A Broken Mirror's Reflection

Well... the minute transfer to my new phone didn't work. The lady had succeeded in deleting the minutes from my old phone, but not in putting them on my new one. I did think it was awful odd that she only had me enter codes into the old phone and not the new one. But I'd even asked her before ending the call if she really had everything she needed to make the transfer. And asked how long it'd take. She said up to an hour.

I tried calling the company back about it, but the automated thingie says the call volume is so high, they can't even put me on hold. O.O

Guess I'll have to do it tomorrow. And they better believe me that I had exactly 130 minutes left, because I did. Mom paid for a big batch of minutes a long time back as a gift, so they better return it.

...My progress is WAY too slow getting the rest of these UPCs in... It's taking me all day and yet I keep getting distracted. I can only be a constant working robot for so long. Especially when some small happy things have reanimated me somewhat.

Heh... I like how the old phone looks puzzled now. Minutes are called Units most times for Tracfone, and it uses decimals in cases of text messaging and stuff. So my old phone says right on the middle of the screen:

0.0 U

Hehe. Sweatdropping.

Edit: Yaaay, it just now happened after all. Took a while, but probably just from large volume and busy-ness. Fweeeee! I might not be able to make calls for up to two days I was told before, so no banana-phoning just yet.

I've set personalized ringtones for each of my friends. They most likely won't ever call me of course since we've got the internet (and they're considerate of my minutes. And I've like, never had my phone on often before since my old one sucked), but just knowing I can do that is... Fweee! X3

Well, it happened. I got kicked out of Wal-Mart.

Charleston one, not the local one. In the local one they don't watch you like friggin hawks, but in Charleston, everyone's a potential terrorist or theif or murderer or something. They have to have actually been watching me on security cameras and zooming in on my paper or something, to know that I was really writing down upc's instead of checkmarking things off my grocery list. I'd been trying to use the recorder to finish up, but way too many people were around constantly. Even at 8pm. Usually there were far less people there at that time before... must be some kind of local occasion. Or was just my usual luck to screw me up since I was close to being done and simply MUST be thwarted. Because if I were to succeed and be on time, the world would collapse. I MUST be stopped!

*sigh* Anyway, Mary's not upset at all. She seems like her old self lately, sharp again, and very nice. She just told me to do the rest over the weekend when I go back there for my Expanded mission.

Meanwhile I needs to finish entering in all the stuff I've recorded and written till now. So exhausting. @_@ Gotta continue though, soon as I update my lj at least a little, since I'm feeling ever so slightly human right now. Partially from, last night, finding some great Lucky Star music that's just been released. ^_^

Mom told me a few days ago about a screen-printing company looking for an artist. That's... whoah. Totally my thing. Called though, only got a machine, left a quick rundown of my qualifications and my number for them to call me back, but nothing so far. I'll have to call again, but I'm so nervous. I know what I should say but know I'll mess up since I'm so long exhausted and out of it. But, I've gotta try. This could be my big chance. Though I'd suck for a long time cuz I haven't drawn in so long, and attempting exhausts me horribly. But, can't tell them that. I'll only take it if it's part-time though... I just couldn't stand full-time hours consistantly, unless they're relaxed enough in atmosphere that I can take some breaks or don't have to hurry too much with the work. Guess we'll see, once I make notes of what I should say and get the courage to do so.

Anyway, there's still some hope even if they don't take me... Mom still hasn't found a job, so she'll go ahead and rejoin my company! Meaning we can split the work or she can take over Charleston! :D

I don't think it'll be in time for her to help with the Expanded, so I'm still gonna come just short of dying from it, but afterward, my regular work will seem like absolutely nothing by comparisson. Yaaay for hope. ^_^

Also, some of yesterday, and still much of today, I’m all asquee over my new cell phone! XD

Tracfone is switching from analogue to digital, so my old giant heavy clunky fossil of a phone will no longer work (not that it worked much anyway). So as good business practice, they informed us customers, and if we signed up within the few days time limit, we’d be sent a new replacement phone! And I did! So they did! (Not sure if I mentioned that before... but even if I did, leaving it in, to show just how bad my memory has become @_@ )

It’s so TINY!!! XD It’ll take sooo much getting used to! I’m used to a phone being… well… the size of a phone. It feels so weird not to have a mouthpiece against my jaw.

It has a nice shiny screen with all kinds of colors instead of black on green square-edged stuff. It has games, calculator, flashlight, some wallpapers, voice command capability, long call-log capability, large phone book capacity, and even keeps time and date and can be an alarm clock. Yes, that’s not much compared to most folks’ phones nowadays. My excitement would raise a lot of eyebrows. But considering what I’m used to having, this is the ultimate in being spoiled! X3

I just never dreamed I’d get to own something so sleek and modern. Figured I was doomed to keeping the fossil, or having nothing at all, or having to waste a buncha money on something fancy that I’d always feel guilty about using. But this was given to me as merely an upgrade to my old one. Definitely has me cheered way up. ^____^ I just can’t believe it!

And I can actually navigate the friggin menu unlike the old one! Yaaay!

Now just gotta wait for my minutes and get my old buddy numbers transferred over and test out how well it does its true function: Calling.

This was a real nightmare to set up today though. A reeeaaaal nightmare. Here’s how it went: I called as the instructions said, pressed the option shortcuts to get to the proper department, and was told my wait time would be approximately 15 minutes. I figured no problem, probably tons of other folks like me trying to get their phones switched over. With that in mind, I figured the folks taking the calls would have been thoroughly briefed on how to handle it, and by the time they’d get to me, would have taken so many of these calls that they’d have it all memorized and be sick and tired of saying the same things. ^_^()

Well, about the prophesied 15 minutes later…

Probably Pablo: (very quiet, can barely be heard over buzzing) Thank. You. For. Call. Ing. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah?

Me: (hearing my own echo fifty times louder than the dude) Um, I’ve received the phone upgrade and would like to transfer my old phone number and minutes to my new phone.

Perhaps Juan: ………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………..
……………………….What. Do. You want?

Me: I want to transfer my old number and minutes to my new phone.

Maybe Carlos: ………………………………………………
……………………………………..You want. To buy. Minutes for your phone?

Me: No… Tracfone is updating their service, so my old phone won’t work soon, so they sent me a new phone. I want to transfer my minutes and old number to my new one.

Possibly Jorgé: Oh! Ok! Alright. Good. Ok. ……………......
……………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………

Me: …………………………………….

Hombre: Can you… be on hold. For one minute. I will talk. To my supervisor.

Me: ….Sure. -_-

(a while later)

Hombre: (too quiet to hear except a word here and there for a big long meandering paragraph)

Me: (interrupting) Excuse me, I can hardly hear you.

Hombre: Alright. Give to me. Your. Serial number?

Me: For my old phone or my new one?

Hombre: ……………………………………………..One moment.
(talking in the background) ……………………New phone.

Me: (numbers)

Hombre: Ok…………… Umm…………

(Long process of him meandering a bit, often asking people behind him what to do, going back and forth between old and new phone information, and it being revealed that I can’t have my old area code so I’m given a new number in my new area.)

Hombre: Ok….. Now, you will be. Putting in numbers. For codes.

Me: (Immediately going through the menu to the code entry mode so he doesn’t have to explain the steps of getting there) So you need me in Code Entry Mode? I’m already there, I’m ready for the code.

Hombre: Ok, you push. The Menu button. Or if on your screen. It says Menu. Push the button. Below Menu. And then… (blah blah Options, blah blah Prepay, blah blah scroll down blah blah, the whole process on getting to code entry mode -_- )

Me: ………..Ok. I’m ready.

Hombre: (gives me code numbers, lots and lots and LOTS of code numbers. Then at one point in the middle of it without warning, line goes dead.)

Me: ……Hello? Hello?

Hombre: (long after I should have given up) Ok, sorry for the. Inconvenience. I was checking. Something.

Me: *phew* Ok, we were at number ###.

Hombre: Ok, we will start. The code over.

Me: ………Ok.

(Long time and lots of numbers later… I’m serious, like, LOTS of numbers)

Hombre: Ok. So now. You will have. 10 bonus minutes. On your new phone.

Me: …….Alright. But what about my remaining minutes from my old phone?

Hombre: ………………………………………….
……………………………………What do you. Mean?

Me: What about transferring my old minutes to my new phone?

Hombre: …………………………………………
……………………….One moment. Be on hold. I will talk to my supervisor. Is that ok Ma’am?

Me: …Sure.

(It’s on hold again, with the automated voices interrupting each other at uneven volumes. After a few seconds, someone else picks up.)

Person (Gender uncertain, sounds middle-age or older, possibly light Polish or Romanian or Russian accent) H e l l o o o o ……. t h a a a a n k… y o o o u u u …. f o r r r …… h o o o ol d i i i n g ….. (you get the idea… I can’t keep typing like that… just know that the person was very very VERY slow-speaking in a really easy-going, out-of-it way…. like they’re high or senile o.o ) ….What can I ….heeelp youuu wiiith?

Me: Uhh… I was just talking to a gentleman who was helping me transfer my minutes from my old tracfone to my new one, and he put me on hold and said he was going to talk to his supervisor.

Slo-Mo: Weeell… I will heeelp youuuu… with thaaat…. just give me ooone secoooond… to make some nooootes…. for my peeersonal uuuuse……………………………………………
……………………………………………
…………………………………………..
……………………………………………..

Me: …………………………………
……………………………………
…………………………………..

Slo-Mo: ……………………………..
………………………………………
………..Juuuust oooone secoooond…………….

Me: ……Ok…………………………
………………………………………
……………………………………….
……..(I start timing)

Slo-Mo: (four minutes and 14 seconds after I started timing, estimated seven minutes after she first told me to wait one second) ……….Just oooone moooore secoooond…..

Me: …………………………..

Slo-Mo: (two more minutes and lots of “one more second”s later) Alriiiight….. I goooot it….. Ooookaaay….. Noooow….. Can you giiiive meeeee….. the phoooone’s seeerial nuuuumber?

Me: The old one or the new one?

Slo-Mo: …………Ooooh…………. The ooooold ooooone.

Me: *gives it*

Slo-Mo: ………*repeats it back veeeery slooooowly* Is that riiiiiight?

Me: Yes, that’s right.

Slo-Mo: ……Alriiiiiiight……. So nooooow……….. (asks for phone numbers, old and new, I give them to her. All of this going very VERY slowly compared to how it should have)

Slo-Mo: ………..Ooookaaay………. And I have your seeeerial nuuuumber aaaas…….. *reads all 11 digits back to me, again, very slowly* Is this riiiight?

Me: Yes, that’s right.

Slo-Mo: ………..Alriiiiight….. Can you giiiive meeee……. Your oooold phone’s serial numberrrrr?

Me: …..You just read it to me. You have it.

Slo-Mo: ……Oooooooh…………………..
…………………………………………..
………………………………….Ooookaaaay……

Me: *trying not to bang the phone into my head*

Slo-Mo: ………..Now………. We’ll be putting in coooodes………..

Me: Alright. I already know how to get into the code entry mode. I’m already there.

Slo-Mo: ……You’re already theeere?

Me: Yes.

Slo-Mo: Alriiiiiiight………… Heeeere’s theee*silence*

Me: ………Hello? … Hello?

(Time passes. Then there’s a click, and the hang-up tone)

Me: ……….Damn it!

I suspect that maybe someone in charge heard how bad it was going and put me out of my misery? Although that in turn gave me even more misery? Or s/he just was so high that s/he hit the wrong button? I dunno….

So, I had to call again, go through the menu again, and be on hold for around 10 minutes this time.

This time, I got a lady, not sure what her accent was truth be told, but she spoke pretty well and of normal tempo. I summarized the situation about the interrupted transfer. And she got right down to business, knew what to ask for, entered it in quickly, verified it quickly, and gave me the codes I needed for the phone concisely. The whole thing with her took only 6 and a half minutes.

So, if all goes well, the minutes should show up in about an hour. (Keeping my fingers crossed.) Before ending the call, I took a moment to tell her that the other folks I’d been bounced between took a very long time, and that I appreciate that she knew what she was doing and did a good job. She didn’t seem sure how to take such praise, just giving me an “…Ok ma’am, thank you.” before we parted ways.

Hope this works! That whole ordeal lasted 1 hour and 21 minutes according to my landline phone’s timer. I do NOT want to go through all that again. @_@

*sigh* Too much work, absolutely no time. I keep getting behind on this journal. It just takes too much energy to even care about events enough to write about them, let alone write about them. @_@

Work work work work, exhaustion, not being able to sleep at night so forcing myself to still wake up early to get work done but just being more exhausted and still unable to sleep at night. I'm way behind. I would have been done today, but everything kept going wrong.

Traffic jams out the wazoo, hidden restaurants, messed up detours, loud people, loud speakers, stockers (known to me as stalkers), nosebleeds, extremely slow restaurant people, extremely slow checkout lines, my voice giving out from reading off UPCs and prices all day... and my voice recorder running out of space somewhere in there, making perhaps 45 minutes or more of my work completely futile. That's hundreds of items.

I'm too tired to feel despaired about it though. Just gonna hang out for a while on chat... or should I? I don't have anything to talk about without angsting, which I don't wanna do and takes too much energy, and I've gotten so out of touch with everyone over so long that it's hard for them to converse with me anyway... -_-

I guess just in case I'll just log in for a little while. It's all the social life I get.

P.S. - Forgot, yes, my eating is fine now. I wanted to eat one of everything in the world when I got better. Think that was last Wednesday? Maybe earlier? I dunno, I forget, the whole summer's gone by without a shred of enjoying it.

Man I'm hungry. Man the thought of eating makes me dry-heave.

Even nice cool water or juice makes my throat burn from the acid coming up after each swallow.

And I couldn't sleep last night, till morning, so I'm losing still more work time.

And I'm waiting now for my parents to show up cuz they're bringing knowledge and transmission fluid cuz I think my car must be low cuz it keeps having trouble at stop signs/lights. If I stop for a while, then try to go, it revs without going anywhere then suddenly jerks into motion. Or once in a while starts rolling backwards like it's in neutral and I gotta quickly jump on the brake so I don't hit the car behind me. @_@

I do need to take Panther to a mechanic anyway, so many little things wrong that might eventually get serious. But I dunno how my money's gonna be for a while; they overpaid me for my Kentucky job so now they'll be taking it out of my next several paychecks. I made the lady who informed me give me an exact sum so I can make sure they don't take more than they're supposed to. This'll be a headache. @_@

Heh, my darn whore cat is having her second litter. Once more, she tried to signal my dad to come with her, meowing and nuzzling and shoving, and even biting him once. Once more he went and got Mom instead of figuring out that she wanted followed. And Mom followed her to the box in my old room where she almost immediately popped out a kitten. :P

I'll go visit Wednesday or Thursday, whenever my darn work's done. Gotta see the little buggers.

I keep lagging behind on my attempts to get ahead this week; I'm still so exhausted so I don't have the energy to accomplish much. And what really sucks is that I keep not being able to eat.

This has happened once in a while before, but it's become especially prolonged and pronounced now; been about four days I think. I know my stomach's empty, I feel weak and empty. But the thought of any food makes me sick. Not true nausea, just a constant low burn of acid in my throat (but only if I actually pay attention to it), and a signal that if I put anything with significant flavor or texture in my mouth, I WILL puke. Even just a flavored drink or bread (though oddly enough I seem to tolerate pop just fine. Even the caffeine doesn't bother my empty stomach much. Weird). I tried imagining various foods to see if there were any that didn't cause the gag-reflex to lock and load, but couldn't come up with anything.

The only way I finally force myself to eat is to completely ignore the fact that I'm eating, absorbing in a tv show or reading a manga. And then I can only tolerate five to eight swallows before my stomach starts roiling and squirming and my throat tries to expel any more.

It's really ticking me off. It keeps delaying me and making things worse. I first tried waiting to see if I finally get hungry enough to eat all this stuff I have here at home, but hours pass and nothing. I KNOW I'll be starving while I work and then I can't concentrate, and I don't wanna waste money eating out. But time goes and goes, I can't eat. So I finally cave in and work. Half an hour in, I feel overcome with starvation. I get a little something at the deli or McD's. Five to eight bites, no more, and barely able to keep it down.

I dunno what's up here. It's annoying as heck and can't be too healthy. I bought some Dannon Activia yogurt, supposed to help regulate your digestive system. I've had it once before, few months ago, and it did help other gastrointestinal problems I have on and off, so hopefully it can pull me through this too.

If I can keep it down, that is... @_@

With as much work as I have left to do, and the fact that this is making me have to lump everything together at the end AGAIN.... Gah! Can't I have one single week where I can get this crap done early instead of it ALWAYS being right up to the last minute or past?! Just once?! Grrrr. ~_~

Yaaaay, the primary Enter button broke on the handheld. Good thing there's an extra but it's harder to use due to habit. I'll have to report it and see what can be done. @_@

Just got done, just in time for it to qualify as the "Friday morning" Mary allowed me. I hope I manage to get sleepy once I verify my transmission. Guess we'll see.

Grrr, handheld ran out of batteries. No fair, it gets to go on the charger, while I have to keep going and going despite my batteries being long dead. And heck, now I have to remain awake even longer waiting on the darn thing.

Might as well catch up a bit while I'm waiting. It would have been a relatively easy week all things considered, at least compared to this coming week most likely. But, I had several questions, both on my local job, and on the ones in Charleston. I sent Mary-boss an email on Monday, then left two voicemails Tuesday. Wednesday rolled around, and I called her again. This time I got her. And she claimed she hadn't gotten any of those communication attempts. Uh huh... That concerned me. Anyway, I FINALLY got the answers I needed so I could transmit my completed local work, and go do Charleston.

I messed up on my local one though, forgot to fill in the job number, so I called it in and they fixed it. I also had to ask for an extension for Charleston, which she'd offered in the first place anyway. Only now I looked at the schedule and I was supposed to have till Thursday anyway. Wish that'd been pointed out ahead of time, then I'd have felt less stressed.

And later Mary left me an email saying that she actually did get the voice mails but hadn't gotten around to checking them at the time. Uhhh... Nice, thanks. It's the wording that kind of upset me. She made it seem like it was my fault. Hard to explain and I don't feel very nice to quote her. It's not a big enough deal to anyway, but it still bothers me some.

Anyways... there are upsides and downsides to using a voice recorder to do undercover category audits (where I have to record all UPCs of all items within assigned categories; Authentic Mexican, Milk By-Products, Frozen Dinners, etc, and the prices). Less strain on my neck than writing, and more casual looking. Quicker to do if you're not crowded. However, it takes extra time and writing to transcribe it all onto paper. Plus, the loudspeaker going off drowns you out so you frequently have to wait it out. And boy was it going off a lot. Plus when people crowd around, both associates and customers, you have to hush and pretend that your muttering is about high sodium or something.

Either way, undercover categories are a headache. It's taking me so many hours to get all this entered into the handheld. All the numbers blur together after a while. @_@ My neck and back are utterly murdering me.

Speaking of murder, Charleston = homicidal maniac town. Their Wal-Mart is dangerous in terms of cart collisions waiting to happen. I saw the nice wide open aisles, compared to my local Mooly's claustrophobic squeeze chambers, and thought "Yaaay! People can now go around me, I won't feel so rushed, and everyone can stroll around nice and easy." Not so. They don't realize how good they have it and abuse the space horribly. They still manage to crowd against the laws of physics even though there aren't excessive numbers of people. And they randomly swerve in unpredictable diagonal directions. They fly around blind corners at odd angles with their heavy carts. It's just a stressful case of them taking their open space for granted.

And the traffic...... Man did they want me dead or dented. On the streets and the freeways, they love to pretend you're not there and start getting into my lane, prompting me to swerve away and honk them into awareness. And even if I'm speeding, they crowd me, trying to intimidate me into getting out of the way or going even faster. Squeezing between me and another vehicle forcing me to slam on my brakes. And this isn't even a city-type city area! It's pretty rural and linear in the areas I go. I could understand this kinda crap in NYC or Baltimore or something, but this is rediculous.

It made me feel very mortal the other night. ^_^;; At least this latest trip went much better so that's pretty much gone away. But I'll always be careful, and I truly hope that they find a replacement soon. I don't like Charleston. I really really don't. And considering how a mere category audit is completely draining me, this upcoming VPS/FMV is really gonna do me in. And I've got no recovery time either; I'm starting my local Mooly later today after I catch a snooze. Supposing I CAN sleep now; I've done the usual crap where I had to push myself to the point of entering Survival Mode again. So I'm no longer sleepy. Once I'm like this, it's hard for me to get any sort of rest. Blah.

I talked to Mom on the phone. Paul of course quit his job, kind of figured, it apparently was very confusing and still had a ton of evaluation things that made no sense to him. I still applaud him for even trying.

*sigh* Hopefully eventually things'll calm down enough for me to include some more mundane life-type-things in this journal. I've grown so accustomed to constant strings of train-wrecks, that I hardly pay attention to everyday little events. It's just too exhausting to pay attention, and they feel not worth my time to recount the few times I do. Just the usual consequence of working way too long for not enough money, no time to recover let alone have a life. And it makes me sound all depressed and crap. Emo emo emo. :P

Well, hopefully the handheld is charged enough for me to finish. Better hurry cuz the office opens in half an hour.

........Why am I only tired at night, when I have to stay up most of said night finishing up work?

Any other night when I COULD sleep, I CAN'T. And now I need it soooooo bad but have hours of manually entering in all the UPCs I've been transcribing from my voice recordings, into the handheld. @_@

I might have to cave in and nap. But usually I'm extra tired after naps..... Blaaaaah!

Caving in. Two-hour nap. @_@ And I won't be able to sleep again for at least two days as consequence. :P

Edit: ......Ok so if I'm working I'm falling asleep with the scanner in my hand. But I lay down, and for an hour straight all I can think about is working and I absolutely can't sleep. Nice... *gets back to work* ~_~

Blargh, I keep being too exhausted or busy to update my journal. I'll replace this with a real entry tonight or tomorrow. Supposing I'm not killed by the crazy Charleston drivers. :P Well seriously, yesterday made me feel very vulnerable over there. @_@ At least I got a workdate extension to finish up; it's been tougher than I thought. Gotta go get done.

Edit: I'm back safe, yay, wasn't as dangerous today since I didn't have to go through as much of the city. So I'm fine. Just gotta transcribe and enter in all the data, then transmit it. Then it's bed time for me if I still feel this tired.

Edit again: Ehhh.... I said I'd edit this but I made new posts so I'll just leave it. :P

Blah, what began as a one day, one night visit to my parents ended up being several days. My sleep schedule was so fudged from the workweek that I kept falling asleep when I ought to have been going back, and whenever I was awake there was too much going on to abandon. Dad's doing real good heart-wise by the way, but has some kind of bad cough causing him to end up throwing up a bunch from sheer amounts of coughing. He's got an appointment sometime this week to check on that.

My younger bro Paul was scooped up by a telemarketing company and had orientation the very day after he applied. Whoah. Considering he's the kinda person who needs a lot of warning for change, time to mull it over n stuff, I'm impressed that he went to it despite feeling really nervous. He frustrates easily, and is heavily anti-social, so for him this is a HUGE leap, and with so little warning. Yet, he went through with it. I'm very proud of him. He'd find it too mushy for me to let him know openly but I definitely made it obvious enough before and afterward. I couldn't help but go with Mom when she dropped him off, picked him up (and for the initial applying the day before), etc. Dunno how long he'll stick with it if at all though. But, the fact that he took the plunge is a huge step for him.

Tried to finally come back Saturday night, but the road was blocked just before the expressway. Waited and waited. Nothing was giving. I could see some lights ahead, looked like a tow-truck. Nothing nothing nothing. Finally looked to my left, saw a stone driveway, and used it to turn around and go back. Screw it, I was tired anyway (at night for the first time in ages), and I had a mini-bucket of Ben & Jerry's "Stephen Colbert's Americone Dream" melting on the passenger seat. Good stuff, a little too sugary but yummy and has addictive texture. So yeah, I went back, put that in the freezer, and went to bed. Surprised the folks in the morning cuz they'd seen me off and everything. ^_^;;

Tomorrow I'm gonna do my local work, then Tues n Weds I'm gonna do Charleston. Gonna be all new n scary with the category audits and the Perishable list, but I'll do it of course. At least today I got to relax; my body finally realized it needs to recover and tried to. Just hope I can pull back out of this mode to get my work done. ^_^;;

Now, if my neck'll ease up just a tad, I'll be off to bed.

My progress is procrastinating. Gonna be another last-minute cram week. Blargh. Laws of physics still hate me. Double blargh.

Felt a little better today though. Especially when I for some reason just couldn't go on anymore at halfway-through Giant Eagle and just decided to go home. And happened to have my car approached by a hunch-backed old lady asking if I could give her a ride down to her home. I knew she'd definitely be of no harm to me so I agreed. Poor lady has to walk several miles every day if someone doesn't give her a ride, and apparently the cops keep giving her a hard time. Sheesh. At least tonight I got to give her a lift. Felt nice to help someone out, and have a few minutes of company.

Off to bed now, if I can finally sleep at a sane time.

Ok..... Not asleep yet; I remembered that I had books overdue at the library and so brought them back. No wonder I keep getting late fees; the darn things got stuck in the book return AGAIN. Had to find a stick to poke 'em down.

And now I might be too Survival Mode again to sleep. I'll try though.

Nobody knows who's doing what at work, thus I don't know what I'm doing either. I was supposed to do this one expanded job but then after I did it I wasn't supposed to. I dunno. More on that when I'm not so exhausted and in the middle of my regular expanded. Which I'm not getting progress on because I keep having too much pain to sleep at night, and when I'm awake I keep having emotional breakdowns, and now my dad's in the hospital after another cardiac episode. He's feeling better now, but they're gonna do testing on him in Columbus Monday to see what happened exactly. Visited him today instead of working. Tried to work but ended up only doing like 130 items, too exhausted, headed home, had another screaming crying breakdown in the car, was tempted to drive into oncoming traffic or the guardrail until I once more resumed the robot persona that I have to be in order to keep going. Yay. I'm either full blast or completely off. Not good to bottle things up but what more can I do? I can't make it if I'm 'human' all the time. I just can't take it.

Going to bed. Maybe I won't hurt too much tonight and can finally get some rest.

*sigh* ... I'm in so much pain and misery right now. Not something I like to just out and say without trying to perform a silly little smile or crack a joke. My neck is doing that thing again, every single heartbeat brings a pulse of agony through my neck, where it compounds into my head and nearly blinds me. Green and blue stars keep swirling in my vision. And my sinuses are so pressurized (methinks that's a lot to do with this), that I have to breathe out of my mouth half the time, which is causing my throat to get sore.

And no Sqiky, I did NOT catch your illness, the symptoms are different, so there. :P

Anyway... I have to go work though... CPG check is due today. Jeez I don't feel like it. Thank goodness it's not a full check yet. I dunno if I'm even safe to drive... But I have to anyway. -_-

Can't really risk getting sinus medicine with my budget; that crap has never worked for me before. My clog is permanent most likely, probably a fluid pocket or something caused by when my nose broke over a decade ago. I wonder why none of the doctors ever did something about it when I told 'em I can never friggin breathe. Hmmm.... Oh yeah, that's cuz they sucked.

Might at least get some Ricola for my throat. And I need more moisturizing soap; only realized how well that stuff worked when I had to go back to regular. At least I got coupons for my favorite brand (Irish Spring... well, second favorite to the all natural pine-tar stuff Sqiky uses that I have no access to around here) from critiquing their company's deodorant. Yay for feedback rewards!

Anyway... more painpill time... they've been good for about two hours only through this, but I HAVE to get slightly functional or no work is getting done...

Aaaand it went from "you decide" to "you ARE doing it" about me taking over for Terri's area deeper into WV... Four expandeds, one in a store chain I've never even walked into before, every four weeks... this is gonna be hell. I hope they manage to find a new hire soon. Kentucky? Fogetaboutit.

Training most likely tomorrow or Thursday or something, so I can at least find out more about this weird stuff... wee...

Off to work.

Yay, back from Otakon, and spending time with Sqiky and Annette. Now recovering a little, but among uncertainty concerning jobs cuz now I'm wanted to completely take over for Terri's area as well as my own as WELL as the out of state stuff but I dunno about all that... and I dunno how much the bosses communicate with each other, and Hilda might have wanted me to be in the other state by now, I'm not sure how things were arranged in the end... And I've got a training session possibly next Wednesday on a new job type... ARGH!!!

Once more I'm too exhausted to really even write. I'll have to catch y'all up later.

Aaaaand now my boss wants me to do ANOTHER extra job, this one at least still in this state but still kinda far, wants me to do this maybe next week though her language was a little hard to follow....... So now I have no idea what I'm doing when or where. @_@

Annette, if ya read this and I'm not online n stuffs, please leave me an offline message or sumfin to lemme know what we're doing about picking up/dropping off Whick n stuffs. I wanna be more sure about SOMETHING. ^_^;;

--
Update: I was right to wonder about how Mary presented the week she wanted the extra job done; it's week after next actually. Which means I'm having to shuffle the other Expanded jobs around a little later. Still waiting to see if that move is being approved. In a way this is good; I'll get a little more time to recover after Otakon, and more time to spend with Sqiky.

The bad part will be that I'd be doing three Expandeds one immediately after another, with long driving trips as the only 'break' inbetween. I'll wait till it's finalized to form an opinion on it.

Another update, on a few other things of great extremes.

-I re-homed both kittens. I only put Silver in the paper, with good color descriptions of his coat, and his personality. A young man called with interest, but it was his girlfriend who showed up with maybe her mom or his mom and some kids I dunno who's... Anyway, I met them at the Kroger parking lot since I'm so bad at giving directions and my house was such a mess and it being the middle of my Expanded Week I didn't have time or energy to clean up.

I brought both just in case to be fair, since Paul had said if folks want Poopanook they could have him too. Well, she fell for that stubby little guy since he was so unafraid of being in the car while Silver was so much more shy. And that durn little tail of his.

When we got back, Silver was extra affectionate, and promptly took Poopanook's place in staying underfoot and playing with my socks. Next day though, I got another call, cleaned up, and a bf/gf couple came in and were smitten by him. They have several Siamese, which are notoriously independent. They needed a cuddle-buddy, and Silver definitely fits the bill.

I got contact info from both couples, and gave them mine, so I'll find out how they're doing as time goes by.

I haven't really had time to think about it and let it all sink in. I've been so exhausted and busy that I just can't afford to give in to my emotions and miss them. That was why I really need Otakon; I've become a robot despite my ability to acknowledge some feelings, I don't really FEEL them much. Ya know?

Thing is though, now I dunno if I'll be able to even let loose there... On to point two:

-There are two Expandeds in Kentucky, both in different towns than last time, that desperately need done. Nobody else is picking up the slack. And thus, I've been called again. Oh boy. Undercover Expandeds. Two of them. In unfamiliar territory without previous price-record comparisson most likely (though I'll compile the lists anyway just in case, but might be a waste of time... @_@ )

*determined sigh* If it needs done, it's got to be done. Thing is, I still have to work inbetween my existing schedule since there's nobody who can sub for me in this area anymore. I'm still waiting on how long the hotels will be reserved for (this time the company will prepare them, thank goodness, since there's more warning this time). I gave Hilda my only time windows so things could be arranged.

So what my life boils down to is this...

July 1st: "Yay, such an easy week for me. I finally get to relaaax! :D"
July 3rd: "Phew, my work is done. Now to have fun, go see fireworks, and just rest from all those other hard weeks."
Job: "We need you. Kentucky. Now. Oh and now we're closed so we can't help you."
July 6th: "Oh man, so exhausted..." *collapse* ".....Oh yeah, I have to start on my Expanded Week" *gets up* T_T
July 12: "Oh man, so exhausted..." *collapse*
July 13: Job: "We need you. Kentucky. Twice. Expanded. Find time."
*gets up* T_T
(The rest is projected)
July 14-15: A little rest at last...
July 16-17: Work work work
July 18: Get ready for Otakon
July 19: Road trip, collapse
July 20-22: Otakon, yaaaay, hope I don't spend it all laying around @_@
July 23-25: Road trip home, work work work (five days of work including undercover Wal-Mart usually started previous Friday, must be done in two and a half days)
July 26-27: Spend some time with Sqiky, coming all the way from friggin Wisconsin to spend time with us! :D OMG! (Wish I had the energy to squee out loud instead of only in text ^_^;; ) That'll be a lotta driving, but worth it.
July 27 or 28-30 or 31: Road Trip to KY, work work work work WORK! @_@
July 30 or 31 (latter half): Get home in time to do CPG which is due Tuesday at Midnight, and they frown on me doing it in the evening. Then do Category at Kroger that night or next morning.
August 1-3 or 4: More road trip, work work work work WORK! @_@ Then get home.
August 5-8: My OWN Expandeds, usually started on the previous Friday, now needing done in four days.
August 9: Samantha K., died of overworking, R.I.P. X_X Or maybe she just collapsed, finally. Hard to tell. *poke poke*

.........Can I really afford to un-robot myself in the face of all that? @_@

Well, the trip was awesome during the actual trip, but not so much at the destination inbetween. :P What was cool was that Annette (mah buddeh) came with me on such short notice. :D Thing was, she needed to be picked up, and had to be back the next day by 9pm for work, so that put a time limit on us. Plus she actually takes care of herself, even when time is tight, unlike me. But she did some of the work too, which was friggin awesome. I was originally gonna 'pay' (in the form of a discount from her Otakon payment contribution, the difference transferred to my owing) $5/page of items, but I ended up giving her $20 for her two pages cuz she shouldn't have had to do all that, plus things had to be tough for her since we had practically no free time whatsoever and could only glance at a few fireworks in the distance.

Annette was a lifesaver in so many ways really. Great moral support, made the trip utterly fun, and sort of helped me not wreck or have to pull over for an extensive period of time. ^_^;; My pain medication lately hasn't been as pain-effective as it used to be, and is making me more woozy/disembodied than usual. (Guess it was only a matter of time before my only hope starts losing its effectiveness... blah) It was really bad though just a little while into the drive, probably because I took it with a caffeinated beverage. I know, dumb of me, but it used to not be an issue.

I started feeling so disconnected that it took every single ounce of my consciousness to keep between the lines and away from the other cars on the freeway. My shoulders and neck had to be completely tense. We figured since the road was so winding, windy, and unpredictable (we were still in West Virginia), I'd pull over at the next rest area and let her drive. But we quickly discovered that there ARE no friggin rest areas in West Virginia. :P We joked plenty about that. Good thing we didn't have to go. But yeah, I had to hang on until we were fairly close to the next state border and there was finally a restroom. Thank goodness for the rebels who decided to put one in such an anti-toilet state.

Annette drove the rest of the way there. Thaaaaaaank goodness, and thaaaaank her. I couldn't have handled it in that condition anymore. She also drove all the way back, because crappily enough, I absolutely could NOT SLEEP that night. That sucked there; we went straight to the hotel, then after I got better directions from the desk lady and a veeeeery general pamphlet map (since Ya-poo Maps is about as accurate as CrapQuest), we went straight to Mooly Mart and got to work. The layout was VERY different from the ones I'm used to; it started out the same then got extremely alien. We got lost on the way back despite me just driving plain ol' straight and we couldn't see a landmark we were looking for as a signal for me to turn. We got in close to 11 something, midnightish. Played a tiny little tad of Guitar Hero and Beatmania (maybe half an hour, 45 minutes at MOST), ate some ramen, and went to bed.

She slept, I didn't. I was tense about how much work I had left; still had soooo much left for that job, AND the undercover category audit which I've never done before, AND a CPG check at another store. There was no way I could get all that done in time. Worry worry worry. So yeah, couldn't sleep. Plus the tense time from driving and working and overall stress had my pain really bad. The few times I'd start drowsing and coming close, there was noise outside. Crappy traffic, people walking and talking, then the garbage truck at friggin what, 4-something A.M.? 5-something? That's too darn early. And we had the room RIGHT NEXT TO the dumpster. They should have had a discount for anyone with that particular room. :/ At least the room itself was quite nice, good bed n pillows, tv was kinda small but didn't have protector-crap so we could hook up the game console. And the continental breakfast was yummy. I snatched some stuff for Annette too since she was still sleeping at the time, wish I'd gotten more of the muffins. :9

Aaaaanyway, man I'm jumping around everywhere. Back to the not sleeping... around 5 or 6, at least an hour before when I was gonna originally wake up, I decided "screw this" and took my paperwork/scanner into the bathroom so I could get a good amount of the scanning over with (without waking Annette), and also more easily narrow down the differences between my paper list and the actual work list (I didn't have access to this area's paperwork so I had to use my old set which was mostly the same but had several differences).

It musta been hard for Annette in a lot of ways; undercover work is stressful, especially your first time with only minimal briefing, and especially since her stakes were high considering her jorb. But she pulled it off, so she definitely deserves gratitude for the saving of time and great showing of will-power. At least when she wasn't doing that, she found an employee to talk to and other stuff to do. Though I bet she still wasn't having much fun. @_@ I still feel bad that she had such a crappy time. I'd offered before that she could stay in the hotel room instead while I just work, but she decided to come anyway, another reason she friggin rocks.

I felt soooo guilty half the time when I first decided to roll with her offer to do some of it. And heck, still do, even though she chose to and is gonna be compensated. It just felt so mean to have her working all by herself at something she's never done before... gah! I thought I was gonna cry five minutes after we parted paths to do our respective sections. T_T It was like, Random Roadtrip was supposed to be fuuuuun for her, not thiiiis. I mean yeah I never said it'd be fun specifically but stiiiill.... -_- She never complained even once though. She totally had the right to, but didn't. :P

I made the decision the second day to skip the CPG, and not go back to finish the category audit when I a bit too-late found out that I was supposed to do the store-brand items, completely unlike my regular category audit where it's forbidden. Undercover category is so hard, writing down every UPC and price in the assigned areas rather than just scanning happily with the scanner like I do in Kroger. Anyway, glad I decided not to push it any further, cuz we wouldn't have gotten back in time. I called the lady in charge, and let her know that something came up and I really had to get home. That's all I said. She said there was a lady in Cincinatti (much closer than me) who could most likely finish up, so yay, all was well, trip home time.

Annette did the driving since she at least got some sleep. We were much more tired on the way back, and hit some maaaaaajor stormage, so it wasn't as wild-fun as on the way there. But still had its highlights. We got back with like one hour to spare. Maaaaaan, from what she told me about her work that night, 'dead on her feet' is so much an understatement it's almost an opposite. @_@ And for me, the drive home was very hard. Preeeeetty liiiiiights (it was dark most of the trip). But I made it, yay. Should have finished scanning and transmitting. But... I was so bad it was "screw it, sleep". And I so did. Scanned in the morning, woot.

Man, I'm writing all this train of thought here and I'm dead tired from that followed quickly by the Expanded Week here. @_@ Aaaanyways, the stress wasn't over cuz I was also regretting what I found out on the trip back while Annette was still driving: Apparently, there was miscommunication and over-interpretation of the "something came up" and "really need to get back" I had told the bosslady. Along the chain of command, my manager Mary called my parents wondering what family crisis had happened. They were like "Whaaaat? OMG..." and thought I was kidnapped or dead. My cell phone didn't ring (hills of green, no towers around, plus the thing's a piece of crap anyway), so they got more and more OMG. Dad called the cops, wanted to know what ways he could use to track me down, he even broke down and was crying and blubbering, with my big brother having to come down and take control of things. Jeez and Geez! @_@ When he finally got a hold of me he used secret code involving me naming our dogs, saying I could do it incorrectly as a signal that I was being held against my will while acting casual.

I feel baaaaaaad for them! @_@ I should have called them more often. But I've been through so much durn stress all this time that this big trip didn't feel like a big deal to me, and Mom had said before to call when I got HOME, so I didn't realize how much of a big deal they considered this trip.

*sigh* Well, they're ok now, and they weren't upset at me since they knew I was already feeling awful for all that. I called Mom before I came for Dad's birthday Sunday to let her know to make sure Pete wouldn't slap or shake me for causing such a ruckus. If I were normal, fine, but that would have utterly killed my neck, especially on that day. But she assured me he wouldn't do such a thing, and sure enough he was just fine and normal around me.

I had a great day there, spent most of the time with the kids. We were privileged to witness some things on our walk in the fields and garden including finding a praying mantis which I got to hold and show them, and we were just in time to see a good predatory wasp drag a katydid underground to its next. First it kept peek-a-booing in and out (to make more room since the bug was a tad too big), and the kids loved it. Their parents have been raising them like “Bugs = bad = KILL IT OMG!!!!”, but luckily I’ve been educating them that it’s not always the case, and they’re taking it to heart. They know from me the wasp is good, just don’t touch it, hold still if it goes near you, etc.

Anyway, immediately from there, I had to do my Expanded Week. Once more, right down to the wire cuz my tiredness from the trip n stuff got me to a late start and kept me slow. It was terrible. X_X

Aaaaaand I just accepted more stress. See next entry, for the sake of organization, and the fact that I wrote nearly all this last night and was so tired and now I’m lost anyway. :P

Gah, keeps being a buncha forevers and I keep not really finding time and/or motivation to update more.

Trip to Wisconsin just... ROCKED, ok? AAAH!! Saying how much it rocked would take like, years, maybe that's why I keep not doing so; it'd be a daunting task overflowing with unhealthy levels of awesome. Everything just worked out, from my car getting its rare light-short at the best possible time (I left the driver-side door not quite closed from arrival at Sqiky's till leaving @_@ ) so luckily no dead battery (And since it was in the garage facing in, I couldn't have gotten a jump from anyone!). And the con was just sooo cool, I reviewed it for the new magazine AniCoz volume 1 (along with Ohayocon), and everyone was just so awesome! We found a great alternate route back, saw a UFO, and stuff was just WOOT!!!! XD

What's happened since then? So much that it's all blurring together, so I can't catch up as well as I'd like. I've had rough times n good times. I'm tired n kinda numb but superficially happy and as usual optimistic despite the occasional need to vent.

Currently, I've made a couple tough decisions. One is to go to Otakon this year. I'll probably have to owe Mom for part of my share and charge it on the credit card instead of us all hand over our wads of cash straight away. First I mostly figured I'd go cuz Annette really really really really REALLY wants to go. But I realized I really need to go for me too. I've gotten so business-efficient, roll-with-the-punches, that I almost forget how to be human. :P I really do think I need it. More social time. Cuz my social anxiety has been getting worse.

Speaking of which, I recently went uber-social. First, last Thursday, Alyssa (from the art class I modeled for) had me go see Pirates 3 with her (which, despite its flaws, was still a great movie. I had fun), stroll the mall a bit, and thumb through manga at Borders. We hope to have other time-spending in the future. I had a great time, but it was tough too, cuz I'm just so socially atrophied. Aside from conventions and family outings, I haven't just gone to town with a friend since... man, years and years and years. And even then those were few and far between. This really put into perspective how bad my social anxiety really is: I dread doing it again even though I've gone on about how desperately lonely I get sometimes, and this even though we had nothing but fun.

I definitely gotta do it again and again till I get more comfy with it. Cuz I just can't keep having that kind of reaction to fun.

I was kind of in denial about having social anxiety till my bro Andrew sort of pointed out the obvious. I just thought I was socially atrophied and naturally uncomfortable.

But after 9 or more months on this store job, I find myself getting more and more nervous/nauseated/shaky about going and doing it instead of less, even though I've gotten so good at it. I even look back at it and other jobs I've done, and I feel sick and wonder how I ever could stand to have done those things involving other people. I thought time would make me better. Blah.

Maybe paaaart of it was that durn guy at Giant Eagle. Even though he's gone, I find myself dreading that place the most. Get over it, me! It wasn't a big deal! Jeez! Well... I think what hurt was a detail I learned after the fact. I was actually feeling fine about going back for weeks afterward. But then some other manager-dude (not the one I reported him to directly but another I had to report to on the phone) came up to me one day, brought up the incident, and said "Well don't worry, he doesn't work here anymore. But he had unrelated attendance problems, so that's why we fired him." I don't remember what else he said before he walked away, but I found myself feeling rather stricken. It was like, the just punishment I thought he'd received for his crime, was undone. He got nothing for what he did to me, just mere tardiness/absence! What the hell?!

That... bothered me. It really did. I dunno, maybe the guy thought I felt guilty and just said that so I wouldn't feel like I got somebody fired single-handedly. I admit, I did feel a little guilty for a while, but soon enough I'd settled in and knew he deserved it. But now this guy tells me he got nothing for that?! I think that's what ruined it for me. I thought I was vindicated. Blaaaah...

Anyway, Friday I accidentally got my elderly neighbor's electric bill (still haven't gotten mine... looking through other mailboxes quickly, everyone got the wrong ones, couldn't find mine among them though), and since I'd habitually opened it already, I figured I better give it to him by hand to let him know of the error instead of shoving it back into his mailbox. He invited me in, and ended up buying me beer (which I tried to drink out of politeness but the stuff was just yuck, plus on an empty stomach it gave me quite a buzz @_@ ), we watched The Jerk (which was a pretty good movie, though the humor sure was... unique :) ), and he showed me his record collection n stuff. He clearly is really lonely; he told me repeatedly I could come anytime, even just walk in cuz he doesn't lock his door. He wants to bring me to the retiree club and cook for me and everything. He was a little clingy too; when I finally asserted I had to go (was getting late for the wcrpg session), he hugged me twice and kissed me once (I gave him my cheek) and was crying.

I know... when you're old and lonely, you can be really clingy. I can understand that. There's been days where I've been so lonely I felt I could huggle a robber should one come in. But it was pretty uncomfortable. I sort of regretted already committing myself to spending some of July 4th with him. Dreading more like. I feel good that I gave an old fellow some company, but it's hard to converse cuz our generations are so different, and yeah... for me, my past experiences, and my social anxiety, it was an even harder thing to take. Plus I felt so sorry for him.

All that mix of feelings had me on the verge of breaking down already. And then came the session where, in the chatting beforehand, a very trusted friend launched a misunderstanding that led to me finally breaking down. We're clear now so I won't get into it... but here's the lesson from it: If you're clearly being misunderstood, do NOT keep defending that misunderstanding for fifteen-twenty minutes like you mean it! Change your darn wording so you ARE saying what you mean. He knows that now, factually at least, but this hasn't been the first time. I want it to be the last...

No rest for the weary, the next day I went home to my parents' place. Paul had me go walking with him at nightfall, and we were out for hours. I did have fun with that; walking without a flashlight down the dirt roads, through fields, in the darkness under forest trees. He had a sword and I had a dagger, and a flashlight with low batteries in case of emergency, but we never ended up using it. We thought we'd have the full moon light, but it was completely overcast. The nice thing though, it was a bloodmoon. Not only that, but when it was rising and still visible before the clouds concealed it, it was SO BRIGHT, it looked like a sunrise/sunset all over again! It wasn't just that orange-ish tint like most bloodmoons I've seen, but bright glowing RED. Fitting since our mission for the night was "werewolf hunters." >:)

Boots came with us for the whole journey except the first road. When we came back from that, poof, she was at the end of our driveway and came with us the other directions we went. It was a good bonding experience; Paul had stopped liking her since all she seemed to do was have kittens, nurse kittens, and sleep. But that night she showed her sense of adventure and loyalty, as well as heavy nuzzling.

At one point, the last part of the journey took us down a super dark, thickly wooded road, where Paul has seen/heard/felt a lot of strange, creepy entities before. This was why he'd asked to be able to use my old sword (which I gave to him, the handle was rotting anyway, cheapo Pakistan model. He and a friend made a new handle), because walking that way, it gave him a sense of security.

The creepy thing was... down that road, the lightning-bugs blinked in extreme slow-motion compared to any others in the whole county. The place did indeed feel sinister. And my night vision went completely awry; I saw blue spots everywhere as if I'd just stared right into a huge spotlight, even though I hadn't even looked at the fireflies at the time.

Then at one point, Paul signalled a halt, and obviously was feeling creeped out. And then Boots growled. o.o Ooookay, that did it for us. We agreed to GTFO. The cat, instead of figure-8ing around us like usual, led the way back at an accelerated walk, as fast as she could without us losing sight of her. She wanted no petting, did not do her usual tripping or rolling, she just wanted to get home, and quick. And yet, she didn't abandon us either. On most casual walks when cats go with me, they run the rest of the way on their own once over the final crest of our driveway. But she kept us in her range, to make sure we too got back safely. Only once in the closed breezeway did she gush over us with relief and clinginess.

Needless to say, Paul respects her greatly again, I totally believe him that there's something sinister down that way, and well, despite it being creepy, I had fun. Everyone needs some adventure sometimes, and that was definitely thrilling.

But upon waking late the next day (since that resulted in us going to bed so late it was early), I had to make a tough decision about the cats; I was to take Boots with me, and her two kittens. I plan to put Silver (also called Pretty Boy by my family) in the paper and on fliers n stuff to get him a new home, and keep Poopanook (Yeah... great name... blame my dad and brother Paul :P ), the runt with the short tail, for my brother should he ever get his own place someday. It'd have been easier to leave them home and the parents would have put them in the animal shelter. But... they wouldn't have a chance. There's so many kittens in the paper, and most folks wouldn't go through the adoption process with all the evaluations n fees n stuff, when they could get a kitten for free. But my parents were at their wits' end. And me, well, I passed that years ago, so I figured I can take on one more challenge there.

I put them all in a box with two hand-hold holes and otherwise sealed with duct tape. Put it in the back seat, started down the driveway. Heard chewing. By the time I was at the end of our mile driveway, Boots was out and I just barely kept her from jumping out my open window. Heh, great. ^_^;; I closed the window to just a crack, and figured the kittens would soon be under my pedals. But you know what? They stayed in the box, quiet as could be, and even fell asleep. While Boots ran around bawling and bawling as usual. Even though she's done this a zillion times, she just won't stay calm anymore like the first few times. So much for a traveling cat, it's just not her thing after all. :P

Well, I knew when I got to the apartment things could easily become chaos. I found out the kittens were still in the box, so I picked it up, but Boots came out the open door. Luckly she ran under the car rather than away. I left the door open so she could go back in if she felt like bolting anywhere, and prayed she wouldn't be lost as I carried the box into the apartment building and up the stairs.

But then I heard noise, and looked back. She was running up the stairs. She remembered the way up and down since I'd taken her on a leash so many times. Yaaay! So she waited for me by the door until I got it unlocked, and flowed right in.

They all settled down nicely. Kittens adapt readily, and she knew this place. I went to Kroger and got some cheap catfood, then Mooly Mart for some vitamins to supplement it (it said it was nutritionally complete, but so many corn/wheat ingredients, I don't think cats actually absorb that stuff too well), so I crumble vitamins into the food for them. Mostly to fatten up poor skinny Boots. They're sucking her dry when she gives in to 'em. All the more reason to get rid of one or both. I plan to bring Poopanook back to them for a while maybe next week to give her time to dry up. Then bring her back the next week for Otakon since being alone for nearly a week would suck for her.

But... this is hard. I teared up about it a few times. Silver's just so gentle and quiet sometimes. He looks right in my eyes, watches everything, learns so much just from watching me keep the other cats in line, and he cuddles and purrs so gently. But Poopanook's got that unique tail, and is constantly following me like Jeffy the duckling used to, looking at me adoringly, getting on my lap any instant it can be considered a lap. Plus Paul really wants him.

I feel bad favoring him over Silver. Silver's smartness and quiet contemplative look makes it seem like he's aware of it and everything. And when that made me bawl, he wrapped his arms around my arm and snuggled, purring really loudly. That made me bawl worse. :/

I need to look at it this way: He's such a wonderful cat, someone out there really needs a companion like him. But dangit... I worry they won't appreciate his intelligence. Plus... Gaaah! I really shouldn't have lumped this on myself with everything else going on. But I just couldn't leave him to the mercy of an overcrowded shelter that practices necessary murder regularly.

*siiiiiiiigh*

Anyway, now the latest development even as I was writing all that: Another auditor from Indiana is overrun by her work schedule, is even a week behind, due to family tragedy. She's got jobs in Louisville, Kentucky, that need done as soon as possible. I figured, I only had the CPG check this week, and boy do I need extra income. So I'm taking it.

This'll be quite an adventure. I hope I don't wreck while being confused. @_@ And the holiday traffic will probably cause problems. But, I'll do my bestest. I'll have to find a cheap hotel and give the receipt to my company so they can reimburse me. Doing my usual job in a different place in a different state in a different way will be like, whoah! ^_^;; But... I love road trips, I needs munny, and she needs help. So, fwee!

Gonna call Mom for some last minute tips, and study the handbook on transmitting my work from hotels, and compare the lists since I can't get the physical scan list I need. This'll be tough! And no time to even let it sink in! Aaaah! XD Anyone wanna come with me? LOL

It'll probably be another week or more before I can update more; I've been put on the biggest store job ever that makes all the other impossibly huge ones look like nothing. Terri says I will probably cry. Mary says I'll probably need to request an extension for the Wal-Mart Expanded list deadline, and I just might take that. Will still try to get done in time but we'll see. Either way... I'm gonna be one tired puppy. Well, more than I already am (already started on Wal-Mart's big fat list).

Take care all. I will survive.

Wow... I had SUCH an awesome time, I think I've been having to recover all this time. ^_^;; (Plus attempting job hunts, going to interviews, etc, though so far still unsuccessful)

The trip... was so perfect. Even with hiccups all over the place, and an initial "ohs noes!", once we were on our way and there, things just worked out better than I could have ever imagined.

It's a good thing I felt I should go ahead and go to my parents' house before heading up to get Annette... because right before I got there my exhaust system dropped down so it was only inches from the ground (it dragged on potholes and minor rises). The whoooole thing along the length of the car. It's a Ford part so of course it was already so rusted and rotten that the supports had given way. The durn thing looks like swiss cheese, no wonder it's so loud. So my older brother had to rig something together and wire it up so it wouldn't drag and possibly fall off (which could cause accidents, puncture my gas tank, who knows what else). So I spent hours watching his kids in their house (which was exhausting and depressing due to the state of their house and how independant they've had to become, yet very fun cuz they're just plain awesome kids. I hadn't been with them much for such a long time, we all needed some time together anyway.)

So, we got off to a late start. Then, on the way to Annette's mom's, I heard an unpleasant noise. I thought "Oh crap" and looked in the rear-view to make sure the exhaust hadn't fallen off after all. It didn't. But I pulled over to check, and it had rotated, so one bend in the pipe was now low to the ground while the rest was still up. I knew we'd just have to be as careful as possible and continued on up. Turns out even she was on a late start too anyway, and had had to go back for stuff a few times, so at least I feel a bit less guilty about the holdup. :P

Annette took to driving pretty darn quickly, having to take a bit to get used to my car's fierce desire to go fast at times, but otherwise it started off smoothly and only got smoother. We stopped at Mooly-Mart so she could say her farewells to co-workers, and to load up on Pocky. Then we were off again. And wouldn't you know it, she didn't give up the wheel the whole trip. SHE DROVE ALL THE WAY TO WISCONSIN FROM OHIO! :D After like over a year without driving, guess it just felt good to fly over the road again. Which was just fine cuz she did so awesomely. Heck, even in situations where turn-offs came up unexpectedly and split-second decisions had to be made, she might have even handled 'em better than I could have. ^_^;;

We didn't really have any trouble-spots except at three points, the first being Indianapolis. The first because of our directions being a bit vague, but mostly because the signs for the turn-off just plain sucked. We were driving along on something-north, which eventually turned into something-west (or something to that extent), but we were supposed to stay on the something-north branch. Well, we were following the signs. There were a buncha useless turn-offs like 36th street and 52nd street and stuff that we paid little mind to. One of those went alongside us for quite some time behind a concrete barrier. And I happened to look up and see that, when it finally veered off, it was ALSO the #-North that we needed! @_@ WTF mate?!

So we found an exit and turned around, then found a way back over, and decided to try again. But each of those darn turn-offs was as generic looking as the next. Once more, we passed the one we needed, cuz it was too hard to tell if it was the one until it was too late. There was absolutely NO clue that it was an interstate route until it veered way off and the sign was hard to see from the freeway.

So we stopped at some gas station for a break, and asked a lady who worked there for the best way back onto our route. And she told us basically to just get back on the main road we were on, and it'd eventually turn into what we needed. That seemed physically impossible and yet... it worked somehow! O_O Sure was something. ^_^;; So yaaaay, long stretch going smoothly.

Then the next hitch was at Chicago, where we were just in time for the morning rush we'd hoped to avoid. Basically just going really really slow and stopping lots and a few sign/lane related dances to and fro. Little I can say about it even though it took us a long time to get through. But get through it we did.

Third trouble-spot was riiiight at the end of the trip. I accidentally took us off one exit too soon, but we were able to find out where we were on the printout map and still get to where we needed to be, so we went for it. Except the Google Map did NOT coincide very well with what we were seeing. That, and the one-way streets really made things confusing. AND when we FINALLY got where we needed to be... on the map it showed a straight-shot across all the streets right to where we needed to go. But in real life, there were concrete barriers and grass medians. Ugh. Not as bad as MapQuest but still, serious points off G-maps for that crap. Ugh.

We finally found our way up to Sqiky's (Eric's) place, yaaay. Were tired as heck, as that had taken around 12 hours methinks, maybe more with the breaks n stuff, I forget. But we maaaade it! We'd had fun on the way making fun of the town/street/river names we encountered. X3 And it was cool to just spend time with Annette and listen to music and talk about random stuff and laugh a bunch. But the fun was only just beginning! I'll continue it in another post.

Current Event Notice: Boots had four little shoes in my brother's closet. Paul wasn't happy about that, and doesn't like all the visitors invading to coo at them. :P But part of him is glad to have the fuzzballs at constant access though, he won't admit it but I can tell. :)

What happened was, she was going into labor last Thursday or Friday. Kept meowing and meowing, bothering Dad, not letting him sleep, walking between his feet whenever he was up. She kept wanting him to follow her to the place she'd chosen for birth. But he couldn't get around all the stuff in Paul's room and I guess just didn't feel like it. So when Mom came home, Boots beckoned her, and she followed the kitty to the chosen area. Mom managed to get a box with old sheets into the spot so it wouldn't happen on Paul's clothes and stuff, and kept Boots company during most of the birth.

The first kitten came out with the mother crying out; Boots is still so darn tiny dangit, and this was her first baby ever. But she cleaned the kitten just fine. Cleaned and cleaned. So much that she didn't realize she had a second one. Mom broke the sac and put it in front of Boots, who then took over, eating off the sac and cleaning the baby. From then on, her instincts and knowledge worked just fine, and she had the last two without a hitch.

So there's two female callicos (one mostly dark, one mostly white), a grey/black/brownish tabby male, and a white with black but slightly brownish-frosted spots which is... who knows! Hopefully we'll find out its gender when it's older. ^_^;; Sometimes it really is hard to tell. We've had Tom-Kitty before who you would have sworn was a girl till one day "she" got balls (thus changing the name from just plain Kitty), and our cat Smokey you'd swear was a boy except she's had kittens before we fixed her (she has what looks like tiny balls, and her jowls are all big and muscular like a male's, but she's not a hermaphrodite or anything, that's just how her breed is sometimes).

Aaaanyway, yaaay I'm a kitten-grandma. ^_^ So proud of Boots. She's such an excellent mommy. ANY suspicious noise from ANYWHERE and she's off like a shot to guard her babies. Heck, she hardly comes out even to eat or drink, she's so obsessed with staying with the babies. Hopefully she's relaxed more by now (It's been several days since I last was over there).

Whoever's been fast-forwarding time these past few weeks, please stop. In fact put it on pause for a few days, cuz you freakin owe me after all that! At least long enough for me to get ready for crying out loud. I've got the big long trip up to Wisconsin with Annette to visit the DZX Productions crew, then go to Anime Detour, I'm leaving Tuesday evening, and I haven't had any time to get ready! STOP SPEEDING UP THE TIME!!! Most would love this cuz then that meant less waiting for the event, but when everything's all a hectic maelstrom around me, I need MORE time, not less. The durn lady didn't call back still about the job so I guess they'd rather I annoy them with messages than give in and schedule the 2nd interview which I now don't have time for anymore anyway... The store took longer than I thought so I still gotta finish up a buncha items in the morning, then go fam-home, TRY to install the cruise-control before going up to Annette's. And I STILL don't have my stuff packed and ready and clothes picked out. If I do that now I won't get any friggin sleep before the trip, which I'll be driving most of, all night long. @_@

AARGH!!! I'll hafta sort thru all my library books/dvds/stuff, return whatever is gonna be due while I'm gone, pick up things that can be out for a week or longer that have arrived...

AAAAARGH!!!!! @_@ I'll wind down a bit, cuz like EVERYONE'S online and wanting to chat and I'm durn tired. Then I guess I'll try and pack up and write down what I need to do in the morning then get at least a nap before going fam-home and all that crap. Anyways umm, weeeee, see you guys in a week or slightly more.

Holy crap... I knew I was tired but sheesh!

OK, I went to bed at a pretty decent hour last night, being beyond exhausted and all, but woke up at like late-4 or early-5 am. I was like "Well that sucks but oh well." and proceeded to make n eat breakfast, and watch a few YouTube vids n shows on Animal Planet. I figured I'd jump in the shower, then go family-home since I'd told them I would, so Dad could check stuff on my car better, I could return library stuff, pick up more, and of course view their new HDTV (rear-projection, cuz the much overrated "real thing" looked like absolute crap in all forms I've seen) and new extra channels.

But then I felt kinda sleepy again around 7 am, and figured, "Well, I'll take a nap to fill in the rest of the sleep I need, should be up around 11am or noonish at the latest, then I'll take care o shower n goin' home."

I woke up ten minutes ago. O_O About 8 pm here. @_@

Well crap, I can't go home only to sleep then wake up and go to the art-modeling. I may as well just go home after work tomorrow then. Though my book will be a day late at the library, blah...

Still, this is nuts. I guess I'm just so psychologically used to exhaustion, that I forget that my body actually needs to recover and make up for lost sleep sometimes. Blah. I slept through phonecalls and everything (though given all the hang-up messages, must be some more companies either who ignore Do-Not-Call-List procedures, or tons of the previous tenant's bill-collectors. What was such a heavy-spender doing in such a cheap apartment? Argh! He must owe like fifty companies stuff cuz I have to have dealt with 20 already).

Well, this is pretty nuts here... I keep trying to call home to let 'em know I'm not dead and will show up tomorrow, but no answer, meaning Paul's online (my parents' call-waiting makes that happen rather than a busy signal). Oh well... at least I can get the rest o' that novel read now. But, blaaaah. Durn body, quit being weak.

......

Still wish I could remember names better dangit... I'm 99% sure it was Tim but since I couldn't be 100% sure I didn't push as much as I could have so I'll have to call the manager in the morning so they can make absolutely sure I got the name right...

Remember the young man I mentioned before who I met at Giant Eagle then ran into at Ohayocon? He works at GE on weekends now cuz he has a second burger-flipping job. We've conversed on and off. I liked him. He seemed to randomly walk off instead of saying bye though, so I figured he probably doesn't like me much. But today I was thinking "Oh well, that's ok, not everyone with similar interests has to be my friend, though having someone to converse with sometimes is cool."

Today he talked some, walked off some, came back, etc. Usual. They shortened my GE list on me, good for convenience, not good for my pay. I remarked about that, how I'll have to see if they have other assignment areas I can cover sometimes. As I looked around the shelf for specific products, he up and asked, "Hey, do you think a guy could ever be... too big for a girl?"

I wondered if he was worried about gaining too much weight for a girlfriend's tastes or something (He's pretty thin though), or if he might be asking about a friend, so I said "Well that depends on what you mean."

"You know..." put his hands down a bit "...big."

Yikes... But I figured maybe he does want to be my friend and is trusting me with a personal issue, seeing as I'm pretty mature, so I said, "Well, yeah actually. Sometimes that can be the case."

He was like, "Well, I kinda have that problem." A bit smirky, I figured just uncomfortable smiling.

I said, "Aww, guess most people don't realize that can be a problem unless they have it. Never really thought about that. It can suck having something most wouldn't think of as a problem. I guess... try and focus your attention on women with big hips." Since I'm not really in that category, I figured that's decent advice without being any sort of accidental invitation. I then added, "Weird thing to up and talk about, though," showing my shock at him bringing that up so abruptly. But I felt I'd handled it sympathetically and relatively calmly.

He was like "Yeah," then he walked off, I figured to straighten some other shelves. I scanned a few more things. Then he came back, with his cell phone.

"See, this is what my problem is," he said, and he showed me his phone, and on it was a photo of...

I just walked quickly off to the end of the aisle, rounded it, stepped into the next and tried to start scanning cereal. I was so shocked that it had hardly registered. But he followed me. "Hey, I'm sorry," he chuckled.

I looked at him showing I was far from amused and could only croak out, "That was NOT cool." I think I was looking as upset as I was starting to feel, cuz his face fell and he walked off. Gradually, it started sinking in, and I found I couldn't concentrate on scanning anything and I was shaking. I went up to the front and asked another worker who I could report possible bad employee behavior to, he directed me to someone of high-rank (I guess not actually a manager though), and I told him what happened. He took me around looking for him, but we couldn't find him. He told me keep an eye out for him, but everywhere I went, couldn't find him. I tried to do more work, but it was just so slow, I kept feeling weak and couldn't focus on the text. Went looking one more time, had the in-charge dude page for Tim, no answer, and he said someone said they saw him go out the door. So he believes me. But I said I wanted to make sure I got the name right since I'm not 100% on it, and I don't want anyone innocent getting blamed for it, so he gave me the actual manager's name and a number, as well as taking down mine. I'll call in the morning, or whenever I end up getting up.

I let him know I was going home, I was too shaken up to work anymore. So I did. I could have gotten that all done in one night, I was feeling good, but this screwed everything up...

I feel like I'm making a big deal out of it; I know factually that it was something anyone could just ignore... But no amount of logic is helping my body stop the freaked-out weakness and my mind's lack of focus. Even though I know that what happened wasn't major, it feels major. That's just the nature of sexual harassment I guess... it can take just a little something a certain way to trigger distress. Maybe it's mostly cuz it was just so sudden, and unexpected from him. The fact that I liked him. And since I'd thought he was confiding his troubles to me, I was opened up and vulnerable in return. So yeah, I guess that would make it hit harder than it otherwise would have. So sudden, and quite a betrayal...

*sigh* I feel like crap. Weak as a kitten... I'm gonna have some hot coco, watch some tv, see if I can drown this out, maybe finish reading "Halo: The Fall of Reach"...

Heh... durn Number of the Beast. It keeps coming up when I'm having some hard times. Two recent examples: Last week, I came back really exhausted from some work but with lots more to go. I pulled my crappy-old-tracfone outta my coat pocket, and the display showed that the 6 key had been hit three times somehow. ^_^;; And another time that same week on the last day, I was having a lot of stomach problems, feeling super sick. I forced myself to emerge from the bathroom to try and keep going, though I knew I'd have to soon be back. I looked to see how many items I had left to scan... 666. @_@

Hehe, I'm not trying to attribute anything to it; according to several scientists, the original number was actually 616, and even then, it might have been some number-name-code referring to anti-Christian caesars reigning at the time. So I'm not superstitious about the number. But the coincidences sure made me have some nervous laughter anyway. ^_^;;

Oh wells, I'm done for this week with the store, yay. Ended up being exactly 555 items. :P

Wow, Criss Angel is guest-starring on CSI tonight. I haven't watched that series in a while, or even too much before, but this'll be worth seeing! :D Criss Angel is made of sexy and woot!

Random note thingie: I've been reading the soccer (football) manga "Whistle" by Higuchi Daisuke. I'm up to Volume 9. And boy is the Tokyopop translation crappy! Either the translator didn't know enough English to put things into words correctly, or the adapters really slacked off or sucked. Seems they've gone through at least two, maybe three (I didn't think to pay attention for most volumes and have already returned them to the library). And none of them do it right. There's awkward grammer all over, places where you KNOW they used the wrong words for the situation, and a few characters' names randomly changed even only one page away.

And Daichi, an enigmatic character, keeps getting his speech patterns messed up. I haven't read it in Japanese so I can't say how he's truly supposed to talk... But I can assume it's supposed to be unusual. (When he first showed up, he was written as using cunning yet not quite sophisticated words, lacking contractions, almost like speaking a bit too perfectly but in a creepy rather than high-class way. Shou thought, "Wow, who the heck talks like that?" But then in later volumes, perhaps due to the new adapter, he was given regular casual speech. And then a couple chapters later, extremely-casual much how I talk, like "I'm lookin' for somethin'." The inconsistencies are driving me nuts! ~_~ )

I'm not familiar with the dialects very much, though I can likely identify Kansai-ben if I hear/see it, though for most of the manga that's not the impression I'd get from him. So I might hope to find the Japanese manga sometime. Or maybe the anime will emulate his speech patterns; I've started on it on YouTube. Already can say I like the manga tons better, but seeing some of the moves and characters in motion is kinda cool. Higuchi-sensei was quite a bit ahead of her time with art-style (...was SHOCKED to find out she was female! Seems like all the good sport mangas so far have been written by women as far as I know, surprising for such a "traditional" country! They write with such specific expertise! ^_^ ). Her lines and angles are very consistant, well-angled, and sharper than most manga of the early/mid-90's. My only complaint is that the heads seem quite a bit too big and limbs too thin, but all detail and expression is so well done that I have to say I love her style. It looks so modern, that the anime caught me off-guard with how dated the animation looks.

Oh well, enough o' my whining. I do recommend that manga highly, whether you're a fan of the sport or not. The characters, their stories, their drive and determination, their awesome moves, all make for a captivating story. Just prepare for confusion and cringing at lots of the speech balloons. ^_^;;

Man... made it with an hour and a half to spare. Toward the end I was barely-walking wounded; my feet hurt so bad I had to stand on the outer edges with my legs bowed to alleiviate the pain a little. My legs felt like lead infused with red-hot iron. My neck and head wanted me to loosen the vice that gripped them. But near the end I got a second-wind and barreled on with determination until it was done. I figured I should get bread there since the generic was cheaper than anything in Parkersburg, but I was so past done I didn't care and just plodded to my car. I just wanted to get home and get the job transmitted. So I did.

I stayed in survival mode a little while, realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast and so ate, then went right to bed. I slept decently but phonecalls kept waking me up. What part of "Do-Not-Call List" don't they understand?

Blah, I know, it's not like me to actually describe my pain and stuff, I usually just gloss over it amidst a buncha rueful smilies. But this is really getting rough. And now despite being tired and absolutely sore all over, I can't sleep. Had a 4 hour nap but that's it. I need rest before the college work dangit... Dunno what the deal is this time. Maybe survival mode is finding it hard to go away. Maybe I'm in just plain too much pain to sleep, I dunno. It's not just sore muscles; my joints are screaming at me, and my neck and head are tag-teaming me with spiked everythings.

*sigh* As I always say though... oh well. Guess I'll get started on showering, get it over with, since it will end up taking hours in stupid segments anyway. Wish I could just go in n out in 15 minutes or so like a normal person. Instead it's become a rather torturous part of my day (not just the annoying scrubbing and shaving, but the stupid neck pain...), taking away time I need for recovering from the store-work or just plain being creative anymore. I wanna make AMVs, I wanna draw pictures, I wanna finish backstories for both RPGs I'm in. I NEED to get a freakin' manga started so I can get on the map and have something art-related to put on my resume. But, all that has to take the back-burner when I have so little day left all the time.

And... some dude I'd rather forget somehow went and added me to his Yahoo friend list. Dunno how he found my new Yahoo ID. But he did. He's a guy who I was very close friends with online; we'd voice-chat nights and nights away. He called me on the phone a lot. He liked to hear me sing Japanese songs. He started on teaching me Japanese. He was so into anime and Japan that he was taking advanced cultural courses, and last I knew was getting ready to take a test where he had to give a whole big speech in Japanese. The winner would get a trip to Japan.

Well, at some point years ago, back when we lived at our old house (at least 5 or 6 ago then), he had told me he would love to come to Otakon with me and Annette. I was getting excited; Otakon's fun, I'd get to meet Jeff face-to-face, we could juuuust handle the hotel costs with his help, etc. But, as time wore on, he kept not being online. I left him emails, phone messages, offline messages, everything, wanting to know what our arrangements would be. No answer, no answer...

Finally, on like two nights (or maybe the very night) before Otakon, he had the gall to come online, with his traditional happy greating "Hola chica!". I was like "Crap man! What are we gonna do about Otakon?!" Jeff said something like "Huh... I forgot about that."

I went "Well we gotta do something! I don't think we can afford the hotel by ourselves!" (I forget if we had other ppl also planned to be there or not, my memory sucks, but it was still very questionable whether or not we could afford our portion) So Jeff goes, "Well, it's too short a notice. Besides, I'm not that much into anime anyway."

..........Not.......into........anime?

For a moment I wondered if it wasn't him. I might have interrogated him to find out what he knew about me and he tested positive. It was really Jeff. And there he was, saying that he wasn't into anime. This guy, who had obsessed over Dragonball Z and Kenshin and so many other things with me for YEARS, who has Role-Played as a Saiya-jin with me on Yahoo Chat which is HOW I MET HIM..... wasn't into anime. He didn't say "anymore" or anything. To my query on that, he said, "I never really did."

.......That freakin' did it. It's not that I was mad at him for not coming to Otakon, leaving us to drastically shorten our hotel time (and maybe other drastic measures which once more I forget). It's not that I was mad at him for not liking anime. I was mad at him for either doing a damned good job of deceiving me all those years, or suddenly doing a complete 180 on me as to what kind of person he is. He said a lot of hurtful things after that, which I once more can't remember for my blur of tears and anger.

It doesn't sound like a big deal in text here... But it's really hard to explain. I mean sheesh, I might have grown to love that guy for crying out loud. For him to just suddenly change, denying the very thing which had brought us together... That was too much. So he went on my Ignore list.

Later, I took a different Yahoo name, leaving my Sonja the Saiya-jin RPG character behind, and also, Jeff.

But now, the other day, here's a new friend-notification, and I instantly recognize the email address. He found me. When I'd thought I could just forget about him and leave it all behind me.

So I went "Ahh what the hell, at worst I can chew him out, or maybe he can explain what the heck happened with him those years ago." So I accepted the adding and added him. He was online. And so, I waited. Waited for him to be a man and message me first.

Waited.... waited....

Day went by, nothing. Finally at night I closed Yahoo. Woke up, opened it, he was gone. Haven't seen him since. Been maybe two, three days. Maybe four. I dunno, it all blurred with that sleepless working.

I guess next time, if he ever shows up again, I'll be forced to take the initiative. But what the heck can I say? *sigh* Wish he'd use the same balls he used to say that crap to me years ago, and used to add me to his list, to freakin' say WHY he'd tracked me down.

......Once more, oh well. Gonna go take the stupid shower. Then I'll cut my wrists and cry, causing my black eye-liner to flow down my cheeks, marking the paths of my misery. (extreme sarcasm there, btw) :P Heh, don't worry about me, I'm not as emo as I sound. Just venting the buildup so I can move on.

("One Thousand Apologies"... most sincere apology-song I've ever heard. Sometimes I like to imagine folks who've broken my heart being that sorry. Helps me forgive 'em. Which is why I tend not to carry grudges very long (except in this case with Jeff... I really was forgetting about it till now though @_@ ). Hmm, anyone know of any other rock songs that effectively use bagpipes? This one only has a little in the refrain but it's still cool. I also like "Spielmannsfluch" by In Extremo for the bagpipe usage (more upbeat/fun, that song is). I guess I'm on a skillful-use-of-bagpipes-in-rock phase... someone feed meh!)

Man, I have NO idea how they will in the future expect me to do TWO expandeds in one week later on... (especially with the later one being undercover at Mooly-Mart!) I can't get even this one done without torturing myself. No matter how hard I try, stuff always goes wrong with my sleep schedule or the weather, so it's always up to the last minute on these big jobs. To get this one done in time, I worked all day today from waking till... well... no sleep.

By the time I got done with transmitting and paperwork, and now TRYING to shower (I'll explain in a sec), there's no sense in me taking a nap, cuz then I absolutely will NOT want to wake up. So I'll have to hang around until 5:30am so I can get to the store around its 6am opening time. Whereupon I'll work on it until around 11:50am, giving me enough time to get to the nearby college and do my modeling until around 3:30pm, whereupon I'll go straight back to Giant Eagle and keep on working until I get it friggin done! Which will HOPEFULLY be before midnight closing time and my transmission deadline. @_@

I COULD have probably had a half-decent nap, but my showering ends up taking hours lately. Why? Did I suddenly get my Rapunzel hair back? No, though I am due for a bit of a trim to keep it qualifying as shoulder-length. See, I've got Psoriasis over a fairly large percentage of my body (though it's being surprisingly tame this year). Long story short, my immune system tells parts of my skin "OMG guys! You're damaged! Make more skin! MORE MORE MORE!" and so I get areas with tons of extra blood vessels and constant overactive skin production. In other words, it don't look so sexy. So I gotta spend extra time scrubbing all that skin in rotating shifts to get all the accumulated armor off so I just have red splotches instead of flaky red splotches. Especially with my modeling and stuff, I'd rather they focus on drawing anatomy than being distracted by albino cornflakes hangin' off my legs.

But the thing is, my water heater seems to progressively be croaking. Just in the past month or so, it's been rapidly losing its ability to keep up with a shower. Just 8 to 10 minutes in this time, it started pretending that both water-knobs say (Cold). Come ON! I'm one single little person using this thing, I hadn't used ANY hot water in hours. Surely it can last even the length of one quick shower for a normal person! The water heater at my family's house isn't much bigger than mine at all, yet it took 4 people taking 10-30 minute showers before it'd start falling behind, and it's an electric heater for crying out loud, supposed to be notoriously slow compared to my gas one.

Grrrr! So now I gotta wait like an hour or more for it to recharge the hot water just so I can continue. Hell, might even have to waith through a THIRD shift if it keeps this up! Sheesh, a 30-40 minute shower shouldn't be such a huge deal here! And sitting around with wet hair making my ears and neck cold, makes my neck pain worse. Now I have to deal with that more than once in a row. And all this with the normal fatigue and pain brought by all this breakless work I've been doing, with still more to go... I seriously don't need that. -_-

*sigh* Well, enough angsting, I'll just read more of the manga "Whistle" and watch some vids on YouTube until the water heater stops making noise.

Maybe I'll end up having to bother the landlord about it. Maybe it's full of silt or something. Blah. That'd mean cleaning the closet though, which I don't have time for yet, and I'm gonna be exhausted for days after all this. And hurting, let's not forget hurting. Blaaaaah.

Heh, seems I slack off when things go well. I've been having great days lately. Few days ago, Gabriel Bros., where Mom works, had a red-tag sale. Shirts, accessories, jackets, even some dresses n pants, all $1 each. So after her work was done I was over there, and Mom said she'd pay for whatever I got. So I stocked way up. Tons o' good stuff. We even ran out of time when the store closed or else I might have had even more. But still, awesome, since I've been feeling better about how I look, now I have many more ways to complement my appearance. ^_^

Friday, work went super nice, lotsa good conversations. Class got challenged; I'd take a pose, and for half of it the class had to try to draw my opposite side. Knowing that, I took an asymmetrical sitting pose to give them all a challenge. For the last half they got to change positions to finish what they started. Many did surprisingly well. They're an impressive group on the whole, though two of the four guys are still way too slow and bad with spine curvature. For the last half, I got to lie down on a couch. With only my right arm being uncomfy with the pose, it was relatively easy and relaxing, I might have even briefly fallen asleep. ^_^

I was concnerned for a while cuz my check was supposed to come in last Friday, and it was now another Friday. But I guess the post office was behind from all the snow, cuz it just came in today, woot. Now I CAN make rent when before I couldn't. Hope the landlord won't try to penalize me... I'm sorta late. ^_^;;

Anyways, my hair accidentally got a neat new do today when I was messin' with it, so it's more versitile than I'd thought before. Yay. Will have to experiment with it more often.

Happy day, weeeee!! Which is good cuz now I'm fueled up on positive energy that I'll need to get me thru these next several days; I've got lots of work to do. Larger-than-usual category audit, Top Check which is always big and complicated by inclusion of regular AND sale prices, AND the Giant Eagle expanded. My second time doing it, first time with all three days instead of one to complete it. Which won't make it all that easy really when combined with the other stuff I gotta do, but still, doable if I keep myself busy. So not much free time until late Wednesday or Thursday. But I'll make it, I know i will. ^_^

Yesterday was so awesome. A great day full of sunshine and woot. Got to share my tunes with the class, had favorable response. ^_^ I really needed such a day. It was truly awesome.

Today, stuff around me is still good, there's a Ninja Warrior marathon on G4, and tonight there's gonna be one RPG, two if a certain couple o' people show up as planned. ;)

But, my neck has something seriously wrong with it now. I can only figure it got re-injured from the fender non-bender the other day; it WAS a big jerking motion after all. And maybe made worse by the extended poses in class. Cuz now it's really really bad. Not the usual pain either, something's definitely pinching hard on the right side. My right arm goes numb for periods of time and my foot tingles. It relieves some if I have my head lowered/pulled forward, but trying to have my neck straight or raised is agonizing, as well as turning it too far either side. This sucks royally. Nothing seems to help, no flexing or attempts to pop it, no relaxing or stretching.

*sigh* I'm afraid to try too hard for fear of snapping something @_@ So I best not. Just gotta hope whatever's crooked will go back into place. And soon.

As long as doctors cost money, there's just plain nothing I can do.

Oh well... back to Ninja Warrior. And watching DNAngel to gather scenes for my most recent AMV idea, see if it's doable.

Sorta bad but sorta good, it was a result that worked out. It occurred to me to call the college before finally being about to fall asleep around 8am. Sure enough, classes were cancelled due to the snow. So, that let me sleep till about 2:30pm when I got myself up to get ready n go to work at Giant Eagle. This time for some reason it was like, quick n easy. Seemed like way more eggs and way less everything else, which was woot for me. So all my work is done, yay! The roads were like 98% fine so I didn't have trouble getting there or back.

Tomorrow I'm gonna finish cleaning, then go home for a while, maybe collect my kitten and brother. And if I have time, re-organize my mp3 collection so I can bring some tunes to the next modelling session on Friday.

Right now, sore and tired, but I always feel good when worries are out of the way. ^_^

Me: "OMG exhausted! But must... finish... scanning... work... DONE!" *waits a few more minutes to confirm transmissions got through, then collapses to sleep.

2 hours later...

Body: "Alright, 2 hours is enough, rise n shine!"

Me: "...You big fat meanie..."

*sigh* I thought before I'd take some bendadryl to keep me drowsy thru the night. But I was SO tired by the time I was done working that I absolutely didn't need it to fall asleep. Staying asleep though... guess next time I'll have to take it regardless. -_- I really need to get back into some semblance of a pattern. Doesn't help that my friends are only online at insane hours of the night/morning most of the time, and are so awesome to chat with. ^_^;;

Blaaaaah. I have the whole Giant Eagle list to do tomorrow, AND the modeling. I'm gonna be one exhausted person if I don't fall back asleep soon. Can't take meds though cuz then I'll still be uber-drowsy when my alarm goes off. I have to do some GE BEFORE the art class cuz I'm not sure I could get it done and then get home and get it transmitted by midnight without a bit of head-start. Well I'm probably not giving myself enough credit but still, I prefer a safety buffer.

Erg, we'll see... Come on me, get sleepy!

Edit, 7:13 am: ...........*sigh* Oh yeah... NOW I might feel sleepy. -_-

Wow... I've had two incidents on the road today... and both times was incredibly lucky.

First time, I was off to Mooly-Mart, on an unfamiliar road cuz the main one was closed for some reason (probably an accident... the snow was getting fairly bad). I stopped at a stop sign where I was to turn left. Looked both ways, no cars. Looked again, no cars. Or so I thought. I started going, but then out of the thick mist of falling snow comes a light-colored car that stupidly doesn't have its headlights on. I was going slow so I knew I couldn't make it across, and really I wasn't that far out in the road anyway. So I popped quickly into reverse.

*CRASH!*

I immediately opened the glove-box to get out insurance info. Then I was like, "Oh noooo!" and wondering if I was gonna bawl. I imagined massive damage to the back of my beautiful Pink Panther. And massive damage to the other's vehicle.

But the lady came out, she was smiling. I was smiling too I think, though my eyes probably looked ready to overflow. I blubbered apologies all over the place and explained why I'd backed up. She wasn't mad at all though, and backed up her car to see if there was any damage. Nada for both of us. Not a single scratch or mark. That amazed me; as loud and awful as it had sounded, as abrupt as the stop had been, I thought for sure it would have been serious. But not a mark. *phew!*

She waved off my still continuing apologies, and we were on our ways (After a while though, I conclude I have hurt my neck a bit more, owie). I'm so glad I didn't damage her or her car. And my Panther.

I have to admit it was my fault because I should have made even MORE sure about oncoming traffic, and more sure about my backing up. I had bad visibility out the back windshield though, in fact practically none. Really wish this car had a rear wiper. But yeah, from now on if the back windshield gets that bad again, I'm pulling over and scraping it off. This is my first time driving in bad winter conditions in my whole life, so I guess the inevitable mistake is better this way, without much consequence, than it could have been.

Anyway, I got Mooly-Mart done, and came out to find the snow-fall was very serious now, the roads completely covered deeply, the parking lot up a good four inches past my ankles. Driving home was treacherous. I went very slowly, careful to make brake applications gradual, using gas instead of break to climb out of sideways slides, etc. I know this stuff, but actually having to use it in these situations is hard when you're not used to it, so I was often a bit delayed.

I still had the Kroger category audit to do though. And Giant Eagle in Marietta but that'll have to wait till tomorrow. :P No way I'm going on the freeway like this. But yeah, I decided it'd be now or never with the audit; it was a large one, and with the modeling taking up much of my day tomorrow, I need all the Giant Eagle time I can get then. So I took the plunge and went off to Kroger.

The most difficult part was where there's a steep downhill leading to a steep uphill with a stop sign at the top just before the main road, all this occurring with a left-to-right snake turn. I actually did that part just fine, was very lucky that no traffic was coming from either way by the time I got there, so I didn't have to use my brakes to stop all the way, I let myself slow way down but keep the last of my momentum to get going again, so I wouldn't lose traction and get stuck. And I made it to the main road. But that involved a sharp left turn and the snow didn't want to let that happen. I started sliding sideways. I was still holding on the brake instead of using gas like I should have, blah. But hey I've never been sliding completely sideways down a road before so gimme a break! ^_^;;

Luckily, I started getting it straightened out by turning the wheel the other way and gassing, but it was a bit too far along and it stopped all gently and puffily in a deep pile of snow that just happened to have been shoved there from previous snows. Yay! Once more, very lucky, no damage, it was a nice fluffy stop.

Got done in a decent amount of time, headed back super careful, but people were all over me, tailgating me. Buncha idiots. Heck I probably should have gone slower than I was, but they were being all impatient. Grr!

Come to think of it... there were TONS of freakin reckless people doing reckless things today. I dunno what it was. So my little incident didn't seem too out-of-place... Folks all over slipping and sliding from going too fast then hitting their brakes too hard, cars jumping into the road right in front of incoming traffic, forcing lots of brake-hitting and sliding around. Two dove right in front of me on the way to Mooly-Mart, in a row. Good thing I was already gently applying the brakes beforehand, just added more pressure gradually.

Heck, the thing that scared me was when I saw a big blue truck going... I really don't think I'm kidding... around 40 mph through an aisle of the parking lot! O_O This was before the snow was TOO bad, but jeez! I was just in my parked car getting my little notebook ready when I saw it blur by through my rear-view. Jeez, SO lucky that no people happened to be walking around out there at the time, or cars backing out. That guy was just flying! Freakin idiot... I hope nobody gets hurt or killed by 'em...

*sigh* Anyway, yay, two outta three jobs done, gotta transmit 'em then I might chat a bit n eat a bit. I might have to go to bed fairly early this time, folks. Need to get up early so I can get to Marietta if the roads are clear enough and get the rest o' my stuff done.

No matter how hard I try, this ALWAYS gets down to the wire. ~_~

OK, I figured, "I'd better go ahead and join the class for Cake Day, at least just to let them know that I'm not running out on them on purpose, and help the Professor know I'm serious about wanting to come back as soon as possible." Figured even though it'd be easier to sleep in and forget about it, that I might regret it if I didn't. So I went.

And it's a darn good thing I did!

Turns out, the Prof couldn't find a substitute on such short notice. And he'd figured out "Well shoot, I could have her pose for portraits instead," but by then he figured it was too late to call me. But poof, there I was, and so not only did I get to keep face with the students, but I also got to work and thus earn more pay. And... I got to have my cake, and eat it too! XD

He even said I can come in next week as well most likely, one way or another. Portrait or posing. So I'm getting the money I need after all! Yaaay! :D

That turned out awesome. Even slipping on the black-ice in the parking lot in an ouchy crash-landing hasn't dampened my spirits. Speaking of ice, winter's finally come with a vengeance, trying to make up for all the earlier lack of snow and ice in a big fat dump here. Driving is treacherous in many areas. But my Probe handles so well, and Dad had gotten excellent tires for it, so that combined with my natural caution and common-sense has kept us both outta trouble.

I might have 1/4th of Mooly-Mart done already ("might" because it seems the list Mary sent me is not the same as the list that the general HQ sent me... Gotta find out which is right now. If it's the "official" one then I got a lot of the wrong stuff, blah), so hopefully I can finish it all over Saturday and part of Sunday, leaving me the comparatively simple but still challenging Giant Eagle which I can do in one day, and the category audit which can potentially be real short and easy. So, despite being a larger workload, it won't kill me or anything.

I will go fam-home on Sunday though, possibly overnight to early Monday, to drop off the camcorder and pick up Paul. He needs a vehicle to go job-hunting; his is of course far from fixed, Mom works most of the time at Gabriel Bro's, and Dad feels too utterly crappy to drive him around. So it falls on me. Oh well, sooner he gets a job, the sooner he can either shoulder half my bills and stick around, or get his own place.

Anyway, fweeeeee!!! X3

Well, this sure throws a wrench into the gears...

My durn . has started. Probably consequence of my body more or less recovering from the stress since it's been a long time. But well, not only does it suck for the obvious reasons of being a . and all, but it also keeps me from modelling. And cake day is tomorrow too! T_T

The prof says I can still drop by for the cake. But I dunno, I don't wanna seem like a leech, though at least it'll give me an opportunity to just plain socialize a bit more and assure everyone I plan to be back. I might. We'll see.

Thing is, it seems that this is supposed to be on-off anyway, so the students can get varieties of bodies to study. (Which, I'd thought they should anyway, I just didn't know that the "off" would be so long) So he would have had to look for other people anyway for some periods of time, just now sooner than he'd originally wanted to. So he says it'll be maybe two weeks before I get to return.

So, with currently $74 in my bank account, I'm only gonna get like $126 (before tax, dunno if I'm exempt or not) from what I've done so far, next Friday, along with whatever I'll get for RetailData which could be anything from decent to pocket-change. And I'll have to make that work for all my bills and stuff, depending on my RetailData pay at the next two weeks, and really hope they bring me back quick so I can start earning again (though it'll still take me 2 weeks from then to get paid for that too).

So... I've got more coming than I originally would have, though still quite likely not enough. So I'm like one square away from being back at square one. @_@

*sigh* Dunno what to do, just hope I can get by till then. I'll eat fine, got plenty o food and new foodstamp cycle in 6 days, it's just the durn bills. Hopefully the phone company will get back to me soon on whether or not I qualify for the minimal service. And I need to bother the gas company about any possible poor-person discounts. Blah. I really hate messin' with companies.

At home, I got to announce how things are looking up for me, and Mom was happy for me. She was concerned that I don't have enough Welbutrin, but I insisted I probably won't need it for long; this job motivates me to take better care of my body, and now that I don't have to spend all my spare moments job hunting anymore, and have hope of financial security, I can clean up the house and maybe get back into an exercise routine. That'll give me natural endorphines so I'll feel better overall on my own by the time I run outta tablets. Plus the socializing definitely helps.

Paul was really happy to see me, as evidenced by him quickly inviting me in to watch his Age of Empires A.I. battle the previous champ's, which he'd already defeated in a tournament, though there was a new champ by then. (That one I saw the very end of when I got there, he probably only lost cuz his is optimized for a 125 population limit while theirs was 200, the tournament standard) Even though it happened to bug up with the non-tourny match, Paul's A.I. still owned 'em quite nicely. Paul had also recorded several good Spongebob Squarepants episodes which we watched together. Very good times, hehe. ^_^

As always, Muffin was all happy to see me. Mom told me that Muffin has become part of her routine, she has to get up early for work at Gabriel Bro's (it pays more than the unemployment check from the off-season landscaping job), so she goes to bed early but watches tv for about an hour beforehand. Muffin sits on her lap every time. Unusual since usually they're not so lovey-dovey with each other, but Mom's been softening up a lot lately in that regard, and Muffin accordingly edges toward her more.

I even told Mom and Muffin about how I contacted the Healthy Choice company people about the change to their turkey/gravy/potato dish, how I dislike the new grey, foggy gravy, and wish they'd bring back the nice semi-clear brown onion gravy. I loved it, and Muffin loved it. When I told Muffin that we'll see if they might change it back to the yummy stuff again, she spent the whole time looking me right in the eyes, a little understanding sparking at words she recognized, then she sat thoughtfully trying to piece it all together. I then gave Mom the more detailed version, after which Muffin came and rubbed on my leg. Hopefully for both our sakes, we'll get our good gravy back. ^_^

Muffin and Boots have gotten more used to each other, and now they play like a couple o' caffeine junkies, so hyper and crazy, all over the house. Which is great for Muffin, especially since I get infected too easily to let Muffin claw me much, and Paul seems to have decided he doesn't like getting sliced up so much anymore, thus he doesn't rough-house as much as he used to.

Dad went out with Mom to check on my car and try oiling up the right headlight; it turns on, but it's the kidn that opens and closes like an eye, and that one's been having trouble lately. They couldn't really get into the crevices well, but they plan to try again Sunday/Monday when I come back over. Also, the new fan under the hood is smoking like the previous one. -_- Dad asked if Pete had oiled it when he put it in, and the answer was no. Dad says Pete really should have known that you have to oil that when you put it in. Blah. So might be yet another fan wasted. If we can't salvage it, I'll have to pull out the fuse so the fan engine doesn't catch on fire from uselessly trying to turn. I know my car won't overheat from my decently short trips and it being winter, so that's not the issue.

But, Dad's back hurt him so bad from just checking/oiling the headlight, when he came in he collapsed to the floor, taking time to recover. I felt awful for him and held his hand. Meanwhile, Muffin and Boots, who had up till then been playing crazier than ever, just stopped and lay down where they were, worried about him too. Mom I guess is used to this as routine, I know she feels bad for him to the point of wearing her out sometimes, but she doesn't show it much anymore.

I really hope that the back doctor can find out what happened and help; his back pain got worse around the time he was hospitalized from the bronchitis, unexplained weakness, and swelling. We strongly suspect that the underlying weakness problem is Cushing's Syndrome, which we found in Reader's Digest in a mis-diagnosis story. He was supposed to visit an endocrinologist Thursday to see if that's it or whatever's happening, but it had to be rescheduled to like Feb 7th. Blah... coulda been worse. Still, I want them to hurry up and find the problem so it can be treated. The longer it takes, the harder it'll be for him to bounce back.

Anyway, now for the good stuff. Job went well again at the college. Talking to a fellow anime fan = woot! Everyone says I pick very good dynamic poses. Good to know my efforts are appreciated; I try to keep all angles in mind, and give everyone some interesting dynamic to work with, whether it be negative spaces, basic shapes, or how muscles and bones react to certain positions. Since I've had that class in college myself, I know what to look for, and will go through the strain of difficult poses for the students' benefit. It is paying off; we had longer poses today so I got a chair with a back, yet I didn't let myself relax any more than necessary. And I've seen several of the students improve immensely already. As they do more and more, I think I'll continue to feel pretty good for playing a key role in their blossoming skills. ^_^

I really hope my period doesn't keep me out too much; since I don't use the internal type of protection (given my tendency toward infection and whatnot, I don't think my odds against Toxic Shock Syndrome are very promising), I'll have to hope they can get a substitute when the durn . strikes. It hasn't for quite a long time though, I think all the stress threw me outta whack. So I really have no idea when it'll return. Hopefully never. :P Or at very least, hopefully like right after next Friday's class so it might be mostly done by Wednesday thus I wouldn't have to miss anything or only one day. We'll see.

Anyways, what else was great today, besides the nice bright sun (though it downright blinded me in the evening, bah), was the fact that last night I got my foodstamp card! :D I had a nice big shopping trip between two stores, for the cheap values of Aldi's then the namebrands and specifics at Wal-Mart (surprisingly the milk is cheaper in WM though, and I know I can get eggs cheaper than both from Kroger tomorrow). All this price auditing really comes in handy for knowing which stores are cheapest for what. ^_^

I've got soooo many yummy foods, both things I need and things I just plain want. I used nearly all of my $90-some to stock up, since I get a new $150 on Feb 7th. With that I can restock throughout the month, but for now I have a good starting supply.

Feb 2nd is Cake Day at the college! I gotta be there. :3 Better find out if they're gonna have milk too, or if I gotta bring my own. Either way I better also bring my generic Lactaid too, can't be running off to the restroom a zillion times during class. ^_^;;

(Hehehe... whoever composed the Saiyuki opening just may have stolen off of riffs from Aerosmith's "Eat the Rich" with a slight speed-up! XD They're so similar!)

OMG, I did it!!! *collapses*

I'm utterly exhausted, and sore as heck, and am gonna be progressively sore-er, but emotion-wise... I somehow feel great!

Most of my nervousness manifested during the night, I woke up every hour or so until at 4am I decided I couldn't sleep and was hungry, so I ate and watched tv, then showered, shaved, and shoved off. I stopped at Wal-Mart to get a robe so it'd be more convenient between poses. I've needed a robe for years, finally I had an excuse to get one, using what was left of my Wal-Mart gift card money, and I suppose I'll owe Mom the rest. I grudgingly took a Large white robe because all the designy ones were XL and XXL and XXXXXXOMGL. And these were the only ones that were tie-close, cost $14.

But, I'm glad I got it. It's soooo heavenly soft and warm! X3 OMG, I just wanna snuggle around in it all day! Soooo smooth and fluffy. And I actually love the pure, blinding white. I just hope it manages to stay that way as long as possible. It's like being enveloped in a cloud. Well, a fantasy cloud since real ones are cold vapor. You know what I mean. And despite it being large, it fits me perfectly, in my opinion (my size is usually medium and sometimes small), so it really worked out cool.

Anyway, off I went, getting slightly lost along the way but showing up right on time. The class was actually a comfy size, eight or nine. I changed into my robe in a back room, then the professor kinda started things off quickly, so I didn't even have time to think about it as I became the target of aspiring artists. The atmosphere was comfortable, everyone conversing casually, and I found it relatively easy to join in, both during breaks and a little during posing.

During breaks I got to converse with many of the students, about erasers, sci-fi, and anime. Yaaay, another anime fan! ^_^

Much of the time, I'd be in the middle of trying to get into a position when the prof would be like "Oh, stop right there, that's perfect!" and I'd be like "Ooooh boy..." cuz mid-motion is quite unstable for balance. While most of the poses were short (starting off with 2-minute gesture-drawing sessions, growing in increments up to 15 minutes), it got a little agonizing sometimes, with a limb shaking from prolonged tension. I was surprised I never really shook from nervousness. Twitched randomly at the beginning, but it dwindled down after a while.

Sore, sore muscles, and ow my neck. I had anticipated and pre-taken my strong painkillers, but it was still agony. Looks like I'll have to stock up on 'em until I get used to this. @_@

Then immediately after I was done I had to go sign forms to get into their system so I can be paid, I guess it'll be thru the administration or something rather than straight from the professor himself, and there'll be tax witholding and whatnot, bah. But despite me not working the full 3 and a half hours both days, that's what I'll be paid for he said, so that's 7 hours a week at $12/hr. Not too shabby. :3 The amount combined with my RetailData checks should once more be sufficient for bills and rent... and dare I hope I may have some left over! Gasp! :D

He and the students all said I did excellent, and were actually quite surprised when I said this was my first time doing it. They all begged me not to leave like previous models. That was... neat. Being begged to come back, to not abandon them. I know it's on a business level but still... That made me feel really important.

Man, I have to say that my confidence has reached new heights. I think that's what's got me feeling so good. Having tackled this, I feel like I could do anything now, and not care what others think. I'd done what I'd thought would always be impossible for me. It's just a great feeling. I'm actually looking forward to Friday.

Think another thing why I'm feeling so happy, is I got to socialize, with people around my own age. Finally, got to just casually meet and talk to people, face to face. I needed that so much. Yeah, I think that's another big factor as to why I'm really gonna stick with it if I can help it.

Anyway, signing up for being paid took a long long time, I still gotta call 'em back tomorrow with additional information. Then I ate, feeling queasy from going so long without, then drove back and immediately had to finish doing Kroger, and just got done. Phew. Busy busy day.

Tomorrow I'm gonna go fam-home to drop off library stuff/pick up stuff, retrieve my good winter coats (all this time I've been trudging in the snow in a jean jacket, since both my coats are at home having needed washing. Bad planning on my part), possibly retrieve my cat (though apartment's still too much of a wreck, haven't had time or strength at the same time to clean, blah), then hopefully have time to come back and take it the heck easy for a while.

What kinda sucks is I won't get paid for this until two-Fridays-from-this, in other words about three weeks, cuz pay period is every two weeks depending on prof's pay schedule, and I happened to jump in at a time where I have to accrue 2 full weeks of work before pay, so I'll have that and then some. However, my pay from RetailData is also pending, it's $94.58. Low yes, but better than I thought it'd be, so I'll be able to pay my leftover bills just in time after all, yay. ^_^ And next one should come in juuuuust in time for me to make next month's rent due-date of the 10th.

Fweeeee, things just plain work out somehow, even if right at the last second. ^_^;; Yaaay!

Now, to take care o' them bills and some eating and a little relaxing to wind down for bed. I might pop in online if I can't sleep, we'll see.

Well, I've been pretty darn financially desperate lately. Even a new job at this point would not come in time (and pay in time) for me to take care of my bills. I thought I had no chance now.

But I'd figured things'd work out. And now they might but... @_@ Well, a college professor called, it's the guy who needs a model for drawing class. He'd had someone before, but her other job's schedule changed. So now he was calling around for a replacement. For tomorrow.

That's darn short notice, not giving me much mental preparation time. Ummm... I can't believe I even signed up for it... @_@ I don't really socialize, I practically never really get looked at by people. And now suddenly I'm gonna be in front of a bunch of 'em with nary a thread upon my being. @_@

Maaaan, I dunno if I can do this. But I'm desperate. If I don't, then if nobody else hires me I'd have to move back in with the parents, except I have no idea what I'd do about the furniture and stuff. Dad helped me move it in, but now he can barely walk on his own. So really, I don't have a choice.

... @_@

Blaaah, I forgot the bad part of anti-depressants... if you're blank, then the first thing you regain is your emotions. And if your situation sucks then, well, you get to feel just how much it sucks. My eyes keep tearing up, I haven't cried in ages. No wonder some people get suicidal on these things.

Pretty sure that riding it out has gotten me feeling better before, it'll be a while though. I keep bein grumpy and gloomy now. Part of that could be PMS though, I'm way overdue for my blood-letting (guess the stress keeps throwing it outta whack). I dunno, we'll see...

Phew... done. Sheesh. That was definitely hard in so many aspects. And the boss hasn't answered emails and whatnot, so I'll call the client manager to make sure they know I sent the segments in.

(after trying) Oh yeah, I don't know the new client manager dude's extension; Susan got replaced without any warning to me and nobody has given me his info. I've left a message at the main office though, hopefully they'll all find out in time for my work to be worth something.

Now, to make breakfast. I deserve some chow dangit. Just wish I didn't have to do the work of cooking it. I'm so craving some McDonald's breakfast, but I have less than a dollar in change on me, so that's a no-go. ^_^;;

And quite likely after I eat, I'm goin' to bed!

Jeez, taking a 2-hourish nap was a mistake... Now my body is going "We can sleep? Then for heaven's sake, LET US SLEEP!!!" The long stretch of high-speed freeway will definitely be promising for falling asleep at the wheel... Gotta weight the risks, I've already emaield my boss about it and included a general rundown of itmes I missed in case they can get a sub, but I doubt it, gotta get myself ot wake up and go but... i dunnoooo...