And then there was cable Typing this on the little crappy laptop; it was easier to bring this over here to make sure the internet was working then lug my entire pc setup (and desk which wouldn't have fit in the car). So, it's live, we have net and cable. Of course, since it's another county, they couldn't take my damned old dvr box nor modem so now I need to find out where to take it back to on the old side sometime next week. Bah. What a pain the butt 1/2 mile makes. We're just on this side of the new county line which meant new area code (not that we've gotten a new phone number yet...), new power company (and requisite power deposit), and though it's the same cable company, it's totally different between counties. New equiptment, different (more expensive) pricing, etc. Joy.
But...while this place is empty and the guys are packing up the truck on the other side, hey, at least there's cable and internet over here. Heh.
Gotta run. Back to the old place to help out. Just testing things out.
See you on the other side Signed the lease today. Had a roofing nail in our tire from the fuckers putting the roof on last week. Spent two hours at Super Wal-Mart getting a new tire. Thankfully, because of the tire protection/warrenty thingy we bought when we got them in January, the replacement tire was totally free. Thank goodness.
Got the truck early - tonight instead of tomorrow monring at 7am because the 17ft we ordered got wrecked tonight. So we were able to pick up a 14ft this evening. We got it partially packed up tonight and sadly, its going to take two trips. That sucks because (a)we pay per mile and (b)we still have to get it back by 3:30pm
Anyway, gotta go to bed. We're not done yet but we have an early morning tomorrow. I have to get to the new place and wait for the cable to show up (between 8am and 12pm). So, this is it from here. Hopefully, tomorrow the cable and net will be live in the new place and we'll be on our way to getting settled in.
Packing Sucks Yes it does. No matter how much you pack or how long you do it, it doesn't look like anything ever changes or gets done.
I was trying to convince Cy today inbetween boxes that I need Disney Therapy. Since Walt Disney World is generally one of the only times in my life that I actually am able to feel happy, that I need to start a fund. It's a hell of a lot less expensive for an annual pass to WDW then to see a shrink and instead of about two hours of couch time, I'd have 365 days of always-available happy sessions. It is The Happiest Place On Earth afterall.
Joking aside, it does highlight how bad things are. And when I stop and think about it, it really sucks. Not to mention scares the shit out of me. I go my entire day, hour after hour, week into week feeling nothing. And if I do feel something, it's unbearable depression like a black hole swallowing me up. I don't ever feel happy, or joyful or anything like that anymore. Ever. There are brief moments where I don't feel the depression as much, but that's a far cry from actually being happy. I cover with sarcasm and silly jokes, but none of it touches me, nor goes below the surface. It's momentary and for show; for the other person's benefit and so they don't notice how broken I am on the inside. It's just fragmented peices left these days that I don't know how to make work; make function.
Somewhere in my life I used to be happy. And functional. And self-supportive. I was strong and bold and maybe not fearless, but definately not fearful. I lost her somewhere along the way. I don't know who that woman is anymore - not how to find her and not how to be her. Sometimes it feels like she never existed and I've always just been this broken construct. I think for awhile I bought my own act; my own lie. The face I put on for others that says, "Oh nothing's wrong at all!" The one that doesn't immediately show the tattered corners and the cracks around the edges. I think I fooled myself into thinking that the farce was true.
I can't do that anymore. And part of me just wants to run and hide. Plaster silly things like jokes and quizzes and silly commentary here. Avoid the realness of what I feel and what is going on inside me. Hide behind that comfortable mask of joviality like I always do. "Nothing to see here, folks, just the same old show." I think about how I have an "audience" to appease; how I have standards I need to upkeep - apperences that must be maintained for the benefit of those who meander this way. They don't come for the self-pity and the lowly mutters of the seriously, mentally damaged girl, they want the humor and the wit and the snarky comments. They want a moment of a chuckle and to move along. But the question becomes, do I stnad on this stage and write for someone else, or do I write for me?
I think I'm at a point now where I need to write for myself. Which means talking about this stuff. I'm sure I'll cling to the mask still; intersperse pointless and trivial mundane details between these deeper posts. I'm sure I'll try to cater to the crowd (sic) and continue to try to present myself as who people feel I should be, but not always, and not in every post. I need these posts because it's the only outlet I have right now. It's the only way I can get these thoughts out of my head - and hopefully, lose a little of the raw pain they cause me in the process. I feel this desperation to talk to someone; not really a specific person, but to get it out and tell myself someone's listening; someone cares. Even if it's nothing more then them reading my words and saying they're still around. I need someone to validate these words in some small way, not through advice or suggestion so much as just an ear.
I don't know. But this journal will probably slip into a darker period now. After my breakdown the other day, things are just different. I stopped crying (mostly and for the moment) but it's not better. I can't think in terms of what's to come or it overwhelms me. I just try to think about right now, right this moment and getting through it into the very next moment. So, I can't think too far ahead in terms of what I write or don't write here, but right now, in this moment, I feel like it will be more of this. I'm sorry if some of you came here thinking you'd find something - or someone - different, but for once, I'm going to write what I want to write and be who I am, for better or worse. Until I can try to find someone to talk to professionally, I need to get it out somewhere and this is the only outlet I have.
Ramble ramble ramble. I hate that I have the same words running through my head in so many different ways that all just say the same thing and leave me repeating myself over and over long after the points been made.
Anyway, I'm done for tonight. I know that when I go to bed, I'll eventually wake up and it will be tomorrow. And I know in a very impersonal way that it will be Friday, and that we'll be signing the lease and that we have things to get done, but it doesn't feel like it's happening to me so much as it's just an abstract concept. But that's what we'll be doing - that and the seemingly never-ending packing (though again, logically I know it will be over by Saturday morning since we're moving it all Saturday day, but emotionally, it literally feels like standing over a bottomless pit) - and that's where I'll leave off.
eh Having a bad week. A hard week. Emotionally, physically and mentally. And I really just don't want to talk about it. At least not here and not right now. It just sounds hollow and whiney in text and doesn't in the slightest reflect the detph and true nature of my feelings. So, not saying much instead.
Anyway, there's lots to chose from. I just hope some people will opt to make the choice on some of them.
Packing is still pretty non-existant and Friday draws closer. Our partial month's rent is $100 more then I expected which is just the blow I needed and the current manager isn't giving us shit. Literally nothing. Looks like we're going to have to sue, only, let's be honest, we'll never have the money to do it, so we won't and that means people will just continue to fuck us over and get away with it like they always do. Oh yeah and to pour salt in the wounds? The tree they butchered a few months ago, that's right in front of my balcony that had just started to make a good comeback and had new growth and new shoots of green on it? Yeah, I woke to the sound of them cutting it down. They utterly up and killed the tree. For no reason whatsoever. To say that pains me is putting it mildly. We may try to save part of the trunk to carve something from it to honor it's death, but we need to find a saw to do so.
I hate people and I hate life and I'm having an exceptionally hard time dealing with both right now. I had a pretty big breakdown yesterday and not only am I not recovered, but I don't know that I'm going to be without some professional help. There's just so much that's been broken beyond my repair at this point I can't pull myself back together. But, oh yeah, that's right, we don't have money for that either.
I'm just struggling to wake up in the morning and that's about the best I can do. Which is why packing and dealing with the move is just too much for me.
Fuck it, I don't want to talk about this. No one wants to hear it and people have their own shit to deal with, they certainly don't want to deal with mine.
Looks like someone's got a case of the Mundays Yeah I know it's Tuesday, but work with me, ok? I'm really bummed out. Last night three of the first batch of ebay auctions ended. With about two hours to go before they ended, I had to call it a night. Migraine was well underway and I didn't want to deal with it. There were multiple people watching the three pairs of horns. Multiple people each pair. I was sure someone was just waiting for the last minute to save themselves the $3 more that the Buy It Now price was over the list and that they would sell before ending.
Sadly, that wasn't the case. And it really upset me. I work really hard on things like that. It takes me hours of time between making them, curing them, photographing them, uploading them to my pc, formatting the listing and getting it all onto ebay (which I have to pay for). When it's all said and done, I'm not making much for all the hours I put into them, but it's something I can do and something that last year was such a hit, that I really thought I'd have another good year of it. It's unique and original and something I hoped would help us a little this month with things so damned desperate money-wise.
Three really unique and original pairs were liked enough to be watched, but not enough to shell out like $13 for. Which is pretty sad. And it makes me feel really worthless. Like, damn, not only can't I get a call back on dropping off my application at a fucking bookstore for godsake but now people don't even want to buy my horns? I'm out like $10 in ebay costs but I thought I'd make it up. Just seems pointless.
Grumble Well it seems that I'm just not supposed to have a second harddrive and XP. It's not that my system can't handle it - in fact, it's a pretty decent system since it's mostly all Love's pc parts after my original one died. Not the best out there, but damned impressive for me. - it's just that we always run into absurd problems. This time, both harddrives my Love was formatting for me to use as my secondary (one a 40gig and his old primary and the other a 20 gig and his secondary) won't format. They crap out. And for some reason, that ellusive overheating issue creeps up during the format attempts and causes errors and even reboots! Bah. I can run my pc for 12 hours and not run into the problem, but he tries to format a HD and suddenly, poof, there it is. And it's a brand-new, all tricked out case. I think it's just the power either in this room, or in this apartment. I think it's too surgey. There's literally no hardware failure or reason for it.
Anyway, so he just stuck my existing drive in for the moment so I could nose back around the net. He's enjoying himself some new season of Celebrity Poker Showdown, which, while the players can sometimes be amusing, is damned boring to me 'cause I, quite frankly, couldn't care less about poker. Yawn. Watching other people play poker on tv. Ooh, hold me back.
He might take the computer into work tomorrow to test it out there. Keep in mind folks, this is what he does for a living! He actually manages the in-house pc support department and he and his two employees keep over 500 pc's up and running. So it's not like he's clueless, just that weird shit always seems to happen with our upgrade attempts. It's the damndest thing.
I picked up some more of the black-with-silver-glittery clay that sold so well and some really neat metallic red so I'm going to make some more of those to replace the ones that sold. Seems every time I try to get all funky people are like, eh, but when I go kinda basic and bland, they buy it up. Oh well. Heh. Keep in mind some only have ONE DAY LEFT! So now's the time to stop watching them, and start bidding. (Yeah, I see you over there adding it to your watch list!)
What's weird is I don't have to get up and take Love into work tomorrow. They're done with my building's roof. (I'm sure they're moving on to the next one, but hopefully, it will be tolerable.) So I can stay up 'til whenever I want and sleep in. Of course, this is a hella fun week - I have pretty much an entire apartment to pack AND...if that weren't fun enough, it's, ya know, that week. Bah. Cramps and packing - joy.
Alrighty, now that you've had FAR too much information for the night, I'm out for now.
PC Downtime Love's all gung-ho and ready to put in my second hard drive and try to bring my pc up to Win XP. This isn't the first time we tried it - the first time we had an utter and complete failure with my trackball drivers literally bluescreen-of-deathing the moment you tried to move the mouse. This after assurances that WinXP would be more stable and less crash prone then my admittedly horrid install of Win98SE. Oh yeah, my pc is so dated it belongs on VH1's "I Love the 90's."
*clears throat*
But ya know, in my defense, at least I know all the million and one things that make it crash currently. Ya know, so I'm used to what it will and simply won't do. *chuckles* Though lately, it's getting worse and crashing all the time and let's not forget that I currently have...checks...a mere 536megs of empty space left on my hd. Eep. And, tons of fragments of programs I can no longer uninstall. (Bastards) So, putting in a new HD while preserving all my data here and then being able to systematically copy and backup important files - like all my photos - will be a nice thing.
So, when I'm not around all day, that's why. Oh yeah, and we're packing too. Which really needs doing. Six or so boxes so far of some miscallany junk doesn't exactly say, "ready to move in five days." Eep again.
Frustrations Note: If you don't want to read a rant about medical problems, then just do yourself a favor and skip this entry. But I need to vent and since this is my journal, that's where said venting goes.
I live in a world that's always too bright and too loud. I live in a world that's too full of artificial chemicals, food additives and sweetners. I live in a world saturated with perfumes, scents, and dyes. And all of it hurts me.
It's no secret I suffer from migraines. I have since I was about 15 or so. (That puts it at going on about 12 years now.) Migraines aren't just "bad headaches" and fuck you to all the people who think a tylenol fixes the problem. Migraines are a neurological condition in the same family as epilepsy. My brain is literally wired differently from non-migraneurs. I have literal and physical hyper sensitivities within my brain to things which the "normal" person wouldn't even notice. I suffer pain in circumstances where other people can't comprehend. The problem with migraines is multi-layered. They get worse each time you get one. And your very, very limited tolerence to your triggers and sensitivies don't get better, they get worse. I can't "build up" an immunity to my light intolerence; in fact, it will only continue to get worse and worse the more I'm exposed to it.
I live in a world overflowing with flickering fluorescent lights that drive like a jackhammer into my skull. I feel the pulses as they beat over and over into my eyes. The glare and retina-burn I experience in stores in mere moments of being under their horrid, industrial lighting, causing my eyes to alternately dry out or water. And, sometimes, bringing about the immediate onset of a migraine.
I live in a world where the sun hurts me. Both my eyes and my skin. Where my UV sensitivity is such that with anti-glare sunglasses and polarized lenses, I still am developing cataracts in my 20's and am facing continued degredation of my eye sight. Where I actually develop rashes within minutes if I mistakenly used any products with perfumes or dyes in them. And that's before I burn lobster red. There is no tan for me; there's 2nd degree burns (which I've had in as little as 20 minutes outside without sunscreen) where your skin breaks open and bleeds, and there's pale, pale, white. No middle ground. No room for error. I slather my skin in sunscreen. I avoid the burn, but the chemicals and scents and related within even the most "sensitive skin" sunscreen itself cause me to rash. I simply can't win when it comes to going outdoors. Either way, I'll rash or burn.
I live in a world that's too loud. That's painful to sit within. Where there is never enough silence. A world in which I can hear conversations outside, a story down and out into the parking lot, across the way, in other buildings, within other apartments, in people's cars - all of which grates at me and prevents me from obtaining sleep. The sound of my own pc fan is enough to trouble my slumber if I don't first turn it off before heading to bed. (And even then, I hear the noise of the router's high pitched squeal that I have to ignore to keep the internet up for my Love's pc.) I can hear a cough, or a phone ring, or a tv in other rooms. I can't not hear it and it pushes me to a point of insanity; where I want to utterly destroy the source of the sound for the hell it puts me through. (I gleefully envision tearing them to shreds or pounding them into bloody pulp in my frenzied desperation for quiet.) To give to them the pain their rude disruptions cause me and to make them suffer as I do.
I live in a world saturated with chemicals - artificial everything. All of which I'm hyper sensitive to and all of which means I must read labels on my food and my detergents and my shampoos. Switch out my free-of-dye-and-perfume laundry detergent for one that's "Fresh Scent" and watch me break out in a rash. (Double-fold if I go in the sun while wearing clothes washed in said soaps.) Slip me a diet beverage loaded with Aspartame (nutra-sweet), or sucralose (splenda) or saccharin and watch it poison me. Such things are toxic to me and more and more I find myself on the outside looking in at products I can no longer consume, or new products made only with said toxic chemicals. Seven-Up has a new soda which literally does not come in a regular sugar forumla. And it's not the exception these days; it sadly becomes the norm. It used to be that one could obtain - if one wanted - a sugar-free alternative. But more and more it's not even an option. I can buy no gums, or breath mints or such these days as all contain these horrid artificial sweeteners. They trick you and list them under a hundred different names - all of which are hellish for me. And if the sweeteners aren't bad enough, there's "flavor enhancers" such as Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) which are not only known to be harmful to migraineurs, but have toxicity effects in the general public are found in just about every snack item, packaged side dish (such as flavored rices), quick-make meals (hamburger helpers, etc.), spices and bullion cubes and anything generally containing a "cheese" flavor. It's everywhere and if you think the labeling on sweeteners are bad, it's worse with MSG.
I'm hyper light sensitive; I'm hyper noise sensitive; I'm chemically sensitive; I'm food-additive sensitive; I'm sensitive to perfumes and dyes; I'm UV sensitive and my body rejects artificial items in all shapes, sizes and flavors. I'm living in a world that's toxic to me. One that causes me real and physical pain on a daily basis. One which "normal" people can't comphrend and can't understand how I could let such "little things" bother me. (As if I had a choice in my reaction; it's physical and it happens whether or not I know I've consumed or used something to which I'm allergic.) I can't tell you how many times I've eaten something or I've been out and around something which I didn't know was artificial or contained additives and suffered for it. Only later realizing it's yet another thing I must avoid. My world grows more and more narrow and I'm forced to be on the outside of it all and miss out on so much. Things are so fake now - nothing which naturally occurs - and my body rejects more and more of it each passing year. I worry where it will take me all and what I'll do when the more natural options simply aren't there anymore. Sometimes I catch a small break - Frito-Lay makes no-msg Cheetos and Doritos (at the moment at least) which have allowed me to eat them for the first time in a dozen years - but, sadly, with the trend pushing this faux health consciousness, things only degrade. (Something made in a lab is NOT, say it with me now, NOT better for you then something which grows naturally from the ground. We all learned the dangers of margarine - 100% artificial and full of trans-fatty acids - compared to butter - 100% natural - after years of being told how horrid butter was for us. Who knew?
This move into the man-made; this seeming need to consume additive-ladden foods; to live and work in over-lighted buildings; to suffer through noise-polution and deal with chemical toxicity in our daily lives - it kills me. I am battered and bruised by it daily and it feels a silent sentence; no one sees it, no one understands it, and no one accepts the seriousness of it. Those who have hyper sensitivities or chemical sensitivities are thought to be mentally lacking at worst or hypochondriacs at best.
I live in a world that's too bright, too loud, too chemically saturated and it hurts me. And I don't know how to keep enduring it, nor what I'll do a handful of years now where it crosses the point of tolerence. Already it's too much, and it continues to grow. What's left for me when the world becomes too painful for me to endure? What's left then?
I'm just so tired, and worn, and battered from it all.
