Women Who Behave

I know I'm just being stupidly, ridiculously paranoid. BUT...am I that easy to forget about? There are like four of us still here on break. Two of them are supposed to be best friends of mine. One is just going down to the U every night to hang out with her boyfriend, giving up a possible ski trip girls weekend so she can go to his frat's party on Friday night. I complained about this to my mom today when I was at her office getting an FI (yay knowing how to stop my weird lower back pain when it happens) and she was like "Yeah, but you'd be doing the same thing if you had a boyfriend." I responded, "Well, seeing how none of my friends ever call me to do anything, yeah, I guess I would." Also it was a nice reminder of how I don't have a boyfriend anymore. *angst angst angst*

But anyway, stupid paranoia about being alone in the world (at least on this coast, Jayme and Val keep begging me to come "home" to NY). Blah. Also my brother is pissed at me for having the car. Hey, he was supposed to be going to Central Washington University for the next two days for band competitions but the passes are closed so it got cancelled last minute after I'd dropped him off at school this morning - so that I could have the car and it wouldn't just be sitting at the high school. Sooooo early, luckily he drove there while I woke up. Luckily he found rides to everything for the day, so I'm at least in the clear for today. So tiring. I'ma go fold my family's laundry and watched Charmed now. Hopefully someone will finally respond to me.

Holy crap I've turned back into my 15 year old self. Ick. Gotta get the fuck over this quickly.

Tuesdays remain the shittiest day of the week.

First of all, I have Programming. I would be fine with that class, if I had Michael for my teacher. He's awesome, and I had him last year so I know his teaching method. However, I have the new guy because I'm not a morning person. Keith. He's the grad student with something to prove, so we've had pop quizzes about every other week (in addition to our scheduled quizzes). The pop quizzes are harder than the regular quizzes because they're on the minutiae from the reading rather than from what we've covered in class or the important ideas from the book. He doesn't seem to realize that even those planning on using MIDI and all these music recording programs a lot don't actually need to know anything this in-depth. My frustration with him is not helped by the fact that I already know I want to go more into the business side of things because I just don't quite get all the recording stuff. Anyway, that's my rant about Keith. Pretty much everyone else in the class agrees too. We bitch about him a lot.

After this class comes my flute lesson, definitely the highlight of the day. I love my teacher, and really wish I could find more time to practice so that I could come to lessons as prepared as she's asked me to be the week before.

Now, yesterday was pretty exciting for a while after Programming. Flute lesson, then I got home to find that my bike had arrived, so I took that upstairs and reassembled that. It only took like ten minutes! I was so proud of myself. Then, since all our TV got cancelled last night (I think Tuesdays are House and Fringe...), Val decided we should watch Run Fatboy Run, which had come from Netflix that day.

But then the day got really really really shitty. Pretty much as soon as we started the movie, I got an e-mail saying I'd gotten a MySpace message from my Paco. This was exciting, because his phone is stuck at his friend's house so MySpace is currently the only way I have to talk to him, and that's only when he's at work. So I opened up the message. The beginning was the bad news about how he didn't know when he was getting his phone back because his friend's schedule doesn't mesh with his very well. But then it went into ruminations about rent and money and not being able to move out here any time soon, and so because of that we have to break up. Wait, what? I had to re-read it three times before I realized that he'd actually said that and there was no "JK" directly after it. I read the rest, begging me to understand and it was for me because he can't make me happy from across the country but he loves me enough to let me go...but don't try to change it and don't be mad. He said he'd still call me when he got his phone back and that I could respond to the message but...yeah.

So, it took the rest of the movie to fully sink in. Then I just got kinda numb and cold. I started talking to Val across the room via IM because I didn't want to have to say it out loud. Eventually I got restless and went back to my room, telling Val he could let Ryan know what was going on because Ryan had just come back to us IMing across the room and me giving one-word answers to any questions he threw out. So I went back to my room. I told Elyssa after a couple of minutes, and then I read the message he'd sent to me. That kinda did it, and I started crying. She gave me an awkward hug (because I was sitting on my bed and it's ridiculously high up and she's kinda short), and talked about how stupid a breakup that was. I agreed. I then wrote him back, saying that I didn't care if he couldn't move out soon, and that if this was because he didn't want to be in a long distance relationship himself then he should just tell me and not put it as an "It's for you." Otherwise I said I thought it was a ridiculous reason. Well, not in those words, but I think I got that point across.

He hasn't read it yet. He got offline as I was sending it. The rest of the night was really shitty just thinking about that and trying to do all my homework. I didn't sleep, and ended up spending the whole night sitting on the floor next door to my room just trying to distract myself with homework and the internet and TV and Val/Ryan/Jayme's humor. It sorta worked, until they all fell asleep.

Out of habit this morning I put on both my bracelets after my shower. One he bought me as a sorta birthday present, the other he made me and says "yours". Keeping my sleeves down so I don't have to look at them.

Shitty, shitty day. Fuck. I didn't even get to ride my bike to campus this morning. It was raining too much until I got out of the deli around the corner with my breakfast. So I took the bus again. Soon though, I will be riding my bike everywhere. It will be amazing.

FUCK.

Ack, this project is killing me. I'm loaded with stuff to do: homework for classes I'm only taking because they're required and not because I actually want to be a Recording Engineer, stuff I've volunteered to do for our department's record-label-type organization, being my hall's Hall Rep for Hall Council...

And on top of all this, I have my first Studio 2 project due relatively soon. Basically the assignment is: produce a song. So, my partner and I are recording her friend. He's got this musical theater-type song he wrote a couple of years ago, and we're having friends in our program play drums, bass, and guitar on it to back up his basic piano and vocals. Thing is, apparently the guitar sucked a few weekends ago (I thought the acoustic sounded fine, though we didn't get a chance to play electric because the program's guitars will not tune) so Cecile is booking/walking in for last minute sessions last night and tonight to fix that. I understand, but I'm her partner and the guitar player seems to know before I do about these. Last night I couldn't even go because of a Hall Council meeting. Tonight I have a shitton of homework to do. I'm going to have to either skip my lecture in the morning or not go to the session. Since I missed the session last night I feel really bad skipping the one tonight, but I just. do. not. have the time. I get about 10 minutes in my dorm after my flute lesson that starts about now before I have to come back up to campus for a record label meeting. Then I don't have time to go home before the session starts at 9:30 to midnight. When am I doing my homework? No clue.

I sound whiny, and I feel bad, it's just...I'm kinda upset that Cecile isn't telling me anything until the last minute. I didn't even get to hear the demo of the song until we started recording the drums and bass in our first session.

So, my solstice celebration on Saturday evening was technically a day late, but I figure that since the actual solstice was at 11:59pm on the 20th some leeway is given. We started out by gathering at Max's house, then Phatty, Derek, Max and I hopped in Max's car and headed over to Megan's. There we enjoyed burgers outside in the rain (it only rained while we were eating), and chatted a bit before having to head over to Phatty's family friend's house up near where Sophie lives. Here we snacked a little more on one of those wonderful veggie platters, before heading out to their fire pit. Donna then led us in a ritual welcoming the summer. We honored nine elements by throwing 9 representational herbs onto the fire. I had lavender. Then, I did a simple banishing spell, asking for a bit of help on that bad habit/personality trait I was writing about earlier. We talked a little about the solstice and mysticism in general, and when I piped up with some fact Donna and Kim (Phatty's mom) asked how long I'd been into Paganism and we all went off on various tangents from there. I'm trying to remember some of the books Donna recommended. Then, as Max had plans with a friend, I had to leave just before they went out to leave offerings for the faeries.

From there we left Max at his house, realized that sadly it would make the most sense for the three of us to each take our own cars, and went to Jeff's to pick him up. From there we stopped at Tina's work, where she'd just gotten off. She works at a retirement home in Woodinville, and they had free coffee and tea in the foyer so that was yummy. Then we went to Phatty's house to hang out for a little bit, and Katrina joined us once she got off work. Ended up leaving around 2:30.
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The most interesting part about that whole day was my truck's detrioration that occurred. The first bit was my fault, as I'd accidentally left the headlights on the night before. So, my brother and I jumped it before I headed out, and in a moment of foresight I threw the jumper cables into the bed. Then, just before I got to Max's house, I stalled. Luckily there was a rush just then so a couple people helped me push it off to the side. Luckily it's a super light truck. Then Max and them came down and we jumped it and just moved it into the church parking lot that happened to be right there because Max's driveway up the hill was full of other cars. Then it was off to Megan's. We knew we'd have to jump it again later as I didn't have time to let it run for about 15 minutes to charge up the battery. We got back, pushed it out of the corner it was in, jumped it again, and headed out. At Jeff's I left it idling as we debated briefly on what we wanted to do after getting Tina. At Tina's work, I turned it off, started it, and sighed with relief. When we left, it was fine and we headed to Phatty's. I made sure I'd turned off everything that was taking power from the battery before I turned it off once we arrived. However, when we all came out to leave, I turned the key and nothing happened. I mean, the dash lights lit up, but the engine didn't even turn over once. We tried jumping it with both Derek and Jeff's cars, but no luck. So between fifteen and thirty minutes later we finally gave up and I left my car at Phatty's and got a ride home with Jeff. The next morning my dad and I headed out, and he compression started it. This is a handy trick for any manual car driver to know. Basically, you hope it's on a hill, or have someone push you. You push the clutch in, put it in first, turn the key to "On", have the pushing start, and then once you get a bit of speed, you pop the clutch out, forcing the engine to turn over. It's pretty easy and I've now done it a bunch.

So anyway, we got it home, and parked it so it was facing downhill. Then today my brother and I took it down to Shucks so they could do some free tests on it to see what was wrong. Turns out I had a dead starter. My battery was actually mostly charged, and we took it out and charged it all the way up for free. Then we called AAA to have them tow it to a mechanic four blocks away. It was a pretty cheap fix ($176 or so), and only took about an hour. However, when he went to move it out it took a few times to start, so he said that something else might be wrong and if I keep having problems to call him and he'll take another look. I need it to go pick Alan up at the airport tomorrow though, and when he opened the hood and had me try to start it a bunch to figure out what else might be wrong it started every time. So it should be fine for the most part. I'm so glad it was pretty simple. Now I get my truck back. :) I actually really really like this car. It's small, light, manual, and kinda unexpected from someone just meeting me and trying to figure out what I drive.
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The rest of today has had me in one of those stupid, whining-in-my-head "nobody called me", pouty sort of moods. (There has also been a lot of yelling between me and my parents today. Hmm. Yay PMS? Probably.) I texted Carolyn (who got back from Hawaii yesterday), but according to her brother she'd delegated today as a her and Brian sort of night. I still don't know if they're actually together again or just spending a lot of time "talking" and around nobody else. I mean, it doesn't really matter, I'm just curious. I also called Abby and Alex, but neither picked up their phone or called me back. I scrolled through the rest of my numbers, but didn't see anyone else I felt particularly comfortable calling out of the blue around 8pm and saying "I'm bored, let's hang out," to. I'm weird like that. I don't like calling anyone other than my super close friends anyway because I'm afraid I'll be interrupting something. I know, they should just not answer their phone if it would be an interruption, but I'm just weird.
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Tomorrow is the day to pick up Alan at the airport a little after noon, and then go to my orientation at Ruby's Diner in Redmond. Exciting.

Also, slfcllednowhere is moving up here this week if I remember correctly. YAY!

RIP George Carlin. I only knew a little of your comedy, but I really liked what I knew. You were also great in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure.

I'm excited for going to Whistler this weekend.

Oh! Jobs! I told Jet City I wouldn't be able to work for them on Sunday right after I heard back from the Apple Store. So, now I am a part-time specialist at the Apple Store and a part-time hostess at Ruby's Diner. (Am I the only one in the world who thinks eliminating the waiter/waitress, host/hostess, actor/actress thing in favor of servers, hosts, and actors is not a feminism gain? It just never seemed all that important to me. Being a waitress instead of a server didn't seem demeaning, it seemed like the title of the position for someone who was a woman. Sure, maybe we would have had to come up with some other word for the gender-neutral people, but claiming that eliminating the -ess job titles was for feminism was over the top for me.)

Take a step back before launching yourself into this entry. I can promise you right now it's gonna be whiny and angsty. Why? Because I'm deciding to take comfort in the pity of strangers on a shitty day. You can read it and ignore it, read it and yell at me for being a whiny bitch, or offer words of advice. I don't care. This will make me feel better and that way I won't have to bottle things up again until I explode, which is never pretty.

So, on Halloween my friends and I rented a movie, Amityville Horror, on my parent's account. It was due Wednesday. It got turned in today. My mom got really pissed and reminded me about it at least three times a day when I couldn't even fucking contact the person whose house it was at. SO, today I was over there and I took it and drove it up to the store. People now owe me money so I can pay the late fee. Doesn't matter if it wasn't your fault for leaving it at Carolyn's house...I'm pissed enough that NOBODY remembered that I'm charging you all, even if you didn't watch much of it.

Then, on Sunday, my parents surprised me at 9 am with a trip up to Camano Island. Yes, I love our family friends who live up there, BUT I was counting on Sunday being an empty day so I could do my massive mountain of homework. So I went, then came back just in time for my indoor soccer game at 4:30 that afternoon. Then I get in the car and my mom says to my dad "So, are we gonna go get food before going to your mom's?" and I go, "WHAT?!?!?!?! We're going to grandma's too?!" and then the got all mad at me because I'm supposed to know that we almost always go to my grandma's for dinner on Sundays. So I was like "Yeah, but I also happen to have A TON of homework still because I can't do half of it without a compter!"

They weren't very happy about having to take me home.

Then today I was having a rather good day, and then my friend down the street calls me. "Ruben and Brian came over, but went down to the lake and won't let me hang out with them. Wanna come over and do homework?" So I called my mom, got permission to come back around 6:30-7, and went down there, where I proceeded to dive into my, again massive, mountain of homework, all due tomorrow because of the three day week this week. (Yay, I guess) So around 5:36 my mom calls me and is all, "Have you returned the movie yet?" "No, I'm trying to work." "Ok, well come home right now and do that, then take down all the Halloween decorations, there are boxes in the closet-" "Mom! I have a mountain of homework tonight." "Yeah? Well you should get on that." "I'm trying to!" "Well you should have more time to work around th house." In my head I replied "Yeah? well you're the one who wanted me to do fucking full IB at school. I'd rather not have this much homework either!" But, I'm horrible with confrontations with my parents so I just was like, "yeah, ok." She proceeded to let me know that she was taking my brother to his training thing, and they'd be back around 7:30, but I needed to come home right away just to take that damn movie back. So I did, and now I'm looking at the amount of homework I have left, and the amount of Halloween decorations we have, and am ready to just throw myself onto my bed and cry for hours, except for two things. 1) If my mom came home and found me like that she'd just get more pissed. My mom is scary when she's pissed. 2) I wouldn't get anything done, and I like having ok grades thanks. 3) My mom's fucking scary when she's pissed.

Oh, and then there's the fact that I feel SUPER guilty for something that I shouldn't feel guilty for at all. So I'm beating myself up mentally about that as well as all this now, and I know that I don't have it nearly as bad as other people, so I'm beating myself up for getting angsty about shit like this too, and I don't even actually know. I just wanna go to sleep and get lost in happy dreams. Or a good book. Good books help too.

Fuck. I said I wouldn't cry. Too late.