Inebriated Insight

Yes, I'm drunk so there's a chance this won't make sense in the morning. But I think it's worth expressing anyway.

I have a good life. I might occasionally complain about things like school or family or whatever might be bothering me that day, but that's only because my strongest emotions come out when I'm upset, when my world is somehow disturbed. Otherwise I'm a content person and find myself without much to say.

Tonight I found myself a little upset at the fact that I'm still single. It's been such a long time since I've had even the opportunity to be with someone that, at times, it seems like it will never happen. But then I remember those days when I look at myself in the mirror and think "Damn I look good" and know that eventually someone outside of my brain will realize that too.

And of course I could only come to this conclusion while intoxicated with alcohol but that's okay. I'm just glad it happened at all. :D

Catching Up

So it's been about...six months since I last posted and I suppose certain things should be said about how life's been going in that time. To begin...

The whole residency issues from earlier this year have been resolved quite nicely. My mom and I both live in a very nice apartment complex and my "bedroom" is actually quite comfy. I was pre-emptively bitter about it just because it was annoying but once we got right down to it, it wasn't really as bad as it seemed.

The summer was largely uneventful and I was content with that. I'd had this ominous feeling that something terrible would happen this summer but I guess it didn't. Well, except for something my mom told me that I wish she hadn't, that made cry and that I'm not sure I should repeat on this blog. Suffice it to say, it wasn't a good thing. There was also the fact that my mom's boss is an asshole and decided that he couldn't afford to pay for health insurance anymore so she just wouldn't have any. And of course he didn't give her any kind of pay raise, so she can't even afford to get on her own. I'm good as long as I'm in school because I've got student coverage through the university, but once the year's over that's it. That wasn't so great but still not as bad as anything I'd imagined would happen. But other than that it was pretty good.

School's started back up and that's a mixed bag. I am glad to be back in an academic environment and back with all of my friends. But I'm a little on edge because I'm supposed to graduate this year which means that afterwards it's time to be a real adult. That's a little scary just because I hadn't really planned for it and so I'm not completely prepared. I have no sure thoughts about what I'm going to do once I'm not here anymore. I have to go to grad school at some point, but it's too close a time crunch to start applying for next Fall. I'll definitely have to spend a great deal more time thinking about that whole situation and soon too.

Also in the vein of school, I've gotten to go see my psychiatrist again. I'm kind of relapsing back into not eating or sleeping properly and I'm a lot more wired than I was. So, we agreed that I should double the dosage of my medication. Boy, let me tell you does that ever suck. Today was the first day I took the double dose and I had a massive anxiety attack, possibly the worst I've ever had. It actually made me sick and I was incapacitated for a few hours. I'm hoping that this doesn't happen everytime I take it, otherwise I will have to figure out something else to do.

Of course I'm still single although I guess it's getting a little more interesting. I somehow managed to get myself drawn into a love triangle that I don't want to be in since I'm not really into either of the people involved. But one guy likes another guy and asked me for advice and then of course the other guy just had to start throwing himself at me...it's all very awkward. But my hope is that they'll just start dating and leave me out of it. I suppose there a couple of potentials in the works, including my roommate's best friend, but I'm not sure how any of that will play out; I think my forward tendencies throw most guys for a loop. But we'll see...

I'm still broke and unemployed, but that's nothing new and it doesn't appear to be changing any time soon. I suppose it's all this recession business that will hopefully turn itself around soon. Otherwise, everybody's screwed.

I suppose that I should either try and get some work done or just go to bed instead of wasting time on the internet. So I'll leave this alone for now, but I'm planning to make a regular habit of coming back and updating. But at this moment, I think I've said enough.

So I lied.

I said I would try to focus less on the negative and more on the positive but this needs to be addressed. By virtue of a rather annoying sequence of events, my mother and I have to move again. It doesn't seem that bad at first, I won't have to change schools or anything and we're only moving a couple of miles south. What's really pissing me off is why we have to and what's going to happen once we do.

Officially, the story is that our "landlord" (he doesn't live in or own the building) doesn't want people with pets living in the building but we have three cats. Strangely, this has never been a problem before; we moved in with two cats and have lived there for a little over two years. But for whatever reason, it has become a problem so we have to move. I think that's bullshit.

Here's my theory:
I think the "landlord" is fed up with the perpetual messy, run-down state of our apartment. Ever since I started college, my mom just decided that she was just going to stop taking care of the place. I mean, I knew that I did all of the cleaning around the house because she wouldn't but I figured it was only because she knew she could make me do it. I didn't think she keep doing nothing and watch lazily as she became buried under a heap of clothes and a pile of dirty dishes. When I went home for spring break the place was a mess. There were dirty dishes sitting in cold water, had been for a couple of days apparently. I washed them. The kitchen itself was in complete disarray. I cleaned it. The bathroom was a cesspool; the toilet hadn't been cleaned probably since I'd left for school and there was cat food everywhere. I refused to use that bathroom until it was cleaned. And that of course, is where our story actually begins.

Basically, our toilet stopped working properly. It got clogged and started running slowly and almost flooded a couple of times. So of course we called the landlord over to come have a look at it. Well, it was only my third day home or so and I hadn't had the chance to clean the house the way I wanted to. So when he got there the living room was still a mess, the carpet was stained, my mom's bedroom was a disaster area and of course the toilet had "mysteriously" stopped working. To make an already too long story shorter, he found what looked like gravel or kitty litter in the tank of the toilet. He broke up the clog and went on his way. Except now he thinks that my mother is idiot enough to be dumping litter into the toilet. He apparently doesn't have a very high opinion of her. Maybe I don't either...

A week later, I get a text from my mom saying we have to move. That's bad enough. The place we're moving to only allows tenants to have two cats, so we have to give away Smokey, the third kitten we just got. Alright, so now it's shitty. We're moving into a one bedroom apartment and I get to sleep in the "den". Isn't that lovely? I also have to go home on a weekend that had oodles of plans for to pack my stuff at home.

What upsets me the most is that this shouldn't have happened. My mother is almost forty years old. She should be responsible enough to maintain a quality state of being for her own living environment. I mean, she has to live in all that mess; after a while it becomes unbearable. But she didn't and because of that we're essentially being evicted. And of course, me being completely dependent on her (and I think she likes it that way) I get to be dragged down too. That, I'm not okay with. I've got problems all my own, I don't need to have to deal with hers too.

Trade-offs

I can't say that anything has gotten any worse, so I shouldn't complain. I'm not self-centered enough to think that I'm the only one with problems, that mine are the only ones that mattered or that they couldn't get worse. I'm glad that nothing bad has happened to me or anyone I care about...

But nothing good has happened either. I'm stuck in this inactive rut and it's annoying. On the one hand, I'm stuck waiting for something good to happen (even if I have to make it happen myself) while silently paranoid that something terrible will happen first.

That said, I'm not sure if I'm more thankful for what I haven't lost or more desperate for what I want and don't have. I don't want to start talking about life being unfair or any crap like that, I know everybody's got it pretty rough. I just thought that something would've broken by now and it hasn't.

I guess I needed to bitch a little bit. It's been a rough few weeks and soon I'm going to going home for spring break, so I can see it won't get much better. I'll try to focus less on what I'm not getting and more on what I'm thankful I've got.

4 months and 7 pills ago...

So much has happened since the last time I posted anything in this blog that I seldom know where to begin...

I suppose I should start by saying that last semester was an utter disappointment, at the very least. I've never done so badly in school my entire life and it was nauseating to think that I would have to be on academic probation. Apparently, with all my years of coasting, I'd come to take education with a grain of complacency.

There's also the fact that I'm essentially poor to consider. I couldn't find a job last semester. I'm trying to find one for this semester and so far I've had no success. To top it off, what with the state of the economy and all, my mom can't really offer me any help with financial stuff (at least not any help that I'd feel good about asking for).

There's also my mom. I feel like she slowly becoming a lunatic. She's going to start going to school again in May. That's not such a problem; she has every right to do that and I'm actually really glad she's doing it. What's infuriating is that she keeps telling me that she's considering quitting her job. Granted, her job requires a lot of work and is tiring and her boss is a little cooky himself. But that doesn't cancel the fact that she gets paid a ridiculous amount of money and has really good benefits, benefits that she's desperately going to miss if she quits her job. I'm worried that we won't be able to afford to continue living where we do and that I'm going to have to take out something like 2 more loans. That's not okay with me.

Then I started having these weird mood things and I wasn't ever feeling one way too long before I started feeling drastically different. I can't sleep, I can't eat, panic attacks...it was beginning to make me miserable. I started seeing a counselor, explained the situation and she thought that maybe I was suffering from depression and anxiety, so she sent me to see a psychiatrist. Now have to take medication that gives me headaches, makes me really drowsy and increases anxiety. What the fuck?!

To top it all off, I was recently in contact with my father and that didn't go well, as usual. I basically told him exactly what I thought of him and hung up the phone. He's been texting me ever since Friday, trying to "apologize" for everything and saying that he hopes I'll forgive him. But I don't think he really believes that a few text messages and a guilt trip are enough to make up for 19 years of bad parenting; even he's not that stupid. If I thought for even half a second that what he was saying was sincere, I would call him back and talk to him about it but the problem is that we're too much alike and I know exactly how he thinks. He wants to be right, to win, more than anything. He's threatened me, guilted me and bribed me so many times that I can tell when he's just trying to get me to come quietly back to being his perfectly obedient son. But he should know, since I'm just like him, that it won't be easy and he shouldn't expect me to just drop this grudge like a hot potato. He said that when he's dead and gone, I'll wish we had a better relationship and that I'll miss. I already wish we had a better relationship; that would make life significantly less complicated. But that doesn't mean that if he died I'd really care all that much...

Sadly, that's been the state of the last four months. Hopefully, as time goes on, I'll have more positive things to put here. This is called The Happier Side of Cynicism after all.

Untitled

My superstitious mind is intertwined
with fear and suspense.
My muscles are tense and I wince
at the idea of leaving.
I try believing that if I go, I'll return
Cuz my soul burns for you, yearns for you
But I must learn to be without you

You, with a body so fine, with the perfect mind;
Loving you should be a crime
And I'd be willing to do that time
Cuz in time I could make you mine

But the clock is on its last toc
Time's run out and I'm about to leave
One last hug, one last kiss
Let's enjoy this last bliss

Cuz I'll miss:
Your body so fine
Your perfect mind
Committing that crime of passion.

Method & Mindset

I started working on this idea I had for a quasi-autobiographical story based on my years in high school. As I'm writing it, I'm trying to force myself to remember what I was like then (what my thoughts, concerns, ambitions, anxieties, etc. were). I realized a couple days ago that it's a bit like method acting: getting into the mindset of the character you're trying to portray by going through his/her experiences in real life. That being said, the past few days, I've been feeling really depressed, just like I did back then.

This project made me remember so many minor details of my life that managed to impact me so much. I feel like I'm especially remembering the moments when I was really unsure of myself and what I wanted out of my life (I know, I sound like every other angst-ridden teenager). But the bad thing is that it's affecting me now.

Having lived through it, I already know how the story ends. But reliving this anxiety is making me wonder if that ending was the right one. I keep finding myself wondering how my life would be different if I had come out during high school. Or if I had gone to U of I last year instead of UE. Or if I had continued trying to get through to my dad. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

I feel like I'm going through the process of rediscovering myself-almost like a mid-life crisis (though that obviously isn't the case). And it's frustrating because, as I said, I've already lived through the story once and I know what kind of person I became and I'm happy. But there's something in my head, something with a lot of sway over my conscious thoughts, that insists that I repeat those thoughts and emotions and learn something new from them.

I just can't seem to fathom what that might be...