That's Life

I GOT INTO THE RHODES SUMMER WRITING INSTITUTE!

I had so been hoping I'd get in, half because it would be something to do while Aubree and ML are away, but mostly because I really am excited about the prospect of getting some real college experience as far as living in a dorm, learning from actual professors and improving my writing. I think it'll be a ton of fun.

So yay! That is all.

Birthdays for the win.
I can has NEW CAMERA! It's a Panasonic DMC-FZ18, and it's GORGEOUS. It takes the most wonderful amazing pictures and it's beautiful and sexy and I LOVE it!
Also, I can has unrestricted driver's license, complete with new photo in which I look like I've escaped from solitary confinement somewhere, but nevermind that because...MIDNIGHT CURFEW. HA.
Cookie cake = the delicious, and everyone was very cheerful and happy, and so ends a lovely birthday.
WOOT!

That's what I feel like, anyway. I leave for school Friday morning, equipped with a duffel bag containing a change of clothes and a pair of pajamas and a toothbrush. I crash at Llama's (and have a very enjoyable evening of Rock Band and next  day of lots and lots of driving) and end up at Aubree's having extended-family bonding time (now with ice cream!) and lounging on the back porch in the lovely weather doing homework and chatting.
'Twas nice.
The only gross thing is that I've been wearing the same khakis for three days now. I have never been, and will never be, glad to be back in this house, but I am glad to see my other clothes.
Also, English video transcendentalist propaganda pwnage for the win
That is all.

I'm sorry, but when you spend all of your weekend
A) working/babysitting
B) doing homework
C) driving
it does not count as a weekend, because there is not nearly enough rest involved.
Not that I didn't enjoy it (at least most of it) especially since I was at Aubree's for much of the time, but still. I'm tired. All I want is a nap, and I don't get one, because I have to finish this major paper which is due Wednesday so I can get started on my major project which was assigned Friday and which we have ONE WEEK to do.
Mrs. Wexler for the lose.
Somebody get me a blunt object.
*dies of English*

And now, back to the reporting. Ah, what joy.

Things were quiet for maybe a week. Maybe.
I'm not going to complain about that much, at least. Things were relatively quiet for the one week I could not have taken this conflict at home on top of everything else.
What's funny, is that everything was quiet when she was home all day. Angsting about how she didn't have a job.
She has work from now for the next several weeks. And so, of course, she came home bitching at everything and everyone in sight, three hours ago, and it hasn't stopped since.
I'm going to sit here, and very calmly TEAR MY HAIR OUT.
I am SO not in the mood for my mother.

I have rediscovered the wonder that is video games.
And I may never blink again.

Rock Band + Katamari Damacy = one very trippy afternoon
=D

There was a fight at lunch today. Over me. And who I was going to adopt. Between a kid a year younger than me...and one a year older. It went something like:
*Chris leans into Emily and falls asleep*
*Emily holds her up for the entire duration of lunch, until she wakes up toward the end*
"Have a nice nap?"
"Yes. You're a good pillow."
"Well, Emily is unbelievably cuddly."
*nods and general agreement from LOTS of people*
"And she's so motherly. You should be my mother."
*cling* "NO, she's MINE!"
*squabbling ensues as Emily stands awkwardly and turns red*

I'll never understand why people gravitate to me that way. I don't do anything, and yet they come. I love every last one of them, but I can't deny thinking that they'd do better looking elsewhere for advice. I'm always good for a hug, though. 
I'll never understand why so many parents could be so cruel to their kids who are in fact amazing, wonderful people.
There are a lot of things I won't pretend to understand. I'm just glad of late that I know for certain that I love my people, and no matter what anybody else may say or thing, every last one of them is unique and beautiful and amazing. I didn't say perfect. But that doesn't rule out wonderful. Not by a long shot.

I just felt like reminding everybody:

I love you guys.

 I got my GSH letter today. I made alternate, and I'm not getting my hopes up. Maybe it's just the couple of weeks I've had, but it really seems a sign that even outside the house I manage to fall just short of good enough. I just wanted to put it out there, for those who knew I'd applied and were curious to know. I really don't want to talk about it.

The nerve...I can't even believe it.
The nerve of calling her. Talking to her. Forcing her to listen to his voice. Just to say he likes me now. Respects me now.
Fuck him. He can keep his respect. He can feel however the hell he wants about me. It won't change the fact that given the chance I'd string him up and gut him alive. Slowly.

I scare the hell out of myself when I think about it. About him. The hate makes me sick. My blood boils. I can't stop myself shaking, because the bloodlust of this snarling beast he brings out in me is totally unquenchable. I hate myself for feeling so vicious, and I hate him for bringing it out of me when the last thing I needed was to know deep down I'm a monster on top of it all. I have more than enough inner demons to last a lifetime. I don't need rage too.

A note on the bitter irony of life: those most proud will inevitably be their own undoing, slowly and agonizingly or in a quick combustion of every pretension they've ever held to.
Some will call it karma.
I call it what you get.

If my mother comes one more time into this house after a long and apparently miserable day as a lowly substitute teacher for a bad-acting mob of inner city hooligan kids, pissing and moaning about her miserable lot in life and bitching at every living thing in sight, somebody here is going to have to die.
NEWSFLASH: What happened with the classroom being revoked back at the beginning of the year sucks hugely. I'll give you that. But she was a rockstar at Grahamwood. She moans and whines every day about only getting maybe one job every two or three weeks. She knows damn well she'd have a job every single day, and be double booked for a lot of days, if she put her name back out at the one school where every teacher knew her and would use her, where the kids are well-behaved and it's an environment that isn't beneath her majesty the spoiled rotten grad school graduate whose master's degree in education makes her far too qualified to waste her time on lowly underpriveleged children. Truth is, she'd never want for a job if she'd just suck it up and go back to Grahamwood.
Who wants to guess what she does instead?
She won't even be a room mom for Ally. She won't organize class parties, attend school functions...hell, she stood in the outside doorway of the cafeteria to see Ally's choir perform at the end of last semester. Never mind looking for work. She's too good to apply at schools where the kids might actually benefit from a teacher who gives a damn for once. And since the Memphis City School board denied her the classroom she wanted, of course it makes perfect sense to blame Grahamwood, whose administration did everything in their power to help. She's too proud to show her face there as a sub, even if it means a steady job and an environment she can't complain about.
Anybody who'd let their pride get in the way of an honest living, and a happier one than their current, at that, deserves what they get. But Ally doesn't deserve a dissociated mother who rails on parents who don't get involved in their kids' school lives and then refuses to do so. Our family doesn't deserve the mood swings she comes home with or the lashing out because she had a long day. Boohoo. She has the power to change that. She won't. And it's making life for the rest of us a living hell.

In case anybody ever wondered why I'm so naturally inclined against self-esteem...here you go. I grew up with this, and to me anything remotely comparable to pride can only make your life miserable. I'd hate myself if I thought I was that way, so I do my best to keep myself low on the chain. It may not always be the most fun, but at least I can handle failure without wrecking the rest of my life.

I just want people to get a clue. It shouldn't be this hard.

but...
*jumps for joy and does the dance of victory because hallelujah there is such a thing as justice, even if it's only in a book*

NATHAN PRICE = A CRISPY CRITTER

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA YOU BASTARD YOU FINALLY GOT WHAT YOU FUCKING WELL DESERVED YOU SON OF A BITCH AND I AM GLAD GLAD GLAD GLAD GLAD THAT YOU BURNED THE HELL ALIVE!!!!!!!!

*deep breath*

Okay. That was probably the most bloodthirsy and mindlessly overjoyed about a gruesome death that you will ever see me. But God, I was beginning to think there was truly no justice in this world, and even this small victory over a stupid character in a book made my day that marginally much better.

Ah, if only, if only...nah. I'll take it as is.

Poisonwood Bible FTW and abusive assholes for the lose, because here's what happens:
You marry a woman for lack of anything better to do one summer.
You get shipped away to war and come home scarred and royally fucked up.
You start terrorizing and pounding on your wife and four kids, one of whom is disabled.
The people in your ministry can't stand you, so they ship you away to Africa, where you become totally obsessed with baptizing children and converting the entire local culture, allow your own child to be bitten by a snake and killed, get left in the jungle alone by your wife and remaining three daughters, and are later...
   - declared a witch doctor because of your rantings and attempts to drag children to the crocodile-infested river to be dunked and "saved"
   - accused of turning into a crocodile and eating multiple children
   - chased out of the village by a mob with big sticks, into the middle of a coffee field, up into a tower, which is then set on fire
   - BURNED ALIVE and left nicely roasted for the wild animals to tear apart and devour

The moral of the story? Karma's a bitch.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

"Dear Lord, whatever may happen to me in this life, don't EVER let me become like my mother."

What's funny is that I get the distinct feeling every girl I know says the same thing at least a couple of times. I don't have the first clue what it is about having kids that makes a perfectly intelligent, rational adult so...blind. So stupid. So...desperate to prove something (none of us know yet what) that they'd do anything, and that includes seriously messing up their own kids, to achieve their own means.
Everybody's got parents. Not everybody has them both around, not everybody is on good terms with them, not everybody thinks of them the same way. But on some level, even if we don't anymore, at least at some point in our lives what we wanted and craved more than anything was just their approval. Just a pat on the head, a compliment, a commendation for a job well done. We want to know the people who dominate a huge part of our formative years in life are at least tolerant of who we are and what we become, if they can't be proud. And the thing is, only a very few of us will ever get that past the age of thirteen or so.
Because I'm figuring out that even if you're the model child in adolescence, precocious and obedient and absolutely charming...that's only their view of you as long as you form yourself according to the way they want you to be. The minute you discover something about who you are and start branching out to find the rest, you're not charming anymore.
You're a stupid selfish morally degenerate ingrate and an absolute freak to boot (and those are among the tamer terms). Or those who miss that boat due to the fact that they act like "normal teenagers" and continue to do well in school don't escape. They get railed on about their physical appearance when there's nothing wrong with them, or their social status, the fact that they don't have a boyfriend, or that they don't have any friends at school.
It never ends.
I'm beginning to come to the realization that no matter how good parents may think they are, they will always say stupid and incredibly hurtful things to their children, whether inadvertently and with the best intentions or in anger and aiming straight for the heart. The thing is, in their quest for the stereotypically socially acceptable child, they've become utterly and absolutely blind to whatever truly wonderful traits their kids may have. Because whatever those may be, they're "tainted" by the imperfections.
I've got news for you, parents.
YOU'RE FUCKING YOUR KIDS UP.
We have enough pressure as it is from society as a whole, to look this way, dress that way, act the other way. We have enough people in our lives, be it school bullies or thoughtless teachers or anyone else, telling us what our faults are. So when we come home at the end of the day just needing more than anything a pat on the back and to hear "you do your best, and for that we're proud of you," what we most certainly do NOT need, is a slap on the wrist and to hear "you know what your problem is?" and an immediate recitation of everything that's "wrong" with us. You're only going to yell and scream more about how antisocial we've become when our self-esteem hits an all-time low and we no longer have the drive to even speak to a group of peers. You're only going to pretend to worry when we quit eating because you keep telling us our appearances aren't up to par.
You're only going to find more fault with every insanity you drive us to, so please kindly for the love of God just keep your acid-spitting mouths shut if you don't have a single constructive thing to say.
I don't listen anymore. I've pretty much resigned myself to being the root of all problems in my family. But that doesn't make it right for anyone to treat their kids that way.
If you've got something to prove, get off your ass and prove it yourself. Let your children be who they're supposed to be, not who you never got the chance to be.
We're us. And if anybody doesn't like it...that's their problem. But perfection isn't in the job description as a teenager.

I've already covered in one entry my low tolerance for unrealistic people. I have slightly more sympathy for the incredibly stupid or naive, but only slightly. And I'm very quickly losing it.
Let's cover some things:
1) You don't pretend to be someone's friend in their presence so you can call in favors from them later or angst on them when everyody else on earth has gotten fed up and told you to go fuck yourself. Just because I'm too polite, or just simply too spineless to say that, doesn't mean I'm incapable of noticing that you're not what you pretend to be.
2) If you're going to talk about someone, that's your call. But intelligent socially adept human beings know that it's usually a good idea to talk badly about someone in a situation where it's unlikely to get back to them. Especially if you're planning on still pretending to be said person's friend.
3) Even if you aren't an especially socially adept person, it comes down to plain and simple damned common sense that if you're going to talk badly about someone in their absence...you don't talk to their best friends about them. Best-case scenario, every last word gets right back to the person you were talking about, they act like the bigger human being and let it pass and allow you to continue being a general asshole. Worst-case scenario, said best friends rip you to tiny pieces, and deservedly so.

I'm not a person with a short temper. I'm a tolerant person, I really am. I can be the bigger one when I need to be. What I'm infuriated about here isn't the things said about me. They're someone's opinions, to which said someone is of course entitled. I'm not even so mad about the fact that I'm apparently being slandered in the presence and clear attention of people who love me. I can get over insults. Have been for many many years now.
No, what I'm pissed off about is how genuinely absolutely fucking STUPID said hopeless gaping-mouthed busybody was about the whole thing. If you're going to slam me, fine. I wish you a pleasant life, but please fuck out of mine. But if you're going to slam me with absolutely ZERO taste, tact or apparent concern that I'll hear what you said, it's the same as a direct assault to my face. You're practically declaring war on me.
I don't rise to war declarations. I won't fight. But I'm done with the friendly ruse. Next time I'm approached by a dirty stinking weasel in sheep's clothing, I'm skinning the sheep. If you're going to be a weasel, everybody deserves to see.

I've been in the hospital five days and at my grandma's since I got out of there, since I wasn't much interested in getting the four puncture holes in my stomach infected by moving too soon back into my disgusting house to sleep on the grungy couch. Which is, in fact, where I am now, since I couldn't go another day without my wifi and there is no Internet whatsoever at Nana's house.
At any rate
I'm with those of you who consider resoultions to be bullshit. I have no interest any longer in making commitments I have no intention or realistic plans for keeping just for the sake of bravado. If I want something about myself/my life to change, I'll change it myself when I'm ready, or I'll just deal with it.
That being said...well, what else is there to say? This is the point when usually I would have the noble long list of very big goals and standards for myself. Thing is...they would undoubtedly have failed in some capacity within a maximum of one month, and I've discovered that goals work much better when you give yourself a little leeway and slack to work with unforeseen circumstances without condemning your so-called "failure" and depressing yourself. Nobody gets anywhere that way. Nobody's perfect. Nobody should aspire to that. If there's a single thing on this planet I have a really hard time tolerating it's unrealistic people. Reality is big, and blatant, and in your face every second of your life. People who will see it and still ignore it deserve what they get. Therefore my only resolution is to accept the fact that I'm going to screw up, and I'm going to deal with it, and with any luck I'm going to come out with some experience that'll do me some good.
One day at a time, I feel, is a good tactic for coping with life in general, and that's what I plan to do.

For the first time in entirely too long, I'm wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, sitting on my grungy couch with my laptop in my lap. Still in a little pain, but well worth the fact that I'm OUT OF THE HOSPITAL. I get a real shower (hooray, I'm so gross!) and tonight I'm going to lie around, watch movies and drink sparkling cider. Much the same on the agenda for the rest of the week, since I was told I can do anything I want...excpet drive, for one week. So basically, I get to drive again the first day back to school. There goes the rest of my break... Oh well. I'll take it. I don't have to wake up at 4 in the morning to be stuck with needles anymore, and I get to eat real food.
*sigh* The really huge downside is that I missed Breakthru, but there's still next year. And with any luck I can have a friend or two with me tonight.
*HUGS to everyone who's had to read all the rantage while I was feeling crummy.* Trust me, you'd have been less than happy in my shoes. But I love you all - those of you who had to be gone, and those of you who came to visit me and made my day so substantially better.
*HUGS HUGS HUGS*

The surgeon just came in, looked me over, gave me a clean bill, and said he was going to walk out to the nurse's station and sign my discharge papers. He said I can eat anything I want and do anything I want, just let pain be the guide as to what I need to lay off on for a little while. I get a prescription for Percoset and no more gall stones ever. And... I get to go to the church and meet the Breakthru bus when it comes home. I get to see my girls, who I've missed more than anything else this entire time.
I'm just glad it's all over.

I've been awake since 4:30, when the nurse came in to give me my last dose of Toridol, which should suggest that I get to leave. I'm supposed to leave today. I WANT TO LEAVE TODAY. All I supposedly have to do is keep down breakfast. So it would help if they'd bring breakfast...preferably soon.
tick...tick...tick...

That's about all I can say for it at the moment.
The thing with the tube and the sedation last night is apparently called an ERCP, and they'd been trying desperately to avoid having to do it, right up until it was totally unavoidable. It was more unpleasant than even I had thought. Imagine swallowing a garden hose, and choking, for an hour. I panicked so badly they had to dose me with sedatives three times. When it was over they dragged my sorry limp self back up into my bed, gave me another heavy dose of narcotics, and then I don't remember anything until several hours later when I got a lovely visit from KateMonster, during which I was drugged again and knocked out thoroughly until they came in at 5 this morning, took more blood and prepped me for the OR. I was out cold by 9, woke up writhing and yelping around 11 before being drugged yet again, and then taken back to my room, where I've spent the great majority of today dozing and hoping somebody else would come break the monotony. I got to eat semi-real food. A whole packet of peanut butter crackers (oh joy). But they're switching me back to regular food in the morning and if I hold down breakfast I get to go home. My grandma invited me to come stay with them where I can get comfortable and watch TV and have peace and quiet until I feel better. Sounds like a nice quiet New Year's Eve for me. I'm not complaining. Haven't got the energy left. I'll just be glad to get out of here.

I'm still not home.
I'm still in this damned bed, dizzy and muddled and nauseated and surrounded by too many different specialists to keep track of, none of whom seem to communicate with any of the others, since we're told something different by every one who comes in. I get dosed every four hours with varying combinations of Dilodet (sp?), Phenergan and something else I don't remember the name of, all of which in any combination make my brain feel like it's melting down my spine and my legs go numb. I sleep a lot, when it's possible, and when I'm not sitting here fuming in frustration.
I've been here since 4 o'clock Thursday afternoon.
I sat in the ER for five hours doubled over while they apologized insincerely for not being able to give me a single damned thing for the pain.
I haven't had anything to eat or drink since I got here.
I ran out of viable places to stick needles, so they started reusing sites this morning when they drew the umpteenth lab sample. And that hurts.
I've had a CT, an ultrasound, and an MRI. In a little while they're coming to get me, take me downstairs, drug me but NOT put me to sleep, shove a large tube with a camera and little surgical tools down my throat, and dig around in my insides and cut things. Did I mention I don't get to go to sleep while this is going on?
FUCKING HELL.
And then tomorrow morning they'll take me away again, and cut more holes in me, and take out my gallbladder, and if none of the myriad possible complications they've mentioned happens, with any tiny amount of luck (like I have that) I can go home on Monday.
This sucks.

So the GI specialist just left, and he said a bunch of very fancy medical things that basically boil down to this:
One way or another, my gallbladder and I will be parting company in the next couple of days.
There is another factor in consideration, namely a gall stone that got out and is in someplace it shouldn't be, and the removal of which will involve heavy sedation, a tube down my throat, and holes being cut in several places in my intestines.
Needless to say, I have one thought for the most part.
FUCK I'M SCARED.