An Xmas Miracle of Sorts

Remember when I thought my vibrators were stolen? It turns out that Q had them the whole time (almost a year). They must've been pushed under his bed accidentally only to be discovered when he finally got around to cleaning his room thoroughly. How did I not remember that I left them there?! I wonder what happened on that particular "morning after" that caused me to walk out of his place without my vibrators? Did I think I was going back inside and instead he walked me to my car? That would've marked the beginning of the distancing phase we go through when he starts to feel guilty about all the sex we're having. The next week he would've told me that we shouldn't spend the night together and that we needed to work on our relationship. This time around I think I only gave the sexless let's-be-serious-about-our-relationship period a couple of weeks before I broke up with him. There's no way we were going to be able to work on our relationship with Q putting distance between us in order to avoid having sex with me. It wasn't a bad break-up, but it wasn't exactly appropriate for me to stop by that weekend to pick up my vibrators--I wasn't thinking about them in the slightest anyway. However, I had been missing them more recently. I couldn't let Q know that though; after our properly friendly evening of watching "Terminator Salvation" he kissed me way too passionately. (Since he'd asked me if he could kiss me as I was getting up to leave I thought he was going to give me a little peck good-bye, but no). I don't know what that was about. He then proceeded to walk me to my car, ride with me to the entrance of his condo complex, and give me the proper "just friends" goodbye kiss before getting out of the car.

Sometimes I Think Like A Man

Apparently. I seem to be the only woman in this family who thinks it's stupid to expect people to act on your wishes if you don't make your wishes known. For instance, how realistic is it to believe that a filthy person will realize that they shouldn't leave their surroundings filthy when she is comfortable living in filth? My mom didn't want me to clean the kitchen the other day as she thought that my cousin M would see the kitchen dirty in the morning and clean it. M is supposedly concerned about bugs and Mom believed that the dirty kitchen would be some sort of jolt of reality telling M that my mom and I aren't the only ones responsible for cleaning the kitchen. Of course, this didn't work. M rarely cooks breakfast, but Mom likes a good breakfast and hates cleaning in a dirty kitchen so she cleaned the kitchen. Last night, we didn't clean the kitchen and now I'm about to clean the accumulated dishes and wash down the surfaces because Mom can't take it anymore. She was thinking my aunt would be taken aback by the state of the kitchen and say something to her daughter, but she didn't. I wonder what the ass-backward plan is now.

I don't plan to quietly seethe about this. Next time M complains about the dog I'm going to tell her what thin ice she's on with Mom (particularly because she doesn't clean up after herself in the bathroom either). The way she treats my Mom's dog is also pretty sickening--earlier the poor thing could at least walk around the kitchen, but now she's got her blocked into the laundry room with one of her annoying baby gates. I might move it back to the kitchen entrance since she doesn't monitor her daughter when she wanders into the kitchen or go in there to cook her child anything to eat. She's always blaming her ill health on her even though her "allergies" could be due to all the dust she hasn't removed from her room or she could just be sick because all she eats is meat and all she drinks is soda and florescent fruit punch and she has to be enormously constipated all the time. (Maybe that's why she lies on the couch all day looking miserable). Naturally, Mom has noticed all of this and is the sole reason I connect constipation with bad general health in the first place. She feels bad about her poor dog whining to be on the other side of the baby gate with her "pack," but when M's daughter imitates her overly dramatic mother stomping and yelling at the dog she puts herself at risk. At the risk of what I can't truly say because my mom's elderly dog has no front teeth. You can't tell this to the drama queen though and the histrionics presented to my aunt relating to the dog have withered her sympathies toward the animal.

I guess if I really though like a dude I would've just stated the aforementioned problem to the trouble-making party and not bothered writing this blog at all, but I'll probably be able to be a lot cooler about it after expelling some venom first. I'll be able to be much more diplomatic about this situation later on and several hundred years of history don't reveal any expertise that men have in diplomacy that would make me doubt my methods.

Mere Food Snobbery Or ...

Is it out-and-out bitchy to pass up a meal someone cooked to eat a hot dog? To me a hot dog, even an Oscar Mayer wiener, is the bottom of the bottom of the food chain. It's buried underneath the food pyramid like a sarcophagus. But my cousin has been cooking lately which would be a good and happy contribution to the household if she could cook at all. She overcooks and under-seasons just about everything, but especially vegetables and she uses that cheap ground beef that comes in the tube with the ground beef pictured on the wrapper when she makes meat sauce for pasta. If you can't see the meat, don't eat the meat. Why does that even have to be stated for someone over the age of thirty? Tonight, she's tried to cover up her culinary sins by putting an entire block of Kroger mozzarella cheese over her "'meat sauce' and macaroni skillet." I would try to preemptively cook dinner, but when I look at a freezer full of ground chuck with no eggs for binding properties, what am I supposed to make? Not meatloaf or meatballs. Maybe I should've tried country fried steak, but for some reason the thought of making gravy makes me nervous. I guess I'm going to have to get over my fear and learn to make everything there is to make out of ground beef if I don't want to end up look at hot dogs as a viable meal alternative.

Another Late Night Avoiding The Aversive

Ok, this is my last act of procrastination for the evening--hopefully, for this day since it's actually really early Tuesday morning. I've just finished looking for inspiring images of interior decorating to place in the photo folder of my iPod, creating a new playlist, and browsing Apartment Therapy. All this to avoid cleaning the kitchen--not because I hate cleaning the kitchen, but because I hate being the only person in a house with five, sometimes six, adults who ever cleans the fucking kitchen. I don't mind cleaning up after my mom because she cooks and because our cousin, the Storekeep, recently had knee surgery and has sucked up just about every hour of my mom's days with chauffeuring her to her doctor/therapy appointments. Her mother also goes along, not for support, but to go in stores, browse excessively, and buy food that she doesn't intend to cook until it's nearly bad. Meanwhile, the Storekeep's daughter--who is known for butting in where she doesn't belong--is nowhere to be found. She can jump on a plane to come to her high school reunion and organize an after-party for it, but she can't take care of her mom. She's used her daughter as one of her excuses, but the kid is three, and I don't care if she's in some lycée pre-school, she's just gonna forget all the shit they're teaching her anyway. So that's three relatives sucking my mom dry and I'm trying to limit it to just those three so I clean the kitchen, take care of the dog, and occasionally cook.

When we moved into this new place with my aunt, her daughter, her soon to be ex-son-in-law, and her granddaughter, I knew I was in for some bullshit, but this is a bit beyond my expectations. This is the "horrible living arrangement" that I was speaking of in my previous post and at the moment of its' writing I had no idea I would end up the scullery maid. It's not just the kitchen duty, but the fact that during the moving-in process my mom and I cleaned this entire house (both stories) and didn't see hide or hair of anyone else. Yet, my cousin walks around like she can dictate who needs to do what. She's repeatedly complained about the dirty dog, but she's left dirty diapers everywhere. She even stuffed one in a fast food cup and left it in the kitchen sink. Ewwwww! And I know she doesn't feel a bit hypocritical because she's the least self-aware person I've ever met and she's filthy. This is, after all, is the chick who led me to invent the word, "assprint."

On top of that, her soon-to-be ex-husband is filthy too. He's also selfish and childishly passive aggressive. I would say he's a bit more inconsiderate than her and he's a really bad listener. He also seems to be a tad bit stupid. The two of them are quite a pair and, while he had been spending most of his time here in the basement like a hermit, I can't wait for him to leave because I can't deal with two nasty people at one time. (Oh yeah, he has to sleep in the basement until he moves out in the next week because he was too lazy to clear away stuff around the sleeper sofa and my other cousin is no sleeping on it). He seems to think the only way to roast poultry is with some rotisserie machine he probably paid too much for--it smokes up the kitchen and makes the whole house smell like chicken. This is the same idiot who bought an iced tea machine. An iced tea machine!

I was treated to all of the aforementioned relatives (except for my cousin, S, who's busy avoiding caring for her prematurely decrepit mother) being royal pains in the neck on Thanksgiving so I think I'm at my boiling point and I just had to write a little of it off. Unfortunately, sound seems to carry like a motherfucker in this house so I haven't been on the phone to any of my friends to talk about this. Also, my cousin, M, is always here which makes her laziness all the more galling. She's also using her daughter as an excuse, but she doesn't cook for her, she doesn't take her outside to play, and, according to her mother and mine, she doesn't change her diapers often enough. All she does is buy her stuff and try to pacify her with tv and bottles. Again, according to my mother, the kid is old enough for food at her feedings and I've witnessed the poor thing eat like she's hungry when she finally gets a real meal.

I really don't want to be here for any more of this ignorant shit (that I haven't even told you the half of) and I've certainly had enough of playing Cinderella. I'm glad I have my new bike to get out and about with--that thing really hauls. This is actually a nice area, but for my mom's sake, my cousins and I need to be on our way. Only my mom and my aunt are supposed to be living here. M says she can't wait to move back to Marietta, but none of us believe that for a second. She couldn't wait to get back into her mom's house (she lived with her in the house she rented previously) and she didn't care what negative effect that would have on her marriage. I guess Mom's gonna have to stop biting her tongue in order to make it uncomfortable enough here for her to get going. I want to be gone way before then; I wish I could be out before Xmas. That would be the best Xmas present ever!

I know that job searching is on one hand a numbers game and I have to really increase my numbers. I'm not going to do that by blogging my frustrations so this should be the last you hear from me for a minute unless someone enrages me. I guess I'll go clean the kitchen now and hope that M doesn't wake me up early with her screeching after the baby from all the way downstairs. (Why does she have to be so fucking loud first thing in the morning)?

Big Blog Pimpin'

You couldn't tell it from this blog, but I have officially become a big blog whore or I will be on November 1st. I'll be writing for my first corporate blogging gig--a job I snagged through another blog I write about bikes. Unfortunately, there's no cash in this for me, but I will be getting a free bike worth $940. And it's not just expensive; it's got a sexy French city bike thang going on. I'm psyched. And surprised. All I ever hoped to get out of my bike blog was enough money from Amazon referrals to buy some CD's. This has gotten me thinking that I haven't properly pimped this blog. Cycling is a topic that readers easily identify with and that attracts sponsors. Nobody want to be the corporate sponsor of angst even if some readers can identify with mine. Also, no one coming here to read about my lastest anxieties appears to be in a mood to shop. That said, I'm not about to succumb to greed entirely. I'm going to continue this blog until I get my happy ending (and I'm not talking about the sexual variety that occurs with a sketchy masseuse).

My bike kinda looks like this, but it's chocolate-colored and lacks a few of the fancy features that make this model $1550.

I hate it when a personal blog dies and you never really get a sense of where the blogger is in her journey. For instance, I'm not quite sure if the author of "Bad Feminist" got back into the swing of things comfortably or not. I know she was pulling herself back together after the passing of her mother and going back to classes at Yale Law School. I don't recall her saying that things were going swimmingly at school and that her studies and social life kept her to busy to blog--her blog just ended and there's no longer any trace of its existence on the Internet. At least Kat from "Kitty Can Scratch" let her readers know that she was ending the blog. I believe she cited a crazy new work schedule, a newish beau, and social obligations as her reasons for closing up shop. Those are respectable rationales, but I guess I would've liked to have known that she'd finished that novel she was supposed to be working on (I don't recall that bit) or achieved whatever her quarter-life crisis-inspired goal was. At least there's still some sign that she blogged.

As for me, I will definitely continue this blog until I get a real job, relocate to Atlanta, and carve out a new life for myself which includes decorating, cooking, seeing friends, possibly having a dog, traveling, and romance, among other things. Even after I get a life, I'll probably just start a new blog that appears to be primarily about decor and housewares so that I can get free stuff. I'll also throw in some pictures of clothes and shoes along with my regular kavetching and attempts to make with the funny. Hopefully, we'll be seeing some movement in this direction in the next three weeks, but I've been doing an insane amount of procrastination over the last week. Scratch that, I can't say "hopefully." "Must" as in "must see some movement" is the optimum word because another horrible living arrangement is on the horizon if I don't. I can't even get into it now; I'll post the details at a later date.

Who Steals A Vibrator?

In the nine months since I've written, my whole family was thrown for a loop by the sudden passing of my grandmother in May and my mom and I were surprised to find a squatter in my cousin's vacant house next door a few weeks ago. Between these round of shocks, I spent a big chunk of my summer in Virginia with my dad trying to sleep and eat at normal times and get some exercise. Just about when I thought I'd gotten the hang of it, I returned to Georgia and chucked it all out the window. I didn't have anything resembling the internet I know and love in Virginia--my dad still has dial-up and Windows 98. That probably had a lot to do with me making it to bed at a decent hour. Now, back in Georgia, I get up a little earlier because it seems to be unavoidable and I'm tired and unproductive most of the day which hasn't helped me work towards the bigger life change I'm looking for--moving away from Cartersville. The one thing that has changed is that I've probably been more earnest about praying about this desired life change. My prayer has been this: I ask God to motivate me to do the things that I need to do to get out of here. What I meant was that I wanted God to make me feel like doing all the things I need to get out of here; I thought I would be receiving waves of energy and optimism from the universe or something. What I got was a bunch of crap that makes me think, "Jeez, I have got to get the hell up outta here!" Now, when I do leave here and all the annoying crap here, that is negative reinforcement, isn't it? I was expecting an spiritual experience and the Holy Ghost busted out some behavioral psychology on my ass.

The tension in this house had been very high at times when my grandmother would have her fits. Even when she was more even-tempered, she could still annoy the shit out of my mom. Her passing seemed to lift a pressure from the house despite our family's mourning. My mom and I could leave the house freely without arranging for anyone to sit with Grandmother and, with Mom out, I could finally have some time alone. With opportunity and motive (since I'm probably about to reach my sexual peak), I thought it appropriate to go into the storage house and retrieve my vibrator. It was wrapped in an opaque plastic bag inside of an opaque pouch which was inside of a jewelry roll inside of a bookbag. It had been configured that way in that exact spot for three years so why is it missing now? I didn't move it and, as nosey as my mom is, I don't think she's nosey enough to go through all of that wrapping to see what's inside and then highlight her snooping activites by not putting it back the way she found it and she's not pious enough to have thrown them out (Q bought me two, but I only use one of them). To my mind, that only leaves the squatter, and who uses a used vibrator?! That's beyond disgusting. Why would someone even handle a vibrator that was outside of its packaging and apparently owned by someone--we all know where it's been! Since living here I've had CD's and sunglasses vanish into thin air and I'm currently up to three summer dresses that I can't locate for the life of me, but the vibrators are the straws that broke the camel's hump. I have got to get the hell up outta here!

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Now playing: Delta Spirit - People C'mon
via FoxyTunes

Woody Allen Couldn't Write This Sh*t

So as it turns out Q and I are in a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. The reason that I know this is because last week he asked me if it would be alright with me if we stopped having sex so he could (a) stop feeling that pesky ol' Irish-Catholic guilt and (b) so we could focus on our relationship more. Ha! How uncanny is that? Even though that remedies my sexual performance issues, I'm having an issue with preventing myself from creating new issues with this relationship. The thing is: he's done this before and we ended up breaking up. But things are different now. He's a lot different now; I wish I could say the same. He called just a few moments ago and, during our conversation, I jokingly asked if he considered me his little project (because, at times, he seems to be trying to fix me) and he said, "No. If you were my project you'd be finished by now." Maybe he's trying to figure how much more of my crap he has the patience for--it can't be pleasant watching someone you care for perpetually floundering through life. The fact that he came back to me and he's been here this long must mean that he's pretty invested emotionally. I think the relationship would already be over if it were based primarily on sex because, no matter how "amazing" the sex (in his words, not mine), he'd feel so bad about himself for using me and being a lascivious bastard that he'd break up with me (again).

Tags: [Unrequited] Love