it’s hard not to be depressed with everything going on nowadays… you’ve got people being cremated alive in burma/myanmar (warning: super-graphic pic just under cremation story), a woman getting tortured and raped, not to mention all the stuff that goes on that no one even hears about. bloody hell.

sohei mentioned in the car yesterday that i’ve completely lost my sense of empathy. my personality seems to have undergone somewhat of a 180, and while i was mildly amused by it for a while, i’m becoming less so. it’s bothering sohei, and i don’t know whether anyone else would be bothered by it, as i don’t really talk to anyone i knew very well before now. despite my repeated promises to myself that i’d quit doing stuff that would lead to my getting hurt, i never thought i’d actually change. as much as i’ve been chortling about it lately, this wasn’t a conscious decision. maybe someday i’ll stop being a bitter jerk, and it’ll go back to the way it was. what with the crushing depression, i’m thinking this may be yet another chemical issue, but i guess we’ll see.

in the meantime, i’ll just enjoy the hell out of sitting alone in the subbasement and spend my weekends sleeping.

And it’s so easy when you’re evil
This is the life, you see
The Devil tips his hat to me
I do it all because I’m evil
And I do it all for free
Your tears are all the pay I’ll ever need

voltaire – when you’re evil

despite all the bad attitude and being sick as a dog, i am a happy bunny this morning. yesterday, my supervisor asked me if i’d mind going back to the subbasement to do another project, and i jumped at the opportunity. (he was surprised, but pleasantly so.) and so here i am, back in the delicious solitude of the subbasement. which is good, coz i was getting pretty irate at being stuck upstairs lately. being anywhere near the circ desk sucks, and even barcoding in the stacks can be irritating with people trying to make cell phone calls and all the other annoying shit they feel they have to do near me. (yes, i can see you picking your thong out of your ass, but i sure as hell didn’t want to.) and not only am i back in my favorite place, i’m even more hidden than usual. there’s this little room with all these really old books, and the geology docs happened to be put back here, so here i shall stay. now i don’t even need to deal with the occasional traffic that goes through the main part of the subbasement. it’s like i have my own little space, and it’s wonderful. i can’t believe the wireless works from here, but it’s so nice. i’ll have to see how long i can pad this out…

i have been even more disgusted by humanity lately than usual and, hoboy, does it show. yesterday, this stupid sorority girl (almost every girl on this campus is in a sorority – i’m not kidding) barges up to the circ desk and demands to use our phone. i was working at my desk, so i overheard most of her conversation with the campus police when she called them. apparently, she asked a black lady to watch her stuff, and when she got back, the lady and her stuff was gone! that lady obviously stole it! (at this point, i was already relatively certain that that wasn’t the case.) so a cop is dispatched, and i listen to her re-tell the story, then wander off for a minute to do something else. when i get back, the cop is giving the desk guy from the basement the 3rd degree. apparently, he’d just arrived with the girl’s stuff, and the cop wanted to know “how it came to be in his possession.” um, yeah. i’m sure he’d a) steal the dumb bitch’s purse and b) decide to return it to her in front of the damn cop because his conscience was bothering him. when the cop let him get a fucking word in, desk guy explained what actually happened. apparently, the girl took her time coming back, and the lady watching her stuff had to leave. so the lady left the girl’s stuff at the desk and explained to desk guy what happened. but the girl never bothered to check at the desk for her stuff, and instead rushed upstairs to our desk to call the cops. of course, her first thought was that the evil negro had taken her stuff. stupid bitch. of course, she didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed when the facts came to light, in part because the cop couldn’t stop kissing her ass. if i’d been desk guy, i’d have told them both to go fuck themselves.

these sorts of things aren’t all that unusual, and some days i can barely disguise my disgust for these entitled little assholes. another dumb sorority bitch flounced up to the desk yesterday and asked me if there were any study rooms available. i said, “are you a grad student?” she huffed that she wasn’t. (as if!) and i said, “then no, there are none available. for you.” she just kind of stared at me with that dumb animal look people tend to get, like she couldn’t believe i said no. i just smirked at her until she gave up waiting for me to change my mind, and walked away.

that smirk has been used so much recently that it’s beginning to outshine chimpy’s.

last night, at the grocery store with sohei, a squat little troll and her spawn nearly knocked sohei over in their mad dash for fuuuhhhhddddd. i slapped on my patented smirk and stared at her creepily until i could tell she was unnerved, then chortled as i walked by. i told sohei, i have no problem letting people know how stupid i think they are, now. i’m done trying to make nice and trying to make friends. besides, the dumb animal look of disbelief at such overt nastiness is priceless. sohei said i’ve become quite the sociopath, but i didn’t agree. i pointed out that sociopaths often act perfectly normal, even charming, and that was beyond me. no, i’ve just grown to hate people. i don’t want anything from them, except for them to fuck off and give me my space. and the quickest way to get them to do that is to be overtly rude. at least, as much as i can get away with at any given time. hey, i’m just sick of getting run over all the time. the other day, i was walking to lunch with a friend, and this idiot on a skateboard nearly runs me down. i look over my shoulder and say, “nice moves, you stupid douche.” my friend thinks it’s funny when i do stuff like that. she’s egging me on, you know.

anyway… then, when paying for the groceries, sohei didn’t understand how to pay with credit rather than debit, and i was trying to explain it to him, but as he’d already finished the transaction, he didn’t understand what i was talking about. then the bagger said to sohei, “just smile and nod.” i rolled my eyes at the condescending fuckstain and said, “well, at least i can figure out how to use a credit card machine.” …and am not a bagretard at a grocery store. (see? i don’t say everything i’m thinking.)

as i suspected, being a mean, nasty bitch is far more fun than getting stomped on all the time. i don’t even feel guilty about it anymore.

i’m done with my paper. it actually ran long. and it has pretty footnotes, which i’ve not really done before. (i only did them this time coz the paper required them for some reason.) i have to give some credit to sohei, though. i wouldn’t have hit the five page minimum (let alone go eight pages) if he hadn’t given me such a great tour of the law library. it really helped pad out my paper. sometimes sohei can be a pretty good friend.

now that it’s done, i’m going to try to watch house til the simpsons come on, if sohei will let me have the tv.

the main bad guy on zelda (zant?) sounds like howard dean. just sayin’.

Waiting as I’m wanting to
Speaking as I’m spoken to
Changing to your point of view
Fading as I follow you

A boyish notion of false emotion
These words are spoken despite my love
A fool’s devotion was set in motion
My eyes are open now

It’s a glass cage so I can’t pretend
You hide beneath the physical
I see it coming but I can’t defend
You cut so deep my belief is gone

Tell me What I want to say
Save me For another day
Break me It’s the game you play
Hate me As I turn away

the birthday massacre – looking glass

yeah, i got about two pages done today. a little over three more to go… why am i unable to write a paper until it’s almost due? my stupid mood isn’t helping, either. and, thanks to stretching this out, i’ll be doing a fat lot of nothing tomorrow, too. so much for my weekend. at least it’ll be less than a year til i never have to write a damn paper again. presumably.

There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. By doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you will still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to all things.

-hagakure

i have to write a paper this weekend. uggghhhh. i don’t want to. i want to have some kind of adventure. well, the sooner i get started, the sooner it’s over with. but i probably won’t have any adventures.

nothing seems good right now. even when good things happen. like i had a neat conversation with my boss today. his management style is compatible with my work style, or at least it seems to be. i do need to learn to not say stupid things, when i can think of something to say at all. but library folks are supposed to be weird, so it’s okay.

the a/c hasn’t been working in my car for over a week, which sucks. i have a headache when i get home every day. and no matter how much i sleep, i’m always tired. guess i’m depressed again. nothing to do but wait it out and try to not take up smoking again. i want to hang out with lunachica, because i’m pretty sure that would make me happy. it’s hard not to be in a good mood with her. she’s going to dc soon, though, and school has us both stupid busy. (the dc thing isn’t permanent, but she is applying for a job in south florida which has me kind of mopey.)

to cheer myself up, i ordered the harry potter boxed set, sans book seven. it was way cheaper than the set with all seven, and i had a really good coupon, so i thought i was behaving, but apparently not. sohei gave me hell about it…

anyway, i have to go take a shower. i’m all sticky with old sweat. mmm.

i sure don’t blog much lately. it’s probably because any time i think of something i want to blog about, i can’t because i’m working.

work is going well, mostly. i keep getting dragged into things, and it’s getting to the point where i’m going to have to start saying no. i’m on the training committee and i’m supposed to do training on HTML but i never seem to have time to plan the actual training. also, i started a volunteer program which is building momentum. i’m hoping it works out coz it was my idea and i’m fully in charge of it, and if something goes wrong… well, it’s not fun to think about pissing people off when there’s a budget cut going on. and you haven’t finished your probationary period. and then there’s all the other stuff i’m called on to do on a daily basis. and i got volunteered for about the only thing i actively haven’t wanted to do. tomorrow, the lady in charge of remote storage requests isn’t going to be here, so i have to do it. the actual task isn’t so bad. but the fact that remote storage buildings 1 and 2 are about a mile away makes it slightly worse. why? because i refuse to drive the van there, and when it’s hot, the walk is brutal. (keeping in mind my face doesn’t sweat, my left knee is bad, and i’m on medication that dehydrates me and increases the risk of heat stroke. w00t.) and it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. i really should have said no this time, and asked if maybe there wasn’t someone else who could do it. you know, one of the people that sits around socializing all day and doesn’t do much else? too late now, i guess. i’m just glad tomorrow’s friday.

there’s really not much more of interest to talk about. not that the above was of any interest, either, but i figure i’ve got to say something now and then. ugh. back to work.

i’m depressed and afraid. i want to cry, but i can’t. i had all these dreams last night and i can only remember snippets and it’s so frustrating. it feels like something awful’s going to happen. and i feel like i’m trapped somehow. it’s like nothing’s ever going to be okay and there’s nothing i can do. no matter where i go, there’s no escaping whatever this is. maybe it’s chemicals again. i wish i could just sleep. i feel like i could jump out of my skin today. i just want to be rid of it.

i’m all about the tests today. i decided to check out similarminds.com, since i haven’t been there in a while. here’s the results from one of the tests:

Advanced Global Personality Test Results

trait snapshot:
messy, depressed, introverted, feels invisible, does not make friends easily, nihilistic, reveals little about self, fragile, dark, bizarre, feels undesirable, dislikes leadership, reclusive, weird, irritable, frequently second guesses self, unassertive, unsympathetic, low self control, observer, worrying, phobic, suspicious, unproductive, avoidant, negative, bad at saving money, emotionally sensitive, does not like to stand out, dislikes large parties, submissive, daydreamer

humph. i am not unproductive. but, aside from that, it’s right on.

dear abby isn’t usually “with it” to begin with, but today’s was particularly bad. especially this part:

…My husband also tells me that he gets hit on by a lot of men. Just the other day, he said a guy walked up to him and said, “Hey, hottie!” and he told him that he didn’t swing like that.

I don’t know what to think or believe anymore. I don’t know if this has to do with unresolved issues of my mom coming out when I was younger, or if I’m overreacting to the attention he gets from gay guys. — PERPLEXED IN MICHIGAN

DEAR PERPLEXED: It’s possible that you do have some unresolved issues regarding your mother. However, I can’t help but wonder where it is that your husband is meeting all of the gay men that he brags are hitting on him. Could it be in gay bars? If that’s the case, then he’s gay.

um, yeah. because gay bars are the only place you’ll find gay men. maybe he works in a job where the majority of customers are male? i’m pretty sure she wouldn’t be writing in to ask whether her husband is gay if she knows for a fact he hangs out in gay bars. this is so obvious that i’m left to wonder if abby thought she was being cute. well, it fell flat. (and i’m sure “perplexed” appreciated the deep advice.) margo may be getting on in years as well, but at least she seems to know decade it is.

(and i’m not even touching the completely idiotic letter about the “xbox live game.”)

1. Go to Career Cruising
2. Put in Username: nycareers and Password: landmark
3. Take their “Career Matchmaker” questions.
4. Post the top ten results

1. Artist
2. Translator
3. Archivist
4. Website Designer
5. Historian
6. Anthropologist
7. Microbiologist
8. Political Aide
9. Writer
10. Zoologist

i don’t see “librarian” on there anywhere. it didn’t even make the top 40. “archivist” is pretty similar, though. i always get “artist” as my top career choice in every career test i take. too bad i suck at it. too bad i suck at math, too, with regards to microbiology. still, the results aren’t too surprising.

The future teaches you to be alone
The present to be afraid and cold
So if I can shoot rabbits
Then I can shoot fascists

Bullets for your brain today
But we’ll forget it all again
Monuments put from pen to paper
Turns me into a gutless wonder

And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next

Gravity keeps my head down
Or is it maybe shame
At being so young
And being so vain

Holes in your head today
But I’m a pacifist
I’ve walked las ramblas
But not with real intent

And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next

And on the street tonight an old man plays
With newspaper cuttings of his glory days

And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
And if you tolerate this
Then your children will be next
Will be next
Will be next
Will be next

And on the street tonight an old man plays
With newspaper cuttings of his glory days

david usher – if you tolerate this your children will be next

how can what i see and what actually is be so different? nothing like a photographic reality check…

only thing i feel
can i make it real
only thing i see
loneliness in me

we only have what’s left to be
we only have what’s left you’ll see

i need to belong
my heart is not that strong
i’m far from denial

shall i dare to dream
are you listening
we only have what’s left to be
we only have what’s left you’ll see

only thing i feel
can i make it real

mira – alone

i’ve been having some mighty strange dreams recently. almost every night i dream about something to do with pregnancy. a couple nights ago, i had a string of odd dreams, where i couldn’t tell where one ended and another began. but one string has stayed with me. i dreamt that i was in labor. now, i’ve only had the labor dream a couple times, and in the first one, it turned out i wasn’t pregnant at all. (don’t ask me.) but in this last one, i was actually giving birth. and i kept waiting for it to hurt, but i didn’t feel anything. i was disappointed to find, once the birth was over, that i could hardly remember any of it. then, for some reason, i was at my childhood home in iowa. i don’t know whether the baby was there. i don’t think so. but i went into my old house and kind of looked around. the presence of mum was so strong, though the house was empty except for our old couch and a couple of rocking chairs. and, as much as the memories hurt, i was surprised at how dull the pain was.

even now, i’m disturbed by the lack of feeling in my dreams that night. i felt this weird sense of guilt in the dreams themselves, but in waking, i just feel weird. also, while i can vaguely remember the inside of the iowa house, i can’t remember the outside at all. i mean, i wasn’t quite seven when we left, but i don’t like that i can’t remember. maybe that’s part of what’s bothering me. i’m getting to where i can’t remember things as well as i used to. though sohei is insisting i can’t take that road trip next summer, if i do end up in iowa, i have to go back to that house.

other things are kind of bugging me, too, that have nothing to do with dreams. sometimes i don’t feel like i know who i am anymore. i’m always angry. i’ve become bad at hiding things behind a smile. while i’m reasonably pleasant with the patrons at work, if anyone tries to engage me at all, i barely manage a grimace and kind of frown at something off to the side or at my hands and mumble. thankfully, library employees are kind of supposed to be weird, so it’s not a grounds for dismissal kind of thing. but my inability to fake it anymore bugs me a little. and, despite all my bitching recently, i do love my job. i’ve been in a bit of a funk in general, but i do love it there. i still think some of my coworkers are kind of useless, but now i just ignore them. if they engage in any real fuckery, i stare at them until they stop doing whatever it is that’s annoying me. in short, i’ve become rather creepy. part of me wants to snicker at this new development, but part of me is horrified. i’m still polite with all the pleases and thank yous and excuse mes. but if you want me to smile, you’ll have to shove someone down an elevator shaft first. that might be enough to elicit a smirk.

maybe i’ve finally reached the point where i’ve had it. maybe this party thing was the last straw. maybe i’m beginning to embrace being alone, and not even trying to act normal or friendly anymore. maybe, if you want my friendship now, you’ll have to work for it. which is fine with me. being a bitch is kind of fun, in a way. i feel a lot less constrained. i don’t go crazy on people or anything, but if you piss me off now, you’re a lot more likely to know about it.

still, there’s something about it that doesn’t feel like me. no matter how shitty people were to me in the past, i always pasted a smile on and behaved pleasantly, if not shyly. no matter how badly i hurt on the inside, i never let it show on the outside. now, i don’t care if people know how i’m feeling. it could be because i’ve replaced the hurt with anger, and anger is a less shameful emotion in this society. but it’s left me feeling like a young adult again, not really sure that i know myself that well.

stolen from jane:

i was looking in the mirror today and thinking about how much i wish i could be 15 again. for a lot of reasons. sure, i’d lose the wisdom garnered with age or whatever, but i don’t think i’d mind that much. in fact, one of the reasons i want to be 15 again is that i didn’t know enough about the world to care about anything. i don’t think i really cared about anything at all. i just went around doing whatever i wanted with little thought of the consequences. and the state of the world wasn’t devastating enough for me to think about it much. i guess there were some things i cared about, though, considering how suicidal i always was. probably that whole alienation thing i’ve been dealing with most of my life.

i was reading this article about teenage suicide being on the rise. they were saying it’s due to lack of psychological medication. somehow, i doubt that. i think if i’d been medicated as a teenager, i probably would’ve gone through with it. one more chemical would’ve pushed me over the edge. as it was, i did have success with st. john’s wort, until i learned that it interfered with the pill, at which time i stopped using it. (i didn’t get pregnant, either, again making me suspicious regarding my fertility.) why do teenagers, who don’t seem to care about anything, always want to kill themselves? is it because of the gravity of reality hitting them? because they realize their parents are real, fallible people? because they’re beginning to realize how much the world sucks? i’d be interested in seeing a study detailing how intelligence relates to suicide. because i bet a lot of suicides are smart people (kids included) who can see that the world is so stupid and hopeless that they don’t want to be a part of it anymore.

or maybe it’s just hormones.

anyway, there are other reasons i’d like to be 15. i want to appreciate how cute i was. i want my mother to be alive again. i want grunge to still be around. i want people to buy me lunch again. i want to eat said lunch with people who drink their own blood and scare all the stupid normals hanging around. i want to skip school and not care about dying and smoke and go to parties. i want to be blissfully unaware of how much going to work sucks, and live at home with my family and my kitties. (one of whom would still be alive.) i want to be able to dye my hair purple and paint weird stuff on my clothes and flick people off. i want to taunt authority figures, secure in the knowledge that the worst that can happen is i.s.s. or, maybe, o.s.s.

but now i do care about things. too many things. and i can’t dye my hair purple or flick people off without worrying about getting fired and all the shit that goes with it. i would gladly give all my wisdom and whatever else you get with age, to be 15 again.

i’m not having to deal with shit behavior as much as i did at homesdotcom, but when i do have to deal with it, it’s pretty freaking annoying.

as usual, the problem is caused by a self-inflicted emergency that the moron then expects me to be able to fix right now and if i don’t there’ll be hell to pay. some bitch comes up to the desk and before i can even say anything, starts with an attitude problem. she’s demanding a book she insists we have. the thing is, it’s on reserve, because everyone else who didn’t want to buy the textbook needs it, too. but she insists she has it on hold, so i look for it and – surprise – it’s not there. i try to hand her card back, but she insists i check the 24 hour hold shelf, so i do. it’s not there, either. so i come back, put her card on the counter in front of her, and go to check the reserve shelf. and, for some reason, of course it isn’t there, either. so i go to check with the reserves folks to see what’s going on, and while i’m away from the desk, the reserves supervisor shows up and starts taking care of it, unbeknownst to me. so when i come back to check for the fucking book again, he’s standing at the desk with the book in his hand. now, i know my goddamn alphabet, which means someone shelved it in the wrong damn place. again. (i overheard someone else complaining yesterday that whoever shelves the reserve material needs to review the alphabet, so i’m not the only one who’s dealt with this, apparently.) so he leaves me to finish taking care of it. the girl just stares at me like a dumb animal, so i remind her that i’ll need her card again to actually check the book out to her. she says i still have it. i assure her that i don’t, and she says, “i saw you put it down over there.” i’m pretty pissed off by now, so i tell her that i’m pretty sure that it’s not, but go check regardless. of course, it’s not there. so she digs through her purse, all the while insisting i took it. then she fucking finds her card. in her damn purse. and of course she doesn’t apologize, but just shoves it at me. i smirk at her in my most annoying fashion, with a look that clearly says, “you’re a fucking idiot” and check the book out.

so, while i have to deal with “customers” a lot less in this job, i still have to deal with them. i don’t think i’ll ever find a job where i don’t have to deal with people. and i’m not very likely to find one where i can stick up for myself or tell someone off when they treat me in a less than respectable manner. (though, because my every move isn’t watched here, i can get away with it a lot easier than i could at homesdotcom.) and this reality – that i will never have a job that doesn’t deal with getting bitched out by a moron in some way – is another reason why i think i should just die.

oh, but lunachica did stop by, which was an unexpected treat. i was lucky i caught her, as i only had 20 minutes left on the desk. so yay for that, even though some idiot had to come along right before i was off-desk to ruin my fucking mood.

i’m in a bad mood. leave me be. it’s still better than homes.com.

i can’t shake this bummed out feeling i get when i’m at work. it’s not like i hate my job. my old job was pretty damn depressing, and i don’t feel as depressed as i used to. but i can’t get happy, either. maybe it’s being in the subbasement all day… actually, that isn’t so bad, except maybe i’m getting bored with the sorting project. i hate being upstairs, so i don’t think that’ll help. any time i’m on the main floor trying to work on something, people relentlessly bother me about doing stupid shit. it’s like, hello? i’m in the middle of something here… i definitely liked my old coworkers better, mostly. although some of them were lazy, too. i can’t fucking stand laziness. sohei can say i’m lazy all he wants, but he doesn’t know the half of it.

it probably stems from the whole entitlement thing. like other people think they don’t have to do anything, and are entitled to sit on their asses all day. i apparently have near zero sense of entitlement. i was talking to sohei the other day and he was complaining about the paltry discount i get at the book store. and i was saying i was lucky to have a discount at all, as the bookstore has nothing to do with the library. and he said i’m too complacent or something. i guess. it seems to me, all i’m entitled to at work is a paycheck, insurance, and some goddamn respect.

two out of three ain’t bad, i guess.

i had a fun holiday weekend. lunachica and i went to havana (florida) on saturday and had an awesome time. i took a picture of where we ate lunch (cute!), but flickr doesn’t want to fucking post to my blog anymore, so… anyhoo, it was good times. she’s really great to talk to, coz when i put my foot in it, she either pretends that i haven’t, or calls me on it in such a way that i can’t help but laugh. not in a way that makes me want to die or kill someone, though. it’s nice having a friend around here who actually wants to go out and do stuff once in a while. she’s going to get me into knitting, too, i reckon. but, anyway, so in havana there are all these antique shops and stuff. i’m not into antiques as furniture (i’m into ultramodern stuff) so i was kind of wondering what there’d be to look at. but it turns out that antique stores also carry lots of junk, like garage sales, and there were some really neat clothes and stuff, too. unfortunately, i wouldn’t actually fit in anything but the hats, but it was still cool. there was this one hat that lunachica looked so cute in, but she couldn’t buy it coz it’s wool and she can’t wear wool. i ended up buying this kind of gothic-looking candle stand that’s almost as tall as i am. i’m going to drape it in black lace, and it should look pretty cool. and i also got a cute lamp for my nightstand. it’s black and has a fuzzy leopard-print shade.

arg, my computer’s about to die. i’ll talk more about the weekend later, maybe.