Oh......

Rest in peace, Benazir Bhutto.

"It feels great to be back home," she said. "A visit to every city is like a new experience for me. I'm just overwhelmed with emotion. I feel like I have been given a new life to be once more amongst my people."

She was a survivor, and proud of it. Thirteen years before, when a reporter from the Times suggested that her life was the stuff of Greek drama, she laughed.

"Well, I hope not so tragic," she said. "Don't all Greek dramas end in tragedy?"

([link])


A violent life, a violent death...I hope, now, a peaceful sleep.

My long christmas post from my DA. :3

• Listening to: "World Town" -- M.I.A
• Reading: Persepolis
• Drinking: Water

A holly Jolly Christmas to everyone.

Ah yes, Christmas, the holiday I greedily celebrate for the time off of school.

If you don't celebrate this holiday, then I still wish you a joyous and pleasant holiday season. :3

Snow snow snow snOw! Man, it's white and awesome out...perfect.

Aaaand there's cookies under the tree for Santa.

Aaaaand I was coerced into going to mass. Brilliant.
Juli was all pissy because I was reaffirming myself (through whispers) that the host was "just bread", but she doesn't necessarily understand (and, really, unless you were in my mind, one could not really understand). It was a huge moral-ethical-spiritual-thinigy struggle for me. Aaaaand I had/have a migriane.


So, let's end this journal now, I'll most likely update it tomorrow sometime.
...Wow, this entry seems so incoherent to me while I type it, mostly because I'm in desperate need of migraine-relieving-sleep, but felt the urge to write a journal, so am now bravely combating droopy eyes.

Well, as a goodbye I shall quote my favorite artist in saying that "You are not a sinner. You are a goddess [or a god, if you're male ] . The universe loves you. Always."

And "p.s. and if no one told you today.........I love you."


End of incoherentness!




{The Christmas Edit}

I think I might be a tad more coherent now, now that my migraine’s gone.
So, today. A whirlwind of a numbered report (I forgot how fun [to me] numbered reports are. )

1. Woke up around 7AM with a worse migraine.

2. Ever since I started taking my migraine medication, my migraines have changed from the normal (if you could call it “normal” ), intense, painful-as-hell throbbing of my cranium, to the extra-intense, painful-as-all-levels-of-hell-to-the-power-of-20, sharp, knife-like pain in my temple. So I end up waking up with the pain, then forcing myself to fall back to sleep with my hand, palm-up, under my head, pressing on my temple. The pressure helps (it always has for my migraines) until you take your hand away, then it’s WHAM! back comes the pain in full-force.

3. Anyway, so that’s what I did, but it still hurt. So I risked getting “OMG! MERRY CHRISTMAS”’ed by my mother/sister(s)/father and stumbled to the bathroom and grabbed my migraine meds. Took one, told mother what was a’happening and went back to bed. 10 o’clock rolled around and I woke up again. I stumbled downstairs with some residual pain and was revived by the smell of coffee. “Christmas” ensued.

4. Swag? Oh, okay. :3

5. Box-set Shek trilogy, the third Pirates movie and (OMGWTF!!) Hairspray! ;D
Japanese wall hanging and Chinese hair stick from Juli.
Amazing graphic novel’s from Alexandra.
Various stocking stuffers from mom and dad.
Lots of chocolate.
A cell phone.
And a sewing machine.

6. Let me break it all down a bit more.
Movies!!!! ;DDDD
Those Asian things from Juli are beyond gorgeous.
The graphic novels are a box set of two entitled “ Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” and “ Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.” They’re amazing. Alexandra says that the story is being turned/has been turned into a movie and, my first chance, I’m seeing it. It’s about a young girl (and eventually woman) who lives in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. She lives in an extremely liberal family and is trying to understand revolts and princely problems and theorists and how she can prove to her school-friends that her relatives are more heroic than theirs because her uncle was in prison for 9 years and then lived in Moscow. Really. Remarkable work.
Stocking stuffers, on a lighter note, are always hilarious.
As is chocolate, especially in vast amounts. Hence my girth.
A cell phone…well, see, mom won this phone as a door prize (of all things) at some dinner she had to go to with my dad (‘cause he’s on some board/committee thing) so, naturally, since both sisters already have one, it was given to me. Keep in mind that I don’t phone anyone and hate answering the phone at home and you’ll see the hilariousity. So far I’ve been using it to text-message Juli in the next room.
Aaaand a sewing machine. Oh em eff gee guys, I’m finally going to learn to sew! XDDD
I’m going to spend all day tomorrow reading the manuals for my phone and sewing machine…because that’s what I do. Read manuals. It’s a weird obsession of mine…so sue me…

7. Speaking of tomorrow (or today, since I just looked at the clock and it says 11:58PM and I’m not done this yet… ) the entire kit-and-caboodle are packing up and heading off to Sudbury again for the annual 3-ish days of fun with the loon-family!

8. Uh oh. I referred to them as loons. *sighs* Now they’re going to ostracize me again this year. Last year it was because I was stitching “fuck” onto fabric, this year it’ll be because I’m a depressed idiot and called them loons. BRAVO!

9. And Sudbury means “Day After Boxing Day Shopping”. Because all the store are closed on Boxing Day, so (literally) everyone in the entire Sudbury- and surrounding areas (including us) goes shopping the next day. WHYYYYY?!?!?!
I ask you: WHYYYYYYY must we GOOOOOO?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
Last year I had forgotten my Christmas money at home, so it was sort of fun and sort of a waste of time (at the same time) walking around a mall with no goals in mind.
There’s freakin’ lineups to get into stores. All stores. Including stores like Clares, a silly teenaged-girly-pink-frilly-jewelry-and-other-accessories store. Yeesh!

10. So, back to awesome graphic novels: Persopolis has its own website ([link]) with trailers inside. I mean, there’s a trailer on the front page, but the movie is in French, and the video is tiny, so the subtitles are illegible (to me at least). So, ya, I suggest looking inside.
I really recommend these books. They’re uplifting and tragic, heartening and heartbreaking. They remind me why I’m so lucky to live in Canada. They make me want to…be enlightened, whatever that may mean.
I’m going to read them again and again and again. :3

11. Well, it’s past 1AM now, and it’s a looooong day tomorrow of cars, slush/snow, manual reading, cousins and other family, and being the odd one out. With Juli. Hurrah!
So, to bed.


PS Family! I’m not stitching “fuck” into fabric at the moment. My latest project is a slow-moving “ Put on your Big Girl Panties and Deal with it!”, but I’m leaving that at home
…Maaaaaybe…
Actually…now that I think about it…I could stitch in the car while listening to music and reading manuals….BRILLIANT! I am a multitasking GENIUS!
Stitchery is now accompanying me! HURRA!!

GOOD NIGHT!
And, again, a Merry Christmas! ;D

I'm not sure where this came from...

All things forgotten and forgiven
in this list of cherry-hill letters.
If I could count the stars
and give them names
of pet hamsters
I would.

The list of letters piles up
and the streetlamps flicker on.
Starry night lost, swallowed in
the forever demanding light
of joyous sun.
If I could name each snowflake
after lost lovers
I would,
but you have yet to leave
and the sun blinds and violently
melts the snow.

I'm back home for Christmas.
Day 2, and I've already been told by both sisters to "shut up" or "GOD! Shut up!" 5 times.
Lovely.
Really, is it my fault that, back with my grandmother, I spend the day talking to myself. Running daily commentary? Yes, I'm delusional. And, yes, they hate me for it. Then, after telling me to shut up, they get all cheery and "OMG! GUESS WHAT?!"
And then everyone wonders why I spend my time at home stuffing my face and eventually freaking out at everyone, about the day after New Years...
Fucking retards.

Mom said “we never found out what Sasha succumbed to. I think it was ‘wasting disease’ because he got so thin. Many animals, I think mostly deer, caribou etc. die of this disease.”

That’s not good enough.
I still don’t know if I could have helped him from hurting.
And that makes me hurt even more.

Thinking About My Baby at 3:45Am

I was lying in bed, not being able to sleep, thinking.
Thinking about if, if I ever got a kitty cat, what I would name it.
I was thinking up names for if it was male and dark coloured, or female and light coloured, then I thought that, if it was male and dark coloured I'd name him Sasha II.
I then thought to myself, naw, that's disrespectful to Sash...my baby.
Then I started thinking about him.
And I was all smiles and giggles.
Then I remember how, when I was home from school one day, I was twirling around in the family room, (literally twirling) and I saw something sort of hidden behind the plant on the end table. I remember looking and seeing his urn. I remember backing up against the wall and sliding down to the floor, shaking. I was shaking. No one had told me it was there. It was...painful.
Then I remember that morning.
This is what I wrote on my DA page:

Sasha was my cat. I got him as a birthday present when I was 7, I got to pick him out myself. I loved him so much.
But the two years before it all, he had been getting more and more sick each passing day. We took him to two different vets and neither one of them could figure out what was wrong with him. Every time we took him to the vet, I was told again and again that I'd "have to make a hard decision soon". I just never thought I would really have to do it. {And, in truth, I never did get to make that decision.}

First Semester, my friend had come over to my house and we had watched movies etc. and then she went home, I went to bed that night the happiest I had been in a while. My mom woke me up the next morning, it was 10:37 (I memorized the time) and told me, through her own tears, that she was taking Sash to the vet, and that it was "time". I couldn't comprehend it. I think I actually went into a state of shock.
I'll never forgive my mom for what happened next. She brought Sash into my room for me to say goodbye, and he was purring. I still don't understand. I mean, sure he was sick. Sure he had went from being a chubby 15 pounds to a dangerous low of 5 pounds, but he was still PURRING!

She took him out of my room and to the vet. I stayed in my room and cried all day long.

I have to write this, I'm crying as I write it. At 7, I was alone, I had no friends. I had suicidal thoughts at the age of 7. Sasha listened to me. And then he was taken away from me.

We got his body cremated and then we putt he urn in this cat statue, so he'll always be watching over us.


That's it. That's what I wrote.
So there I was, lying in bed, crying, and I realized that I was never told if we had finally found out why he was sick.
So I got up, and I have just emailed my mom, asking.
I need to know.
I want to know why he had to hurt, and why I couldn't help him.

I think, ever since he was taken away from me, my self-diagnosed depression has gotten progressively worse.

Have you ever heard how cats are used as therapy? How petting a cat can reduce stress? Well, it works. I would kneel beside my bed, he'd be all cozzied up in my conforter and I'd just sit there and pet him, talk to him, tell him all of my problems and he would just sit and blink at me, purring, telling me it was alright, that he wouldn't tell a soul.

It was after he was taken from me that I first hurt myself.
I can only remember binging after he was gone.
I'm the middle child. I don't talk to anyone about my problems.
No one would listen anyways because the middle child has no emotions, but he listened. He cared. And then they took him from me.
I cried for three days straight.
I thought I was over it. I mean, I want a new cat now. But I'm far from over it. I still want my baby.




{Oh god, I can't handle these emotions alone anymore.}

Exams and...well, realizations.

It's exam time.
I had one on the 7th (Advertising in Society), which was brutal.
I got my Advertising Diary back, though, and was pleased to find a 90% on it.
Apparently my prof liked my "self-reflective and almost ironic style of this diary," which is really quite funny since I wrote all of the entries like journal entires {I even started each of them with "Dear Diary..."} and then proceeded to go on 2-page long rants about how advertising is scarring children for life and making the world even more sexist. Silly me.

Anyway, that's the end of that class.
It was only half-year/credit, so no more Monday night classes.
Now I have the second part (Problems in Mass Society) Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, but that's okay.

So, I have an exam this coming Tuesday (the 11th) for Social Inequality. I don't think it'll be too bad, since we had a test in it just a few weeks ago and, even though I only got (I think) 67%, I now know what to expect from her so I know what to study.
Then, finally, I have my European History exam on the 14th (Friday).
That one's going to be hellish.
I'm meeting up with my friend in that class on Wednesday to go over things. It seems to be one of those exam where you just have to know your shit and be able to regurgitate it at will. Soooo...I'll probably fail. Oh well. ^^;

I'm pretty stressed again.
I'd been piling myself with work to distract myself, but now that classes are over and all I do is sit in my messy room and study or slack off on Facebook or DeviantART, things creep back.
I'm proud to say that the cuts are fading on my stomach, but not proud to say that tonight I almost slipped.
I ate a bag of popcorn, which is all healthy, right? But I put butter on it. I know I shouldn't, and whenever I do, I eat like two handfulls and already regret it. Then I have to force myself to eat the rest. Tonight I felt like throwing up. I was watching...erm...something, I can't remember because I wasn't paying too much attention. I just kept thinking "Well, if it's as easy as they say on television, and all you have to do is stick a toothbrush down your throat..." then it was "I'll just try it once. If I can manage it once, then maybe it'll scare me off it."
So, after some 20 or so minutes of inner debate, I stood up and marched to the bathroom, grabbed my toothbrush, looked at myself in the mirror then crouched by the toilette.
Then I chickened out.
I stood up, looked at myself in the mirror again and gingerly put the toothbrush in my mouth. I gagged a bit, but see, I've been throwing up since grade 2 because of my migraines, so I perfected making myself not throw up years ago. So nothing happened.
I was, and still am, so pissed with myself!

One of the methods in my books of 101 other things to do instead of committing suicide is make art. Now, I'm not an artist. I really really wish I was, and have been trying to cultivate an artistic talent for years now, but to no avail. But I own a massive drawing book that I doodle crap in.
So I pulled it out, and the scrapbooking paper I sort-of-maybe-took-without-asking from my older sister's room before I moved back here, and her hog pog (or whatever it's called), a crappy-dollar-store paintbrush and a pencil and went back downstairs.
Now, I've been watching suziblutube on YouTube.
She's an amazing girl with amazing talent. She's just so...infectiously encouraging and enlightening.
She's trying to get people to make journals. Art journals.
Like I said, I'm no artist.
But, see? Suziblu emphasizes the simplicity in life, and that no one else has to like your art, only you. It could be "lollipop heads on bodies, like mine is lollipop heads on bodies", it doesn't matter!
So I drew something. Something simple. Then I glued paper bits on it, and I'm going to go out tomorrow and buy some paint and make my picture mine! Because it doesn't matter, only I matter!
And it makes me feel better. Because no one, nothing else matters but me.

I think it's going to be awesome.
Awesome and mine.
And her name will be Suzi, because Suziblu says "be inspired."
I think, because no one else will help me, I'll have to help myself, and if that means near self-induced vomiting to learn a lesson, to learn to matter only to me, then so be it. I need to heal, for my own sake.

Midterm Back

I'm still feeling pretty damn depressed, and these constant headaches aren't helping, but tonight was a bit brighter.
For some reason or another, my Women in History class was awesomely funny! And by "some" reason, I mean because of lines like "She was in the 50's or 70's of 60's, or something." which I found awfully hilarious!
Man, that prof makes my week better.
And we got our tests back. The midterm, worth 25% (or...something close to it...I forget exactly) of our mark. She put the breakdown on the board of how many people in our small class got what grade:
A: 3
B: 1
C: 4
D: 4
F: 2


The girl beside me and I were panicking. Dr. Skidmore started reading "good examples" of two of the essay questions: Neither were ours. Therefore, more panicking.
We get the back, and me?
Oh, you know, 81%.
I was pretty much dying of relief and joy in my seat.
Man, I really love that prof! She made my night/week/month. (:

Broke

And I just broke down.
My mother and sister are down and are going home today. Mom and dear old grandmother got into an argument about wonderful me.
It sent my grandmother into tears and my mom close to them because (and I heard this from my room) "you tell her eat, then she's fat, eat, too fat, eat, too fat. Let her eat what she wants. If she gets sick, then who cares?! I don't care. Just let her get sick. Let her eat what she wants."
Mom found the squirreled away empty pre-made food containers from A&P.
She found the empty bag of cookies and the empty cake pan.
She found the empty bags of chips and assumed, like everyone assumes when they look at a a fat girl, that I ate it all in one sitting.
Bullshit.
So she comes up the stairs as I sit, drying my wasted tears after hearing it all while trying to read the first half of my "Saints, Sinners and Soldiers" book for Social History, and starts talking.
I have to put the book down.
She tells me about how my grandmother's only looking out for me, etc etc, and how I "have to see a councilor or something about the eating."
I broke. After I told her that I don't eat it all in one sitting, I broke.
I sobbed.
She asked me what was wrong. I said nothing. She told me that there must be something wrong to have me crying. I told her it was nothing. My mind was screaming "Tell her! Tell her about feeling depressed and the binging because you feel worthless and the long gashes across your stomach that you made by dragging your scissors across your worthless gut." But I said "nothing."
She started going on about how my hiding food was because I was feeling guilty about it. That that was my "problem." Then she told me that my makeup was running and I just blurted out "It doesn't matter anyways." She then started talking about how it does matter, because wearing makeup makes me feel better about myself and...that's just not true.
I wear makeup because I'm afraid that, if I don't look good somewhere on my body, then all anyone will see is my fat. Which they do. But I didn't say anything. I just told her it "doesn't matter."
She left and I sat down at my computer and promptly took my scissors from my desk and pulled it across my skin four more times.
No one sees my stomach anyways, so who cares.

I was looking at my university's website, at the Student Health Services, looking for counseling. I found, in the FAQ, a list of signs of "a severely depressed person."
They are:

• increasing isolation and withdrawal from others, not talking much with friends or floormates.
• unusual sleep patterns (this could mean sleeping much of the time, or difficulty getting to sleep, or early morning awakening)
• significant changes in appetite (overeating or loss of appetite)
• lack of interest in surroundings
• lack of attention to personal appearance
• tearfulness or very little expression of emotion
• verbal expressions of feeling out of control
• indications that the person is dividing up their possessions or making decisions about who will be able to use their possessions when they no longer need them
• any indication that they have thought about how they would kill or harm themselves
• any sudden change in mood, i.e.: from an anxious agitated state, to a calm, peaceful demeanor
• has the individual experienced recent losses, through death, divorce, loss of personal status, etc?
• has the individual previously attempted suicide?
• is there any family history of suicide?

I read them, I recognize most of them, and I feel terrible about it all because I'm too scared to talk. And no one seems to recognize it. No one's helping. I know, to get help I have to ask for it, but I can't. I do not ask for help. I'm the middle child, anytime I needed help, I just suffered through it.
Like I said before; I’m scared to ask for help, because the last time I tried, my mom told me it was ‘just that time of the month’. Then she laughed.

I just want to sleep forever and not wake up.

Crashing

I’m crashing.
That “feeling” is back, and no book can help me.

The stress is piled up so high…I’m watching it teeter, ever so slightly…
And I just keep amassing it. I keep shoving it into closets instead of dealing with it.
“The closet door is swelling. It’s pushing against the hinges, the frame is going to break”
But unlike Ms. Verlee, I can’t “run, run far and fast” until “I wake up, cold and alone in a strangers arms” because it’s here. It’s here to stay and it’s…swallowing me.
The stress is piled, so high that all I can do is switch between laughing hysterically and crying for an hour before I yawn and decide the only option left is to sleep for some 4 hours in the middle of the day.
Those four hours…those four hours where no one’s reminding me about tests and projects and presentations and essays and notes and reminders of, oh guess what, yes you are fat and no boy wants you…I don’t want to wake up.
So I end up sleeping more, then waking up and panicking over the amount of time I’ve wasted and I cry. I cry and slam my fists into my desk, crying out to someone who isn’t listening.
Then I bunker down and work until exhaustion takes over again and I wake up with headaches.

Have you seen those “Shout it Out” submissions? The gorgeous pieces of art with confessions strew across them? Those inspirations of human nature? I’m planning on doing one someday, when the workload lessens, some day in the distant future.
I typed out all of the things I want to put on it. It’s 6 pages long.

Confessions:
- I hate it when people try to reach out, because I feel like I’m wasting their time.
- I hate asking for or accepting help, that doesn’t mean I don’t need it on occasion.
- I’m scared to ask for help, because the last time I tried, my mom told me it was ‘just that time of the month’. Then she laughed.

I posted this on DA.
Maybe someone will help me, without laughing.

You’re taking me on a roller coaster,
a whirlwind of emotional drama.
Feeling unfeeling feelings
and left wondering why it hurts.
Pulling hair like pulling teeth
and papers fall prey to tearing fingers.
Unnoticed hurt and angry frustration
but so confused as to why it hurts.
I promised myself I wouldn’t,
that I have no reason, no excuse for lamentations.
I live a wanted life, I have no excuses.
So then why do I tear my hair
and pound my fists, red and throbbing, against the desk,
and pull at my face with fingers
and drag things across skin,
why does it hurt?

I just want to...fall asleep.

I can't fucking DO this!
All of this reading.
I'm only on the second article in the first book.
Fuck it!
I'm such a shitty typer...WHY DID I AGREE TO THIS?! I can't POSSIBLY get it all done. But I can't back out now either. FUCK!!!y5h3w-9jp 0i 7ijogs akjwvhdn rtrsh navkjdb jtkawh rkvten

I keep ripping at my hair and scratching my arms and RASEL WY^4.n'ak 3oi;9lnh76shn
Smashing my keyboard i'm just so frustrated im so fucking patheitc!

Everything's just been piling up and up and up and up and I just want to go to bed and wake up in three years.
I can't handle the stress


Oh, and I forgot to mention the insanely helpful help from my little sister.
" well the only solution is to QUIT TALKING TO ME AND GET BACK TO WORK WOMAN! (I yelled that in a friendly way too, no hatred or meanyness there. and yes meanyness is a word... to me.)”

To which I responded: “But I aaaaam working. It's just sooo sloooow. Fuck! DX<>

And then she said nothing.

Ya, real helpful.

I mean, I listen and listen and listen when she’s going on and on and on about her fucking boy problems, but when I’m crashing, when some shit happens, she deals with it in such a passive aggressive manner…

Like this conversation, when my status on Facebook was something like “{My name} is just now realizing that what her father said was a direct jab at her”:

Sister: “Who's father said what?”

Me: When {Father’s name} was driving {Friend’s name} and I to the school (to see Elizabeth), they were talking about bad movies or something like that and he said "Well, what about Keira Knightly?! HAHAHAHA!"
And, really, it was so random...
And I'm pretty positive he hates me for "hurting" his little "princess" before...
And she has this mad hatred for Keira Knightly and I have this unexplainable love for the woman...
It just all seemed too convenient.
And I didn't really notice it right away, though, so I just sat there in the car, staring out the window at the rain and the silly people running through it and the conversation just stopped. I'm not trying to sound...erm...what's the word...egotistic? Like, I'm not saying that I know for a fact that they were waiting for me to say something, but that's definitely how it felt.
And then, as they were driving me home, {Friend’s name} said she'd lend me the "better" version of Pride and Prejudice (the one with Colin Firth) next time I saw her. I asked her "isn't that the one that's 6 hours long?" and she was all "Ya, but it's better."
'Caaaaause I'm not allowed to like the 2006 version.
It just all seemed too convenient. And I only figured it out today because I've been too busy to care.

I may just be paranoid, well, I -know- I'm paranoid, but still.

Sister: I think your overreacting. She didnt say that you werent allowed to like the other one, she knows you like the newest one and she probably thought, you know, you'd maybe like to see the other one? And Doug probably said what he said because he knows {Friend’s name} doesnt like her, not that you love her.

Well thats what I think.

Hes not really a mean person, and not EVERYTHING that he says is meant to be an insult towards you.

I mean, I know. I’m paranoid and shit, but still, when it’s November and I’m ranting about being paranoid, a smart person would look into it, since November is the month from hell when the stress piles on and I get slightly depressed and…slightly suicidal…sometimes.

It’s like thaaaaaanks, sister, for giving a flying fuck.

I want someone to come…I dunno…help me somehow.

And the pathetic thing is, is when my mom phones tonight, I’ll be all “OH, I’M JUST PLUM DANDY! ;D” and then I’ll go cry when I get off the phone. ‘Cause that’s what I do.

Fuck.

Crashing

So, my computer just crashed. Completely and utterly crashed. It froze. Then I couldn’t turn it off. Then, when I did, I turned it on again and it hummed away, with the black screen, for like, ever. I tried it 4 times, and it did nothing. Then it wouldn’t turn off. So I took out the battery and put it back in and then it worked.
But I've been typing out my notes on the readings for my Women in History midterm (another girl and I split the readings and will be giving each other a copy of our notes this coming Tuesday) but, for some reason, the file didn’t back save or whatever. So now, I’m at 302 pages of reading again.
I was hyperventillating…
Fuck it.
Now MSN isn’t working.

First the presentation of mine has major "technical difficulties" and so now I have to do it this coming Monday in front of the entire class (of , around, 60 people) instead of just my tutorial group (around 20 people). My work load is piled up so high, it's going to come crashing down soon and I'm going to be standing right under it when it does. I'm feeling alone, and heartbroken even though I'm not alone and no one's broken my heart. Yesterday I felt like someone had died and they were never coming back, so I just sat around and cried for about 2 hours while watching some documentary on online predators. What the fuck is wrong with me?!

I’m leaving this piece of shit computer for a while.

Nothing is going right these days. Nothing at all.

Frustrated

God damn it.

It’s like everyone and their brother, and their brother’s brother’s decided to visit the old hag this weekend.

Thursday and Friday, it was those obscure relatives from…I think BC. They stayed the night. I didn’t know this was happening until 10:30PM Thursday night. Because NO ONE TELLS ME ANYTHING!

And today, Saturday, some other relatives just showed up. And the Omster-Nazi’s probably going to do her “COME DOWN AND SAY HELLO!” thing soon and then not let me leave until, like, 5 when they go. Like, seriously. Last weekend, when I had to study for my midterm on Monday, mom was down but at least she let me study. The weekend before that, I had my European history essay due on Tuesday and she somehow found a million things for me to do and criticized each one. Then told me the DVD wasn’t working because I wasn’t being patient enough. And, since Monday pretty much, she’s been continuously reminding me that that fucking DVD worked “on Mike’s computer”, as if I should have known and was holding out on her all along. How the hell was I supposed to know? And my lappy doesn’t play DVD’s or CD’s very well since my dad and I had to replace the device, so now it picks up the most minute of scratches so the sound and video’s all jumpy.

I have a presentation on Monday that I’m shitting myself over and another annotated bibliography that’s due Wednesday that, before I submit it, I have to go through the rigmarole of turnitin.com and submitting it to WebCT for the entire class to read (and I’ve yet to find enough sources).

I’m breaking out like’s it’s New Years Eve on my face, I think I caught a stomach bug at school (thanks Stella) and spent most of last night in the bathroom so I’m exhausted, this family’s racism and all around bigotry is pissing me off, I can’t find my other stripped knee-high since the Nazi took everything from my room and decided to wash it (whether it was clean or not), and I’m still fat and have been feeling more fat since…well…the weekend of the 15^th of October when everything started being due at school.

I’m so angry and frustrated and I have no idea why. I want to rip someone’s head off and shave my own head so I’m bald. I want to through this computer out of the window and then run into traffic. And I don’t know why.

I’m just feeing so…frustrated.

Something's wrong

I'm so angry!
I'm so angry and I'm so frustrated, but I don't know why.
I think there's something wrong with me.

*sniff sniff* I smell a Canuck winter approaching!

Note to the human populace.
Do not, I repeat, -DO NOT- talk to me about how much you dislike, despise, or hate snow, because if you do I will, most assuredly, go medieval on your ass.

Seriously. Canadian here. And I looove my Canuck winters!
So when a highschool friend of mine tells me" "it's snowing at my house today"and I respond with "It was snowing here, too! Just as I left the building to walk across campus. My luck! Haha! Man, I love snow!" to which she responds with "i don't like snow...i want it to go away"...
Well, that just pisses me off. So I tell her "Blasphemous! Sounds like someone needs to move south! Or start running a coal factory."


It's like when my grandmother complains about Canada, I ask her why, then, did she immigrate here? If you hate the snow, then support coal factories, turn on all of your lights and waste waste waste...or move South, but don't come complaining to me about it.
I love snow.

NaNaWriMo? No Thanks!

National Novel Writing Month.

Two of my "friends" are partaking in it.
One was sort of suggestion I join, the other didn't even mention she was in it and I didn't know until I wikipedia searched "Nanowrimo", since her MSN name has the usual fluffy "ILU!" shit for her "boy" (a twenty-seven year old "questionable" [in my books] man who has already dumped her...twice...that I know of), and then she has "Namowrimo word count: 546"
Anyway, I wikipedia searched it and the article came up and I went "ooooh yaaaa" when I remembered what it was.

The fact that she's in it? Oh man, hilarious. Her writing makes me laugh. Her prose is only "so-so" and her poetry? Well, she doesn't use punctuations and she knows that pisses me off. But since *checks her DA account* December of last year (2006), she has been writing "erotic" fantasy's involving what she wanted her boyfriend to do to her. She sent them to me before submitting them to proof-read and grammar-check. Oh god, horrible! I do NOT want to read that kind of smut. My mother used to teach her. In grades 2 and 3. Ewwwww! D:
There's no telling what kind of stuff she's writing on there!
I may have to use my semi-awesome e-stalking skills to find out. And then mock her. In private. Or in MSN conversations with my little sister.
I'm twisted like that.

I mean, I know the contest thingy doesn't really care about quality, but still...

Personally, any "contest" that's priding quantity over quality when it comes to the written word is complete bullocks if you ask me.

I'm sort of really looking forward to her going all "OMG! Why aren't you in it? You should have joined! Can you proof-read my crap?!"
So I can calmly tell her that, no, I didn't want to join and still don't want to join because, surprise, I'm a thrid year History and Sociology major and I do enough writing on time-limits and I don't need the added pressure and, also surprise, that stuff is complete crap. In fact, your stuff is complete crap."

I might leave out that last bit, because I'm too nice to the people I sort of really hate.


{EDIT} I found her.
HAR HAR HAR!
Let the e-stalking/e-mocking begin! ;D

I might as well move to Berlin.

Har har! My life! Rant time. D:<

So, last night I wasn’t “allowed” to work on my essay for about 2 hours because the German Wonder had received three DVD’s in the mail from some obscure relatives in B.C. and she and Helga wanted to watch them “NOW.” I put the first one in and start it and go into the washroom to wash my hair over the side of the tub (it was in need of a wash, sheesh.) I’m in there for like, 4 minutes, and am turning the faucet when all I hear it “Kristen?! {reeeally loudly, ‘cause she’s right outside the damn door} KRISTEN?!” And I’m all “WHAT?! DDD:<” and she’s says (and I quote) “Oh come oooonnn. The thing is stuck.” And I say “What?!” “The thing is stuck.” And I mumble “Well what the hell am I supposed to do about it, if it’s stuck, it’s stuck.” So I turn the water off and stumble out the door and she’s standing there like a freakin’ goose, or something equally annoying, and says “It’s stuck. Fix it.” And I say “I heard you the first million times. There’s not much I can do if it’s scratched.” So I take the damn thing out and check for scratches and there are none. There’s a few smudges, so I deal with them and put it back in. I push play and wait and it “gets stuck” again. I take it out again. I’m cleaning it off for the second time when she says “Maybe I get Mike to fix it.” And I respond with “If the DVD’s scratched, that man won’t be able to do anything.” “Oh.”

So I try it again.

Nothing.

I try it again, fast forwarding it, trying to get past the moment it freezes, nothing. I try it AGAIN, nothing. So I tell her and Helga “No, it’s not going to work. I’ll put one of the other two in.” So I do, then I go and wash my hair and by the time I’m done, it’s done, and I put the third one in after I’m informed that “Oh, then you have to stay here and make it work.” To which I mumbled “I have a freakin’ essay to write.” Plus a line of old-school swears that would make King Henry proud, but the old bats didn’t hear. So I sit there and let my hair dry and watch the stupid slide show of relatives I don’t know building the front of a barn and stuff. It ends, and she tells me to put the first one in again. I tell her that if it didn’t work before, it’s not going to work now because it “doesn’t fix itself with magic.” But I put it in again. And nothing. And again. And nothing. And again, and nothing. And by now I’m pretty much ready to throw the thing out the window and let the idiots behind us use it as a party game because the damn German music at the beginning is driving me even crazier than I already was.

So I tell her “No, it’s not working.”

And then she has the gall, the absolute gall to tell me that it’s because {and I quote} “You’re just not patient enough *laugh laugh laugh*” So I spin. I spin and spit out “Not patient enough?! I have a freakin’ ESSAY due on TUESDAY and I’m down here TRYING to make it work! I tried about 10 freakin’ times!! Not patient enough?! Oh that’s it.” So I mash stop on the remote and turn off the machine and turn on the TV for the idiots and storm upstairs.

I went back down to make tea. Twice. In my HUUUUGE mug that she doesn’t like me using because when I put it in the microwave she claims it “uses too much hydro.”

So I was just downstairs, getting water, it was about 1PM.

She reading some German letter thing.

She asks me if “they get the email in Germany”.

And I’m all “everyone gets emails. Do you mean the internet?”

She nods and does her German “Oh ya oh ya” thing. So I say “Ya, why?” I can feel the dread start to rise already. I know what’s coming. She was wondering if one could conceivably email a store in Germany and ask how much a pillow is. So I say “Ya, but I don’t type in German, so you’d have to type.” She pretty much ignores me and keeps going on about emailing Germany. She then says that it’s “too late now.” And I’m all “What? Why is it ‘too late’?”

She thinks email is like the phone. It’s about 8PM there, so she thinks the store is closed, therefore, it’s too late to email. I tell her emailing is not like phoning. If they’re not there, they’ll get the email tomorrow. But she’d have to type, ‘cause, surprise, I know no German. So I make a hasty retreat back upstairs.

Oh boy, I can not wait.

And this weekend she’s been more pushy then ever on her “You HAVE to go for walk!” thing. It’s like the weekend before my annotated bibliography was due: she must have this thing in her head that says “Oh! Kristen’s working and has something due, let’s inconvenience her to the N’th degree!”

Oh, and yesterday when I was eating lunch downstairs (a mistake, which is why when I’m here I don’t eat lunch, but she nagged me into it) she was talking about how the German Hour was cancelled. Every Sunday, some German guy plays German music for an hour. And talks in between the music in German. And she tapes it and listens to it. So, apparently, it was cancelled after “29 years {or so says she}” because the dude didn’t have enough money to keep it going. “For one hour, he has to pay $2,100 {I think that’s how much she said}.” So he was asking people to send in money because he “didn’t was to sell his house and not have anywhere.” And I’m thinking ‘He’s willing to suggest he’d sell his house just to get people to give him money? That’s low.’ Because, really, even if he had been doing it for 29 years, selling your house to keep a one hour German radio show going sounds pretty stupid to me. She says that “the old people don’t send in money and the young people just don’t care.” And here I am again, thinking ‘That’s ‘cause the “young people” have better things to spend their money on.’ And I tell her that the “old people have nothing else to do, they might as well give him money.” So she flusters about and eventually I say “Maybe the radio company was bought out by an American company or something, who knows?” and she turns into German-Nazi-Woman and says “No, it’s owned by a Jew.”

*sighs*

Really, history and sociology major here. I HATE having to hear shit like this daily because I live with a German witch.

So I tell her, quite loudly, “That makes no difference. His or her religion has NOTHING to do with it.”

And she goes “Oh” and stops talking.

Did I feel bad? No. Not at all. Because I’ve pretty much had it with her and Helga saying “Oh, it’s because he’s a Jew” or saying that “Those coloured people have no discipline” or that the noise behind our house {which is, during the weekday, children playing because there’s a Muslim school nearby} “those Muslims” who “don’t know how to keep their kids quiet.” {It’s a freakin’ school! Kids play at recess! GAH!}

I know, mom tells me every time she comes to visit that they’re “old and stuck in their ways” but as a history and sociology student I can’t just sit there and let them talk racial slander. It’s not in my nature. And I’m just getting SICK of it.

So I go to school and tell my friend Kate about it who laaaaughs at a German named “Helga” and then tries to calculate how much longer until I snap and she reads my name in the newspaper.

So fun! D:<

*giggles*

I found my old LiveJournal journal.
Haha!
So baaad.
So saaad!
Haha!

Oh man, my icon is a Coheed and Cambria thing, a band I still love, but am not as obsessed with as I was then.
HAhahaha!
My "about me" says " would not be able to survive without my daily dosage of anime, manga, or depressing poetry and teenaged angst music!"

Oh boy, was I a proud emo kid or what?! :3

Well, it's off to school for me. Time to buck up and participate!


DDDDD":

Team Awesome Strikes Again!

So, lots of stuff has happened, but it's 1:35AM right now and I'm just a tad tired. So I'll fully update soon.

Just thought I'd note, though: I can't seem to starve myself. I lack the self-discipline. So I've inadvertently picked up a new way of dealing (and by "inadvertently" I mean I didn't notice I was doing it all day until that night, around midnight, when I went to bed): I'm punching myself. In the stomach. When I finally realized I was doing it, I sort of got this mental drive to continue until I saw bruises. I need bruises. I didn't have any yet and this seems to...disappoint me.
Punching, and pinching the mounds of flab that encase my body.
*sigh*
Cue the Dashboard Confessionals and black eye-liner I guess.
Both of which I hate.

Go team awesome.

And Kate says I'm gonna Snap

I’m trying my hardest to figure out why my grandmother is so pissed off at me.

Story time! This morning, while preparing breakfast for myself, she kept trying to get me to say “ok” to her cooking something for me before I leave. I had to leave in half-an-hour. I told her I had a sandwich in my bag and two clementines, but she kept insisting. She then said that, if I didn’t say yes to her cooking for me, that she’d “have to throw everything out.” She had nothing cooked. So she then said “Fine! I’ll give you money and you can buy something. Then I won’t have to cook ever again.” And she put $10 on the counter and went about laundry (which I conceded to her last night, so she should be happy or something. She finally won. I’m not able to grow up/mature, even a little, in the world, bravo to her.)

I was getting ready to leave and she put a banana by my bag, harassing me that I “can’t learn without eating something,” to which I kept telling her that I -have- something to which -she- kept scoffing at. So then she tried shoving the money in my hand, ‘cause I refused to take it. I eventually took it, telling her I wasn’t going to use it (and I didn’t) and she said “Fine. Just go over there (meaning the mall, I suppose) and buy something to eat.” She then sat at the table and I said goodbye and left.

Tonight, I walked in, went to the back room, where she was sitting in the dark, watching The Weather Network, and said hello and she said hello back, in a tense-ish way. I went upstairs to drop my stuff off and she said nothing to me. Not even when I came back downstairs. And she usually asks me how my day was etc. Nothing. So I went to watch some tv in the other room and the phone started ringing. It rang twice and I called out to her “Should I answer it?” and she said “I’m not answering it.” So it kept ringing. I then went and stood in the doorway to the back room and said “You’re not going to answer it? You’re just going to let it ring?” and she said “I’m not answering it. You answer it.” So I did. And it was some annoying German friend of hers. So I passed the phone off to her (the phone from the front) and went back to the front room. I could hear her laughing and stuff. She then came into the room and put the phone back, then went into the kitchen for something. She then went into the washroom and was running the water (I dunno, for her teeth or something) and I went upstairs, saying slightly loudly that it was “time for pajamas” and went into my room. I kept my door open. I changed, and I heard her close her door. She opened it again, and then slammed it. Without saying anything. So, really, I did -something- wrong, I just don’t know what. And I do -not- need this stress right now.

I’m just getting so -frustrated- with her! Gah! What did I do this time? She’s been all “Your older sister this” and “Your older sister that,” (you know, saying I’m not getting the Port Elgin paper because mom and dad are “probably saving the money to bring your older sister home” and such) so maybe I’m not living up to some “Older Sister Standard,” but god! She’s so irritating!

My friend, Kate, told me today that “one day, you’re just gonna snap.” And it’s true. I really think I’m just biding my time. Or -she’s- just biding -her- time…either way, class tomorrow. I’m off to a stressful sleep. Wish me luck!

Nerves

Man, I can't even starve myself properly.
I end up binging nightly...I have no self restraint and I hate that!

On another note: Yesterday was pretty awesome. :3
I met up with a friend and went out to supper (yum yum, salad!) and then? Oh man, Hairspray for the third time! XDDDD
I went home and listened to the soundtrack all night long. ;D

This brings me to today. Nothing really exciting happened, other than being shown the archives and wanted, desperately, to steal the Head Archivist's job. (I'm sensing a possible post-library sciences goal).
I have to sit around here until 9:30 PM, which sucks in numerous ways, mostly, though, because that means I won't get home until after 10. Genius, really.
I have a lingering migraine today too. I almost didn't make it out the door, and I'm starting to think that maybe I shouldn't have bothered. Other than the archive thing. That was pretty awesome. It smelt nice, too. :3

But, throughout the day, my stress level has been steadily mounting and causing indigestion.
Friday. "Stupid Friend From Laurier" is coming. I have to "collect" her at the bus terminal.
It took me about 40 minutes to figure out how to get to said terminal and, even though the more I think about it, the more assured I am about it, I'm still nervous beyond belief about it.
I don't know.
Maybe it's the whole "gotta make my room/the other room spotless" thing.
Or the "I'm just kidding myself with the being assured" thing.
Or maybe the "I really don't want to go walking around, downtown, at 7PM," because ever since the attacks at York, I've had this silly, sort of terror about being out at night.
Maybe that's it.
Oh, bravo me, bravo.

Well then, time to start slowly heading towards the library where my "Women in History" class is meeting today. Time for another round of "this is how you find a book online...this is how you order books from Weldon to the school..." mini-lectures.
(Really, Kate was right: after second year, if you don't know how to get a book from the library, you should leave school.)

Strategically Starving Since September 15th

Everything in my life right now is going about a million miles per hour and I can’t seem to get a foothold or a finger hold on anything.

I’ve opened the book my older sister sent me last year: “Hello Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks & Other Outlaws” by Kate Bornstein. I was flipping through it last night, amidst emo-tears, and came across number 81: “Starve Yourself.” It says that “starving yourself is a valid alternative to killing yourself, but only just barely. If you’re starving yourself either by not eating or by throwing up what you eat – or if you’re thinking about doing that – it doesn’t make you a bad person, but you do need medical help. Use another alternative in this book to stay alive while you stop doing this one.”

The author of the book has “been an active anorexic for the past forty years,” and her anorexia has been “periodic, meaning it comes and goes.” She claims that her “anorexia has kept me alive on several occasions when I just wanted to die. It seems I can handle not eating like some people can handle alcohol…either way, there is no real payoff except the few more days it gives you to find some other reason to stay alive.”

I know, like my “Beauty Diary” (which has, at the moment, failed miserably and consists of one page, and dust in the bottom of a drawer) that this is a bad idea. But see, this is why I started this journal: I don’t care. Friday, my grandmother was out. So I went across the street to the grocery store and bought Pizza Pockets and chocolate and pop and binged and binged and binged. It was horrible. I’m a violently emotional eater. Number 61 is “Eat is all and Keep it Down.” She says “ a lot of people go through eating binges. I always have. It’s when we know what we’re eating isn’t good for us and that it’s too much to be eating. Often, we even pass the point of enjoying what we’re eating and anxiety about that starts to creep in.”

That’s what happened to me on Friday. I binged. Binged to the point where I felt like puking was the only was to feel better about the shit I had just eaten. I can’t throw up, though. I can’t stand it. I’ve had migraines since grade 2 and (in grade 2) was throwing up literally every other day. So, if I can help it, I refuse to let myself throw up. But the feeling…Friday, I felt like I betrayed myself. This happens every time I binge. I go on a radical guilt trip. So my grandmother came hone around 6 and spent the entire evening trying to get me to eat. I told her I had eaten leftovers in the fridge that she had left. I had actually thrown them out. I went to bed feeling sort of proud of myself. I opened my book, found number 61 first, then number 81. Saturday morning rolled around and my mother woke me up around 10AM (she had come to visit for the day and had arrived around 9). She and I went grocery shopping for my grandmother, and I complained of a headache. Mom told me she had brought a doughnut for me. I ate it in the car. We went home, and sat around for a bit, until after noon, when we went to meet relatives at Angelo’s for lunch (there’s a cafeteria style setup there). I ate nothing. I drank nothing. I complained of a headache and heartburn, and got away with it.

Mom and I then went to the mall, she kept suggesting cinnamon buns, cookies and Tim’s, “healthy food” at the food court, Orange Julius, and I kept telling her I just wasn’t hungry. Which was somewhat true. By the end of the mall trip, she was telling me to “stop playing games” and I kept telling her “what games?!”
Before we went home, though, she bought me some hot chocolate at Tim’s. Afterwards, throughout the entire day, was the first time since the morning that I had to go to the washroom. Bravo. Because I hadn’t eaten all day, I was more or less “Aww come onnnnn” forced into eating supper. Which I did.
Mom went home again, grandmother and I went for a walk, then (when we got back to the house) I went upstairs, on my computer.
I refused any fruits and the like.
I went to bed around 9PM, which is freakin’ early for me on a weekend! My head was killing me, though. I was out like a light and slept all night.
Today (Sunday) my grandmother went out with relatives again, and I went across the street and bought pre-made sandwiches and chocolate. I binged. I feel like throwing up. Tomorrow, I’m not going to eat again.
I’m calling it (and I’ve been repeating it to myself this entire weekend as a form of…mantra) “Strategically Starving Myself.”
I can control it. It’s pretty much the only thing I can control these days. I don’t care anymore.

Also, number 74 is “Frame Your Debate”
So I think I’ll take my problems and draw them out. It’ll be shitty, mind you. But who cares? This is for me. And she did say to “use another alternative in this book to stay alive while you stop doing this one.”
We’ll see how it goes. What with school, my grandmother and all.
Wish me S.S luck.

Old Biddies and Laundry

Okay. I think I need to find a new residence in London.

This is just getting ridiculous.

I told the woman I live with (my grandmother), yesterday when she asked for my laundry, that she was NOT to do it, that I was going to do it myself. She mumbled in German and I went upstairs, thinking I would do my laundry on Friday, when the woman was out with her German people.

I came home from class today to a less than stellar reception. Chilly. Cold. I wondered why. I found out why.

“You need to hang you stuff up,” she says to me as I head towards the stairs. I turned back, so my voice would reach the kitchen where she sat reading her German paper, and said “Did you go up, into my room again? You’re not supposed to go up, into my room.” She’s 81, she has bad knees and a bad hip, so she’s not supposed to go upstairs, and yet (it’s either German stubbornness or utter German stupidity) she does anyways. And then gets mad at me for “making” her go up.
She says back “I didn’t know what was what and what was wash.” And I just started loosing it. I’ve had this discussion with her before, about not doing my laundry.
She claims I’m not allowed to do it because I “don’t pay for the water” and that my doing laundry would waste water. Keeping in mind, the old bat washes most things by hand.
So, she did my laundry. And was complaining that she didn’t know what was actually laundry because I had my clothes thrown around the room. She doesn’t understand that it’s the first, official week of classes and all of my jeans are on rotation, so yes, my shit’s on the floor but it’s where I can find it, because in the mornings I’m in panic mode. Each morning, I panic.

So she lectures me on hanging things up and I go back to the kitchen and stand in the doorway and say “You’re NOT doing my laundry! I TOLD you that.” And she just ignored me.

Yes, right, I have a “sweet life.” I go to university, my parents pay for all that shit, I have no student loans, yes. I should stop complaining. Yes. I should just say no to her. Yes. But it’s hard when the old bat’s 82 and doesn’t care how she affects others anymore. "No" means dick-all to her and she knows it.

Move out, some say. Why, says I. like I said, “sweet life,” right? I don’t have to pay rent. I don’t have to pay utilities. I don’t have to pay for food. “Sweet.” But what some don’t understand is that all of that is payed for by a German 82-year-old biddy who has, just this year, discovered that this fact makes her my overlord. A position I’m sure she likes. Being German and all.

I can’t do my own laundry, because I’d waste water.

Just tonight I got a lecture on my mug. MY MUG. Apparently, when I put my big mug from home in the microwave to heat water for a single cup of tea (as opposed to using the kettle and therefore too much water, of the stove and her led-covered-death-trap pots) I waste huge amounts of Hydro. Another thing I do not pay.
I’ve been semi-lectured, as a reminder, that I am not to take daily showers. Wastes water, “ruins skin”.
She tells me, when I come home from school, when I have to read, when I have to study, when I should be doing my work, all the while asking why I’m on my computer, that I “should be outside.” I don’t listen to her here. I just close my door and pretend I’m deaf.
She feeds me. “Sweet life.”
She feeds me various and undistinguishable fried meats and then tells me I’ve “gained a lot of weight” and need to “exercise exercise exercise!” And she refuses to let me just not eat.

“Just say no.” It’s hard to “just say no” when the old bat pays for mostly everything and is your mother’s 82 year old mother. Try it. I dare you.
Go up to your grandmother and, when she asks you to do something, “just say no.”
It’s hard. And even if you manage it, she might pull a move my wonderful grandmother likes to pull. You know, the “come oooooonnnnnnnnnnnnn” move, followed shortly by the “fine, I’ll just go all alone/I’ll just eat it all myself/I’ll just sit all alone/I’ll just do it all by myself/If you really don’t want to *sigh*”
It’s a fun one, let me tell you.

She also doesn’t want me going (borderline refusing to let me go) to the “Take Back the Night” mach on the 20^th. Something I’d really love to go to.

Fuck, man. I'm 21 years old. I want to do things for myself!
But, shhhh K, you “live a sweet life!”

God, you people don’t know the half of my “sweet life.”
La de da, candies, puppy dogs and icecream!

“Everything is absolutely, positively, without a doubt fantastic! Sunshine, rainbows and kittens. Perfect.” --SWS

I forgot.

I can't believe it. I seriously forgot.
I forgot to tell my mother about that lump under my arm.
Genius.
Pure, unmedicated, genius.

Also, my younger sister and I went to the mall with my re-reconciled friend.
Oh hurraaaah!
It was humorous.
They bought shit, I didn't.

We went to look at DVD's (on sale) and there sat "Love Actually." I've never seen it, but my little sis was all "There's 'Love Actually.' and my friend was all "Oh, that's an okay movie." and I said "Wait, isn't that the one with Keira Knightly in it?" and my friend was all "Yeah." and I was all "OMG I LUUURVE KEIRA KNIGHTLY!! DDDDD:"
And she, like, spun on me and said "Whaaaat?!" and I said "Yeah, I love her!" and she said "But, eww! No!" and I (trying to make myself sound less stupid for liking her, because that's how my friend is [which was one of the reasons I stopped talking to her], she makes you feel guilty and stupid for liking something she doesn't. She makes you question your own views like that) so I said "Well, not necessarily all of her movie roles, but her as a person." And I should have kept it at that, but no, I had to add on "And Pride and Prejudice. I loooove that movie soooo much!"
Mistake.
I should have sensed the mistake before I even opened my mouth.

She spun again and rasped "What?! But that movie's so BAD. It's AWFUL! The original, well not the ORIGINAL original, but the one with Colin Firth is THE only version that's worth anything. Gah! We shouldn't even be talking about this!"
As though I was beyond retarded for even thinking the 2006 version was "worth anything."
She then spun around and sort of stomped off to look at the "2 for $20" dvds.

It hurt.
And she's talking to me on MSN right now.
I'm digitally fake grinning through it.

It's like before. Already.
I feel like I'm not allowed to like the things I like, do the things I do. We went looking for music, I was just browsing for She Wants Revenge (I already have their music, I was just browsing for kicks) while my little sister looked for something in particular. My friend asked me what I was looking for, I said "Oh, some stuff. Nothing in particular. Just...stuff."
Like before: I'm too much of a chicken to tell her what music I'm listening to because I'm afraid I'll displease her or something.
Anyone want to go to the She Wants Revenge concert here, in Toronto, with me in October? 'Cause there's no one to ask, and I've never been to a concert before and I'm to chicken to ask her for fear that she'll make me feel like I'm stupid for even mentioning their name.
Genius.


I have absolutely no backbone.
Mom actually told me, last week, when she dropped me off: "Don't her control everything." and I said "Ya, well Omi (grandmother) has a way of getting her way." and mom said "Well, yes, Omi, but [my friend] too. Don't let her take over." because, of the (maybe) 2 reasons I was willing to tell my mother as to why I wasn't talking to the girl, one of them was that, even though she's a year younger than me, and sometimes acts like a 3 year old, she treats me like I'm below her. Like I'm shit on the road. She always has. And, I think, she's starting again.
I don't think she realizes this, but it still hurts. And I won't say anything because I'm a chicken.

Allison Kilkenny: "4000 Missing Madeleines"

Something everyone should read:

"The lead story on the BBC website is about how the Portuguese police have named Kate McCann, mother to four-year-old Madeleine McCann, a suspect in the little girl's disappearance.

In case the reader does not own a television and has not read a news headline in the past five months, Madeleine disappeared from the family's Praia da Luz resort apartment in Portugal during early May.

Did Kate do it? I don't care. Though it's very sad that little Madeleine is missing, and I hope with every cynical fiber of my being that they find her, unharmed, there are larger stories unfolding in the world right now.

For example, 4000 women and girls have disappeared in Iraq since the U.S. invasion began in 2003.

There are 4000 Missing Madeleines, but for some strange reason, the international media has not launched into an orgy of questions and speculations about their whereabouts.

One group, the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq, did ask questions. Led by Yanar Muhammad, the group voiced its distress about the missing women, and criticized the U.S. and Iraqi governments for allowing the displacements. It is believed that many of the missing women and children fled, or were brought, into other countries where they have since been forced to work as prostitutes.

They were punished by having the Iraqi government freeze their bank accounts.

It is possible that the unbalanced media coverage of these separate events is neatly explained by racism. Little Madeleine belongs to a wealthy, lily white family. The 4000 missing women and children are poor, brown Iraqis.

However, combined with racism is the very real condition of "disaster fatigue". So much bad is happening in Iraq right now that it's easy to read about 4000 missing women and think: That's a shame, and flip the newspaper page without a second thought.

The responsibility rests with the reader. Shed a tear for Madeleine, but remember that there are 4000 Iraqi women and children who are lost, frightened, and victims of circumstances that they were powerless to stop. No one is searching for them. No global media witch hunt is demanding justice in their names.

There is no outrage for the other 4000 missing Madeleines."


{I'm posting this so, if someone even reads this thing, the word will be spread. I take no credit for the article, it is Allison Kilkenny's, through and through.}

Please be a pseudolump, please please please...

School starts again tomorrow.
I have "England and European History from the 16th to the 17th century", right off the bat.
I'm pretty nervous, since I technically go to one of the much smaller University-Colleges (an affiliate) and the largest class number I've encountered is 63 (Sociology of Deviance, last year).
This class tomorrow, well, a friend of mine took it last year and her class had 350+ students in it. I'm not sure how I feel about huge classes (since I've never encountered one). I don't know if I'll die of social anxiety (which is likely in my case), or revel in the feeling of being just a number.
We'll see.

Oh, I got back together with my friend. We're not only on speaking terms again, we're on "Let's find each other's classrooms and then let's go to the mall!" terms! It's great! Buuut I have a sinking feeling that her dad hates me now.


In other, more serious news, about two nights ago I was...I think...just scratching my armpit (like the lovely lady I am) and felt something...hard.
I think I've started to panic slightly.
I've been to every and all "self breast examination" websites I can find.
I really am becoming more and more scared as the days go on.
Typical of me, I've decided not to tell my mom until she comes to visit this Saturday, and then, "only if it's still there."
I've come to the self-assessed conclusion that it's either a "fibroadenoma, which is a non-cancerous overgrowth of the breast tissue (like a mole on the skin)," or a "pseudolump" which "are benign, and may be scar tissue, hardened silicone, necrotic (dead) fat, or a rib bone pressing into breast tissue and compressing it."

The websites I'm using for reference describe how the different...erm, "lumps" (just typing it is scary) feel to a person doing a self-exam. Both websites claim that cancerous lumps are "irregular shape (not round) with a pebbly surface," which is why I think I'm clear in that respect. And it's tiny. So I'm hoping it's nothing. It's just...our first family cat died of a hernia that was the size of a golf ball and the vet said he could have fixed it if it were the size of a pea, so I worry. Also, like you care or want to know, I've had two hernia operations myself, and in grade two it was a scary thought, being operated on for something my cat died of.

For the other two mentioned, though, websites still advise a doctors visit.

I just...
I'm really scared.
I have huge boobs, man, and I'm proud of them. I've grown to accept them, and (this is gonna sound really stupid) it sort of feel like, if it is something bad, they've betrayed me.
42, G's and they hate me. And I just got new bras, too!

I don't know how I'm feeling about it now.
I know I should go get it checked, but my doctor is back home (2 1/2 hours away) and I'm not going home until Christmas and whenever I do go to see her, I always feel rushed, like I'm inconveniencing her, and I don't want to inconvenience her with my breasts. It's silly, I know, but that's just how I am.
I might, actually, see what the Student Health Center offers in terms of breast-care, but it's closed until the 24th for re-vamping (or something, I just got the email about it tonight).
Maybe there's pamphlets outside...or something.

I'm just...so stressed out already and classes haven't even started yet and now this?!
God damn it! Thanks a lot, whoever's looking down at me from up there. And on "The Week to End Breast Cancer" week? Having a right giggle? Good for you, fuckers.
This minuscule lump had better be my imagination, or I'm turning really emo again! D:

Older Sister’s off in La-La-Land (Las Angeles) and Me? Well, I’m emo.

I seem to be loosing whatever slight “edge” I had.
I remember telling myself some years back, in a mantra of sorts, that “the middle-child is strong, the middle-child has no emotion, the middle-child does not cry,” but I seem to have left that mantra in the ditch some years ago because I am loosing my “edge.”

So, I tried staying up as late as possible on the 28th. I tried, but she (my older sister, who was packing all of her worldly possession and was preparing to move away the next day to California [to go to UCLA]) was getting really snippy and stuff, so I went to bed.
The next morning was, for me, eerily quiet. My little sister was at work. Dad was on his computer in the basement. My older sister was in her room putting the final touches on her luggage.
So I ate breakfast and waited for mom to come home from London (eye appointment).

It was still so quiet.
My little sister came home early and my older sis and my dad (who was driving to the airport with her, and was going to fly there with her to help her get set up) were carting luggage upstairs to the front room.
Still, for me, silent.

Mom came home around 12 and we helped her unpack the stuff my grandmother had forced her to bring home, then mom broke first. I knew she would cry. She always does. She tried laughing, tried laughing it off. I hugged her and went to the next room to tell my older sis that mom was crying, so she went to see her.
I had told her the day before that mom would probably cry all day. She had said “What? No. Really?” So I told her “Oh, definitely.”
I was only half right.

So, we all pitched in moving the luggage to the van, then dad and my sister started getting ready to leave.
Mom started crying again, and I could feel that hard, stereotypical lump form in my throat. I had to keep turning away, pretending I was fixing my hair that was being blown by the wind into my face.
My little sister hugged my older one and said “I’ll miss you.” And my older sis laaaaughed and we all laaaaughed ‘cause those two just do not get along.

Though, when my older sister phoned today, she asked mom to tell my little sis that she was really sorry she laughed at her for that.

So then, laughing, I hugged her and I think she knew about the damned lump, because she held on to me. Maybe it was just my imagination, or maybe it was because I was hanging onto her for dear life. I don’t know.
I turned away form her and said “Aw man, now I’m gonna start crying!” and laughed as I “fixed my hair” again.
Then they drove away and my little sister ran inside to go back to conversations left in limbo on MSN and mom and I stood there, waving.
She turned to me and said “You’ll be okay. Right?” And I just…broke.
I threw my hands up to my face and just started sobbing. In between sobs, I managed to cough out “I just don’t know.”
Mom put her arms around me and started saying something along the lines of “She’ll be back for Christmas. Christmas isn’t that far away.” She then told me to go lay down. So I did. I closed my door, sat in my computer chair and just sobbed.
I knew, and still know, that she’ll be back for Christmas, but it seems like forever-away.

I know I usually just complained about her, but even though she was beyond bitchy most times, she truly cared. She made me laugh SO HARD the last two nights we spent watching movies. When I had posted on DeviantART that poem about knowing a girl who was raped (in first year) she called me at Omi’s and tried to explain everything, tried to calm me down. Last year, when I felt so damned alone, she called me repeatedly to cheer me up. She sent me a hilarious book to help me. She took me to Alberta with her. Me! The tee totaling, 80-year-old in a 20’something’s body. Sure, she was a stereotypical older sister: smarter, “cooler,” more independent, more free, more sure of herself than I could ever be, envied beyond belief, and so god-damned annoying most of the time, but she’s still my sister…


Today, around 3PM when I was in the house alone, dad phoned and told me about the trip down and the plane and the city and how “horrible it is, so many flowers and palm trees, haha!”
When I hung up, I went down to the basement (I still don’t know why) and went into the fruit cellar and sat on the cold, concrete. Mocha came over and started doing her silly “I’m-a-gonna roll around on the floor and look like a fuzzy-cute-idiot” thing. Then she stood up and started purring and headbutting my knees. I just looked at her and said “Do you know who that was? It was your mommy. And she’s never coming home.” Which I know is not true, but it just feels that way. I started crying again. And Mocha just sat there and purred.

I know, I know, I know. She’s not gone forever, but it just seems like…if I need her to talk to, or to listen to me, she can’t just call me up, or hop on a bus anymore. Sure, there’s MSN and email, but with my older sister…I dunno, it just doesn’t “work” the same unless she’s right there, in front of you, or right there, on the other end of the line so you can hear her breathing.

Maybe it’s ‘cause we’re only two year apart. I dunno. Maybe it’s the fact that I won’t physically see her again until Christmas combined with the stress of school starting again. I don’t know.
I’m just…I’m crying again! God!

Remember when I said I was only half right? Mom wasn’t the one who cried all day.

JIt’s not that I don’t care about my little sister, I do. I really do. It’s just…I don’t know.
It just feels like she’s gone forever and it hurts so much.

So, ya. That’s the end of my silly-emo-ramblings. Sorry about all that.

Breathe

{ Not about her.
Just to clear things up.

Just me...breathing.
I suppose.}


Portrait of an unknown woman.
Left torn,
forgotten and dashed upon blooded rocks.
She’s sitting,
waiting and singing
her own tragedy.

Oh soft voice,
oh sad songs,
oh sorrow…

Brows creased,
her knees shake.
Cross-legged portrait
of wanted,
craved,
redemption.

The stars are crisscrossing
across her fogged window
and her
clouded eyes.
Fogged and clouded
by love and anger.
Hate.

She lost herself
somewhere along the way
of her
begging for redemption.
Always lost and lonely,
always sinning and singing.

Singing her temper
out, into the brisk breeze
of another cloudless night.

The bulb’s burning,
it’s almost midnight.
Her hand scratches against scratches
long lost to months of re-grown skin
and days of re-grown
self.

Lost,
in this sea-breeze of anger,
this
ballad of tragedy of fogged hearts
and eyes
and tears.



I hope
you can forgive me.

Thursday, August 3rd, 2007 -- "Accept it" (About Pro-Choice, beware.)

Written yesterday.
Thursday, August 3rd, 2007.
(Like the last one, it was written during an interlude of cataloging)



Am I the only one these days that is still passionately pro-choice?
I mean here I am, working away at the church’s mess of a library and I’ve come across multiple “Jesus wants you to have your baby!” books.
Now, I was born and raised Catholic (although I have “opted” out of it) and I understand how and why the church views abortion the way it does, it’s just…things have to change and evolve. Religions have to change and evolve. The things preached in the 16th century were not necessarily planned to make sense in 2007, and really, many of the teachings don’t “fit” anymore.
I understand the church’s view on abortion. But must it be so absolute?
The book I’m looking at right now is telling me, outright, that if I have an abortion for any reason, I’m a weak, coward of a woman and am going to hell. No questions asked. No leeway. No nothing. There must be change. Maybe that’s why I opted out of religion. I can’t take the absolute truths religions preach.
If I was, say, walking home from class one night after missing the bus and some drunken man grabs my from a shadowy corner, rips off my clothing and rapes me, leaves me in a bloody and hurting mess behind the empty building, and I happen to get pregnant…well, according to my parent’s religion and this book, I was asking for it and I have to suffer the consequences.
I can not accept that.
There are far too many women going through literal hell in order to avoid a supposed after-life hell.
I can not accept that.
I know far too many women like that. And it hurts me to watch them suffer, knowing I can’t do anything. Knowing her child’s husband still comes around, once a year, and demands full custody. Knowing she has to fill out OSAP forms for the Catholic school she goes to, how she cringes and squirms as she fills out the sheets asking for monetary assistance for school. Watching her hide the sheets as she writes out “We live in student housing. He’s 4. He’s still in diapers. He eats. a lot.” To laugh along with her when she asks me if I think putting in that his birthday is in 2 months would make a difference to the mean men at the office.

It hurts to hear them go on about how much it hurt.
How he used his fists. How he drugged her. Raped her. Left her in the backyard. How the police would do nothing and how she hadn’t been on the pill.
To hear how fucking afraid she was, and still is. She knew her parents would never understand…or help.

I can not accept that.

I am a feminist.
I am pro-choice. Not anti-life.
I do have my limits, though.
I believe in the freedom to abort a conceived child, under drastic circumstances, not just willy-nilly.
My “rules,” as I seem to be calling them, are not absolute. Maybe one day I’ll decide abortion is bad. Maybe one day I’ll decide abortion is okay, not matter the circumstances. I don’t know. But I do know that my life “rules” are not absolute.

This is my religion. A combined mess of twists and turns. A muddles crowd of shouting women in my head. A fear of repercussion and a need to step out. A list of religion-induced morals that, even though I no longer follow the religion, have been so ingrained, nay, so infused into my being that I will not give them up.

But these absolutes? This “You are woman. You are weak. You are going to hell.” attitude? No. I can not accept that.

This is my religion, or so it seems. And I think, maybe, I can accept that.

Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 -- Oh, Charles!

Written this past Tuesday.
Tuesday, July 31st, 2007


Kay, so my dad has me “working” at the church, right?
I’m re-organizing their mess of a “library.”
By “mess” I mean there’s no logical system here. Someone went around and put little stickers on the books they thought were Marian, Sacrament, Jesus related, etc. It’s a mess.
Anyway, so it’s my “job” to put all the book into a computer program I’ve got so we can make a huge-ass list, and then we (father and I) will have to put the books in order by Dewy Decimal Number.

My dad and the old(ish) priest (Father Mike…he scared me) went through the books and weeded out all the really bad, right-wing, horrid stuff and it’s all in boxes in the hall outside to be sold/gotten rid of.
Fine, dandy, neat-o.

But I’m still finding some…odd ones.
I just found a book called “African Triumph”. There’s a brown and red and white picture on the front of African Tribesmen. The book itself is about how awesome the missionaries in Africa were. Chapters include: “Mysterious Continent,” “Early Mission Days,” (here comes the fun) “First Blood,” “The Drama Begins,” “The Gathering Storm,” “African Triumph,” “Fire of Love,” and “God’s Heroes.”

”Fire of Love”? Sheesh! One sided much?

The main, African, character is a Tribesman named “Charles”…apparently he “loved to wrestle.”

Spolier! Charles is whipped like mad by the Tribe’s “king” because he converted. Bad Africans.
Then the king demands complete loyalty from his tribesmen and, quote, “one of the guards named Bruno, threw down his spear and joined Charles and his brave group.” Go Bruno!
Then Charles and his buddies were condemned to death. But somehow escaped, and became “God’s Heroes,” huzzah!

Really. REALLY. I thought they went THROUGH these books.
The pictures are horrid, too.

Well, I really should get back to cataloging these things. Maybe I should put Charles’ heroic tale in the boxes of books to sell. Meh. Maybe not. I mean, I always love reading one-sided stories of slavery, persecution, forced converts and evil evil African kings! YAY!

*gag*

It was written by a “Charles,” I wonder if he’s the hero?

…………

…FUCK!

Did someone slip these books in just to piss me off?
“The Real Holocaust: The Attack on Unborn Children and Life Itself”
Back of book: “We are being conditioned to accept abortion!!
The insistence that all women have the right to abortions on demand did not evolve form our Christian heritage and love of freedom, nor from the legitimate struggle from women’s rights; but was thrust upon our society by a powerful anti-god force which hates and fears our race, our civilization, and most of all, the religion of Christ.
The first “Holocaust,” with its alleged mass slaughter, has been used to create a false sense of guilt in Christian nations by making them feel their Christian heritage did nothing, really, to keep them from committing acts of vicious cruelty. This has been called, a “sneak attack on Christianity.”
The abortion holocaust is no sneak attack on Christianity, but rather a full-scale frontal assault on western civilization.”

I really….I…….I don’t know what to say.
Other than, as soon as I read the first line about hating and fear “our race,” I shouted out “WHAT?!” in the church library.

It’s just like Doctor Bickford says, the “problem” of abortion is a COMPLETE race, gender and class struggle!!
Think about it!
THINK!
What image comes to mind when you think of “western civilization”? White, middle class, male. It’s the “norm.” “Christian” seems to equal white, and the word “God” means (in biblical text) a man. Who is most always depicted/seen as being white. So, if abortion is threatening western, Christian civilization (which is also a predominately “white” word, ‘cause who’s more civilized than the white world?), it’s threatening white, middle class, men. Abortion threatens North America’s desire to stay a “pure” entity. Hence lynching back post-American civil war. “perfect Family” competitions in the States in the 20’s, 40’s etc. We, the Western world, were trying to preserve the white, middle class, race.

Do you ever see pro-life picket lines in front of family planning centers or abortion clinics in predominantly African-American communities? No. Why? ‘Cause the mentality (not MY mentality, but “white, western america”) is “They’re more primitive anyways, let them kill each other/themselves off.” But as soon as a white woman decided to not have the child conceived by, say, an abusive boyfriend/husband or a rape, then the entire community is up in arms because she’s killing off a potential “perfect, white child.”

This book, written in the 1980’s, fosters white ideals and, really, it’s white ideals that are to blame for almost all wars.
The American “perfect Family” competitions, the reformatories, the lynching’s, the still present hate crimes and discrimination can be likened to Hitler’s Germany. Yes, not the same, but the entire world was anti-Hitler because he was bold and did what he did out in the open. It’s similar, just more evasive, more subtle. Less “in your face”. More “it’s their fault.”
Just because it’s not obvious and/or not being thrown in our faces doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
We can’t ignore it.

This started as a journal about stereotypes and discrimination, segwayed into abortion and then went into societal problems.
Bravo me.

Annoyance

Some annoying relatives just stopped by.

And by “just” I mean, like, 5 mintues ago.

I am quite pissed off now. Simply because they pulled up milliseconds before my mother and I were heading out the door to go down to the beach and swim.

See, I crave swimming. I haven’t gone in, maybe, 5 days and it pains me. Why? Well, simply because I am fat. Fat fat fat fat fat. And when I go down to the beach I don’t lounge around the shore, slathered in sunscreen, begging to become bacon (like some of the bleached blonde tourists here), nor do I gouge on icecream etc. No, I swim. Not only because that’s what a bathing suit is for, but because in that hour and a half of swimming…I feel…weightless and for me, that’s a very big thing.

It’s just…

I dunno.

No one wants to go swimming with me, or no ones around to ask when I want to go. I feel I need someone with me to…justify this large mass of flesh taking up space in the lake. So when I finally get to go, I’m so freakin’ elated and overjoyed that almost nothing can get me down from cloud 9, or 10, or even 11.

So when these relatives showed up (now) 20 minutes ago, I felt…betrayed and extra fat.

Hell, I don’t even know how they’re related to us!

No one tells me anything around here!

All I know is that they vacation in our hick-town every summer and every summer the entire family unit is on the lookout for them so we can avoid all contact with them. Mostly because the father, or son, or whatever the hell he is is CRAZY loud!

And whenever we do end up running into them, we always invite them over and they never come to visit our house!

So, of course, the year we have yet to see them at the beach, they decide to come over, unannounced and unwanted (in my opinion) to visit.

I can’t wait for them to leave, since then my father will do his world famous “you girls were rude and unsociable” speech to my little sis and I, ‘cause we’ve sealed ourselves in our rooms and haven’t even said ‘hello’ yet. In fact, I’ve sworn not to take off my bathing suit. As I see it: since they stole my weight-free time from me, then they get to see me and all of my pounds and curves and bulges, uncensored (well, except for the bathing suit itself). That is, if I ever leave my room.

And mom and I are going out of town tomorrow, so no swimming then either. Out of town to visit that hellish older sister of mine whom hates me and is hated by me. Lovely.

Fat, useless and hated. Man, I feel like a million bucks!