SugarHigh Times

8:14pm: It's funny how random the memories are that come back at the strangest times.

My freshman year of college, I spent a lot of time in Jeremy's room. He was on the first floor of his dorm and he faced the Carrier Dome, so there were constantly people walking by. This was when smoking was still allowed in the dorms so the windows were always open to ventilate. Even in the dead of winter in Syracuse, it seemed like our windows were always open. Actually, the heaters were so powerful we probably had to have the windows open.

We got to hear a lot of strange snippets of conversation but I couldn't remember any of them until just now, when one came back to me.

It was one of those cold nights. A lot of comparisons were made, like "Cold as a bitch" and "cold as a witch's tit" and such. I'd heard them all before, but then suddenly there was a new one. It may have been said quietly amongst friends, but I remember it as being shouted from the dome.

"It's cold as my mother!"

7:14pm: On Monday in Advanced Comp, we did this word association thing that is apparently meant for brainstorming but has never worked for me. I started with the word 'sparkle' and moved out from there. One branch went to Bleach (the anime, not the chemical) and bounced around japanese pop culture before reaching the word 'biscuits'. From 'biscuits' there was a glimmer of 'british' which was immediately eclipsed by 'Veruca Salt'. From there it traveled into the depths of David Bowie and Family Guy. When we then had to write about one of our branches, I chose Veruca Salt. I wrote about how I, too, wanted a squirrel. I also want to pronounce 'squirrel' like British people do. The only problem with this was that when I wrote 'Veruca Salt' initially, I was referring to the band. There wasn't anything I could think of to write at the time, so the whole "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" thing was a cop-out. But now I've figured out what I want to say:

It is common knowledge that I sing along to the radio, very poorly and very loudly. It's okay because I almost never have anyone in the car with me. Veruca Salt is an excellent band to listen to for various reasons, but mostly because in the middle of "Earthcrosser" I get scream the line, "Where's my lipgloss?" If I was a superhero, that would be my battlecry. If I was a Superhero, my Superhero name would be Li'l Pomade, my battlecry would be, "Lipgloss!" and my hair would be really spikey with bells on the end, like Kenpachi in Bleach. Okay, why the hell does Kenpachi have bells in his hair? He is the captain of the battle squad. I know he is in no way ninja and is totally brute force but seriously, there's only one reason to wear a bell. It's to give someone else the ability to track you. We do it to the cats all the time.

If I was a Superhero, I'd have Kenpachi's hair, Yachiru's disposition and Rangiku's....figure. Really, I have all but the bells already. And my battlecry would be, "Lipgloss!"

It's not a fantastic accomplishment, but I'm really hapy to announce I just downloaded "Starchild." I am awesome.

10:00am: kawaii
Emily brought me a pencil case. Kawaii, desu ne! Today I am full of love for Emily! It also contained a happy sparkly mechanical pencil, several regular but festively designed pencils, these bizarre caps whose only purpose I can find is to make the pencils even more kawaii, a note pad, a strawberry scented eraser and mint scented stickers in a tooth theme. Also, she gave me a larger notepad that features Tobakko-san (Mr. Tobacco, a pack of cigarettes) and his adventures. At the bottom of one page is an itty bitty Edamame-san (Mr. Soybean) and I'm not sure why. Arigatoo, Emi-chan!

9:55am: Edgar
I was having an algae problem in my bala tank so we decided to combine forces with the surviving members of the death tank. The blue fish, who I totally thought had died a month ago with everyone else (thankfully someone else was feeding him) acclimated well and now schools with Liza and Louise--which is by all accounts a bizarre sight--and Edgar moved in with Henry Winkler. The snail is, understandably, pissed. He didn't move for three days and I had to poke him with a stick. Actually, he's looking kind of dead right now. I should go poke him. I wish I knew how I could tell if a snail was dead without poking him.

9:50pm: We hired a new girl at the store. I'm not sure if I mentioned this in a previous entry, but she's the one that's a level 2 Master Knitter. It turns out she's totally cool though, and when she did mention the master knitter thing, she described it as a kung fu skill, which totally worked for me. She also reminds me of a girl I worked with at Pita Pit, Kelly. They're very similar in personality, appearances and sexual preferences.

She also reminded me of a funny Kelly story. At Pita Pit, we also had this guy named Tyson. One day Lauren and I were looking for our pay checks and discovered that Tyson's first name was actually Kelly. We then realized that if he married Kelly, they would be Kelly and Kelly Tyson and how fun is that? When we confronted Tyson about it, he told us it was actually payroll's fault, his name was Tyson Kelly and they just hadn't fixed it yet. Since the bank hadn't noticed, he never bothered to pursue the issue. We were appeased with the knowledge that if Tyson and Kelly ever got married, they'd be Tyson and Kelly Kelly. Like Julia Gulia, even better.

We also used to make balloons with the latex gloves. We'd put faces on them and draw caption bubbles with bad puns, like "I glove pitas!" and "I hope our tips aren't pita-ful!" I put a bottle cap in one and wrote, "I'm cappy to be here!" Sometimes we'd make a bunch of them and let them float around the store all night.

Waiting in the drive-thru lane at Dover Burger King is like death. I don't know how so, as I've never died, I just know that if I go to hell, that will be mine. Just like that play, you know, the one where everyone's dead and their personal hell is being stuck in the room with the other people they're with. Mine would be the drive-thru lane at Dover Burger King.

People who work at K-Mart know what I'm talking about. I don't know what it is about K-Mart, but every time I walk into one, it's like an emotional black hole. Walmart's so chipper, with their door greeters and their strange but affable checkout girls. And Target's so colorful and sparkly and insistant that everyone should have their credit card but in a good way. They will track you down in the aisles trying to get you to sign up for that thing. It's like a big fluffy pit of vegetarian lions. Pretty and scary and harmless all at the same time. But K-Mart, man, K-Mart is frightening. Ghetto Dover K-Mart, doubly so.

Why don't Dover K-Mart and Walmart ever get renovated? I worry about getting shivved whenever I have to go to either of them.

12:36am: I may have come down a little harsh on Li'l John in my last entry, so I just wanted to clarify something: I firmly believe that any song is made better by the inclusion of Li'l John. I'm serious. If I'm listening to 103.9 and I hear a song I don't know, I'm uneasy unless a hear a familiar "yeah" or "okay" or "skeet skeet skeet" in the background. When I'm searching for a song and several versions of it come up, I select the "remix feat. Li'l John." I've never been unhappy with the results. "Goodies feat. Li'l John" was awesome. Even television shows are better with Li'l John; just look at Chappelle's Show. I could watch the Li'l John skits over and over again. The only skit I liked better than Li'l John at the doctor's office was the one where current Li'l John calls Li'l John from ten years ago.

Okay, that's a lie. My favorite skit from Chappelle's Show was Samuel Jackson Beer. "No I can't stop yelling, this is just the way I talk! Haven't you seen my movies?!" I just downloaded it so I could watch it all over again (for the millionth time).

Before writing this song, I ran a search because I wasn't sure of the position of the apostrophe in "Li'l". I mean, after the i was the logical place but logic rarely applies anymore. I went to the Billboard 100, figuring he had to be listed somewhere, but they don't use apostrophes. I did, however, discover that there is an artist called Li'l Peanut. If I was a rapper, I think I'd go by Li'l Pomade. Pomade's a fun word.

In one episode of Chappelle's Show, Chappelle discusses the term "skeet." When Jake bought the season on DVD, he mentioned his pride in already knowing what the word meant. In typical me fashion, I went along with it, but later looked it up online. According to the Urban Dictionary,

"s'keet- n: ejaculate, often heard in hip hop tunes, pronounce it twice fast: s'Keet s'Keet!"

*sigh*

I think everything I've ever looked up online has had that definition.

12:35pm: Sugar Magnolia
The other day Kenna showed me the video for "Grillz" by Nelly.
... ...
...
You know, I just don't know what to say about that. I mean... hmph... what... okay, I accepted "Air Force Ones." It's a song about shoes but hell, I have some shoes I'd like to sing about. Things got a little out of control with "Air Force Ones" but right down in the girl core of me, I can relate.

But now a grill is...a gold mouth guard? Why? Why does this exist? What is the purpose? Did Li'l John do this? I'm okay with the crunk cup, you know, historically I'm sure the romans and egyptians had crunk cups beyond L'il John's wildest imagination. But why these 'grillz'? And what on earth are those ladies doing in the background of the video? That is totally unnecessary.

From now on, I will be using the term 'grillz' to describe grilled cheese sandwiches.

After watching the video, Kenna also showed me the "Net is For Porn" video made from World of Warcraft clips. This provoked me to make a video for "Liza & Louise" by NoFX using Sims clips. You can see it here:

http://thesims2.ea.com/sims2_userdata/67/2237767/movie_NoFX-LizaAndLouise.wmv

It's really big, I'm sorry. I'm going to compress it tonight.

I really like other people's magnolias. They're fabulous trees and they're not making a mess of my driveway.

11:34pm: Chewbacca Defense
There's an episode of South Park where it's discovered that Alanis Morisette remakes one of Chef's old songs without his knowledge. He doesn't want any royalties from her success with it, but decides to sue her to at least get credited for writing the song. The record label gets Johnny Cochran to be their defense attorney and they end up countersuing Chef for slander. (libel? I can never remember which is which. I think slander's right.) Johnny Cochran gets up with a projection screen, the lights dim, and an image of Chewbacca from Star Wars appears on the screen. His speech goes something like this: "This is Chewbacca. He is a wookie. Chewbacca lives on Endor with the Ewoks. That does not make sense. If that does not make sense, Chef is guilty." Chef is unanimously found guilty and, unable to pay whatever astronomical he is charged, he goes to jail. The boys start a fundraiser and, with the help of Elton John, Meatloaf, Ozzy Osbourne and, I believe, Primus, they get enough money to the pay the record company. Chef decides to use the money to hire Johnny Cochran and places a counter(counter)suit on the record company. Cochran uses the "Chewbacca Defense" again, this time at the end of it pulling out a monkey and saying, "Look at the monkey, look at the monkey!" (causing one of the jurors' heads to explode) and Chef wins.

I equate my journal entries to the Chewbacca Defense. Sometime I even say, "Look at the monkey, look at the monkey!"

8:02pm: Speaking of what I do to keep my mind occupied during the daily commute to Dover, does anyone else ever have dreams that incorporate really mundane details of their lives and a bizarre, random event blended together into something completely disturbing?

I like to get a couple books on tape out every month from the library. I don't enjoy them any more than music or anything like that, it's just nice to not have to think about what I want to listen to for a couple days. It's nice to already know what to do when the CD ends, you know? Just put the next one in.

The one I'm currently listening to is a novel about evolution theory. It's not the most exciting thing ever but compared to Left Behind, my last selection, this thing is...you know, I'm really not good at metaphors. If someone gave me a list of options to choose from, a could totally answer the statement, "Darwin's Radio is to Left Behind as ___________ is to ____________," but I just can't think of anything. Let's just say I really hated Left Behind, and Darwin's Radio, while not particularly thrilling, is at least palatable. It's very sciencey, at any rate, and I find the concept of a major evolutionary shift within a single generation disturbingly exciting--I want gentically superior babies, dammit!--so I've been enjoying it.

And then there was a sex scene. Now, sex does happen occasionally, even in books on tape. But I have to say, it's normally abridged and I like that. I like the whole "she slowly unbuttoned her shirt as he reached for-- hey! look at that squirrel! what is that squirrel doing? my, but he's a peculiar squirrel! maybe we should go back to the protagonists now--and they fell asleep in each other's arms, quite satisfied with themselves" thing. I'm not stupid, I know what was happening while the squirrel was juggling water balloons, but I'm glad the squirrel was there because the specific details of my protagonists' sex life is not my concern. And let me tell you something, authors of america, if you absolutely have to include the entire encounter in the story--if there's a mid-coital murder or whatever--then metaphors and inuendos are really the right paths. If you can't find a good metaphor to describe something, just drop it. And under no circumstances describe to me the woman's...grooming habits would be the best way to say it, I think.

So I'm driving down Route 1, listening to my tape, everything's happy, they're gonna end up together, doo da doo, and suddenly things are going horribly wrong and I'm thinking I should just skip to the next section but I'm holding out hope for the juggling squirrel and then it's all over and the guy's thinking about how his last girlfriend was better but it wasn't really fair to compare a viral biologist to a mountain climber and the mountain climber was dead anyway. And I put the CD back in its case and was done with this story forever. I don't care how it ends. It was just way, WAY WAY tmi.

So then I had a dream that I worked as book-on-tape reader and somehow ended up doing a trashy romance novel and it was a total nightmare, literally. And Ron Jeremy was in the dream, I think because I'd just watched some of his season of Surreal Life. In fact, I'll say that's definitely why he was there, as I did think, at one point, "Why couldn't it have been Vanilla Ice. I've got clones of him everywhere."

I don't know where my Vanilla Ice DNA sample/water bottle is. I know I didn't throw it out b/c we all took it so seriously when he gave it to me at the concert. "I touched Vanilla Ice. And he gave me a water bottle. This bottle was drunk from by Vanilla Ice." "Oooh." "We can harvest DNA from this and clone him. Then, through in vitro fertilization, I can give birth to Vanilla Ice. And I can be as gods." "Ahhh."

What's really disturbing is that conversation actually happened.

7:11pm: On our way home from Florida, I took over driving after we crossed the Bridge-Tunnel. This was perfect for me, as I've been known to have panic attacks while driving across long bridges, one can only guess what might happen with me driving though an underwater tunnel, and I'm a much happier driver on native soil. By taking over the wheel, I also had radio control. As I drove away from the little post-bridge rest area, I hit 'scan' and stumbled across some mid-90's Janet Jackson, "That's the Way Love Goes," I believe. The station followed it with The Beatles, Duran Duran, that American Idol kid that's doing okay at country and REM's Andy Kauffman song. There were no DJs yapping away, sparce commercials, and the signal was clear all the way home, maybe three hours away. This station was awesome. It was like my WinAmp playlist. I could have soundtracked my life to this station. They played everything and didn't care how bad or unpopular the songs were. As an added bonus, there was just enough bubble gum to make me happy without getting out of control. Less New Edition, more Bobby Brown...less crack.

Unfortunately, the signal dies in Milford, rendering it useless for my daily commute to Dover. I mean, I guess I could listen until Milford, but then I'd have to deal with the crushing disappointment of losing reception in the middle of "White Wedding" and having to sing it all by myself and let's face it: no matter how much I talk the big talk, I sound nothing like Billy Idol.

So I was listening to it today on my work and discovered it's just like my playlist--it sometimes repeats itself. I got to hear the Andy Kaufman song again. I hated it when it was popular but I gotta say, I'm old enough to admit that I'm no longer too cool for REM. And I never understood Weezer.

I'm sorry, they just didn't do it for me. And my brother's Iron Maiden posters gave me nightmares that made me throw up, ruining every Christmas that we had company spending the night, forcing me to sleep in my brother's room. My mother always blamed it on my drinking too much eggnog but it wasn't, it was those goddamn posters. I mean, seriously, what the hell was up with those posters? They were all black-lighty and neon with, like, heads on pikes and, frikkin, devil orgies or something, I don't know. If I ever found them in the attic, I would set them on fire and then dance in the ashes while chanting...I don't know, probably that REM song. Not the Andy Kaufman one, the whiney one with the traffic jam video. You know the one I'm talking about.

Oh, so anyway, I was listening to that station today and it turns out their letter designation thing--the call letters?--is WKHI. The reason I bring this up is when I first moved here, back in '92, the radio station I listened to was "The New KHI." I'm not sure what it was before, but I recall there being a lot of Metallica, Aerosmith (this was the Alicia Silverstone video phase), Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and probably some Weezer. They changed their name to something else back in high school (WOSC, I believe, unless I'm thinking of the wrong station) and they still exist (95.9 for anyone in the area who's curious). I don't listen to them much anymore, but there aren't a lot of radio stations around here so they have a button on my radio. I don't know the names of most of the artists they play, but I do know they're Nickelback heavy. I don't really know anything about the inner workings of radio stations, but now I'm curious about the connection between this new radio station and the old "New KHI".

11:03am: S&G 101
I think I've figured out my problem with poetry: I don't understand it. Okay, I guess that's old news. But I figured out that what I really need is not to be flooded with really complicated poetry with the hopes that some of it will sink in before I sink in it; what I really need is a Poetry For Dummies class. Something like Simon & Garfunkel. You know, where there's a whole lot of metaphor so when you figure it out, you feel like you deserve a cookie, but really, a half-retarded monkey could figure out the point. I could kick ass at a Simon & Garfunkel class. Plus, if you come up with something really complicated and totally wrong and the teacher calls you out on it, you can just be like, "Dude, do you know how high they were when they wrote this? They could have been singing about raspberry-flavored doorknobs for all we really know.

Actually, I never really put Simon & Garfunkel into the whole drug scene. They must have been on something, the music is way too fruity and yet wrought with meaning for them to be sober, but I think my brain automatically connects Paul Simon to Chevy Chase and the "You Can Call Me Al" video from when I was little and unaware of what was really going on. So Art Garfunkel is connected vicariously to the "You Can Call Me Al" video and no mention of Scarborough Fair.

1:05pm: Myers-Briggs
It's been awhile since I did a Myers-Briggs analysis and I feel I've changed considerably, so I went ahead and did it again.

I'm still an iNTj. What's awesome about being an iNTj is that they're referred to as "Masterminds". Ayn Rand, Ulysses S. Grant and Dwight Eisenhower were iNTjs. I'm not sure of anything Grant or Eisenhower did--I guess I'm not as good an American as I thought--but they were both presidents and Ayn Rand's books are large and plentiful and mind-numbing, so she must be awesome. I'm a solid iNT, a little shaky on the j, so if I wasn't an iNTj, I'd be an iNTp, the "Architect". I'm glad I'm a "Mastermind" as opposed to an "Architect" but Einstein and Curie were both iNTp's. I want to be an Einstein :-( I was surprised to see that multiple presidents were iNTj's, what with the whole introvert thing. I'm betting most presidents were eNTj's, like Margaret Thatcher and Bill Gates. Really, the list of famous iNTj's is kind of lame. And I read somewhere that most serial killers are iNTj. But we're called "Masterminds" so it all works out.

The complete opposite of me is the eSfP, the "Performer". Elvis Presley and Liz Taylor are both in this category. I think I'm glad not to be a "Performer".

One website says both Hannibal Lecter and Clarice Starling from Silence of the Lambs are iNTj. Hmm.

12:20pm: It's a two-story.

12:19pm: hwhome1
The tank was looking a little barren; I don't know why all the tanks at the pet store appear so happy and busy and no matter how much crap I add to mine, they always look empty. Actually, it's probably because pet store tanks are over populated. I bet if I threw a herd of platies in, my tank would look all happy/busy, too. Also, Liza and Louise are spoiled brats. I had to give them flakes this morning instead of bloodworms and they refused to eat them. Hopefully Henry Winkler will get to the flakes before the ammonia levels spike.

Anyways, I bought a little cave so Liza and Louise could have a happy little playground, since they were totally uninterested in the plastic plant forest. They completely ignored the new cave (brats) but Henry Winkler found a new home.

11:34pm: I was at the mall with Terrance the other day, as is our usual haunt after class, although I have on occasion dragged him to the craft store and once been dragged by him to the beauty supply store, and apparently was called a "trashy nigger lover" by a couple leaving the EB Games with their two children.

I've been called many derogatory (derrogatory? damn you, lack of spell check!) terms in the past, most rightfully so, but this was a new one. Under the circumstances, this was a wildly inaccurate description. Despite his best (and simultaneously most laughable) efforts, Terrance has received no loving of me. True, I have been guilty of "nigger loving" in the past, but I've never been spoken of poorly for it. Certainly if someone has the right to say it, it's not some redneck asshole at the video game store.

Terrance was the one that heard it. He didn't want to tell me at first, but I prodded it out of him. Then I laughed. It's possible I was really angry about it, but the therapist says that rage causes my brain to produce excessive endorphins...or something...and I react joyously. I probably should have mentioned that to Terrance, but it was too funny. And c'mon, already, there must be a more creative term than "trashy nigger lover".

I shared the story at home and Matt told me he'd heard of black guys making things like this up to test the waters with white women. I'm not sure how all that's supposed to work or of the legitimacy of Matt's claim, but Matt said it was ingenious and if he was black, he'd totally try it. I'm concerned I might have reacted incorrectly--how the hell is a girl supposed to respond to that which would give a guy some measurement of her feelings on the subject?--but Kenna assured me that my response was neutral.

4:15pm: Do the Humpty Hump
Camels are awesome. If I had to be a beast of burden, I'd want to be a camel. They have multiple eyelids, their noses close, and they have humps on their backs. Not bad-back humps, cool humps, sometimes multiple. Dr. Suess wrote about a seven hump Wump in One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and all the Wump really was was a seven-hump camel. I'd be happy with two, though.

...Maybe I don't want to be a camel. I hate sand. It's the tragic flaw of living in a beach house. What I do think would be awesome, though, is if people could do with sleep what camels do with water. We should be able to store sleep somewhere and use it later, when we need it. Honestly, what's the point in sleeping fifteen hours if you can't pull an all-nighter the next night? I used to pull all-nighters all the time. I didn't even have good reasons for them. It was always something retarded like wanting to watch MST3K at 7AM and not having a blank tape to record it on or getting off work at 5AM and thinking, "Fuck, I'm already half-way there, and I can catch yoga on Oxygen in an hour," or that philosophy exam. Who the hell studies for a philosophy exam? I would have gotten an A on that exam on a crack binge. In fact, I may have done even better if I was on crack. There must have been something else I was studying for that night. It is inconceivable that I spent an entire night teaching myself how not to think. What if there was a pre-set number of all-nighters my body was willing to pull and I wasted one on a philosophy exam? Bah!

Now I'm bitchy if I get less than 7 hours of sleep and I wake up at 9AM regardless of when I go to sleep. If I'm unhappy at 9--and I am, I don't care that the rest of my house gets up at 6, God gave us electricity so we wouldn't have to worry anymore about wasting daylight--I can go back to sleep, but really, how freaking irritating is that? If I don't have to get up until noon, I do not want to have to open one eye and fumble around for my cell phone just to verify that it is, once again, 9AM and I don't have to be up for three hours.

I guess I could try going to bed earlier. I don't know why I have to stay up so late; I quit drinking ages ago. I realized on Friday that there is nothing you can do with friends after 8:00 that doesn't involve drinking. Honestly, I worry about getting pulled over for drinking and driving if I swerve to miss a squirrel after 10:00. And you know, I never worried about getting pulled over when I used to drink and drive. Hell, we trained for it. Screw giving the alphabet backwards; give me a fifth and I could give you square roots of four digit numbers. If I put half the effort into school work that I put into killing my brain, I would have been a god. A god among camels.

You know what would be awesome about storing sleep in humps like a camel? One third of America would no longer be fat. They'd be well-rested.

10:47pm: Welcome to the family!
Now that Matt's moved out of the basement, I have the room all to myself. I've replaced the futon with a recliner loveseat and a bed, made new and attractive curtains (which I immediately melted a section of with the iron, one curtain is a gorgeous India-inspired silk with a big leopard print flannel patch) and hung some of my old artwork. I've also added a fish tank!

I know the house has had horrible luck with fish but this is a new tank with new, fun rocks and new filters so hopefully things will go better this time. I also have a new digital camera so I can show off my new pets--so I'd like to introduce you all to my bala sharks, Liza and Louise, and my gold snail, Henry Winkler.

Those who don't get the reference have criticized me for giving both bala sharks girl names. Liza's had enough of men (she says she won't get burned again). Then she met a girl named Lou who convinced her to go home with her, so it all works out. I don't know why I named the snail Henry Winkler, but he's the fastest moving snail I have ever seen. I don't think the Fonz was known for his speed, but, you know, I don't think Henry Winkler cares that he was poorly named.

I have to feed the girls frozen bloodworms. It's disgusting. I think it wouldn't be so bad if the bloodworm cubes were smaller, but these cubes have to be cut in half...by me. Yech. And then I have to melt them in a cup of water. I guess they're girly sharks. They're happy with the bloodworms, though, so I'm dealing okay.

1:35am: For as long as I can remember, I've had a problem with my dreams. It may not sound like a big deal, but I have really mundane dreams. It wouldn't be so bad, I guess, except that they're so mundane that sometimes they blur with reality. I'm not crazy or anything--or that's not the evidence that I'm crazy, at any rate--but sometimes I'll dream about doing homework assignments, buying cigarettes, paying bills, stuff like that. Then the next day, I'll think I already did this stuff and...things go horribly wrong. For several years I was in the habit of checking and rechecking to make sure that I actually did everything I was supposed to do, but I've been bad about checking lately.

Tim stopped by the store today and thankfully he did, because last night I left a message telling him to call me ASAP; I needed to buy a wedding gift for Kelly and wanted to know if I should buy for the both of us. I then had a dream that he called me back and agreed to the plan, so this morning I went ahead and ordered an expensive duvet cover. It was clear from Tim's visit to the store that I had dreamt up his confirmation, but he was cool with the plan so it worked out.

While he was visiting, I took the opportunity to attack him about his plans for Florida. Dad must have laid into him pretty well because he admitted he'd fibbed about having to work and would now be taking the trip with us and was as pissed about it as I was. To make small talk, I mentioned how I had no idea what was going on with "that crazy-ass bitch".

I admit, I used that particular phrase to test the water. If I had called my mother a "crazy-ass bitch" a year ago, Tim would have totally flipped out on me.

He said, "Dude, I don't know but she hates dad."

I pointed out that she hates me as well and he confirmed that he was also hated by her.

I'm dying to find out if he's done something recently to earn mom's hatred or if this is just the usual string of failures. I was about to grill Tim about it but then he said the smartest thing I've ever heard him say.

"Dude, she hates herself."

It's really sad, but it's true. It has to be. I hadn't really thought about it before, but everything makes a little more sense if I assume she hates herself. I don't know why she does, things aren't all that bad, but there it is.

12:59am: Someone shoot me
Dad never called me back about settling my car loan so I called him yesterday. He told me he couldn't find an old bill so he was waiting for an opportunity to intercept the current bill. Then I brought up the impending Florida trip. He again told me we're driving down on Friday, returning on Sunday. I'm fine with that but the real issue is mom. Apparently she's staying for a week--she made that announcement back at Christmas when we were still talking to her, with the addendum that we were not, under any terms, allowed to stay with her during that week--so I don't have to worry about the return trip. Despite the current situation, however, she's still planning to drive down with us. So I asked him if I should get a rental car to get from the airport to the hotel or if he'd be able to drop her off at grandma's to come get me.

Dad then informed me that I am, under no circumstances, allowed to fly down the Florida.

"Dad, that's ridiculous. How can you expect me to sit in a car with mom for 16 hours?"

"No. If you're not there, I'll have to drive the entire way. That's not happening. You will be driving down with us."

"Wait, what about Tim?"

"He's claiming he has to work Sunday night. He's flying." Then dad grumbled something under his breath that I'm quite sure is going to send him to hell.

"Dad, I can't do this. If I get behind the wheel of that car I will drive it off a bridge."

What I really love about my dad is his ability to take homicide-suicide threats involving himself in stride. "I don't care. We'll sit in the front and she'll sit in the back and we'll just ignore her. It'll be okay."

I don't have his confidence. This is going to be the trip from hell. I once spent an entire drive to Florida sitting on the floor of the back seat of a Buick Regal and I'd gladly do it again if it would get me out of being trapped in a confined space with my mother.

8:55pm: Eye of the storm?
This week's been really quiet. Not to sound horribly cliched or anything, but almost too quiet. There was the loan check at the begninning of the week and the subsequent phone call to dad but since then, there's been nothing. Exam week was easy, Edgar is alive and well and has three new fish buddies who also seem okay, I was really nice to everyone, I didn't sleep particularly well but I got a good amount of it and Matt's new office in the garage is almost done so I may have the entire basement to myself by spring break. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I'm a little creeped out.

Oh! And I got an outfit for Kelly's wedding for under $50 at JCPenney's and a new watch at Fossil for $10. I went in totally expecting to pay $40 on it and the only one I liked was one in the children's clearance section. It's pink with little blue star cut-outs. Really, the more impressive thing is that I found an outfit. The pants are cotton knit so I'm still keeping my eyes open for something a little more formal--really, you'd think formal black pants would be ridiculously easy to find and that's just not true at all--but the top is awesome. Plus, it has this pearl decloutage thing going on that's removable so if I ever go out...you know, like, if I try to resurrect my social life...I'll be good to go.

Ooh, I did contact an old friend the other day. I was really impressed with myself. I was thinking about going skiing some time over spring break and then I realized that it would be even better if I took someone with me. So I called Steph and left a message. She didn't call me back for a couple days so I figured she was on another coke binge but then she did call me back and sounded strangely sober. I hadn't heard anything about her in several months but maybe she's cleaned up. Anything's possible. But we're going skiing next Tuesday regardless, so yay for skipping Japanese class (it's okay; I cleared it with Sensei) to throw myself repeatedly down the side of a (hopefully) frozen mountain. I have to make myself some ski pants this weekend.

Has anyone been watching the Olympics? I just saw one of the slalom skiiers totally wipe out. I'd forgotten how dramatic falling could be. Snow spraying everywhere, legs contorted to crazy angles, bits and pieces of protective gear littering the trail, the whole she-bang. I made Mike come watch the replay because he's going skiing for the first time in a couple weeks up at Killington and he needed to know this would happen. I pressed the fact that not only can this happen, it will happen. You will wipe out, your leg will get pinned under your ass, your only means of escape will be to unlock your binding, and the only way you'll be able to unlock your binding is with the pole that's waiting where you abandoned it, 20 yards up the mountain where your fall began.

Mike was horrified but then the unlucky slalom girl got up and dismally stomped off the course, pissed but okay. This made Mike feel better and I decided not to point out that she was 10 years younger than him and far more limber.

Actually, that's got me worried a bit. Last time I went skiing I was 10 years younger and far more limber. Oh, dear.

10:52pm: What was that about a hanging?
You know, I survived Friday and thought I had finally gained my life back. But I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

On Thusrday night, mom said there was a message on her phone for me from a bill collector. Having watched Dateline, I was aware of this new scam they're running where companies sell expired debts to collection agencies and the agencies claim you have to pay them but you're actually safer if you don't pay them. Last fall, when I tried to get a bank account, something had magically appeared on my credit report that prevented me from getting an account; instead of investigated this new credit event that had occurred without my knowledge, I just went to the credit union, who doesn't run credit checks. Then I saw that Dateline and it all made sense, except that the company never actually contacted me so I couldn't figure out how they expected to get money from me. Since
I don't need credit right now and I don't plan for the future, I forgot about this whole thing.

Then they called my mom on Thursday. I was "whatever" about the whole thing, planning to call the company next wednesday, when I would have access to a fax machine, and get the whole thing taken care of. I didn't call my mother back because I didn't think it warranted a phone call. Mom watches Dateline, she knows.

On Friday, Dad calls. He's mad because I'm stupid enough to still list mom's phone as mine. I explain the whole thing--how I haven't listed that number since Clinton was in office, how the whole thing's a scam, how I'll take care of it on Wednesday when I get home early enough to have access to the fax machine. He is appeased and I ask if he's talked to the retard lately. He says he's sitting next to him. It's understood that when I say "the retard", I'm referring to my brother. I don't say it to his face, though. I operate under the assumption that Tim has a codename for me as well, like "the pregancy that ruined my childhood" or "the bitch". Something like that.

So Tim gets on the phone and I ask him what the plan is for Sunday. He has no idea what I'm talking about.

Okay, flashback to Monday, when I called dad to ask him what was going on on Sunday. He says, "A hanging?" "On, err, mom's birthday?" "Who do you think's gonna be hanged?"

Props to dad for the use of the word 'hanged' but we negotiated to Tim and I taking mom out to dinner and dad 'tagging along' (which probably meant picking up the tab but I didn't push the issue). Immediately after talking to dad, I called Tim to confirm that he'd be available Sunday night. He said he was and he'd figure out where we were going and would call me to let me know.

Back to the Friday phonecall, and Tim has completely forgotten. I refresh his memory, we decide that because of my work schedule, they will go out earlier and I will meet them, and that I should just call when I leave work to find out where they are. Okay, that works. Life is good, happy Friday, I get home and my OnDemand is working so I get to watch Miss Congeniality 2, Saw and Gattaca and life is good.

Until Saturday morning, when dad calls to tell me Sunday night's been cancelled because mom's pissed at us. I'm not entirely sure of who is included in "us", but I'm definitely a part of it. First of all, of course, is the whole bill collector thing. After that is the Wedding Invitation.

Again, flashback to Monday, this time to mom calling me to tell me that my invitation to my cousin's wedding had been returned to Kelly, addressee unknown, so mom had Kelly send the invitation to the house. That's the entire conversation. That's...it.

I'd just like to point something out here: my friends don't get married. They either don't date or they have many babies out of wedlock or they get engaged and piss away all their money before they can ever get married. My friends' friends get married a lot so I know about some stuff, like how to put on a wedding dress and how to choose a good wedding photographer, but there are great holes in my understanding of weddings. I don't know how much I have to pay for a gift, I don't know how to use the time of the wedding to figure out what's appropriate attire, I don't understand the actual process of getting married. Apparently there's a form and a blood test.

None of that really matters, though, because mom never told me she actually had the invitation. It may have been inferred but when she told me Kelly had sent it, she could just as easily have been telling me not to worry about not receiving an invitation, it was on its way. As best as I could understand it from dad's story, the invitation had arrived on Monday, and on Saturday, mom "discovered" that I hadn't picked it up yet. This was ridiculous, as she leaves my mail on the kitchen counter until I stop by to get it, so she'd seen it every day for the past week and there was no "discovery" here.

The bigger problem, in my mother's eye, was the RSVP due on the 20th, which is where my lack of understanding of wedding protocol comes into play. It had never entered my mind that there was something I'd have to send back. If it had, I would have told mom to call me as soon as it arrived, she would've said, "No, it's here already," and there'd be no fiasco. Really, though, the RSVP thing wasn't that big of a deal, as I proved later that day when I called Kelly and said, "hey, there was some confusion up this way, my RSVP isn't going to get to you in time, but I'm coming and I'm not bringing anyone."

So anyway, dad calls to tell me mom's furious at me, she's refusing to celebrate her birthday with her family, and she thinks I'm totally irresponsible. Somehow my car was also brought up--dad's the signer on it because he has great credit and it's on their insurance because dad's the signer, but I make the payments, I pay the insurance, it's my car--and mom wanted me to get my own loan and my own insurance for it. I don't even know what sense that makes; there's only a year left on the loan.

I guess the point of this whole thing is that my mother lost her goddamn mind. She's always been evil, you know, but things have gotten absolutely retarded. Yeah, I used to do really stupid things and even though she blew them completely out of proportion, I still knew better. Now, I'm not even doing anything! She's like a rabid freaking raccoon.

Also, if there is a God, he's forcing me to bipolar. I get home from work on Sunday and there's a student loan check from Del State, a month earlier than and twice as much as I was expecting. So I got to call dad on Monday to tell him to contact the company through which we have my car loan. I'm paying the damn thing off ASAP.

11:29pm: Major Tom had it easy...
I am so freaking frustrated right now.

This has been a long, draining week. I had a crap-load of homework, a major presentation, an exam and I'm in the middle of a group assignment with a group I despise, probably because I'm just not in the mood for dealing with it. I should have bitched at them but I didn't and now I'm just gonna have to suck it up and fix everything on my own. Therapy was sucky--apparently I was wrong all along and I actually have issues with my entire family, although I don't see it--and all the fish died except Edgar. I just want to lock myself into a dark, quiet closet and sleep.

I was taking it all in stride until today. In World Lit last week, we had to give presentations based on the essays that are due next week. We had to do an outline of the essay--which, really, if you do your outline essay properly, what's the point of doing an actual essay? All your analysis is there, your organization is there, what's the point in filling it in with all the little connect-y words?--and read the outline to the class. As with any outline essay, we needed to write a full introduction and conclusion. Part of our grade was on our thesis statement. In our thesis we had to include what elements of fiction we were using for our analysis and what we will be analyzing using these elements. Here's my thesis statement:

"By careful adherence to his style as well as an abrupt shift at the end of the pamphlet, Swift is able to appall the reader but also cause the reader to think seriously about the realistic solutions to Ireland’s condition."

Okay, maybe I think way too much of my writing abilities, but based on his expectations, I think this is a flawless thesis. The element I will be using is style, I will be analyzing how the style affects the reader. So, yay, perfect score for me, right?

Wrong. He docked me two points on my thesis. Two fucking points. Really, since the entire thing was graded on a 50 point scale, four points. Gah!!! So I asked him about it, thinking there was terminological (is that a word? it must be) flaw and, you know, I'm okay with that. But that's not what the problem was. First, he repeats to me what he's told everyone else who has complained about their scores, that the thesis statement needs to include an element of fiction (it's right there, the sixth word) and that it needs to state what I plan to do with that element of fiction (yeah, that's what happens in the second half of the sentence). Then he has me read the sentence to him. Uhh, okay. He tells me that it may seem really clear to me, then he makes me read it again. At this point, my brain starts to hurt and I realize that my World Lit professor is telling me that I need to dumb down my thesis statement.

No. No, no, no, no, no. The assignment is not "Write a paper explaining to a fifth grader that Jonathan Swift wasn't really serious about the whole baby-eating thing." We are writing a critical frikkin analysis. If I dumb down the thesis, don't I then have to dumb down the entire paper? And how can I dumb down the thesis sentence and satisfy the requirements? "Swift uses style to make eating babies fun again!" GAH!!!

On the drive home I was listening to Space Oddity and thought, god, that must be nice, to just float away forever.

11:24pm: R.I.P. Gretchen :-(
Gretchen died last night. Yesterday she was perfectly fine and this morning she was dead. I don't understand it; she wasn't sick at all. Swimmy's still sick but she's not getting any worse so we've decided not to put any more medicine in the tank. It's the only thing we can figure might have caused Gretchen's death.

I forget that most people don't know the complex relationship between me and my mother. Last week her cousin died in a car accident. I'd only met the man twice in my life and my mother comes from a huge family so it didn't affect me on a personal level, but mom was pretty upset when her aunt (the man's mother) died a couple years back so I assume it was a pretty big shock to her. She left a message on my voicemail saying she wanted to tell me about her cousin that died and when I called her, all she told me was who he was (again, huge family, mom has literally dozens of cousins), that he died in a car accident and she'd call me when she knew more. That was the end of it, I haven't talked to her since.

Yesterday, I was at work when my brother walked by. We're not particularly close and he was on his way to the bar next door so he didn't stop to talk, but he happened to leave while I was standing outside, having a smoke, so we were forced to chat for a minute so we didn't look dysfunctional in front of his friends. Tim was really happy because on Friday he caught a puck at a Flyers game. I don't know how that works out with all the glass and the high speed the puck moves at but I didn't want to press the issue so I just congratulated him. Then he told me he went to the game after the funeral.

Okay, my family went to the funeral without me. Tim didn't know the man either so why did he go and not me? Tim said mom had told him I couldn't go because I had class. She didn't even ask me. I could have had something retarded, like gym class or whatever, on Friday. I don't know who else was at the funeral but everyone came to his mother's so I'm betting there was a good showing this time around, too. How must that have looked, that I refused to take one freaking day off from class to attend a funeral?

I'm beginning to think I wouldn't be able to destroy mom's life as easily as I thought. I've overestimated how much she cares about what her family thinks of me. This wedding I have to go to in March might go worse than I thought...

12:15am: Get Well Soon, Swimmy!
You know, when I was little, I won a couple goldfish at the fair. One died a couple days later but the other lived for three years. I kept it in a plastic fishbowl with no filter, no plants, no nothing. I forgot to feed it for days at a time and the water was replaced probably twice in the fish's entire life.

The current tank is 10 gallons with a fancy filter, a sucky fish (I know, I know, it's a freaking algae eater, but I call it a 'sucky fish') and several plants. So why do we keep having fish drama?

Today it was Swimmy, the goldfish. I thought she was dead this morning. She wasn't on her side or anything, but she was lying on the bottom with her nose under a rock and she didn't respond when I tapped on the glass. Mike then proved she wasn't dead by poking her with the fish scooper. Sure enough, she responded. Angrily. But we noticed her tail was spotty and sure enough, Swimmy has Ick.

Knowing the drill already, I took a tupperware container of water to Fishman. I walked in, said, "I have a sick fish," and the guy took my container to the back to test it.

It's not the bacteria level this time. Now it's the pH. For goldfish, it should be 7.5 and it was 6.5. So I got a pH kit and some Ich medicine that appears to be iodine. I put a ton of pH Up in the tank and it tested at 7.5 so I was satisfied with a job well done, but when I got home from school, Swimmy was back on the bottom of the tank. The pH was back down to 6.8. I dumped some more pH Up in, hopefully it was enough. We'll see how it goes tomorrow morning. This isn't working nearly as well as the bag of bacteria.

12:59am: R.I.P. Mace
We had our first fish death today. When I said hello to the fish this morning, I noticed one of our new platys was missing. I asked Kenna about it when she got home from work, but she didn't know anything about it. So we put Mike in charge of exploring the depths of the tank to find the fish. When he pulled up the filter, Mace fell out. Mace was very dead and already starting to decay. It was easily the most unpleasant moment of my day, and since I was sewing with boning this evening, that's saying a lot.

God, I hate boning.

We had a near fish death when we first got the tank. We started out with a goldfish and a sucky fish (err...algae eater) and they were doing so well in the first week that we decided to add something more exotic. Somehow, I guess we thought that keeping two fish alive for one week when only one actually needed to be fed made us aquarium masters. I chose an iridescent shark because, hey, it's a mini-shark.

Maybe two weeks later, Kenna asked if Gretchen, the iridescent shark, had always had spots. She hadn't and she wasn't acting normal either, so I did some research. What we had named 'fish pox' was really ich. Yes, that's the name of the disease. Ich. I like when the names of things accurately describe their namesake. Ich is contagious and fatal.

Of the two local fish stores, we prefer Fishman. Their not...crazy. We called Fishman and they told us we had to bring them a water sample for an accurate diagnosis. We sent Kenna there with a zippy bag of water and when they tested it, it turned out we didn't have enough bacteria is the water. So clean water=bad. They gave her a filter that sucked up water from the mid-level of the tank (and, as we learned today, also small fish) and had this little spinning wheel in it that supposedly cultivated bacteria. They told her the tank would be back to normal in a couple weeks and the other fish would be fine. They didn't seem to be concerned about Gretchen so Kenna asked if there was anything we could do in the meantime, since she didn't have a couple weeks. I was home during all this and man, Gretchen was lucky if she had a couple more hours. I felt really bad because when Adeleide, my college gerbil, died and a couple days later Queen Mum was also clearly about to die, I got to hold her and comfort her. There was nothing I could for Gretchen except stare at her and get grossed out by the weird spots.

Anyway, Kenna pushed the issue and finally the girl from Fishman admitted that she had something that might possibly save Gretchen. As Kenna tells the story, the whole thing played out like a back-door drug deal. The girl had to get the manager to unlock a fridge covered with bio-hazard stickers, then she had to reach way in the back for what turned out to be a bag of bacteria. It wasn't in a vial or any sort of weird packaging, just a packet that was commercially produced and brand-named and everything. We were all confused about the girl's behavior but it didn't matter because we dumped the bacteria in (which was as pleasant an experience as it sounds) and immediately Gretchen was all zippy and happy again. In three days her spots went away and she's perfectly fine.

When I was researching her spots, I discovered that she's actually a form of catfish and can reach up to 20 inches. It was described as a huge pet store conspiracy; the biggest you can buy them is about 3 inches (Gretchen's already nearly four) and pet stores don't tell you that one day you may need a 100 gallon tank for it. They also don't see very well and tend to bruise their snouts pretty bad on the sides of the tank. We've also learned they're not that smart. While we were searching for Mace, she briefly got one of her fins stuck in the filter where she obviously knew one of her tank mates had recently met his death, as he was still stuck inside it at the time.

It's okay though, we love her anyway.

Thankfully we didn't have a whole lot of bonding time with Mace.