another blog

yeah, i need another blog like i need a hole in my head. see, the thing is, they are just so damn easy. no thinking, no waiting, just i need a new blog, oh, there it is. somthing for the instant gratification. but, i did need it...

somewhere to put all these random happenings so they stop taking up space in my head. somewhere i can write whatever i want and not worry about people reading it, finding my diary, whatever. i don't need a dot com. this is perfect. see, nothing terribly interesting happens to me, but i'd like to remember it anyway. and i have a horrible memory--ask my sister--so writing things down is the only way for me to possibly remember, much less make sense of everything.

right now, charlie remembers more about my life than i do. when he was trying to set me up with his friend, he had all these stories, actually made my life sound somewhat not boring, the stalker incident, the father-internet scandal, and i already can't remember the other things he was bringing up. not the best way to introduce yourself, but good god, i had forgotten all of that.

site down

so, i didn't pay my webhosting bill for the last few months and my site is down. but i think it might be better this way. see, i had been upset that a few people that actually know me in the real world had been following my blogs, namely a former co-worker, exboyfriend, and his mom. and i think i had been editing myself, writing only fluffy or watered down things. and i hate that. and why do i need a website anyway? so, this is better. if it weren't for all my pictures disappearing i wouldn't care at all.

nothingness

p class="main">I feel like freakin' She-Ra right now.

Reminds me of the old days of a full-courseload, two part-time jobs, being editor of the college newspaper, and nurturing an obsession with the new crush who turned into my husband.

After five or so years of only the daily grind and reality tv to focus on, I didn't think that energy would ever be possible again. And here it is: full-time job, five to seven nights a week interning at a community theater, one day a week devoted to quality time with my Godchild-who-needs-me, living for the first time on my own, and the other wonderful, but complicated and time-intensive thing-that-I'm-not-ready-to-mention-yet.

On five hours a night of sleep, and I'm still managing to put on makeup and smile pretty for the cameras. Which just that alone I couldn't manage at all the last few years.

Did I say also that in my spare time I'm reading Prozac Nation, Smack, Brave on the Rocks and The GRE Cram Course, (all at the same time, which I've never done before. I've always finished one before starting the next, what's wrong with me now? I guess nothing, except that I absolutely love the New Orleans Public Library! I've never actually "resided" inside of the big city limits, so therefore couldn't get a library card before without paying $50/year), researching grad schools, and trying to come up with a plan for my life.

Makes me wonder if what I need to cope is a too-full schedule. Purposeful stress and complication. No time to be left to my own devices. No time to wallow in myself, feeling unproductive. Because right now I feel really productive. I'm still tired all the time, but now I feel like I have a legitimate cause for always being tired, a reason, it's not just that something's inherently wrong with my body.

I can't describe what I felt before, why I was unable to focus on anything except the latest Allure magazine or I love the 90's on VH1, but I can tell you that this is better-- doing something, even though it's not earth-shattering by any means, especially relative to these over-accomplished geniuses I'm privileged to work around (MD, MPH, and PhD at 26? Come on!), is so much better than the nothing-ness of before.

high

We finished the last box of sugar today and work and realized there was no more in the storage room. Fine, except that I can't drink coffee wihout it and I can barely exist on five hours of sleep with coffee, much less without.

Solution: Borrow a take-out container full of blue, pink, and white packets from the coffee shop across the hall. So, I filled my 8 oz. Tinkerbell coffee cup with 1/3 creamer, topped it off with coffee and sprinkled two white packets on top. And when I tasted it, it was so bitter I had to add two more packets just to make it drinkable. So, after a quick calcultaion, the regrettable truth is that I consume between 8 and 12 packets of pure sugar in a regular day (and much more on those other days).

And this is just with my coffee people--I've just finished a bag of gummi bears and have moved on to the m&m's as I write this! Tell me, is this normal? I've noticed before that while other people drink coffee for the caffine, I do it for the sugar, that's nothing new. Whoever created hand-sized pour-top sugar boxes should be shot!

And why won't they move the snack machine to the third floor instead of right outside my office like I've been asking? I need a way to make them realize the severity of my situation.

down swing

Nothing is right anymore. At first everyone was saying, you look so good, wow you've lost weight, and how did you do it. Now they look at me and say: you're getting too thin, are you eating? The same from my mother, I'm too skinny, I need to eat. The girl in my office has taken to bringing me candy everyday from the gift shop, a muffin from across the hall. Offering to pick up breakfast and lunch. I would have understood the weight loss, before, when I had sworn off junk food and coffee. Or when I went through the vegan diet kick. Or when I started doing that Aerobic for Dummies video tape. But the funny thing is, now, I'm back to eating everything and I'm still losing weight. Clothes I bought at Christmas are hanging off me and I've had to start wearing a belt again. I'm not complaining, but it's weird. I've always been like this I guess. Not this weight, I mean always either gaining weight or losing it. Never steady. I look at pictures from month to month over the last seven or eight years, and am always surprised by how different I look from easter, to the fouth of july, to halloween. It makes no sense. And now I'm on the down swing.

breathe

I hold my breath as this life starts to take its toll
I hide behind a smile as this perfect plan unfolds
But oh, God, I feel I've been lied to
Lost all faith in the things I have achieved
And I've woken now to find myself
In the shadows of all I have created
I'm longing to be lost in you
(away from this place I have made)
Won't you take me away from me
Crawling through this world as disease flows through my veins
I look into myself, but my own heart has been changed
I can't go on like this
I loathe all I've become
Lost in a dying world I reach for something more
I have grown so weary of this lie I live
Evanescence's Away From Me

This is exactly how I felt about seven months ago. Sounds dramatic, I know, but it's true. It's not even failure, it's knowing you've willingly given up all of the dreams you had for your life, everything you thought you were or wanted to be. Like you are a stranger, or more like you have covered yourself up for so long you forgot what you look like. It happens slowly, but you get so buried you can't breathe anymore and everything seems impossible, like you will never get out. And the worse part is you know you did it voluntarily, you have no one to blame but yourself.

It's so nice to be able to breathe again...

disaster

Money is scary now. I know everything will eventually work out ok, soon really, but for now it's scary. For the first time in my life, I have bills that I don't know how to pay. My own stupid fault, for example, my cell phone bill this month is $450. How do you even talk that much? Why it never occurred to me that I was running up such a bill I don't know. I'm usually a pretty intelligent person. When I got the email yesterday, I needed chocolate. Literally. I had to go straight to the candy machine and buy a Hershey's bar with almonds. Did it help? For a minute, I guess, then the stress came right back. I'm trying to just not think about it, but I've never been this irresponsible and it's hard for me to accept.

And my husband cancelled our one credit card without telling me. Another first for me, having a credit card declined last week. Not having that in case of emergency plastic is scary. And then having a bank account overdrawn (by $600, how the hell does that happen?). So, all in all it's been a pretty bad week on the financial side. Not exactly the way I wanted to enter February, but what can you do? Just cross your fingers and look for a second job...

The good news is my impulse shopping addiction is officially over. I haven't bought anything in a month (ok, except this cd from Tower Records last week, but it was a present). Instead, I'll be adding like crazy to my wish list and posting things I want for later when I have money. Like the adorable tea cup below. I saw it when I was walking through the French Market Sunday. But it couldn't be justified, not even with my shopping logic.)