking. It would;ve taken no energy from them to stand still for two seconds and let him catch up and grab her but instead they ignored the whole situation. Assholes.

I suppose this was even more glaring because I helped a little old woman who reminded me of my great Aunt Rose yesterday. She had been looking at a plane and stepped on one of our speed bumps and fell on her hands and knees. The heels of each hand were bloodied and peeling and her knees were a little scraped but not badly since they'd been beneath pants. Patrick brought her and her son in and told me later that when he went to help her get up her tiny little pincher dog had attacked him and he wanted to kick the thing. I got alcohol pads that she blotted on her hands but then she'd rinse her hands in water because it stung and that was sort of funny. I put bandaids on her and she was fine but if I had seen it happen I would've had a heart attack. Its ridiculous how people can't even do something that takes no effort to help someone else out, it really is. All the women in the woods had to do was stop walking for 30 seconds. That's it. I hate people.

So besides that, I watched Kabluey with the S.O. and it was really funny. My Netflix movie was supposed to show on Saturday and its not here yet and I am annoyed. I made a drink from apples, pears, banana, kiwi and cacao pwder last night for today and forgot it in the fridge when I got up late this morning. I'm pretty sure bananas would be better blended than juiced, I think i just wasted half a banana by trying to juice it. Same for the kiwi. I'm starving and I really would like a cup of hot chocolate and I'm tired and boo hoo poor me. I'm four days away from my next paycheck and if I get really bored I just might buy the moccassins I want today. Oh, I should've mentioned that the cacao powder is really strong, bitter chocolate powder because, of course, its straight from the source. Its got alot of anti-oxidants and stuff and I'm going to mix it into my fruitier drinks. I think I might try to score some hot chocolate.

...is for Horses

2008-10-26T10:29:00.000-04:00

Something my dad used to say:

"Let's not and say we did."

Something my mom used to say:

"Capisce?"

Something my dad used to say:

"Hay is for horses."

Something my mom used to say:

"Pork chops and appleshawsh"

Some things my dad used to say:

"Did the "ghost" do it?"

"You're not allowed to say 'I don't know' when you turn 10."

"What you see here,
what you hear here,
let it stay here,
when you leave here"

for when my parents were talking about people we knew, and I just found this-

VANCOUVER - What you see and hear in the clubhouse of the East
End chapter of the Hells Angels stays in the clubhouse, said a sign found inside
the clubhouse during a police raid three years ago.
The sign read: "What you
see here, What you hear here, Let it stay here, When you leave here."
RCMP
Cpl. Dave Poon said the sign was among dozens of items seized from the Hells
Angels clubhouse when police executed a search warrant on July 15,
2005.

Accepted

2008-10-25T08:48:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I got accepted to the masters program I've been working towards. I guess I wasn't particularly expecting to get rejected, but in the last few days you see clearly that you never know and you're not the awesomest person in the world or anything. Then again when you stop in at the admissions counselors office and she says she needs to mail your decision letter and not hand it to you because she's not done putting it together, well I guess you can assume you're in. Suffice to say, I am excited about this quote unquote turn of events. Its not really a turn but more like a solid option. I'm also a bit more excited because Jack fixed my back and that helps along my idea that acupuncture is beneficial. I already knew it, but I had one solid success with Kat, and this is a different person and different issue so cool.

Yesterday I made a new juice out of squash, kale, apple, orange, sprouts, and raspberries. It wasn't very good and had some kick of a shit sip, but it was decent enough to chug quickly in brief intervals. My mom was like "Aw, poor C, trying to get healthy." Yup.

I got to hang out with Ali and J also before J went back to CO and Ali went up to ME for her new job. We walked around the arboretum after I explained how riding a bike around the woods might kill me. Or just embarress me. Good time was had by all I'm hoping. We stopped at an organic farmstand place and they didn't have corn, so Ali decided to just stop at Stop & Shop and tell her mom the corn was from the organic place. That was funny. J remarked on the way home that Ali was voting for McCain and she protested loudly. We talked a little about racism and abortion and how me and J are both pro-choice and death penalty, at least for child rapists, and he remarked how there are too many damn people in the world and I heartily agreed and said "I would say stuff like that more but I feel like everyone would take offense." I actually have something to say about racism in a bit, my friends have been faced with a shocking amount of it lately. I'm always surprised to find it still exists. Anyways, I just thought I'd do a short post to keep my life updated.

I'm Irritated By...#3

2008-10-25T08:46:00.000-04:00

...people in the grocery store. Not just any grocery store- grocery stores that are slightly nice. I'm talking pretty much anything nicer than Stop & Shop, like, say, Wholefoods or Market Basket, or even Roche Bros. Now don't get me wrong, I despise pretty much everyone at the grocery store, but the people in Stop & Shop are just kind of confused; the people in Wholefoods are entitled yuppies. Let's start with one of the best parts: the parking lot. The parking lot is actually a wonderful analogy to what goes on inside the grocery store. Entitled assholes move around, get in your way, cut you off, and don't give any consideration to anyone but themselves. Wow, looks like this post is pretty much complete. But don't think I'll won't give any examples! My anger actually began when I wasn't even in the damn parking lot! I drove off the main road onto a side road that acts as a meeting place from one main road to its parallel and in the middle are various stores. I stopped before taking my left into the parking lot to give some room and let other cars take a left out of the parking lot. I think this makes sense as it is difficult to take a left out of pretty much anywhere where there is traffic and no lights and it is quite annoying sitting in a line of 10 waiting to move an inch in the ways of getting home in the evening. It also makes sense to help out and give people the chance to LEAVE the parking lot so yourself and others can easily navigate and fit in. I flasher some woman to take the oppurtunity and OF COURSE the asshole behind me beeps at me. I was ready to throw up the middle finger and I should've but for some reason I haven't started doing that quite yet. I'm trying to keep my road rage at the level its at. So I let the woman go and then make my left turn into the parking lot and tried to make it a little jumpy so the dick would stay off my back. I drove straight to the back of the lot and all the way to the far side to find a spot because things didn't look to promising near the front and I donh't mind the walk. As I closed in on the corner I came up on someone sitting and waiting. They were just sitting there, so they probably wanted a particular spot, and I drove around. I found a parking spot and wheeled on in and looked back to see what was going on with the people who'd been sitting. They were waiting for a (tiny bit older than) middle-aged woman backing a small SUV out of a spot. There was no one in the way and plenty of room between her and the waiting car but she was coming out inch by inch and stopping to pull back in and back out and back in and back out. I got out and locked up my car and she was still in the process of a twenty-point turn and her successors were STILL waiting for their spot. It was like the type of parking I did at 16 when I had barely any distance perception whatsoever except it was way worse and I was driving my dad's minivan. I was making my way down the row of cars before she got herself all the way out of that spot, I kid you not.

So I made it into the store and probably encountered a few people walking out the in door because that always happens and it pisses me off. I used to work at a chain pharmacy in high school and there were two doors at the entrance, side by side. They were identical and neither said "in" or "out" but you could pretty much always bet on that if you were wiping down one door, people would stand outside it waiting for you to finish. Sometimes I didn't. THERE WAS AN IDENTICAL DOOR TWO INCHES AWAY. This would happen on either side. I could have made a movie akin to "Clerks" about that place. So anyways. I made it in and grabbed a basket and went straight for the fish counter. I gave the owman who was already there plenty of room cause its annoying to A) Have someone up your ass and B) Watch the person next to you get called on when you were there first.* She motioned me up because she was asking her husband questions about dinner on her cell phone and the guy at the counter took care of me and my salmon. It was a good start. Then I went towards the produce. Everything got 100% worse. People jammed all the spaces between the bins with their carts and bodies and stood in one place forever looking around them like they'd never been there before. Like say you have four bins and space in between them all to walk. People think its totally cool to just park it right in the crossroads of the bins and stand there for 2 minutes. There's no one trying to get around them or anything. Me and my basket manuvered through these pinheads and failed to find asparagus. There was nasty looking white gourmet asparagus but that was it. Dude, even Stop & Shop has asparagus on a daily basis. So, since asparagus is fucking expensive enough as it is, I passed and got the default- broccoli. Can't go wrong with broccoli.
Next I made my way towards the aisles and as I passed the deli and cheese I was halted by a woman pushing her cart at negative 5 miles an hour following her 6 year old son who was pushing his own cart at about the same speed. She saw me and three other people shuffling along behind her but failed to do anything about it. I took the long way around the cheese display in a sour mood and made it by them in record time. I moved on towards the dairy and as I closed in I literally bounced off a pole as it didn't occur to me that my width was much increased by a plastic grocery basket. I lightened up a little.

I walked down the aisle trying to find the pasta sauce, which they had hidden like it was a fucking treasure hunt, and some woman in front of me saw what she wanted, parked her cart in the center of the aisle and walked over to the left, barring the largest opening there had been. Me and my basket hung tight and fumed big hate vibes in a futile effort to push her out of the way. When she finally moved I zipped around her (I showed her) and made my way to the counters. I found an open register and put my stuff in front of a boy who looked to me no more than 17 years old. he picked up my artichoke and was like, "This is an artichoke, right?" No, its a grape, charge me 5 cents. He was like the nicest person i'd run into there and it made sense since he worked there. So I left and ran into 5 more dumbasses who lose the ability to drive in a simple grid of a parking lot.

*This one time at Wholefoods, I went up to the fish c0unter where there was already an older woman and a middle aged woman waiting. The older woman was first in line, then the middle aged woman, then me. When the fish market kid was freed up, he immediately walked over to me and asked me how he could help me. The other women had clearly been there before me and I pointed to the one who was first in line and he went over to her. A second fish guy came back from break or something and came straight over to me and asked me what I needed. I pointed to the other woman and said that she'd been there before me. He helped her and finally came to me. It made me wonder how 40 year old women feel when shit like that happens. Its not very nice. Makes me not want to get old.

Saving Energy and Water

2008-10-24T07:37:00.001-04:00

I got gas yesterday for $2.69!! Other places around had it for $2.79 and $2.75 and the one I was using on the way back from school for awhile was at $2.65 if you paid in cash, but I still wasn't expecting it from the station I like to use. I stuck to my ten dollar plan because I don't want to buy more gas than I need before the price goes down again. I got so much gas for $10 it seemed. Wouldn't it be great if it went down to a buck something? Doubtful, but everyone would jump for joy.

So I've taken to wearing a winter hat around the house. I really don't want to turn up the heat until I really have to and I wore the hat while watching my movie the other night and while reading chemistry yesterday. When I got up to make a grilled cheese I caved and put it up to 68 degrees. Also, the water bill went up $100 for the past three months which sucks. I was wondering why and my mom didn't know (obviously) and it sat in the back of my mind until I realized that for two days of every week for the whole last year I was showering at the S.O.'s. I was saving 33 bucks a month by showering with him at his place. I guess I should just try to chop my shower-time but I don't know how well that will work.

I'm a Juicer

2008-10-23T17:19:00.000-04:00

I got up late today, but made it to chemistry on time. I managed to stay awake through it and got out without my head exploding. I'm about a half chapter behind but I'll fix that. So I drove straight to a Mobil and got my car inspected. An hour and a half later. There was a line and that sucked but I got my Netflix envelope and walked downtown to the post office. Halfway there I totally had to pee and the drawbacks of not having a car became more clear than ever to me. I walked to McDonalds and happened upon Z, who was out in her dad's truck. After I visited Mickey D's she offered to drive me to the bank which was my next stop and on the way I made roaring noises to coincide with the terrified looks on people's faces as she neared them in that monster of a vehicle. She was busy, so she just gave me a ride back to the Mobil station and left. I would've killed an hour, but thanks to her generousity, I only killed half that. So I laid down on the wooden bench in front of the station and continued reading my book on hypochrondria. I should really finish the last couple pages of my Oliver Sack's book, but I'm dumb. The guy working the counter at the station came outside and remarked that he'd never seen anyone get so comfortable on that bench. Eventually it got too hot in the sun and I moved to the shade (where it was freezing; damn you New England) and when I came back to the bench 10 minutes later I saw that my car was not there anymore. 2 seconds later it pulled around the corner in front of me with a brand new sticker on it. The guy who inspected it was really nice and I asked him about the airbag light, which has been on for a couple weeks now. He said since the car was still under warranty I should get that checked out and soon cars will start failing inspections cause of stuff like that. Every now and then I've considered getting it checked out because I keep having morbid images of myself randomly taking an airbag to the face at any old time, but then I just carry on with my life. The Ford Dealership where I can get it fixed is seriously two streets away from my house, so I don't really know what's wrong with me. Maybe I'll set something up for next Thursday. The last thing I need is to go into work looking like I was beaten to a pulp because I was too busy/lazy to get my airbags checked out.

So I drove home feeling mildly accomplished and broke out the brand new juicer. I protested the instructions to wash it before the first use, but I figured I'd be an idiot to ignore the first advice on upkeep the damn thing gave me, so I very reluctantly got that part out of the way. And then we were rolling. I chopped up a mango I had just gotten at the grocery store (where I heard from a past employer that Derek was doing well in Cape Cod- its the first I've heard of him in months) and a few carrots and got the kale out of the fridge. My mom had me buy it awhile ago but hasn't touched it. The first carrot I stuck in there got jammed and I had to disassemble (lots of "s"s, damn) the top little bit and push the carrot through and re-chop it. Besides that, though, there were no problems. the carrots made some very nice juice and I threw the mango in piece by piece and then I shoved folded pieces of kale in there and turned the whole drink a nice putrid green. I threw the pulp waste off the porch cause I didn't want it to smell up the kitchen and washed all the stuff right away cause I wanna have this thing working well for some time. The drink itself wasn't amazingly good but it wasn't bad either and its certainly something I would willingly drink every day. I'm probably going to go nuts buying organic produce at the grocery store a town over and making a ton of juice. What I made today didn't even fill the glass I had, so I can definitely make more at a time. I was also considering getting whey or powdered protein or flaxseed and tossing it in. Wheatgrass is supposed to be great for you but taste terrible. I could also mix in kelp or something and I was watching a video a girl put up of herself losing weight and she highly recommended throwing açai into your juices. I can probably find that in the health food store, but if I can't I'll hit up Wholefoods when I visit Alec. I need to cut out the sugar hardcore and up my vegetable and protein intake.

So, here's the stuff I want to improve:

Concentration
Energy
Motivation
General Physical Health
Mood
Length and Quality of Sleep
Skin

My concentration has been sucking for months. My sleep was awful when I was really stressed out and its improved now, but it could still be better and I'm certainly not someone who leaps from her bed in the morning singing Disney songs. My skin on my forehead has been gross. Not noticeably so, but noticeable to me. It started off stress-related and it stuck. My mood has been pretty damn good considering, but I'd like it to normally be really good. General physical health has been okay, but I got that cold and that sucked, so I'd like to up my immunity to illness. I definitely don't want to miss work or pass up a trip to Amherst because I feel hellish. Lastly, I want more energy and motivation so that I can want to exercise.

So now I have a few things on my plate. I want to go back to see this woman, Andy, that did the Oneness Blessing and get a one-on-one with her because I think it would be more beneficial and apparently it destressed my mom for weeks. The woman charges whatever you feel like donating and that sounds good to meeee. I'd love to do whatever I can afford to keep my stress levels down and my attention only on the things that really matter. My acupuncture with Jack yesterday was awwwesome, so I intend to do that weekly to stay "tuned up" and keep my mood good and my back from stiffening up. Only $10 cause I'm a sciences student :-D. Jack was great, I feel the need to say it again. I'm probably spelling her name wrong, I bet its like "Jaq" or "Jac" or "Jacq" or something. Whatever. I still want to get a massage at the yoga place near the health food store but that's $60, so we'll see. The juicer is my next tool and I want to start doing daily walks or practicing with my qi gong or yoga dvds DAILY. So now I'm totally rambling and being boring and my neck is starting to go to hell again and I still have Chem reading to do, so I'll cut it off here. w00t.

Owl-y

2008-10-22T19:08:00.000-04:00

I got hooked on ebay the other day. I've always hated it simply because I don't want to bid on things, I just want to buy them. I don't want to compete with someone over the material possession I want. I found something great though, that was "Buy It Now" and it was quite reasonably priced at that. So I did. Buy it then, I mean.. So yah, I watched a video on youtube about a magician's girlfriend breaking up with him and she was wearing this giant gold thing, and I was like "what's that?" and looked a little harder and it was a giant hinged owl! Soooooo cooooool. So I bought this one and then the next day I bought another and I'm just waiting on that. Here's the one I just got in the mail. Also, my mom saw it and was like "Holy Crap, I used to have something almost exactly like this when I was a teenager."

So that was neat. I also already got that juicer. I can't believe how quick they got here. Oh and I'm getting my decision letter from school on like Friday. I hope its good. Anyways, here's the juicer. I plan to juice up tomorrow ;-P

It doesn't look exactly like that tho, mine's cuter ;)

Its About Time

2008-10-22T18:46:00.000-04:00

So I got bagged today. I knew I wouldn't get away scotfree this time. I've escaped unscathed too many times from possible speeding tickets because I've never had a ticket before. So basically, my sticker still says "8" and its surrounded by bright slap-you-in-the-face orange. I knew they'd finally see it. 10 doesn't really look like 8. 9 did, but we're in the double digits now, baby. Honestly, I'm surprised it took them so long. I was coming back from school and was driving at a more than reasonable speed but when I went past the cop car I knew he was going to see. He pulled out and turned on the blues and pulled me over and told me he had pulled me over because of my sticker. I took a quick glance at it and back at him with a "crap." face and he asked me why I hadn't gotten it inspected yet. "I just forgot" I said, very resigned-like. He was a young guy and took my license and registration back to his car and although I let hope flit through my head I knew in my heart it was over. Ironic how all the times I've been pulled over for speeding I get a verbal warning but when I get pulled over for a sticker? Now they better crack down. That shit's dangerous.

So he came back and gave me a citation, but was very nice about it. $50. He said "If you just forgot and there's nothing wrong with the car, just get it inspected and send this back in the next 20 days asking for a hearing. They might just drop it." If that's how he felt then why did he give me a ticket? Oh well. I deserved it. So he tells me to have a good night and I pull away from the curb. He u-eys and leaves. I swear this is true- not a whole minute later I am pulled over by another cop from the same town just across the bridge. He walked over to the car and said "Your sticker is ex-" and I shoved my license, registration, citation, and hearing envelope out the window at him and said "I got pulled over not thirty seconds ago; here's my citation." He said "oh." looked it over and said "Well, I'm not going to give you a ticket for the same thing." and walked away looking quite dissapointed. I honestly wanted to apologize to him because he seemed that let down about it.

It took forever to pull back onto the road because its a very well-used route, but when I finally did I drove for nary 3 minutes before I went past a cop in a side road the next town over. It was the first time I ever sped up when I saw a cop car. I mean seriously, you're less apt to see a little sticker when its going by you a little faster, right? I thought I had made it and thought about how funny it would've been if he had pulled me over and no sooner than I jokingly made my wish, I caught sight of blues in the rearview, speeding towards me. I pulled over and he walked up, yet another young guy. They were all young. He said good evening or something and I handed over my pile of paperwork and told him "This is the third time I've been pulled over for this in the past 7 minutes." He kind of laughed and expressed surprise that I had actually been given a ticket for it. He said "Well, I wasn't going to give you a ticket because I saw you've never had one.....but I guess it has been two months..." I readily agreed, it had been two months. He laughed and said good night and I drove home, straight to a gas station and inquired about how soon I could get my car inspected. I'll be going around noon tomorrow and I bet you I'll get pulled over three more times before then.

I'm dissapointed because I got confirmation that you really do have it easier when you've never gotten a ticket before. I guess those days are over.

What the Hell

2008-10-19T11:24:00.000-04:00

But then again.

Sigh. I wish someone would clean ths place up so we could even make accurate decisions.

I'm Irritated By... #2

2008-10-19T09:49:00.000-04:00

...the fact that we make smokers go outside with the idea that they're harming everyone less by doing so. They're still blowing poisons and shit into the air for us to breathe, but apparently because we can't smell it, its not there. I wonder how the air smelled to the Little House on the Prairie people, or the Native Americans back when, when there were less fumes and smoke and chemicals everywhere. I bet it was pretty sweet. Not to mention, why are some drugs illegal, but nicotine is totally cool? People are getting addicted to cancerous poisons but oh, marijuana, good lord we can't have that!

Speaking of which I'm voting yes on Question 2, not cause I smoke, because I don't, but because I think its dumb that so many people get in so much trouble for something so dumb.

On November 4, 2008, we will have the chance to pass Question 2 into law –
a ballot initiative decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of
marijuana, removing the threat of jail time for possessing an ounce or less of
marijuana for personal use. Question 2 will save the commonwealth millions of
dollars in police resources each year and end the unjust policy of saddling
Massachusetts residents with a lifelong criminal record, known as a Criminal
Offender Record Information report (or CORI), for this minor infraction.

So you know. Vote Yes on Question 2 please. And No on Question 1 cause its fuckin ridiculous and my mom is a teacher. A good one, by the by.

Decrease funding for education, increasing
class sizes and cutting after-school programs.

She already has like over 20 kids in her class and have you ever tried to keep 20 kids under control? Its hard. I've subbed a few times and I was a teacher during a summer for a summer school/ camp and just 10 kids is difficult. She brings home 120 tests and homeworks to correct like every single day and even when they're multiple choice they take for-fucking-ever and I know because I've corrected some of them for her to help her out. Less afterschool programs, teachers, and higher numbers of kids in each class will be Hell on Earth. We have enough dumb kids as it is, let's keep our levels stable or improve them, not go the other way.

Goddamn Hippies and Their Sprouts

2008-10-19T09:33:00.000-04:00

Last night I bought a juicer. Some of the cheapest ones are $100 but I looked for used ones on Amazon and found that there are stores out there selling old models brand new for cheap! So cool. I got one for just $51 with shipping and taxes included. I'm going to feed it sweet potatoes and make chips with the skins and feed it kale and apples and carrots and sprouts and all those hippie shit veggies that I don't feel like eating so I'm going to chuck the solid part and drink all the nutrients. The juicer was made for lazy assholes like me who want to be healthy but don't want to eat the right things for it haha. I should probably start documenting how I feel each day to see if it makes a visible difference.

Today I woke up and I was freezing cold. I should've used my space heater last night but, silly me, I figured when my parents hit the sack they'd turn it on. I guess you don't need heat so bad when the next day is your day off and you'll be in bed all day anyways. I walked upstairs to go to bed while they were watching futurama and drinking "hot totties" in the livingroom. I felt like yelling "You crazy kids keep it down! Some people have work tomorrow!" This is backwards. Now I know better though.

I had to scrape the frost off my window and nearly hit some guy and his dog because I couldn't see through half the windshield, but I was going like 5 mph and looking around very alert-like, so I didn't. The dog would've been a tragedy but the guy is one of those assholes who stares at me when I drive to my house so screw him. Got to work on time blah blah blah. So now I'm here and its a pretty decent day and I was just bitching at one of the guys about something that I'm about to write about.

Single Sucks

2008-10-18T20:15:00.000-04:00

Sometime in June:

Me: You know how I can tell the pills are working?

lb: How?

Me: I can sing again.

lb: Cool.

Me: Yeah.

..

ALLLL BYYYY mY-SEEeeLLFFFF

I Shouldn't Have Said Anything

2008-10-18T20:08:00.000-04:00

Fuck, I paid $2.89 yesterday and it was $2.83 today GODDAMNIT.

Turning Japanese

2008-10-18T20:03:00.001-04:00

x3: I was going to ask you for a song earlier

TheC: oh? haha

x3: so good call sending that to me

TheC: yerp

x3: I need some dinner

x3: any ideas

TheC: pad thai

x3: try again

TheC: clam chowder

x3: come on

TheC: sushi

x3: are you joking

TheC: every one of those choices is super mega ultra awesome to the max and I just had chowder and wish I had sushi and <3 pad thai

x3: you gonna say cookie dough next

TheC: well have a fucking steak you goddamn blandass American

x3: shush

TheC: well tell me I didn't hit the nail on the head

x3: yeah, you did

x3: I was thinking about going out and buying some steaks earlier

TheC: so there

x3: yeah you win

TheC: I'm quoting that

Faux pas? Freudian Slip? Neither.

2008-10-18T19:16:00.000-04:00

x3: so you are not single now

TheC: nope

x3: oh really

TheC: yup

x3: what is going on now

TheC: I'm with a tall dark and handsome guy

TheC: except make all those adjectives opposite

TheC: hahaha except the last one WHOOPS

TheC: haha

x3: smooth

TheC: yah

Cruisin' Pt. 2

2008-10-18T11:15:00.000-04:00

Part 1 here.

I called his house later and he couldn't talk because his parents were flipping out at him and he was in fact kind of upset that I called because his mom or something was upset that I called because they were busy flipping out at him but now that I look back that seems really fucking dumb. Sorry I want to know how my boyfriend is doing after that ordeal. Pardon me for interrupting your yellfest. It was stupid because the crash wasn't even his fault. Ironically, his dad rear-ended someone in his car months later and just kind of acted very casual about it. His dad is cool so I'm sure he was just shocked that his car had been damaged. The next day I went to school and had to tell the story to everyone and his mom kept him home. Why? I don't know. There was barely a scratch on him. I was the one with a monster purple bruise on me. He was perfectly fine. Maybe she wanted to bitch more. Z accompanied me when I visited him that afternoon and his mom sat on the fucking stairs yak yak yakking and being the crazy person she is while he sat there looking at me like "please kill me." The car accident really wasn't that terrible compared to his mom's reaction to it and our complete lack of privacy and the way he basically wasn't allowed to leave the house.

Actually for her her reaction was pretty blase, it was his dad who actually freaked out, but compared to a normal person she still acted very strange. She didn't help matters, let's just say. I often wonder what the look on her face would be if I knocked on their door and said I was there to hang out with him. She hated me and she always made statements about how we got off on the wrong foot and were starting anew but I honestly never had a problem with her until she called me a slut behind my back (when I was a virgin) and made other remarks about how I never talked, even tho it was impossible to get a word in, but that's enough of that. I can deal with crazy, I think I've proved that, its just irritating when your boyfriend's mother isn't just crazy but also says things like "I wouldn't come to the wedding if you married her" and "I won't send you money if you two live in the same dorm." Uh, okay.

Anyways, let's wrap this up. I had that bruise for months, although it was many different colors over that span of time. I never knew bruises could scar, but I could touch where it had been a year later and it was painful. I still point it out when I see a stealth and I still remember "cruisin'" as being something really really fun. Oh and if he's reading this, I still point out Jesus Fish all the time. He hated that and its got nothing to do with anything but I just remembered it.

String from your tether unwinds
Up and outward to bind
I was spinning free
with a little sweet and simple numbing me.

The Sweetness Will Not Be Concerned With Me Pt. 1

2008-10-18T08:47:00.000-04:00

To this day, I trust my ex more than anyone else sitting in the driver's seat in a car. Even though he's been in three car accidents that I know of and might have permanantly altered perceptions. S.O. makes me so nervous in the car even tho he hasn't been in an accident since he was like 17. Z tailgates like a maniac and Aurora...she's just a bad driver. Like straight up. Me and Z screamed "STOP!!" once when she was about to blow a stop sign and drive right in front of an oncoming car with right of way. I'm perpetually jumpy in her car but magically she's avoided accidents except for one and it was not her fault. But this isn't about anyone but my ex and "cruisin'".

Before we started actually seeing each other, he called me up at my dad's and asked me if I wanted to go cruisin'. He had his dad's Dodge Stealth and was going to take it for a drive. I had to argue with my dad because oh god! it was already 8pm! why did I need to go out so late?! But in the end I somehow won out and he came over and picked me up. We drove one town over and went back and forth through this narrow tiny street in the woods and blasted "Sweetness" by Jimmy Eat World. The song had been put to a video of rally cars and we loved it and he eventually found it after searching the lyrics and dled it. It became our song and we were all "We don't have a mushy song, thank you very much." Several times we were flying towards phone poles but he would always manuever the car and pull us out of danger. We flew over bumps in a fashion reminiscent of that one scene in Ferris Bueller and it was fun as hell.

One day, when we were going out Senior year, he came over my house, probably skipping golf club or something cause he always did. Around 3 or 4 we got in the car so he could bring me to work. At the time he was borrowing the stealth because it cost his dad less gas money to drive the Rusty Justy to work. We were going down the main road that my street came off of and were nearing another side road where a woman in a minivan was waiting to come out. She looked at us and then turned right and looked down the road in the other direction. Then she started to pull out. We went "what the fuck" and he slowed a little and it became clear that she really was going to pull out right in front of us. She took another look in our direction and seemed to actually see us this time. Her reaction? Stomp the brakes in our lane. Of course. What else would you do? Ummm. My ex stomped the brakes and made an executive decision to try to turn into the road she was coming out of which was at a bit of an angle to the main road, rather than drive across the left lane and potentially hit someone head on. Unfortunately, he and his dad had ripped out the abs brakes, don't ask me why, I don't know enough about cars. Rather than turning into her road, we skidded straight into the middle section of the minivan.

Up until this point, I literally had my arm up on the door and was sitting back in my seat without a care, assuming we would get out of this like we normally did. It wasn't until the very last second that I realized we weren't going to escape unscathed this time. I sat up, closed my eyes and screamed. I heard glass shatter everywhere and assumed our windshield was gone and probably going to cut us. When everything stopped and I opened my eyes, there was dust everywhere and he was looking at me and asking me if I was okay. I said yes and looked to see where our windshield was, only to find that it was intact. And yet there was broken glass all over our hood. He had turned off the car and gotten out to see if the people in the minivan were okay. We had blown their windows out all over our car while simultaneously bouncing them clear across the road. The woman driving the minivan had been pushed to what had been the middle of the front seat and had not been wearing her seatbelt. She was okay except for a nick on her forehead which was trickling blood and her first words were that she was sorry. Her daughter, who had been wearing her seatbelt, was fine, just shaken. He and I always made it a point to wear our seatbelts in the stealth, so we were fine except for a giant bruise on my inner right calf that I didn't even notice for a pretty long time. Later on it hurt to walk but right then I didn't even know it was there. The cops got there quickly, of course, and I sat on the passenger side of the car while they dragged the minivan out of the road. Oddly enough they measured the distance between the cars after they moved it farther away but I won't get into that now. Apparently some statie was giving my ex a rough time and when the kid got nervous he used to twitch like a motherfucker. The statie was being an asshole to him until a medic came over and was like yo back the fuck off, this kid's blood pressure is going to make his head explode. I didn't know about that until later but then the statie came over to me and started asking me questions and asked how fast we'd been going. I said we had been driving at about 43 or 44 because we'd been at 47 and then started slowing down when we saw her car. I said I had looked at the speedometer about 30 seconds before we hit. He asked if I was sure about the speed and I said "pretty sure." Then he said "Is that what you'd say in a court of law?" and I was like "What?" He was a tool.

The bumper on our car was a little smushed but that was it. We had bent the minivan sideways into a semi-circle shape and it was totalled. The medics asked me if I could let them take me to the hospital and I said I was fine because I didn't want to go anywhere or be seperated from my ex. They informed me that either I could agree to go or they could force me because of the liability if there was something wrong with me, so I said I would go. I rode in the ambulance with the mother, who was on a stretcher, and he was in the other ambulance with the daughter, whom he chatted with. In the hospital we were across the hall from each other and my leg started to hurt. I had a giant bruise at least six inches long and it fucking hurt but there was nothing else wrong with me. I don't remember how we got home.

Part 2 here.

Pointless and Documentary

2008-10-18T06:32:00.000-04:00

On Sunday Z gave her car back. She couldn't handle the $350 a month car payments and I can't blame her because I wouldn't be able to hack that either. They wouldn't lower her rate at all and she just told them to take it away. Its a relief but its kind of sad.

Yesterday I bought gas for $2.89 at my place down the road, that was great. I'm trying to only buy every so often in small amounts so I can save a few pennies and wait it out till the price is that much cheaper. I wonder how far it will go. Probably not too much farther, but I can hope.

My mom got the electric bill for this past month. We have to keep in mind we haven't used the a/c at all but still, two months ago the bill was $315, last month it was $224, and this time it was $91. That's a pretty big improvement. I've been trying to keep lights off, use some candles for rooms that we might need to use for a second but don't need alot of light for, and unplug everything upstairs, as I've said before. After dinner I put candles in the kitchen and diningroom cause I only foresee needing to go back in there to fill a glass with water or something.

I've been sick the past couple days and went out and bought huge bottles of echinacea and Vitamin C. I think they actually made a big difference.

Last night I cut a check to Ford Credit for $500 instead of the $225 they're asking of me. Why? Because I hate them. They're money-grubbing bastards and I don't want to pay them any more interest than I have to. I'm actually really proud of myself for all that I've put into my savings account. I think besides gas and the vitamins I haven't really bought anything.

The house is making me feel like its Christmas. That's the only time every year that we really really clean it. Now I work on it every day and my parents do it up every weekend. The only thing the downstairs is really missing is a mopping. I kind of want a new tablecloth for the diningroom to liven things up, but honestly, why spend money on that. Who cares? The one on there now is pretty nice, I'm just bored of it. I should make one or something. I should try to decorate for Halloween but I don't think we have any of that stuff we used to put up at the old house. Right now I'm trying to clean my own room up and its pretty easy cause its all books and clothes.

Obviously I need to have some sort of adventure or something.

AIM Prof

2008-10-16T20:02:00.000-04:00

I think this was my aim profile in like Fall 2006. Haha.

Z: i'm just chillin not doing much at steves
Z: maybe I shoulda stayed in the 'nard
Z: lol
C: don't kid yourself
Z: hahahahahahaha
Z: TRUE

TheC: so whatd you get for christmas?
Dave: i got a couple nice sweaters and a few pairs of pants
TheC: hey sweaters, now you don't have to go topless, slut
Dave: i have nature's sweater
Dave: i dont need the synthetic stuff
TheC: hahahahahahaha
TheC: its true

Me: So what are you getting me for Christmas?
SO: An amazingly nice boyfriend :-D
Me: And when will I be receiving him?

SO: It's like the Trifecta of Hell- I have Christmas, then your birthday in January, and then Valentines Day to buy you presents for.

Casey: I don't know what to get my girlfriend for christmas. I wanted to do no gifts but she got me one anyways, so now I have to get her one.
Me: Well, what've you gotten her in the past?
Casey: God, I don't remember, I forgot her birthday once
Me: Ugh
Casey: Yah, I'm making damn sure that never happens again
Me: What about Christmas?
Casey: Family Guy dvds, it was a last second gift
Me: I see. Well, what does she like
Casey: She watches Oprah, maybe I should get her tickets to Oprah. Hah.
Me: Why don't you get her the "Best of the Crying Scenes" Oprah dvds?
Casey: What? Are those real?
Me: Yah my sister got them for my mom last year
Casey: Ohh my God, I didn't know about this Oprah dvd action. I'm doing that.

"And rememberin' the days I pushed away your love,
You called my bluff and you still stayed around,
Yeah you figured me out
Said, you got me down
And there's no way to lie to you,
you know me better than I do"

SO: So what do you think you're gonna do today
C: Well, I need to go to Target
SO: Ah, true, when are you doing that?
C: I dunno, when are you free, I was hoping you'd come with me
SO: Is it necessary?
C: No, but the whole point of having a boyfriend is so you have company when you go for long drives.
SO: What the fuck? I'm not a stuffed animal!
C: I love you Mister Fluffy! ::big hug::
SO : Shut up! Get off me!

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Forget, all the others
Who were scared so they criticised your views
Of course you're special
And that's why you're different
And that's why life is gonna notice you

8-9-04 Burr

Uh oh, he was right, it is the 9th and not the 8th. I drilled it into his head and then I forgot. Oh well.

Skelatophobic

2008-10-16T18:13:00.000-04:00

Today while I was walking through the kitchen at school I smelled the exact smell I used to smell (too many "smell"s) when I would open my paper bag lunch at day camp. Then it kind of turned into elementary school. And then it stayed there cause I used to eat french fries and ice cream in high school for lunch. In elementary school for the first two years (1st and 2nd grade, I mean) my mom made me peanut butter and jelly every day. I feel really bad about it now, but near the end of second grade I started throwing my pb&js into the garage barrel unwrapped because I was bored of them. I forget how my mom found this out but she was appalled (of course) and perhaps the only thing that killed her shock was that at least the custodian was picking them off the top of the trash to eat anyways. They were, after all, unwrapped. That's when my mom decided to introduce some variety into the lunchbag and so began the daily lunch with a muffin at the center. We went to Paul's Bakery downtown on the corner and I got orange muffins with those crunchy little squares of sugar on top. At school I would give each of the guys at my lunch table a little bit cause I was soooo cooool. Brian (John's brother) and Scott and maybe OJ were included in this. I bet those guys don't even remember that, but I store away details like my brain is a filing cabinet. In the same vein of being cool like/with the guys, I bought a Grateful Dead pendant in 5th grade. I didn't know it was a Grateful Dead symbol. I just knew it was a skull with a lightning bolt in it and it was badass in a way that guys thought it was badass. I already didn't care too much for chicks. Later on I started to wonder if it would bring me bad luck cause it was a skull and I'd always been afraid of skeletons, so I buried it into all my other jewelry.

Perhaps I'm the only one- no wait, Z has all these fears too- but when I was little, I was afraid of skeletons under the bed. Nevermind that I had all sorts of shit underneath my bed, boxes of toys and what-have-you, but there were apparently skeletons under there too. If I had to get up to go to the bathroom, I had to take a flying leap off the end of the bed towards the doorway and run into the hall. On the way back I had to jump from the hall to the end of the bed. And remember to never NEVER let a hand or foot hang off the bed, cause then something could snatch it. I didn't like the dark either and, contradictory to Calvin's theory of the monsters getting you in your sleep, I preferred falling asleep faster because then I wouldn't have to think about it. I protected myself by putting my covers over my head and my blasted parents continually foiled my plans to stay safe by pulling my covers down while I was asleep. Something about air; I forget. Given what I've already told you, you can imagine my chagrin after seeing "The Monster in My Closet" at school. This opened new doors, literally, because my dad had to push the door all the way open before he left my room. If it was halfway open/closed, something could hide behind it. The closet doors had to be all the way closed because something could be in there. The nightlight I had throughout my childhood was convenient for reading way later than my parents wanted me to be up, but I shut it off around the age of 11, citing that with the light off, ghosts could get me, but with the light on, a potential axe murderer could see me, and murderers were undoubtedly real-er than ghosts. Yes, this was my logic.

In addition to those fears, I disliked being in front of people. It wasn't a fear, but I still hated it. I remember a year where I was at Sewataro Day Camp with Jeremy or that god awful camp with the ants all over the field with Monika and each group was supposed to do something in front of everyone else. My group was supposed to dance to some song and we rehearsed in the mess hall. That was kind of fun, but when we got to the point where we were to do this in front of a giant audience, I came to terms quickly with the fact that this was going to be the gayest thing ever and as my group started dancing (individual and separate dances at that) I inched myself around a giant tree at the back of the "stage" and stood there until the song was over, sparing myself inevitable humiliation. I doubt 50 8 year olds would've thought of my dance as any worse than the rest of the white kids jumping around me, but I wasn't gonna go for it. As a side note, I totally redeemed myself at Camp Becket as one of the last two people of my group onstage, singing a three sentence duet with Meredith.

So anyways, I was at school when I thought of this. Everyone walks around with their little packs of needles and moxa and yaks about particular points and I'm here doing science courses and I realized the science courses have totally been killing my passion for this field. I've been going through the motions like with everything else and thinking of another three years here as me being apart from S.O. for another three years and me not being able to live where I want (like Amherst) for another three years. Originally I was excited about going to the school and I really like this area most of the time, en0ugh to spend three more years around here anyways, as long as I'm doing something cool. I've been going here for almost two semesters now and the problem is that I'm starting to consider the school a place to go for Chemistry and Physics and not a place to learn about Chinese medicine and all that shit I like to read about. Fuck you, Chemistry! You're making me sad!

Chemistry really does suck tho. My teacher is useless, he just reads from the slides. I might as well not even go to class. To make matters worse, I was sick today and was up and down to get tissues from the bathroom and I hate being that person. I still have to finish my chapter from last week and half of it is totally incomprehensible to me. There are tons of practice problems and I don't even get the basics that I need to know to do them. Stupid Chem, I was supposed to be able to avoid these courses. Thankfully, after I finish that and the other chapter, I only have two chapters in Physics and I actually understand some of that bullshit. I'm seriously considering not taking any sciences next semester, or maybe just one if its on an evening I have work. That way I can actually go see S.O. on my days off and feel like I had any kind of break from my job. I'd like to pick up more overtime too. Oh money, the bane of my existence. Kind of.

Maybe I'll go out for one night next week, but it gets more doubtful all the time.

Various and Sundry and Hawaii

2008-10-15T20:42:00.000-04:00

I don't know why, but I woke up this morning unhappy with my surroundings. Its unusual, because I've been so happy that its fall and its cool out. Sort of funny thing; a couple customers came in the other day and asked if I could get them some hotel rooms. I said I would call around but just so they knew, it might take a few minutes because everything was booked up for reasons beyond me. One of them said "Oh, I bet alot of people are up to see the New England foliage" and they laughed when I said I hadn't even thought of that. "So used to it you don't even notice." Sort of, I guess. I appreciate it but my mind doesn't jump to that people are travelling here to see it.

Anyways, I was ardently wishing for Hawaii. Of all places. I don't even like summer that much, but when I saw "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" a few months back, I totally needed to visit Hawaii. Now that I'm saving more money maybe I'll take a trip there for a Qi Gong Grandmaster Liu thing next summer or something. He has a few spots in Hawaii and if I made it a week long thing I could do his courses and just bum around and enjoy myself. That would rock, I would love to go there.

::Update:: Salty and I just vowed to save a couple thou and go next summer. Woot. Who's in??

So I'm watching the debate, of course, and I really need to take a piss, but apparently there are no commercials during this thing. Goddamnit. Yes, that's where I was going with that sentence and I'm sorry. When I watched the VP debate with Al and Salty we started drinking whenever Palin said "maverick". If I were drinking this time I would drink everytime McCain either said "angry" or winked. That's all I have to say about that right now as I'm watching this second.

I'd like to document here, just for myself that gas costs $2.89 a gallon in the cheapest spots and $3.19 in a few others, but the majority seem to have come down to $2.99 or $3.09. Just two or three months ago we were at $3.99 or over. Unfortunately, the stock market still sucks but if I ever want to look back at that I can just search the web for this month and go "holy shit, that sucked!"....you know, hopefully. Hopefully it only gets better.

Anyways, this was a little random and pointless. Oh well.

Hickey #1

2008-10-14T12:24:00.000-04:00

I've decided to record on here everytime I get questioned about my birthmark. Today is October 14th, 2008 and this is the first time I will be officially documenting this. At 12:25pm today a customer asked what was wrong with my neck and when I answered him honestly, he decided to go ahead and make some stupid comment anyway- "Oh, I thought you'd been getting a little over-passionate, hehe." I just said "heh, no." and he finally got the message to just drop it.

I wish I'd started this a long time ago. The Dunkin's Girl who said "Gnarly Hickey", the pilot who, after I made it awkward, said "Good thing I wore clean boots today..since I was going to be putting my foot in my mouth" and redeemed himself, and that guy who was escorting a band who flirted with me afterwards. Bobby.

"If I Had a Million Dollars"

2008-10-14T09:24:00.000-04:00

If you handed me...

99 cents: I would put it with the rest of my change in the babyfood jar or into me and Al's "Date Jar."

$10: I would put it in my car to buy gas.

$50: I would put it in checking to go towards my cell phone bill.

$100: I would pay towards the principle of my car.

$200: Same.

$500: I would finish paying my car insurance for the year and pay towards the principle of the car w/ the rest.

$1,000: Fin car insurance for the year, pay towards the principle of the car.

$10,000: Throw it all at the stupid car.

$15,000: Fin the damn car, and put the last $4,000 towards tuition loans.

$20,000: Subtract all but next to nothing off the car and tuition loans, and pay for a course.

$50,000: Let's assume about $20,000 goes towards what I've already mentioned. Now I'd pay up front for the first year of Acupuncture School and visit the Qi Gong Center in California. I could also pick up my mom's mortgage for a couple months or knock a couple thou off of Al's tuition loans.

$100,000: Pay off car and tuition loans, pay straight cash for one school year, erase two years of mortgage for my mom, invest 2,000 in a place or two, put 17,000 in savings, go do some qi gong stuff in Cali, and put about 9 grand towards Al's tuition loans and Z's school or legal costs.

Ai yi yi.

$500,000: All that plus one more year of school for me in cash, a whole year in Cali, trips to Portland, Ireland, Portugal, London, Germany, some more towards Al's loans, more towards mom's mortgage, more towards Z's education and more investing and the ability to be jobless.

A Cool Million: All of that and pay off my mom's house completely and pay off Al's loans completely and buy Z everything.

Money, Money, Moooney, MONEY

Friggin' Answer Me, What?

2008-10-13T13:42:00.000-04:00

"Thank you for calling -----------, This is C, how may I help you?"

"P--ts Department"

"Parts Department?"

"...................................-"

"I- I'm sorry, Parts Department?"

"Yes."

"Okay, one moment."

Obsessed with Debt

2008-10-13T12:32:00.000-04:00

I think I'm going to start a debt countdown on here because I am obsessed with numbers. I've been wondering if I should attend school the second I get accepted (if I get accepted) or if I should defer for another year and try to work off more debt, even tho my tuition loans would be deferred until I was finished with my Masters anyways. My car, on the other hand, is a pain in the ass. I'd love to have a scooter to drive to work and school, but I would never buy one unless I had straight cash to buy it with. You can get 76 miles to the gallon on those things tho and you can fill the tank with 10 bucks! Often I wish I hadn't needed a brand new car for the Awful Job because there were probably cheaper options, but then I remember how terrified I was of the used cars that I'd had in the past. My first car had been my grandmother's grey Ford Tempo, which was an automatic but had problems with stalling at red lights. This happened to me once and I missed an entire green, got beeped the shit out of, and was mortified. I shared that car with Ian. The second car I had was a bright red Geo Prizm ("Gizm") and I shared it with Ian and then with KySmiley. My father used to describe to me how to pump the heat even in summer if the car started overheating. Later on, when I moved in with my mom, she procured for me (for free, at that + $500 in maintainance) a '93 white Ford Escort. I had to repeatedly gun the engine to make it go up hills and then it would smell weird and on the highway, when I reached 55mph it would shudder and slow down. It felt as if the ground was dropping out from under me. When I remember how much I worried every single time I took any of those cars anywhere, I realize that I would've probably been regretting it had I not gotten a brand new car. Still, when Twigs tells me she got her car at a car auction in NH for $915, I curse my monthly car loan payment (more than usual). She got a '93 Nissan Altima, and I do like those. On the other hand, I like that my car is brand new, is under warranty, and shouldn't have problems for forever. It also gets good mileage. The grass is always greener on the other side. I don't usually run my possessions into the ground, so it better be well worth the money. My diploma actually got me a good $500 off and then after an hour of negotiations my mom put her head in her hands, looked up, and told the guy that if he took the amount of the "document fees" off the price of the car, we would buy it. He did and we did and we sat there for another billion years while some guy wrote up some papers on some bullshit insurance and special features that we declined anyways and another couple days after that we picked up my brand new car which had only spent 10 days on the lot. That was definitely a good day. I can't imagine for the life of me why anyone would graduate college and go get a stupid pricey sports car with terrible gas mileage that costs them something ridiculous every month. But I have seen it, of course. They'll be giving it back soon so they can go to school.

So anyways. I'm starting to wonder if I should bother with courses at all next semester or just try to bag a ton of overtime or even get a second, part-time job and just throw it all into paying everything off. I asked D yesterday how much she had in tuition loans and it was a great big nothing. I always knew it, but I still could've strangled her with jealousy. Her mom and possibly grandparents had definitely been saving since she was born for Brown or Cornell and she did them all a favor by going to UMass Amherst and gathering scholarships and awards. Well, by staying at UMass after she got accepted to transfer after freshmen year. Her initial rejection from all her better choices just goes to show how there's a reason for everything. But that's never easy to swallow. My parents planned in a similar fashion for me and I would've been all set if it hadn't gotten squandered all over a custody battle. The sentence that struck me most when I read some of the divorce papers was "nobody wins and the children lose." You got that right.

So here I am going to start a countdown. I like being able to see progress and even tho its not as if I can put $600 more a month towards the bills, I can bring them down a little. I wish things like savekaryn.com still worked, but then again I don't think I'd have the balls to do that sort of thing anyways. So here it is.

Tuition Loans: $10,858.42

Car Loan: $11,049.02

Car Insurance for the Year: $415.80

And that's where we'll start.

The car loan is tough to calculate with interest and all, which is very discouraging but whatever. Argh, why can't I just win $50,000?? Okay, well, there it is. Let the paying begin....I mean continue.

I Got Stolen From

2008-10-11T09:02:00.000-04:00

The other day I thought it might be smart to peruse my bank account online. I am very much in the habit of doing this because I am neurotic and need to add up all my bills and paychecks and credits and losses basically at least once a week. By the grace of God (if there is one) I did this Sunday night instead of Monday morning. This was right after we had come home from camping and I had put a few things on the good ol' debit card, as I am wont to do. I noted that there was a pending charge for $59 on there that I didn't remember, but that's happened before, so it didn't really mean much, but when I went through the reel of things I'd bought recently, nothing that expensive came up. There was the $15 for breakfast at a diner, the $33 for the campsite, $31 for food and s'mores and firewood, $22 from Stop n Shop. I ran up the pending charges and saw two charges of $39 to the same place. I went to the website it had been spent on and I had definitely never been there. It was an ad site that had to do with cars. So yah, someone stole my debit card number. And bought ads. Needless to say I called them right up and then tried to get ahold of the bank but only the lost and stolen department was even remotely reachable. Can anyone tell me why they ask for seventy trillion numbers you probably don't know before they put you through to a person?? I just got my card "stolen", bitch! Cut the spending power goddamnit, that's all I need! When I finally did get ahold of someone he was very nice and told me to chop up my card. The next guy asked me if I'd been anywhere different in the past few days and I said yes, I went camping. He asked if anyone had had my card long enough to copy the number down and I thought of how the convenience store didn't have a swipey thing and I had to hand my card to the people behind the counter. So now I have to fill out a report for an investigation but I didn't have to wait long for my new card and I got my money back much quicker than I expected, thank god. This was going to be a much longer tirade, but luckily for you, B of A squared away all my shit pretty damn quick. By the by, if you're going to steal, steal from someone rich or a corporation.

Money, Its a Crime

2008-10-11T07:42:00.000-04:00

I've been walking around the house lately wondering what else I can unplug. The loft is already mostly unplugged- I've pulled the tv and dvd player and clock from one side of the room and my computer I'm starting to make a habit of having off and unplugged when the norm before was to have it chugging away constantly like at college. The excess lamps and the air filter have been retired for the moment and unplugged to avoid the loss of "phantom energy". One of the bulbs in the bathroom died and last night I started unscrewing every other one. Honestly there's like fifty in a row above the mirror, its a little ridiculous. I don't know how much it will help, but whatever. I shut off one of the livingroom lights that comes on with the switch and have been avoiding charging my cell phone at home. I actually walked around the house with one of the trillion useless baskets from the basement and started collecting candles. When you're a female you get alot of goddamn smelly candles and bodywash kits, and they're finally going to come in handy. I figure that every night after dinner I can place a candle in the kitchen and diningroom and we can completely avoid using the lights in there at all in the evening. We don't really do anything in there anyways after that time besides boil water and microwave shit. I haven't been too worried up until this point and then my mom started saying that she was finally getting worried and that's when the trouble really starts. When your fallback plan begins thinking about their fallback plan, you know there's a problem. At least my sister will get taken care of. She's still in good standing with my father, and he's a well-paid accountant. Not to mention, he could try to sell his large house and move into my grandma's old small house closer to his job. Or he could just sell that small house. Either way, he's got options and can finance my sister through college unless he decided to be a prick about it and that's always a possibility- he doesn't even put up halvsies for books for her and she just takes it. But whatever. It's only court-ordered. That's all.

These past two nights have been the only time its kept me awake, but its more because I'm brainstorming survival techniques. People only consider that they can be well-off or living in poverty, but I want to know that if it came down to it, I could live in nature for free. Violent Acres mentioned it in a post and its something I've thought about before and totally agree with her. I have a fishing pole and a filet knife and even tho it's gross, a river is right fucking there. I have a fireplace and a firepit and woods behind my house. I have a tent but I could also make a shelter if I had to and have a couple really good survival books with techniques and traps and edible plants etc, etc. I'm not exactly cut out for it, but I'm starting to get the feeling that I know more than most people. I was asking my friend Sarna how he thought he'd do and despite being well-built and visiting the gym on a regular basis I'm pretty sure he'd be dead in a month just for not knowing the least thing about trapping or gathering water when there's none handy. But I guess anyone could learn quick if they really wanted to. I gotta say tho, you get a step up with the knowledge. I used to feel like if that shit came, I'd be dead in a week. I still don't have the physique necessary, but I have the information, and that means something.

I've also been wondering if this is happening for a reason. Like, of course there are reasons, but I'm talking like a "cosmic" reaction to American consumerism. I'm not rich and I've bought some stupid shit. I was just about to buy a few skirts from Victoria's Secret a few weeks ago and then I scuffed my car in a minor accident and decided it would be positively stupid to spend my excess money-after-bills on skirts that I didn't need for a specific occasion. So far no one has made any claims, but I'm still glad I didn't blow $115. If I add up everything I need to pay off right now (the big things being the car and tuition loans) I've got about $22,000 to pay off. Which is, unfortunately, better than most people could say, or so it seems when I turn the radio on. Its really more worth it to put my money in savings "in case" and the get that load off my back quicker than it is to buy skirts and herbs and other random bullshit. When you think about it, why are you buying cookies? Or cigarettes? Or booze? Its like flushing your money. And you're flushing more than they cost because then you're fat and out of shape and probably have increasing medical bills. I can't lie, I did buy some wine when we went camping, but I'm a very lame person and haven't spent a whole lot on alcohol since my sophomore year of college. The biggest thing is just having your freedom. Being able to say that you don't want to be dicked around anymore (if you are getting dicked around) and having nothing to tie you down when you get sick of the bullshit. But back to my original point. All that shit we buy, its not that important. The clothes, the decor for your house, the brand-new "dream" kitchen, some stupid shade of eyeshadow where the damage is $30 more than it should be. Books from Barnes and Noble when you could buy them used for $7 with shipping included. What's wrong with us? Maybe we'll figure it out now.

In closing, I've been thinking alot about the Brazilian cleaning ladies and what they're going to do. They charge $65 a pop and we were having them once every two months or so, but I think we can clean our own house and I wonder if other people are going to start doing that too. Robert says there will still be rich people out there with dirty houses who this economy won't affect so much tho. If you're interested, he also said to have a five minute rule because switching your lights on and off takes just as much power, so make sure they're going to be off for at least five minutes so you know its worth it. That's my tangent for today. Maybe there'll be more to come later.

The Acid House

2008-10-09T18:35:00.000-04:00

I recommend The Acid House by Irvine Welsh. Its a book of mostly short stories and much like A Clockwork Orange, you pick up the language after a couple chapters- "Kenn" = "Know", "Bearn" = "Baby", etc, etc. This is, by the way, the author of Trainspotting. If you don't have time to read it, rent the movie, because he wrote the screenplay for it and it's got three of the short stories in it.

Its the Time of the Season

2008-10-08T22:23:00.001-04:00

I'm totally loving autumn. Sometimes I look around and actually feel sort of happy. The sun is shining though the windows but I'm all bundled up in a giant robe to walk downstairs to get my cereal and then I'm reading in bed under two blankets. The space heater is just a few feet away.

Driving to school I smell the quote unquote crisp air of fall mixed with burning leaves or cut grass. The car in front of me smells like shit but in the same way as cigarettes it reminds me of the summer after freshmen year when we did nothing but go to band practice and drive to various places such as concerts and virtually everyone but me smoked cigarettes. I hate the smell but at the same time it brings back good memories. In the same vein, fall is always beautiful in Amherst and both it and spring are better there than anywhere as far as I'm concerned. Amherst was where I came to love fall so much to begin with.

The leaves look great and I prefer using the heat in the car as opposed to the air conditioner. I can wear my normal bellbottom jeans and not feel like it would've been smarter to wear shorts and my furry hemp coat is finally appropriate again. I love snow and fires and fireplaces and cuddling in warm sweatshirts and hot chocolate and Christmas and everything that goes along with the cold season with the exception of scraping your windshield. But it's worth it.

Fall makes me happy :)

I'm Irritated By...#1

2008-10-08T20:16:00.000-04:00

...People who wait outside the elevator right up against the door and people who do the same while waiting for you to come out of a door that locks from the inside. At school today I walked out the back door that leads to the back stairwell that is more convenient since it is closer to the parking lot. There were 3 people waiting outside it to get in and not one moved when I opened it to walk out. I pretty much had to walk through the narrow gap between them because they seemed to expect me to move backwards and let them in first. Which leads me to something even ruder- when you have opened a door towards yourself to walk in and simply because the door opens out from their side, they brush past you out of the door that you just opened. Because you pulled it open, they are now completely entitled to walk through it first.

In case you are confused, here is the difference. People are standing outside a door waiting for someone to open it. Once it is opened by someone walking out, they push in thinking that it is now open and not giving consideration to the person walking through it who opened it. In my second complaint, I explained how you have pulled the door towards youself, and since it opens out to your side, people think "oh how nice, the door opened for me" and would just go ahead and push by you if you didn't jump out of their way.

So that's my "I hate people" post for the day. Another one coming soon! :-D

PS I know I tagged this "Pet Peeve", but that's another irritant of mine- the term "Pet Peeve". Don't ask.

Whoa

2008-10-08T20:13:00.000-04:00

I found this while explaining the "crazy girls poking holes in condoms" thing to M.

http://pandagon.blogsome.com/2007/09/27/6097/

She's an Instructor at Cornell

2008-10-08T19:57:00.000-04:00

D: I really do have good kids in my class

D: even the wrestler isn't awful.

Me: haha nice

Me: its cause you're hot

D: I was hoping its more like, I'm actually a good teacher

D: and I got lucky

Me: I was joking, you're actually pretty harsh on the eyes. It must be your superior teaching skills because there's nothing else all that appealing about you
D: Ahahahaha

Away Messages

2008-10-08T19:54:00.000-04:00

Me: oh well fuck you too then

Auto response from D: Chuir m'athair mise dhan taigh charraideach

Me: I can't believe you would say my butt looked like that

D: HAHAHA

D: I mean, your ass looks great.

Me: wellll maybe you should retype your little norseman of yore statement up there then

D: Its modern scottish gaelic!

Me: oh....ohhhh I seeee....um..gee how awkward.....

Me: um, its very nice

D: haha

Elizabeth Taylor

2008-10-07T22:53:00.000-04:00

Step-Dad: Will you be getting us a gift for our 1 year anniversary?
Me: I dunno, I've bought alot of gifts in the past and I don't know if you'll be around long enough to make it worth it.

For anyone who doesn't know, he is my mom's 3rd husband (the right one, I might add) and you really should've seen her face when I said that.

Camping in October Pt. 2

2008-10-07T22:32:00.000-04:00

Part 1 Here.

Okay now where was I? Oh yes, we had a great breakfast and for some reason I vaguely remember the topic of kids coming up in a joking manner and I made a comment to the effect of that I might kill my own offspring if they popped out Daywalkers (Ginger kids who can handle sunshine). We got back and the dog made a little friend across the way and Burr tried to get away with a nap in the car. The weather permitted a shower that would not be akin to running naked around the north pole and so we took the oppurtunity and cleaned up. The day continued to go well with a 3 mile hike around a giant lake with the dog and we also happened upon a really cute little sandy peninsula off the path. I tried to coax the dog out onto the sand bar but she would only go in up to her torso and then try to bite the water, growl, and then run out like a lunatic. I filmed some of it; it was funny to watch.

Later we drove to a convenience store where we were waited on by the most ornery old man you've ever met and it kind of sucked because Burr is the nicest customer ever to the point where you might need to take a minute and puke a little in your mouth. I try to be more like him because I remember when I worked at CVS and it was not fun to serve anyone, let alone anyone who was rude. Having someone thank you makes all the difference. But not in this case. We got some more wine and made our way back to camp where I (amazingly!) started the fire. We made sausages for dinner and Burr rearranged the bedding in a sensible way. I foraged for more wood and found a giant log but we could only stick it partway into the fire which made it not very useful as a light source. I don't think the wood we had used earlier was cured either. Anyways! We hit the sack and I got a great massage and fell asleep before reciprocating, which was great for me and maddening for everyone else involved. We actually slept some because the blankets weren't in the stupidest possible place, but when we awoke in the morning it was chilly and misty and all in all uncomfortable. The first time I seriously woke up, I said good morning to Burr and he desperately cried, "I wanna go home!" I really couldn't disagree with the feeling behind that, after all, as he said, King Richard's Faire would be a moneypit and I really didn't feel like showering with the temperature where it was and I readily accepted this turn of events. We packed up as quickly as possible, tossed the dog into the car, and hopped on 495. Yes, you heard right. 495 was nary two streets away and it only took an hour and ten minutes to get home. As opposed to the 2.5 hours on the backroads it took to get there. The only way I can reason this out is that if Burr got caught with a revoked license without me in the car, he woulda been fucked. And oh, to tie that up- he called the RMV and they said it was a mistake in their computers, but they could not give him a letter stating that yet and to call back when his court date was nearing. Wow. To add to this his engine light started coming on, but I realized it was only cause the car is old and has trouble going up hills. Still gave us a mini-anxiety attack.

So on Monday after work he wrote his paper on my computer, I did an entire awful chemistry test (after crying into my hands about how stupid I was), and we both survived somehow.

Amen and remember to bring at least 5 blankets if you camp in October like some kind of idiot.

Camping in October Pt. 1

2008-10-07T21:00:00.000-04:00

Alright so here we go. This weekend was my vacation, if you could call it that. I drove out to Burr's after Physics class and did alot of cleaning and vacuuming as there is dog hair and dust everywhere and I am allergic to both (but not as bad as cats and horses). I took the dog for a walk and went to see the movie "Choke" to make sure it was almost as good as my favorite book by the same name, and that was pretty much that. I also picked up a book on how to play the keyboard and I've gotten it into my head that I'm going to learn piano. When you can sing but can't play an instrument you're pretty much useless, and I think its clear the guitar didn't really work out for me. Something a bit more linear or organized is necessary.

It started around 2:15pm. At this point I'm packed and ready to be out the door within a half hour. For some reason I only expect the trip to take 2 hours complete with a layover in central Mass before completing the entire trip to Carver, which is next to Plymouth. I'm an idiot. Burr's father calls and he's on the phone with him for some time and tells him he needs to be out the door at 3:15pm. I can accept that. I'm pretty sure we left at 4:20pm. Suffice to say, we reached our layover around 6pm and the purpose of the layover was to gather the tents and blankets I had left at the house and print out reading for Burr that pertained to a paper which had just been dropped on him and was due Monday. That was the first bad thing. My printer is chock out of black ink and the reading material is positioned sideways in Adobe Reader and we are therefore unable to copy and paste it to Word to turn the font blue. I sent him downstairs to my mom's printer which behaves as one might expect and spit out one printout per minute. There were over 30 pages. Because the dog has fur on it, my mom wouldn't let it go anywhere but the livingroom, and she decided to be a brat and whine for Burr for a good 10 minutes straight. I made him come upstairs and once I saw the second document he needed was upright, I went to the loft to print it off my computer. It copy pasted into Word, but wouldn't let out the margins and because of this and the fact that I was printing in blue ink, it spat out the printouts one every 20 seconds and I had to stand there and feed the printer paper one sheet by one sheet because its cool like that and eats everything if I put in more than one. When that was finally over I retrieved and printed Mapquest directions.

Finally we were out the door and made a pitstop at Wendy's so Burr could get some food. I was too agitated by the time (7:30pm) to eat and was bitching that the Mapquest directions said it would take two hours (rather than 30 to 40 minutes) to get to the campground. I didn't see this coming. Not only that, but when I asked him if the proof of rabies for the dog were in his backpack, he froze and admitted they'd been left on the footlocker in HIS APARTMENT. I called the campground and basically told them I was going to lose my shit and they said they'd let it slide. We were off! After regaining my optimism on 95 and 93 by listening to some good ol' Monty Python, I pulled over on a side road and swapped with Burr so I could read directions. Twenty billion .4 mile long backroads later we were in Brockton and the directions told us to take a left onto 27E. Thing was, there was no 27E, just North and South. Burr veered left and right over the solid white line as we argued loudly over which way he should go and that the directions did in fact tell me something impossible and I wasn't imagining it. Two seconds later a statie pulled us over and asked if we were drunk. The puppy growled like an asshole and I had to hold her down (stupid dog). We soberly and desperately beseeched him to help us and threw our awful Mapquest directions at him and he realized it was all Mapquest's fault but took Burr's license just to check it anyways since he had, after all, pulled us over.

Just to throw in some details- When Burr's license expired a year or so ago, he could not get it back until he paid an expensive speeding ticket incurred during our trip back from Pittsburgh, Thanksgiving 2006. One and a half months ago he paid it off, got his new license, and registered his new car. Everything was signed and paid for. The cop walked back and announced that Burr's license was revoked. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when they revoke your license, aren't they supposed to revoke it? Burr responded accordingly with complete disbelief and asked why it had been revoked. The cop couldn't tell us why and would've been forced to toss Burr in the slammer and tow the car, but I was there and was able to take over the driving. We asked again about the directions and he actually said "ahhh, fuckin'...I don't know, I think if you go up that way and take a left it'll take you there..." So we switched and drove away, a summons in Burr's hand and a tear in his eye.

Ten billion backroads and 3 requests for directions at liquor stores later we finally made it to the Myles Standish State Forest, and took the wrong turn into a cranberry bog. A few minutes later we had successfully checked in and driven to our spot only to find someone was in it. Luckily we were mistaken, and we set up tent in the dark and toiled over a fire that didn't light properly for-fucking-ever. And Burr refused to just give up and go to bed because we were finally there, at 11:30pm. 5 hours later than I had originally planned. When we finally did go to bed, I realized that physics do apply to me and the one comforter I had laid under us was doing nothing to stop the ground from sucking our heat away. I'm pretty sure neither of us slept more than one hour total if that on Friday night and when I woke up in the morning, I couldn't find the dog until Burr told me she was under the blanket. Like, all of her. I could barely sleep at all and there was a sleeping bag and afgan over us and we were huddled together for warmth. It sucked.

Much like the experience of repeatedly waking up depressed, I finally got up because the cold was making me miserable anyways. I walked outside and it was cool but beautiful. Burr walked up with the dog to greet me and we went out for breakfast at a little 50s style diner a couple towns over that literally looked like it had been dragged and dropped there 50 years ago. Everyone in there knew each other and greeted each other by name- waitress to patron. It is completely Burr's sort of place. Breakfast was great and I had crepes which I've been jonesing for forever and we chilled and talked.

Part 2 Here.

Male Contraceptives

2008-10-07T18:58:00.000-04:00

I was reading my new favorite site, Violent Acres , the other day, and she asks why there are no male contraceptives. Like, good ones. There's the condom, but crazy bitches can punch holes in that easy, not to mention they break and some people are allergic to them, and what's their success rate again? Go to her site and search for "male contraceptives" and you'll find the post I'm talking about. This all kind of goes along with my thought process that all birth control should be free or at least cheap and readily available. I think it would solve a ton of problems to have less people around, especially the people that get popped out every other second, unplanned and not cared adequately for, but I'll let VA be more offensive cause I'm just not there yet. Not to mention, not having insurance makes decent birth control almost impossible to afford. When I had my first job I had to wait 3 months for insurance and many people have to deal with that. Then I was jobless for two months. Luckily my doctor tossed some free samples my way, but not everyone gets that. My friend had to go on birth control essentially to hit puberty and during the 3 month trial period of her first job she had to go off the birth control because it was unaffordable. She lost weight, lost most of her boobage, and lost her period. She only got back on it once she got the insurance back. I read an article about a girl who has to be on Yaz in particular or something and without insurance her birth control cost fucking 89 bucks or something and that's not uncommon. Do we want more unplanned babies? Um, I don't.

So today I was searching google to see where exactly we are at with male contraceptives. Um, not looking so good with oral stuff and still in caveman times with the condom and of course we always have the vastectomy, but not many guys really want that, especially if they're young since its not always reversible. But I did find one gem. Hot water. Stick with me here. There were successful studies done that showed that if guys immersed their nuts in water of 116 degrees Fahrenheit for 45 minutes a day for 3 weeks, they would be infertile for 6 months due to sperm production being basically halted because of bad conditions. Everyone knows the balls have to be away from the body to maintain a temperature lower than the body temperature in order to make sperm, yes? So, heat those suckers up. 118 is where the pain threshold begins and 116 in totally safe and should be comfortable because it doesn't heat up your whole body, just a little bit. If you don't like 116, go for 110, 45 minutes a day, for 3 weeks. That should buy you 4 months.

I'm not saying "heat your balls up and you're set". I'm saying "here, you have some more control over this and god knows those fucking females can't be trusted with their crazy hormonal minds." Complement your current mode of operation for free and make your chances of getting roped into 21 years of child support that much lower. No seriously, do it and let me know how it goes.