A Year Yesterday

Actually, a year four days ago.  But still.

A little over a year ago, I got on a plane and flew nearly 6,000 kilometers to be with the man I love.  It was the single most intelligent and most meaningful thing I've done, the best decision I've ever made.  I still wake up smiling and often catch myself staring at him, trying to figure out how I got so lucky.

There were people who thought what I was doing was insane, that I wasn't prepared for the change or the financial challenge - and people who, though they tried very hard not to say as much, clearly thought there was a good chance the relationship would fail and I would be stuck in England, penniless and alone.  And a year (which simultaneously feels like a century and an eye blink) ago, I decided that on V Day 2012 I would write a big screw you to everyone who thought we wouldn't make it.

But, to be honest, I'm not bitter.  I knew those people where wrong then, I know that they were wrong now, and I'm still happy, so why bother?  The majority of them were just concerned for me, even if their concern showed itself in a way I didn't like.

I met him in August, in October I was in love and by November, so was he.  In February, we officially started our life together... and a year later, we're still going strong.

I saw six bunnies and three foxes last night in the park across the road - all in the space of about five minutes. I didn't get any pics, but it was still pretty cool.

Also, I had kind of a crap night at work last night, on account of messing up my first order in over a month of working there, having a pissed off customer as a result, and having a bunch of guys who work there climb down my throat as a result of that. You know what? I had hit my head, I was dizzy and nauseated and I still came to work. I made two mistakes that anyone could have made, but unfortunately, they were on the same order. I apologized for those mistakes - but I don't know. People kept telling me about them, telling me how important it was that I didn't make mistakes like that, telling me how angry the customer was - as if, maybe if I was contrite enough, I'd be able to go back in time and fix everything. Ugh. It doesn't help that I was the only girl working at this point. One girl in a crowd of men will inevitably be treated differently, whether it means being put on a pedistal, treated like a child, or handed a broom - and for the most part, the guys at work tend to opt for the latter. My bosses are the exception to this; they treat all their employees pretty much the same.

There was another girl on in the early evening. A conversation we had, regarding true events.

Her: Are you tired?
Me: No, I just hit my head last night.
Her: Me too, actually. I hit right on the back of my head.
Me: Me too.
Her: My boyfriend was tickling me.
Me:... You're kidding. Me too.
Her: Really? Anyway, I hit my head off the--
Me: Headboard?
Her: Yeah...
Me: Me too.

So strange, that we would have exactly the same story on the same day, when we work in the same place. I have the life of a seventeen year old.

Well, it's before 8am, so this little piggy is going back to bed. My day off today got turned into a day on, which would be smelly, if I didn't need the hours, and is still kind of smelly because my boyfriend works until the exact time that I need to leave for work, so we won't see each other until late (I didn't make it home until nearly 2 last night).

Le Yawn! Ooh, but I bet there's another Eastenders for me to watch.

Another Big Update

As you can see, I've redone the blog again - or, I should say, I'm in the process of redoing it now. I need a new background, and to add some new pages (and fix the T shirts page) but I'm almost done, for now. I'll probably redo it again in a couple of months, when I have the energy to go in and fiddle with the code.

What else? We moved out of our house and into another at the beginning of May. This place is really small and a million miles away from everything; thankfully, we'll be moving on soon. I'm so tired of moving, but there isn't much for it.

I'm working (finally!) at a pizza place, which is a little embarrassing but ultimately not as bad as it sounds. There are parts of my job that drive me insane, but it's pretty much just a job. Most of the guys there (there are, counting the one that started this week, 5 girls that work there, and over 20 guys) are nice enough. Some are ridiculous and seem to think that because I'm new/female, I'm a) a complete idiot and b) should not be doing anything but bitch work. Luckily, they're in the minority. I really like my bosses, but I wish they would explain to me who is a supervisor and who isn't, so I know who I can tell to stuff it when they wordlessly shove a broom in my face.

In the land of men, I'm perfectly happy with the one I've got... which means that Murphy's Law comes into affect and despite not having gone on a single date during my adulthood pre-M., and despite only being asked out twice between the ages of 16 and 23, I have now, it seems, become a hot commodity. Well. This is a huge exaggeration. But after many years of guys showing next-to-no interest in me, it's really weird. Guys flirt with me on the phone and in person, ask me out, tell me how wonderful I am, despite not really knowing me... call me at really inappropriate times of night, despite knowing that I have a boyfriend... act really awkward around me the next day, as if my annoyance was unjustified... Anyway, even the harmless niceness makes me a bit uncomfortable. And it does, I have to admit, make me wonder where the hell all these guys were from, say ages 12-15 and 16-23. Not that I wish they'd been around; I'm annoyed for my past self, but for my current self, I'm glad they didn't show up.

After what seems like an eternity of being completely drained creatively, I've finally *touch wood* started writing again. It's in dribs and drabs, not the full on, type-like-a-banshee insanity of days of yore, but at least it's something. Once I get my momentum up, I have to decide which project to finish first and just bloody finish it. But for right now, I'm just happy there's something there.

I think that's all of my updatiness for now. I have a million things to do right now, but I'm too cold and tired and hungry to want to do anything other than climb under the covers and nap away the afternoon. Possibly tea could help with this. God, I miss tea.

Valentine's Day

I figured I should write my Valentine's day post now, while I'm thinking about it, since I'm going to be way to busy, come the actual day.

I didn't used to be the biggest fan of Valentine's day. It's always struck me as kind of a weird holiday, way too commercial and based way too much of people's insecurities and fear of being alone.

BUT, since this Valentine's day will be nothing short of magical (I'll be landing in the U.K., after over 100 days of waiting* :), I'm a lot more pro V-day than I have been in the past. I am, of course, really looking forward to it this year. Of course, I would be anyway, even if to everyone else in the world, it was just another Monday.

AND (since we're starting whole paragraphs with conjunctions), on top of the impending wonderfulness of February 14th, I found the above Valentines here. I'm having to work very hard indeed not to buy them. Very hard.

Also, The Scientist is on the radio. ♥ overload.

*!!!!! :D ♥ !!!!!

:(

I'm using that face, 'cause there isn't a universally recognized I just vomited in my own mouth emoticon, and profound sadness at the situation is the runner up emotion. Soon after I got to work, this guy called, sounding fairly distraught and mumbling, then said something like, "Just let me put this down", set the phone down and proceeded to jerk off audibly. Yeah, perfect way to start my night. I'm terrified to answer the phone now. Apparently, he used to do this fairly frequently (I'm assuming it's the same guy), but stopped sometime before I started working here 5 months ago* and picked tonight to start up again. I tried to star 69 him, but it didn't work. Ugh. I so do not need this shit. I mean, honestly, why can't he just watch porn like everyone else?

Between that and learning about Bridalplasty, which is just a horribly depressing statement on the condition of the world, this hasn't been the greatest night ever. Dumb crap like this should not be getting to me, but for whatever reason, it is tonight.

I didn't make it to the gym tonight, and I really need to. I realized today that I haven't been since before Christmas. Not good.

On a much happier note, it's officially Jan 11. The past couple weeks have zoomed by... I can already feel the (comparatively) warm English rain on my face, smell airport smells and see London. I am so there.

*Hey, 5 months ago today - well, yesterday, but today for me... or something.

THIS STORY IS EATING MY BRAIN

Ok, that's a little melodramatic, maybe, but really, it's giving me some serious grief. Enough that I just used giving grief as an actual phrase, where people can read it. I don't know what it is. The ideas are there, the emotions are there, even the carefully detailed outline of what should happen next is there. What's missing is the words. They just. won't. flow.

I'm over 7000 words behind where I should be, and in two hours, I'm going to bed. Usually, a preset bedtime during NaNoWriMo would be a completely ludicrous concept, but I only slept for four hours this morning (not at all last night), and I'd like to get up nice and early for chattiness (♥).

So two hours to write at least 1053 words (this will bring me to 35,000), and I'm blogging... and I'm not even blogging about what I want to be blogging about, because I would much rather be making this post a series of little hearts and overly-girly expressions of happiness and excitement.

1 hour and 45 minutes, now. This isn't helping. Terrible as it is to say, I wish I'd gone to the liquor store while I was out today. I think a shot of anything would get this proplem sorted in a jiffy.

Happy in the Club with a Bottle of Red Wine

So I redid my budget again tonight. This time, instead of trying to figure out what I can afford to put aside from each paycheque, then working out how many weeks it will take me to reach my desired amount, I did it backwards. I worked out how much money I need and when I want to have it by, and figured out how much I need to save per cheque to make that happen. And honestly, even though I'll be putting aside nearly twice as much from each paycheque, I'm way happier with these numbers. Why? Because these numbers mean that I can do what I want to do. They represent one part of a plan on its way to completion. Also, if I don`t find a second job, I`m still going to be okay. That`s a huge load off my mind.

There is no way I can put what I am feeling right now into words, so I won`t try. Suffice it to say that it`s a combination of more emotional states than I can count, the strongest two being extreme happiness and severe impatience.

So, on to smaller issues. 6 days left of NaNoWriMo and I am a lot of words behind. A lot. I think probably close to 10,000. I have two days off coming up, though, and I plan to spend them novelling the hell out of myself. That sounds kind of dirty... yeah, there is definitely something not right there. Anywho.

eleven eleven wish, which was supposed to be kind of cute and cuddly and bubblegumish, is becoming anything but. While I was waiting for my laundry today, I wrote a scene where [SPOILER] someone gets shot in the head at point-blank range. So, yeah. Add to that suicide attempts, drinking problems, pedophiles and life-destroying accusations and my feel-good novel of fun has turned into something quite sinister. Not that I mind. I think it will be a lot more meaningful this way, and I`m doing my best to keep all the cute&fluffy that I had originally planned, even if it is getting a little overwhelmed by the other stuff.

Ok, back to the grindstone. None of my budgeting is going to do me much good if I get fired for not doing my job.

I = :) x ∞

There are two things I could be doing right now. I should either be working on my NaNoWriMo story, which I'm nearly 2,000 words behind on, or I should be doing my paperwork for the night audit. Instead I'm drinking a can of tooth-disolving black cherry pop which has never even seen a cherry and eating a sandwhich. And thinking.

Mostly I'm thinking about how I'd love for a big pile of money to magically fall into my lap, so that I could avoid the upcoming months of waiting and skip right to the bit where I'm where I want to be (and, of course, with whom :)

Unrealted: Road to Nowhere just came on the radio. Seriously, never
changing this station. PS, does this song remind anyone else of the
starting sequence of the Beetlejuice cartoon, or is that just me?

I'm also thinking about how ridiculously lucky I am and praying that my karma is good enough that I'll keep being this lucky. I'm not usually one for praying, because I don`t know what I`m praying to, but for this, anything I can do is worth it. Besides, something clearly has my back :)

I finally did my budget... erm, either today, yesterday or the day before. Days get a little messed when you work nights. For example, it`s already tomorrow. Anyway, I did my budget for Xmas and the foreseeable months. It doesn`t look bad, but it doesn`t look as good as I`d like. I`m hoping I can find a second job soon. It`s so stupid, though; when I was looking for a full-time job, all I could find was part-time. Now I`m looking for something part time and everyone wants forty hours a week (everyone being the five places in town that are actually hiring). I`ll find something, I`m sure. Plus, now that I have Modo (new computer), I can start trolling Craigslist for design and layout work. Must be something there.

Ok, seriously, I need to work on this book and work on my work. It`s hard, though, when my mind is already thousands of miles away, months into the future. Ugh. Focus, Athena. Focus.

(honey) Bunches of Stuff (oats?)

My tooth is effing killing me. I'm going to the hospital tomorrow to beg them to do something about it. Pull it. Give me morphine. Anything. I've swallowed a ton of this oragel stuff, and it's starting to give me cramps. Plus, I'm pretty sure my kidneys are going to shut down if I take any more Tylenol. I've been waking up with a fever the past few days... I had hoped it was because of flu or something, but now I just think my tooth is infected.

What else? It's ten to four, so I should probably actually start working on the night audit. I've been writing. I'm at 11212 words for NaNoWriMo now, which is pretty good, considering that it's only the third and it's not even four am. I'm past the neccessary word count for day six. :) This story is turning out to be a lot darker, a lot less happy-go-lucky fluffy, than I originally planned. Also, if anyone's wondering, when you're sick, in pain, missing someone more than you thought humanly possible and your job doesn't let you see the sun, researching actual suicide notes online then going home and listening to Leona Lewis is a really, really dumb idea. Just sayin'.

I cleaned my room today. It took a lot of hours and my kitchen and the other room in my apartment (I picked the lock because the temp. control is in there and I was melting) are still piled with clothes and random junk, but I'm slowly sorting through it. My room looks pretty good, actually. A random fun fact: I have a really nice queen bed with lots of fluffy blankets and a synthetic down comforter and three pillows. I actually made my bed today - and I am sleeping on my smelly, second (third, fourth?)-hand love seat, with the Freddy Krugar blanket (just a blanket that someone hacked up for reasons unknown). Gah. My bed is just too big, now that I've taken the piles of clothes away.

OK. Actual work time. Maybe. In a minute.

Something Quick

This post deserves a lot more space, and I might add to it later, but I'm at work right now, which means that pretty soon, I'll actually have to do work.

I dyed my hair today. I cut it and dyed it from its natural blonde to copper. I've seen two people since I did it, and 1/2 of them told me off for getting rid of the blonde. As for why I did it:

The impending badness that I've been eluding to took place and the only way I could think of to cope was to become someone else - someone not quite so connected to everything, and someone who is hopefully a more motivated person than I actually am. So, since this morning, I have been referring (in my head) to myself in the third person as New Athena. I ask myself, would New Athena wear this and I answer, Yes, yes, I think she would. New Athena doesn`t eat junk food, by the way. New Athena sets her alarm for a reasonable time and gets to work on time (still working on that one, actually ;) . New Athena is going to go to the gym every day, once she`s off her rag. (New Athena doesn`t care if people know she`s on her period. She`s a woman, and figures people can deal with it).

... and New Athena is not any less upset than she would have been had she stayed Old Athena. She misses him just as much.

Whell.

It's 6:15 in the morning and I'm just killing time now, until my shift is over. They put me on night audit after just two training shifts. I hope I didn't eff anything up. The night audit thing was a stupid move on my point. I never think before I talk and it always gets me into a world of trouble.

Anywhom, life right now is pretty good. It's been wonderful, really, this past month, and if it weren't for the fact that I can see the end of the road, when the wonderfulness will disappear, I would still be spending all day every day wearing a huge, dorky grin on my face. But I can see it, and it's been a challange to stop myself from breaking down and/or having an anxiety attack every time I breathe or notice that they sky's blue or something like that.

Enough about that; I'm at work and can't afford a breakdown. Good stuff: right now, the offspring is playing on the radio and it's not being censored, and this channel is one of the ones on the official list of designated radio stations we're allowed to listen to at this time, so if guests come in and complain about the swearing, my hands are clean.

Also good, NaNoWriMo is coming up again and I've to decided to participate this year. I'm going to be completely rewriting a story I've been writing little bits of for... I think a year or more now. Don't worry; it's not cheating. Why? Because I'm going to start from scratch and literally rewrite every single word. NaNo is going to let me survive November. It's going to stop me from breaking down - and at the end of it, I'll have a story so emotional and depressing that publishing houses will be beating down my door. That's my plan, anyway. Obviously, there's nothing up there yet, but if you want to check out my story, Eleven Eleven Wish come November 1, you'll be able to find it here, as well as, probably, FictionPress.net.

I think that's it. I have way too many blogs, and I should probably update some of them.

Yeah, I Got Nothing

I'm at work right now, for another 12 minutes.

Last night, this guy I know called me and I didn't pick up because I only have a texting plan. He texted me right after that to ask why I hadn't picked up the phone, and before I could text him back, he called again. He called 10 times and texted me twice more in the course of two hours. I am stressing over this to a spectacular degree. I know I just need to message him and tell him why this isn't appropriate, but... ugh. I'm so tired of dealing with crazy men.

Speaking of men, I have a huge crush on this guy (different guy from the one above, clearly). That's as much information as I'm putting online, but I'm seriously thinking that if he doesn't ask me out soon, I'm just going to ask him. It sounds like this big revalation, but now that I'm thinking about it, it's the obvious course of action. He makes me go Squee!

Alright, work is done. I'm going home.

So,

For the first time in a while, I'm not posting something about BP's giant cock up. Actually, I don't think I can write the post I was planning to write. I guess that's the problem with blogs: anyone could be reading.

I shall write instead about the nature of forgiveness and my growing mistrust of men. Forgiveness is easy. I think this has to do with my (ever-dwindling) intelligence. When I was a kid, I was smarter than almost everyone I knew. That didn't last, but the unfortunate habit of assuming that all people are idiots never really left me. So I guess I really don't forgive people for their slights against me, so much as assume that they're too stupid to have helped themselves. This all sounds very arrogant, but I'm being very general here. And, honestly, a lot of people are idiots. I like to pretend that when I let something go, it's because I'm being the bigger person, but really, I think I just stop caring. I can't be bothered with people any more.

I wasn't always a misanthrope, but I am now. I was thinking about that today while I ate dinner, alone at my kitchen table. There was no reason not to have a sit-down meal with everyone else, but I didn't even tell them dinner was ready. I cooked enough for everyone then ate alone. I prefer it that way. I love my family, but I have trouble being around anyone for too long, and that includes them.

As for my mistrust of men... I get where it stems from, but I'm having a little trouble figuring out why it manifests the way it does. I used to be a free-thinking modern woman, the kind who was driven nuts by all the stupid stereotypes applied to both genders, the kind who saw people as people and wasn't terribly worried what pair of chromosomes they sported. Now, I find myself on the verge of full-on feminism, suddenly understanding those dumb broads who say things like all men are dogs. Any more, he only men I really feel 100% comfortable around (aside from close friends and family) are the ones I know I could physically overpower if I needed to. I like to know I could take a guy in a fight. How's that for messed up?

So, there we go, some unsolicited introspection from me, while I wait for my SVU episode to finish loading. I'm going to watch the rest of it, then head for bed, I think. Got to get going on those morning work outs again if I wanna be tattoo-ready by the end of the summer.

Losing My Faith

I've lost my faith in Happily Ever After.

This is partly because people are total morons, and partly because I think I've been damaged beyond the capacity for happiness. I'd love to blame it all on the fact that men are idiots, but I can't, in good conscience, do that.

Men are idiots, true. I mean, I'm sure there are men who aren't, but there can't be many and those that are out there tend to get snatched up at the first chance some woman (luckier than me) gets. Out of the men I've been really close to (excluding family members), I've been treated well by... lets say four and a half of them (the jury's still out on the half). Of those, one is an ex, one is married, one is madly in love with his girlfriend and one is married and has a son who's older than I am (I should mention that I'm talking about all men that I've been close to, not just ones I've had some sort of romantic interest in or involvement with). The half is... I don't know. Part of me knows he's being a dick, and a big part of me is trying to convince myself otherwise - because I don't want to think that I fell for another asshole. I don't want to think I was stupid enough to be duped. On the other hand, I was never as emotionally invested in him as I used to get, there weren't any promises made, and no expectations, so other than not figuring out that it's generally considered good form to reply when someone asks you a direct question, he hasn't done anything wrong. He wasn't using me, or if he was, it wasn't any more than I was using him. We had a wonderful time together, and that's what I try to remember.

I really wish I could have a good cry and get him out of my system, but unfortunately (possibly fortunately - the jury's out on that, too), I don't think I can cry over a guy any more. I think that the guy I spent most of my teenage years and my earliest twenties pining over has drained me dry, and if there are any strong emotions left in me, they're buried so deep that it'll be a long time before they surface.

So, that's that. Maybe I should just try to hold out until some Gary Oldman clone wanders out of the woodwork and swoops me off my feet... yep, someone British, gorgeous and pro-cross-dressing. Sounds good to me.

So there's my rant about men. I really do think it's time for me to get the hell out of dodge, as they say, and head... I don't know. Anywhere.

General Smith Allen

You know what? I think from now on it's safe to assume I don't have a job, because when I do have a job, I'll likely have a huge post about how amazing it is to be employed (and how I'm okay with turning 35).

In the meantime.

I'm starting to freak out about Aigaion Girl. I just realized that I have a month and a half to finish editing it if I want it to be ready for the fall, and I really, really want it to be ready for the fall. Like, a lot. So much so that I actually misused 'like' in writing and am not going back to fix it. A. Lot. As well as editing it, I have to format it, design a cover for it and convert it into PDF. Okay, so the last part will take two seconds, but the formatting is likely to take approximately forever, and I'm scared that I'll screw it up somehow. For right now, the big thing is editing. I'm almost done editing one of my main characters. I have two and a half more main, three secondary and one background character to edit (it's written from the individual perspectives of a bunch of people), which I really want to get done by the end of this month, because then the actual story-edits start. Yeah, I'm freaking out just a tiny bit.

Also, I've noticed that when I'm... oh, how to put this delicately... when I'm being visited by my least-favourite aunt, I find that I'm more forgiving of asshole men who do not, under any circumstances, deserve anything from me, much less my forgiveness. I get all soft and feminine, and I think things that are absolutely ridiculous, like that said men might have a snowball's chance in Hell of ever winning back my affection. Obviously, this is beyond insane, and I put it down to hormones, because really. I mean, come on.

My back is killing me. I hate this desk.

I have no idea who General Smith Allen is, if indeed he is anybody. I typed in the word general, and the Smith Allen just flowed along after it. Whatever. I do the same thing when I draw. Every couple of pages in all of my sketch books is a drawing surrounded by weird little things I don't remember writing. An alarming number of them say things like: I hate my life and kill me, but a lot of them just say things that are completely and totally messed up and make absolutely no sense. A couple of them are scrawled sideways as if I had my eyes closed at the time, and warn about the perrils of trying to write in your sleep.

Anywho.

I miss people. I miss Claytron and I miss Morgan and I miss Dr. Allard who taught my Romanticism class, and Mr. Root, who taught Writer's Craft.

I think I should go. This is starting to read like I'm drunk and I'm not. Next up, reviews of whatever Terry Pratchett books I've read since my last review. Jingo and Equal Rites and probably one other one, but I can't recall for sure.

Seven Years Ago Today...

Wow, I'm old. Seven years ago today, for the first time ever, I got flowers from a guy. A week later, he asked me out. Five months later, we broke up. We're still good friends. He bought me roses for our three-month anniversary, and no one's gotten me flowers since. This isn't a pity me post; actually, quite the opposite. I was in A&P the other day, looking at their flowers, and thinking of the time of year and for the life of me, I couldn't stop smiling. It's nice to have good memories like that, ones that will make you smile nearly a decade later.

Nearly a decade. God, I'm old.

I do kind of have to wonder where all the useful, gentlemanly gentlemen have gotten to, though. I haven't seen many of them around for... oh, about six and a half years.

Still no news on the job front; I'm going to have to do another round of resumeing, I think. Ugh.

I thought today was going to be a productive day, but I feel so unproductive. I still don't have Internet in the office (my wifi works fine :), which is fine for right now, but really needs to be fixed soon. I don't feel like working out, which is unusual and smelly, because I really do have to work out every day. Spooey's been out of town for two weeks now, so I've been going alone, which is gross and not really safe. About all I can do is change the time I go at every day, and hope the people that always seem to be on my route aren't going to turn into psycho stalkers. Muh-lah.

I did do one productive thing today, though. I fixed the squeak on the door that leads into the front room. As you may or may not be aware, I sleep in the corner of my parents' living room, right next to the front room, which has had, for the past eight years, a door that squeaks horrendously loudly every time it is opened. I've been there since February. Since the beginning of May, when I actually started sleeping through most nights, that door has been waking me up at all hours, and driving me crazy. This morning when it woke me up, I decided that I would make it my personal mission to see to it that it never squeaked again. That was actually fairly easy to achieve, since my dad left the WD-40 (the best-smelling substance on the face of the earth!) sitting on his jigsaw, so all I had to do was go into the basement, get it, and spray it on the door hinges. Nonetheless, I feel like I have the right to be proud of my fix-it prowess, because I fixed something that hasn't even been looked at it the last eight years - and because I'm a girl and I know what WD-40 is.

Now, I suppose, I must go and work out. I really, really don't wanna. On the bright side, I have about a million outfits that I couldn't wear until last week, and about a million more that I'll be able to wear by the end of the summer.