Really bummed out right now. Over at a friend's house (have been here most of the day). Getting crap for being online instead of sitting in the other room with my Love and friend watching them play Magic or some movie I don't even want to see (like High Fidelity). He's all pissed off at me that "the internet is more important" then he or my friend...he fails to understand how I spend day after day, week after week, month after month having to wait on everyone else and do whatever anyone else decides to do first before I can even get a chance to sit down and look through my forum or post a journal entry. How it's been now almost six fucking months of being offline and that I spend my days sitting in an apartment (because I can't leave unless someone drives me), with no one to talk to, nothing to do, no tv even to watch (no cable, so we get about 5 fuzzy channels), and no phone to even chat with people (just my cell phone which is again ready to be turned off since I don't have the money to pay for it and one that I have to pay a premium for day minutes anyway). He wonders why I'm moody and withdrawn and why I rather come in here and lose myself for awhile on the computer. I realize I'm at a point in my life where I'm not really used to being around people anymore. I've been living in a state of weird isolation for one reason or another for almost all of this year. Never having been a overly social person to start with, this doesn't leave me in a good place - either emotionally or psychologically. Right about now, I'm feeling like I'm not even part of the world and that beyond my worth as a person to pay bills to faceless and cruel corporations, I'm useless.

Nevermind. I apparently have to leave because my Love has decided that it's time to go and since I have no life or will of my own in these things (let alone the ability to get myself anywhere anymore) I guess me continuing to write my entry will just have to stop. After all, who fucking cares what the loser without a job wants to do anyway? It's not like I'm worth anything or whatever, so fuck it. Why even bother writing this anyway?

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 10/13/2001 10:31:40 PM ~ ~

Ok, quickie update since I got all distracted and had too much fun surfing around that I lost track of time and ended up not noticing that it is now 5pm and my friend is home from his job and is going to drive me back to my apartment.

The Quest for Vision
Well, the day before yesterday (um...Wednesday) I went to the eye doctor with my friend Joolo. We found a place that would do a $29 complete eye exam (as opposed to $55-75 we found at other places like VisionWorks and Lenscrafters). I am officially nearsighted and have a very odd quirk about that nearsightedness. My eyesight is exactly the same in each eye...both eyes have the EXACT perscription as the other. This is apparently unheard of and everyone thinks it's a bit weird. (I, on the other hand, was like, "Oh, you mean that's not normal?") In case it means anything to anyone, my Rx is for -1.75 in each eye. Again, this is garbage to me, but...apparently makes sense to people who know this sort of thing. The really bad thing is that they put these drops in my eyes - and no, not the ones that dialate your eyes - but these other ones that are a numbing agent for your glaucoma test. (so you don't feel the puff of air on your eye and you don't squirm away). Problem is that my eyes watered and watered for like an hour and a half until it wore off. As soon as it wore off, my eyes began to hurt VERY BADLY. Almost like the feeling when I have a migraine (where there is an ice pick in my eyeball) but instead of being in one section (behind the eye), it was all over the eye. My eyeball literally ACHED from about 2pm through 11pm or so. I kept rinsing them out - flushing them with water over and over - to make it stop even for a moment. Apparently, some people are allergic to them (Joolo's friend the Witch - who we went and saw that night - has the same problem which is really odd since it seems that we have an oddly weird amount of things in common) but, I did not know this. Now I need to find out exactly what that shit was and avoid it like the plague. ACK! (did I mention it made me tear yellow too?) Bleck, bleck, and more bleck.

The good news is that I have the Rx and my Love's mom can order me the frames (retail price $139.99, her price $44.95) and can make the lenses for me as well. She says it will take about a week or so for them to come in (which is longer then I was hoping for since I'm desperate for my license, but is WELL worth it for how much it's going to save Joolo). So...within the next two weeks I should have the frames, lenses, and therefore glasses so I can get my license back to legal status. Which leads me to...

See you in Court
My mom calls me over the weekend and says that she got a letter in the mail for me from the Clerk of the Court. She was panicked since I hadn't told her about being pulled over (although I tried to call her a couple times but did not reach her). I explained what it was - the correction notice for the ticket - and had her open it. My new court date is October 29, 2001 at 10am. *sigh* It's a good and bad thing that it's been pushed back a week. Good that I have another week to get my license before I go in, but bad because it's more time to panic about what is going to happen and what in the world I'm going to do about trying to pay more money I don't have. But, right now, I'm trying to not think about it and instead focus on getting my license back to good and of course getting a job...

Interviews and Other Good Things
The day I had gotten pulled over (last Thursday) I had just gotten off my cell phone with a company who wanted to meet me for an interview. It was set for THIS Thursday (yesterday, 10/12) and that was a problem of course because I could not legally drive myself there unless I wanted to risk being arrested. (A big no). Well, it was Joolo to the rescue again. (Just FYI, Joolo works 3, 12-hour days which is why he had the time during the week) He drove over to my apt, picked me up, and then drove me to my interview in my car since his insurance would cover him. Happy to report that we did not get pulled over at all and not only did I make it to the one interview (which went well and which I will know in two weeks if I got it...although she said they had 200 applicants which they narrowed down to 8 and then to 4 that they interviewed...that made me feel good and worthy) but another that I scheduled that very day as I was getting ready for the first. They both went well, but seeing as I did not hear from the second one today and he wanted to start the person Monday (10/15/01) I'm pretty sure he went with someone else. It also looks like I may have a temp job for the next two weeks, but with the inability to drive legally...I'm not sure if I'm going to do it. At least there's finally SOMETHING going on...

The Rest
Beyond that....? I'm still half up, half down with my mood. It's all over the place. At least with getting something accomplished with the glasses it keeps me from being utterly hopeless. I'm still completely helpless for my car payment this month - $319.74 due on the 22nd. There is simply no way I have the money (or anything even close) and since I'm still running two months behind, if I were to miss this one (even by a day) I'll lose my car. I can not be three months behind and it leaves me in a position where I again just don't what to do...

But...since I need to go and have been typing for about 45 minutes, this is where I will close. More maybe this weekend if I get back over here to use the net. Out for now.

ps: Rand is being mean and taking bad pictures of me as I type this with his digital camera. Ick! No....!

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 10/12/2001 05:51:41 PM ~ ~

Wow. Just nozing around online (in a rare and wonderful moment) and while reading Orb's log, I noticed a link to a post by her friend zer0n0de. So, I follow the link to read what she mentioned and low-and-behold, there was a way cool link back here to my own little journal. Thanks, zer0n0de! (I went ahead and returned the favor, so go check his blog out - it's got a great design - enough to make me jealous! *grins*

I'll post more in a bit, but right now, I'm enjoying surfing...ta for now.
-m

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 10/12/2001 02:24:38 PM ~ ~

So it finally happened. Knew it was going to eventually...just thought that I'd be able to get away with it. I've posted it before, but for anyone who doesn't know, my license is expired. It has been since my birthday (May 16th)...of last year. Yes, it expired 5/16/2000. Why have I not gone and renewed it? Well...my eyesite is just slightly bad enough that I can't pass the eye test. (I can't see distance things like I used to - last time I had my eyes checked I was like 12. My vision was 20/05 ! That's so much better then the "perfect" of 20/20 that it meant I could see anything I wanted, to any distance.) Now though...well, it's just gotten all soft and blurry. Which pisses me off since my Mom didn't need glasses until she was like 50 and even then, only for reading. Grr. Damn eyes. So...I never had the money for glasses and I've never had vision insurance, so it's just been put off and put off and put off. I kept saying that as soon as I had the money, I'd get it done...just go bite the bullet and get a pair of glasses so I could pass the eye test you have to take upon license renewal. But, it's just been one thing after another with me, my health, my jobs, my relationship, my car, my bills, my cat, etc that I've never had that much money at once to get it done. (nor have I had the money to put aside and save up to it) In the meantime, I just kept doing what I had to do which included driving several hours (and a couple hundred miles) a week to jobs, to Gainesville, to everything all the while with a useless piece of plastic where my valid license should be.

This brings us to Thursday. I had gone over to my friend's house to use his RoadRunner and his fax machine to send out some resumes. I'm on my way back, having just gotten off the phone (I have an interview this Thursday!) and all of about a mile from my apt when a white car moves over from the middle lane to the right lane behind me and turns on it's lights. This is the point at which I just about throw up. I'm shaking and trembling as I move to pull over... see, not only is my license expired, but all this summer (since I've not been able to get a job) I've had no insurance on my car. I know I'm just fucked at this point and I am pretty much crying when he comes to the window. He says he ran my tags and it said the registered owner of the car had no valid license. I swallow, look at him and nod. He asks for my license and registration - but NOT my insurance! - and I hand them to him. He sees my license and says, "This says it's expired too." I start just babbling at him...words spilling out how I just barely can't pass the test, how I've had the worst of times, that I lost my job, was sick, my boyfriend had broken up with me, I lost my apartment, how I had to move in with my family and how I've just not had enough money to get to the eye doctor. I take a shuddering breath and he gives me this sad, sad look and says how he's sorry this all happened but that while he believes me and would like to just let me go, he'd have to explain to a judge why he let someone with a license expired 1 1/2 years go with a citation. I say I understand...still teary eyed and scared. He says that what's going to happen is that he's got to write me a ticket, that this is technically a criminal offense - he could take me to jail right then and there - and I'll have to see a judge and talk to them and explain why I've been unable to get this done. He says it will be up to the Judge to decide what my fine and/or community service will be but that if I can bring paperwork or friends with me to support the problems I've had, that it problably won't be so bad. He tells me to sit tight and goes back to his car. When he comes back with the ticket, he tells me that technically, he's supposed to take my license from me as well, but that since it's probably my only form of ID (which it is) he's not going to compound my problem. All-in-all he was really nice and I got off really easy, but....

Now I can't drive at all. Problem is that while yes, I did drive for a year and a half without problem, since I've already been caught and assigned a court date, if I'm pulled over again, they can not only give me another court date, but the cop doesn't have to be as nice and could do anything from cite me for no insurance to take me to jail. This is bad because I have an interview on Thursday of this week and I NEED to go to it, but am terrified of being pulled over again. You know how it is, once you're "tagged" that's it - it's like blood in the water for sharks. They just find you over and over. Grr..... Today, the only reason I'm here at all is that my friend drove over to pick me up. Otherwise, I'd not have been able to come over. *sigh* What else is bad is that the date he gave me was October 20th. In case you don't have a calander around, that's a Saturday. They don't have court on Saturdays. So when I called the clerk of the court, they said I'd have to wait like 5-10 days for them to get the paperwork from the Officer, process it, and issue me a new date. I told her that there's now way I want to miss my date if they change it and I don't know the new date, because if you miss it, they issue you a warrent for your arrest. She assured me that they would make it for sometime after the date the Officer assigned, but still...we're talking about jail here! I've never been and have no plans on starting now. Dammit, I'm terrified of small spaces and that would just kill me. So NO...I don't want to piss off the County any more.

But! The good news is that my friend Joolo has offered to give me the money to get my eyes checked and buy me some glasses. It's not that he has the money to do it, but he knows how important this is and how much I've had to borrow money from so many other people already that I just can't borrow any more. We're looking to go probably tomorrow, so hopefully I can get my license renewed not only before my whenever-they-decide-to-make-it court date, but also before my interview Thursday. (one down anyway...only insurance to go...) Also, my Love's mom actually does optical stuff for a living and is going to see how much it will be for me to get frames through her. (They get a large discount off the "retail" price). Yesterday, I stopped in an eye place in the mall and tried on frames ("No, I don't need help...") I found two I liked and gave the item information to her so she can check the price difference for me. *fingers crossed* I hope it's cheap enough that poor Joolo isn't out more then a hundred or so bucks. It's nice of him to do this for me at all and I certainly don't want to take every penny he's got this week...

Let's see...what else...? Well...not much really. Just been sitting around, bored, broke, and getting pretty desperate throughout it all. Except for the fact that I was just offered what amounts to "stale toast" by my friend Rand. Um, that's going to be a no...don't ask, it's some weird Dutch thing apparently. *smirks* Well, my Love, Rand, and I went out to eat yesterday and all ended up sick last night (and still with a rather unhappy stomach today). We think it must have been the Stake N Shake since we all ate it and all puked that night. Joy... it's the only reason he was able to come and pick me up anyway, he took off work from being sick all night. I hate food poisoning....I hate upset stomachs and I HATE puking. Luckily, my natural do-anything-to-keep-from-puking talent meant I didn't barf, but I've been having horrible stomach pains and other fun stuff like that. (more then you needed to know I'm sure)

Boy, I remember as I was falling asleep last night thinking of the things that I was going to include in my journal when I next wrote it but how I also NEVER remember anything the next day that I think about in those times. It sucks. So, since that's about all I can think of, I'll close for now. Need to get to faxing stuff anyway...take care all and be well. (and no puking)

~ flowers bloom near Memory and Dream at 10/8/2001 02:56:35 PM ~ ~