I would take time to post pictures from Abby's birthday, but I've been kind of busy between school and Abby-tending to do that.
Berta's been out of town since yesterday, and isn't due back until tomorrow, when we leave for another Johnstown trip. Apparently, we're staying at Therese's, which I didn't know until a few minutes ago when I got Therese's phone message about bringing our own pillows out because they were short. Apparently, I'm just not destined to be in the loop, or maybe I cause too much trouble when I know what's going on.
At lunchtime today there was some need to kick us all out of the building so that electrical systems could be repaired. Preturbed, I drove off to a much earlier than typical lunch, not hungry. I drove around a bit, before stopping for a couple of plain slices at Caln Pizza. Actually, I walked around Acme for a while first, waiting for something to jump out and scream "Eat me!" but nothing did.
All of this time, I was kind of angry. I've been having this debate about Bush and liberals over at Katie's Live Journal. I didn't get to finish my reply. The subject of the matter didn't make me angry.
It's raw despondency, that's what it is. Nobody comes to my site. You'll say it's not true because you're here, but who are you? You are likely someone I know who it wouldn't matter if you read the site or not. I would really like other people to come and share their opinions. Or maybe form a small community around some common topic - not that I have one. It bugs me that there are so many free LJ users out there getting so much foot traffic over such random crap, and here I am, tons of cash in the hole struggling to get a presence, writing my brains out, not even once posting any lame old memegen script. And I've got what? It's pretty disheartening.
And Berta's not here. Oftentimes when Berta is here she's not here. I've got nobody to talk to about my interests that actually cares about them enough to initiate conversation about them outside of Where were you? How did that event go? I'm not sure why I expect more or that I should, and I'll certainly feel guilty forever for having anything critical to say about Berta, probably a better daughter to my parents than I am a son. Pat says I'm depressed. May be.
Let's talk about stress. I had this presentation on Tuesday for school. It went well. I took it well. I did all the work for my group's presentation - and why not? I did most of the work for the rest of the management simulation. It was funny watching them revise their job summaries on the fly to conform to my excellent 7-minute treatise on our overwhelming success at my hands. But I still did the work. And I still took the hit. I read my thing in front of the class, my heart pounding in my chest. So happy it was over.
I noticed some more gray hairs today in places that I didn't have gray hairs yesterday. Nice.
And I go around thinking that I've got something on everyone else, but the truth is that I just spent more time on it. Time I could've used to do something else and not had as great a presentation. I'd like to think I'm wired in these instances for perfection, but there are so many things that I'll never be perfect at that matter more, so many that I often don't bother.
I've got two finals next week. I've got a journal to write for philosophy that I haven't started on, and it's going to be several pages, no doubt. I have Abby to watch this week, and Johnstown to visit over the weekend. I have chapters of management textbook to review, and some inkling of a desire to accomplish something of the projects that have moved to the back of the stove since... whenever it was that the free time was abundant enough to dream up these projects in the first place.
Keep in mind that while I do enjoy some aspects of school, I do not look at it as "fun time". It's work. It's time that could be otherwise spent. It leads to more work in time that I'm not in school. Mostly I've been taking classes in which I have an interest, and I made the mistake this semester of taking this management class in which I have only professional interest. It's not a thrill ride. It's not an escape from home life, it's just another thing to scream for my threadbare attention.
No gym this week. So much for that. I was hoping to be more in shape for when we went to Florida, but yeah, who cares anyway? For posterity, it's not like I was trying to experience heart failure, but I never felt I had time to go to the gym. Time did it. Time's fault.
Oh, and here's great news. The brilliant stroke that sent us once again? dallying on what to do with this software at work has bitten us again just as it always has. Enter Moodle, the open source (aka "free") version of the software that I have spent my last year and half toiling over, trying to convince people to see my way, and ending up coding completely on my own. Yes, folks, my job has become (and has been for some time, apparently) completely irrelevant thanks to a bunch of open source folks. Thanks again, GPL. To think that I've even been optimistic enough about this to berate others for being negative. What folly.
I'm trying to think of when my last vacation was. Christmas time? Of course, that doesn't count because you only take off around Christmas because work and Christmas would be too much. Thanksgiving? I don't even know. It's been too long and I've been staring at this interface too much, and it isn't even translated into 40 languages because I only know one and little bits of others. I'm only one person here, you know. Working all by myself. Options: Spend money to make money?or watch Owen waste his life chasing retards around with remedial software that he was forced to cobble together at high-speed/low-quality settings for no good reason.
Just when you think you're spent, you remember that the bank with whom you've closed an account last month sent you a letter telling you that you're overdrafted and that you've been surcharged $30 per instance and that you had better do something about it because it'll just keep adding up as long as it's negative. Um, yeah, ok. And I have no recourse here, do I? That's what I thought.
Spent $5000 on a vacation package that doesn't work. You try to make reservations three times and are rejected or can't be provided with what you asked for. The next attempt is the last straw, or somebody's getting sued.
Gotta live in this stinking house for a few more years since... well. That's another story all together. And that doesn't make me happy either, truthfully. I want to take it well. I want to be supportive, since nobody's going to be supportive of me, right? I don't want to feel badly about it. But how can I not? We both had other plans. We were as happy as we would be expected to be. We both wanted to leave this rotten neighborhood.
For you who don't know, I hate living in this house. I hate our neighbors. I don't want to live in this ghetto. Call me a bigot or whatever you like, I don't like the social sentiment that the black kids bring to this street. At least the Jennings' were nice people. The dark-skinned boyfriends of these punk pregnant teens and the bass-blasting friends of these cracker homies playing basketball looking at me like they own the street in front of my house- they all need to step off. The bible-thumping church-loving charity-preaching folks need to stop leaving their stinking pre-stamped donation envelopes in my mailbox or I'm going to call the feds and have them jailed for mail tampering. Keep your kids and your dogs and you dog feces out of my yard. If I'm going to hell for being unkind, you're all going to be miserable so I get my money's worth.
And they get bent out of shape because we pay someone to mow our grass. Looking at us like we're too good to be dirtying ourselves with that labor. No, it's not that way:? We just make enough money to be able to afford to pay someone to do it so we can spend our time on other, more important things, like raising our child, unlike some ignorant twits on our street.
At one time I thought I had it going, but I guess I just don't. I just don't know anything about what I've got, and sometimes it would just be so much easier to take the blue pill and go back to work Mr. Anderson. But I've already taken so many stinking red pills and I'm still stuck in this stinking jacked-in nutri-coffin. Where's Morpheus and the Nebuchadnezzar?
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
What's that movie where the guy says he'll snap out of the dream when he sees the full moon? My full moon is a winning Powerball ticket, my friend. Sign me up and strap it on, cause I'm coming for the cash.
