The Trick is to Keep Breathing

Things I've done before I go

2007-07-13T09:58:00.001-05:00

1. I have changed the insoles of my shoes. Not sure how this prepares for my trip, but it needed done.
2. I have withdrawn $250 in cash from the bank.
3. I have borrowed my mother's largest suitcase and packed it with several weeks' worth of clothing.
4. I have borrowed a green leather bag for my toiletries.
5. I have purchased some single-use cameras for trip photography
6. I have called around to some florists to see about getting some lilacs and blarg, I can't get ANY. Grr. Maybe fake lilacs? But that's hardly the same. I suppose I'll have to make do with another flower. Fooey.
7. I have gotten a trip-tick from Triple A which shows my route.

I am leaving TOMORROW.

A possible political career?

2007-07-13T07:53:00.000-05:00

I was just talking to my dad on the phone and he says no one is running for mayor of our hometown this term. He's not sure what they'll do, but jokingly suggested that I run. He can't run because he's running for village council.

It would make good resume fodder, yes? "At age 21 I was elected mayor of a small town in the Midwest..."

Much better now

2007-07-12T19:46:00.001-05:00

I went to see the doctor and he diagnosed allergies and gave me some medicine. I feel loads better now, though still not 100%.

Two days till Fitchburg!

2007-07-12T06:08:00.000-05:00

I am not feeling very well at all right now -- in fact, I haven't felt well in the past several days. My throat hurts so bad it's difficult to talk sometimes -- I keep taking Ibuprofen -- and my nose runs a bit and I feel as if I'm on the verge of a fever but not quite. I'm really really hoping it's the weather and I'm not sick on the verge of my trip to Fitchburg. I may go visit an urgent care clinic today.

Last weekend I accidentally spilled spaghetti on the kitchen carpet at the Boyfriend's house and went into paroxyms of panic due to his finicky roommates who, if you'll recall, kicked me out in February for an accidental mess. I started frantically scrubbing with every cleaner I could find, and the stain faded, but did not go away. I called W. and fessed up, thinking to face the problem head-on. He was surprisingly cool about it and advised me about some cleaners, and said he'd take a look at the stain when he got home.

W. and A. (his new wife) saw the stain this evening and A. asked what happened. W. said, "Someone just had a little accident, spilled some spaghetti."

"Did SHE do it?" Meaning me.

"Well, yes, sweetie, but it was just a little accident, I'm going to try to get it out."

"You can still see the stain."

"It's not so bad, honey."

"But you can still see the stain." Then she went stomping upstairs and didn't come down for the rest of the night not even for dinner. Very immature if you ask me, to go into a sulk like that over an accidental stain in the rug.

That same day, for no especial reason, I used up the last of my Tussinex. About eight teaspoons. The recommended daily dose is one teaspoon. I could barely walk afterwards and kept fading in and out. It was quite pleasant actually. A. C. came over and we talked for a long time about stuff.

I'm finishing up my plans for my Fitchburg trip. I will be visiting the Leominster library Wednesday evening. And spending Monday through Thursday days at the collection. I've written down the numbers for the cemetery where he's buried, and also for some florists. I want him right under my feet. I want to put lilacs on his grave.

I can't wait.

Happy Independence Day, everyone

2007-07-04T10:56:00.000-05:00

Not that I plan to celebrate. I don't like holidays.

Dyed my hair yesterday. The store was sold out of my usual shade so I had to get a lighter color. I don't like it. I prefer a bright, brassy, flaming red that catches fire in the sun. This color is more like strawberry blonde. Maybe I'll do it over.

R. I. P. dog

2007-07-02T22:50:00.000-05:00

Laika had to get put down late last night. She had cancer, but they thought she might recover. Well, her back legs quit working entirely and Mom and Dad rushed her to the emergency clinic (the same one I use for the rats), and the vets there found another tumor in her chest. As she couldn't walk anymore and had no chance of recovery, Mom and Dad elected to euthanize her.

She was only about five or six years old (not sure how old, she was a stray), and she was the best dog we ever had. She was a beautiful Husky with bright ice-blue eyes and a wonderful friendly personality -- "hello, my name is Laika and I love you." And so well behaved too. I wish I could have been there to say goodbye to her, but I was at work. Mom and Dad called me at work to tell me what happened and I got so upset I had to go in the back room and cry for a bit.

I will really miss her but I am glad she is not suffering anymore.

In other news, I finally got my car fixed. It kept stalling all the time. It was supposed to take "a couple of hours" to fix but ended up taking six hours due to a lack of parts. In the meantime I was stuck in the town. I went to a Goodwill and bought a pair of khakis (they are going to make you wear khakis at work now and I don't own any). I went to a diner and ordered and ate a meal before realized they don't taking cards and I didn't have any cash on me. I gave them my purse to hold hostage and went out to find an ATM; luckily there was one a few blocks away. To prevent this from occurring again, I withdrew two $20 bills from the ATM, gave one to the diner and slid the other under the insole of my shoe. Then I went to a lovely bookstore and told the lady there all about Robert Cormier and my upcoming trip etc. She was kind enough to let me sleep on her floor until my car was fixed.

Things to do before I go (part II)

2007-07-01T17:01:00.000-05:00

1. Call florists in the area to find out about the lilacs
2. Write down the numbers for the libraries and the cemetery management
3. Get at least two cameras
4. Learn how to use the laptop Dad gave me
5. Get a trip-tick from Mom
6. Get my hair dyed
7. Pack

GO, Mika Brzezinski!

2007-07-01T16:34:00.000-05:00

I just read this article about a TV news anchor who tore up and tried to burn her script on air because the first story was about Paris Hilton. That anchor should be given a medal! I'm tired of hearing about that wicked woman. Paris has a bad case of spoiled bratitis.

Counting the days

2007-06-30T18:41:00.000-05:00

Only like two point five weeks till I leave for Fitchburg! I can't wait! *bounces up and down excitedly*

Getting the car fixed on Monday. Getting my hair dyed on Tuesday. I must ask Mom for a trip-tick. And I need to call some people before I go.

Why Johnny can't read

2007-06-29T09:12:00.000-05:00

I've come to the unhappy conclusion that A.C. cannot read. I don't mean he is illiterate, I mean he can't get anything out of what he reads. Unless it's right there on the surface, in black and white, he can't see it at all. He does not grasp what's behind similes or metaphors for example, or even the many merits and uses thereof. He's read two Robertical novels thus far and always believes the exact opposite of what Robert meant to say.

I think it's sad that a grown man -- he is twenty-seven -- should be thus. He reads plenty of books, too, so I'm not sure what his problem is. Perhaps the quality of his books is lacking. Perhaps it's his education -- his degree is in mathematics and his liberal arts training is limited at best. But one of my friends has a mathematics degree and she's a brilliant reader.

His problem is so entrenched I wonder if I should even bother to help him.

The last few days

2007-06-27T14:17:00.000-05:00

I had a pretty good weekend (by which I mean Monday-Tuesday, my days off from work). Except one of the rats, Rosemary, became ill. The whole side of her face swelled up to enormous proportions. At the cost of $94, the vet diagnosed an abscess, drained it and sent her home with antibiotics.

The Boyfriend, A. C. and I watched Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I'd never seen it before. I can't believe a movie about nuclear war could be so funny. "Dmitri, one of our generals went a little funny in the head, just a little funny, and he did a very silly thing. Well, Dmitri, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered nuclear missiles to attack your country."

Less than three weeks till Fitchburg!

When I get back from Fitchburg, I might buy...

2007-06-24T16:49:00.000-05:00

A new computer chair (mine is broken).
A new pair of Doc Martens, fancy ones I hope.
This 280-carat lemon quartz. It's one of the most beautiful and useless things I've ever seen.

Long time no hear from

2007-06-23T19:16:00.000-05:00

Wow. I haven't posted here in two months.

A lot of stuff has happened. The highlights:

1. I finally got permission to view the manuscript I wanted at the Cormier archives. It took the guardian, Dr. McCaffrey, two. whole. months. to say yes. What on earth was she doing during this time? I thought her letter was kind of snotty and condescending too. "You will be allowed access to one unpublished novel in the Robert Cormier Manuscript Collection, material that is normally reserved for scholars." Then what am I? A tourist? "I hope you appreciate the unusual privilege that you are being granted and that you will abide by all rules and regulations..." Actually, I was planning to tell you how ungrateful I was, and to stuff the manuscript into my underwear and take it home with me, but if you insist, I'll appreciate your (very slow) generosity and leave the book in the collection intact.
2. I've got to be great friends with math tutor, A.C. He is even in the process of maybe thinking of going to Fitchburg with me. I guess I wouldn't mind the company. He knows very little about Robert Cormier, but he's learning. I wish he'd make up his mind sooner rather than later, though, giving the way the bureaucracy works around there.
3. My dog Laika has cancer. It's the same kind of cancer that killed our previous dog, which is a funny coincidence. We're all very upset about it. She's going to have surgery but her chances are only 50/50. Sigh.

I hope to update this more often now.

Maybe I'm being racially insensitive, but....

2007-04-18T05:45:00.000-05:00

...I'm very surprised the Virginia Tech killer was Asian. Besides that Laotian guy in Minnesota or Wisconsin or whatever it was, I've never heard of an Asian, or non-white period, mass murderer.

Fitchburg visit worries

2007-04-14T02:43:00.000-05:00

The archivist is not the same one as last time and she keeps talking about restricted access this and permission that, I'm a bit worried. She seems wary of me and keeps wanting a "topic" I'm researching when I don't have one.

Zounds.

2007-04-10T16:26:00.000-05:00

I sent a reply to one of Patty's emails and for some reason Hotmail sent my reply to her 247 times! I went to write another email and it said I'd exceeded the number of emails I could send in a 24-hour period, so I checked my sent messages and yep, the same email sent 247 times. I don't know what happened -- I pressed "send" ONCE. And I couldn't even send an email to Patty to explain. So I looked up her number and called her at home.

Luckily, she thought it was funny.

Crisis of confidence over

2007-04-05T07:12:00.000-05:00

Patty forwarded me an email. She'd showed my stories to some guys who edits collections of Young Adult short stories. Here is what he said:

She's obviously a competent and determined writer, though I don't see her stories as YA. They are almost all pretty dark, with an adult voice and style. So if she hopes to publish her work, she'll have to go the usual route through small journals. Or perhaps approach Michael Cart with something for one of his Rush Hour books. Or, she can try assembling a collection of her own works for publication. However, if she does that, she'll need to vary the voices of her characters more, because they all sound identical to me.

Of course this is hardly "she is the most brilliant author since Markus Zusak and we went to publish her and pay her one million dollars." But he did say I was competent and he thinks my work is publishable -- just not by him. I'm not especially interested in publishing my short stories anyway.

Why?

2007-04-03T18:25:00.000-05:00

Suffering from serious Lack of Confidence at the moment.

A new beginning?

2007-04-01T06:54:00.000-05:00

My first day of my leave of absence from my website. I hope I can make it worth it and not just end up playing the Sims 2 all day long.

There's a girl at work, Hope, who doesn't like me. I don't know why. We don' t work in the same department and I've never really spoken to her. But she never speaks to me except to bitch at me. One time I walked into the break room and attempted to sit down at the same table as her, several seats away (it was empty except for her), and she was all like, "Don't sit there. So-and-so was sitting there." Then she pointed to every other empty seat at the table, stating they'd all been claimed by others, so I couldn't sit at her table. Whatever.

Last night another girl, Sharon, and I were talking among ourselves at lunch and sharing disgusting jokes, in code. (The words "Delaware" and "Texas" both mean "pubic hair" to us. I can explain why, but it's a long story and it really doesn't matter.) Anyway, no one listening to our conversation would have been able to tell we were being gross unless they knew the code words. Well, Hope did know, I guess Sharon told her, and she was sitting across the room and suddenly snapped that she didn't want to listen to us and she was going to report us to management (again) if we didn't quit talking about Delaware and Texas. I got up and left then. I didn't hear about anyone complaining to management about me. Maybe she didn't really complain before. Or maybe she did, and they brushed it off.

Damned if I know what her problem with me is. I told my boss about it. I've been lately elevated to the position of Boss's Pet -- uncomfortably and against my will, but I decided I'd use it to my advantage this one time. My boss got all upset about it and said Hope had no right to treat me this way. I don't think it's a big deal, but I'm curious. I've hardly said a word to that woman and yet she plainly hates me. It's very junior high.

Now this seems rather silly.

2007-03-15T06:50:00.000-05:00

Germany is trying to posthumously revoke Adolf Hitler's citizenship.

He wasn't born there; he was born in Austria and only became a German citizen in 1932, according to the article. Prior to that he was stateless, having given up his Austrian citizenship in 1925.

I know Germany is still trying to live down the whole Nazi thing but this is ridiculous.

Rat-rats

2007-03-13T11:37:00.000-05:00

The Boyfriend and I called the rat lady yesterday. She says there is no charge for her rats, she only wants to see them go to good homes. We will go to her home on Friday to have a look at what she's got. She's got fifteen rats, seven of which are girls, three of which are Tory's age. We only have enough cage space for one, maybe two, extra rats. It will be a big struggle to choose, I'm sure, we'll want to take them all home with us.

We actually had a very nice time together. It happens like that -- we fight viciously, then he does something that makes me realize how much I love him.

A medley of a million little things

2007-03-12T12:24:00.000-05:00

The Boyfriend and I had another huge fight and I stayed home today as a result. We made up, sort of, last night, so I'll come over today. But I cannot take much more of this. There is some shit I will not eat.

Ordered a hardcover copy of The Book Thief today. I was stunned by it. It's the best book I've read since I am the Cheese I think, and that's saying a fuckload. I was going to wait for the paperback to come out, but I cannot wait till September and in any case the hardcover was less than $2 more expensive. I can't wait to get it so I can read it again and savor its images. Markus Zusak is giving Adam Rapp a lot of competition for the place as my favorite living author.

He (Markus) got his first book published at 24.

I hope to make it by then.

RIP Ronnie

2007-03-06T09:04:00.000-06:00

Ronnie died yesterday morning. The vet called to say she wasn't breathing any better, and suggested I have her put down. I talked to the Boyfriend and we agreed it was the best thing. I got to say goodbye to her. Sick as she was, she was happy to see me, and actually climbed right out of the incubator onto my hand. I petted her and snuggled her for awhile and told her was a good rat and brave.

They did a postmortem. I didn't want them to at first, but they said it was the best thing to find out what had caused Ronnie's illness and therefore, whether or not Tory was in danger. Ronnie died of a contagious form of pneumonia. I had Tory examined and she does not appear to be ill, but they gave me antibiotics to treat her as if she was sick. If she's not infected they won't harm her. If she is, they will save her life. I took Ronnie home in a cardboard box and plan to bury her out at the Boyfriend's parents' house.

I owned her all of nine months. It's so cruel. She was such a sweetheart, so gentle and trusting.

Rats should not live alone, so once Tory is done with her antibiotics regimen we're going to get another rat. The Boyfriend knows a lady that breeds rats and rescues them from people who don't want them. I know no rat can ever replace Ronnie but I wouldn't mind having another one.

Sigh. Two days ago, Ronnie was alive, she was real, warm, breathing air, and now she's cold and gone.

Sad news....

2007-03-05T05:27:00.000-06:00

Ronnie is very sick and probably dying. It happened all of a sudden. The Boyfriend said she was fine when he gave her a treat at nine, then I woke up at two, and I saw that she'd pooped on herself and it was stuck to her fur. This is very unusual; rats are extremely clean animals and I'd never seen Ronnie leave poop stuck to herself. I wiped it off with a tissue and it was dry, it had been there for some time.

We took her out to play but she wouldn't play. She just sat there and wouldn't move unless we made her. Even her eyes weren't open all the way. We saw she was gasping for breath.

The Boyfriend and I took Ronnie to an emergency veterinary hospital here in Fort Anthony, arriving at 4:00 a.m. The vet basically said she was dying. Her temperature had dropped to at least 10 degrees below normal, so low their thermometer wouldn't even register it. Her lungs were full of fluid so they couldn't even hear her heartbeat. They guessed pneumonia but they're not sure. Ronnie was admitted to ICU and is now in an oxygen incubator, but the vet was not optimistic. I guess I'll find out more later today. I don't think she's going to make it. She's not even old.

It cost over $300 just to get her admitted to the hospital. God knows how I'll pay for it.

The only good thing I guess is that Tory does not appear to be ill, though she's acting jittery -- I think she knows something's wrong with Ronnie. Of course we'll be watching her closely to make sure she doesn't develop any symptoms.

We're both very upset, the Boyfriend and I. I love the little bugger. I don't want to lose her.

Leave of absence

2007-03-03T11:11:00.000-06:00

After much consideration, I've decided to take an indefinite leave of absence from my missing persons website. I don't want to. I like that site, and it helps lots of people and gets lots of visits. but I'll never finish my book otherwise -- I can't work on my website and my book at the same time.

I thought about passing it onto someone else, but frankly, there's nobody who can do what I do. Anyone else would not be able to handle the job and site would suffer.

Leave of absence starts April 1. I've posted an announcement. So far everyone's been supportive, telling me to follow my dreams, etc.

I haven't written in yonks

2007-02-25T08:12:00.000-06:00

Not much has happened. Things go as they go with the Boyfriend. I'm not sure about him at all. I got in touch with a friend of my youth last night; we hadn't talked in two or three years. She's cool.

Not much for writing.

A little better yet.

2007-02-12T04:42:00.000-06:00

Talked to the Boyfriend this early morning. He says to come over next weekend like usual and W. won't chuck me out. He's got a bit more reasonable and is giving me a little more credit than he did. I love him so much. It's just that I don't like W. and I'm never going to like him. I'll concede he's probably an all right guy, but we will never get on.

Patty has mentioned me in an interview she did with New Hampshire Public Radio in December! It was about Robert and her new book and all and at the end she told the story about how he'd been nice to me and helped me out when I was a severely depressed junior high school dropout. She didn't mention my name or anything but I know who I am. Patty did not tell me about this interview -- I found it out by accident. She said I was a "brilliant writer" too. :-)

Sigh.

2007-02-09T19:44:00.000-06:00

Things are a little better, not much. I just get tired of being treated like the houseguest from hell when in fact I'm just a little bit messy and absent-minded. And I am alarmed by how attached the Boyfriend is to W. -- he wants to continue living with him even after W. marries in June! I'm not suggesting anything funky is going on, I just think it's extremely weird that he would want to live with a newly married couple.

The Boyfriend said he might convince W. to cease banning me from the house, but I don't give a damn. I don't really want to go back there right now. I don't feel welcome there at all. I don't see why I am getting blamed for everything. I admit I've made some mistakes, but W. and A. are grossly inflexible and intolerant.

Anna Nicole Smith died yesterday and I can't see why anyone gives a damn. I don't even know why she's famous -- certainly she contributed nothing to society. She's like Paris Hilton, only older.

This is a true and factual account....

2007-02-08T05:14:00.000-06:00

...though others may twist it.

And I will say here that I have not felt this bad in several years.

I began menstruating a few days ago, on Sunday I think. I spent an uneventful weekend at the Boyfriend's house, and on Tuesday I got up, showered as usual, dressed and went to the library. I returned from the library to find a note scotch-taped to the painted surface of the Boyfriend's bedroom door. It read as follows, verbatim: "[My name, misspelled], you need to pay more attention. There was blood all over the toilet seat. This is unacceptable not to mention nasty, gross and fucking disgusting."

I took offense at the snotty tone and foul language of the note and began to cry. I wanted to go upstairs and give W. a piece of my mind, but I did not because the note had no signature and possibly his girlfriend, A., had written it instead, and I did not want to chew out the wrong person. I knew the Boyfriend had not written it because (A) he would never speak to me that way (B) I know his writing and (C) he was at work.

I tore the note off the door, not very hard, but it took a fair amount of paint with it. This is what tends to happen when you scotch-tape things to a painted surface. I threw the note in the trash and tried to calm down. I tried to call the Boyfriend but his phone was turned off; I left a voicemail asking him to call me ASAP. Then W. and A. came downstairs and I did not wish to be in the same room with them so I got my things and stomped out of the house angrily. They were in the front room. I left the front door open and slammed the screen door. I went to math tutoring.

That evening the Boyfriend called me, furious. He said, basically, that I shouldn't have made a mess and W. was right to say all the things he said in the note [he had written it as I thought] and I was overreacting and shouldn't have gotten mad. We had the worst argument we've ever had in five years together. There was much shouting. It continued throughout the night, as I called him on my work breaks. The Boyfriend said a lot of things. Some of them stick out in particular:

I have "ruined everything he worked for."
I have "no respect for anyone in that house" and "no respect for anyone's personal property."
He thinks I need psychiatric help.
W. says I left blood on the toilet seat, on the floor, in the toilet bowl and in the bathtub [the "blood" in the tub turned out to be soggy lint balls from my red socks that got stuck between my toes and came out when I showered]. To hear the Boyfriend tell it, W. made it sound like I'd dismembered a squirrel in there.
W. says my slamming the screen door [I did not hurt it], and my accidentally taking paint off of the Boyfriend's door when I removed the scotch taped note, constitutes "destroying property."
W. says I am never allowed in the house again except if the Boyfriend is there.

Maybe I am wrong but I don't think I behaved unreasonably. I got angry at being cussed at in that note, so I stomped out of the house and slammed the door. That's what people tend to do when they're mad. The next day I was not so mad about the note anymore -- instead I was mad about W. making a federal case of it. I did not "destroy property." Destroying property is deliberately smashing W.'s pottery, or keying his car. Destroying property is not removing a scotch-taped note from a painted surface with inevitable consequences. Destroying property is not slamming one door.

The fact that the Boyfriend is totally siding with W. on this is really bothering me. It would be bad enough if it was just this one thing, but it's not -- it's a pattern, he always sides with W. and makes excuses for him while demonizing my own behavior. I don't pretend to be perfect but I don't think I'm any worse than anyone else, least of all W. I'll grant that, okay, W. was pissed at having to wipe up my blood, so perhaps it's understandable he wrote that pissy note -- but then, can it not also be understandable that I got mad about it? There is no reason to ban me from the house like this. I'm not coming back and I don't care if the Boyfriend is there. I am not a child and do not need a babysitter.

We might actually break up over this. Over a few chips of paint, a few drops of blood and a slammed door.

Five years and it comes down to this.

I am sick at heart.

HPV vaccine and AIDS also

2007-02-03T19:40:00.000-06:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16948093/ The governor of Texas has passed an order requiring all schoolgirls to get vaccinated against the Human Papaloma Virus, a sexually transmitted disease. I say kudos to him.

A lot of commenters posted saying the governor is interfering with parents' rights -- rights to what? Rights to allow their children to become sick? This vaccine is no different than vaccines against whooping cough, polio etc. Yes, most 11- and 12-year-olds (the target age for this vaccination program) are not sexually active, but it's better too early than too late. And in any case, how do you know for sure your child isn't having sex? You can't watch her 24 hours a day, and sexual abuse in children is sadly very common.

I think if they came up with a vaccine for AIDS to give to schoolchildren some people would still be complaining about it interfering with parents' rights and they're just sure their precious little angels will NEVER get AIDS etc etc etc.

Speaking of which, at work there was discussion about how supposedly an HIV-positive person has got a job at a local restaurant. Everyone was saying they would not go to that restaurant anymore. I tried to explain that you're not likely to get AIDS from someone who works in Burger King, but they all were like "Why take a chance? What if he spat in my food?"

"There is no chance," I said flatly. "If he spat in your food you would still not get AIDS. There has never been a single case of saliva transmission -- " but they wouldn't listen. Their ignorance depresses me.

Writing: I love my lack of self-respect

2007-02-02T15:08:00.000-06:00

Book Thief makes me sad. Not just because it's sad book -- utterly beautiful in its squalor and tragedy -- but because I know I'll never write one that can match it.

Markus Zusak has written four or five books that I know of. I've read his two most recent: Book Thief and I am the Messenger. Both of them were written in an unconventional way. I don't know much about his others, but from what I've heard it sounds like they're in a more standard form. Maybe a writer has to practice a bit before writing something good in an alternative form? Like Picasso learning to draw perfectly from life before he started messing around with cubism and stuff. I'm timid that way -- I'm not comfortable with Writing Outside The Box. Not even with fairly standard literary gimmicks like dialect and multiple narrators.

But it's more than that. I just never believe praise about myself. If I won some important, prestigious literary award, like the Printz Award or the National Book Award, I'm sure I'd find some way to convince myself that they were just giving it to me to be nice. I never believe people like me. The nicer a person is to me, the more suspicious I become that they actually hate me and are going overboard to cover it up.

Even if I win every award that there is, I'll still be convinced my writing's not that great and I'm a fraud.

I have been seriously neglecting this blog lately

2007-02-02T05:56:00.000-06:00

A bulleted list of recent events:

Harry Potter 7 comes out on July 21!!!!!! I can't wait! But I'm also a little sad because it will be the End of an Era. I want to buy some HP t-shirts from maybe http://www.cafepress.com/buy/hogwarts I want an "I trust Snape" one. I'm convinced that Albus asked Snape to kill him. I just hope Harry doesn't go and murder Snape before he finds out the truth. Or afterwards for that matter.
My parents had my taxes done with theirs, and I'm due a return exceeding $500! This should come in handy for Fitchburg. I have $406 in my bank account at present, if you discount the student loan check I just wrote, and I get paid next week. By summer I should have a pretty good chunk o' change saved up. I think I will spend a little money at the aforementioned HP store. Maybe I'll buy the Family Whereabouts Wall Clock for my mom for a Mother's Day present.
I have just read The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and it is WONDERFUL. Even better than Wide Awake. Book Thief is about this little girl growing up in Munich, Germany during the Nazi era. She lives with foster parents who are hiding a Jew in their basement. I am utterly wowed by the beauty of its tragedy, its words and lyrical turns of phrase that, to purloin from Senghor, drip in great clots of blood.
I called in sick again last night -- second time in as many weeks. I wasn't really sick, but I felt absolutely exhausted and ached all over. They've transferred me to the grocery department (don't know if I wrote about this) where the work is much harder. I suppose I'll get used to it.

Still at it

2007-01-27T18:42:00.000-06:00

Almost a full month has passed and I'm still keeping my New Years Resolution to write down every new book I read. I rule! I don't remember whether I wrote about this before, but I record the title, author, page number, genre and any comments I have. So far I've read 15 books, 4829 pages. An average of 321.93 pages per book. Seven YA books, four true crime, one chick lit, one memoir, one classic literature and one informational. My favorite so far? Probably The Pigman. I'd been wanting to read that one for like six or seven years before I finally did.

Sick (again III)

2007-01-25T07:28:00.000-06:00

The other night at work I'd just started when I got extremely nauseated and weak. I tried to tough it out for about an hour but I didn't get any better so I thought I'd better go home. After I arrived home I threw up all night and had a fever and aches the next day. I called in sick last night. I feel much better now, but there goes my paycheck for this biweek. Groan. I wish I had sick days.

It's something going around. Both my parents and the Evil Brother were ill as well.

Good events (generally)

2007-01-17T18:12:00.000-06:00

I was in a car wreck a few days ago. Me, the Boyfriend, and W.'s girlfriend were in the car with W. driving when another guy ran a red light and we smacked into him. I'm not surprised W. was in a wreck but I am surprised it was not his fault -- the guy drives like a maniac, runs stop signs, turns corners on two wheels, etc. Anyway, no one was hurt but W.'s car was a total loss. The other driver wasn't even authorized to drive the vehicle we hit, so he's probably in deep trouble. My back and my neck hurt a bit; I might have a touch of whiplash. But we were all okay.

Patty sent me a surprise package containing a Fitchburg map, a list of places to see, and two photographs (!) of Robert. They're the only photos I have of him -- got plenty of digital images but none I can actually hold in my hands. It's his birthday today. I wonder if she timed the package to arrive around then? It's lovely anyway.

Books!

2007-01-14T08:52:00.000-06:00

I indulged myself and ordered some books from Amazon today. Bought (all used):

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (I've read Angela's Ashes and seen the movie)
A Clergyman's Daughter by George Orwell (the only book of his I haven't read now is The Road to Wigan Pier)
Kyle's Story: Friday Never Came by John Clinkscales (I assume it's about Kyle Clinkscales who is on my website)
Everything You Need to Know About Living in a Foster Home (it sounded interesting)

A girl at work has asked to borrow some of my books. "How good are you at returning them?" I asked her. "I don't mind lending them to you but I don't want to give them to you." She assured me she would return them. I shall give it a go. It's not like I don't know how to track her down if she doesn't give them back. She wants to borrow I am the Cheese and Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying.

Speaking of the latter, I've written a book-in-a-minute of it:

GORDON: I have declared war on money.
ROSEMARY: I'm pregnant.
GORDON: I surrender.

The luckiest guy ever

2007-01-12T17:16:00.000-06:00

Taken from The Encyclopedia of Crime, this deserves quoting in full.

Nicholl, Charles (1950-)
Author of one of the great passages of comedy-thriller crime reportage. In The Fruit Palace (1985), Nicholl recounts how an undercover story on the Colombian cocaine trade nearly came unstuck when his drug-dealing contacts discovered his true identity. The dealers considered 'checking his oil' wih a knife in the guts, but veered in favor of giving him a little job: smuggling cocaine on to the Nordic Star in the Santa Marta docks. Nicholl had no choice but to comply.
He dressed in pristine whites as a gringo reporter for his big day out. A five-kilo sack of cocaine was thrown over the harbor's perimeter fence for him to collect once he had negotiated security, and Nicholl slunk unobserved through the harbor's outbuildings only to find that the bag had burst. Cocaine was blowing everywhere. He crammed the leaking sack into his briefcase. But it had been manufactured in Taiwan and the hinges broke. Nicholl tried to clean himself down with his hands, which were covered in oil, and in this state, smeared in grease and cocaine, he found himself button-holed at inordinate length by the harbor's Director of Operations.
In mid-conversation in his capacity of journalist, Nicholl looked down to find the white poweder still trickling from the case's loose corner, making a little narcotic pyramid on the ground. He covered the cocaine pile with his foot. Still talking, he plugged the leak by clamping the briefcase close to his chest like a teddy bear, and the chit-chat droned on while the precious seconds of his hand-over time ticked away.
It was only by feigning convulsive diarrhea that Nicholl tore himself away. He insisted on using the Nordic Star's lavatories, where his hand-over was scheduled, and scampered up the gangplank with seconds to spare. But his contact, an irate Swede, refused to take delivery; the cocaine was spoiled, spilling loose inside the case. Wiping the briefcase down, Nicholl unthinkingly put his fingers to his nose, hoovering up pure 'Snow White.' As well as paralyzing his speech centers, this laid waste to most of his motor coordination.
Nicholl's plight was now parlous. He could not deliver the consignment: it had been rejected. He could not dump it: he would be liquidated. He could hardly move; he was zinging at the eyeballs.
Luckily, what he lost in ability he gained in confidence, and he approached the task of running the drugs back out of the ship, down the gangplank and through the guarded harbor complex with unshakeable optimism. He attributes his survival to his innovation of smuggling cocaine into Colombia, for which the authorities were ill-prepared.
Nicholl is alive and well as of this writing.

Onion horoscope for this week

2007-01-11T18:48:00.001-06:00

Aquarius January 20 - February 18
Filled with self-hate and disgust, you'll try to justify your actions by remarking that in dog years the terrier was probably of age.

Work-related stuff

2007-01-11T06:11:00.000-06:00

They gave me a raise at work which is nice, cause I'm trying to keep my head above water financially and save up money for Fitchburg. Soon they'll transfer me to the grocery department, which is not so nice. I didn't want to go but I have to. My boss tried to make it seem like a compliment, saying she'd volunteered me because she thought I was the only person from the general merchandise side who could survive in grocery. Riiiight. I think she's trying to get rid of me.

And that's all.

My rules for writing a good story

2007-01-10T07:28:00.000-06:00

Don't describe things any more than you have to. Try to provide a few details and let the reader fill in the rest.
Don't physically describe your characters unless there's a reason to do so.
Provide a minimum of three motivations for major character actions in the story.
You can create a plot by asking yourself a series of questions, and answering them satisfactorily.
[okay, I stole this one from Robert Cormier] A maximum of two major coincidences per novel.
If there's something unusual about a character, no matter how minor, make sure to provide an explanation. Don't just leave the thread hanging.
Try not to beat your ideas to death.

Asperger's Syndrome

2007-01-06T18:22:00.000-06:00

I really hate it when people talk about AS like it's a Good Thing. And when they assume that every smart, socially inept person must have AS. A friend mentioned AS in her blog entry today, and I was thinking about it anyway, so I figured I'd write about it.

I was reading an Amazon.com review of John Green's book An Abundance of Katherines that suggested that the protagonist of the story, Colin Singleton, might have AS. It's such bullshit. In the story, Colin is a socially awkward 18-year-old boy with an IQ too high to be measurable. The title comes from the fact that he's dated (and been dumped by) 19 girls named Katherine. Yes, Colin had no social skills; however, AS goes a lot beyond that.

I knew a boy at college -- J. R. -- who really did not Asperger's Syndrome. He was honestly the most fucked-up person I've ever met, the more so because you had to know him for awhile to realize just how fucked-up he was. It was like he didn't know there were other people in the world. He seemed to regard people like the way most people regard squirrels -- they're there, yes, but you don't think about them much. J. R. is profoundly disabled and will probably be dependent on other people for the rest of his life. Let me count the ways:

He goes days, occasionally weeks, without ever leaving his apartment for any reason.
He always has the same facial expression no matter what. I told him a joke once and after the punchline he continued to look at me with grave attention. "That was a joke," I explained, thinking maybe he didn't get it. "I know it was," he answered seriously. "It was funny." It's not that he has no sense of humor, he just can't show it when he thinks something is funny. He doesn't laugh or anything.
He was almost 26 years old when I knew him and had never dated anyone, never mind 19 girls named Katherine, and never even been kissed. I actually offered to kiss him just to get that over with but he refused.
He had no proper sleeping schedule. He was the kind of guy who stayed up for days and days and then crashed. I used to do that but I sort of outgrew it. He never did.
Repeat: he never left his apartment. Seriously. One time he just disappeared for like two weeks -- he didn't go to class, he didn't go to meals, he didn't go to choir practice, he didn't answer the door, he didn't answer the phone, he didn't return my calls. I was at the point of calling the police when he finally reappeared. He'd been in his apartment all along. I asked him why and he said he didn't feel like leaving.

The agoraphobia thing was the worst bit, I guess. Agoraphobia isn't really the word for it. J.R. did not show symptoms of anxiety about being in public, or around people. He simply disliked it. I was his only friend and I had to hold up 90% of our relationship. Of course he'll never be able to get a proper job, being like that. And being, what, 27 now, he's not likely to change either. I made efforts to find him a girlfriend but I have not been much with other girls, and in any case very few women would be willing to put up with his tendencies. Enough women wanted him -- J.R. is actually really cute -- but once you got to know him you realized he couldn't have a relationship with anyone, not even really me. I had to beg him to do things with me. One time we made three successive appointments to meet and each time he stood me up because he didn't want to leave his apartment.

And people act like AS is a good thing. I can say for a fact that it's not.

New Years Resolution Part II

2007-01-05T18:58:00.001-06:00

Kept it up so far. So far this year I've finished two new books. I'm working on a third: David Levithan's Realm of Possibilities which is lovely.

Also, I've printed out what all of my book I've written so far and have been going over the manuscript looking for inspiration.

New Years and new pen name?

2007-01-02T06:23:00.000-06:00

I had a good New Years. Michael took me to a party at the home of one of his dearest friends, L. L. is in her thirties, I believe, and a nurse with four teenage children who were all in various states of intoxication. The second I arrived she pulled my hair out of its clip, dragged me upstairs, and applied various chemicals and powders to my face and head and actually managed to make me look pretty. I was wearing a sexy outfit to begin with: glittery black minidress, black velvet thigh-highs, black patent leather platform shoes. Several pics were taken. Maybe I'll post them. I had a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice and a hell of a hangover the next day.

I am reflecting on publication. It seems likely that I will be a published author within the next few years, if not with my current work than with the next one -- I already have a good idea. I think I shall write under a pen name. For three reasons: 1) I've never much liked my real name 2) There is a famous movie star with the exact same name except spelled very slightly differently, and I don't want to get mixed up with her and 3) I want to keep my fiction and my missing persons writing separate. Maybe I'll write with my real first name and my boyfriend's last name.

Booklist

2006-12-29T08:01:00.000-06:00

My New Years resolution for 2007: I shall write down the title and author of every book I read for pleasure.

Let's see how long that lasts. I give it a week.

Chocolate milk belly

2006-12-29T06:45:00.000-06:00

Once in a great while I read a book that causes a phenomenon I call a chocolate milk belly. This is a feeling of intense personal satisfaction and well-being, as if I've just drunk a tall cold glass of chocolate milk. I have a silly smile on my face and I can't for the life of me pay attention to anything. It's a most exquisite high and always lasts for hours or days. And to give you an idea of just how rare this phenomenon is, the collected works of Robert Cormier and Adam Rapp together have caused only two chocolate milk bellies.

Well, last night I had my first chocolate milk belly in years. The book? Wide Awake by David Levithan, the man who might end up as my publisher.

In a nutshell, the book's plot is thus: in America about 50 or 60 years from now, a gay Jewish man named Abraham Stein appears to have been elected president. However, the election is contested in the same was as the 2000 election was, except that the state being fought over is not Florida but Kansas. It's apparent that the the right-wing conservatives (called "Decents") are committing voter fraud trying to throw the election to Stein's opponent. Stein issues a nationally televised statement asking all those who support him, and believe in the same ideals as him, to come to Kansas to stand by him while the votes are counted. So the protagonist of the story, a sixteen-year-old gay Jewish high school student named Duncan, and his boyfriend Jimmy, and all their friends, and millions of other people, travel to Topeka and vow to stay until Stein is assured of victory.

It's an incredible story on two levels: the political and the personal. My favorite part is towards the beginning where Jimmy and Duncan have sex. The scene just drowns me in beauty, the intimacy and intensity of their perfect, perfect love. My other favorite part(s) are all of Stein's speeches. The ending of the book brought tears to my eyes.

I've bought two copies off Amazon, using the gift certificate the Boyfriend got me for Christmas. One copy is for the minister next door. One copy is for my friend B.B. -- not only is he from Kansas, but he's a left-wing political activist who would have lovingly campaigned for Stein all the way. I'll buy a copy for myself when I can afford to do so.

I think I'm in heaven.

The rat report

2006-12-28T05:53:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been worried about a bald patch on the back of Ronnie's shoulders/neck, which seemed to get bigger all the time. I looked it up online today and the most likely explanation is that Tory is practicing to be a hairdresser. Apparently sometimes one rat will groom another so enthusiastically that the groomee will go bald. It looks strange but won't do Ronnie any harm. Perhaps Tory will end up giving her a mohawk or something. :-)

Thoughts on suicide

2006-12-27T18:19:00.000-06:00

In general, that is, not just in relation to myself.

The problem with people who have never been depressed is that they think suicide is a choice. Except under very specific circumstances, it's not. Suicide is an involuntary action that occurs when a person's sanity breaks. It's usually a spur-of-the-moment thing too; I believe that carefully planned suicides are about as rare as carefully planned murders. Every time I've tried to kill myself (twice), and the times I know of where people I know tried to kill themselves, they didn't give it much consideration beforehand.

There's not much you can do to prevent a person from killing themselves if they really want to do it. Your options are thus: 1. Physically prevent them from doing so, such as by incarcerating them in a mental hospital, or 2. Make their life better so they won't want to do it anymore. That's it. Kaput. You can't "talk a person out of" suicide. I had one friend who tried to, back during my blackest of black periods, using logic ("think of all the things you haven't done yet") and guilt ("think of all the people who would be sad if you died"). I was aware that my desire to be dead made no logical sense, but when you're a state like that, there is no logic, only pain, and the need to escape it by any means necessary. The guilt worked a little better but not much -- I still figured I'd probably kill myself, I only would feel guilty as I did so. Speaking that manner to a suicidal person is not only ineffective but countereffective -- it demeans their feelings and makes a mockery about their despair.

As for me? I might kill myself someday. I don't deny it. Lately I've been thinking of my depression as something like asthma or a heart murmur or any other potentially serious, constitutional medical condition. My dad has asthma. Sometimes it's barely noticeable; sometimes it's a nuisance; sometimes it's a serious handicap; sometimes it has come close to being fatal. He had an asthma attack when I was ten and would most probably have died if someone hadn't stumbled upon him right after he stopped breathing. My own depression is a lot like that. And like my father, I take precautions. He avoids allergens, and he carries an inhaler everywhere he goes. I avoid guns, and when things get especially bad I try to get out more, and be around people. I know I could never be a cop or a soldier or any sort of job that requires me to own, and know how to use, a gun. I would be dead inside of six months.

One of the best parts about having moderate to severe depression -- if there can be anything good about it -- is how good you feel when it's finally over. You feel like you just got born and are seeing light and breathing air for the first time ever. You walk around with a feathery lightness in your chest. It's amazing. But it's something you forget once you're plunged into blackness again.

My own depression is dangerously unpredictable, much like my father's asthma. Suppose someday I win the Margaret A. Edwards Award, the Printz, the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Book Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize all on the same day. Then after it's all over I go back to my room and hang myself. And everyone will wonder "why did she do it, life was going great for her." Well, I'll tell you what happened: blackness covered me and I did something about it. I get awfully tired sometimes. Of living, I mean. Life is not, and has never been, any great thing for me.

But trying to "talk me out" of suicide is just the way to go. I have the fortitude that comes with simply waiting, enduring. Talk to me, yes, but only to pass the time until the blackness lifts again.

The grand Christmas total

2006-12-26T06:20:00.000-06:00

A $50 gift card from Sock Dreams, which I used to purchase four pairs of socks, including luscious velvet thigh-highs I've wanted for ages
A copy of Bill Bryson's latest, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid
A pair of slipper-socks
Some heat packet things to put in my shoes and keep my feet warm (I have pathologically low blood pressure, so if my feet get cold then they never warm up again, and they get cold often)
A DVD of The Devil Wears Prada
A $25 gift certificate from Amazon.com which I haven't spent yet
Thomas Harris's new book Behind the Mask that hasn't come yet

It's Christmas Eve...

2006-12-24T09:50:00.001-06:00

...and Mom's throwing a tantrum downstairs -- something about toothpicks.

A title!

2006-12-23T09:51:00.000-06:00

At last! After yonks of desultory, and otherwise, progress, my book has a title!

Presenting It Didn't Happen Like That.

Why do I hate Christmas? Let me count the ways...

2006-12-20T06:37:00.000-06:00

A brief review of Christmases not-long-past:

2002. I am seventeen. It is college application year and I am extremely stressed as a result. A few days before Christmas, I develop an ear infection and Mom takes me to the doctor. He prescribes antibiotics and pain medication. Later, while I'm on my way out the door, Mom asks me to pick up some items to send to my oldest brother who was in Iraq. "Okay," I say, "what do you want me to buy?" She explodes and starts screeching about my being "snotty" and orders me to "get out of my house, NOW." I go to the Boyfriend's and he holds me while I cry for an hour. I call Mom, still weepy, and ask why she blew up. She says it was all my fault cause I was "pushing" her, then goes on to berate me for (a) leaving the house without finding out what she wanted me to buy [because she ordered me out] and (b) "not even saying thanks" for her spending HER time and HER money to take me [her minor child whose well-being she is responsible for] to the doctor. I cry some more and contemplate moving to Australia. But I have to go home eventually.

The Boyfriend comes with me to my grandma's for the Christmas Eve party. He sits alone in the corner the whole time and no one will talk to him except me and Dad. A few days after Christmas, I go to my sister's house on an errand and she has a Very Serious Talk with me about how she thinks the Boyfriend is controlling, abusive and potentially dangerous. She bases this on two observations: (a) she once heard him speak to me in a dismissive tone, and (b) he told me to take the couch pillows off the couch and "didn't even say please." I stare at her and blink, trying very hard not to lose my temper.

2003. I am eighteen and a freshman at college. A few days before I come home for winter break, I find out that the Evil Brother has been hacking into my email for the past several months, reading all my emails, and forwarding the ones about my sex life to Mom. I am absolutely devastated by this -- I feel incredibly violated, as if I've been raped. I have to come home and deal with this. It's a big scandal. One of my relatives tells me I basically deserved it and should, in fact, feel grateful towards E.B. for being "concerned" enough to "get involved" [stalk me, humiliate me and try to ruin my life]. The rest of my family has no comment to my face but plenty behind my back, mainly about what a slut I am and how I deserve whatever I get.

My mother announces that the family Christmas celebration will be "family-only" -- that is, the Boyfriend is not allowed over. I grit my teeth at this but have no choice but to agree. The Boyfriend does go to Grandma's on Christmas Eve [and is ignored by everyone again], then is told to "get lost." We all go home and start opening gifts. One of my brothers arrives with his girlfriend [who would later become his wife but who, at the time, was not his wife or even his fiancee] and her child [who is not my brother's child]. They are welcomed with open arms and stay several hours, me smiling painfully all the time. I explode in temper the second they walk out the door, and end up in my room sobbing. Mom comes to my room, makes some feeble excuse as to why my brother's girlfriend and her kid are included and my boyfriend is not, blames me for being angry, and has a good shouting rant about how next year she'll skip Christmas altogether because no one ever appreciates her efforts.

2004. I am nineteen. The Boyfriend is, this year, invited to all my family's events, but he understandably refuses to come. I don't remember anything else about this Christmas so it must have been the least horrible. I do remember that Mom did not skip it like she threatened. I wish she had.

2005. I am twenty. Mom makes life miserable for Dad and me and throws temper tantrums every one of the twelve days of Christmas. The Boyfriend again refuses to come to any family events. I understand why and do not blame him for it, but it leaves me to suffer alone. While my family is opening gifts around the tree, E.B. says something vicious to me that has me running up to my room in tears. I stay up there for about an hour without anyone coming up to inquire after me, but I can hear the whole family laughing and talking merrily downstairs. I put on my coat and sneak outside and walk about a mile outside of town to a bridge. I call the Boyfriend on my cell phone and ask him to pick me up. He refuses. Mom calls me, about an hour after I leave the house. She does not ask me where I am or whether I'm freezing to death or anything like that. She asks me if I remember what she did with one of my nephew's gifts, cause she can't find it anywhere. Eventually I decide to go home rather than die a slow death of hypothermia. I open my presents. Everyone acts as if nothing happened.

2006. I am twenty-one. Who knows what will come next? Mom's thrown several fits already, though only a few have been directed at me, and we've got five days yet till Christmas.

It just gets worse every year.

I'd like to write a novel about my family except I don't think anyone will believe them.

Sad day yesterday...

2006-12-19T18:18:00.000-06:00

Javi Laviendra's hamster Nana died. May she rest in peace, poor thing. She lived a good life and entertained thousands with her posts on Javi's blog.

Writing still. It cometh excellently now. Pity my month off my website (which has its own Wikipedia entry now, woo!) ends in just twelve days.

Whoops

2006-12-14T16:29:00.000-06:00

The Boyfriend asked me to pick up his paycheck today while I was in Fort Anthony. I did so, then unthinkingly took it home with me.

Guess I'll have to go back and give it to him tomorrow.

Is it Christmas yet?

2006-12-14T06:54:00.000-06:00

I am seriously getting sick of hearing carols on the radio at work all night long. They should play more Weird Al. "We're gonna part like it's 1699, living in an Amish paradise."

I finally gave my parents my Christmas wishlist. All I really want is a donation to the send-me-to-Fitchburg fund but I doubt I'll get that. I suggested several different pairs of Docs I liked, and various stores I wouldn't mind gift cards for.

Writing going well. Wrote 1800 words yesterday. Wrestling with a particular problem at the present.

At work they gave us a Wal-Mart gift card with our paychecks. I'm not sure how much it's for. I guess I'll have to find out.

Hurry, Christmas, hurry fast...

2006-12-09T06:29:00.000-06:00

...just so it'll be over.

Yesterday Mom barged into my room without knocking, woke me from a sound sleep and started screaming at me about my various deficiencies as a daughter and a human being. Then she went stomping out just as abruptly as she'd come in, and I shut the door, locked it and went back to sleep. Earlier she had been screeching at Dad because he *gasp* made a dentist appointment for himself without consulting her. She was so loud that I could hear her down the hall in my room with the door shut and my earplugs inserted.

Tired of winter already

2006-12-08T06:27:00.000-06:00

The first snow of the season was yesterday. The roads in Mays were not bad but I had to go to Fort Anthony for tutoring and the roads there were dreadful. I hate driving in snow and ice. I have started wearing Thinsulate-lined gloves and my winter coat, a mid-calf length rabbit fur. I need to wear a scarf as well, for the sake of my ears. I had to get gas this morning and the temperature was in the teens with a stiff wind blowing, and by the time I was done I thought my ears were going to fall off.

I get so cold so easily and then I can't get warmed up again. Especially my feet. Even in the summer, I cannot wear sandals because my feet freeze and then they can't warm themselves up; they have to be actively warmed. I'm very reptilian that way. It's because I have abnormally low blood pressure. It runs in my family. The upside is that I'll live forever. The downside is that I constantly need to be wrapped in blankets with slippers on my feet and a heating pad draped over them.

I need to move to Florida or something.

Dilligently writing

2006-12-06T17:55:00.000-06:00

It's steady now. Mostly I go to sleep right after I get home, then write after I get up.

Nothing else to say here.

Words written so far: Zero

2006-12-02T06:14:00.000-06:00

Not my fault though. Yesterday shortly after I posted the previous blog entry the power went out due to the major mind-blowing rain/wind storm, and stayed out all day, so I couldn't use my computer. The heat didn't work either and the house was freezing, so I just stayed in bed and slept for like thirteen hours. Power was restored this evening shortly before I had to go to work.

Now we shall see.

Okay, nix the car rental thing

2006-12-01T06:13:00.000-06:00

I just checked car rental prices online for Fitchburg. Being under 25 would just about double what it would cost! It costs about $170 a week to rent an economy car, but they add a $150 under-age-25-driver fee!

That is so stupid. You know, I'd bet they'd have no problem charging the regular price for a 25-year-old who got their license last month, but they'd double it for a 24-year-old who'd been driving since age 15 1/2.

Rain

2006-12-01T06:04:00.000-06:00

It was really scary driving home from work today. It rained torrentially most of yesterday and all last night, and got really really cold. I have trouble driving in the rain at night in the city because the lights and stuff reflect off everything and make it hard to see where the lines in the road are. It's a little easier in the country where there's less to reflect. But I was out in the country driving past a cornfield when the driver's side windshield wiper decided to become disconnected, rendering the wiper nonfunctional, so I couldn't see a damn thing.

Immediately afterward the truck hit some high water -- perhaps two or three feet deep, as deep as I've ever driven through anyway. I was going at full speed and hadn't seen the puddle, of course you can't at night cause all the puddles look black. I nearly lost control. After I got through the flooding part I gave serious thought to calling Mom and Dad to come get me; it hardly seemed safe to drive through rain and high water with broken wipers. But I had only a few more miles to go so I pressed on -- and hit high water twice more before I got home. Scary.

Still alive though. For better or for worse.

Christmas cometh fast....

2006-11-30T19:19:00.000-06:00

...I wonder if I can blow it off in the same way I did Thanksgiving?

People I have yet to buy for:

1. The Boyfriend's dad. I know what I want to get him, I just haven't purchased it yet. I want to buy him Gene Weingartner's book The Hypochondriac's Guide to Life. And Death.
2. My dear best friend in Scotland. Ditto.
3. The Boyfriend. It's still up in the air if I can afford what he wants. He'll understand if I can't. I'd like to buy it for him though. I do have a Japanese dagger I bought in Minneapolis and plan to give to him as well.

People keep asking me what I want -- as if it matters. My parents give me an Amazon gift certificate every year. Sock Dreams now offers gift certificates too. I wouldn't let anyone but me select gemstones for my collection, for fear they could not get the right ones. I actually have moral compunctions against buying gift certificates for anyone. It seems like a cop-out somehow: I couldn't be bothered to select your gift, so you get it. I know sometimes it's a good idea -- like if someone gave me a gift certificate to a gemstone store, that would be good -- but I would seriously prefer not to if I can.

I made my first student loan payment today. I also had to shell out tutoring money too. Eeep. I really hope I can save up enough money to go to Fitchburg this coming summer. The logistics are a bit unnerving. Flying would be the best option, cause it's a two-day drive there. But if I fly there, what do I do for transport once I arrive? Many car rental places won't rent to people under 25, or they charge an arm and a leg if they do. Should I just buy a bicycle or something once I get there, then ditch it when I leave? That would probably cost less than renting a car. Maybe I could rent a bicycle instead of buying one. But where do I stay? A week in a hotel, especially at the height of the tourist season, could get costly. Hostels, like the one in Minneapolis, are cheap, but the nearest hostel is in Boston, which is definitely not biking distance. It's a problem. Of course, I have yonks to work out the kinks.

My month off from my website begins tomorrow. Can I write fiction with the same fervor? I sure hope so. Push is waiting! Must pray to the Almighty Author for strength. Must apply nose to grindstone, seat of pants to seat of chair, etc.

(Actually, I need a better chair. One of those ludicrously expensive executive leather ones would be nice. With the one I've got, both my back and my backside start killing me after a few hours.)

DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-11-28T06:44:00.000-06:00

Patty is going to show my stories to David Leviathan, a very very very famous award-winning YA author! And to the editor of Push, which markets literature written by 18- to 25-year-olds! And she says one person who read my most recent story about the dead mouse about pissed himself laughing.

Telling lies to the reader is wrong

2006-11-27T17:18:00.000-06:00

Last week I checked out from the library a book called Burned Alive. It was written by a woman named Souad and was purported to be a memoir of how she survived being set on fire as an "honor killing" in Palestine in the 1970s. I saw it on the nonfiction shelf and thought it would be revealing reading.

It was revealing, all right.

Souad claims to have survived third-degree burns over 90% of her body for six weeks before she got medical attention. She also claims she gave birth to a perfectly healthy seven-month baby after she was burned and it also survived to adulthood without medical attention and apparently without birth defects. Neither of those things are possible. Especially not the first.

I looked the book up online after I finished it. I had a bad taste in my mouth. My suspicions were confirmed: it is not a true story. It is in fact entirely made up, and not very well at that -- there are dozens of medical and historical inaccuracies in it, and the "author" does not even exist.

Today I went to the library again, Burned Alive in tow, and told the desk librarian what I'd found out. I suggested the book should be moved to the fiction shelves. He sent an email to somebody about it but he's not sure anything can be accomplished.

This just really pisses me off. It's like those stupid Go Ask Alice books. And A Rock and a Hard Place. You can have an inspirational story that is true also. There's nothing inspirational about a made-up story that people claim is true so they can make money.

School

2006-11-25T10:52:00.000-06:00

I wonder if things would be much different now if I'd stayed on in school instead of leaving at the end of the eighth grade. I believed at the time that if I had stayed in that place, someone would have ended up dead. Not necessarily me, either.

When I think about it with the perspective of years, I have to feel a bit sorry for my teachers. The rule was that they could not punish misbehavior unless they saw it with their own two eyes. Of course it's impossible to keep order under those conditions -- imagine the chaos that would result if the police could only arrest people they personally saw commit crimes! So a lot of stuff was gotten away with that shouldn't have been, but the teachers couldn't do anything about it.

There was little reason to stay in the place, by the time I left. I was coming home in tears every second day from being bullied and generally stressed. My grades were in the toilet -- they almost held me back in seventh. And the quality of instruction was sorely lacking -- my eighth grade English teacher tried to tell me the second person didn't exist in our language! I had one good teacher. She had to leave midyear cause of her health. She died when I was sixteen.

Minneapolis has not worn off yet and I've been thinking of Robert a lot lately. He didn't know the whole story, but he thought my leaving school was a bad idea. He was right and wrong at the same time. Leaving school was a great idea -- one of the best decisions I've ever made. But leaving it for nothing was not a good idea at all. I fault myself for it, it was my decision. By the time my hellish junior high years were over I did not want to go to another school, any school at all, cause I hated the entire human race and never wanted to see or speak to anyone again.

I think it was social isolation more than anything that caused my black winter. Of course there were a lot of factors -- I was still trying to recover from my school experiences and all -- but not seeing anyone was a big part. I base this on the fact that when it happened again (when I was stuck at home by myself for a month in the summer of 2005, with no car and no job) I started to feel black around the edges -- not the same as before, but getting that way.

I still feel black sometimes. For maybe half an hour, or half a day -- never longer than that. Sometimes it just paralyzes me. I can't move at all, I'm just deadened with misery. I can't believe I felt that way for a whole season and a half -- half of fall and all of winter, into early spring -- during my black period.

So next year I went to take university classes and that was better. It wasn't an ideal solution, but it was the best one available.

I wonder what he'd think of me now.

Blew it off

2006-11-24T12:07:00.000-06:00

I blew off Thanksgiving with my family -- half by accident, half by intention. I've wanted to do that for years but have never dared. And Mom isn't even as angry about it as I expected.

Last night was Blitz at work. Black Friday, they call it in retail. Most of the night consisted of idling. We set out the Blitz items, then stood there guarding them from customers till five a.m. It was kind of boring but a nice change, no heavy physical labor, I got some reading done.

I had things to say but don't feel like saying them at the moment.

Happy Thanksgiving...as if!

2006-11-22T18:07:00.000-06:00

I have to work tonight and tomorrow night, and plan to use this as an excuse to spend minimal time with my family and maximum time with the Boyfriend's family. We shall see if I can pull this off.

This past weekend I spent some of my money on Doc Martes. I got a new pair to the tune of $110. They're black and quite nice, with the signature yellow stitching and all. I'm tired of having shoes that fall apart after six months. From this day forth, at least for my habitual wear, I shall buy only Docs.

Waiting to hear from Patty and found out what the people at the convention thought of my stories.

Someday I shall write about my family. Not yet. The pain is too fresh. But someday I will remove myself from them and write about them.

Still not hungry.

I have $649.47 in the bank

2006-11-19T09:20:00.000-06:00

Less $189.03 for December's student loan payment, but plus about $400 cause I'll get paid again before I have to make the student loan payment, which makes about $860 by December -- more of my own money than I've ever had in my life.

I thought I might treat myself to something and was looking online at the usual suspects: socks, gemstones and books. I can't find any I particularly crave right now. I have run out of bookshelf space (and wall space for another bookshelf) and my room is a train wreck from clutter, and anyway I use the Fort Anthony library all the time now and they have loads of great books. GemSelect has some pretty stones but none I particularly desire at the moment. I'd like to get a morganite but don't like their current selection. I could use some warm socks, I guess, but will have to investigate further.

Actually, what I could really use is some new shoes. Mom bought me three new pairs just in April. The blue running shoes I can't wear to work -- they don't support me enough or something, all I know is whenever I wear them my ankles hurt like a bitch at the end of the night. The Docs are good but I know you're not supposed to wear the same pair of shoes every day. And the "distressed black" retro canvas sneakers are coming apart already.

Maybe I'll buy shoes.

Or maybe I'll just save the money. I know I'll need it down the line. I bet I could get Mom to buy me some shoes. She keeps wanting me to go to the capital city (three hours away) with her for a day of shopping sometime. Mom and I only go on shopping days out because I normally stand to be in her exclusive company for more than a few hours at a time, and will only put up with it cause she buys me stuff. Cruel but true. Mom can go on insane spending sprees. When I was 15 or 16 we went to Philadelphia and she spent $600 on books. And that was WITH a 20% discount cause the lady that was shopping with us was a teacher.

Anyway. I have bought most Christmas presents already. But I'll see what else I can find.

Priorities

2006-11-16T17:33:00.000-06:00

I'm taking a month off from my website, starting in December. I will hopefully be able to get some good fiction writing done.

That's all I have to say for now.

Sick (and again)

2006-11-12T09:43:00.000-06:00

I don't know what's up but my sinuses are stuffed, my nose keeps running and my throat feels yucky. I kept taking antihistamines ("may cause severe drowsiness") which meant that at work I was spacing out, falling asleep on my feet. Finally I asked to go home an hour and a half early, though it counts as a "tardy" on my record and I won't get paid for the time I missed. My paycheck this time is shot anyway on account of taking the day off to see Ron White perform in Fort Anthony.

I don't know anyone who isn't more prone to upper respiratory illnesses than I am.

My attempts at humor

2006-11-11T19:17:00.000-06:00

Today I wrote a humorous story called "To Find a Mouse." It's about this guy who accidentally kills his girlfriend's mouse while she's on vacation, and he tries to find a replacement mouse that looks exactly the same so he can just switch them and she won't notice. I wrote the story in three hours and it's 3,662 words, which is much more than my usual output for that period of time. And so far everyone who has read the story thinks it's absolutely hilarious.

I ought to try my hand at literary humor more often.

Christmas shopping so far

2006-11-10T14:27:00.000-06:00

For the Evil Brother: a stuffed ebola virus. Last year I got him gonorrhea.
For my dad: a Kill-a-Watt electricity monitoring thingy, and a t-shirt with a science joke on it
For my mom: a book about singing in Irish Gaelic, and a copy of Over the Hedge that I was going to give to the Boyfriend except he had already bought one
For my sister: a pearl necklace, mentioned before I think
For the Boyfriend's mom: peridot earrings I bought in Minneapolis
For the Boyfriend: he wants the complete collection of Monty Python's Flying Circus. I'm not sure if I can afford its considerable cost.

Finally full

2006-11-08T06:24:00.000-06:00

I used to think Robert Cormier was both the best and the worst thing that ever happened to me. The best for a lot of reasons, of course: he was a wonderful person, his books were awesome and greatly influenced my own written, for awhile he was the only adult I knew who paid me any positive attention, etc etc etc. But the worst also, because he got stuck inside my head and in the six years now since he died, every time I thought of him I felt a tremendous emotional pain, a pain I grew so used to that it became almost pleasurable. I chose to call this "hunger" and it was like an itch I couldn't scratch and I would pace around violently and rock back and forth if I had to sit. I felt hungry every time I reread any of his books, or read anything about him, or watched the movies of his books, or something.

Since my return from Minnesota, for weeks I felt hungry all the time. The whole trip, and Patty's book and all, really upset my equilibrium.

But something has changed.

On the anniversary of his death, November 2, I shared with Patty what is, in my opinion, my best Robert story: back when I was 14 and in the worst depressive fit of my life, and how he knew of it and did the best he could to help me. Though he didn't have to try to help me and though I puzzled and exasperated him and scared him shitless with the sheer multitude of my problems, he did what he could for me. The thing is, every textbook, every pamphlet, every professional person says that if you know someone who's in danger of committing suicide, you should tell someone who can make that person get help. It's sound advice most of the time and I'm sure if more people actually followed it, many deaths could be prevented. I myself have "told on" a friend who tried to kill herself. But Robert didn't even try to tell my parents what was going on. I asked Patty "why?" and answered the question myself: because he knew it wouldn't do any good. He knew what my parents were like -- he could read between the lines of what I told him about them. If he had written my parents and told them what I told him, it would have accomplished nothing at all; in fact it most likely would have just made things worse for me. And Patty agreed with me there, in her reply email, and said a lot of other things.

And since then the hunger has been gone. It's amazing, the sheer absence of it, the not-hunger. I hadn't realized just how bad it felt until it was gone. I've been testing myself ever since then -- rereading his books, and stuff -- trying to see if it comes back. But it hasn't. Instead I feel a sort of calm emptiness, peacefulness. It's awesome.

I think I've finally buried him.

Six years. Took me long enough, aye?

Have I at last reached saturation point?

2006-11-05T08:21:00.000-06:00

I should be full of hunger and turmoil but instead I feel Inner Peace -- or at least the absence of hunger and turmoil. What's going on? Is this permanent?

I realize none of you will realize what I mean, I'm just afraid to be more specific en ce moment cause I might jinx myself or something.

Good news on insurance

2006-11-03T17:24:00.000-06:00

It turns out I can stay on my parents' insurance till I turn 24. We thought I'd have to go off of it this coming year and, as I'd written on here previously, I'd been trying to find my own insurance. Lately I'd been wondering whether I could afford it. I mean, I know you really can't afford NOT to have insurance, but it would cost at least $100 a month and that's on top of a $120 student loan payment and a $300 loan payment to my mom.

Dad's thinking of booting me off the dental plan though. My teeth have always been in super shape in spite of abysmal brushing habits when I was younger. (I still don't floss.) He wants me to see the dentist to make sure everything is A-Okay before he cancels my dental coverage. I hate seeing the dentist. Everyone hates to visit the dentist. It must really suck to have a job where every day you encounter people who Seriously Do Not Want To Be Here.

Not much else is happening. My parents have moved back in. So far there've been no explosions, and it's nice to not to have wash my own dishes anymore, but I'm holding my breath, I know it can't last.

I know what anniversary this is

2006-11-02T16:07:00.000-06:00

Do you?

I thought I'd record a list of my more unique accomplishments so far in life:

1. I've helped save the lives of two people.
2. I have contributed to the recovery of two missing people.
3. I have a website which is a useful tool to law enforcement personnel.
4. My website has been mentioned in print several times, including in the Chicago Tribune.
5. I have made friends with two relatively well-known people.
6. I have written several novels, albeit none of them published.

In memory of... who?

2006-11-01T19:39:00.000-06:00

Some dude who used to work with me killed himself yesterday. He got fired from Wal-Mart in August and I don't know what happened between then and now, but a girl at work told me last night that he'd offed himself.

The thing is, the girl insisted that me and this guy were great pals, and talked all the time, but I don't remember him at all. She gave me several details about his behavior, personal appearance, etc, but I can't remember a thing. I wonder if she's maybe mixing me up with someone else who was his friend.

It sure put a damper on the rest of the night, that news. I guess the guy truly wanted to die, as he used three methods all at the same time. I got a little upset and felt like I was going to cry but I didn't. I mean, tears appeared in my eyes but I didn't start bawling or anything.

Welcome to the world, little one

2006-11-01T09:10:00.000-06:00

My brother's wife had their baby this morning. An eight pound boy, perfectly healthy. They named it after my dad.

Since I'm in this kind of mood

2006-10-27T05:28:00.000-05:00

Some of my favorite lines in some of my favorite books:

"Could you love me if I had made a sister of yours pregnant and promised to marry her on the first Saturday in May?" Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction by Sue Townsend, page 176
"Fifteen years ago I killed my sister." Nocturne by Adam Rapp, page 1
"Ray Bannister started to build the guillotine the day Jerry Renault returned to Monument." Beyond the Chocolate War by Robert Cormier, page 1
"Sylvester the nude mummified man at Ye Olde Curiosity Shope was not the first dead person I had seen, but he was my most influential one." Cruddy by Lynda Barry, page 113
"A man who has been dead for a week in a hot trailer looks more than a man than you would first expect." Cruddy by Lynda Barry, page 133
"Simon Glass was easy to hate. I never knew exactly why, there was too much to pick from. I guess, really, we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn't realize it until the day we killed him." Shattering Glass by Gail Giles, page 1

There is an abundance of page ones here, you'll notice. I guess because a line is more arresting when it is the first page in the book.

Out of control

2006-10-27T05:04:00.000-05:00

My website has grown monstrous lately. I'm spending obscene amounts of time on it. Yesterday morning I spent three hours updating it. The thing is, right now I'm only posting ten updates a day -- five updated cases and five new cases. It's not like I'm doing much. It's just that it takes too much time to do.

My brother is working on a program that will help me update faster and more efficiently, but it won't be THAT much faster. You see, his program deals with the mechanics of my updates, when most of my time is taken up with actually writing the updates, which takes human hands and eyes to do. I'm also working on a separate, large update -- noting the race of each person in their casefiles. It doesn't take much time per file, a minute or two max, but when you have over 6,250 files, it adds up. I started ages ago at Z and am only up to P now. It's also extremely mind-numbing and I can't work on it for very long periods of time for that reason.

Nor is it a question of taking a vacation. People disappear whether I update my website or not. Articles appear about old disappearances. Occasionally I've taken breaks of a week or two from my website, only to have to work double-time when I get back in order to catch up. More to the point, I've become basically addicted to that site and missing people, and it's almost impossible to take a vacation from it unless I'm away from my computer altogether. I tried to take a two-day break after I got home from Minneapolis, but ended up caving and updating anyway. The fact that the NCMEC and cops across the country use my site as a resource in their investigations is pretty flattering and motivates me to post more.

The thing is, I really need to focus on my writing right now. I know where I'm going, and what with the whole Patty thing, I have a hell of a motivation to produce something. But I don't really have time, what with my website. That is, I end up working on the site when I should be writing. Let's face it: it's easier to do my website. I don't have to invent the details of all the cases myself, just catalog them. But producing fiction is fucking hard work, something people who are not writers don't seem to realize.

But I must needs finish what I started. I think I'm really onto something here, with my writing, but all of it will come to nothing if I don't sit down and take it out of me.

Something has to change.

But the question is, what?

Very short stories

2006-10-26T18:51:00.000-05:00

http://wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html

For your pleasure! These are funny as hell -- reminds me of BIAMs.

Lawsuit no longer forthcoming -- and books I've read

2006-10-26T06:48:00.000-05:00

The guy in Texas got my other email where I capitulated. He's not going to sue me anymore. Yay. I am glad I won't have to deal with him anymore.

Yesterday I read Gail Giles's book Dead Girls Don't Write Letters. It wasn't all that great. I have praised her book Shattering Glass on this blog (and bought a copy for myself) but this one I'm still scratching my head at. She was trying to make the ending ambiguous and intriguing, I think, but it's just confusing and irritating. I can't even explain what the book's about.

I read a pretty good book today: Grand & Humble by Brent Hartinger. I've read two of his other books and they were not very impressive. They were all right, I mean, but not stunning or anything, more like straight B books. Well, G & H grades B-plus, maybe A-minus. It's about two boys who live in the same town and go to the same school and are the same age, but their lives are really different. I was trying to figure out what the kids had to do with another, since they never interacted with one another, and it turned out the boys were actually different incarnations the same person. They were different versions of how that kid would have turned out depending on whether a certain event happened or did not happen when he was three.

I have put it on Amazon wishlist of "books I want to own." I have two wishlists: books I want to read (meaning, I'll accept them as gifts or check them out of the library but won't buy them without having read them first) and books I want to own (meaning, either I've read and love them or they're by a really great author and I'll buy them without reading them first).

Lately I've been thinking about how cosmic it is that all sorts of small things have profound effects on our lives. It's not like dominoes, it's something far more intricate than that. Like, take a car crash. Two vehicles intersecting at the same point in time and space. It's so totally random. If one of the drivers involved had left the house one minute earlier or later -- even one second earlier or later -- it wouldn't have happened. But car crashes change lives. And end them. My brother died in a car crash. And, when I was twelve years old, I randomly picked up a book called I am the Cheese, and that lead to my relationship with the man who, six years in the ground now, is still one of the most influential forces in my life. What if I'd picked up another book? I probably would have encountered I am the Cheese sooner or later, but it wouldn't have changed my life like it did. And everything that followed.

Damn.

Trials and tribulations

2006-10-25T19:18:00.000-05:00

That fucking jerk is still threatening to sue me. I capitulated to his demands today and emailed him to that effect, only to get an email back saying he hadn't heard from me in five days and was really going to sue me now. I hope he just hasn't got my other email yet.

I have nothing to give him! I'm only 21 years old!

Feeling a bit better now

2006-10-24T19:17:00.000-05:00

I am feeling somewhat better after a thoroughly satisfying last few days at the Boyfriend's. We watched several DVDs and generally had fun, and I wrote a bit.

I went to the library, as usual, while I was there, and checked out the graphic novel V for Vendetta. The movie is, at present, my favorite in the entire world. The movie is, in my opinion, better than the graphic novel. Perhaps this is because I don't like graphic novels. I suppose the novel was not really all that different from the book: mainly, they updated it for the times. Also, V is a lot more vicious in the novel: a lot more "terrorist" than he is "freedom fighter." Though I do of course realize that the difference between the two is mostly a matter of whether or not you agree with their cause.

In the middle of the book there's a "cabaret" that V wrote that I like the rhythm of very much. My favorite part:

There's a policeman with an honest soul [Chief Inspector Finch] that has seen whose head is on the pole and he grunts and fills his briar bowl with a feeling of unease. Then he briskly frisks the torn remains for a fingerprint or crimson stains and endeavors to ignore the chains that he walks in to his knees. While his master in the dark nearby [Adam Susan/Sutler] inspects the hands with brutal eye that have never brushed a lover's thigh but have squeezed a nation's throat. And he hungers for his secret dreams for the harsh embrace of cruel machines. But his lover is not what she seems and she will not leave a note."

In other news, however, my attempts to find a Spanish-language copy of I am the Cheese may come to naught. I thought I had got one through a bookstore in Fort Anthony -- the owner said he could order a copy direct from Spain, for a ridiculously inflated price. But he called me today to tell me Spain won't ship it to him after all. Damn and blast it. I want to give the book to the Boyfriend's father for Christmas. He is more than capable of reading English but prefers Spanish when he can get it. I may ask Patty's help. Grr.

Excuse me while I shoot myself

2006-10-22T06:22:00.000-05:00

(I'm not really going to shoot myself. I just thought it summed up my mood.)

Blackness attacked me yesterday and remains hovering on the edges of my mind. My entire equilibrium has been thrown off and I find myself thinking about all sorts of stupid and wrong things I've done. Little things. Small embarrassments from yonks ago, probably forgotten by everybody else, but they lie heavy on my mind.

I wonder why I cannot seem to accomplish anything of significance. It's as if I'm missing some essential part, a piston maybe, that makes action impossible. I'm the most inert person I know. Meanwhile, lately (always, but more so lately) I've had an entire other person stuck in my head. It's like a kind of schizophrenia. I need an old priest and a young priest. I need anti-psychotics. Something. You know the spectrum I spoke of? I'm sick of straddling it. I wish I could deliberately take a few steps forward or a few steps back. Anything to get me out of the state I'm in.

My working week is done and I'll be off shortly to spend time with the Boyfriend. Sometimes I feel our relationship is deteriorating. He can't take care of me, he can barely take care of himself, and both of us are stuck in some kind of deadlock interia. Sometimes when I think about him it's like that one song: "I hate everything about you. Why do I love you?" But I do love him, very much, and I know no one else could love me more than he does.

Yesterday I got drunk and then called Mom and said some things, and she told me I was an idiot and I was pissing away my life and she didn't know what was wrong with me. I don't know what's wrong with me either. It used to be that I felt happy when I was drunk, blissfully content with life and my share of this planet. I don't feel that way anymore.

How will I ever escape from this labyrinth?

Yossarian

2006-10-21T09:21:00.000-05:00

In the beginning of Catch-22, Yossarian was in the hospital with a liver problem. His liver was almost -- but not quite -- jaundiced. If the problem became jaundice, they could treat it. If the problem went away, they could release him. But while things remained as they were, Yossarian was stuck in limbo.

I feel like that sometimes. Like I'm in limbo, I mean. Like madness is a spectrum and I flutter on the borders of it. One step forward then one step back. But mostly caught in between.

Would explain why most mental health professionals can't make heads or tails of me.

I'm on my third Smirnoff Ice.

Someone's threatening to sue me. Again.

2006-10-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

This is my fourth time. It's the most serious, I think, but none of them were very serious to begin with. I'll work it out, I suppose.

Daily banality

2006-10-20T19:13:00.000-05:00

My hands vs. the moisturizer continues. I swear it on twice a day, sometimes more than twice, but my hands are still dry and horrible. At work we have to wash them about a billion times a night with special drying-out soap. We're supposed to use hot water, but there's no way to adjust the temperature and the water comes out of the tap cold.

Dad came home for something. He's mad at me for turning the heat on. I knew he would be. My father is immune to cold and hates paying bills. I have pathologically low blood pressure and get cold extremely easily. And when I get cold I can't warm myself up on my own. I need to be actively warmed. I have a small electric heater in my room but my room is big and the heater really isn't enough. I'm all right when I'm in bed covered in blankets but when I'm out of bed, even if I'm wearing a heavy sweater, my feet are cold and my hands are cold and my nose and ears are cold. And he's mad at me for turning on the heat.

I bought a sort of bathrobe/nightgown at work yesterday. It reaches my ankles and it's light blue and made of this very soft fluffy fabric. It zips up the front. It's very warm and nice.

Mom and Dad are moving back into here at the end of the month. I shall suffer them all through the winter. I am thoroughly disgusted by the way Mom treats Dad, constantly screaming at him, saying nasty things behind his back as if he was the worst person in the world, occasionally throwing things at him. If a man treated a woman like that, she'd be inundated with advice and brochures and hotline numbers for domestic violence shelters. But Mom is allowed to do whatever she wants. This is what they mean by the double standard.

I cannot wait till I can escape to the Boyfriend's this weekend. Two more nights of work to go.

I must go to work soon...

2006-10-17T19:54:00.000-05:00

...but first, my weekend.

It was a good weekend. The Boyfriend and I did not fight. W. and I did not fight. We did all three of us get into a disagreement over the usefulness of Occam's Razor, but it was not a fight, just a debate.

I've been smearing moisturizer on several times a day (damn the sting) but it still looks like I'm wearing a pair of red gloves. Ick.

I need to get a better job. I need to go back to school. I need to go to library school. I need to finish my novel, get it published, become famous, move to New York, etc.

Mostly I need to go to work.

Today's question is...

2006-10-14T06:33:00.000-05:00

Why does moisturizer always sting like a BITCH? Working with cardboard so much makes my hands really dry and last night they started aching like the skin was too small and got all red so when I got home I slathered a ton of moisturizer on and for about ten minutes afterwards it felt like my hands were on fire. My hands feel fine now, and look much better too, but damn, that really really hurt. Why does this always happen to me?

I feel a little better than yesterday. Thus far I've had two doses of antibiotic and I've been taking Advil regularly. I took some of my opium cough syrup (I have enough to kill a cow, all of it left over from this past spring) to work with me just in case. I got in trouble for leaving all the meds out in the break room. My boss said I had to put them in my locker cause someone could OD on them or whatnot. The opium I can understand, but who in the world would want to OD on Amoxicillin?

Forgot to tell you, dear reader: The night before last at work, three boys came in and bothered me. They kind of surrounded me and asked a bunch of silly questions and made a nuisance of themselves. I told them to leave me alone and they left, but then they came back and started annoying me again. It seems they were annoying everyone in the store: employees, customers, everybody. I think they were trashed. I don't understand why they weren't kicked out for over two hours. Oh well.

Sick (again)

2006-10-13T18:58:00.000-05:00

Last weekend my nose started running for no reason at all but I thought it was just a hangover symptom or whatnot. My throat's been hurting off an on all week -- allergies, maybe. But my ears began to ache horribly today so I knew I had to take action lest the events of this past spring repeat themselves.

My regular doctor couldn't see me till Tuesday so I went to an urgent care clinic. I have run-of-the-mill putrid throat and was given antibiotics. I feel a bit horrible and don't want to go to work tonight but I've got to go or I won't be paid. I already took a day off for my birthday. I need the money.

After the doctor I stopped by my sister's house and she gave me a bracelet and a purse for my birthday presents. Completely unsuitable. She thinks she can turn me into a girl yet. The day after Robert Cormier died she took me clothes shopping to cheer me up, all the while saying things like "he was an old man" and "it was his time" which, frankly, wasn't comforting even if it was true. She tries, I guess. We did have a fairly decent conversation for once and I snuggled her three dogs and told her about Ronnie and Tory.

It's still unbearably cold in here.

It is unbearably cold in here

2006-10-12T17:45:00.000-05:00

I turned on the heat. Dad hates it when I do that cause of the bill, but it's so incredibly cold. It's only 59 degrees INSIDE THE HOUSE. I cannot live like this.

I have got to get out of here.

Stupid Smirnoff

2006-10-12T06:34:00.000-05:00

I figured I might as well complete my transition to full-blown alcoholism and bought a six-pack of Smirnoff Ice. Not only did it cost almost $10, but I can't get the damn things open! Not without shredding the skin on my hands, anyhow. If I can't open them sober how am I supposed to open them drunk?

I've never told this to anyone

2006-10-11T17:20:00.000-05:00

I've dealt with depression for more or less my entire life -- I believe it began when I nearly drowned and was revived at the age of five -- but things got really, really bad when I was in the seventh grade. Seventh grade was hell. Eighth grade was worse. I ended up having to leave school because I could not handle it. But I digress. A heavy black curtain fell over me in seventh grade and didn't lift for years.

I remember the exact date I first seriously considered killing myself: December 18, 1997. I had just turned twelve years old and I was shivering in my shorts on the cold gym floor waiting for the teacher to take attendance and take our names down for lunch. (If she forgot to take your name down, you didn't get any lunch. This happened to me all too often.) And the idea bloomed in my head like some kind of evil flower that you can't kill.

My parents are the type who don't want Trouble. By trouble I mean noise, excitement, expense, above all gossip. If you keep all the small rules with them, you can break the big ones. You can go mad right in front of them and as long as you do so quietly, they won't notice, or if they do notice they won't really care.

This is what happened to me.

Sometime in February I was discussing my suicidal ideation with an online acquaintance. I don't remember who she was. I don't know her anymore. Anyway, she sent me an email saying she hoped I felt better soon and would not kill myself after all. This email I printed and left lying around the house in plain sight. I don't think you need a Ph.D. in psychology to realize why I did this, though I didn't know myself at the time. My dad found the email and read it and called me to him. He had this kind of hurt, sick expression on his face like a puppy that had got kicked and he asked me if the email was true.

"Yes," I said, thinking now was as good a time as any.

"You want to kill yourself?"

"Yes."

"Like, right now, today?"

"Today and every day for months now," I said wearily, glad to have it off my chest but scared shitless at the same time.

He looked at me for the longest time and didn't say anything, just staring at me uncomprehendingly, and finally I couldn't take it anymore so I got up and ran out of the room. And out of the house. And stayed away till very late, though it was cold and I didn't take my coat. Then I came back home and went to bed and the next morning Dad saw me in the bustle of getting ready for school and whispered, "After school we'll talk."

All through school I worried about the Trouble this would cause. Consequences of disclosure. Expense and noise and people talking and pain for all involved. I felt sick to my stomach all day, worrying about the endless Trouble of it all.

After I got home Dad called me to his room again and asked me, again, if the email was Really and Truly True. I knew what he wanted to hear. I didn't want Trouble any more than he did. I bowed my head and whispered in a very small voice that, no, it wasn't, it was all a joke, I'd been kidding with him all along.

"You shouldn't do that," he said. "You really had me worried for awhile there. You should never tell jokes like that. It's not funny."

I nodded and walked away, wondering why someone could be as smart as my dad and at the same time so blind and so damn stupid.

BIAM Part II

2006-10-10T19:22:00.000-05:00

I've got really fixated on this BIAM thing. It seems to me that the object is to convey the message of the book while keep it as short as humanly possible. Thereby, I revise my Take We Where the Good Times Are:

Tommy: You can't go home again, but you CAN get obscenely drunk.

Why am I so damn special?

2006-10-10T14:14:00.000-05:00

Patty wishes she had conferred with me before writing her book cause I came up with a bunch of things she missed. She flatters me I think.

Books-in-a-minute of Robertical books I have remembered/wrote thus far:

I AM THE CHEESE
Brint: Who killed your parents?
Adam: I can't remember.
Brint: That's too bad, cause you're next.
Adam: I think I'll just go on a bike ride and forget this ever happened. Again.

NOW AND AT THE HOUR
Alph: *dies*

TAKE ME WHERE THE GOOD TIMES ARE
Tommy: They say you can never go home again once you're old and decrepit, but so help me god, I'll prove 'em wrong cause you're only as old as you feel.
*tries to go home again, finds a Scary World Out There, and gets obscenely drunk*
Tommy: Ah well. Better luck next time.

THE RAG AND BONE SHOP
Trent: You killed Alicia.
Jason: No, I didn't.
Trent: Yes, you did.
Jason: No, I didn't.
Trent: Yes, you did.
Jason: No, I didn't.
Trent: Yes, you did.
Jason: Okay, I did.
Brad: Wait! I killed Alicia!
Trent: Oh shit, I'm in trouble.

TUNES FOR BEARS TO DANCE TO
Mr. Hairston: Harry, I want you to smash Mr. Levine's village.
Henry: No.
Mr. Hairston: I will give you some cool rewards if you do.
Henry: The answer is still no.
Mr. Hairston: And if you don't do it, I will make your life a living hell.
Henry: I changed my mind. The answer is yes.
*Henry smashes Mr. Levine's village*
Mr. Hairston: Wonderful! Here are the rewards.
Henry: I don't want your stinking bribes, thanks very much.
*Henry is GOOD and Mr. Hairston is BAD*

Books in a minute

2006-10-09T18:28:00.000-05:00

I sent Patty some books in a minute that I wrote of Robert Cormier books. She loves them. Yoj!

Birthday weekend

2006-10-09T02:37:00.000-05:00

My truck died on the way to Fort Anthony -- the water pump, we think. Dad had to come get me, and the Boyfriend, and together we took the truck to a nearby town and left it, and Dad told me I could drive his car, and the Boyfriend drove me to Fort Anthony.

Ourselves and five of the Boyfriend's friends went to a strip club to celebrate my birthday. I haven't had boobs shoved in my face since I was a little bitty baby but I did not experience any nurturing "mommy" feelings during my five lapdances. One woman had a body like an eleven-year-old, I swear I've never seen breasts so small on a grown woman before. Perhaps she wasn't as grown as strippers are supposed to be, but you can hardly ask that, can you?

I had two gin and tonics, and six Smirnoff Ices. I liked them (the Smirnoff) very much and I think I will favor them in the future. I made intimite acquaintance with the Boyfriend's toilet after we left the club, as I expected.

The next day his mother was busy but his father came over and we had dinner. I did not really have a good time. The restaurant was hosting some kind of party with a lot of screeching screaming small children. If it was up to me I would make a rule that if you have more than three toddlers in the same party at a restaurant, you should be required to rent the whole place, or at least eat in a special soundproof room. After dinner we went across town to check out some cars the Boyfriend is thinking of buying.

Now, I love the Boyfriend's dad but sometimes listening to him trying to have a conversation is excruciating. An example, quoted as closely as I can recall, from the ride, is below. The Boyfriend is referred to as B and his father as F.

B: Don't turn there.
F: Huh?
B: Don't turn there. The turn isn't for another block.
F: Not for another block?
B: Yes. It's at the mall by the Popeye's.
F: At the mall by the Popeye's.
B: And you turn right.
F: I turn right?
B: You turn right.
F: I turn right.

I rest my case here.

The next morning the Boyfriend and I had a big ol' fight about nothing. He's been in a dreadful mood lately because he got rear-ended by an uninsured motorist and messed up his car and he was injured and is in pain and taking Vicodin and Vicodin is deliberately designed to make you feel depressed and irritable. I was also irritable that morning because the Boyfriend is the kind of person who uses his snooze alarm five or six times in a row and it was driving me crazy. Hence we argued. We made up by afternoon.

I went to visit my parents this evening. It was a doozy. We watched V for Vendetta and played with the rats.

Thus far my birthday loot has been a little disappointing -- only one puny gift certificate from Mom and Dad for example, but then again Mom did pay like $500 for my flight to Minneapolis.

But it's been all right.

Finished the Patty book

2006-10-06T06:06:00.000-05:00

It was excellent as I expected, her analyses etc. It made me unbelieveably so hungry. If only there was a food that could ease this hunger, which has stayed with me since I was twelve years old, the first time I ever spoke to him.

My only complaint is that she went into far too much disgusting medical detail about his death. The bit about the gangrene I had not known before, and frankly I Did Not Need To Know, as it filled my mind with numerous Disturbing Images. I'll tell her that too. It's an advanced copy I got, still under advisement. She could eliminate a few sentences there.

I am legal now, woohoo!

2006-10-05T17:21:00.000-05:00

At midnight last night I stopped work for a few minutes and bought a bottle of cheap-ass horrible vodka, because I could. I will label it "first legal liquor" and save it for posterity, hahah. Otherwise it's been a more or less normal day, except my individual parents and the Boyfriend called me and woke me up to wish me happy birthday. The real celebration is this weekend.

Patty's book came in the mail today. I can barely read it, I am so excited.

Other birthday loot thus far includes a $40 Amazon.com gift certificate from my parents. I think my friend in Scotland is planning to PayPal $40 in cash, which should come in handy cause I want to save up money to go visit the Robertical archives in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. I figure I can save $50 a check, or $100 a month. At $100 a month, even if you factor in times when shit comes up and I can't save quite so much, by July I will have like $700 or so -- plenty enough. I looked into establishing a savings account but the stupid bank wants a minimum balance of $300 before they stop charging monthly fees, so I'll keep the saved money in my checking account for now.

And today I purchased the Perfect Amethyst! It meets all my requirements for a Perfect Amethyst: unusual (trillion) cut, good polish and symetry, wonderful deep and dark but not too dark purple color, VVS clarity, and 9.9 carats in size.

Woo.

Birthday

2006-10-04T15:25:00.000-05:00

I am 21 years old tomorrow.

Maybe at midnight tonight, during my work break, I'll buy a beer or something.

I've taken the weekend off from work (Friday, Saturday, Sunday). Friday I go out with the Boyfriend and get plastered, Saturday I go celebrate with his parents, Sunday with my own parents.

I think the best present has been given to me already, in Minneapolis.