Not an April Fool’s Day Prank

Living with a crazy lady for five months appears to have made me reckless.

I am now living with two guys BW (18, in high school) and CR (25, works at Website).  They are fellow nerds but also rock climb and do projects and drive motorcycles/speed bikes (ZK1490? Ninja and Kawasaki).

As living at Roommate’s became more and more awful, I stopped writing about it and telling people how bad it was.  After we agreed to extend our agreement, the situation rapidly deteriorated.  By the end of February I was ready to look for other options (as evidenced by my last entry.)  I began searching at the beginning of March and on 3/31 I moved out of Roommate’s and in with the guys!  I’m already SO much happier!  I have roommates!  They’re nice!  We’ve had dinner together my first two nights!  They helped me move in!  I have my own room with just stuff I want in it.  I can lock them out!  I get to keep things in the bathroom!  I get to keep things in the kitchen!  I have a closet!  I have a ceiling fan!  I have a fan that doesn’t squeak ALL the time!  I have a key to the house!  I get to sleep in the house!  If I did die in the garage, my roommates would notice!  There are no pets or crazy old ladies!  I only live 7 miles from work instead of 20 miles!  I won’t have to get up at 4:30 am anymore!  There are no pets!  I get to use the light switches!  I don’t have to check my bed for crickets before crawling under the covers!  I don’t have to wipe out the kitchen sink after using it!  I can throw away paper towels!  I can use their pool instead of just looking at the pool in the backyard!  I know how many people have access to the house!  I can turn off the TV!  I can take a hot shower!  I can get home from work and eat dinner instead of spending an hour feeding someone else’s pets!

I met CR three times before deciding to move in and BW only once.  I saw the house before agreeing and moved in four days later.  A week before that I learned CR was/might be looking for another roommate.

Tonight they took me riding.  We went 145 MPH!!! We also popped a wheely! (Author’s Note:  This is NOT an exaggeration.  Those things really happened (not at the same time. duh.)  Yep, I was definitely reckless!) I rode on the “world’s fastest production motorcycle!  IT WAS AMAZING!  OMG the adrenaline! WOW!  What a thrill!  I did really well!  It was a great roommate bonding experience!  We came home and I made cookies! …There is so much to say about all that has happened.  Most of me doesn’t want to remember any of it (despite the amazing story stuff I could get form it all.)

I keep procrastinating because I don’t want to sleep because that means I will wake up and have to go to work.  I will now go to sleep.  Perhaps when it’s not so immediate I’ll be able to document these recent events.

(Author’s Note: Nope.  Didn’t really happen.  I have happily let most of those shenanigans fade into the black hole of memory and time and occasionally will bring up a few stories if I’m quite intoxicated and asked directly.  Those stories do make a great comedic stand up act….)

Anxious Reality

I can’t sleep because I’m so anxious.  Things are not bright at the moment.  I have slept less than seven hours the last two nights combined because I’ve been so anxious.  Things that are bothering me/I’m anxious about include:

My dad’s health

My mom’s health

My parent’s relationship

Boyfriend

The Babies (Olddog and YoungDog)

My job

My health

My living situation

My car

Money

MONEY

So, there are other worries also, but these are the ones with resounding echos and repeats in my head.  I am writing them now to get them out of my head so I can try to sleep and let the echos bounce within the pages of my journal.

(Author’s Note: Sadly, I still worry about many of these things even though it’s been 3 years…  I dithered about whether to include this post or not on my blog because it’s very personal and it includes things I don’t like to discuss with people.  I finally decided to include it because I want this blog to be a place where I can be myself and if people in the world see that, even the dark parts, then that needs to be ok.  Maybe someone else with anxiety induced insomnia will stumble across this post and realize they are not alone and it might help them.  I don’t know because I sat down to enter this and read through it and got all anxious myself so hopefully it doesn’t make someone else’s anxiety worse!  I can’t worry about other people’s feelings right now.  It’s time for me to be selfish.  This blog is about me and my feelings.  I try to find the magic in the world because a candle loses nothing by lighting other candles.  I hope that if I go through life as a candle helping bring light to other people that maybe it will burn some of the darkness out of me where it hides because I try not to show it to other people.  I don’t want to add more darkness to the world.  I want to add light.  That’s why this post is hard to write and why I’m stalling by doing this Author’s Note… *sigh* No more excuses.  Here is a glimpse of the shadows flickering behind my light.)

My dad’s health:  My dad has back/spine/neck damage/problems.  Disks 3&4, 4&5, 5&6, 6&7 all have problems.  He was a landscaper his whole life and worked incredibly hard physically (and in general).  There are a few different causes but the terrifying reality is his severe pain and his inability to work like he has for his whole life.  He’s so hurt he can’t even really play XBox anymore.  That really sucks because that used to be his way of zoning out from the pain and giving himself a break.  He needs back surgery on his spine.  The kind where they go in through his throat and fuse his bones together with a metal plate.  He could have had the surgery 5 years ago and so it was that bad then but now its 5 years worse!  He’s scared.  He hasn’t told me that in as many words but I can tell.  He’s gone to a physical therapist and wants another option besides surgery.  There’s not really another option.  He’s scared for his quality of life as he gets older.  I’m scared for him too.

My parent’s relationship: I think both my parents are really depressed.  I worry that they might get a divorce even though they are getting along much better than they used to.  My dad’s unemployment is about to run out and my mom doesn’t make enough money herself to cover all the bills.  On top of that they have medical bills, 2 dogs, and no end in sight.  My dad really can’t work.  Between cutting out the hard or not at all physical labor and having to pass a drug test (he uses pot medicinally to help with his spine pain), things are looking quite grim indeed.

My mom’s health: I think my mom pretty much hates her job.  The nepotism at the library is so over the top I don’t know how she deals with it.  It infuriates me to hear some of the stories about her work.  I hear “library” and think “how awesome!  I’d love to work there!” but then I hear about what it’s really like and yeah it has really awesome elements but on the other hand people insist on doing things the same way they’ve always done them, just because they’ve always done them that way.  That’s not logic, that’s being stubborn and I don’t understand why people are so resistant to change if it’s helpful change.

Cousin: My awful cousin is FINALLY gone to boarding school so he is out of my grandparent’s home.  They seem to be going/have gone BAT SHIT CRAZY though.  When did that happen?  How did I miss it?  Oh yeah, I missed it because they’ve chosen that awful cousin over literally the rest of the family and pushed everyone away.  They are so hurtful and supportive and cruel to my family now and it breaks my heart.  They used to be so loving and supportive and held all sorts of family events and their home was a place of love and celebration.  Yeah, sometimes grandpa would get drunk and yell at everyone but once we got that out of the way the party could continue… “Poor AwfulCousin” is all they care about now.  They did not even get Christmas presents for anyone else.

My parent’s other property in NeighboringTown to HomeTown: Things keep getting worse there.  I still don’t really know just how screwed we are but the more I learn, the scarier it gets.  Every time we think we have good renters the jerks just come and steal them.  Literally they wait until a couple of months before their lease is up and go up to the front door and tell the renters that we are raising the rent (which is a LIE) and who knows what else.  Then they tell them that their property is just like this one and oh hey, is even cheaper a month (because it IS since the used the floor plans that my parents developed and bought the corner lot adjacent to this one that my parents were going to buy the following month and then built the same set up we have and instead of finding their own renters they keep stealing ours and undercutting the rent which they can afford to do because they can afford to do that.)  I really hate people.  I mean, who does that?  What sort of lifelong friend stabs you in the back over a piece of land in a town that looks like it will have good property values in a couple years but right now is pretty worthless and then continues to twist the knife at every opportunity?  I just cannot wrap my head around it!

I don’t have a safe/happy/good reality at the moment and even fiction stories are not helping me block it all out.

Today my mom told me they are considering bankruptcy. The unfairness of IT ALL strikes me and makes my throat ache.  My parents have lasted through cancer, cancer again, a kid (me), a kid going through college (me again), a home business that was on and off again, addictions, people screwing them over, so many obstacles and trying to invest and then cruel and deceitful people finally break everything.  It’s SO unfair!  I know the world is unfair but I don’t understand why bad things always seem to happen.  And why do they always happen at the same time too?  I’m almost paralyzed with fear for was.  What can I do to help?  What will happen to us all?

Pets: OldDog is so old.  He tired to jump onto my bed last time I was home visiting and missed.  That has never happened before.  I picked him up and held him and cried and cried while he licked my arm trying to comfort me.  He can’t help where he goes to the bathroom anymore.  It’s gross but he’s old and can’t help it and we still love him.  I don’t think he’s in pain but I’m terrified he is and I’m just not around enough to really know.  The time is approaching when we are going to have to decide if he needs to go to sleep.  I’m unsure and terrified of what will happen.  He’s been my baby since I was in third grade.  I already miss him so much because I don’t live with him.  I sometimes call the house when I know my parents are gone and leave a voicemail to the dogs telling them what good puppies they are and asking if they want a treat.  When my parents get home the dogs are all excited and barking and jumping around and they know its time to give them cookies cuz I left them a happy voicemail.  YoungDog is so dumb and has learned such bad habits from OldDog that I worry about what will happen to her.  She’s really sweet but such a spazz!

Boyfriend: Things with Boyfriend are alright.  We still love each other madly and are planning on our future together.  I can see now and I don’t know how to move forward.  I don’t know how to get to where I want to be.  There are no sure or right answers to these tough questions.  He has his stupid 6 month lease that he signed since I moved up here, his job that he seems to love (or at least really enjoy) that he is amazing at, and a car, and a life in CollegeTown.

Living situation: I’m in BigCity living with a grandma who’s never there, a goat, a cat, and two dogs that eat better then I do.  I work 10-12 hours a day at $10 an hour.  I can’t afford to move out of this house.  I don’t know if I even want to move out if I can’t move in with Boyfriend.  I can’t afford to live because I make so little money.  I spend a ridiculous amount of money on gas EVERY week because this place is so far away. It’s really super scary trying to make it on my own.  And I am because my parents are not really in a position to help me.  They say they can help if I need it but how can I believe them when they say that but then also tell me about all the financial worries they’re facing?  How do I go on with my family in so much trouble?  How can I just live down here and selfishly try to do what I want when maybe if I moved home and got a job it could help them out? What do I do if they are going to file bankruptcy?  Is it too late to do anything anyway?

Job: My job is SUPER boring and I HATE it!  I literally loathe it. I’m already bitter and it hasn’t even been four whole months yet.  Cycle Counts are interesting but I just need more money.  The Tech test is $130 and getting that much money seems hard to me! That’s pretty surprising because I thought it would be easier by far to move to that position.  The test itself is a lot of math and memorizing abbreviations.  I may get hosed if I do spend the money and then can’t pass the stupid test.

Car: My car is old and is my only mode of transportation.  I live too far from work in BigCity to take a bus or even a series of buses to get to work.  Also with my strange hours the buses don’t even run that early in the morning or that late at night if I was to switch shifts to night shift.  Troubling. It’s all troubling.

My health: My allergies are INSANE!  I have an allergy appointment on Wednesday morning with an allergist in BigCity instead of the one I’ve tried to still see in CollegeTown.  I don’t know the company name, address, or Doctor name at the moment.  I hope it helps me be able to breathe.  I don’t like being reminded of my serious problems with the most basic part of being alive (breathing)!

I took two Benadryl before I started writing this and am finally falling asleep!!!! FINALLY  I have friends but it worries me too.  I wonder about the future and can see where I want us all to be in that future but I don’t know how to make it happen. I wish magic was real so there would be an easier answer or at least more options.  I’ll write more later because I’m going to go sleep like a rock.

WTF Tornado Warning in the Desert?

Last night there was a four hour Tornado Warning on top of the dust storm, thunder storm, and flood warnings.  We live in the desert.  Tornadoes are deal breakers.  We live in a place that doesn’t have things like hurricanes, tornadoes, or earthquakes because those things are deal breakers.  Know why I don’t live in Florida… because there’s hurricanes in Florida! So this weather was completely out of the ordinary.  The weather has been crazy the past few days with almost nonstop rain.  HomeTown got over five feet of snow!  I stated at Roommate’s house in BigCity because I couldn’t afford to leave and the weather made it unsafe to travel.

Last night I cleaned up after the goat and bigdog multiple times.  I checked on them a lot and gave them cookies and sweet hay.  In return, the stupid goat ATE part of the WALL.  Not like pieces off the door frame, or a corner… No, the flat normal part of the wall has goat teeth marks around a freaking HOLE it chewed in it!  There was pee and poop everywhere in their area of the garage AND outside and  because of flooding all the goat poop not mashed into the concrete ended up in the rocks where I can’t sweep it up.  I found this out when Roommate came in and yelled at me about it.  Roommate was understandably upset to come home and find such a huge gross mess.  Of course she did come home before 8am and I hadn’t been outside yet considering it was my day off and I slept in until 7:30 after being up so late because of the TORNADO WARNING.  She cleaned up for 45 minutes without coming inside so I didn’t even know she was home.  Then she came in and yelled at me!  Welcome home Roommate… it totally sucks because at 10:30 last night they were fine.  The wall was whole, there was no pee or poop anywhere.  I gave them their end of the night treats and turned on a radio for them to help drown out the storm noise outside.  None of that mattered because Roommate came home and thought (and probably still thinks) that I don’t take care of her animals while she’s gone.  If it was true then her disappointment and anger would be easier to deal with.  STUPID WALL EATING GOAT!  Who even owns a goat when they don’t live on a farm anyway?!?  Her house is in the middle of a suburb of BigCity. WTF?! Oh, yeah… following a trail of pee, Roommate also found a dead mouse.  Great.  Now there are mice in this zoo.

Now that the weather has calmed down I’m going to go get ready to go out with work friends for Mongolian BBQ!  It should be interesting and fun.  I still feel ready to cry.  I hate those stupid animals and Roommate.  I take such great care of them and the house and after a literal freak of nature suddenly I seem like a bad person.  By the way, she didn’t even ask if I was ok.  I wasn’t, by the way.  I was alone in a huge house with the air conditioning running because I’m not aloud to touch it to change the temperature even though I’m the only one actually residing in the house while there is pouring rain and crazy wind.  I slept in the bathtub because I saw something on TV once about someone surviving a tornado because they were in the bathtub.  When I went out to my garage I discovered the 1/4″ gap between the ground and the garage door had flooded into my area and soaked the floor rug I’d put down. This is awful. I hate living here.  I feel so crazy…

The Best Day of Inventory Work So Far

What a great day!  Today was filled with a multitude of tasks that I could cross of f my list and complete.  It got me out of the awful area of the warehouse and gave me some variety.  It felt good to get so much done.  Also, my routine of greeting people has begun paying off.  There were plenty of smiles to go around today!  Again, one of the ladies complimented me on my great smile and an older guy from another department called me beautiful!  That was flattering and rather strange…  Today I answered my first radio call!  The warehouse guys have begun teasing me; they’ll walk by and say “Faerie copy Faerie” like I’m being radioed.  So far I have not fallen for it but it’s pretty funny anyways. (Author’s Note: As I retyped this entry I didn’t find that funny… I guess you had to have been there! … */facepalm* )  I sliced my finger on a plastic container and had to get a band aide and that was also interesting.  For lunch, the catering lady actually saved me some chicken tortellini!  It was SUPER DELICIOUS!  My feet still hurt intensely, but if my days are like today, then I think everything is going to be great with this job. I realized that having a walking talking (aka radio aka runny screamy (because people run around screaming into them)) hanging from my pocket pulls my pants down just a bit.  It is SUPER annoying because now I’m constantly tugging at my clothes!  Without the radio my clothes work alright.  Today I also realized that I’m the youngest person on my team!  J is 29 and he is the closest person to my age.  Oh!  I forgot about G.  I will ask tomorrow to find out how old he is.  Sometimes I feel really young!  This is none of their first jobs.  My speed at pulling and stocking is definitely improving.  I don’t know how my mistakes record has been but I’m going for zero mistakes!

(Author’s Note:  This paragraph jumps around a lot.  I thought about changing it so it was more logical but leaving it this way really conveys what a streaming consciousness my journal was.  I wrote these entries after working 10-12 hour shifts where I stood and ran around the whole time moving heavy cases.  I had a 45 minute commute in the morning and an hour commute with rush hour traffic on my way home.  When I got home I had to spend an hour feeding my Roommate’s pets.  That was our arrangement:  She was a flight attendant and was only home a few days of each month.  I stayed in her house for the first three months of my employment in BigCity and my rent was to feed the animals consisting of 2 dogs, 1 cat, and 1 pygmy goat and take care of the house.  The cat was an inside cat.  The small dog was an inside/outside dog who sometimes stayed with Roommate’s best friend for weeks at a time.  The big dog who was ancient was an outside dog and shared a fenced area with a grassy area, a kiddy pool, and a play house, that also included part of the large three car garage.  Each animal had an extremely particular diet that I had to adhere to that took about an hour to feed all of them.  (Ask me some other time about it and I might tell you.)  Roommate parked in that garage when she was home.  I slept in the small garage attached to the other side of the house.  Also I am terribly allergic to cats and nature.  You can start to see why I stopped writing about the details of my living situation as more details emerge.  It was not a great situation but I was determined to succeed with this job to prove that I could be successful.  I had a plan and was stubborn enough to live in a garage for five and a half months to try and make it work.)

On a radically different note: My cousin is going off to boarding school!!!!  He leaves in two weeks!  YAY!  There is hope for him yet!  There is hope for my grandparents!  YAY!  I’m going to try and see him before he leaves so he knows we all support this decision and to try and help him see it as the positive opportunity it is.  I’m so glad this is happening!   (Author’s Note:  I have a troubled cousin.  He’s one of those kids that you hope will turn out to be a succuess story about how they overcame their troubled childhood to become an upstanding member of society.  Instead he keeps making poor choices and things are looking bleak for his future.  This boarding school was a chance for him to turn things around, get away from so many negative influences and away from the bad habits.  It was such a big change and the family pinned so many hopes to his being successful there…. Turns out he made worse choices at the school, ended up getting kicked out and as soon as he turned 18 was arrested and tried as an adult for the crimes he committed there.  He is now in jail, rightfully rotting away.  The thing I comfort myself with is this thought:  as much as he adored the Harry Potter series he will not get to know how it ends.  He won’t get to watch the movie or read the books.  He burned so many bridges that no one will send him anything and he has no way of getting it.  It seems like a petty, small thing but I literally cannot handle thinking about real things that go on in jail so I focus on this small, petty punishment and what a big, awful thing it will seem to him and I feel like good about that punishment.  I hope to never hear from him, speak to him, or know anything about him ever again.  Some people can be rehabilitated but some people are just evil.  I believe this cousin is an evil person and I refuse to allow that influence in my life.  This paragraph is the most I’ve talked or thought about him in years.  When I’m done writing it I will go back to happily pretending he does not exist.  If you have someone like this in your life, you are not doing yourself any favors by allowing them to bring such darkness to your days.  Sometimes you have to burn the bridge to keep the crazies from following you across.)

On another different note: I haven’t talked with or heard from Boyfriend at all today.  He seriously sucks at the long distance thing.  I’m lonely and my feelings are hurt.  I feel like I’m the only one who initiates contact.  He is also always busy hanging out with the drama bomb group.  It’s all so strange that I don’t know what to think anymore.  I didn’t talk to him much yesterday either but my positive thoughts kept me feeling alright.  We do GREAT when we’re together but things seem to fall apart when we’re apart… I just miss him so much and I get so sad.  Cliche, as it may be, when he’s around things are brighter and even my sadness is not so sad as it is when he’s around.  I’m going to be now because it’s 9pm now and officiate Late and I’m SO tired! (Author’s Note:  He ended up calling right after I wrote this.  We got better at the long distance relationship thing as we practiced more.  The biggest help was figuring out our schedules and making set plans for talking that worked for both our schedules.  I worked from 5 or 6 in the morning to 4 or 5 in the evening.  He worked in retail with a rotating schedule that could be morning, afternoon, or closing shifts that may not have ended until 9:30.  Sometimes he even had to work late night shifts and our schedules may be exactly opposite.  We overcame that and a lot of the frustration by communicating our expectations, schedules, and affection.  It’s easy to feel lonely across long distances but if you speak each other’s love language it makes the time you do have together that much more special.)

Goodnight and sweet dreams! (Author’s Note:  I always want someone to tell me to have sweet dreams before I go to sleep because I feel like it helps me actually have sweet dreams, instead of nightmares or not being able to sleep.  If there wasn’t someone to tell me, I often wrote it to myself in my journal as a closing thought.  I even would tell all the pets at Roommate’s house to have sweet dreams.  Good karma and all that. 🙂 )