Are people really this stupid?

I was opening a piece of cheese today when I noticed a little warning beneath the list of ingredients. "Contains milk." Yeah, right under the ingredients list which begins with pasteurized milk. Are there people out there who are dumb enough to grab a block of cheese and wonder if it has milk in it? These people should be allowed to die of their allergies. It's not quite like a bagel that's made in a plant where they process peanuts. If you buy cheese, it's got milk in it. Duh.

I have to figure out how to get my laptop keyboard fixed, since charming little Bella damaged some of the keys. It's much easier to type staying in bed right now because my knee is pretty much trashed. After slipping on the ice yet again yesterday morning (don't judge. I admit my klutziness but don't know how to fix it) my knee is sore and swollen and bruised, and it's stopped moving wrong now and then when I walk. Now it's starting to give out altogether at times, and I've gone from swearing colorfully to being unable to form words at all and just keening as the tears well up in my eyes.

Ain't this fun.

Painful Confessions of a Girl Geek

I may have admitted before that I'm a geek. Sometimes I'm even proud of it, at least to the extent that it means I don't cry over broken nails or devote my Tivo to recording soap operas. Then again, I don't record Star Trek or have Star Wars posters in my apartment either. I'm sort of a multi-class geek. A little D&D, a little scientist, a little crazy cat lady. I'm sure there's more, but I'd rather not think about all the depths of my not-cool-ness.

I started reading The Order of the Stick yesterday. My exboyfriend had recommended it a bunch of times, and I wrote it off as stupid. I've been going through the archives though, and I can't stop reading it. It's even making me long for the days of playing D&D with the first ex, back when we had the perfect group. I laugh just thinking about them, especially the one rainy night we just couldn't settle down to the game and instead went out chasing after a ghost that one of the friends swore he had seen on the way home from school more than once. We never did end up seeing a ghost, to my disappointment (I'm a hardcore skeptic, but I'd really enjoy being proven wrong...about a lot of things). We just got wet and dirty and I was scared shitless that the owner of the land we were tromping around on was going to come out with a shotgun. It was farm land. It wouldn't be the first time I was warned off of farm land by an armed man. But that's another story for another day.

If opposites attract, I should find myself drooling after football players and punk boys. No, it's gamers and ... well... more gamers. I don't want to, I really don't! But then there's the dark, hidden, rpg loving part of my soul (I have a soul? Since when?) that cries out to play games and fall for dorks. Kill me now.

The Rules, According to Me

Ok, look, everyone has a job to do around here. This is only going to work if we all pitch in, guys. There's no "i" in blog ( though somehow, there's a lot of "me, me, me," but that's irrelevant to the rules). If you write a blog, write a blog. Write lots. I'm bored out here, people. If you read a blog, comment. I'm sick of reading my own stupid words.

To recap:
Post
Comment
Rinse
Repeat

Are we clear?

I pray that someday I will own a dog that is smart enough not to step in its own shit after going. If there really is a god, I'm totally screwed for wasting his time over dogshit.

What do you feed a person who has avian flu? You can't very well give them chicken soup. This seems like something lame comedians would have picked up on - I hope I didn't steal this from someone, since it's barely good enough to pass off as my own.

It's going to take a lot to turn this into an ok day. Right now I'm so irritable I can barely stand to hear my dogs eating. Friggin disgusting snorting and slapping lips and blech. I could puke. It reminds me of boyfriends past.

I just got a strange burst of happy energy. I don't know where it came from, but I spent it on my dogs. I wouldn't change a thing, except for how long it lasted.

Why I Have Pets, Not a Boyfriend

Awwwww. Just when I was feeling really awful this morning, Bella came over and rested her head on my ankle ever so softly. I swear, my dogs know a lot more about being decent people than most humans ever will.

And yes, I feel awful, but only physically. After calling Frank on the big porcelain phone last night, I look like death warmed over and don't feel a hell of a lot better than that, but my mind seems clearer. I'm not so wound up with some of the stupid petty issues that had brought me down yesterday. I'm not even pissed off that I'm probably going to have to work for a few hours on Sunday, though I'd prefer to be sitting on my ass playing World of Warcraft, because I'm a big smelly geek girl. (I don't know why "smelly" - I showered today, I swear. It just seemed the right thing to type.)

I'm not worried about my MRI anymore, what they'll find or what the surgery will be like. I'm going to let it happen, and take comfort in the fact that they'll most likely give me some nice drugs to make recovery pass by a little more pleasantly. I'm not going to think about what will happen at the office without me here, because I can always fix things. I'm not going to think about school, because there are some things I just don't know how to fix.

I feel the fiction bug wriggling beneath my skin again. I just don't have the right things to write.

Maybe I should start a dream journal, like Kim has. My mornings are consumed by picking apart this brain detritus and trying to expell it from my head. Today, I can't seem to clear the cobwebs enough to write anything coherent.

I remember two parts of my dream very clearly, as they were really disturbing. First, there was this woman running some sort of cult, and I was trying to turn people away from it. She came after me with a great big knife, and I think she managed to cut deeply into me. I fought back with a knife of my own (my dream was kind enough to arm me) and hacked entirely through her torso. I pushed and pushed at her, but her body wouldn't fall apart in two pieces, and she wouldn't die. She just kept laughing at me and stabbing at me. All around her were her willing converts refusing to help me. I really don't think you need to be Freud to figure that one out. The background of that part of the dream was college, which certainly makes sense with the mass of stupid people who wouldn't see reason. I think I shared my dorm room with my old highschool friend Sarah, and to get into the room, we had to climb through an elevator - not ride up or down, but go through a door, into an elevator and out the door on the other side. I never timed it right and the doors were always closing on me and the elevator was always moving upwards.

In another part of the dream, my father and I were traveling somewhere, I have no idea where, but to get there we had to walk this long pathway over water. The path was like a floating dock, only there were big spaces in between each board...and as we progressed, the water started getting higher and higher and washing over the path. At one point, I couldn't see the boards anymore and the waves were crashing hard into us, and my dad was washed away. All I could do was keep moving. Funny, now that I write it down, it seems pretty easy to find meaning in that one too.

I only remember tidbits of the rest: rollerskating through a mall (I often dream about getting lost in malls), seeing my middleschool friend Steph riding by on a racing bicycle, cheating on a cheating boyfriend. I wish my dreams were more coherent - they'd give me one hell of a writing career.

Whelmed Over

Everything is piling up on me. It will be a brick that breaks this camel's back, not a straw. It will be bitchy, intolerant people that push me over the edge. I was just chewed out by some decrepit old crone because I closed ten minutes early last night so her daughter wasn't able to bring in a water sample. First of all, give me a fucking break. I'm human, not some robot that gets plugged into an outlet in the broom closet every night. If only I had one of those...but I digress. Secondly, it's common courtesy not to bring in a sample right before closing. Each sample takes a fair amount of paperwork, plus whatever preparation might be necessary. But no one gives a shit about that. (That's not entirely true. Lots of decent customers call and ask how late they can bring in a sample, or call to say they're running late and ask nicely if I could wait a few minutes. And I never mind waiting for those people.) The little old biddy told me she was considering writing a nasty letter. It was all I could do to not tell her to get a fucking life. There is a considerable elderly population around here, many of whom have lived here their entire miserable lives. They have nothing to do out here in the boonies, and most probably wish they could be off bitching at a waiter at a sunny cafe in Ft. Olderdale. It's not that I have a problem with elderly people. I have a problem with elderly people who feel they don't have to use the same courtesy that every else uses. "I'm old, I can do whatever the fuck I want." Right. And people wonder why there are abuses taking place at nursing homes (not that I'm condoning abuse of the elderly - I'm condoning abuse of the inconsiderate, the selfish, the petulant.)

Even the dogs are driving me to distraction. Every time I sit down, Bella has to jump up and plant her dirty paws on me. She refused to "go" this morning and made me later to work. And as usual, she howled all the way to work. My screaming at her doesn't seem to help much, but I have a hard time not doing it. I'm starting to think her howling is her way of protesting my horrible driving.

And then there's my school work. It stares at me every day from beside the computer monitor, and no matter what I do, I can't make heads or tails of it. I made a horrible mistake by ever signing up for two classes at once. I don't think I could handle either one of these on their own, maybe not even if I wasn't working. Anything that makes me feel this stupid should be illegal. My knee surgery is probably going to disrupt my studying too, unless they push it off for months, which would not make me particularly happy, since the fucker hurts. I'm worried that I'm not exercising enough because of it, and won't lose the weight I need to...and then surgery will make that even worse.

I shouldn't worry. Whatever happens will happen. Stressing myself out is just going to fuck with my immune system and make me sick, and make it hard to enjoy this life that is passing by way too fast. As sucky as it can be, I'm of the belief that it's the only one I get.

Dare I Say "Fuck?"

Oh fuck this. Fuck this in its stupid ass.

My doctor just called about the xrays of my knee, the knee I injured while being a dumbass four years ago (as if there's a time when I'm not being a dumbass, I know). He told me, maybe in slightly more sensitive terms, that my knee is fucked. There's "significant" degenerative arthritis in there, and arthroscopy is called for to remove some bone spurs. That's not even addressing the cause of the arthritis, which could be a torn meniscus, damaged ligament, or a grab-bag of a bunch of bad shit.

What does this mean for me? Well, I might as well give up now. I don't even have anyone in the area who could drive for me. I live on the friggin second floor. I have two dogs who need to be walked regularly. I have a job with no one to cover for me. This means, in effect, that I am just as fucked as my knee, without the option of surgery to fix my life.

This also means I'm going to be out a thousand dollars (my deductible), plus whatever applicable co-payments. Add to that prescriptions and rechecks and maybe even physical therapy, depending on what they find is wrong with me. I'm going to need a therapist before I even get to the MRI.

Fuck Valentines Day

My subconscious taunts me. Last night, the night before my first Valentine's Day without a boyfriend, I dream of falling in love. He was a tall, handsome college student with an irrestible English accent. In the dream, I was in college too, so it didn't feel quite so lecherous as if I was chasing a college student now, at 28. The summer break was about to begin and he was sullen and angry and wouldn't talk to me. Finally, I made him tell me what was wrong. He was leaving for his vacation in Italy or Greece or somewhere...and he had fallen in love with me.

That's strange enough, an attractive, intelligent man distraught with emotion over me. But it got definitely more bizarre. We spent every minute together before vacation, in the dorms, going places...at one point, we went swimming in a lake that was closed. There were large dead birds floating in the water, in our way, and smelled horrendous. And still, it was a happy dream. I wish I could remember more of it, since it's the only way I get to feel the security of being wanted. The biggest problem of it is that it still feels real. I feel like I lost something, simply by waking up. Stupid to connect to someone that exists only in the maelstrom of the subconscious left at the controls.

I don't want to be depressed today. I don't want to feel like something is missing from my life, just because the only one snoring next to me in bed is an obese tabby cat. It's so cliche to be unhappy on VD because you're unattached...but worse to be unhappy because you're with someone who doesn't even take the time to buy a 50 cent carnation for you on the way home, or make you a silly paper card. Christ, steal some flowers out of the cemetery. Money really doesn't matter on this day, as far as I'm concerned. Just let him or her know that you care and appreciate him or her. People who ignore their significant others on this day should be stapled to death.

Worst. Dream. Ever.

The new medication I'm on is supposed to help with my nightmares. I've been on it for five days. I sleep much more soundly, which is wonderful...but it also means there's more opportunity for dreams. I don't wake up so often, so my dreams can develop and grow bigger and better monsters.

Last night, there were airplanes. There were airplanes catching buildings with the tips of their wings...buildings that I later saw taped together with masking tape, of all things, the seams bulging and just about to rain down bricks upon the pedestrians below.
But some of the airplanes, Russian airplanes, also carried bombs. It's a little confusing, since in one part of the dream I had survived the attack, which turned out to be nuclear. I was on a school bus making some joke about how we now had fifty years of hating the Russians, just as the Japanese had hated us. It's a lame, meaningless "joke" now, but on the bus it had people rolling. Of course, we were on the bus for no reason, because school was closed, if not destroyed. We were the only people left. I vaguely remember trying to take care of my little brother, but having him be a petulant little brat, which is how I remember him from fifteen or twenty years ago.

In the other part of the dream, the part where the nightmare was lying in wait, the bombs were falling closer and we had to escape. I chose the wrong path, and a bomb fell almost directly on the area where I had run to. There was no shrapnel, no concussion, just white flames and burning that centered along my spine, and the knowledge that I was dying. I woke up with the burning sensation all throughout my body and a panic that I couldn't quite understand.

I think it's time for caffeine. No more sleep.

Two Face

It's such a strain to be two different people...and I'm two on a good day. Who knows who else I might be. The customers always have to see a smiling face, unless it's one of the very few trusted clients who enjoy mutual bitch and moan sessions. The few friends I've managed to hang on to get to witness my venting and don't see many smiles. I use up all my good cheer between 8-5, man. Most of that is nothing but a thin veneer anyway. The trick is not letting on.

Yesterday I thought things were getting better. I had gotten eleven damn near blissful hours of sleep and actually felt the sun shining. It's easy to see that sort of change as an effect of the new medication I'm on, though I've only been taking it for three days. My father warned me that my good mood was more likely a direct result of having gotten real sleep for the first time in a long while, but I didn't want to believe him. I want these little pink pills to be my silver bullets. I want them to kill my nightmares and my tendency to growl at the world (growling at blatant stupidity aside - that'll never change unless the right 99% of the world's population died all of a sudden. Wait...right meaning correct or right meaning conservative? Not sure it makes a difference. Way to go, extended but useless parenthetical aside!).

Bored bored bored. Must kill sites with popups. Hate alarm clocks.

Last night was the first night with new meds. Nothing happened. If anything, I got to sleep more easily and slept deeply...and had the creature double feature of nightmares. I don't expect things to change immediately (though I wish they would).

I really need to bring a sleeping bag to work. Maybe my doctor would lie to my boss and tell him I was diagnosed with narcolepsy or something, anything to get away with catching a few more hours of sleep.

My muse really is being a whore lately. I want to write, I want to say something or even create something, but it's just not coming. I have constipation of the imagination.

I'm Much More Interesting When I'm Asleep

I woke up with this thought in my head: "I need to have a threesome with two guys, so they can play good-cock bad-cock." I ask you, what in the bloody fucking hell is wrong with me?

Gag Order

If you're tired of hearing yourself talk, it's easy enough to shut up. At least, for most people. If I haven't been drinking. But getting your head to quiet down is another story altogether. I don't mean that I hear voices; I'm crazy, but I'm not crazy. It's that nonstop buzzing of worries and fears that can't quite materialize into actual thoughts, loud like the drone of grasshoppers in the summertime that will drive you insane if you're not already there.

I can't even get a break at night, though it gets much more ordered and frightening, and sometimes Freudian (I mean, really, what would Freud have thought about the dream in which an ex-boyfriend and I were in a theater and I got us thrown out by taking pieces of banana and splattering them on the crowd with my hands?) It makes me look forward to the possibility of having surgery on my knee, the pain not seeming so bad because it would come with painkillers that might also give me blessed internal silence for a little while. I think that search for silence is why there's so much substance abuse in my family. I think it had a lot to do with why my little brother tried to commit suicide. I don't know if I should feel strong for not succumbing to those methods, or worry that it could get worse and drive me that far.

It's silly, but I've been thinking about getting a tattoo from a children's book. The book is called "The Dream Eater" and it's about a little boy in Japan who has terrible nightmares. One day he saves a creature that was about to drown in the river, and the creature is so grateful, he offers to help the boy. This creature is a baku, a dream eater, and he is hungry. He eats the bad dreams from everyone in the town, leaving them with only pleasant sleep. There's a part of me that wonders if I can't convince myself that a tattoo of the strange little leonine, elephant-nosed creature will get rid of my nightmares. In some illustrations, he looks like a lion, but in the book I have, he looks like a tapir with a lion's mane. If I knew the right place on my body to put it, I probably would.

Pens and Needles

I don't feel like I can write here anymore without risking that I'll hurt myself or I'll hurt someone else. I'm tired of doing both those things, and so I go back into hiding within myself.
But I have to write. If I don't get these things out, I'll explode.

I dreamt last night that I was driving along and the electrical lines along the road were arcing wildly, blue-white snakes of power striking anything they could reach. One hits my car and illuminates it, renders me powerless and I drive right off the road. But in the dream, the arcs were commonplace. I woke up feeling like it was nothing unusual.

I slept for a full night, and then a nap, with no dreams this weekend. It's like I found a magic bullet. A magic bullet that would kill me along with the dreams.

And The World Spun Counter Clockwise.

I just smiled for no reason at all. A big smile. The kind that if someone were to walk by while I was in the process of smiling, they'd be fairly sure that I was either insane or packing the ben-wa balls. Diet pills? I dunno. The commercials say they're supposed to be a "feel-good" pill, but nothing that would make me feel this shiny would be approved by the FDA. Better stock up, just in case. At least they don't have caffeine or other stimulants in them, since those just make me bitchy and irritated and want to figure out how to get out of my own itchy skin.

I was told yesterday that I'm "boisterous." Um, okay. Most people call it being an asshole, but hey, boisterous sounds good.
"Hey, you're an asshole!"
"Nope, I'm boisterous."
I'm not sure that'll fly.

There's a hole in the ass of my favorite jeans. They were cheap, but they're so damn soft...I'm really gonna hate to see them go. Even though they're getting too loose. I just don't love them enough to patch them or sew. Hell no, I won't sew.
I really wish I had noticed the hole before I wore them to work today. I feel a little too well ventilated.

I Don't Speak Chemistry.

I want to go skydiving. I want to learn Gaelic, Spanish, Czech. I want to go horseback riding and sledding and see California (hush, you). I want to do anything but study this friggin chemistry. What in the hell was I thinking when I decided to take two chemistry courses at the same time while I worked full time? Chemistry was never my strongest subject, and I'm feeling more stupider every day. Dumber and dumberer. Ok, maybe not as stupid as that movie.

So I procrastinate. And procrastinate, and procrastinate. And then have nightmares about failing exams, and being back in highschool, and feeling hated and persecuted. Again. I try to forget by reading blogs and other websites. Postsecret (http://postsecret.blogspot.com) totally derailed my train of thought today. It made me think of the secrets, the ones that aren't so secret, that consume my mind. They're not really secret, and the person I wish I could share them with probably knows all about them. They're just things that can't really be put into words, or shouldn't. Or things I just don't have the courage to ask, or even more likely, don't want to hear the obvious answers to.