i’ve been snotty and mean and acerbic recently, for which i apologize. i’ve been saying weird things and trying to get a rise out of people, including borderline outright fucking with customers at work. some of it is seeing how much i can get away with, and some of it is a frustration-based cruel streak.

i like to make a mess.

i laugh at your distress.

it’s just a lot of things. i’m in pain almost all the time now. my meds aren’t working like they used to, so my guts are in knots most of the day. and i get sick at least once a day also. i literally can’t remember the last time i felt “normal.” then there’s this fucking cough i’ve had for well over a month now. i don’t know how long i’ve actually had it, but i know it’s officially entered “persistent cough” territory. it started out being annoying, and is fast becoming painful and breath-depriving. i’m going back to the doctor in may, so i’ll ask her about all this stuff then. i’m hoping that at least i can get put on meds that make my guts not hurt so bad. and find out what the fuck is making me cough like this. i suspect it’s an allergy.

anyway…

i’m just unhappy in general. i’m sick of being sick, i don’t like my job, school kind of sucks, and that’s all my life is right now. nothing feels right. nothing makes me happy. even going back home didn’t make me happy. probably because my stomach made me miserable the whole fucking time. i was talking with a coworker the other day, and we were like, “what the fuck are we doing here? we’re wasting our lives.” everything just feels desperate and sad. and it’s been eating at me to the extent that i just hurt, physically. but the fact that it’s reached the point where i’m starting to take it out on other people and dismiss their feelings with mild bemusement, is bothering me.

and i don’t feel like i’m explaining things very well. but since i can’t stop coughing long enough to take a decent breath, let alone put together a coherent thought, this will have to do. besides, my stomach is telling me that the late dinner i tried to eat is going to be summarily rejected like all the food before it. (don’t ask me how the fuck i manage to stay so fat when i can’t even eat anymore.)

i haven’t done any quizzes or memes in a while, so…

Your Waist to Hip Ratio is 0.7

You are very curvy, with a defined waist.

There’s a 16% Chance You’ve Been Abducted By Aliens

There’s virtually no chance you’ve been abducted by aliens. But there’s always hope for the future!

my supervisor took pictures of everyone in our department last week for our permanent records. you know how i got my hair cut and dyed it fuschia? well, she took my picture the day after i did that. there are two copies, so she gave me one, and it’s sitting on my desk. i’ll be giving it to sohei tonight, but in the meantime, i keep glancing over at it and thinking, “wow. i wish she were my girlfriend.”

if that’s not narcissism, i don’t know what is.

(scanned picture when i get home from work, maybe.)

here’s the pic. the coloring went all funny, but you get the idea i guess.

carvedangel.net has been around for four years as of april 21st. and i was in tampa getting sick and slogging through class, so i haven’t really said anything. i’ve been blogging longer than that, but that’s when i bought the domain. and i went ahead and upgraded my hosting plan this year, coz i ran out of space and i’m hoping to eventually make the story i’m writing available on here.

so, thanks for following my long, whiny, boring posts up to this point. i’ll try to write more often, and i hope carvedangel.net is around for a long time to come.

i wish i could say the trip to tampa was nice, but it totally wasn’t. well, parts of it were, i guess. but i’ve been sick since wednesday, and traveling seemed to make it worse. and i think i’d have enjoyed the two days of class more if my stomach hadn’t hurt so bad. the presentations went well enough, though after the second one, the professor said my prototype probably would work better for older kids. which basically meant that most of the work i’ve done all semester is pretty much useless, and now i have less than a week to do an overhaul on it. i think, instead, i’ll just append the work i have with proof that the interface will work with elementary-aged kids. coz there’s no way i can do that much work by friday. besides, she had all semester to point that out, and waiting till this late in the game just isn’t on. i spent the majority of my time back home either working on stuff for my presentations or in class. or getting sick. so i wasn’t able to visit any friends or anything. i did get to spend a couple of hours with my mother-in-law, though, which was nice. i really miss my family. we didn’t get to see my father-in-law, though we did stay at his house. he was at a conference up north.

ughhhhh i just tried to eat lunch, and it’s not really working out. since wednesday, i’ve been eating something small and bland-ish once a day, and even that i can’t handle. i feel nauseous most of the time, but then i get really hungry after not eating for about 24 hours and decide to give it another go. maybe if i don’t try to eat for the rest of the day, i’ll be able to make it through a whole day of work tomorrow. because i got yelled at during my six month review for missing too much work. this is stupid on many levels. 1) until the recent unreasonable onslaught of accounts due to being understaffed, i was keeping up with all my work just fine. in fact, i’m still doing alright, and i’m the only one in my department who’s received their bonus every month. 2) i work through lunch almost every damn day (because i can’t eat) and don’t put it on my time sheet. i have more than made up for the hours i’ve missed, and i’m not even getting paid for any of it, including sick time. 3) i have a valid medical problem and i do the best i can in spite of it.

let me preface this by saying that i in no way agree with what cho did. i hate people like him, and i can say that with certainty, because i have known at least one person who seemed a lot like him. that being said, people like professor giovanni also bug the shit out of me.

Ms. Giovanni said Mr. Cho did not scare her, but she once instructed him to stop his disturbing writings. “He said ‘You can’t make me,’ and I said ‘Yeah, I can.’”

“This was not a poem ….he was writing, just weird things,” she added. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say what he was writing about. I saw the plays, but he was writing poetry, it was terrible, it was not like poetry, it was intimidating.”

new york times

no, actually, you can’t make him stop writing whatever he wants. despite what schools and other institutions around the country would like everyone to believe, there is still such a thing as free speech. unless he’s writing things about you, specifically, or other students, that could be actually construed as a threat – and the police didn’t seem to think so – then he can write whatever he damn well pleases.

and if every weird, quiet person who wrote disturbing shit were to become a homicidal nutjob, then you’d have to lock me away, i guess.

i had my share of teachers who though my writing was “weird” and was sent to the guidance office more than once. and it just made me more angry and disgusted. sure, i’m not batshit like cho obviously was, but i doubt attitudes like giovanni’s helped. here’s a hint, lady: if you can’t handle letting your students have complete creative freedom – no matter how stupid or odd – then you’re in the wrong profession. try teaching over at the business school or something. people like you have no place teaching creative subjects. hope you’re enjoying your 15 minutes, though. i’m sure you’ll squeeze it for all it’s worth.

in just a couple days, i’ll be back home. i’m leaving thursday and coming back here saturday, i guess. (i’ll keep you posted, st. pete mark.) i can’t wait. i love you, tampa. we shall be reunited someday.

as a side note, when i die, i think i’d like to be incinerated and tossed into the gulf of mexico. now you know.

i didn’t get a chance to post pictures or talk about the cd yesterday, because i came home from work a bit after noon and slept. and slept. i’ve got something i can’t shake, but after lots of rest, i feel a bit better.

anyway…

i love the cd! the drawrings on it were nice, too. i can’t not dance to that music! so far, i’ve been dancing to the cd of music we practice to, and i like it, but it’s nice to change things up a bit. also, my arm movements need work, and i found it a lot easier to practice to some of the songs you included on the cd, empress. i don’t know if i was in some kind of rut, but it’s totally helpful. i’ll be sending you a cd of the music we use as soon as i can find some other songs to add, as it’s on the short side.

again, thankyouthankyouthankyou!

i got my belly dance care package before i went to bed last night. to empress and scheherezhade: thank you!!! the squealing started when i got the package to begin with, and then raised to a fevered pitch – complete with hopping – when i saw the zills. (sohei can attest to this.) the material is beautiful, and i haven’t had a chance to listen to the cd yet, but am looking forward to it. and mini-eggs are always appreciated. there was much squeaking, squealing, and leaping about, to be sure.

it made an otherwise ick day very nice. thankyouthankyouthankyou!

(pictures and cd-related gushing to follow post-work.)

my mum introduced me to kurt vonnegut when i was 12. we were on our weekly excursion to the library, and i had plenty of non-fiction to keep me occupied for the next seven days or so. i was tired of reading the horror books that were so popular with my friends, and had already read mum’s collection of books at home a few times over. i did, indeed, know why the caged bird sings. i sat at the round table with the once and future king. i had traveled the mississippi with huck and jim enough to have earned quite a few frequent raft trip miles. and when we went to the library, she always seemed to have good ideas about what to read. on this particular trip, she suggested i try vonnegut, specifically slaughterhouse 5. from that day forward, i was hooked.

it wasn’t just his unique style, which i tended to try to emulate during my teenage attempts at writing. his insight was amazing to me. i felt like i had finally found someone who saw the world the way i did. our backgrounds couldn’t have been more different, but i hadn’t found a more kindred spirit since holden caulfield. (and what angsty teen didn’t feel a connection with mr. caulfield?) but kurt vonnegut wasn’t a fictional character. he made me love the novel, and inspired me to write. he made me feel like i wasn’t crazy, after all. or, if i was crazy, i wasn’t alone. he influenced me more than i can express.

he lived a long, interesting life. he left a legacy that will continue to encourage (or further depress) people who can’t understand this weird, fucked up planet, populated by the various robots. regardless, i can’t help but feel sad that he’s gone…

[update] sohei’s goodbye

behind the curtain
brushed aside
your
hand
please
i beg
until
my heart explodes

i’m supposed to be working on a paper. that obviously isn’t happening. but now that sohei has sufficiently embarrassed me, i guess i shouldn’t be blogging, either. what kinds of weekends are these? i’m kind of tired of working all the time. and then being too tired to keep up with cleaning, so the house looks like crap. but i need to get back to work, anyway.

i seriously hate my life nowadays.

i really, really need some kind of change of pace. i need to take a long trip somewhere. probably alone. to mum’s grave or somewhere i’ve never been. somewhere far away from this pollen-glutted, idiot-infested armpit of a town.

come to think of it, i’ve never even seen mum’s headstone or anything. it’s strange to think of her, sometimes, just lying there in the middle of nowhere in missouri somewhere. i mean, it’s not her, but you know. maybe when i die, i want to be put somewhere where it’ll snow on me.

when i’m not busy with school stuff, i’ll put this somewhere more permanent. in the meantime: save the internet.

i’ve been depressed and angry lately. life has been unending stress, and it seems like there’s something new to worry about every damn day. it’s not just the stress, though. i’m becoming so disgusted and jaded that i can’t even retreat into myself anymore. it follows me everywhere, with no respite. i used to take some comfort in a sense of compassion – real or imagined – that is swiftly leaving me. i am becoming so resentful and hateful that it’s leaving an indelible mark on everything in my life, including the only escape i’ve had these past few months; my story. it always had hope, somewhere, but i can’t even see it now. everything is so ugly and dark that i can’t see beyond it anymore. i’m tired of looking. i’m tired, period.

i saw this quote the other day from david berkowitz, of all people, and i identified with it to a scary extent. in fact, if you know me at all, or have been reading me for any length of time, i have said things like this before.

I want to make love to the world. I love people. I don’t belong on earth.

i could never kill anyone, though, let alone be a serial killer. the difference between me and the type of person who can do something like that is that i turn it all inwards, instead of inflicting it on others. i torture and kill pieces of myself all the time, i think. and no matter how much i think i hate other people, i can never hate them more than i hate myself.

that’s unfair to say, though. i don’t hate myself, really. i get frustrated with myself a lot, because i go through life with “i don’t get it” looping over and over in all situations. i can’t mesh that with the praise that was heaped on me by my mum when i was a child for being so “gifted.” i never felt particularly gifted, though. just freaking weird. and i guess i never learned how not to be weird. and i don’t think i’ll ever learn to understand people. i’m getting tired of trying.

i’m not going to make this entry private. i’m not going to try to hide who i am anymore. i’ll still make posts about other people private, but i’m done with acting. i don’t have the energy for it. it’s a pointless exercise anyway.