Holidays

Christmas Day this year was rather quiet compared to those previous. I awoke at 7:50 to begin cooking, making my traditional Chex mix that my mom and I have done since I started college. Although she didn't help me with it this time, she was busy finishing up unwrapped presents for my father and brother in the kitchen behind me. Later, I made blueberry coffee for my parents and James woke up. Then we exchanged gifts, my mother playing Santa with her red cap. As it has been since high school, my gifts I already knew about prior to their opening. I gave my parents their tee shirts from my college's store that they had asked for, and then we watched tv for little while. Afterwards, I helped my father peel potatoes, as I have been doing now for Thanksgiving and Xmas for the past 2 years. My father has arthritis and gout, and it is hard for him to hold onto anything so I really don't mind helping, this is probably the first tradition we've done together.

Though there was one thing that was different this year. We held an unannounced moment of silence together in the living room, for our cat who passed away last year on Christmas. Overall the day was somber, my mom tried to lighten the mood with a joke about her, who we had with us every year for 20 yrs, every year since I was 1.5 and I picked her out at the humane society. But it wasn't that effective, seeing that a year hasn't been long enough to get over the loss of a family member. I think that burying my pet last Xmas permanently altered my perception of Xmas.

Other than that, there wasn't a major fight this time. My brother's girlfriend is living with my parents now because she moved out of her house after family difficulties, and they were gone most of the day. We ate in the early afternoon, because my husband and I had to work @ 5. He was scheduled 5pm-5am and I was originally 5pm-8pm, but ended up working from 5pm-6:45am so that sucked. At least I was told I was getting overtime until 12am so that made it a little better. Even though I now have chemical burns along my right wrist because they never provide me with gloves but I don't want to complain to OSHA yet because I can't afford for myself and my husband to be fired. The MSDS for them state that I am supposed to seek medical attention immediately, but I just deal with it. My boss effectively told me in not so many words that it wasn't a big deal because I'm the only one that the burns show up on;I'm pale, plus I'm the only female, and the only one with sensitive skin.

I wish more so now than ever that it could for a few moments be the way that it was when I was little, minus the annual holiday argument that would always mean slamming doors and broken glass. At least there was some of the innocent excitement that is nowhere to be found nowadays. Occasionally I have memories from childhood pop up when I'm stressed and just wishing I was back in 5th grade and could spend my nights coloring and reading. Maybe its just the depression, but the holidays don't do much for me anymore. Especially since my grandmother died the Thanksgiving break previous 2005. Since then its only been me and my husband meeting with my parents, and then having a second holiday meal with my roommates. It used to be, maybe 4-5 years ago we'd all (my mom,my brother, myself and my husband) (minus my father) meet at my grandmothers house for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner.

It would be the only times all year, that I would see my aunt and uncle from State-That's-Home-To-Moose-and-Lighthouses-And Cold-Temperatures-in-Winter; my cousin from the Big City and various neighbors from the little country town that my grandmother lived in her whole life. I'd also get to see my Uncle who lived with my grandmother, and his girlfriend who could speak Finnish. Not to say that I am not appreciative of spending time with my parents, but I never hear a word from them now other than a card during the holiday season. Its really kinda sad, so I don't try to think about it.

For the first time, I didn't call my two best friends from high school on the holiday. I ran out of minutes on my phone and it didn't even click that I could have used my parents phone. Ugh. I havent had a best friend since high school, and the one that I used to connect the most with barely talk for weeks on end. But thats another thing I don't try to think about because it just makes me lonely. I haven't really connected with anyone at college like I did back in school when I was younger. There's a few people that I hang out with, but its not the same. My roommates back home hate the holidays, its hard just to get them to eat a dinner together at a table, this Thanksgiving was the first in 4yrs. Well, I still have New Year's to get through. I bought a blender for the occasion, maybe we'll have enough cash for alcohol, usually its the highlight, its like the only time all year really that I'll have more than a glass or two of wine. I hate how I'm always wishing to be someplace other than where I am but that any other place wouldn't be any better.

Last night I had a dream, well it seemed strange to me because I do not usually dream about/have one that contains the person it did. It has only happened once before, several weeks ago. Though there is one recurring aspect of it, which was the car. I don't drive so it seems odd that being driven in a car was a significant part of it. My adviser was driving me somewhere (no idea why - but to get to them I had to overcome some obstacle like last time, like I had to hand something into someone on time etc) and we were talking about a book they were reading. So I asked if they had got my email, and they said no and asked what it was about. I said I emailed you to let you know that I updated my blog. Then they laughed and shrugged it off, a why-would-i-care-i-have-more-important-things-to-do laugh. Which has to be my own projection, seeing my adviser is one of the kindest people I know. But I guess the driving/ on the road meant something - seeing their blog post for yesterday included a road and talked about traveling.

Eight Easy Steps – Alanis Morissette

How to stay paralyzed by fear of abandonment
How to defer to men as solvable predicaments
How to control someone to be a carbon copy of you
How to have that not work and have them run away from you
How to hate women when you're supposed to be a feminist
How to play all pious when you're really a hypocrite

How to keep people at arms length and never get too close
How to mistrust the ones you supposedly love the most
How to pretend you're fine and don't need help from anyone
How to feel worthless unless you're serving or helping someone

[Chorus:]
I'll teach you all this in 8 easy steps
A course of a lifetime you'll never forget
I'll show you how to in 8 easy steps
I'll show you how leaderships looks when taught by the best

How to hate god when you're a prayer and a spiritualist
How to sabotage your fantasies by fears of success

[Chorus]

I've been doing research for years
I've been practicing my ass off
I've been training my whole life for this moment I swear to you
Culminating just to be this well-versed leader before you

[Chorus]

How to lie to yourself and thereby to everyone else
How to keep smiling when you're thinking of killing yourself
How to numb a la holic to avoid going within
How to stay stuck in blue by blaming them for everything

[Chorus]

thanksgiving break

I hate how it works out that even though I'm home for over a week, I still feel like I'm at college because my husband has to work all week during the days. If that is the case, I guess I'd rather be at college than home, even though I just left yesterday, because then it would be ok to feel alone because I was away from home. Its worse when your home and still feel away....I was at my parents house today and yesterday, but today we fought. I even slapped my brother because he slammed my parents phone on the floor because he was angry and busted it - its the like 4 or 5 we've had to buy because of this. Then I had to throw him against the wall because he grabbed my mom and was shaking her. Isn't it wonderful? I hate being away but I hate being home. Back to my paper.

Hunting Season's Begin

Today, for the first time I experienced what it is like to see, smell, and feel a dead deer. It was an 8 pt buck one of my friends from high school shot earlier today, and brought over to show my brother. Its antlers were small, and the fur a coarse but soft texture. Looking in its eyes, drained of life as they were, silenced me. I touched its fur, examined its ears, and the slight variations in the shades of brown and white intermingled together to form a pattern. He said it wasn't an easy kill, he shot it and then had to do it again, or stab it, but the thick redness beneath its cold body hadn't pooled at all. I proceeded to head back inside, after realizing his life was on my hands, and even though I hadn't been the one to shoot it, I felt that it wasnt up to me to experience his very existence like some unemotional scientist without its permission. I don't care if that seems like it doesn't make any sense. I went into the kitchen and ran the hot water over my soiled hands, rinsing off from me the essence of the buck that two minutes prior had laid limp beneath my palms. Oh, I was not in the least bit ready to face Death today.

My grandfather starts chemo tommorow, I fear today won't be the last time we'll (death) meet again before too long. Fucking cancer. This isn't fair.

Listening to "Let It Be" - The Beatles, instrumental version.

Desktop

So BerryBird asked for my desktop and here it is. It isn't very interesting and I change the background image often, I usually use one of my own photos, such as this one of a mum I took on Monday while I was still home. But, at least one good thing came out of this - I now know where the appearance setting is on Vista so I can change it in the future - sorry if that wasn't playing by the rules lol. I usually do everything from my start menu, so that is why it isn't very lively.

I realized this morning while looking out my window onto the suburban street below and saw a police car go by that I find it comforting seeing them patrol the streets here. This is a contrast to the way I used to see them back home while living in an especially "bad" section of town. It's a social-race perception thing by the cops. At my previous place of residence, cops were always patrolling the block I was on, which was 70% black or so, and on my block my husband, roommate and me were the only white individuals. The cops would watch us where ever we went, and one (out of several) times I or my husband and I got locked out of our apartment due to a misunderstanding of whether to bring our keys or not, one of the cops pulled over and almost got out to come speak with us but my roommate's girfriend pulled up just in time to unlock the door. We didn't feel welcome at all by the cops, I figure most of them thought we were just there to get crack or something. Here, on the other hand the policemen don't give me a funny look, like I'm not supposed to be here, because its reasonable I guess. Profiling...anyways, I've gotta head off to work now.

Autumn leaves

Celebrating Will

On Friday, September 14th, 2007 police found William Liberi, my friend and former coworker, who was only 23, deceased at his home. I was shocked when I heard the news, over facebook and email and at least to me its still unknown what was the cause. I'm planning on writing a better tribute later, but I'm so busy with my classes that this little bit will have to do for now. Will and I worked in my dining hall for about a year, until he withdrew from Local Private College that Enrolls Many Ugg Wearing Female Students. He was a grad student who didn't feel the need to point out superiority to his undergrad friends. He was the first transgendered person I'd ever met and I'm grateful that that first time experience was with him because he was one of the most helpful and generous persons I've ever met. If you ever had a problem with your bf/gf he always had a suggestion on how to fix the problem you were having. He primary goal as far as a career goes was to become a psychologist/therapist for individuals who were questioning their gender, he wanted to be the counselor he never had. He had a beautiful soul and he will be greatly missed by his friends and the entire LGBT community that knew him, both at my school and Local Private College that Enrolls Many Ugg Wearing Female Students because of how much he shared with us and gave to us in terms of friendship. The LGBT center here is going to be organizing a type of memorial service for him here, but I'm not sure when. All I can hope is that where ever he is now he can finally find some peace because he truly deserves it.

Fall

New Write...

Depressed (tentative title)

Lifeless thoughts
in endless subconscious
agony pierce through
her monotonous indifferent
disposition to break forth
a solo tear from the dry wells
of her empty eyes.

-------------------------------

I don't know if it makes any sense, I was feeling pretty down and out of it on Friday and this is what I preoccupied myself with while we where going over coordinating conjunctions. Stuff I haven't given a second glance at since 8th grade English. Seems my whole class of like 12 college students (including me) need a do-over in grammar. Our teacher had us look up the definitions of prepositions and parallelism and nouns and verbs, because less than half of us could remember. Which is kind of pathetic but it's understandable when we learned this stuff -what was it like 8 years ago? I just wish this chance to re-learn basic grammar had come in my 190 or 290 writing courses, not my 410 writing course thats an upper division level class. It would've been more helpful earlier on. I mean, what does it say when your in a junior/senior level course in college and can't spew out what a preposition is? At my school it was "anywhere a mouse can go" so I remembered that part. But sixth, seventh and eighth grade English classes were a long time ago. What I remember about my sixth grade class - my teacher talked to her dolls in class. Yep. Oh and would give you detention and forget by the end of class why. Well that part wasn't so bad in the long run..

Skitz

So this is my rat Skitz. I think my roommate inspired the name, because he was very skittish when we took him home from the pet store about two weeks ago. Most of the time he just sleeps (except when I want him too some times - like at night) and thats ok for me because I don't have much time to bring him out of the cage to play. He's good behaved and actually eats the rat blocks I gave him, probably because I haven't gotten him addicted to junk food yet like I did with my previous pet rat Spaz. Spaz was a huge rat, and I wonder if this one will get as big because he still only a few months old. Which would be fine for me, but I would need to definitely invest in a larger cage. The one thing that worries me is that he is the first albino rat I've had before, and I don't know how much of a difference that makes in terms of survivability to illnesses and colds. He's got a cold right now anyways - sneezing, stomach problems etc. But I'm pretty sure he'll be fine within a week or so.

Art Class: Field Trip #1

These are some of the more decent shots I got on my 2hr school-necessitated field trip to Recreational Wildlife Area That Shares A Name With a Home-Run Record Breaker this afternoon. I enjoyed the opportunity to just wander around with my camera - minus the almost missing the bus back part!

Syracuse

Yesterday was my first day back in Syracuse for the fall semester that starts next week. Tonight I started back at Sadler, which now seems like really nothing (in terms of work) now that I've gotten used to Denny's pace. I basically get paid $8.90 to stand around and talk to people. Oh and sweep and mop and wipe down counters and tables. Yep, thats about it. On Monday I went to the DMV and applied for a Non-Driver ID because my permit was about to expire, so they gave me a temporary id which is just a piece of paper. I was under the impression that it was just as good as the real thing so I went to the bank today, filled out a withdrawal slip (Im in the process of getting a new debit card) and brought it up to the teller with my student id. She proceeded to walk into the back room and speak with some other employees. 5 mins later she came back with the bad news - My handy-dandy temporary id was not enough to prove my identity and my student id was not an acceptable form. Heres the further frustrating part. Since my id nor my debit card have arrived at my parents house yet, I wont be able to access any of my paycheck or refund check until it gets here!!!!!!!!!! I still need to buy books, groceries and pay rent for September! How is it right that I can buy alchohol but not take money out of my own bank that I've earned?

Day Off

In a couple of hours I will be back at my Home-for-the-Summer, but right now I lounge in front of my new laptop on the big blue stuffed couch at my parents house. My Other-Half just returned from a ciggarette break and now sits in front of me. It is seemingly unbelieveable that summer is almost to a close already, when except for the stifling heat, it feels like only yesterday we were packing up the contents of my dorm room, another undergrad year to an end. Last weekend was a special occasion, My Other-Half and I went to Old Forge and Niagara Falls for our Honeymoon. It was our 1-year anniversary combination celebration. Later tonight we will stop by Walgreens and pick up some photos from the trip, surprisingly I didn't drop/brake/lose my digital camera like I thought I would. Then bright and early tommorow morning at 7 o'clock we'll be on the local transit bus to work until 3pm, after eat, sleep and do it all over again until next monday.