Zeerusty

I forgot to mention ('forgot'?) that I didn't get that job I interviewed for.

Now that I am mentioning: My last check was smaller than I expected. Like, 10%. The thing is, they'd been paying me non-hourly, seemingly random but more-than-last-year amounts, but this check was by-the-hour. As a result, it was clear that I made about 7.50 an hour. Feeling = not good. feeling = more approximately, failure.

But I have some money. We'll live.

I could be going to a party tonight, but between this stuff and not getting much sleep last night I don't want to. Even though it's a birthday party .. no wonder people think I'm an antisocial jerk. They're making accurate observations.

Pulled out the 4-track to try recording, even though the Nasoalmo thing is pretty officially Not Gonna Happen. Didn't get anything pulled together, really, but I did finally sort out mixing down. (too bad I have nothing so complex it requires so many tracks - nothing good-complex, at least.) and tonight I really don't know why I bother...

I have another, purely pop-cultural reason for my bad mood, but I can't get my head together to write about it (and who cares, anyway?) so. i'll just wait for it to pass, probably.
and continue with the feeling stupid about things that really are NOT the biggest problem.

Kicking around the autumn leaves in my back yard, I realised: November is coming up.

Hey, my idiot shoulder angel hissed. You should do National Solo Album Month.

This is because I was looking at old, never-used song lyrics earlier, isn't it?

... Mmmaybe.

I can't use those. Digging up zombies is cheating.

No need to get huffy, huffed the idiot. Do something original, then.

Somebody want to kick some sense into my head?
... Take out the cliched little angel-thing while you're at it.

The good news is that as soon as i realise what's wrong, the cloud of helplessness that comes with onset tends to disappear. My brain gets the memo that its mean, mean game to make me cry (and thereby expand the capillaries in my head or something - I don't remember the explanation right now) has failed, and I can turn to Excedrin instead and it's all much better.

Planck seems to disapprove of this entry, as he thinks my hands would be better occupied stroking his head. He's engaged now in the next best option of nuzzling my wrists - although he has been looking at the screen periodically since I typed his name. (Cats know, man. It's, like ... spiritual shit!)

and then he sensed the paragraph's inevitable end and jumped away, to an early breakfast.



The last line of this blog post has become my mantra lately for a wide variety of reasons. Not that I'm following it with particular devotion - see above, and also what you're reading, for examples.

The point is, I'm drinking tea now. So it can't be that bad.

It would. I'd kill the genie and hope that eating it would provide calories.

HI CULTURE. SOME OF US NEED FOOD TO STAY ALIVE AND SANE.

justifying edit: I don't get the 'ooh, you've lost weight!' thing too often, but when I do it's usually when we've had trouble affording, you know, food. And somehow telling people that's why you've lost weight feels inappropriate or like a ploy for pity, so ...

is leaving in seven hours, which means I should just finish packing now (rather than while I'm eating some kind of lunch), but I'm just not there.

One week back east; I don't really want to go. I know I need to, for the memorial and to see the relatives I never see. That's all fine, but if I'd known how things would be right now I would come back faster.

I thought watching Bisky* die was the horrible part, and it's not that it wasn't, but the automatic checking-for-him around the house that I do is worse. (On the bed? In the bathtub, waiting for a drink? No, not anymore. Stop looking.) Now that I'm taking off, I don't know whether to worry that I'll keep doing it or that I'll stop when I come home. His being gone is not something I want to get used to so easily.

Meanwhile, Halifax is still crazy but is slowly adjusting, feeling safer with us, and I feel like kind of a traitor for leaving him now.

Not to mention my mother, who is probably going to get sick of my phone calls very quickly.

I don't usually bring cigarettes with me when I travel, but I'm doing it this time. It's a bad way to cope with lack of control, but it's my bad way. I'd rather come inside smelling funny a few times than fly off the handle completely.


* our cat, who made it almost twenty years. Anyone still reading probably knows that, but just in case. you know.

I think I'm altitude-sick.

Stupid, charming Park City.

Why, thank you! I'm honoured that someone out there considers my lifestyle ideal.

However, as I age and await the serious lung ailments I've been warned of, while the world around me suffers catstrophic shifts in climate, I feel I should confess that my lifestyle will probably look terrible in ten years. Wasteful, yet uninteresting - it is entirely possible that after the revolution, samples of my blood will be amongst the long-dried spatters on The Wall Where It Started.

... yeah, I do think the question was poorly stated.


Is there, like, a social neurobiology program somewhere? Because if I start now, I might be able to save enough to start studying ... oh, ten years from now.

Okay, um, I try not to get my hopes up too crazily - but there may be a student-style drum kit coming to live with me in the near future.

My neighbourhood is doomed!

No, I really would try to be polite about it. But DRUMS.

I will suck so badly.

To, um, rather a lot of Utahn men who are not my father:

As I mentioned, you're not my father. Treating me like I'm one of your dumber kids is, how shall we say, rude as hell. Your unsolicited advice is patronising, and makes me want to pulverise your kneecaps.

Disregards,
That girl who didn't say anything (but may have glared a bit)

My room has been without lighting since my chandelier switch died last month. (I get what I deserve, I guess, for being the type of person who uses a chandelier in her room.) The lamp I want might force me to Ikea. I'm not so concerned about soul death, but getting my car to Draper ... eh.

Other things which have happened (or not), then fallen into the background too rapidly to make me want to post:
I'm back on the unemployment train (as opposed to the semi/sparsely-employed train), which doesn't worry me yet, but which I hope I find the resolve to remedy before the end of June.

I haven't written/recorded a song since January. January. I can't slack like that just because I'm not a real musician! That said, I've been trying to figure out how to make sure any future songs won't be, um, just like previous songs. I think getting past 'anger/betrayal' as subject matter, and four-chord progressions as instrumentation, would probably help.

I was about to mention that our housemate moved out, like, ages ago. But most of my f-list knows that already. Which certainly Means Something about how/why I'm using livejournal (how? why?), but I don't know what.

I think my answer will be clear enough by the end of this, but first let me say: this cute little 'STANDUP Act' can go to hell.


At sixteen, I did a lot of driving that would violate their 'agreement'. I drove at night - sometimes picking up a friend at work, sometimes taking a long (and yes, horribly wasteful) 'therapy drive' so we could talk about our troubles in a non-public, neutral zone (and feel like we were getting away from them, just for a while). That would have been two counts against me, probably two or three times a week for two years.

As for the daytime passenger restrictions - I don't even know what they are. I could Google to find out, I'm sure, but as it's not on the linked page's rundown (which, btw, I couldn't find until I clicked to sign the petition to support it) ... clearly Allstate would rather I didn't. I rather doubt it tips its hat to teens who want to carpool to or from school, though.

So I want to find some snarky wrap-up, but really this boils down to me not being able to imagine what my adolescence would have been like if this type of graduated licensing had been in place back then. I would have ignored it, probably, and had even less respect for traffic laws than I did have (see: perfect teen driver - not, below). Or maybe I would have bowed to the threat of hassle and obeyed: saved some money, left the occasional stranded friend to walk home, and seen friends who lived more than a mile away rarely (if ever, aside from school). Been lonelier, because I sure as hell didn't feel isolated enough ... what teenager does, right?

I wasn't the perfect teen driver, and I won't pretend that I was. On the other hand, I never had a moving violation; nobody I let into my car came out injured. Some of that was luck. And frankly, it would have been fantastic to live in a city with really developed public transit - but I sure as hell don't see Allstate addressing the root problems here, or even nodding to the parts of modern life that made us into a society where sixteen-year-olds would, in fact, really need to drive.

They forgot the gunshot sound effect tonight. WIN!

-----

Our new governor is a realtor from Utah County?

Thanks, Mr. President.

::sulks::

Hmm. I almost posted last night about how two hours of sleep and nine hours of work had transformed me into a zombie. Now, I find out that my zombiedom was actually triggered by socialism.

Whew. Glad I know now!