So we finally have a home. Myself, Melissa, and our mutual friend Dan will be moving into our apartment this weekend, after signing the lease last week. It feels like I've been living at Eric's for too long, which makes me wonder how I ever put up with living with my parents. I'm excited to finally have a space all my own, a place to really call "home" and not just a roof over my head. And at the same time I'm nervous, and scared. As it stands my income will just barely keep me afloat as far as my share of the bills. Our lack of credit means we had to put down a deposit equal to two months of the previous tenants electric bill... which was $421. Who and how the fuck do you use that much juice short of running a club out of your apartment? I dropped my whole paycheck to meet the minimum down and the remaining $250 some odd will be on our next bill. And we're going to need the rest of our security deposit on the apartment next week. And rent is due on the 1st. I need a second job, now. As soon as I finish this blog I'm finishing some applications I had been hesitating in finishing because it needs to be done. I cannot and will not allow myself to just barely scrape by and constantly lean on my roommates/friends/family for handouts like a few choice family members I will not name. I want to make enough to live comfortably, to put something away, and to get ahead. I want to be able to pay off my debts, take care of my pets, have enough money to have some fun, maybe even look into leasing a car, and think seriously about going back to school.

I've looked into the veterinary field and I think it may not be the best field for me. I love animals, and I would love the chance to get to take care of them, but the arduous path to that goal may be too steep a mountain to climb. I've never been very competent in biology, chemistry, or anatomy, and that would have to change. I'm not a big fan of dissecting anything, and that's going to be a problem. And lets not forget the heavy-hearted task of euthanasia. I just.. I don't know if I could handle it.

So, while I weigh that option on my mind, I'm going to return to my roots. Hardware programming. In a broader scope, robotics and electrical engineering. My interest in software programming and working in video games came entirely out of my desire to create without restrictions. But I think I may have missed a niche. I've always been taking things apart, rebuilding. Not a day goes by that I don't see something on an animated show and think "how could you simulate that" like fighting robots or motorized rollerblades. I have an easy time imagining things from an engineering perspective, how the parts fit, how the current flows. My electrical engineering math class was always coming to me because I knew how shit worked, instinctively. And machine language doesn't change. It functions on the most basic and inelegant of levels, 1's and 0's. Even before I got into programming classes in high school and discovered my love of programming, when I was still in elementary school, do you know the only magazine subsription I ever had? Robot Store, ordered out of the back of the Boy Scout magazine. Two years at Owens could have me a degree I could actually do something with while I work on a backelors, which is always a bonus. So going to school for hardware programming/electronic engineering is now in my two year plan.

So that's it, really. Will have pictures of the new apartment this weekend.

Haven't slept yet, probably won't until this afternoon, barring any random adventures. Plan to stay awake involves coffee and manual labour. It's not a perfect plan, but it's a good one.

Anyway, I've been thinking. Specifically about the fire. Ever since, my attachment to things can best be described as "tenuous". And to a lesser extent, people. The harder I look at my life, the more I realize... I don't need this crap. Any of it. I don't need all the useless knick-knacks and pack-ratted odds and ends any more than I need the drama and the head games and the fake bullshit. It's all so.. extraneous. It's bullshit, fake, stupid, unnecessary, all of it. Well, not all of it, those in my inner circle tend to generate minimum if not zero drama and craziness, and as such, are more welcome in my life than other people, specifically most new people. I always approach new friendships with extreme enthusiasm, only, to quote OKCupid, to leave later with "extremer enthusiasm" once they've gotten comfortable enough to start whining about petty bullshit and have begun to try and poke around in my head and heart for the buttons and levers to manipulate me. And as soon as they start that, I'm done. No questions asked, no second chances. I'll still treat you as a friend and I'll still talk to you but you are NOT trustworthy and I will not bestow that level of trust on you again. Is it fair? Probably not. Am I a jerk for it? You'll probably think so. Do I care? You bet your ass I don't. I've spent the last 23 years pandering to the most self-absorbed people on the planet. I drew them to me, like bees to honey. I may as well have had a big sign on my ass that says "COME MAKE MY LIFE MISERABLE, I ENJOY IT" and I let them.

It was before the fire that I put my foot down, but it was watching that house burn that really catalyzed it for me. Not in the "OMG my house burnt down" dramatic sense, either. It really stuck with me because as I sat there, watching smoke and flame pour from every opening, watching the roof collapse, I felt nothing. My mother and father wept openly, people all around us hugging me, telling me it's terrible,t hey're so sorry, and I could barely force myself to cry for appearances. The only thing I felt any remorse for was the cats; for them, I cried. But the house? The loss of everything that burned? Not a drop. Because it wasn't my home, and I was only then beginning to realize it. All the shit in that house held no value, no sentiment. The whole house could have been reduced to a pile of ash and my only lament would still have been the loss of my cats. I was never at home there, part of me, deep down, was a little glad to watch it burn. Specifically because it was my mother's room, and my mother's things that were consumed. It seemed like divine justice to me, and it made my stomach turn to see my mother so wrapped in self-pity, STILL wrapped in it, that I went from nothing, to satisfied, to angry. She's still starting fights and accusing people of not caring about what she lost. Has she even tried to find the bright side? Not unless you count the myriad ways she's been ripping people off by playing up her misfortune. All she does is bemoan how hard she works, how much she does, and how much she lost, day in and day out. Nobody in the world could possibly understand what it's like to be her. BECAUSE NOBODY ELSE COULD GET THEIR HEAD THAT FAR UP THEIR OWN ASS.

And I think I've finally stopped caring about her. I don't care anymore, whatever she gets, whatever tragedy befalls her next, she will have wrought it upon herself. And by proxy, I'm not going to tolerate similar behaviour from anyone else. It's not hard; enjoy life, appreciate what you have, and never stop trying to make yourself a better person, for your own sake. Do that much, and I will gladly call you my friend. Spend every day of your life whining while making no noteworthy progress, constantly bemoan other's success, or intentionally mock or cripple my progress or the progress of my friends, and I WILL cripple AND mock you.

So that's the long and tall of it. The fire didn't change my life, but it sure put some things in perspective for me.

Melissa has an astrology book that essentially highlights the asshole features of every astrological sign. On Libra, it says something to the effect of "they don't have an original bone in their body. Every thought, idea, and feeling has been hijacked or plagiarized," though that's not an exact quote. I laughed about it when she read it, but it stuck really hard in my head.

How right is it, really?

Too right, I think. It's long been my impression that it's human nature to repeat what we like, what we agree with. But the more I pay attention to my habits, I find that the first thing I do is search for something I've heard, something clever I've read, something impressive someone else said that I can say to impress people. I recite and practice important ones a dozen or more times before I say it to someone, and in my head it sounds rehearsed and fake, usually because I stutter far too much when I'm nervously trying to pawn off someone else's cleverness as my own. Honestly, I don't know when it happened, or why, but I hate it. It's a habit I have to break. While I was thinking of my moving out and what to post about it, what to say, the first thing I wanted to do was do some clever rip-off of this MacHall comic. I mean, I can think of no way to put better how I think I'm going to feel. I write it off as saying I would have thought of it had it not already been done, as I often do, but that's malarkey. I'm sure my opinion here is biased because I don't remember my original material because it's off-the-cuff, spur-of-the-moment, other-things-that-require-dashes, etc... but still. Is it as obvious as I feel it is? Do I look as much the poser as I feel? I think it's more in the delivery than the outright theft of idea. I come off as a jerk, trying to be smug, smarter-than-you... when all I'm trying to do is impress, I think it corsses a line that I can't find to not cross. A few people close to me have grown especially intolerant of it, annoyed sighing and words like "douche" have highlighted this sufficiently. I'm trying my damnedest to fix it, I swear. That's the other bitch, when I do say something clever of my own, I tend to drive it right into the futher-mucking ground.

On a similar note... I feel like I'm shedding. Not literally, but I feel like I've been trapped in a skin that I should have shorn forever ago. It's especially difficult to get out of, but I'm getting there. I went to the house yesterday and got another big dose of how different things are going to be. If I'm off work and I choose to sit in my room and read a book all day, nobody is going to come in and yell at me to do dishes, or mow the lawn, or clean up after my sisters. If the phone rings and it comes up "Nagmonster" I don't have to answer it, ever, really, and I won't feel it later. Dad just called a minute ago and wanted me to come watch grandma tonight. No, I have plans. What are you doing? I have stuff I need to do. You said you'd help out at grandma's when you moved out. Yeah if it worked for me, but I don't know if I can, I'll let you know. What are you doing that's so important. I have a call on the other line, I'll let you know. Fine, bye. Click. No dreading going home to a "talk" about how I'm not carrying my weight and I'm not doing enough to be grateful and how I'm lazy and worthless because I never have to go home to them again. I come home to a quiet house with a few people who don't care, and soon I will come home to an empty apartment. Are my cat and my rats going to judge me? I think not. Actually, they get spoiled because they don't judge me, or expect anything of me.

Anyway, a little jaded about the first, and still super-fucking-excited about the second. Input appreciated.

Been a while since I've written, since I mostly tweet these days.

Almost three weeks since I've moved out. I don't feel particularly different, and yet at the same time, I guess I do. I wake up around 4pm some times, mostly because I'm up till now doing stuff, or I'm just coming in from work. Point being, it's nice to be able to sleep as much as my body wants me to sleep and not have to fight tooth and nail for even an extra hour. I don't think I'll make a habit of sleeping half the day away, but I do think that, to a degree, our bodies have a running tally of how much sleep we should be getting versus how much we do, and that every hour you miss is an hour you'll have to make up later. That being the case.. I have a lot of lost time to make up, ha. Regardless, I have been taking a lot of time to myself, to sleep, or to just lie in bed and think. My stress levels have been tapering off gradually (with spikes whenever I go back to mom and dad's for any length of time) and I'm finding myself happier just waking up.

Yet I don't want it to last long. I.. get too comfortable. I would sooner sacrifice the long run for the quick and easy, which is something I'm trying, hard, to break myself of. I could stay here indefinitely. I would catch some flak, I would eventually murder my roommate, but I could live here, comfortably, for as long as I wanted. But I don't want that, I don't even want a roommate. I want a space all my own, somewhere where I'm not being told when I can take a shower or what lights I have to keep off or when I have to be out of bed or when I can and can't leave the house. I want MY space. Which is going to cost me my comfort, in the end. I need a full-time job on top of UPS if I'm going to be financially secure, which means working during the day, where I would probably prefer to sleep. I mean, realistically, it's just stepping up to the whole "adult" reality where you have to work for the things you really want, but I've spent so much time in my own little delusion, sequestered away in my immaturity and naivety, that the light still kind of burns my shaded eyes. I don't like the idea of working a full-time job and a part-time job, but at least, if I can do that, I won't be struggling to make ends meet. I won't be fighting paycheck-to-paycheck to squander enough away to buy food. And if it's one thing I am now dead-set on doing, it's making it on my own, my way. No more handouts, no more bullshit, no more compromises. My. Way.

Why am I so set on this? Because of my cunt of a mother, and yes I hope her sorry ass tries to and succeeds in finding this like she has before. Most parents, when they raise a child, try to lead their children in the direction of growing up and being functional, productive members of society. Most parents support their children in whatever it is that makes them happy. My parents? Ha, fuck that. My parents made sure to hobble me and tie me to a post, to cripple me every time I made a move to go at it my own. I was going to do things their way, they had a plan for me. Live at home till I'm almost 30, get a few years out in the world to find something I can be moderately successful at, then reel me back in to take care of them in their sunset years.


Life's pretty solid right now, I'd say.

So I did it.

Well, technically, I guess.

It started... last Monday, I think. Wow, it's been a week already. Anyway, I was at work when Melissa called me. She'd had a rough day and my mother pushed her right over the deep end. My mom sleeps int he living room at grandma's, and the kitchen isn't a separate room, it's just divided by a display case/entertainment center. Melissa comes down after work to get dinner. Mom, who has been asleep since 8pm but "hasn't slept for 4 days" (read as: bullshit) snaps at her for turning on a light to see, says some snarky bullshit about how I didn't clean up a dinner I neither made nor was asked to clean up after, and says she should be in bed. So Melissa, on the phone with me now, is packing up her belongings and putting them at the front door, resolved to leave because she's clearly not wanted. Some time after I let her go mom wakes up and starts screaming. There were names called and things said that would get an ordinary person beaten if I'd heard them. Long story short mom locks Melissa out of the house with about half her stuff still upstairs with the lingering threat of destroying them.

So Melissa called the cops on my mom. At 1am. My mother, the saint(martyr) she is, swears that she told her to come get her stuff out and that it was her choice not to come back in. Mom has some embellishments on how this part went down, but multiple eyewitnesses debunk her bullshit. She did not sit and talk with the cops, the cops did not wake up the whole house. The girls were sound asleep, they didn't know what had gone on until the next day. My mom is so full of shit it's a wonder her eyes aren't brown. Anyway, policemen help her carry the remaining boxes out to our mutual friends car and she leaves. 

I'm still at work, and now I'm realizing that it's finally at a point where I can no longer ignore it. I can't simply go on living the lie I live now. So I didn't go home. Eric and Melissa picked me up, we got some breakfast, and we went back to his place. For the night.

The next day I went home to get some things. Dad begrudgingly let me take my clothes, computer, and other essentials out of the house without much fuss. Had to take the rats back as Eric's grandpa did not like them, which is fine because it's his house, and the girls are taking good care of them.

So it's been almost a week now. At first, mom and dad were deeply opposed, and they still are, they're just not as vocal about it. I think they have a hard time wrapping their tiny heads around the idea of me not living there anymore (denial). Still, they're pretty generous. It looks like I might have a running car soon, which would be nice as I'm getting tired of bumming rides.

Anyway, thoughts. I'm getting a good dose of how expensive it'll be in the long run, and how one job will not keep me afloat. Groceries this week cost me almost $60, and while that will last the better part of a week, feeling the high cost of the things I use in abundance like milk and eggs made me wince. Still, not something I didn't expect.

Really, the hardest part is being alone. For the most part I never am, but I have no idea what to do with my down time. I can't remember the last time I was truly alone and unfettered, with no obligations, no looming list of things to be done, nobody to hang out with. Whenever I had time to myself at home I just slept, but I don't want to do that now. I have time to pursue my hobbies, time to relax. I'm going to go get a couple of books from the house this week, that'll help. I've been making food, which I really enjoy doing, but that's both expensive and fattening and we can't have that. It's really kind of daunting to look at myself in the mirror and see just how one-dimensional I am. When was the last time I did anything just for me? When was the last time I had real alone time? It's scary. Until now I don't think I took into account how hard the trasitiont o an adult was going to be, at least not this facet. I can handle being away from my parents, I can handle being financially responsible for myself, but I was not prepared for the psychological aspect. I feel shell-shocked at times, just wandering around the house not knowing what to do. My whole life, anything I've wanted to do I've had to plan out months in advance, cut through red tape with a machete, and still I'd get arguments and fights. Anything I wanted I had to be rabid about. Now I can say "hey, I want to go lay down" and I flinch, expecting to be yelled at, reprimanded, or even argued with... and I'm met with silence. What will I do with my life? Who will I be at the end of this? As the layers fall away like I'm peeling an onion, what will it look like when there's nothing left to pull away? I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared. That door I watched rattle for so long, that I was so confident I would be able to open when I was ready? It tore itself off the hinges and sucked me in, spitting me unceremoniously into the void like a newborn child. 

Time to test my wings.

So this is 2009.

2008? A good year. I spent most of it with an amazing woman who turned my world on it's head and then stepped back to see what I would do with it now that she'd gone and put it there. I made a lot of progress towards my goal of leaving home and not coming back, and we're now down to the final months of my campaign for freedom.

So I hope 2009 is everything that I thought it would be in 2008. I want to get out on my own, breathe free, fresh air, be buried under piles of bills and experience life, real life, without my parents looking over my shoulder or doing hand checks. Make it or break it, I want 2009 to be the first year of my life.

Truth be told, I'm not very happy right now. I try to be, but I'm not. I feel... stagnant. I have a lot of great talents and hobbies. I love to draw and create, I love to read books, I love to play games. And yet, what am I doing? Nothing. For all the things I have, all the opportunity and potential, I'm just sitting here staring at a screen. Sometimes were it not for the everlasting nagging of my parents I wouldn't even get out of bed. I feel no motivation to do anything, and I don't know why. For a long time I've figured it's my parents bringing me down, the constant state of discord and chaos in my house derailing me before I can really gain momentum. But there's no way to test that except to step forward into the void and hope for the best.

The worst thing, for me.. is I have no direction in life. What do I want to do with my life? I have no idea. I want to be on my own, I want to fall in love, I want to be happy. For me, that's enough. But voices clamor that I should have some long-term plan, some career-oriented goals, some end game strategy instead of this fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants approach. And I can't help but feel they're right. I want to go back to school, but for what? I lost interest in education for the same reasons I lost interest in existing outside of my bed. Living with my parents really must be something like hell. It feels like every step I take I stub my toe, every decision I ever make is the wrong one, every shelf I place my precious things upon falls off the wall. And yet I have to soldier on, keep my eyes focused on the light at the end of the tunnel, that faintly glowing "Exit" sign hanging above the door, so close I can reach it. A million little things would be so much easier, but I can't. I can't sit, I can't sleep, I can't curl up with that book, no.. just keep focused on the sign, lift one foot at a time. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. Every little distraction threatens to derail my progress completely, go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect 500 quatloos. And while I trudge forward I feel.. empty. Devoid of purpose beyond this. It takes so much energy for me to get this far that I don't have any left over to think past that door.

I want to go back to school. I want to delve into programming, I want to fall in love with code all over again. I really felt my niche there, for a little bit, before I was pulled back into the chaos and the drama. I don't know what I'll do with that education, maybe use it to springboard to a better education at a better school, maybe move to the UK and get a job in the games industry, maybe focus on AI programming and end up working for the government, who knows. But I can't even think about that right now, I can't find any solace int he thought because all that I have energy for is forward, towards that door.

Once we're through, we can rest.

Once we're through, we're free to plan our next move.

But for now, there is only that door, waiting, as anxious as I am to get it all over with.

She shines
In a world full of ugliness
She matters
When everything is meaningless

Fragile
She doesn't see her beauty
She tries to get away
Sometimes
Its just that nothing seems worth saving
I cant watch her slip away

I won't let you fall apart

She reads the minds of all the people as they pass her by
Hoping someone can see
If I could fix myself I'd-
But it's too late for me

I won't let you fall apart

We'll find the perfect place to go where we can run and hide
I'll build a wall and we can keep them on the other side
But they keep waiting
And picking

It's something I have to do
I was there, too
Before everything else
I was like you..

I ran around the corner today just in time to see the flames completely engulf the front of the house.

An electrical short in my parents room caught the curtains and bed. My dad acted quickly and got the dogs out, tried to go back in to open some doors for the cats and turn off the gas, but was knocked back by a back draft which blew out all the windows in their room. When my mom called me at grandmas and told me the house was on fire, to run, I thought she was joking. How do you take that seriously? I saw the smoke from grandma's street, but I didn't know it was so bad. I just thought, hey, the flue caught on fire in the living room finally, it's probably not too bad.

Firefighters spent the next 5 hours dousing the flames, only to have them spring back up again.

Ironically, the half-assed way our house was built both doomed and saved it. Mom's room was originally a flat-top garage that was added on to the house, then later converted into a den. When they built the gable for the den, rather than tear off the old tar-paper flat roof, they simply built over it. The fact that it was so separated from the main house, having been an addition, kept the flames from getting past the bedroom much. The fucking tar-paper roof under the gable though was helping the fire spread (and making the fumes particularly noxious) and making it difficult to put out. Every time they had it out you'd see a jet of flame shoot out of the roof or smoke start pouring out of the eaves.

It hit my parents hardest. Everything they owned was completely consumed, for the most part. Including but not limited to every family heirloom we scraped all our cash together to save from the estate sale, all their clothes, all our family pictures, birth certificates, et cetera.

The rest of the house was largely untouched by flame, though you'd be hard pressed to believe so when walking through. Though it did not spread past the bedroom there isn't an inch of the house that isn't black with soot. My room, which is directly at the end of the only hallway leading out of my parents room, took a heavy blow from the heat. It buckled my accordian-style closet doors to the point where I didn't recognize them when I went in at first. My windows are blackened to zero visibility and the curtain opposite the open door is warped and twisted. Amazingly though, aside from a heavy coat of smoke damage, the damage to my personal belongings was minimal.

But that's not what I cared about when I went running down the street. What mom had said to me on the phone was "run fast, the house was on fire and your dad couldn't get the animals out." I found later that this was inaccurate. Dad had saved the dogs, and in doing so, both fed the fire precious oxygen via the open door and blocked his own entry back into the house. What he couldn't save, however, were the cats. We hoped to everything they found a safe place, but I expected the worst, as anyone with eyes would have. I fell apart when they told us they'd seen nothing and that the smoke would have killed anything almost instantly. Melissa showed up not long after, having come straight from work, as my home, and my family, are as much hers as they are mine, and she felt the loss the same.

When they began cleaning up, they told us they'd found one cat, a black and white. Oreo. The loveable idiot that followed mom and dad home that would quickly grow to become Melissa's "boyfriend" and my play rival in all things. He was declawed and neutered and so passive you could pick him up and do anything and all he would do, at best, was growl. Even in the bath, he would paw helplessly with clawless hands, furious.

When we went in, they told us they'd found three total. A black one, a calico, and the aforementioned black and white. Dad decided Melissa and I didn't need to see them and put them aside where they'd be okay till today. Melissa and I went back later to confirm. "Black" could have easily been tortoise shell, our fourth cat Gypsy, or black, our 16 year old resident immortal, Kat. We both loved Kat more than we'd loved any animal and we needed to confirm, for our own sake, whether she had been found, or if there was a chance she'd escaped. So we opened the trash bag the firemen put them in.

And there she was, curled into her cute little jelly bean that she always slept in. It looked as if none of them had even woken up during the blaze, all curled into sleeping positions. It brought some comfort to know that she had died peacefully, and I can see her, even now, laying on my bed sound asleep.

But that doesn't make the loss any easier, or the tragedy any less severe. Yes, dad was the only human member of our family in the house and yes, he escaped. But we lost family members in that fire. I loved those cats, especially Kat, as much as anyone else in that house (moreso, in that they got on my nerves less frequently), and I'm still crying. Kat was always there when I'd come home, perched on my CD rack next to the door. I'd sit down in my computer chair and she'd bound across the TV or jump down onto the floor, pad over to me, and jump up into my lap. Whether I sat there for 15 minutes or 4 hours she'd lay there, purring like a motorboat as I petted her and did whatever I was there to do. I spoiled that cat rotten with affection and made her the spoiled queen of the house, and she knew it. She then became my "girlfriend", the cat that was always there to shower me with affection on a bad day, the only creature that I felt I could always turn to for unquestioned love and affection no matter what I'd done. She never judged, never cared, never doubted, only loved. She lived a rich, full life, more than most cats ever do, but still.. she was supposed to live forever. She was more than just a house cat, and she will forever be mourned and missed.

As for today.. I don't know. It could be we're going to have to go in and clean up everything ourselves. It could be the insurance company will help. I don't know and I don't care. I would have traded everything in my room to have found those cats alive, I would have seen the whole house burned to rubble just to have found those cats okay. And I didn't. So it doesn't really matter what's next.

There's NOTHING to do. All my motivation is completely drained.

Last winter was the best winter of my life. I had Melissa here to play games with, explore grandmas house, or just sit up all night talking. At the very least, when there was nothing to do, I had someone to snuggle up with and sleep the day away with.

Sleeping all day by yourself really doesn't bring you the same satisfaction. Just makes you feel depressed, and lonely. What I wouldn't give to have last winter all over again.

Been a while since I've updated. Couple of bullets worth skimming

• I am no longer an employee of The Seafood Restaurant & Bar as of last Sunday. Bitch-ass Candy practically threw me out while I exchanged heartfelt goodbyes with the only part of that place I'll ever miss, my friends and fellow wage-slaves.Cunt to the bitter fucking end.
• Started Driver Helper.. helping? This week. Was fun, but GODDAM was it hell on my thighs. I could barely move this morning. I feel out of shape because I can't jump in and out of a truck and run for four hours in the late autumn cold. Wtf?
• I'm down to 197 lbs. ONE-HUNDRED NINETY-SEVEN POUNDS, BITCHES! 12 more pounds and I'll actually be at my ideal weight. I haven't been under 200 since freshman year of high school. Now I just need to work on motivating myself to do some crunches so I can lose my pooch and have a smooth, albeit still soft (I've no desire to have and maintain washboard abs. Plus, reliable sources have told me soft tummies are more prone to being laid on) stomach.
• Saving money towards a used car now, since I've abandoned hope of ever seeing the Bonneville run. And if it does run it certainly won't be to my benefit; I'm unsure how I ever deluded myself into believing they'd let me have primary access to the car. Have to have enough by March, but if this Driver Helper thing pans out and I get lucky scouring the paper and craigslist, it could happen sooner.
• Distancing myself from mom is becoming easier. Once, not too long ago, I'd switch over whenever she called no matter who was on the phone, answer calls and texts wherever I was, etc. Now I pretty much ignore her, especially if she's being a bitch. I don't understand why I willingly called her knowing she was going to make me cry so much, or why I argued with her via text when it's so GODDAM SATISFYING to just ignore her. And empowering. I think I feel my testicles between my legs again. =X

Eyes still on the prize with moving out. I don't care how and I don't care with who, but March is the be-all end-all believe-it-or-not move out deadline. The closer it gets the more nervous I get, the more I really feel the weight of my impending actions. I'm scared, real scared, but I'm holding my ground. Gone are the days of running away from my problems, sticking my head in the sand and hoping they disappear. I'm not that man anymore, and I'm not going to back down.

Well fuck.

My motherboard went belly up this weekend, leaving me virtually computer-less. Not groovy.

There goes allllll my spending money. Fucking goddam. And I have to use the craptop till the new board gets here.

Melissa stopped by to pick up her pants this weekend. I don't have the ass for them anyway. I got hugs, which made me happy. I like hugs, they're really an underrated form of currency.

It snowed a little today, which made me both sad and happy. Stupid climate change squeezed fall into a month and a half and now we're going to have another 5 months of winter. At least it's pretty.

Played Munchkin with Eric. Got my ass handed to me royally yesterday, stomped him into oblivion today. A very satisfying exchange of blows.

All in all? A good weekend. The computer being toast hardly ruins getting free hugs (are they still free if I had to hold her pants hostage to get them? I vote yes) and having a damn good time with a friend. Oh, and I made a couple new friends too, so maybe I'll actually get out of the house a little more now :)

The time is now Get-The-Fuck-In-Bed O' clock. Good night.

"I, Jeremy Hasenbalg, am submitting my two-week notice on this, November 7th, 2008. I have secured a seasonal position which pays better. I may be back in January, but I very much doubt it. (Sig)"

That's the letter I left for Candy, as advised by the kitchen manager. I hope she goes insane.

Mom went off on me about quitting, about how dad never got called as a driver helper (I doubt he ever really applied) and how I'll make no money. The bottom line is this. I hate the Seafood. I don't want to work there. But, as long as I've got that job, I'm not very motivated to get a different one. So even if I don't get any money at all out of the driver-helper position (which, for those of you not privvy to my explosive text outburst, I got called about), I'll still be in a better position to find a different job. It's long overdue, $130 a month is no reason to do something you hate.

Oh, this set into motion a much larger fight encompassing my financial, romantic, and educational future and how my mother, in a nutshell, thinks I'm throwing them all away because I'm not in school and I'm not visibly motivated to return. A very nasty, angry fight which I never really backed down from.

It's not that I don't want to go to school. To the contrary, I would love nothing more than to dive back into learning. In a perfect world I'd already have my associate's in software programming. In reality, my family will never allow me to do what I need to do to get through school. I want it, but right now.. I need to be independent first. Plus, it'll serve financial aid better if I'm not tied a dependent of my father who now makes over $50,000 a year. So it can wait. That is another victory I want to be my own, and my parents will steal it from me, cheapen it if I don't get out first.

My mom doesn't want me to make their mistakes; touching, but stupid and futile. She doesn't want me working at UPS because she's so sure I'll just stay there for 45 years and become bitter and abusive like my dad because of it. Hello, Earth to mothercunt? Dad's bitter and abusive because he lives with a raging sociopathic bitch, not because he works at UPS. She wants me to get an education because "I deserve better than UPS". To me, a career is not as big of a deal as it is to other people, it's not part of the picture I paint of future happiness. Sure, I would very much like to graduate with a bachelor's and go on to my dream job, but so long as I have a stable job that pays the bills, and I can find someone who loves me for everything I am and everything I'll never be, I'll be happy. I don't need much, I don't have big dreams. Live happy, die happy.

More later. I finally told her Melissa and I were no longer together. She took it very much as I expected. She tried desperately to place blame, to dig for some secret, some dirt my wounded heart would reveal to her, and she got nothing. Having never known what love is, how could she be expected to understand deeds motivated by it? Though it was Melissa's idea, and Melissa's actions that cemented it... it's not something I disagree with. In fact, the more time I spend in retrospect, the more I see how necessary it was. So, for me, it was a mutual decision, a compromise. There's nobody to blame, no fingers to point, no hidden rage. I'm not distraught or troubled by it. And that confuses my mother, who exists almost as an embodiment of rage and hate, to no end, because these things just aren't possible in her head. I shrugged it off indifferently and changed the subject, as I had no real desire to discuss it with her any further than "we broke up, so stop asking about her". And frankly it's none of her goddam business.

Anyway, goodnight.

I am hell bent

Am I the key
of fiction and heartache
and the pain
is of no consequence
when I am hell bent
my walls are
closing in

Controlling me, controlling me,
is losing me, you're losing,
control of me, control of me,
you're losing

Am I awake
the morning star
that brings me here
since everything in me
between pluto and god
all is hell bent
my walls are closing in
I feel the claim

controlling me, controlling me,
is losing me, you're losing,
control of me, control of me,
you're losing, you're losing
control of me, control of me,
you're losing me said, ooyeoh
controlling me, controlling me,
yeah, said
naked, broken my world crumbling
and I can't find myself
or my way out hey

hey
la
ah ah ah

controlling me
controlling me
controlling me
you're losing me
say ooyeoh
ooyeooh
controlling me
oooh yeah

hell bent
my walls are
closing in

So, nothing ahead but change, both on a national scale and a personal level. No word back about the driver helper job, so I'm still without a second job, but it's okay, I'm motivated. Mom has a client that is looking for someone to look after his Alzheimer's father every night (aka, what I'm doing for grandma for FREE) for $700 a week. I'd do it in a heartbeat if I could. But I don't get off work till 4am and this is more of a 11pm-6am arrangement. Shit, that's $2400 a month, I could buy a house and a car with that kind of green. Too bad it interferes with UPS, as there's obviously no promise of longevity in taking care of an elderly person.

I feel good, like I finally found the direction I should be pointed. Can't wait for spring to get here, I'm excited to feel the wind at my back. For all of my adult life I have had the weight of a whole family on my back that I never asked for. I carry with me all the stress of a failing marriage, confused and destructive children, an ailing grandmother and two extended families that are falling apart at the seams. I've taken care of all of them as much as I can for as long as I've had the ability to. I like to think I've built up some serious karma, and I'm going to cash it in. It's time to shrug this weight off my shoulders, stand up straight, and take care of myself. After having withstood the trials and tribulations life has thrown at me thus far, I think I'm more than ready to face the world with my head held high. And I want it.

Say anything, save everything
If we say nothing this love will die
Give me just one word, you can scream or whisper
If you want to stay with me, tell me why
Say anything

It's not the words aren't there but they'd only fail my emotions
Just want to feel this way without chaining you down to some old cliche
You want the water in my hands as we stand waist deep in the ocean
It's bigger than the sea, it won't let me

Say just anything, because I feel everything
I'd rather say nothing, than the same old lines
I think I give you more, something there's no words for
You don't have to hear me to feel me trying
To say anything

Baby I know you try but sometimes I still want to hear it
Even when the waters calm but lately it's just when there's something wrong
Why can't we splash around and hold on to that playful spirit
Oh like we used to do and won't you

Say anything, save everything
If we say nothing this love will die
Give me just one word, you can scream or whisper
If you want to stay with me tell me why
Say anything

This love is true
Even if you
Call it by a different name
And it's still the same, so we'll

Say anything, feel everything
I want to be with you so this love can fly
We'll hang on every word and we'll scream, we'll whisper
This moment is waiting for you and I
Say anything
Say anything..

I can't remember the last time I had a day that I would call productive, but odds are it happened while Melissa was here.

I cleaned my room today. Not the room I live in, the corner of my parent's house they call mine so as to keep up the illusion that I'm still living under their roof.

To say it was destroyed would be like saying that a few people may have died in the Holocaust. Surprisingly it only took one bag of trash to fix (I usually haul about 2-3 out), but that may have been because Rhiannon had hauled some out the week prior. Anyway, I cleaned up all the trash (again), swept the floors (again), cleaned off my desk (again), put everything back where it goes (again) and mopped the floor (again). I'm going to try and get Rhiannon's bed into her room immediately following work tomorrow, then I'm going to resume locking my door. They have no idea how fucking embarrassed I was the day Melissa visited and I tried to bring her into that. I wanted to fucking crawl under a rock and die, I've never been so disgusted and humiliated. And nobody cares! Mom comes home, and the stupid bitch never leaves her room, except to wander out to the kitchen. As long as her room,t he hallway leading to the kitchen, and the kitchen are clean-ish, mom doesn't care. Once or twice a year mom goes to some other part of the house and realizes how much of a pig sty it is. And when she does, it's not her fault as an irresponsible parent, it's my fault for not watching the girls, dad's fault for not watching me, fingers pointed in all directions but her own.

This is the point where Melissa would tell me I need to say something, quit taking it. I'd tell her it's not that easy.. but really, how hard is it? Is it really that difficult to tell mom the truth, or is it difficult to get out of the rut of doing whatever I have to do to survive? I've been stuck in survival mode for way too long, scraping together an existence out of whatever is left when everyone else has taken what I've worked for. I feel pathetic, not having it in me to stand up to my mom like I used to. That's one thing I wouldn't mind. A big, no-holds-barred fight between me and mom. A screaming, swearing, be-all-to-end-all fight of the apocalypse where I lay out just how much I can't stand her, just what she's done to my life, and just how much of a bitch she is. It's pretty much unavoidable, really. I won't even be moved in to my new apartment and the phone will be ringing. And guess what? I'm not gonna pick it up. I'll call her back when I'm damn good and ready, and the moment she decides to be a bitch about it, I'm not holding back. She's alienated herself from everyone with her self-serving selflessness. She waffles on everything and has no spine, and then, when she's changed her opinion, don't you dare tell her otherwise, because it never happened that way anymore, you're crazy, you don't listen. I want to be in control. I want to be in a position where she can't scare me anymore, where she can't push me around just because she puts a roof over my head. I want to see her back down and crawl away with her tail between her legs. Just once, I want her to feel how she's made me feel every day of my miserable adult existence.

Every week is one step closer. Every paycheck puts me that much more in the bank toward my goal. I'm really doing it this time. I'm excited, scared, confused, and hopeful about it. I wonder if beginner pilots feel like this the first time, coasting down the runway, picking up speed, wondering if they're going to have enough speed to get off the ground before they run out of runway.. then pure exhilaration as they feel the wheels lift off the ground, feel the plane rise with the entire sky before it.

A couple of less important and exciting things I did today include shaving off my sideburns and playing video games to keep my mind off of things. I really want to get back to a couple art projects I've put on hold, but I haven't been much in the mood to continue art projects.

Just gotta take it one long, melodramatic, and usually lonely day at a time, and hope for the best every morning. Speaking of morning.. I have to work in 6 hours. God I hate the Seafood. At least I'm getting out around 6-7.

Goodnight.

Your result for The Perception Personality Image Test...

NBDC - The Illusionist

My mom decided that, as a birthday present, she's taking me shopping Monday. The fool! If she goes through with this, she's going to be indulging quite a few of my pricier whims. I almost wish she'd just buy the TSO tickets again, but I want to buy them myself, even if it means saving quite a few of my hard-earned duckets in addition to what I'm saving for what is tentatively labelled Operation: GTFO.

Speaking of saving, I've put a redundancy into place. I'm not depositing my Seafood paychecks. Assuming I work there for more than a month or so, not depositing them means a nice boost to the savings when I finally need to cash my chips in, since I won't think about it if I don't see it. Just have to make sure I don't lose them, haha.

Also, finally finished the Rat Mansion/Prison. I say Mansion because it's 20" x 16" x 24", and I say mansion because it's 100% escape-proof, barring human error. No amount of gnawing will get them through tempered steel bars on all 6 sides. Been adding levels and fun stuff made out of cardboard, since anything in the cage will inevitably end up chewed. The girls are eating it up, just wish I could put Monk in there with them, but I still haven't gotten him neutered. Not that he seems to mind since I moved him to the bigger cage, he gets handled more than the girls anyway, since he fidgets less.

Things for me have been looking up lately. Blessing be to whatever deity that's watching over me, I've never been happier to say that I'm a spazzy idiot. Got to see Lissa this weekend and give her her card, but friggin' forgot to give her her gift! -_- I JUST remembered that, wtf stupid. Oh well, next time she'll get it, not like it was something expensive. I think she'd kill me anyway if I spent more than a couple bucks on her right now :P

Hopefully I'll have the time and attention span to take some pictures tomorrow. Mom can pick me up some hair dye while we're out (psst, Melissa! Free hair dye! XD) and maybe I'll do my hair this week, since I have like 2-3 inches of brown under the black. Need to get the sides cut too, but that won't kill me to wait on. If I were to spike my 'hawk now I couldn't drive a car it'd be too big. Hell, getting out doors will probably require an adjustment here soon. Still, I love it.

Can't wait for my month to be up so I can put some less delicate jewelry in my ears. Mom's gonna have an aneurism since she thinks that, as soon as you stretch your ears, it's permanently scarring and it never goes back. And that shock will SO be worth it. Hell, that's encouragement to take it up to 00, hahahaha.

Anyway, time for rest. Not going anywhere or doing anything tomorrow, mom's doing.. something, and she's stranding me here. So I'll be around. Send me a text or something, keep me entertained. I'll probably alternate between working on the rat cage and working on my chain mail or something else. I don't have my solder here so I can't really work on electronics.

You know, why do I detail everything like this here? Hardly anyone ever reads this. Need to get more friends -_-.