Christmas cash and cookies
Last week, my friend Cassie's mom handed her ten crisp five dollar bills, and solemnly pronounced that for the past decade or so, she's been roaming around Dollar Trees and K-Marts, handing out cash to children who look underprivileged. She decided this year to split the money up between Cassie and her brother, instructing them to go distribute the Christmas joy on their own. "If you spend any of the money, God will strike you dead right then, and you'll go to hell, and I'll be very disappointed with you.
I've been to Wal-Mart only once in the last six months, to ask the detail cop if he knew where the homeless kids hang out in the area (those little suckers are hard to find). But today I went to Wal-Mart and took twenty bucks of my own out of the ATM, and went around with Cassie handing ones and fives to little kids in ratty clothes. It was so much fun, and I thought the parents would be suspicious or insulted, but half of them were just so surprised, and the other half just smiled and said thank you. One mom was looking away when I gave a five dollar bill to each of her sons. She looked up just as I was walking away, and I heard them telling her, "Mom, this lady just said 'Merry Christmas!' and gave us money!" And I smiled.
Then I came home and made Christmas cookies, which didn't go nearly as well. I first tried to make them yesterday, but I didn't have any baking soda, so I searched the internet for a recipe that didn't require any, and found one, but it turns out baking soda is a pretty vital element. So I went to the store this morning and got some, but by the time I started rolling the dough I'd run out of flour and my dough kept sticking to
everything and refused to maintain any sort of Christmas-y shapes, so back to the store I went. So I finally got home tonight and was ready to go, pulled my dough out of the fridge, cut it into bells and stars and santas and trees, popped it in the oven, and approximately 12 and a half minutes later took my first bite, and it was disgusting. Too much baking soda. Bleh. I'm now covered in flour and completely disillusioned with baking, so I'm giving up on cookies for the night and going drinking instead.
did you know budweiser sponsors free cab rides during the holidays?
Tonight was completely random.
I'm still very drunk mind you, so please ignore any typos or inconsistencies.
Nick's Christmas party for work was tonight. He works at a pizza place. First off, this girl, her name is Grace, who used to be good friends with Bryan, my ex, apparently used to work at Mellow, where Nick works. So she was at the Christmas party, but that was cool, because she's very nice, and I like her.
Then, the girl that Nick
fucked while we were together, is apparently, like, best friends with some guy Nick works with now, so homeboy brought her to the party as his date,
and Nick had that guy for secret santa,
so, present time rolls around, and Nick turns and looks at me, and I tell him, "I'm ready, let's go." So we go up to them, and I made eye contact, and I smiled, and I was perfectly pleasant and polite for a good five minutes, at least, or as long as it took for this guy to stop fucking talking so we could walk away, because either he was oblivious to how incredibly awkward the situation was, or he was drunk, or he just didn't care, or something. So then finally it was over, and so we walked away.
And then it turns out Grace and this other girl know each other, which is even more weird, because say Nick goes to the bathroom, and I don't know too many people at this party, so I look for Grace, but she's busy talking to ho-bag over there, so I gotta fuck around near the bar and look busy so I'm not too terribly awkward and socially inept, until Nick comes back from the bathroom. Not ideal.
Then there were these lesbians. Nick knew they were lesbians because he works with one of the girls, and he knew she was gay, and the girl she was with was her girlfriend, and I said we should ask them if they wanna come home with us, because I'm totally into lesbian porn, so I'd probably be into real lesbians, then I asked him if my face was shiny, because we can't ask lesbians to come home with us if my face is shiny, I'd have to go to the bathroom and powder my face first, and he said it wasn't shiny, but we couldn't ask them to go home with us, I'm not sure why, but it was probably not a good idea in the first place, the kind of thing I'd regret in the morning when I woke up to find my bed rather crowded, so I'm glad he shot me down.
So overall, it was a good night. I had good makeup and a cute top, my only drunk dial was to Best Friend Roommate, I was the bigger person with a girl I really don't like, and I didn't ask any lesbians to come home with me.
much better
UPS actually called and apologized yesterday, assuring me that my package
will, in fact, be delivered on Monday. The fridge is fixed; turns out I got an 89 on my Sociology final, although I'm still quite sure I did
very badly on Brit Lit, and finals are
over, which excites me to no end.
So today I decided to treat myself. I went to the Paul Mitchell School and paid
twelve dollars for a fabulous haircut, then went to MAC and ended my short-lived thrifty streak by spending $74 on makeup, but I got a free application! So now my hair's been styled and my makeup's been done, but I came home and promptly changed into pajamas and settled in to watch some
cheesy Christmas movies on ABC Family, so I don't look quite so glamorous as I did a few hours ago, but I sure am feeling cheery.
Hopefully this is the beginning of a very relaxing and rejuvenating month off of school. I can really focus on StandUp For Kids and taking care of myself and catching up on all the things I've been putting off for eons.
worst day ever
A series of unrelated events have led to what seems to be a day that can't get much worse, at least in my somewhat sheltered little world.
Go back, way back, to last March. While scheduling my courses for the fall semester, I thought to myself, "I only have 30 hours left, I'll just take all the hard ones in the fall so that I can really relax during my last semester."
Then skip to the beginning of this semester, when I decided that I was superwoman and could do anything I wanted to and never drop the ball.
Now we're at about two weeks ago, when I logged into my energy company's third-party online payment website to pay my bill. I clicked, I payed, I left. Simple as they say.
Now Monday, I come home to a UPS slip on my door, announcing the attempted delivery of a highly anticipated package. Knowing that I wouldn't be able to commit to staying home to wait for it at all this week, I used the automated phone system to schedule it for delivery on the 18th.
So yesterday afternoon, I'm sitting in my living room, putting off studying by playing sudoku, when suddenly my power turns off. I call to report the outage and, lo and behold, they didn't receive my payment. Fuck. So I pay over the phone, they say they'll put in a request for it to be turned back on. It's still not back by 11pm, so I spend the night at Nick's.
Today, I get up, go to work, leave work, bomb my Brit Lit final, go back to work, leave work again, bomb my Sociology final, come home, no lights, fuck around looking for breakers in the dark, get my lights on, see a new fucking UPS slip on the door saying today was their final attempt at delivery and I have to go pick my package up beyond fucking Egypt, turn on my laptop, find my internet's not working, resetting the modem doesn't fix it, go to get some food, see my refrigerator still isn't working, flip the breakers some more with no luck, and finally say FUCK IT and eat some spaghettio's, since at least the microwave works.
I have made one C in my college career, and I'm completely convinced that I bombed two tests today. That, in itself, brings me close to tears.
I called UPS, got my package straightened out, called Cox, scheduled a technician to come out on Saturday, called my property management firm and had the answering service page the on-call person about my blown fuse, or whatever it is, and now I'm stealing my neighbor's wireless to bitch at the internet and play sudoku, as this is apparently my new favorite coping choice.
I think, post spaghettio's (I'm scarfing them down in intervals as I type), that I'm going to run down the street to get some cigarettes and Cherry Garcia. Nothing like cancer and animal fats to cheer me right up. And I think I may actually just go over to Nick's, even though he's at work, and wait for him to come home, because I'm just kind of disgusted with my own apartment at the moment. Nothing seems to be working for me at all right now.
it's tuesday in apartment C
Wooohoo! I'm going to the Sugar Bowl! I got an email last night letting me know that I got a pair of ultra-coveted student tickets. I'm thrilled, pumped, ecstatic [continue terms of excitement as you wish]. Although I must admit, I'm a little confused about why this game matters. I've never been to a bowl game, and while I'm sure it will be a lot of fun, I don't really see what the difference is whether we win or lose. We're not playing for any title. This is why the BCS should have a playoff system, but whatev.
I realize most of you could give a fuck about college football, so I'll move on. It's finals week at LSU. I've got two down and three to go. The fact that this semester is finally coming to a close excites me to no end. This time next week, I'll be home free, spending most of my time sleeping, knitting, and catching up on a plethora of random tasks, such as my brake tag (read: inspection sticker, for those of you who aren't from New Orleans) that's been expired for about eighteen months now, and cleaning my room/closet/entire apartment, which has fallen into such a sorry state of chaos that I'm afraid Best Friend Roommate's been buried under the rubble; I haven't seen her in a few days, and I thought I heard someone mumbling something about "Don't eat my chips and salsa," from beneath a pile of dirty clothes.
ups and downs
Just a few hours ago, I literally thought to myself, "You know, if I happened to die in a horrible accident right now, I'd be okay with that. I've had a pretty good day."
I can be a bit morbid at times. Trust me, I'm not suicidal, although if I were it'd be quite ironic, considering I work at a suicide hotline. No not suicidal, I'd just had a great day. I woke up this morning next to my favorite person in the world, then got up and actually did my hair and makeup for maybe the third time in as many weeks. I can barely remember the last time I spent more than ten minutes on my appearance. Then I went to lunch at one of my favorite places with Best Friend Roommate before going to see a
classic feel-good chick flick. Despite the nature of a relationship implied by the term "roommate," she and I rarely see each other for more than a few minutes at a time, so it was great to have a little girl-date nestled between dead week and finals. After the movie, I went over to Nick's to spend some time with him before he left to spend a few days at his parents house, and on my way home gave my leftovers from lunch to a homeless guy sitting outside the gas station where I stopped to buy cigarettes. I was in a pretty good mood.
Another old friend of mine, Jesse, texted to ask if he could call me for some advice when he got off of work. I told him sure, but I had plans at eleven to go see
my friend David's band at one of my favorite bars with Cassie. Ten o'clock rolls around, and I still can't get in touch with Cassie, despite the fact that she called me yesterday just to make sure that I still wanted to go. Jesse called when he got off as promised, but five minutes later his girlfriend beeped in and he hasn't called me back. I guess the problem was resolved. My backup date for Dave's show, Sarah, is "a bit tied up," apparently; she says she'll tell me about it later. I called Carleigh, to see if she wanted to go, but she wanted me to come meet her at another bar instead. I thought about it, but I've got my sister's dog for the weekend and I'd have to lock her up (she's still a puppy) and really only Dave's show would be worth locking her up for.
So Nick's at his parents' house, and Cassie flaked out on me, and I'm going to bed before eleven on a Saturday night. I'm feeling oddly lonely. I didn't give the guy outside the gas station the cheesecake I'd had for dessert, so maybe I'll go pig out on some calories for good measure before bedtime.
"can't" just isn't in my vocabulary
I can help someone who's considering suicide find a way to stay alive another day.
I can write a paper of any length analyzing pretty much any aspect of literary theory, at an average rate of a page per hour, without a problem.
I can lead a group of volunteers, ranging from 19 to 48 years old, to build a street outreach program from the ground up, charging bravely into the night to find and reach kids living on the streets.
I can manage meetings, make executive decisions, delegate responsibilities, and balance infinitely conflicting schedules, all with grace and composure.
And yet, I must admit, there are some very important relationships in my life which I'm not able to fix. This is what I do for a living--I build connections with people, manage conflict, understand emotions...and here I have failed time and time again with two of the most important people in my world. I'm too close to it, too personally invested in the conflict, to be able to reach through the screaming and the fighting and the crying to find some grain of hope.
I'm trying to sort this out in my mind. I know that our expectations of what a parent-adult child relationship should be are different. At the same time, I'm not sure how to reconcile these two divergent ideals. I'm not able to fix it on my own, and it's hard to tell whether they're willing to meet me halfway.
All I know is that something's gotta give. It seems that things have been this way for a long time now, with brief interludes of outward peace and no change in the foreseeable future. If I don't do something to at least try to reach some sort of peace with the situation I fear that this will always be a source of contention and pain in my life. It's too important for me to let it go.
saving the homeless kids is kicking my ass
I'm sure you're all convinced by now that I've been mourning the explosive diarrhea/crippling illness/death of my beloved bunny over the last week, drowning my sorrows in cheap wine and country music while staring longingly at his empty cage. Au contraire, my friends; he was released Tuesday afternoon and is back to his normal routine of eating, pooping (cute little pellets, no more diarrhea), and chewing on things he is most certainly not supposed to chew on. They never figured out what the problem was, but it seems to be gone now, so all is well.
In related news, I'm a blogging slacker. I've been crazy busy this semester, and it seems like whenever I get a chance to rest it's all I can do just to get myself up off the couch to piss, much less invest intellectual energy into composing a thoughtful post--or comment, for that matter (man I'm a bad blogging friend). I used all my brain cells on Paradise Lost and nonprofit management.
The good news is that I'm practicing avoidance of the ten gazillion things I have on my to-do list by cranking out another post that I'll publish later on tonight. Also, the semester is almost over, thank God, and then I'll be left with just two jobs: the one that pays me and the one that doesn't. Then maybe I'll have time to shower and comment (interesting the things that get sacrificed during times of stress--cuddling is a priority for free time, showering is not).
