Hooplah.Org

This entry is written horribly, and at this time I don’t have the patience to proof read it…

Yesterday my parents bought a new car to replace the totaled Saturn. My mother had fallen in love with the rental car we got, which was a Toyota Corolla. We ended up with a 2004, “desert sand” in color. I forget which type of corolla we got… whichever one had basically all the options. The dealer that was handling our purchase was friendly, funny, but yet he didn’t answer our questions very well, and I could sense he might be a pric in his private life. All that aside… the portion with him went by quickly. The part that took so long as when they had different people speak to us, trying to get my parents to purchase this deal and that deal. In fact, that probably would have only taken 45 minutes tops, but my father insisted on telling tons of personal stories. I actually got a headache from rolling my eyes so much… he kept bitching about being tired and wanting to go to sleep, but then wouldn’t shut up long enough for the people to do their job of trying to sell us stuff that we don’t need.

I had actually been grateful of not being brought up in anything my father was saying to these strangers who really had no interest in our personal business… that was, until he did mention me. He actually said something along the lines of “Yeah, she went to college for one year and was only supposed to take a year off, but she hasn’t gone back yet [insert a bit of a laugh]“. I was absolutely furious at him because 1. I feel bad enough about not being in college, I don’t need it to be brought up to strangers without any consideration for me and 2. IT WAS A FUCKING LIE. The way he phrased it implies that I’m just a loser who dropped out of college for no other reason than because I wanted to, and was too damn lazy to go back. When in actuality, I could have gone back to Radford in the fall of 2002… I wasn’t on academic suspension or anything. My GPA had just dropped low enough for my loans to drop, and once that happened, my family couldn’t afford to send me because they had never bothered to save a dime for my education. That’s what happened… but would my father ever state it as the truth? No… it has to be that I took a year off on purpose and I’m just such a slacker I couldn’t bother going back. But who knows, maybe my father was telling the “truth”… maybe he really thought that the real reason why I didn’t go back to college was because I didn’t want to. If that were the case, then I’d be getting everything ready ASAP to go back for the winter semester… but as soon as my father saw the bill his story would change.

But then again, that’s typical. It was like when he told me to look at any college I wanted to, no matter the cost, and they would just figure out a way to pay for it… because my education and happiness mattered. When I got an acceptance letter to some private college I was really interested in (I had already made relationships with some of the professors), I sat in the kitchen chair and attempted to yell “woo-hoo” with a big smile on my face, trying to get the energy in the room up… you know, like how it always is on TV when someone gets into college. I looked around the room, and neither of my parents even looked up… my father told me 2 seconds later that I’d have to pick another college that was cheaper, as we couldn’t afford the one I wanted. I never really wanted to go to Radford, and I was ashamed to tell people that I was going there in the fall… But it was my only option, as it was one of the cheapest colleges in the state.

I don’t know why I’m complaining about this. It’s all water under the bridge, things I cannot control… yet every single day I seem to become more and more bitter about it. I’m getting depressed… it always happens when my IBS begins to control my life, as it has been slowly regaining power over my body and mind the past couple of weeks. The discomfort, the embarrassment, and the overall handicap of it all just cripples my spirit. I spent a whole year, battling to get control of it… and now where am I? 20 pounds heavier, physically weaker, and addicted to doing nothing but sitting on my ass. I don’t even know why I long to still be in college… I know I would suffer through the school work like it was torture and hate every minute of it… but it feels like anything would be better than what I’m looking at now.

Somewhere during the interview with the last person we spoke to at the Toyota dealership the topic came up that I was unemployed (ironically shortly after mentioning I’m not in college anymore… *twitches*). And, of course… lucky me, they are hiring. My parents pressured me into getting an application, and in truth, I wouldn’t have minded filling one out… but the man we were speaking to gave me his business card with a smile, and told me to contact him on Monday. Why he couldn’t just give me the phone number of the human resource woman is beyond me, but it certainly cools any will I had in contacting them about a job. And besides… I know exactly what I’d be doing. My parents tried to stress that I’m really into computers, that I know alot about them, as they know I’d love to have a job involving them… but if I get a job there, it won’t be for my computer skills. Even if I did bother going in for an interview, I know I would be evaluated for nothing else than a secretary job… the type where I sit there, try to cool pretty and punctual, and answer phones and bring coffee to all the men who make the big bucks. That’s basically what I was doing at Culpeper wood. Maybe it’s the feminist in me, maybe in truth I’m just a little snot… but I’m furious at the fact that women are usually placed in jobs designed to serve the men who make more money. That will probably be just one more thing to the list that I refuse to do. Money’s nice, but I’m not the type to do anything for a dollar. Of course… in the end, that will be the reason why I can’t have the things that I want.

If I do anything tomorrow involving the Toyota dealership, I will insist on speaking with the woman from human resources before going in for an interview. I will ask her what positions are available and if any of them seem appealing, I’ll ask what the odds are of them hiring someone who doesn’t have work experience with it, who doesn’t have a degree from a nice college in the field, but can guarantee they have the skills and would be more than willing to do what it takes to prove herself of being capable and sufficient for the job. Yes… if something sounds good, I’ll ask just that.

But even if they have those types of jobs available… I feel I already know the answer to that question.

And so… I look forward to working at a department store at the local mall. Any would do, but I’d prefer one where I wouldn’t have to deal with snobby people who think they’re better than myself because they wear brand name clothes and drive nice cars. But then again… if they pay me enough to overlook that, I’ll be a happy camper either way.

In anticipation of my new job, I’ve even made a spreadsheet that will calculate each paycheck into percentages and set amounts so I can have some form of a budget. Usually when I try to save money, it ends up not happening… I just spend money on food and shit for myself and others when it really could have just been avoided if I had some self control. Not that a spreadsheet will give me self control, but possibly staring at the figures of money I could have if I wasn’t so thoughtless… might.

In addition to becoming gloomy, I am getting endlessly frustrated with my inability to show affection… when I first met Matt, he would send me little message and e-mails almost every day, telling me how much he loved me and how much I meant to him. But me, being the frigid and emotionally constipated stick in the mud that I am, could never manage to send him messages like that in return. He would freely tell me all the reasons why he loved me, yet he had to resort to asking me why I loved him… and when he did I didn’t give an answer anywhere near the type that he deserved. I’m horrible at giving compliments, being encouraging when I know it’s needed but have no idea where to begin, and basically any kind of positive human interaction. It’s reasons like this that Matt doesn’t take the time to make me feel special anymore, or why I hardly ever get comments to my entries… Because I’m missing something in my heart to be able to return the favor. I do nothing but take and take and never give. I think of the past year of my life and wonder why my parents never just threw me out on my selfish ass.

None of this is a plea for sympathy or comfort… and what I’m going to say next isn’t either. I wish I could be reborn… in another time, in another place, with another family. I wish I could grow up happy and loved by a whole city of relatives and friends. I could be an A/B student because I’d understand the importance of an education and hard work. I’d have a great personality, without any unneeded hostility, so maybe I could even be popular. I could have loving, giving relationships, and make good decisions. I wouldn’t grow up with having so many regrets and embarrassments I could be the person I truly wish I was and the person everyone needs me to be. I could do all of that so easily if I could only change every aspect of my life into something unrecognizable.

I wish I could say I tried to fix how I am, but I haven’t. How can I make myself feel something, or be something, when I don’t know what it’s really like? Having to accept the fact that I will be a ruined, heartless woman all my life who never had the commitment to be what she really wanted to be is devastating. It is, above all, depressing. And it is, unfortunately, the truth.

I can’t believe it’s almost October. Only 5 more days. It’s officially fall, yet the temperature outside still lingers in the 70s and 80s. I would be concerned about global warming if I didn’t once hear that the global temperature only raises 1 degree every year… or something along those lines. Possibly it was 1 degree every 3 years… but whichever the actual numbers were, the statistics were soothing and comforting, despite that would mean it was 10-20 degrees cooler this time of year when I was born. It’s funny to think that one day I will tell my grandchildren stories of what a real fall felt like, when the air was chilled but still managed to feel sticky and humid. I will try to tell them it feels like damp leaves, but none of them will understand… and I’ll feel sorry for them.

9 more days until it will be a full month since I’ve had any form of “real” employment. It’s already been more than a month since (what ended up being) my last day working at Giant. I have played phone tag with Taskforce, but they have yet to call me back. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with my misfortune with my first job, or because I requested that they add “no phones” to my requirements for assignments, but I don’t feel they’ll be contacting me soon. They could be in a slump, with no companies really requesting the need of replacements, but it would have been appreciated if they had mentioned that to me when I had called. But either way… despite how much I love being home doing nothing, I’m starting to feel guilty about it. I would like to go into Fredericksburg tomorrow and pick up applications at schools or department stores and fill them out over the weekend. My father may need the truck, so that may be postponed till Monday.

There’s so much stress going on with the aftermath of Isabel. My neighbor got their relatives to cut down the trees that landed in both of our properties, and we were recently presented with a $1500 bill. All that money to remove two trees that were already down. They even charged us $350 for removal, yet the yard is still covered in hunks of tree, and my father was the one who did most of the moving that was done. Even though my parents should have fought the price they were charging (it’s obvious price gouging, trying to get money from our insurance company), my father went and got advances on the credit card so he could pay the little fucks without even waiting for the claims adjuster to come and look at the damage first. Luckily we got $1400 for the dent in the truck, but we don’t plan on repairing it. We also got $7800 for the car, $6000 of which must go to finish paying off the current loan for it. If we scraped together all the money we had, we could put up to $3000 down on a new car, and in turn lower the monthly payments… but my father has decided he doesn’t want to put any money down, and use that money for immediate purposes. I tried to tell him that the money he’d save over a 5-6 year time would be far greater than the immediate $3000, but he refuses to listen to anyone.

I’m beginning to have little or no sympathy for our current finical situation, since it seems my father puts great effort into making as many wrong and thoughtless decisions as he possibly can. Hell, maybe he does it so he has something to complain about. That’s actually pretty probable, as many pity parties he throws for himself in honor of it.

I really had not wanted to spend this entry complaining and simply repeating what my whole family has been discussing all week. It has been stressing and effecting me… even causing my IBS to act up worse than it has in more than a year. Add in the fact that I’m on my period, and it’s been causing me to blow up at even the slightest annoyance. My family has felt the backlash of that, and so has Matt. It’s always the loved ones that end up being tortured.

Anyway… I cannot wait for fall. I want to go out and take pictures of the leaves… see if I can capture the crisping of the air on camera. I want to see Halloween decorations in yards, and maybe even decorate ours. I’d look forward to giving out candy to cute trick-or-treaters, but practically no one comes to my street since it’s usually too busy.

Thinking of this makes me long for Christmas and snow again.

I installed Movable Type to test it and I ended up loving it. I’m tired of waiting for the next version of Greymatter, so I’ll probably start the pain in the ass process of moving all (read, ALL… starting from feb 1999) entries to Movable Type. It will take forever and I may pass out from time to time, but in the end it will be much easier to update. I’m also working on a photolog using Movable Type… but it’ll probably take me a month or more to get all thta done, especially if I get a job in the near future. Fun, fun stuff.

There’s a big story behind this, but ATM, I’m not in the mood to write it. So… I will let some pictures do the story telling for me. Check back tomorrow (or the day after?), I’ll probably write more then.

This is what a tree in my front yard did to my mother’s saturn.

Added Later:

I don’t feel like going over the whole thing, so I’ll give a basic rundown. All of Thursday I had my window open, since the storm coming through had made the temperature drop. I was on the computer for most of the day. Everytime I heard a strong wind gust, I would lean back in my char and watch the tips of the trees. Around 6PM, a wind gust started to come through and the power blinked. I looked up at the trees, and they didn’t look anymore stressed than normal… but the wind sound was getting louder. It did not sound like a train like they say… but more like a wall of wind, if that makes any sense. The power blinked a few more times, and I got up and looked down the hallway at my mother. She made eye contact with me as I started to walk forward, and told me to get in the hallway. My stupid father was still at the computer, looking out the window, as me and my mom tried to coax him into the hallway as well. He claimed later that he actually saw the trees open up just before he got up and joined us. I stayed in the hallway, while my parents peaked form the hallway out the front door. A few moments passed and there as a large “POW” sound. My parents were still silent, until one of them said “a tree just fell and hit both of the cars”. I couldn’t believe it, and even as I peaked around the corner and saw the tree that was laying across our yard to the front of our garage, I was still in awe. We couldn’t see the damage it had done to the car… all what we could see was the little bit that the corner of the living room window showed, and that only exposed the tree obviously laying on the car, with pieces of plastic sticking up from it in odd angles.

Before the storm, my mother had parked the car in front of the house. But, my father fussed and fussed about picking the truck up from automedic, my mother finally gave in and went. When she got home, she wasn’t thinking and parked the car in front of the garage like usual. If my father hadn’t of been a brat about getting the truck, none of this would have happened. If my mother had remembered to park the car in front of the house, the truck would have been the one that got totaled, and we wouldn’t be given enough money to replace that.

Just things that make you go hmmm…

Shortly after the power went out, around 7PM. We made some timid trips out into the yard to look at the damage, but couldn’t stay out long, without fear of another tree going down. The whole night was terrifying… I couldn’t sleep in my room since my neighbors had made me nervous about a tree outside of my room. Everytime a wind gust would come, I would sit up in bed. After I got bored of reading Garfield comics and playing gameboy by flashlight, I layed down on my floor (where I thought I’d be out of harm’s way) and tried to sleep. Listening to the radio on a headset wasn’t all that comforting, since none of them were giving very good news as to when the storm would pass.

The next morning we saw that another tree in our back yard had gone down, and another tree had almost fallen in our front yard but it was being supported by some other trees in it’s path. Oddly enough, all the trees that fell were ones no one would have ever suspected. They were the biggest trees on our property. My mother felt that because we had such a wet spring that the trees roots had moved toward the surface since they didn’t have to go too deep for water.

At 7AM we walked around some to see the neighboring damage. It seemed that there was a trail of down trees, all pointing the same direction, on our side of the street. I swear that a small tornado touched down and just plowed through a 10-20 block span. That evening we took a drive around the lake, and it seemed that similar things happened all over. From what I could see, none of my friend’s houses were hurt/damaged, which was a good sign.

All though the day, people would drive by and almost come to a complete stop to look at the damage to our car. Some took pictures from their cars, while some actually had the nerve to park, get out, and walk up to our poor Saturn to take their pictures. A couple people claimed to be for the news, or to take some extra insurance pictures for us, but most of the time we never saw any results from that. On Friday, we went to get our insurance photos developed for insurance purposes (since that’s the only type CVS was developing that day, due to the storm) and there actually was a little twirp behind me who I had seen earlier riding around in a car taking pictures. He was fussing that he didn’t get all of his “insurance” photos that he had taken. I think he was even missing some pictures of our car, as he watched very closely as I shuffled through mine to see if we were missing any as well. People are getting so sick lately, and I blame reality TV… they seem to find chaos and other’s misfortune as entertainment.

Anywho… on Friday evening, after me and my mother had just gotten finished lighting all of our new candles we had just bought, the power blinked on and off. Within the hour it had come back on, and stayed on. Our cable didn’t kick back in until sometime Saturday evening… which, of course, happened shortly after we had gone to the video store to rent some movies.

It certainly was an “eventful” few days. I could never imagine being in a storm that was higher than level 1 or 2, as I think it was a level 1 by the time it reaches us with wind gusts of 60mph. And to think, our car would still be in one piece if we had not had such a rainy spring and the roots of the trees were as deep as they should have been.

It’s pretty safe to assume that the power will go out this evening as the hurricane moves into my area. I don’t mind that much if it does or doesn’t, but I do mind that it will probably take place during the evening/night. My fear of the dark is still fully intact, and nothing is more creepy than prowling around in pitch black with a flashlight. Even at age 20 I get visions of people (and even creatures) following behind me, ready to pounce on me. There’s nothing more pathetic than a 20 year old scuttling as fast as she can down hallways so the boogieman won’t get her.

I have alot to do before any of that happens. I need to clean my room as best as I can, so I won’t break my neck trying to walk in here when I can’t see a thing. I should also feed the axies real good encase I’m too distracted by the storm (and the aftereffects of it) to get messy with cow liver for them. I’ve already taken a shower encase we need to leave the house for whatever reason, I won’t be walking around looking like a she-beast. Even though I’m in pajamas, I have a pair of jeans ready for me to jump in if the situation calls for a change of wardrobe. And, of course, I need to recharge camera batteries and flashlight batteries… and locate my flashlight in general. Find all my candles and make sure they’re set up so I can burn them (without their wax dripping all over everything).

I still don’t think the storm will be that horrible… but I’m always the one to be safe rather than sorry. ATM we only have one car (since the truck is still at automedic, since it wasn’t ready by yesterday like we were told it would) so my mother has that as an excuse to call into work. I doubt we have any food in the house that we could eat during a power outage (as in, food that doesn’t need to be heated up) and I don’t think we’ll be doing any shopping for any. Hell if I’m going to a grocery store that’s full of panicked people… I don’t feel like waiting more than 15 minutes in a line for snack food.

I didn’t call the employment agency like I thought I would this week. Everytime I thought of calling, I didn’t know what I would really say… I didn’t have the truck and didn’t know when I’d be getting it back, and with the storm coming up… it’s not like I really could take any assignments even if there were any. I could have called just to check in and ensure them that I am a committed worker or whatever. But then again, why should I tie up their phone lines when they’re probably very busy themselves at their own office, dealing with cancelations and assignment requests that they cannot fill. Right… that all makes decent sense. I’ll call on Monday (it’s my only real option now, anyway) since I’ll bet tons of people will call in sick then to deal with damage to their house/area, or just because they’re taking advantage of other people’s viable excuses to be absent from work.

Blah… I just should have called this week. I can be such a loser sometimes…

It’s already started raining here, but only ever-so-slightly. I’ll probably post all of the pictures of the hurricane (that I’ll be able to see from my house, anyway… tons of trees around) either tomorrow or the day after… or whenever after that time that my power gets turned back on

Even though I am a little curious as to what Hurricane Isabel’s current status is, I don’t dare turn on the news. I’m pretty confident that it will only bring high winds and a shit load of rain by the time it makes it to my area. Why turn on the news, when their tactic of keeping ratings is to instill unneeded fear so people will “stay tuned”, since the next report may save their lives in the heat of danger. Not that I would be drawn in to the point of being afraid, but I’m always a victim of doubt, and the last thing I need is have something nagging at my confidence over things I cannot control. From weather.com, I know it should be here by the AM on Friday. I should expect neat photo opportunities and some power outages. What’s the big deal? As long as the power is only out during the day, I’m fine.

Speaking of hurricanes… I seem to be one myself the past couple of days. I would blame it on PMS if it weren’t too early for me to be having it. I have been getting in heated arguments… most to the point where I utterly scream so hard and loud that it’s left my throat feeling raw, like I have a cold. It’s been a while since that has happened, since having Matt in my life truely did calm down my anger… I just don’t know what’s throwing me off now-a-days. I shouted at my mother over some cashier tattling on her at work (and the girl that tattled had been my friend, so I on the denfensive for her, even though what she did was shitty) and I yelled my head off at my father over pop-ups on the computer. He was blaming my mother for them happening, as if it really mattered who went to what web page that was now causing annoying pop-ups… it’s not like anyone did it on purpose, or could have been anymore immune to it than the other. He just likes centering his aggression on someone and lashing out… but I put him in his place by fixing the problem over something easy (the homepage had been changed, stupid advertising bastards). I also got in a huge fight with Matt over DAoC. I’m to the point where I really don’t want to pve anymore.. the end game is about rvr, and after leveling 3 and 1/2 level 50s (and the process of getting to level 50 takes about a month and 1/2 – 2 months, and that’s doing it fast) I just think it’s time I start doing what I’ve been wanting to do all along… rvr. Matt has always had a tendency to favor pve over rvr (in my opinion) and was very upset when I didn’t believe him that he finally wanted to rvr too… after leveling so many chars, and him not being interested in rvr for really any of them, it’s like the boy who cried wolf… eventually no one believes you. But he promised up and down that it would be different this time… so I believe him. But my god… if he dare suggests leveling another char to 50 because he hates his friar… *twitches* I may not mind leveling another, but not for another 3-6 months at least…

I’m just one big bundle of hostility these days.