Nobody, darnit

Well, fricking freaky frack. I just noticed that even though I thought I took Personality Theory, one of the six needed classes for grad school, in fact, I withdrew from it. (It was 15 years ago, I don't remember these things.) Flailing is ensuing. I'll make it through one way or another, but it might mean only working 25 hours a week until March. :-S Not flipping out too badly, though. Hopefully, I'll be able to beg my way into the online class this quarter, or one of the other schools will answers my emails about whether or not they have it in the next two quarters. Failing that, I'll get on my knees and beg the Seattle U psych department to let it slide, because I'm just so awesome and already know this stuff.

So I'm giving myself a night to sleep on it, but I'm pretty sure that tomorrow's going to be the day I actually, like for realsy reals, give notice at my job. I've tried to make this leap before, but I've never had anywhere to jump to. Well, now I've got school, student loans and some promises of assistance from my dad. I've got a roommate situation set up. I've got my health. I figure, at this point, it's better have a lifetime of debt with a fulfilling job than to be debt-free in a dead-end job I suck at. Having more money during school would be nice, but work would add its own stresses, too.

Today wasn't the greatest of Sundays, but it wasn't too bad. It started out decently enough. I got a bunch done, both cleaning and creative stuff. After getting stuff done, I went to Discovery Park, which I'd been planning on doing for months now. I'm hoping to set part of a story there. The last time I was there was when I was in my phase of randomly exploring Seattle to help figure out where I want to live. Back then, I got lost, wore myself out, but managed to catch the bus just as it started to pour down buckets of rain. The bus has a long layover there, so the driver can get in a break. She let me wait on the bus, rather than out in the cold shelter. This trip was sort of the opposite of that one.

Everything was fine and lovely at first. I got some nice pics, found a clearing full of maples that works perfectly for my story. Then, it started to drizzle. That's fine--I had my hoodie, and a little drizzle is pleasant. I walked along the beach towards the lighthouse. Then it started raining. It didn't just rain, it pissed. I let the wind drive me up the beach to the point, where I thought I could take shelter on the leeward side of the lighthouse. Turns out the point is covered in big rocks and is not something you can easily round in a storm. But that was fine, since it wasn't too cold. I waited there, enjoying the rain, figuring it would stop soon, because usually these squalls pass in a few minutes. It didn't. The waves got bigger. I had to retreat or get my feet wetter than they already were.
It was at least a mile to the bus stop, but I could handle that. I was soaked so thoroughly I was in a state of resignation.
I missed the bus by five minutes.
The next bus left in an hour. I was fine with that, though (mostly) since I knew this bus came early and hung out for a while. Like last time, I could wait on the warm, dry bus. So in the meantime, I sat in the shelter and ate the granola bar I'd brought for a snack.

However, when the bus showed up, the driver didn't let me on, despite my pleas and wheedling. Evening was approaching, I was soaked literally to my skin, I was no longer moving around, and I was starting to shiver. That's when the day officially turned to shit, and I started to cry. I'd been walking all afternoon, I was cold and wet and hungry, and faced with an asshole.
I'm sure the guy has every right to enjoy his lunch break in peace, but man, there's this thing called compassion. I don't know if I should complain to Metro or not. I'd like to, but I honestly don't think I could handle them telling me I was in the wrong. I stood around passive aggressively shivering in front of his bus for half an hour, maybe that's enough.
bleh
But hey, pictures! Including an excellent one of some ants.
( Read more... )

The train I wanted to take for Thanksgiving/Orycon is sold out. ~>:(
If I'd just bought the ticket instead of contacting my dad about it first, I'd be fine. Instead, I'm stuck on the bus.

So like an hour before I leave for World Fantasy, I discover I've lost my debit card. Between my cash, checkbook and the goodwill of my friends, I should be okay.(I've still got my ID) I'm just annoyed at myself for losing it. It's probably somewhere stupid. (Yes, I cancelled it, just in case.)

Holy crap, there must be, like, catnip at the thrift store. Teisel came in my room to obsessively sniff everything, and when he poked his head into my bag of recently acquired thrift shop treasure, he eagerly patted at the tissue paper and suddenly was perky and wide-eyed!

In other news, I finally felt like working on Green Night again, after a craft-filled hiatus. I was poking at a new scene when I realized, "when I was at Whistler, I came up with a whole new cool way this scene would go. Where's my notes?" Well...not in the computer, as it turns out. Apparantly they're still in the notebook I scribbled in while walking on bear poop covered trails. So I frantically searched for my ladybug notebook, my current primary note repository. Found it. No Whistler notes. Wait, the notebook had to be small enough to fit in my hoody pouch. I must have used the fuzzy purple notebook! Of course, because I remember telling my parents the amusing story of how I acquired it, since "I stepped on a cookie!" was still scrawled on the first page.
I know I saw that notebook somewhere when I went through every single thing I owned this last week. Where did I put it? Who the hell knows? It probably just fell down the same black hole where my hidden cache of beads is. Somewhere, there is a pirate treasure of notes, just waiting to be found.
I don't want to go through every single thing I own again. ;_;
[EDIT And only moments later, I triumph! It was in with my dirty laundry!]

I'm pretty good at switching my brain to "shut up and tolerate" mode in times of physical discomfort. That said, I think the heat's getting to me enough that the unconscious twitches are coming in, and I'm erratically cranky as hell. Makes me feel better about writing my main character, though. He's got some wacky mood swings in there, switching around within paragraphs. Maybe I'm unconsciously remembering the time I was murdered on a dock for being a lazy drunk.

I have to write about angry, ranty people, and in order to get the voice right, I either need to be angry, or read angry, ranty stuff, and if I do that, I feel angry, and I hate that. ;_;
I should just write long, experimental novels about robots analyzing sunsets.

EDIT: Angry scene=done! Not painful at all. Hopefully, that doesn't mean it's devoid of emotion.

I've taken a sudden three day weekend to come home to keep my mom company while dad takes a well deserved break. I don't have to spend every minute with Mom, so if anyone wants to make the trek to Poulsbo for coffee or whatever, I'd love to see you. Don't worry, you don't have to meet my mom.

In other news, I set myself up for heartbreak every time I come home. Today, as I stepped off the train into a vague fantasy I knew would not come true, I told myself it's because I need to remember I still have a heart, even if I left part of it four years in the past. There's a cold, hard zone between the world and my heart, and I need to keep daring to cross it, scary as it is, or I'll never see my heart again.

So I'll listen to my mother babble, get a guilty self-satisfaction for doing my familial duty, and tell myself that the person I once was is no better or worse than the one I am now. I'll face my fear of having to do this permanently if anything happens to my dad (who, though relatively healthy, is 11 years older than my mom). I'll face my fear of getting old and having no one to take care of me.

She just came down to tell me she wants to go out for Mexican tonight, instead of having spaghetti like she suggested earlier. In the hour or so I've been here, she's done well. I bought her an ice cream sandwich before I got here, which she was happy to have. Dad was worried she wouldn't open the door for me, but she's happy as can be. She told me about the cat, Tizzy, which, she said, is a Serengeti cat, a type of lion which needs to be starved at age one, but Tizzy wasn't starved until age three, so she's stunted. (Maybe I'm used to monster Teisel, but Tizzy really is tiny, though padded with fur.) She said Marilyn Monroe gave her Tizzy.

Now, she's anxious and wants to go to the restaurant right away, before it gets dark. I explained the sun wouldn't set for six hours. She got confused and asked me what month it is.

Oh, dear god, she's going to be up all night.

Coming home is me spending my time in the Underworld. Thinking about my mom in terms of my personal mythology has helped me come to terms with her in my life, but it always makes me sad that I can only relate to her as an archetypal image, and not a human being.

So, yeah. Coffee, anyone? I promise I won't angst at you. :-)

I spent much of today at work sticking paper in the machine every twenty minutes and waiting for the magenta toner to run out so I could go watch the Venture Brothers. Earlier this week I looked forward to it because I would be able to write without distraction. Well, because of a fire behind our work that literally melted our internet, I was completely without distraction, but I was too restless to write. (up until 3am two nights in a row.)

Other reasons for restlessness: maybe missed an interesting opportunity at the party last night because I was too slow and cold and nervous-- not to mention lacking a few social skills. Maybe I didn't miss anything, but I'll never know. Once I got over my "what if he gets attached to me in an annoying way?" fear, he was gone. I also got hit with a "don't I know you from somewhere?" pickup line. (not from Potentially Interesting Guy. He didn't have any stupid pickup lines.) Once we established that no, he didn't know me from the F+SF scene, he gave me some strange line about his memory not working right. Damn, I hate mating rituals.

In other news, I got a pufferfish! Thanks to hawkdancer's boyfriend, the puffer's name is Siddartha. Pics to come. I bought some bloodworms (mosquito midge larvae) to feed him, and to treat the tetras to. Let me just say, I never thought tetras were so bloodthirsty. When I dropped the bloodworms in the tank, those tiny fish turned into a swarm of blood-mad sharks.