The Slob Who Reads a Lot

I am alive.  (Obviously.)  I am in Emporia.  I am about to go to bed.  Apparently, the best I can do is declarative statements at the moment.  I have a library card, a job (which I haven't attended orientation for, which makes me nervous), and I have other big news that I hope I'll remember to post about later.  It deserves its own post, both so I can shit my pants over it and squee incessantly.  I am currently reading (or rereading): Angels & Demons by Dan Brown, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve, and The Stand (expanded edition) by Stephen King.  I've already read Angels & Demons, but I haven't seen the movie yet, so I wanted a refresher on how disappointed I'm going to be.  I read 9 pages of Pride & Prejudice before I gave up a few days ago, further cementing my need to just own the book so I can read it like I read 1984 - pick it up every few months and read a chapter or two.  Of course, I haven't touched 1984 since 2006, but it worked for The Hobbit - it took 6 months to read, but damned if I didn't do it.

Things are looking up.  I'm terrified.  I'm on the edge of some (more) huge changes.  I don't know how I feel about this and how many I'm ready to accept, but I'm working toward something different.  I don't know if it's better, but it's different.

I miss everyone like crazy. 

My belongings are everywhere because I never pick anything up.  I have two binders, a blanket, two canvas bags, a bathrobe, various purse innards, a newspaper, a notepad, a sweater, and mail on the floor near my feet right now.  Oh, and four library books, and that doesn't even count the books I seem to have misplaced.  (I was attempting to read Mrs. Dalloway again.  I got as far as I did last time.  I just can't seem to follow it.  It's somewhere around here.)

Things I seem to be good at accumulating, now that all my stuff is in one place:

• Pens with varying levels of ink.
• Odd batteries.
• Shoes.
• Books.
• Purses.

I am odd.  I am tired.  Good night.

The Cluster-You-Know-What

It's been forever since I posted here.  I suck like that.  Honestly, I haven't felt like dealing with it on top of everything else.

I wound up moving to Joplin, Missouri to stay with a friend.  She told me almost nothing about the true living situation in this house, so I walked in totally unprepared to discover the state of it.  The bedroom I sleep in with her daughter and her roommate's daughter always smells like cat pee because one of her cats won't stop peeing in there, and there are now 7 people living in this tiny house, which isn't much bigger than J and S's house.

The worst part was that she didn't tell me exactly what kind of bug problem she had.  She told me they only came over when people moved out of a duplex down the street, because she was ashamed of it and so she lied to me about it.  If I'd known the extent, I would never have come here.  I am basically phobic of roaches, so for the first 3 days I was here I did nothing but cry and have anxiety attacks.  My skin has been crawling for days, and I'm terrified I will find them in my hair.  I almost want to shave my head and start over, but I know a lot of the itch on my head is psychological.

So I'm moving to Emporia in two days to live with H, which was the original plan, before I changed my mind because this place was made to sound so much more stable.  Unfortunately, it's very, very not stable (more on that after I get to Emporia), and I can barely function in this house.  The only thing I want to do is not be here.  I can't even shower without being afraid I'll find one in the shower with me.  I'm only eating in the evenings because I hate going into the kitchen and I'm afraid to touch any of the food or dishes, so I'm only eating enough to get by until I can get the HELL out of here.  And oh god, one just appeared on the couch next to me.  *shudder*  If things continue the way they have been today, I may have to go to a homeless shelter or something with my stuff until then, or I put myself at risk for a huge backslide on the self-harming.  Upside, I've completely stopped biting my nails because I want no part of this house in my mouth.

H is being wonderful about this.  I have to abandon my dresser here because I don't want to accidentally bring the roaches with me, and she's offered to buy me a new plastic one to keep my clothes in, and she's going to take anything that might be hard to decontaminate to a dry cleaner to get that fixed.  I've already applied at 4 different places, or maybe 5, I forget, and hopefully someone calls me very soon.  Definitely looking forward to that.

I miss everyone at the house so much.  I even made a collage desktop background for myself, which I'm going to completely overhaul when I get to H's and have some free time after we determine if my computer is contaminated or not.  Woo.

Anyway, maybe I'll write another post later, but right now I have to go.

Adventures in Packing

Moving is hard.

You start off with the best intentions. "Everything is going to be packed properly! The kitchen stuff will all be together, the bathroom stuff, the bedroom stuff, the clothes, and the books will all be packed separately from each other," you say. Then you try to pack. First, you have a tote (or box, but in my case it's a tote) with all "memory box" type stuff. Then you have another tote with only books. But there's a little bit of extra room in the top and you don't want your books sliding around all over the place.

So you put a random dish towel on top to shore things up a little.

It all goes downhill from there. You start putting dinosaur tater tot toys in water pitchers and filling pasta pots with cosmetics, putting art supplies in the tote with the hangers, a single hanger in the tote with all the towels and breakable kitchen stuff. The purses and shoes are together, but they have a blanket in with them. At first, it still makes sense. Most everything is still organized. Then you start finding things around the house that you meant to pack but forgot about in your frenzy, and by the time you get to the last tote, this is what you have left to pack:

• A wedding planning binder (from 2 years ago that your best friend gave you after her wedding so you could plan yours that never materialized)
• A giant CD book
• A snake pen
• A wall night light
• A Christmas garland
• A plastic brandy glass the size of your head
• A pretty basket you keep bathroom stuff in
• Two hot pink file trays
• An accordian file
• Two photo albums
• A yearbook
• A catalog
• A half-done painting
• Various other artwork on paper
• A metal recipe box
• An enormous bathrobe
• A throw pillow inside piece for a pillow you never made

And of course, it doesn't all fit. You stuff things inside of each other, rearrange, take stuff out and put it back. You seriously consider attempting to concuss yourself with the brandy glass. Your back hurts and you just want this to be over with already. Finally, you give up, ditch the CD book, the pen, the metal box, the bathrobe, a photo album, and the wedding planning book, shove the garland in the brandy glass, and suddenly the tote closes. Then you dump all the extra into a laundry basket and put it on top of the giant stack of totes so you don't have to look at it anymore and run away.

This is why moving is hard.

Oh, Look! It's The Bottom!

As previously demonstrated, I suck at an actual posting schedule.  Or even posting anything semi-regularly.

Everything is changing.  S and J asked me to leave, so I'm trying to figure out where I'm going to live.  I have until February 1st, which is when I have to move out.  So far, I have no idea.  I don't know where I'm going to end up.  I have a couple of friends who are willing to keep me from ending up on the streets, but no real hope of finding something on my own.

I'm currently working on fixing my resume so it doesn't suck because I'm trying to apply for a job that requires a resume and a cover letter.  The cover letter is done, but I'm getting stuck on the resume.

I was going to look into going to school for a pharmacy technician certificate, but FAFSA doesn't pay for non-credit classes, so I am rethinking what I want to do and if I can do this.  I'm thinking about getting an associate's in business administration so I can try to find something I can do for a living while I look into going to college for real, or maybe the business admin degree will be enough.  I don't know.

Since I never unpacked all of my stuff when I moved in here, I don't have a ton of stuff to pack - most of what I'm waiting to pack right now is towels that are in Girl Child's room that S has promised to locate (I think she's doing that in a few minutes, actually), and what little kitchen stuff I came with.  I think.  I keep remembering stuff that I forgot I owned.  Like my purple ice cube trays.  I have no idea what happened to those.

I found out recently that my job with a certain clothing store was a seasonal position.  So I no longer have that job or the income.  I get my last check tomorrow, and I'll be checking then to see what is going on with this situation.

So, to summarize, I am pretty sure I have no job, and in 3 weeks, I will no longer be living here.  I don't know where I'll be.  Yep, looks like that bottom is rushing up to meet me.

So.  I've put a donation button for my PayPal account on this blog.  Totally optional.  I don't require anybody to actually give me money unless they want to.  But it's there.  Because I am at that point.  I hate that it's come to this.

In fact, I hate basically everything right now.

Brief Explanation

Depression is a funny thing.  It can lurk in the shadows, unnoticed, for months, occasionally springing out to throw you into a despair so deep that you suddenly lose all ability to function.  It can just drop you into a pit of apathy.  ...Or maybe it makes you stop caring about that blog you were so excited about starting, or ever actually baking those cookies, or doing anything more than grumpily sitting in a corner.

Depression is weird.  I don't feel depressed... most of the time.  In fact, most of the time I feel pretty okay.  Maybe it's how lonely I am, because I feel like I have an impenetrable invisible wall surrounding me, and I feel overwhelmingly alone even when I'm surrounded by people.  Sometimes.  Other times, all I want is to be alone for awhile.

What I'd really like to know is why I only feel this way sometimes.  Today is just particularly bad, but I have days where I'm fine (or at least apathetic, which I guess I better than feeling mildly suicidal), so I'm really confused.  I always thought of depression as something that never changed, that you sunk into and didn't come out of, or bob to the top occasionally to get a look around before sinking again.  It's very frustrating.  I'll feel better one day, and then a couple days later, I don't want to do anything except sit here.  I can't do anything.

So... basically this is my explanation for why I haven't been posting.  Because I just don't give a shit about anything right now, and I can't find the energy to write and be entertaining.  Besides, it's not like I ever write about anything remotely interesting.

Anyway, if SOPA is passed tonight, there won't be a point in maintaining a blog anyway.