i forgot to mention that today was hammer day at work. for some reason. i got a pic of the flyers that were hung up on our cubes, but i didn’t manage to get a pic of the message scrawl thingy in the hallway which alternated between “2 legit 2 quit” and “can’t touch this.” i guess every friday must have a theme? i also learned that our department is supposed to all come to work in our jammies on halloween. since i sleep in t-shirts, i reckon this means i’m going to have to buy some pjs. which is just as well, because it apparently gets quite cold here.

i’ll be posting the hammer pic as soon as i can figure out what my secret flickr addy used to be.

i am pleased to say that today wasn’t dildos. [see: metalocalypse]. i got a key/pass, a computer, a phone, and a chair. and, best of all, our supervisor moved out of our area to make room for all the new employees, and i got her desk! which means i have space for a bunch of junk, and even some drawers. hey, i find my excitement where i can. and someone asked me to lunch, which was nice. and i got invited to the friday night booze fest, which i’ll be dragging sohei along on. i’m not really the bar type, but i figured i should put in an appearance. and i want sohei to know who i’m talking about when i spread office gossip.

so, yeah. it was fine.

guess who will be starting her job at 9 am tomorrow?

gish!

after i’m done training, i can work from 10-7 or 11-8, i think. hopefully, i’ll be able to do the 10-7 shift coz working til 8 sucks. i used to get home, make dinner, eat, then crash. i know an hour doesn’t make a huge difference, but i get to spend so little time with sohei as it is. we’ll see, i guess. sohei is thrilled, of course, because now he doesn’t have to worry so much about money. i’m still a bit nervous about working full time, what with my stomach problems and stuff, but if i can make it through five hours, i can probably make it through nine. i actually liked my job a lot less when i only worked three hours, so maybe this will be better. i don’t know.

anyway, i’m just banging on again, so i’d better start calling around. sohei was the first to know, of course, but the blogosphere is almost always next.

(oh, and thanks for all the positive energy, guys. things seem to go better with y’all pulling for me.)

i think the interview went okay. she was impressed that i chose firefox as my preferred browser. this job is going to be a lot more techy than i thought. which is good, coz i thought it was just going to be a customer service gig. i have to do a pee test tomorrow, and then sometime after that, i’ll know whether i got the job. since there are three openings, i’ll be kind of disappointed if i don’t. thankfully, they’ll be moving a little closer to my house sometime in november. and despite practicing the route twice over the weekend, i got slightly lost today. but i think i’ll be okay from now on. i have to go back to the area tomorrow for my test. i wish i could have just done it today, but labs always freaking close early.

i’ll keep you posted.

(on the job thing, not the pee test.)

someone called for an interview today! and it’s for real this time! i’m going in on monday afternoon. the place is across town, but i think she said they’re moving soon. i’m still nervous about driving, so i’ll be practicing the route this weekend and leaving early on monday. in the meantime, there’s all the usual stuff to worry about. i have to cut and dye my hair, get my clothes in order (with no washer or dryer – fun.), get my references together, etc. but this is a real, full-time job with benefits. i’ve never had one of those before. it’s with a real estate magazine, and i’d be working for the online division. i have a lot of personal experience with that, and it seems like i’d be a perfect fit for the job. i really hope i get it, because it’s one of the few jobs i applied for that i actually want. but i’m just babbling at this point. wish me luck!

i think missing sohei this much, when he’s only been gone all day, is a sign that i won’t take divorce well.

i knew law school would be a lot of work, and that he’d be busy. but i figured he’d be busy at home. i thought i’d see more of him than usual, because it seemed like he’d be home before five every day. but some days, it’s worse than when he was working. he’ll leave before eight (he used to get up around 8:30) and not be home til after five (when he used to get home). i’m not going to whine to him or be unsupportive, but it is something i’m going to have to work to get used to.

he’s home!

i was so busy ranting that i forgot to point out that i felt the first signs of fall in the air today. seasons up here are going to be different from back home. and i’m glad. i went out to the mailbox, and there was a slight breeze blowing. it wasn’t the oven air that the rare breezes have been like around here. there was something very clean about it. it took me back to atlanta for a minute. this was what it was like when fall was starting to arrive there.

i’m so glad fall is getting near. it’s my favorite season. the heat and heaviness and wet of summer may finally be going away. it’s like living under a hot, wet blanket for months. it makes me tired. hopefully, other things will begin looking up as well.

Before the judge ruled, he asked whether Ellen-Beth Fullwood suffered from a psychological problem, citing the “disgusting” condition of the house. The family had been living there six weeks before Coralrose’s death.

“Letting a house get like this leads me to believe mom may have an emotional or psychological problem,” the judge said. [source]

because, of course, “dad” lacks arms and legs.

oh wait. he doesn’t.

why is it, when a husband and wife both work long hours, it’s still her job to clean the house? and, if she can’t keep up, apparently she has mental problems. it’s hard to keep a house clean with two autistic children living in it, and i bet it’s damn near impossible when “mom” works all day. what about “dad” in this situation? was he accused of being mental? not that the article cited… but i guess it’s easier to just blame it on the woman, and not take a minute to consider why her house is in such a “disgusting” state. maybe if we took better care of our citizens, she could afford better care for her kids and someone who would help keep up with housework. or maybe she could stay home with her kids and take care of the house, if she wanted. but since most jobs nowadays pay piss-poor wages, i don’t know how people in this situation live at all.

when i lived in st. pete, i saw something on the local news once about how a woman had a 22 year old daughter with cerebral palsy, and the state stopped helping to pay for in-home health, so the woman couldn’t work anymore. she and her daughter were on their own, so i don’t know what they were supposed to do. maybe they ended up on welfare. i’m sure that’s a better answer than having someone come look after the daughter while her mom was working at her job.

so this is stupid on two levels. 1) unless “dad” is paralyzed or otherwise incapable of movement, he can help out around the house, and 2) people like this don’t live in squalor because they’re crazy or they want to; they probably don’t have the resources to live any other way.

i know when i was in grad school full time and working 25 hours a week, the house was still considered my responsibility. and while i wasn’t “crazy” for not keeping it clean, i sure heard the word “lazy” being thrown around a lot. and i’m pretty sure i’ll be hearing more of the same if i end up in law school next year, even though he’s living it now. how soon he’ll forget.

so, ladies, don’t forget: no matter how busy you are or how hard you work, he’s busier and he’s working harder. (this misconception usually has something to do with him getting paid more than you. though low paying jobs tend to be more physically and/or mentally taxing. you figure it out.) and if you can’t keep your house clean, you’re a lazy, useless bitch, or you’re insane.

ugh. okay, i am suitably humilliated. apparently, this company is known for not paying its employees. my bullshit detector kept going off, so i finally did some research on the company. which, yes, i should have done to begin with. shut up. since all i gave them was my contact info, i’m hoping nothing will result from this but junk mail and spam. i’m changing my phone number soon, so i won’t have to worry about telemarketers, i guess. i don’t usually fall for this stuff, but after putting out resume after resume with no real results, i’m starting to get desperate. which is what they were counting on, obviously. at least i didn’t actually accept the job and do a bunch of work only to not get paid. or worse.

i wish one of the dozens of places i applied to would contact me. just an interview would be welcome at this point. i can’t figure out what it is about my apps and resumes is such a turn-off. lack of experience? a gap in employment history? in addition to the letter from the supreme court, i got a call from fsu library the other day. things were going swimmingly until i answered honestly that i wasn’t a student at the moment. so much for that. so out of all of that, two places have contacted me. and one of those was to tell me that i was too late.

sadly, while doing my research on this scam, i saw that a lot of other desperate people fell for it. there are so many people that need work. i knew this from following the economic clusterfuck in this country, but now it’s become more personalized. not just because i can’t get a job, but because there are so many people out there that have kids and can’t feed them. so they fall for this scam because there’s nothing else, and put in hours of work, for nothing.

but we have an evil illuminati organization for a government, a leader that mocks the people he’s executed, and a nazi for a pope. we’re trying to legalize cia camps and torture, and our government is completely incompetent. so i don’t know why anything surprises me anymore. one of these days, these desperate people will rise up and either a) destroy the establishment that has done this to them, or b) rob the “haves” blind, because there’s nothing else. the sadness and frustration in these people is overwhelming. and none of them seemed to want to just lay down and die. people are getting angry. people are going to realize that scams go beyond these internet pissants, and they are going to do something. we just need to hit rock bottom, and i think we’re getting pretty damn close.

My life is full of empty promises
And broken dreams
I’m hoping things will look up
But there ain’t no job openings
I feel discouraged, hungry, and malnourished
Living in this house with no furnace, unfurnished
And I’m sick of working dead end jobs with lame pay
And I’m tired of being hired and fired the same day
But fuck it, if you know the rules to the game, play

Right now I feel like I just hit rock bottom
I got problems now everybody on my block’s got ‘em
I’m screaming like those two cops when 2pac shot ‘em
Holding two glocks, I hope your doors got new locks on ‘em
My daughter’s feet ain’t got no shoes or sock’s on ‘em
And them rings you wearing look like they got a few rocks on ‘em
And while you flaunting them I could be taking them to shops to pawn them

eminem – rock bottom

the company emailed me again, i filled out more stuff, and they’ll get back to me in 24-72 hours. something about the whole thing seems odd, but as long as i don’t have to give them money or my bank information, i may as well go for it. maybe i’m having a hard time believing i could get such a job…

i also finally got my insurance packet today. i guess i’ll go ahead and fill it all out and send it back, and just cancel it if i get this job. which i’m still feeling very iffy about.

i just got emailed a job offer (kind of). it is (sorry, apostrophes not working again) seriously too good to be true, but i went ahead and applied.

wow. my computer’s fucked. i wonder what’s wrong with it?

aannndd the apostrophe is working again for no reason.

anyway…

so this online company sent me an email saying they’d seen my resume and wanted me to apply. so apply i did. i can work whenever i want, from home, as long as i put in at least 40 hours/week. the job offers health benefits, too. i don’t know what it pays, but i don’t really care. i guess my job would be to flag inappropriate content and stop people from targeting minors or something. i can’t help but get my hopes up a little. this job sounds ideal…

You’ve Changed 76% in 10 Years

Compared to who you were ten years ago, you’ve changed a great deal. In fact, you’re probably in a completely different phase of your life – and very happy about it!

You Are 60% Psychic

You are pretty psychic. While you aren’t Miss Cleo, you’ve got a little ESP going on. And although you’re sometimes off on your predictions… You’re more often right than wrong So go with your instincts – you know more than you think

You Are 52% Healthy

Your diet is healthier than the average American diet – but that’s not saying much! You already know what’s good for you. Just eat more of it.

i can’t afford a healthy diet anymore.

Your Learning Style: Personal and Passionate

You are very flexible and curious about the world. Human understanding is very important to you. You Should Study: Anthropology Architecture Art Art history Art therapy Classics Counseling Foreign Languages and Literature International Studies Linguistics Literature Psychology Sociology Teaching

Your Passion is Yellow

You’re a total sexual shape shifter. You possess a complex sex drive and are very adaptable. Of all the colors, you are the most likely to be bisexual. While you the most passionate, you are very open minded.

You Are the Very Gay Velma!

She might not even realize it… But Velma is all about Daphne… not Fred!

You Are 58% Impulsive

You’re quite impulsive, but you never are reckless. You qualify as a very spontaneous person, but you still know how to honor your commitments. And while responsibility doesn’t come easy to you, having fun does!

Dark Purple

To others, you seem a bit dark, mysterious, and moody. In truth, you are just a very unique person who doesn’t care what others think. And you really enjoy your offbeat interests and friends. You’ve decided that life is about living for yourself – simple as that.

You Are From Neptune

You are dreamy and mystical, with a natural psychic ability. You love music, poetry, dance, and (most of all) the open sea. Your soul is filled with possibilities, and your heart overflows with compassion. You can be in a room full of friendly people and feel all alone. If you don’t get carried away with one idea, your spiritual nature will see you through anything.

You Are 39% Angry

You’re occasionally angry, but it’s really not an issue. While you may give in to your temper once and a while, you’re pretty mellow. And as long as your anger doesn’t effect your relationships, then it’s probably in check. You know that anger is a bad habit – and you don’t engage in it often.

You Are a New School Democrat

You like partying and politics – and are likely to be young and affluent. You’re less religious, traditional, and uptight than most Democrats. Smoking pot, homosexuality, and gambling are all okay in your book. You prefer that the government help people take care of themselves.

now:

You Are 20% Hypochondriac

While your physical health isn’t always perfect, you don’t freak out about it. You know there’s only so much you can do, and worrying doesn’t change anything.

about five years ago:

You Are 68% Hypochondriac

You are a pretty serious hypochondriac, and you probably don’t know it. A lot of those aches and pains you are feeling are all in your head!

Your Personality Cluster is Introverted Intuition

You are: Multilayered and complex Inspired and driven to achieve your goals A visionary with a complete life plan Intuitive enough to understand difficult problems, ideas, and people

You Are Cameo

You are understanding and very empathetic. You don’t tend to have acquaintances. Everyone is your friend. And all of your friends tend to be friends. You have a knack for bringing very different people together.

You Are 52% Slacker

You are a bit of a slacker – though you can pull it together and live a somewhat normal life. If you’re young, this is probably phase you’ll outgrow. And if you’re already grown up, you need to get off the couch a bit more!

only 52%?

You Are A Good Friend

You’re always willing to listen Or lend a shoulder to cry on You’re there through thick and thin Many people consider you their “best friend”!

Your Life Is Worth…

$463,500

some weird factors involved…

(i would have lost this post if i hadn’t copied it. it’s one of those days. i think i’m going to go back to bed.)

yet more bad news today… we got an email from our st. pete realtor suggesting we lower the price on our house, since the market has gone completely to hell. at this point, i guess we’re going to be lucky if we get anything in addition to the money we spent on a down payment for this house. we were kind of relying on that money to, you know, live on. after watching a steady increase on the price of our house over the last two years, i can’t help but feel disgusted that the minute we put our fucking house on the market, it suddenly goes down in value by $10,000. figures.

that was the bad news. this is the worse news: sohei’s boss has died. i’m kind of torn on this. i’m pretty upset that she got sick and now she’s gone. but since she was sick with a pretty painful disease, it’s kind of good that she didn’t have to suffer for the six months they originally gave her. i guess i just wish she hadn’t been so sick at all, of course. i don’t know what else to say about it… it’s obviously pretty depressing. i wish we could be there for the service, but i doubt we’ll be able to make it, especially if it’s on a weekday. there doesn’t even seem to be anyone to send a card to.

i wish sohei didn’t make me keep everything to myself all the time.

woke up late this morning
a storm was really rolling
frogs and dogs are raining from the sky
everything seems awkward to me
nothing is as it should be
if this keeps on i’m sure i won’t get by
then i close my eyes and try to smile
i know things are bad and getting worse
but after this i can rest a while
then i’ll party party

crayon shin-chan english theme

i don’t think i’ve had a decent nights’ sleep since i got here. i’ve been up all night again. at first, i chalked it up to my usual “summer crazies” as sohei calls them. every summer since i was a kid, i can’t sleep at night. but it’s not summer anymore, and this is more like the two-year crazies i had between going to school for my a.a. and going back for my b.a. baaaaaaaaaa. while i’m not quite to the point of needing to be on buspar again, i’m finding life a lot more stressful than it needs to be. not being able to sleep means getting really shitty sleep between 7 and noon most days. since the rest of the world is up and around by then, no one cares if you weren’t able to sleep the night before, and life goes on. and wakes you repeatedly til you get up, frustrated and exhausted, and unable to concentrate on simple things like chores, or more complex things like studying for the lsat.

about all i’ve accomplished since my arrival is unpacking a few boxes and applying for about 20 jobs. and out of those, i only got one reply: a letter telling me my application arrived too late. though i still don’t see how that happened. i do find it a bit odd that, aside from one letter, no one else has contacted me at all. i’ve been applying to lots of different kinds of jobs. receptionist/administrative assistant jobs, tech jobs, library jobs… some i’m kind of over-qualified for, some i’m not quite qualified for, most of them i’m just right for, according to the ad… but i’ve heard nothing back. i’m starting to wonder if my last employer might have something to do with it. unfortunately, i wouldn’t put it past them. of course, there’s no way of knowing, either. and even if i knew they were giving me bad reviews, there isn’t a whole lot i can do about it, aside from not mentioning the job on future apps. which would mean yet another long stretch of unemployment on my record, or the possibility of getting caught in a lie. i wish someone would just fucking hire me already. sohei’s already threatening to kick me out.

i’m so tired of being alone yet not wanting to talk to anyone half the time. and of either being tired or in a fugue state and incapable of doing anything other than searching for jobs on the internet and crying. i’m lonely, but i’m too out of it to do anything about it.

oh well.

when i was younger, and we saw spiders, we had funny ways of dealing with them. i guess it wasn’t funny if you were a spider, which is probably why my karma is so fucking awful. but anyway, we’d vacuum up the ones that were too big to smash. and if a vacuum wasn’t handy, we’d douse them with stuff, because they were most often in the bathroom, where there were lots of chemicals around. once, when i was spending the night at a friend’s house (i was 13), we saw a huuuge spider in her bathroom. so we started trying to kill it with random things. we sprayed it with hair spray. we squirted it with shaving gel. it was still moving, so we poured nail polish remover on it. i can’t remember what all we poured on the poor thing, but it took a lot for it to finally stop moving. well, i re-lived that earlier tonight. i got up to pee and saw a spider opposite me on the molding near the door. so i quickly finished my wee and grabbed the nearest bottled chemical. (i mean aside from my glitter hair products. they’re too damn precious to waste on a spider.) i sprayed the hell out of it with fabreeze ™. it started running toward me. so i grabbed an older can of glitter hair spray that had stopped dispensing glitter a while ago, and tried that. he was cornered against the bathtub. i actually started to feel bad until it waved its legs at me, menacingly. so i lost all sense of mercy and squirted it with neutrogena ™ astringent that i think probably expired two years ago. (don’t ask me why i packed all this useless stuff and brought it to the new house. i guess i had a premonition that i could use it on spiders while delirious in the middle of the night.) after dousing it with astringent, it finally started to give up the fight. relieved, i set my weapon down and started to go back to bed. but then i realized i forgot something and turned the light back on and it was still moving. it was like the ending to a horror movie, where you know there are a few minutes at the end to go, and you know it’s not over. i somehow managed to suppress a battle cry while drowning the life out of the sad creature with an overpriced, smelly anti-acne product.

and while i am still shamed over this encounter, i figured i should share something unrelated to my depression with anyone who may still be reading my blog.

i wish i had something interesting to share. i really do. it’s just that any time i do anything anymore, it sucks and i just get pissed off or depressed. i can’t sleep anymore. when it gets dark, i start thinking about my mum and other related things. and when i finally fall asleep, at dawn, i have dreams about people’s kidneys being ripped out and other gruesome weirdness. i wake up a couple hours later feeling tired and disturbed.

i’ve applied to so many places now, and i don’t hear back. i don’t think the fact that i’m insane comes across in my cover letters, but maybe it does. i don’t know what it is about me that screams, “don’t hire her!” i’m more willing to understand that during the interview process, but not so much in the resume/application process.

things haven’t been going well with sohei, either. a lot of that has to do with me not having a job yet. and a lot of it is the same old stuff, over and over again. combined with new law school stress.

and probably my deep depression.

i’m in that mood again where i don’t want to talk to anyone. but my imaginary world has lost some of its shine, as i can’t even be bothered to come up with any new material. and i can’t even get into politics anymore, because it all seems so pointless. i can’t get into anything. i’m so angry and frustrated with the world that i’ve stopped caring again. i’m a boring, elitist bitch. i’m lazy and useless and fat. and no matter what i do, i’m going to disappoint someone. i don’t even know myself anymore. i don’t know what i want. i have nothing to work toward. it seems like i have one purpose it life, and i hate it, so i never do what i’m supposed to. and everyone hates me because of it.

i half-dreamed last night that i killed myself. and i ended up someplace where everyone told me i fucked up, before i finally really fell asleep, and everything was just dark. there was nothing. and, later, the nightmares.

Praying for myself.
These thoughts I try to hide.
I have faith in me and hope this will survive.
But it’s tearing me apart.
I can’t hear the words by which I guide.
So I must ask again who will carry me.

I will not deny that nothing can defend
from the helplessness that’s cutting deep inside,
and I cannot prevent the thought that nothing’s real.
Seems I’ve waited years for this day to end.

The strength I need to feel, the pride inside of me,
Are not there behind the face staring back at me.
The anger and the pain of knowing where I am.
I have come so far and I cannot return.

Nothing I can do that I have not done.
No words I can say. No truth left that I can see.
So must I let this end so everything falls apart.
Before I live the life as I have always done.

Tell me what to do so I do nothing wrong.
Something I can hope for. Something real that I can see.
So nothing falls apart. So that it does not end.
I cannot return. I can’t start again.

vnv nation – rubicon

it’s been mostly the same around here. i’ve actually been out a couple of times recently, though.

last friday, one of sohei’s classmates had a birthday party. there was no cake, and mostly everyone talked about school, so it wasn’t the best party ever. i’ve never felt this apart from sohei’s life, and it’s pretty lonely, to be honest. and everything seems to be aspiring to stop me from trying to join him next year. i’m having a hard time getting motivated to do anything, including studying for the lsat. it’s not that i don’t want to do this, it just seems like i’m not supposed to. anyway, sohei’s new friends are all really nice. just incredibly boring. (i suppose less boring if you were in their classes and had any idea what they were talking about.) i’m completely socially inept nowadays, which doesn’t help, either.

and then, last night, uncle johnny was in town, so we went to dinner with him. i prefer spending time with family, so this was a lot more fun. we went to the silver slipper, which was pretty cool. four presidents have eaten there, including kennedy. and the booths have curtains coz back in the day, when it was a dry county, people would bring their own booze. and hang out with hos. we got a curtained room, and actually ate with it closed, just because. i mean, if you’re going to eat in a curtained room, you may as well have it drawn, right? i’m making sohei take me back sometime, unsupervised. it was good to catch up with what that side of the family has been up to, and i managed to get alfredo sauce on my black blouse only twice. i blame the booze. (why stop now?) we saw a prof from sohei’s school there, and uncle johnny joked that we should leave him alone, since suits are never up to any good at that restaurant. anyway, it was nice.

but i’m all disjointed and feeling really icky, so i’m going to close here.

p.s. – the latest deal on the house fell through. suprise, surprise.

i was up all night again last night. at some point during the night, i learned that steve irwin died, which actually made me pretty sad. i guess the circumstances were just so weird, and he left behind a wife and two small children… i was kind of zen about death for a while after mum died, but now i can’t handle it at all. it’s always so sudden.

we found out a couple of weeks ago that the reason sohei’s boss had been in hospital so long was cirrhosis of the liver. she has/had blood poisoning, so a transplant is out. she has about six months to live. i was just sick when i heard about it. she doesn’t really have anybody, so she’s going to live out the rest of her short life in a hospice, in pain and alone. so while i guess her death won’t be sudden, the news that she’s dying sure was. i feel terrible about what’s happening to her. even if we still lived in st. pete, i guess she’s not letting anyone see her. apparently, if we were still there, though, sohei would have been offered her job. i’m kind of glad we’re not there, because it would have been pretty hard to feel happy about a promotion under the circumstances.

things are still kind of sucky here, and there’s yet another problem regarding the sale of the other house, but it doesn’t seem worth talking about.