Feelings Suck

I have so much to say that I don’t even know where to begin.  And I won’t purge it, not here, not now, because that would be inappropriate.

I have so many fucking FEELINGS and it’s driving me crazy.  I’m not a “feelings” type of person.  I scored INTJ on the Meyers-Briggs test for a reason, and the reason is that I am a THINKER and not a FEELER.  Yet the feelings keep coming.

Again and always, I know the answers.  I know how to fix things.  It’s just that I’m probably not strong enough to implement said answers.  And I don’t know if I even care enough to try.  I can’t fathom what the point would possibly be.  At this point, fixing my problems is something similar to making a bed — you can make it up, with clean sheets even, and it’s nice… but in twelve hours it’s a rumpled mess again.

False Optimism Is… Better Than No Optimism At All?

You know what’s really great?  Wisdom teeth that cram themselves into your mouth at the exact time that you have no dental insurance and no money to do anything about it. 

Number of ibuprofen taken in the last 24 hours: Interestingly enough, 24

Also great: Relationships that run hot and cold.  The expectation that I be the backbone of everything.  The humorous fact that I can’t even take care of myself, made funnier by the expectation that I would be able to take care of anyone else.  Ha ha ha.

Oh well. 

On the agenda for tonight:

1) Make dinner — Swiss steak, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, salad

2) Wash laundry

3) Go to CVS so that I can take advantage of accumulated ECBs and a now-rare $4 off a $20 purchase coupon

4) Take store-brand Unisom so I can go to bed early (and wake up at a reasonable hour tomorrow)

Whoa Is Me

Me: I’m think I’m going to head home so I can smear on some eyeliner and write poems about my feelings.
Friend: Are you feeling emo today?
Me: More so than usual.

I’m really pretty much the opposite of emo, but I find myself spouting a bunch of overwrought, melodramatic bullshit lately.

Now I’m going to go sabotage my recent attempts at exercise by baking chocolate chip cookies.

He’s A Little Like Hitler, Except Not A Nazi

So the kid that’s living with us, my brother’s friend, is a total pimp.  Seriously.  He got a job and got a promotion within three days of being hired.  He found a woman who is six years older than him, and is basically his sugar mama.  Like, she fills up his gas tank, buys him clothes, takes him out on the town, and has lent him a navigational GPS thing so that he doesn’t get lost.  AND she’s hot.  They’ve known each other less than two days.

He’s what you’d call a “people person.”  The kidlet LOVES him.  When she walked in the door last night, she saw him and started jumping up and down, chanting his name.  His response?  To join her in the jumping and name-chanting.  This went on for at least five minutes.

It’s actually kind of nice to have someone so dynamic around when everything else seems to be turning to shit.  I like having the kids here, even if it does mean the housework, laundry, and grocery bill have increased exponentially.

Finding It Harder And Harder To Breathe

Here’s an interesting bit of trivia: It turns out that you have to pass a credit check to get a job in a gas station.

I’m not going to say it’s completely insane.   Like, I understand the theory that someone with money problems is more likely to steal from the store.  I also understand the theory that people with bad credit are scumbags who don’t pay their bills, and nobody wants to employ scumbags.  This is why it sucks to be a scumbag.  But I have seen plenty of scumbags manning the register at 7-11 and it seems implausible to me that they have good credit.

Yes, I am now scraping the bottom of the barrel. 

Life is at once complicated and uncomplicated.  No one fucked it up for me and no one is going to fix it for me.  I am taking things one day at a time because when I look at the big picture, I suddenly can’t breathe anymore.

I Just Don’t Like It

Dude.  I am sitting in my living room and being lectured by EVERYONE HERE about how fabulous Harry Potter is.

So I realize that a lot of people, not all of them children, enjoy Harry Potter.  BUT I DON’T.  Have I read the entire series? No.  Have I read an entire book? NO.  Why?  BECAUSE IT’S BORING AS FUCK.  If a writer cannot write ONE INTERESTING THING in the first twenty-two pages, then I don’t feel obligated to continue reading.  This same rationale prevents me from watching shit like American Idol.

Grr.

You Can’t Fight The Tears That Ain’t Coming

The name Evan Sandoval is stuck in my head. I’ve never known anyone named Evan Sandoval and haven’t recently encountered anyone with a similar-sounding name.

I’m not really okay right now. I’m experiencing that urge to sell most of my stuff, burn the rest, and start over again in a dingy studio apartment within walking distance of a grocery store and a place of employment. It isn’t a new urge, but whether or not I feel it is typically a good benchmark for my state of mind.

Secretly, I also think I could probably stand a little vacation in the loony bin. My mother went once and quite liked it. She went to group and individual therapy, was fed three square meals a day, and assembled puzzles in her free time. Though I am not good at puzzles, it’s possible that something similar would be beneficial.

Of course, I am not actually going to admit myself. I’m pretty sure that after an evaluation, they would send me back, because I’m not actually completely insane and am definitely not at risk of harming anyone. This is the time when I have to remind myself that there are people in the world with real problems.

Last night I watched Trade, a movie about human trafficking. It did a good job, at least temporarily, of straightening my perspective. I highly recommend it.

I Could Implement The Two-Square Rule…

When the man whined about absorbing the cost of three extra people into our household, I blew him off.  He does, after all, throw out all the stops when his daughter is here.  He certainly does whatever he wants.  All I wanted to do was have my sister visit indefinitely… and let my brother and his best friend live here until they can get a place of their own.  It seemed petty that he would try to deny me this when I do things for him like CLIP HIS TOENAILS, so I went on with my plans and now have quite a full house.

And holy mackerel, it takes quite the prodigious effort to feed five fully grown adults, none of whom would ever be classified as “light eaters.”  I’ve fed a family of five before — but it was a family of five with two young children, one perpetually dieting teenager, and two often-missing parents.  We now appear to be going through over a roll of toilet paper per day!!!  I had been telling myself that I couldn’t afford my CVS habit, but it turns out I can’t afford NOT to have a CVS habit.

So yes, I went CVS-ing yesterday.  I was really after the Charmin/Bounty deal in which you buy $20 worth of participating products (9-packs of Charmin toilet paper for $4.99 and 8-packs of Bounty paper towels for $5.99) and get $10 back in ECBs.  I figured I would buy three packages of toilet paper and one of paper towels and that it would be a tremendously good bargain.  Of course, they were out of those items (though I did get a raincheck).

All was not lost, though.  I did some other fooling around with ECBs… Namely, one package of Swiffer wet refills, one Febreze air freshener, and one Febreze fabric refresher for a pre-tax total of $10.99, which earned $5 in ECBs.  In that transaction, I also did a deal involving two bottles of Dawn Botanicals dish soap for $1 each, which earned me another $1 ECB.

On my way out, I found the monthly flyer and got super-excited about some of the stuff in it.  40-count CVS brand band-aids, free after ECB.  Listerine Smart Rinse for Kids, free after ECB.  Oral B Cross-Action dual packs, free after ECB.  As per the usual, they were completely out of the toothbrushes, only had one package of band-aids, and had hidden the mouth wash.  Luckily, I found it.  Score!!!

I also made a trip to Wal-Mart.  Hush up, detractors — I have my reasons.  Such as boxes of crackers for $1.38 each.  Delicious types of crackers such as Asiago Cheese and Roasted Vegetable, Mozzarella Cheese and Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Salsa and Cream Cheese, and Chipotle Cheddar.  I bought all of those, as well as a bunch of “staple” stuff — pasta, sauce, rice, frozen and canned vegetables, etc.  All things that couldn’t be cherry-picked from sales at the “real” grocery stores (which seem to be running kick-ass specials on cereal, eggs, frozen waffles, and other breakfasty things, for whatever reason).

I’ll be getting meats, the breakfast stuff, and other sale items today.  I’ll also be trying at least one other CVS for the toilet paper deal because as much as it pains me to say it, we are out of tp.  AGAIN.

Aside from the challenges of taking care of this many people (not just a higher grocery bill, but more time in the kitchen, more laundry to do, more messes to clean), we are having a pretty good time and things are going well.  The boys are acclimating and even starting to meet local girls.  Both have good leads on jobs and are eager to get out of my House Of Boringness, where no one is allowed to smoke inside and “party” is a foreign concept that I’m perfectly happy to keep foreign.  We play lots of Rock Band and spend a good amount of time at the bookstore.  And that’s an incredibly long-winded update on my little corner of the world.

Goody Gum Drops

I am in a cheerful mood.  My brother and his best friend are moving to Dallas, and are spending their first few weeks in my former home office while they find jobs and scout out apartments.  My sister came along for a visit.  They all arrived this evening.  This makes me pretty happy.

The man is less happy.  A lot less.  For one, he’s not too pleased about having a house full of people.  He doesn’t see how we can possibly absorb the cost of feeding extra people (hint 1: couponing, hint 2: two of them will be working in food service).  Really, I think he’s just mad that he can’t walk around in his underwear and command me to bring him beverages.  You know the saying about kings and their castles. 

He’s also more than a little perturbed by his daughter’s recent mischievous behavior and the fact that she lies when asked about it.  For instance, my eight year old cat recently got a haircut.  I WONDER WHO DID IT.  I know it wasn’t me.  I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the man.  It happened before my family got here, which really only left one possible suspect… Who tried with all her might to lie her way out of it. 

I’m not personally that galled by it because I remember being her age.  Five year olds have learned how to manipulate and lie but don’t have the sense to just refrain from doing stupid things like cutting the cat’s hair or dropping a bunch of dry cat food in the water bowl.  I did things and lied about them when I was five.  My brother and sister did as well.  But the man is a first-time parent and a part time one at that, who never even spent much time around other peoples’ children, and I think he’s truly perplexed (and hurt) that his sweet little girl would lie to him.  Despite having what I would almost call “multiple personalities” himself, he is having a hard time with the idea that his bright, affectionate, churchgoing daughter is also a little turd sometimes.  Ah well.  He’ll get it eventually.  Hopefully it’s before she starts using her allowance to buy tequila…

Which I totally would have done when I was in high school, if I’d had an allowance.  Instead, I bought packs of cigarettes from a store that didn’t card me, and would sell them to my friends for a dollar each.  As a nonsmoker, I had quite the little racket going. 

This reminds me of my favorite scene in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle.  Kumar is walking the halls of a dorm at Princeton, trying to score some weed.  He finally finds a hippie-looking guy with a back pack full of weed, but is apalled by the price of the weed.  He looks at the hippie and says “what kind of hippie are you?”  The guy’s answer is “I’m a BUSINESS hippie.  I understand the concept of supply and demand.”

Love love love that movie.

In other news, CVS is FINALLY having an ECB sale worth participating in.  Buy $20 of selected Charmin, Bounty, and Duracell products and get $10 back in ECBs.  The Charmin and Bounty are priced a little lower than the sale price at a grocery store, which means that when you account for the ECB reward, it’s a really good freakin deal.  That’s great, because six people use a lot more toilet paper than two.  There is also a pretty worthwhile Swiffer/Febreze thing going on.  I am going to teach my sister how to roll the ECBS.