Remember Me As A Time Of Day

Two things making me extremely happy right now:

1. I just got an email from my friend entitled, "Party anyone?" that starts out, "Hi girls." There's something so cute and inclusive about having a little group of friends here that write emails inviting me to parties that start out, "hi girls." I can't really explain it.

2. I was driving home from campus this afternoon and a motorcycle cop passed me on the right, in between two lanes as they're prone to doing out here. And I noticed that he had a license plate frame that said, "Smile, I'm not behind you."

I laughed my ass off at this.

Swimming Through Sick Lullaby

Disregard previous post. Yeah, waaah, I miss my friends. Boo fucking hoo. It's time I found some goddamn strength in myself for once. I'm just being a baby, and being really selfish, and that's typical Me-ness but it grates on the nerves, doesn't it? Hmmm.

So things are fine. This is where I live. We were supposed to go re-sign the lease yesterday, at the obscene new increased rate that's $70 more/month than we're already breaking ourselves to pay. But I didn't feel like talking about the lease, or pointing out all the shit that's been stolen because of their shitty (crime-wise) landscaping and layout of the spots. I didn't feel like arguing with some dumb bitch about how bullshit their monopoly on this town is, and how much I wish we could afford to lve somewhere else.

Sometimes it flashes through my mind that going to the courthouse and secretly getting married, so we could live on campus for about one eightieth what we pay now, and not telling anyone, would be the best possible option. Sometimes it flashes through my mind that marriage and the prospect of it terrifies me and I'm never going through with it. Mostly I just waffle around in the middle.

Ugh. Accck.

So at 4 this morning JD woke me up. I thought it was strange that he was waking me up by walking into the bedroom instead of accidentally rolling over on top of me and cutting off my breathing or snoring so loud I woke up, so I was instantly alarmed. Plus he was kind of dressed.

He annnounces that the cops caught the guy who keeps breaking into his car. That he's just been outside talking to them, and this loser and his buddies were going to hit all the saturns in the lot. And that my back driver's side door was unlocked when JD went to check on it, but the only thing he could find missing is the mobile phone circa 1984 that I had in my glove box, that JD would take out at stoplights and pretend to be talking on to my great amusement, that weighs about ten pounds and looks ridiculous. They only took the fucking ancient-ass mobile phone? JD seemed annoyed that the bad guys were so neat with my car. Like, my stereo that I bought in fucking high school and would weep openly if ever it were stolen is still there, untouched. The Deery-Lou air freshener is still there, as is the Indiana Jones action figure, my photos of shirtless Nick licking an amp, of Keith taking a photo of himself in the mirror, a polaroid of me and jarrod, my parking permit, and all my cds, which are in one of those visor flap things above the passenger seat. So they ONLY took the comical phone that hasn't worked in a decade and no one would EVER buy from them.

I havent' been down there to check it out yet, I'll have to do that this afternoon, but I didnt' have anything valuable in there anyway, mostly because I've just been waiting for this.

But let me express my sheer delight in the fact that the cops fucking caught those assfaces. JD woke up suddenly around 3:30 and saw cop lights right outside, and went out to talk to them, and they were like, "they're arrested but we can't prove anything about all the other times they've been here" so jd tells them everything he knows about his car, about how we had to get it from cerritos, etc. And the cops think this is super interesting because the guys they arrested came down from a town right the fuck next to cerritos.

I hope they can link them to all this bullshit. Apparently they WERE using a shaved key, which is so fucking annoying because the idea that any retard can make a key that opens the door to EVERY saturn is really bothersome. I'm so pissed that they, like clockwork, have been trying this about every 30 days all fucking year. But I am in love with the cops for actually catching them in the middle of it. That must have taken a little bit of sneaky cop work to do. I love that these assfaces thought that by driving an hour south to over-priviledged orange county and robbing SATURNS that they would never be caught. Or, I'm assuming that's what they thought. Fuckers.

Anyway, neither of us ever fucking expected anyone to get caught. Just for our shit to keep slowly disappearing and no one to do anything about it. It's really fucking frustrating the first time it happens, but it gets exponentially worse when it happens FIVE TIMES in a span of as many months. This is the FIFTH time our shit has been stolen/broken into. I hate people. I hate people who steal directly from other people because they can. It's so much bullshit. They should steal from people with enough money not to care about having to replace the cd player every fucking month. But I guess those people don't drive saturns, and don't make such easy targets.

But that was good news. Strange that it all went down right the fuck in front of our apartment, where the two of us have been parking in the hopes that we would wake up and see something if it happens again. Whatever.

Them being arrested makes me happy but I don't feel any less like all my shit is up for grabs at all times. I want to hit something. Oh, and I got an email hinting that I am supposed to go to LA by myself sometime this week and work on the study. Fuck that. I really will hit something, and that something will be someone's FACE, if Ihave to go allllll by myself and do allllll the shit all by myself. Bullshit!

I Should Be Stronger Than Weeping Alone

Well, I'm sooooo glad I posted that blow-by-blow account of my visit home so that no one could read/comment on the damn thing. Except sisface.

I've been up since 5:30. That's like early morning your time. I had some work to do before this meeting I had this morning. I am the queen of wanting to be talked into things, I guess. I went and was actually well-prepared despite not having done anything resembling production while in the midwest, and every time I meet with her I get a nice condensed reminder of why I'm out here and why I want to be in school and that's about all I could ask for at this point, so I'm lucky.

That meeting aside, I am having something of a major existential crisis these days. We are in serious danger of not being able to both pay September's rent and buy enough food to eat at the same time. I have an eighth of a tank of gas that needs to last me until September 4th or so. I have a dying fuschia on the balcony and bird shit all over my car. The apartment needs to be cleaned. I've been promised some money but am not holding my breath until it's arrival. But none of these things are even registering on the freak out radar. Well, maybe that worrying about paying rent thing is a little bit.

But mostly, I am trying to remind myself why we are doing this. Why we are out here, in this place that doesn't fit quite right, with people that are nice and decent for the most part but not dear to either of us, with money problems and my perpetual desire to do only enough to skate by with top marks and not ever really apply myself in a devoted way to academics. I bet that last bit sounded retarded. But think about it, I picked a comparatively easy school (I think THINK that Cornell or Chicago would have been more challenging) and am doing comparatively little to apply myself but people are tripping all over themselves to congratulate me on doing well at this. It feels a little phony. I went to a big public undergrad university ---

wait, breaking news, my idiot neighbors (I am sitting typing this out on my balcony, I love wireless internet) are discussing this chihuahua's dumping schedule and habits. Here is what they are saying:

"God man this little fucking chihuahua shits like a horse and ive been living with him for like two days and he can't stop shitting himself and he just SHITS for reals dude, this dog, and the worst part is that it's SOFT shit and it just seeps into everything I own and you gotta understand it's hard cuz the other dog here and man, dude, and like are you fucking kidding me? And the dog's dookies are everywhere, man, there's shit everywhere, you should see the fucking bathroom, it's demolished..."

This may be picky, but I don't think he meant that the chihuahua's poop literally demolished the bathroom. But that's what he said.
_____

Anyway, so. I feel like I'm still managing to get by on as little effort as possible and it hasn't caught up to bite me in the ass yet so there's no reason for me to change it.

But I don't like doing that. I just do it because I can get away with it.

It's so pretty here and so temperate and mild and comfortable but I miss all of you and I miss the seasons and I don't know why I need a PhD anymore. And this is like another planet compared to the midwest. It's so easy to lose sight of the point of any of this. JD does it too, and i can imagine it would be hard to remind yourself why you're working 2 jobs that pay shit just to make ends meet and thinking about taking night classes or martial arts classes on top of that and life just piles up and I don't like that what I feel is right is also really hard

I'm trying to make the point that it's hard to be doing what I think I should when what I want is 2000 miles away and deceptively easy and could be in my grasp within a few hours. I'm trying to make the point that when I have to make decisions and the choice is between doing something difficult and doing something easier that will require less of me, I almost always choose the easy way out.

That probably speaks to my strength of character more tellingly than I would like, but it's the truth.

Why should I be out here for the next 4-5 years when 90% of what I love isn't here? I hate the way life post-college funnels us all into these isolated social sanctions, where you stop meeting people that are interesting and your life becomes a routine and nothing changes and you get bored and lonely and you are supposed to pick the one person you want to have in place to save you from your boredom and loneliness and the two of you are to go off together and carve out your niche in the world and be everything to each other.

It's just bullshit. Not to knock relationships or their obvious benefits, I wouldn't be out here if JD hadn't wanted to come along, I wouldn't be so far away if I hadnt' been trying to leave something behind, I wouldnt' be who I am if it werent' for the vast majority of you reading this.

But it's just bullshit that life is supposed to evolve in these prescribed ways. I don't see the point in finishing school anymore, I see the end of this year and the dangling carrot of a masters' degree like a bright light in the darkness and I don't know if I can let myself down like that but I can't remember why it would be letting myself down in the first place so I don't care. I'm fucking 22 for christs' sake. I dont' want to think about a wedding or a phd or a job market or a family. I don't want to get married because we've been together such a long time and everyone expects it or we feel like we owe each other something.

My heart is aching for you. Not since I moved here have I missed being there so much. And as my life gets ridiculously hard in the next two months, and forever on, so will yours. I want to move to chicago. I want to get my masters and find a cushy job in chicago doing some kind of research that has nothing to do with academia. I want to live in chicago and make frequent trips to see all of you. I want to win a life-altering amount of money, build a giant house, have you all come live in it, and let everyone I know do what they love and not what they have to in order to get by. I'm sick of all this bullshit making ends meet, doing what you have to crap. I know life is supposed to be hard and your heart is always supposed to be breaking for one thing or another, but I never believed it would actually be that way until now.

My heart is (figuratively, allegorically) breaking continuously and I don't know what I should do about it.

Why am I out here, why the fuck am I subjecting myself and JD to this? We could go rent a Uhaul today and be home in a few days. We're supposed to resign our lease today. I think that may be contributing a little to this knee-jerking panic. We would be in Chicago for a week before anyone detected our desertion.

I am having trouble breathing. I just can't see the point in being so far away and so far removed from your lives. It doesn't seem worth it anymore. The music scene out here is fucking dead. I was wrong to think I was doing JD a favor by picking this place. midstate new york would have been more indie-friendly. i've come up with all sorts of inventive little lies I could tell the faculty here. about my ailing relative who needs my help. about how i'm knocked up and only have six months to live. about how tired I get of my insides twisting up all the time and how sick I am of the knot in my throat. About the twenty minute conversation i overheard about chihuahua poop a little while ago. About the cars getting stolen. Anything. Anything seems preferable.

I just want to run away. I'm so sick of it being this hard to eke out a living here. I'm so sick of feeling always like I'm going to vomit.

And today, right before we go sign the stupid lease and before my stupid traneing grant kicks in and i become the property of the people who would like to push me into an academic career because the school will look better than if I don't go that way, today seems like the perfect time to just trash the whole last year of getting used to things and settling in and finding my way around and forging friendships with people and enjoying the weather.

Oh, except JD renewed our Disneyland annual passes while I was gone.
We're stuck after all.