Real Like A Plastic Bouquet

Just curious as to whether anyone still looks here. I'm still alive. Surprising? Perhaps.

Shit sucks still. I feel awful, very few things in my life are good. I'm going nowhere. My medication does not seem to help though my doctor somehow thinks it does.

I do not have a good relationship with anyone in my family.

I love my cat to pieces and am terrified of losing her.

I am not singing at all. I did in the shower a few times and I got scared that douchebag living here would hear me. I want to go to karaoke. I want to know how to write songs.

I keep dreaming about my ex-best-friend and Rocky. It sucks.

I'm still very, very far from who I want to be.

BUT I STILL HAVEN'T GONE BACK TO USING HEROIN SO HEY I'M A SUCCESS RIGHT?

I've seen a lot of movies. A few friends. Nobody really gets me except for my boyfriend. And since he knows what I am really like he is at a loss for how to fix me.

I guess that's all because most likely nobody will see this anyway

This journal is for real done. Just a reminder if there is anyone who doesn't have my new journal's location. I think I added anyone I thought would really care to read my new one, though. I'm not deleting this, cos sometimes I like to go back and read old entries from years ago. But nothing new ever after this.

My life is a mess and I hate almost everything and everyone. Haha.

I miss Rocky.

I'll miss this journal, in a way. But it's just better for my mental health to start anew.

I hate fall.

I give up.
I will be starting a new journal on a different site, or perhaps under a different name. Contact me privately for the location. I will give it to you.

I've had this one for 12 years, and it's a shame to just stop. I can go back and read entries from years ago and remember how I felt at the time and marvel at how stupid I was, or how naive. It's been useful in some ways.

But I'm not here to put myself out there only to be criticised by people who truly don't know me.
The people who actually DO know me, and give some semblance of a shit, can ask me where the new journal will be located.
Not sure how much it will be used, but probably about as much as this one.
I'm done being the object of ridicule and talking to a wall and trying to persuade anyone that what is going on with me is legitimate and documented and torture.
I know what my life is like, and what I am like, and I don't ever write in a journal for the purpose of seeking advice.
So this is done, and you can text or email me for the location of my new journal.
Thanks for reading all these years, and caring, those of you who did.

I am really so glad that Utorrent exists, and of course the excellent site I discovered where I've never gotten a bad anything. Mostly all shows and movies are there. I found Damages (which BLOCKBUSTER DOES NOT CARRY!), and Lena Dunham's first movie (though I ended up having to delete it to make more space, and never saw it. I hate Girls a lot, but wanted to see it. I'll re-download it at some point.) I just spend a lot of time watching television. I don't feel bad. It keeps my mind off things. Since I discovered my wonderful torrent site, I've watched all the seasons of Sex and the City (even though it is ridiculous and stupid), Grey's Anatomy, Sleeper Cell, Damages (up til the current episode, which isn't available yet :( ), and a few others I can't seem to remember. Do you know how many hours it takes to watch 8 seasons of a 45-minute show? It boggles the mind how much time I've spent watching shows. But, I'd probably be crying and freaking out even more if I didn't. I need to not think. That is what I need most. And obviously the best way to accomplish that is by getting fucked up..but that's not an option. So, TV. I read, still, too. I like to get engrossed in stupid magazines, and I always am reading a book. I took out Lorrie Moore's Like Life from the library cos I was sure I hadn't read it, but now, 4 pages from the end, I realise I have. Oh well. Her stories are such a pleasure that I don't really mind. Besides, it was years ago. I think she's the best living short-story author besides Alice Munro. Third would be Jean Thompson. Incredibly interesting, I'm sure.

I wish bands like The Hold Steady and The Gaslight Anthem would realise they'll never come close to being anywhere near as good as Bruce Springsteen.

I have to see the doctor Wednesday and therapist Thursday. And basically nothing at all to report. I haven't done anything, there's been no progress, no change. I don't have any energy. I just cry a lot. My boy is gone. I don't care about anything else.

I just can't stop thinking about Rocky. I keep looking at pictures of him and it's just so bizarre. He was alive then. He's dead now. I held him after he was dead. I can't stop remembering his eyes open and how different his body felt. I can't stop remembering that horrible, horrible day. I keep looking at his photos and I can't stand it. I can't stand not being able to hold him and pet him and tell him I love him so, so, so, so, so, much. How can I keep living for unknown years and years and never get to touch him again? What if he doesn't know just how much I love him? I just MISS HIM SO MUCH and all anyone says is "I know" or "Stop obsessing". WHAT THE FUCK ELSE CAN I DO? I MISS MY LITTLE BOY WHO WAS EVERYTHING TO ME. He didn't deserve this, and it's just so, so awful. And I think these people forget I HAD TO EXPERIENCE THIS ALONE. I heard his death rattle, I drove frantically trying to get him to the vet before he died, I held his dead body. These people do not have these memories that won't stop their constant loop in my mind. They do not understand how horrible it was and how unfair. He was so, so good and loving and innocent. Just so innocent. And he's fucking DEAD at 13. It was so fast. I just don't know how to stop crying and missing him and thinking about him. I thought that I was doing better, trying to go out at least once a week, watching a lot of television on my computer, reading.. but it was some sort of temporary forgetfulness or something. It all came back and it all hurts again. I am just in disbelief and shock and so sad all over again. I don't know what to do.

There's just so little good in my life. So very little to ever look forward to or make me want to ever wake up.
But I love Baby. She needs me..and the last thing Ray needs is a dead girlfriend..
I just don't know what to do, how to try to make myself excited for any sort of future when mine is dark and bleak and full of the same misery as the past.

I'll try.

"It is the only thing in my day when I don't feel like I'm ..drowning."
The person who said this was describing an affair she was having, but it can be applied to a variety of situations.
That's how I feel about being with Ray.
It's the only time I don't feel like I am drowning. I feel like he is my anchor, and as long as he's there, and I know he believes in me, I can't give up.
He would probably kill me if he knew I was putting this in a public forum, but really, it's not like some well-read popular blog thousands read.
He wrote me an email and said:
"I was listening to The Smiths, and the last song was "Asleep" and it made me really sad remembering how that's like your favorite song by them. Please don't ever just give up on life. I really think you are destined for great things and to be happy. I can't stand to think of you just ending your life or something like that....You are very good and loving and caring. You are also very beautiful and talented. And I'm certainly no prize, yet you always build me up and you take good care of me. I wish you could see how good you are."
(For anyone who doesn't know, I was obsessed with "Asleep" for a long time, and still kind of am. I quoted it in Anderson Alternative's high school yearbook, though not a part that would make it obvious what I really meant. The specific parts I always loved said "sing me to sleep, i'm tired and i i want to go to bed......don't try to wake me in the morning cause i will be gone..don't feel bad for me, i want you to know, deep in the cell of my heart, i will be so glad to go..sing me to sleep, sing me to sleep, i don't want to wake up on my own anymore...there is another world. there is a better world..well there must be..")
I thought that I would want to play this as I started to die, and maybe even have it on repeat for whoever found me. I'd listen to it on repeat and just kind of rock back and forth and it was such a beautiful and perfect song. Because that's how I felt..I just didn't want to wake up on my own anymore..I would be so glad to go...and maybe I shouldn't have told my boyfriend that was my favourite song, because he often worries I'm going to kill myself. I know that he wants to be moving forward in life, focusing on positive things. And worrying about your girlfriend killing herself isn't conducive to upward mobility. It doesn't help one to focus on the important things, like furthering one's career, and staying mentally healthy. How could someone be mentally healthy if they're worried their girlfriend might off herself when they're apart?
I get in places where I feel I have to, it's my destiny, and I will, and I start planning, thinking I will take a shower so I'm clean and not hairy and put makeup on and my best outfit, and print out my saved note, and arrange everything..but I never do it. And I won't. It's just an area my mind likes to go to because things are shitty for me now, both in my head and in real life.
But I just hate that Ray ever worries about that.
I need to be strong and be the type of girlfriend who can help him, not make him worry and upset him.

But just reading his email made me smile and want to keep going because I know he knows me and that's ..and nobody else does like he does. Not since my ex-best friend J did I feel completely close and open and honest with anyone, that they totally accepted me and knew all my OCD crazy things I do and the paranoid thoughts I have and the secret dreams I have of being a famous singer and songwriter and how many people I really hate but am nice to and how many bad things I've done and how my mind works and tries to trick me..I don't miss her so much anymore because she's gone. The best friend I had changed like she'd been invaded by a body-snatcher, which happens all too often with twentysomething girls, especially with their very first serious relationship. They get brainwashed or just lost in their relationship, and it becomes all-consuming and they drop everyone else. She put bros before hos. Fine. The girl I was best friends with since sixth grade wouldn't have done that. She'd be here holding my hand and letting me cry on her shoulder about Rocky, who she rescued multiple times when he got out. But she's gone. I accept she will never be in my life again, and is no longer the girl she was when we were best friends.
I have a new best friend, who I know will never fuck me over, because we've stuck by each other through many, many men. And I have Ray, who is my male best friend, my other half, who knows EVERYTHING about me, even the things I'd be embarrassed to tell Michelle. Though there aren't many, there are a few. And I think you're just naturally closer to someone that you cuddle with, sleep with, etc, if you're already best friends with them. It's a level of intimacy the closest platonic friends will never have.
Being best friends with your partner is the best thing, and I'm just so grateful that he still thinks of me as his best friend, after all I put him through. Everything I've done, all the freaking out and crying and screaming and refusing-to-leave-the-doorway-because-I-don't-have-the-right-image-in-my-head. He's stayed, because we have a bond. I like to say he recognised it when I referenced "Yesterday" originally being called "Scrambled Eggs", or when I mentioned a vig, as in paying the vig on a loan from a mobster or whatever. He was so surprised that "a rich girl from Blue Bell" (though I am pretty fucking far from rich, having seen the house I grew up in and knowing my father was an attorney, he thinks of me as having grown up rich, and really, compared to many of my classmates, I did. Until my father left, we were good.) anyway, he was just like "Hey, I can't believe you knew the term 'vig'! You're so smart." (Yes, knowledge of mob movie terminology indicates intelligence, in our world.)
Just little moments like that, I like to remind him of, because they're things I think the other girl he was dating before he met me wouldn't have known. She was rather a bit of an airhead. With a pointy chin.
I guess I feel like I need to try to remind him I'm smart, because he's the smartest guy I've ever known, let alone dated. He just doesn't feel the need to go around showing it off. I read all these people's political diatribes or brags about the movies or musical artists they like and I'm just like, "God, my boyfriend could tear them to shreds. But he just chooses not to. He'd rather just laugh at them with me, because he knows he's smart, and doesn't have to go around proving it." He only argues with people whose views truly upset and offend him, like neo-Nazis or militant atheists who think all non-atheists are rednecks who think the world is only 6 thousand years old and homosexuals are evil. He defends his beliefs to idiots who need schooling, on occasion, but mainly he just acts like a regular guy, and only I really get to see just how brilliant he is. In his writing, of course, but also just the hours-long conversations we often have. He'll get all riled up about something and just talk and talk about it, and he is so articulate and so well-read I just can't believe he chose me. Me. I don't think if I read every book he's read I could be as smart as he is. He's just naturally smart. His brain works differently than most people's.

I don't know what my point was.
Just he sent me an email that made me feel a little better and I'm very grateful he is my boyfriend.

I don't even know what the fuck I was talking about before.
I can't fucking stand this and I am TIRED OF THIS and I cannot just sit around and hope this stuff starts working and then patiently wait until I see the doctor again and calmly explain that I need a higher dose. When all he will do is tell me to do FUCKING YOGA.
I AM TOO FUCKING ANGRY FOR FUCKING YOGA.
I FUCKING HATE EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE.
I DON'T WANT TO DO FUCKING YOGA.
His job is to GIVE ME MEDICATION and if it does not work, GIVE ME A HIGHER DOSE, or a different type or option.
THAT IS ALL.
I am sick of being asked if I did yoga. I fucking tried it and I fucking hated it.

If somehow this medication DID start working, I'm fucked anyway because I have to fucking move in less than a month and I won't be able to go to the same doctor anymore, and as I've discovered, pretty much no other doctors have even HEARD OF Emsam. Even psychiatrists. Or if they have, they are against MAOIs. So I will probably have to stop taking it once I can't see my doctor anymore. The doctor at Northwestern, which is the only place my insurance would cover in my mother's area, had never heard of Emsam. I'm not going to see a doctor who hasn't even heard of what I'm on. How can you seriously be a PSYCHIATRIST and not be familiar with one of the only MAOIs in use today?

I just don't know WHAT THE HELL I am going to do.

I really can't stand dealing with my sister. My mother promised me she would take me to the library after my sister picked her up from work, in between my sister's two shifts. Then it was "oh I am so tired can you drive yourself" so fine. Then, suddenly, my sister has "things to do". So I'm just FUCKED. I never fucking go anywhere. Valerie has the car every single day, and I guarantee you the things she has to do are probably not all of a wholesome variety. Somehow even though she has the car EVERY OTHER DAY, the ONE chunk of time when I was promised it, she gets it. OF COURSE. I just want to pick up my goddamned book I ordered, which they will only hold for me for a few more days. I want a FUCKING BOOK, that is ALL, a BOOK, because unlike her, I READ, and try to better myself and exercise my brain.
But this was just TOO AUDACIOUS A REQUEST apparently.
Just like ALWAYS, what I want doesn't matter, and any promises made to me are just meaningless, when my sister says she needs or wants something. She always, always comes first. Whatever she does or wants is more important. I'm so fucking sick of this. I just want to go home. I am sick of this bullshit and having to beg, borrow, and steal to get to the goddamned LIBRARY! That's ridiculous. She has a fucking 2 hour break in between when she ends one shift and has to leave for the next. She has "errands" to run for 2 hours, huh? Bullshit. She's just an asshole, and whatever I want or need is never, ever important enough. I can't even tell you how many times I will be out with my mother, or have plans with her, and we have to stop what we are doing, or cancel whatever we had planned to do, because my sister has some reason she has to use the car.
I hate being here. I can only stand it when Ray is here or I don't have to have anything to do with my sister.

A person might get sick of just sitting at home all the time. They might want to get out of the house, even for just 15 minutes to go right up the road to the LIBRARY so they can have a book to help them escape their shitty life. But that doesn't matter to anyone, my mother or my sister.
I'm just tired of always coming last. IN EVERYONE'S LIVES. Every member of my family shows me repeatedly how unimportant I am to them. My mother has done a lot for me, and I know she loves me, but when my sister is involved, there's no contest, she will always choose my sister.

My only fucking real friend, my best friend, said when she returned from California we would hang out. What a big surprise, she's been back since the 29th and not once mentioned hanging out. She can't even email me back. I wrote her like 6 days ago or something. No reply. I know what she does with her time and it's nothing too important to write her best friend back. It's just because I'm never as important to other people as they are to me, ever. Even my boyfriend doesn't get how desperately I want him to come here already. I don't want to be pushy so I try not to pressure him or say how much I wish he'd come over tonight. But I hate being without him, and I'm fucking bored, and it just makes things easier to be with him. He thinks of it as saving money, I guess, the longer we wait until we see each other, the longer until he'll have to spend money. But he's already spending money buying food for himself. When he comes here, I have food for him, at least for a few meals. He just needs time to write and be apart. I know I am a handful to be around all the time. But I really hate being here with my mother and having to jump through hoops and beg just to get a ride to the library. I just miss my boyfriend, our house, sanity, tranquility.

I just found out that this focus group I was scheduled for in a week or two was postponed. "Maybe in October" the message said. So the only cash at all that I will ever have in the foreseeable future just got taken away. It just gets better and better!!

I am just so, so angry. It's not even the library thing, that just..made me freak out. Because I was told I could do something, and then because of my sister's life being more important than mine, the rug got pulled out, and I was just already feeling fucking shitty today and fed up and frustrated with the state of my life.

I'm really sick of the type of comments I have been receiving and I have no choice but to make this friends-only, so the next time I write you will have to log in to view it. It's not complicated. Just have to put in your name and password on the main livejournal page, then go to my specific journal.
Maybe I just won't write. It serves absolutely no purpose. I think I am deluded if I think it fosters any sort of understanding of my life for my father. I can't ever communicate what my life is like through this. He doesn't respond to my text messages or emails half the time, I never see him..it's just pointless to think if I try to explain things in here that it will make any sense to him or anyone. I just have nowhere else to ever say anything about anything because my boyfriend and mother already hear it all the time and I can't keep subjecting them to that. They have their own problems and I can't be freaking out all the time to them because I don't want to drive them away.
My mother, as I said, has already told me she won't listen to certain things I have said about Rocky's death. I think that's fucked up. How I feel is how I feel, and to say I can't even fucking say them to my own mother..Ray is fed up with hearing them too, I just need to stop beating myself up and know how good I was to him..they just don't GET IT, and never, ever will. I watched him collapse and I was there when he died. I held his corpse. They didn't. They didn't treat him like he was their own flesh and blood since he was 11 weeks old. They didn't worry about him and pray for him and love him more than anything in this world. I know that to them, he was just a pet. Sad that he died, but nothing tragic. But for me nothing could be more tragic. Maybe if my parents or sister or Ray died. He WAS my son, I could not have loved him more, and I can't ever stop feeling like I failed him, and didn't protect him and keep him safe. It feels unbelievably shitty and I'm really pissed off that the only two people I have to talk to both tell me they're sick of hearing it. My mind is already a cesspool, full of horrible thoughts and worries and fears and negative things I am constantly fighting to push back so they don't overwhelm me. Now I have this, knowing my boy is dead and I did not keep him safe when that is what a parent is supposed to do. It is always there, and I am always feeling bad about it and apologising to him. It'll never be enough. Not until I die and see him again and can know he forgives me. Until then this is a chunk taken out of my heart that will never be replaced and a sadness that will always gnaw at me and extremely heavy guilt. And all I can do is try to think of other things, to try to ignore it, and that's very very hard for me.
and I'm so tired of it.
I'm so, so tired of being told to "try to think of positive things instead!". My mind does not work that way. It knows what's fake and what's real. Anytime I ever try to think of positive things it senses bullshit and knows I am trying to put one over on it. It knows I am trying to trick it. And won't fall for it. Negative things are the REALITY thus that is what my mind is filled with.
Basically every single thing about my life is fucked up and not how I want it to be. The only things that are how I want them to be are that my family is alive, and I have Ray and Baby.
Every other thing is wrong and difficult.

It's just all such bullshit. Whenever I see my therapist I don't think I ever make clear to her how fucked up things really are. Because we just talk about tiny, dumb things, like trying to be a good listener to my boyfriend. That's very nice, but it doesn't fucking fix me, or make me want to live. It's like we just don't even bother with the big issues, because everybody knows nobody has the ability to fix those. I don't bother telling her how often I get like this and how HARD EVERYTHING IS and how much I want to give up and/or get high. Because it serves no purpose, she has no magic answer, and there's nothing anyone can do.
Except keep hoping the medication starts working.
That seems to be about the only option I have.
It's getting very tiresome and is failing to make me want to keep going. Because I am starting to doubt it ever will.
I'm just so tired of being like this, feeling like this, acting like this, living like this.
I don't want to do it anymore.
I just want to be different. I hate this person. I'm so, so, so ANGRY.
How am I supposed to live? With this going on in my head, and depending on my mother for food, my boyfriend for money, when neither of them should have to do that, or really can? I want this to stop. I want to get better, just not BE LIKE THIS anymore.
I am just so tired. of everything.
I can't deal with it.
I guess I'll take ol' reliable klonopin. I don't take it every day, but I have freaked out at least twice in the last week so this will be the third time in a week and I am scared of getting addicted. I mean, my prescription says to take up to 4 a day. So I'm still taking less than that..but I really don't need to have to worry about benzo withdrawal or something. But they never get me high or make me feel good. It just helps me sleep. And all I want, all I can do, when I am this angry and on the verge of throwing things or screaming at people who don't deserve it is just to sleep.
So that's what I'll do.
And maybe things will look better when I wake up.
But probably not.

A few years ago, when I still had my car, I would often get into my really sad mood, the previously mentioned "bad place", sometimes after dropping friends off, or for no real reason..and I'd always put Darkness On The Edge of Town in and play numbers 3 and 5, "Something In The Night" and "Racing In The Streets". I would just play them over and over and over. I hadn't listened to these songs in years, but I am listening now because I feel as fucking low as I can remember. Part of me listens to these songs and is like just grateful that someone like this exists, and I feel like I don't want to give up on trying to keep living because I always wanted so bad to make music, since I was 5..but then I realise it's all so stupid and unlikely. I was always meant to be a failure. And have proven that over and over again. I have never accomplished anything important ever. Instead I've ruined relationships and hurt people who didn't deserve it and squandered any potential I ever had. I just think I shouldn't have existed. The same way when they do an amnio or whatever it is called and they can tell if the baby is going to be so severely impaired that it would have a horrible quality of life and advise the mother to terminate the pregnancy, I wish that the doctors had some sort of test to be able to see that this baby would grow up to have something wrong with their brain and never be able to live right and would make everyone around her miserable and have to be taken care of like a small child and your lives will all be simpler and better off if you just get rid of this.

I'm sick of trying to convince people I don't even see or have a relationship with that I am genuinely ill and barely functioning and do not have the ability to do things a normal person does. Perhaps someday they will get it through their heads. I don't care anymore.

I know this is not living, and I won't do it much longer. I'm not willing to go around pretending it's okay because I'm trying not to upset the people I am close to. I'm not okay, and I'm tired of the fights and how upset it makes people when I do show how I really feel. I am tired of trying to hide it because I can't, and just end up fighting with the people I love. They would all of them, every one, be much better off if I wasn't in their lives.

I won't answer if certain people, you know who you are, go and try to ambush me by phone again. You're not putting me in any mental hospital --first of all, my poor-people insurance wouldn't cover it, LOL! And I don't need any sort of intervention.
I'm just dealing with some things.
I'm afraid this medication is not working, as I should've anticipated.
You will never know how scary it is to think you are broken and cannot be fixed.

I have very few choices, and my life just feels very close to unbearable more and more each day. I don't want to kill myself. There are 3 main reasons for that. First, I honestly am too embarrassed about the prospect of the medical examiner/coroner/whoever seeing me without clothing. That is ridiculous, but it's true. I don't want someone seeing me naked, even dead.
Second, I don't want to attempt it but fuck up and end up even worse off, in a persistent vegetative state or worse, awake but unable to communicate at all.
Third, I am too fucking ANGRY. At everyone who fucked me over. At the people who pretend they care about me but are fucking assholes and think I don't know it. At people who I know sing worse than I do but still have people fawning over them telling them how talented they are. At people who broke my heart. At people who had a responsibility, if not legal, then moral, to help me when I was completely broke or sad or whatever, and ignored it. People who were supposed to care about me more than anyone else but they flat-out ignored me, and I know for a fact wouldn't help me if I was lying on the side of the road bleeding to death. People who chose people who could never love them as much as I did instead of me. People who lied to me and cheated me and fucked me over and try to pretend that never happened or that they're different now, but still keep showing me they're exactly the same. People who were supposed to be helping me get better but ignored what I told them and forced me to stay on the same, useless medication for 10 years. People who had tons of money when my family didn't and my family deserved it a lot more and I had to hear all about their Caribbean vacations while my mother was visiting food pantries. People who made fun of my cat. People who made fun of me when I was younger. People who told me I would never be a singer. People who told me I didn't have it in me to ever be anything. People who told me I was ridiculous for the dreams I had.
Etc, etc.
For now, that fury is stronger than anything else. I want to prove people wrong, I want to rise above the assholes I know and knew, I want to get out of this and make them feel stupid for doubting me.

I just keep getting pulled back down by my mind. It wants to like wrap me up like a spider will wrap its prey all up in its web & shit. It is determined that I stay miserable and bogged down and on the edge of taking every pill in the house.
I won't, though.
Because man, am I angry.
There are so many ASSHOLES and people stupider than me or meaner than me, and they don't have a brain for an enemy. I shouldn't be dealing with this, on top of everything else.
I should be making the best of things and trying to live the best life I can with my financial and residential circumstances.
And I know my life would be a great deal easier, even with all the turmoil about where I'll live and money, if I was okay, mentally.
I'm not.
But I'm not resigned to staying like that.
Because FUCK THAT, seriously, you're going to tell me I was this bright, outgoing, "let me sing in front of my first grade class and introduce myself to random people in banks" kid, and then this is how it ends? Spent 3 years addicted to heroin, get clean, get not even 2 months shy of 3 years off heroin, and die?
I'm not okay with that. Besides, come on, to die at 27? What is this, 1971? I'm not famous yet. Not willing to die without even TRYING to make something of myself.

So this has to get better.
If I keep feeling the same then I will just have to tell this honestly to the doctor when I see him on the 11th or 12th, one of those, I forget, anyway, and tell him honestly I think I need to try the 9 mg. And if that doesn't work? Then I will have to examine the possibility of TMS. And tell him that. That I'm not staying on a medication for years that I know doesn't help me. Been there, done that, that's how I ended up on heroin, because I was so frustrated and felt so shitty and trapped. Not spending another 10 years on a useless antidepressant.
But I'm not accepting this one as useless yet.
It's probably been like a month.
I'm giving it more time.
Then I'll be honest with the doctor and tell him it's really kind of very important to me that I feel better soon, and sorry, but yoga isn't what's helpful for a mind this damaged, but could we please try the next dose? I'll give up cheddar and salami. (I may've mentioned this, but I found out I actually could still have yoghurt, so that's all that really matters.)

I have a plan.
And I have a reason to keep going.
I am not famous yet.
If I go out and get over my stage fright and then actually make some music and try to distribute it and get people listening and it fails, then I will be like, "Okay, it's not happening for me."
But if I never even try? And just have this "oh yeah I sang at karaoke and a few recitals in high school and people told me I was really good and should do something with it but I was too scared"? No.
Ca ne suffit pas. (When I tried google translating that, it said I should say "cela ne suffit pas", but since "ca suffit" is an expression, I felt "ca ne suffit pas" was just a restructuring of "ca suffit" so whatever.)

I will keep letting my anger fuel me and inspire me to keep going, and hopefully growing stronger by the day, until I, like a cartoon villain, will pop out of nowhere and take over the world.

I would like to redact my previous statement about the album Born in the USA. It's actually just "Glory Days", "Dancing In The Dark", and the title track I am sick of. I forgot it has "I'm Goin' Down" and "Darlington County", two songs that are just good and fun, and "No Surrender", which is pretty much my motto. From learning more from a 3 minute record than we ever did in school to making a promise we swore we'd always remember, no retreat and no surrender, and wanting to sleep beneath peaceful skies in my lover's bed, with a wide open country in my eyes and these romantic dreams in my head, the song is just perfect. Of course, young people today would hear it and be like "this is corny"..but it's not to me. "We busted out of class, had to get away from those fools"..that was me and my best friend in high school. Okay, I get that the song is probably about a guy and girl who've known each other since high school and are now trying to face the world and stay optimistic and all in the real world..but it always reminds me of J, my ex best friend. Kind of makes me sad, but then I realise Ray is my best friend now. He's the one I am in this long haul, this rat race, this shitty world, together with. He's the one I have to make a promise not to surrender to. We both have a tendency to get depressed and want to give up (though obviously me to a much larger extent), and we both feel like this world is so shitty and ridiculous and rewards idiots rather than genuinely talented people like ourselves. (I don't care how cocky that sounds. I know for a fact he is extremely talented, and he tells me that I am.) Ray is my ally, the person in this world who knows my secret desires and who I really want to be, and believes I actually can become that person. I am so incredibly grateful for him. And I guess that's why a lot of older Springsteen songs mean a lot to me. There's a lot of "you and me against the world, we'll make it because we love each other and that's what matters".

A lot of the songs are about women who've been burned in the past, and the singer is trying to show her he won't hurt her. I remember listening to "Be True" repeatedly when I first met Ray, even before I did, and it was me to a tee and then when I met Ray I was so astounded that a man like him actually existed. He paid for my drinks and dinner! He treated me with respect! He was intelligent, he READ FOR LEISURE, he was familiar with both Nietzsche and the oeuvre of F. Murray Abraham. And he was a real man. He cared about treating me right.
( click here for lyrics to a song that i felt was written for me circa 2007-8Collapse )

I don't know why I even thought of all this. Just I guess listening to all these Springsteen songs reminds me of when we first got together.
In "Tougher Than The Rest", there are a few lines that reminded me of me and my past.
maybe your other boyfriends
couldn't pass the test
well if you're rough and ready for love
honey i'm tougher than the rest.

well it ain't no secret
i've been around a time or two
well i don't know baby
maybe you've been around too..
And, of course, Ray had had a horrible experience in his past, a bad relationship, and I wanted him to know that I was different. I actually made a craigslist Missed Connection post just for him to see, in which I quoted this song, saying
"well there's another dance
all you gotta do is say yes.."
In the beginning of the song it says "So somebody ran out, left somebody's heart in a mess.." and that really applied to both of us. Ever since E, my virginity-taking ex dumped me, I'd been a mess, just flailing about, kissing all sorts of frogs, hoping one of them would decide I was worthy of love.

It was just like a miracle that Ray picked me. He was seeing another girl at the time, and he told me after he met me, he broke all his subsequent dates with her. He just felt like there was something special between us. There was. There is. We just have something. And we've had it for over 4 years. That's amazing to me. Before him, my longest relationship was like 7 months. I'd certainly never lived with anyone, had to cook dinner or anything. But I like it. I just hate how much I've put him through. I mean, I definitely pretended to be someone normal and sane when we first got to know each other. I hid my crazy, as I think most people do in the early stages of a relationship. But he really didn't know what he was in for. I feel bad for doing that to him. But I can only say that he hasn't been a breeze to deal with for the entire relationship, either. But any of his issues, they were resolved like 2 years ago. Since like 2010, it's basically been him being the patience-of-a-saint-having boyfriend whose girlfriend is a nutcase and drives him crazy, but acts cute and sweet when she isn't freaking out, so he sticks around in the hopes that she really will get better one day.

And I have to. I have to.
I don't want this. I hate who I am right now. I have very concrete ideas of who I want to be, and almost every aspect of my personality would be totally different. My family and Ray always tell me I can never be assertive with my friends or strangers who're rude or mean to me, but I have no problem being mean to the people I love most (i.e. my family and Ray). I mean, I am a real bitch to my mom, sister, and Ray, and yet I go out of my way to be nice to strangers, or frienemies. This is true. I just can't stand to have anyone mad at me..but I guess I think if the people close to me get mad, they'll get over it, cos they'll always love me, but strangers or friends might stay mad. I hate the feeling of knowing someone is mad at me. So many times friends or frienemies have hurt my feelings or fucked me over and I just kept quiet and bitched about it to Ray, because I didn't want to argue with them or make them mad. Or like I'll always give Ray an attitude if we are at a drive-through restaurant and he doesn't have the money ready when we pull up, I'll like rush him and get really mad if he doesn't have the exact change out ready to hand the employee, because I'm so terrified of making the employee wait, thus them possibly getting mad. It's just little things like that. When I go to Wawa, I always hold the door for people, even though only about half of them say thank you, but I am a bit ridiculous about it..I will hold the door when someone has not even entered the parking lot yet, is like 30 feet away, just because I don't want them to think I dissed them by seeing them coming and not holding it.
I am just a ridiculous person.

And I really don't know what brought on this entry, or the point of it. Just stuff I felt like saying I guess. If you took the time to click on the underlined text and actually read all the rambling behind the cut, I can't imagine why, and I appreciate it. Just stuff I felt like getting out, I guess. I guess I think reexamining my past might make me understand why I am the way I am in some respects.

I took a long walk with my mother last night. I got sweaty. But it's at least something. One thing I look forward to about whenever Ray gets his new place is bringing my bike there. I can't wait to ride it on flat roads. For now I think I'll just try to take more walks.

My mom made chicken cacciatore and I gave Baby mostly all the chicken in my serving. She loooves meat. I kind of licked the sauce off of it before giving it to her. I sort of broke it up with my teeth, too. I'm like a bird, pre-chewing the food for its young. Anyway, it was sweet. She's so, so smart. I don't know how she even knew I was eating something that contained meat. It just smelled like sauce, but somehow she knew and got right in my face to get her share. She even knows when I eat soup. Yesterday I was having my albondigas soup, which has meatballs in it, but it is red and has like, seasonings and vegetables and such, so I can't imagine how she somehow discerned that it also contained meatballs! She's so, so smart. She also figured this out for wonton soup the other day. She's very smart and a cute carnivore girl.

I believe our fortunes will change and our dreams will come true. We will go back to Paris within a year. We will have money. We will be happy, healthy, and secure. I will be mentally stable. We will both have careers that we like. My family will also have what they've wanted, and not have to worry about their living situation or money. I don't have much reason to believe this, but I just do. And this is where everyone I know just tunes me out because it's soooo ridiculous to believe in God, but it's not hurting them, so mind your business. I've had so many arguments with people about this. I just don't see why it matters what someone else believes. It harms no one if I choose to believe in God. I don't let it affect my political views, I still believe in science and evolution and all that, I'm not pro-life or anything. I think most atheists think that anyone who believes in God is a fundamentalist or evangelical Christian, who will either vote for all Republican candidates and try to get abortion and gay marriage banned, and get prayer in schools, or else try to convert them to their religion. I am none of those things, I'd never do any of those things, but still I get told that it's "stupid", "silly", and that I am ignoring "reality" and living in a "fantasy world" simply because I believe in the God of my understanding. I'm so fucking sick of it. Really, if you look at any atheist websites or youtube videos or anything, the way they talk about believers is just so shitty and they're so condescending and arrogant. It's obnoxious. Guess what, you can believe in God and still be educated and intelligent and liberal!!!
Anyway. My point was that the only thing that makes me confident the tides will turn and things will get better for me and my family and loved ones is that I pray a lot and I don't believe that my God is going to let things stay this shitty for much longer. I just think she's going to reward us for suffering for so long, and she knows we're good people and don't deserve to always be miserable and broke and all that. She wants us to be happy and is going to facilitate that. Not sure how, but she will.
Not that I'd be happy if I wasn't broke. But it'd be one huge worry off my mind. But I have something wrong with me that I am just hoping the current chemical cocktail I am on can fix. If not, I will just have to try something else..or maybe transcranial magnetic stimulation. I don't want to think about that. I am counting on this to work. It was such luck, and so much work, to even get this medication, that it has to work.

I am going outside to smoke, as I do every morning I'm at my mother's. Last night I got really upset about Rocky. I was watching an episode from season 2 of Breaking Bad where a baby had just been born and people were oohing and aahing over it and taking care of it and I just wanted to scream. Rocky was my baby, and he's DEAD. My son is DEAD. How can that be? It just doesn't make sense, and I just started freaking out. I miss him so much. So much. It just hurts so much and seems so unreal. I took some Klonopin and eventually fell asleep. But that fact, that my son is dead, is still there in the back of my mind and I have to keep fighting it from making me freak out again all day, every day. It's hard.

You should probably just not bother reading this. What purpose does it serve? So you can judge me some more? Take satisfaction in the fact that my life is still shitty, and, in your view, it's still my fault? Criticise the way I'm living it, or other people in my life live their lives? Tell me I'm too upset about my cat, it was only a cat, human beings are more important? I'm sorry, that's just not true. He meant more to me than most human beings. He knew me better, he accepted me better, and he loved me unconditionally, which is much more than most people I know can say.
I love my Rocky, he was my son, and I always will, and you will never understand it because you didn't have the relationship I did with him. Nobody ever had what we had together. He was my angel kitty, sent to me to help me and comfort me and keep me going, and I feel like I failed him. I just hope he knows how sorry I am and how much I love him and always will..

So yesterday I made a deal with my mom, because like I want to come to her house on weekends--she has food, and Baby. So she said she'd come pick me up, but I had to go with her to the Bruce Springsteen exhibit at the National Constitution Center. I had something else I'd wanted to try to do that evening, but it turned out of COURSE she gave the car to my sister anyway, so I couldn't have gotten there. We were done in the city by like 1 pm or something, but as soon as we got done our other errands (produce stand, library, 2 different grocery stores because one didn't have my favourite soup, and Chinese restaurant), she gave my sister the car. What a surprise! Doesn't matter if I ever want to use it, it's basically not even my mother's car, my sister just always has it. My sister claims she's getting a car in the next few weeks. Since she's constantly saying she has no money, doesn't have enough for rent, etc, I'd love to know how she's going to manage that. I hope she does, though. It'd be a huge relief for my mother and maybe sometimes I could actually have a car to use.

Anyway, the exhibit was okay, but mostly not worth the ridiculous amount of money they charge for admission. And I got bitched at for attempting to take a photo of a guitar. Seriously, guard? You have such laser-vision that you can see that I am holding up my phone and using the camera function from like 10 feet away? And it MATTERS? I understand if it was the Louvre or something, but come on, it's a ridiculously overpriced exhibit and I just wanted to take a picture of a specific guitar to show it to Ray cos we had just been discussing this guitar. What do they think, if photos are allowed, people will then photograph EVERY SINGLE ITEM and thus nobody will pay to come see the exhibit? Dumb. There was a part where you could write down which song means the most to you and why, and of course I couldn't pick one, so I ended up using like 4 different Post-It notes. You would write your choice, then stick it to this wall. I noticed a bunch of people putting dumb stuff like "Born to Run" or "Born in the USA". Ugh. The man has a huge, varied, brilliant catalog of amazing songs, and "Born to Run" means the MOST to you? I wrote "Mary Queen of Arkansas", "Tougher Than The Rest", "Man's Job", "Redheaded Woman", "The River", "Thunder Road" (okay, kind of expected but I love "you ain't a beauty but hey you're alright" very much), and "Something In The Night". But there were so many more I wanted to write. I haven't been too huge into his last few albums, but like up until The Rising Bruce Springsteen was just amazing. And I am so tired of people dissing him. I'd like to hear the songs they've written, see the stadiums they sell out nightly. There are just so many shitty, asinine songs and lame musicians out there, and I'm tired of people criticising an intelligent man who actually tries to write meaningful stuff. Okay, he goes a bit overboard sometimes with the common man thing. But if you read about his life, he DID grow up like a regular Jersey guy, they didn't have much money, and he got his start actually playing tiny little clubs with his band, not because he knew someone famous or people friended him on Myspace or some shit. He put in the work and he deserves everything he has, and I respect him so much. I just hate that so many people just think of him as the guy who did "Born In The USA". That album is mostly lame, except for "Bobby Jean" and "Downbound Train" and "I'm On Fire". It doesn't represent the huge number of totally different songs he's done in his career. I bet that if you played someone who only knew, like, "Glory Days" and such "Mary Queen of Arkansas" or "Growin' Up", they wouldn't even know it was Bruce Springsteen. I just love him. I don't love every song, but I love a lot of them very much.

I got SO MAD when we got to the library, which I know is open Saturdays, only to find a sign on the door saying it was closed "for Labor Day" on Saturday and Monday. THE HOLIDAY IS MONDAY. NOT SATURDAY. They are so LAZY. I really, really wanted to pick up the book that is waiting for me there, and now I can't until Tuesday. (They're closed Sundays in the summer, of course.) I seriously was like freaking out. I just think it was a really lame move. They know they're closed Sundays, and closed Monday, so anybody who wasn't able to get there Friday is just screwed until Tuesday. There's no excuse to be closed two days BEFORE a holiday and call it being closed "for" the holiday. I hate the library sometimes.

Baby seems to not be sneezing anymore. She sneezed once since yesterday afternoon, but that's it..and my mom says when I wasn't here, she didn't sneeze at all. I really hope she's over whatever was wrong. She's acting normal. I'm so glad. I love her so much.

I finally dreamt about Rocky, but it wasn't what I thought..I mean, in the dream, I didn't know he was dead..and like we were at some amusement park ride and I kept trying to pick him up and hold him because I was scared he'd fall off the ride when it got up high, and there were these train tracks and I was scared he'd run onto them..but when I couldn't hold him and he got free, he went on the ride and he came off just fine, he never fell off, and he never ran onto the train tracks. Someone said I should think of this like the ride/train tracks was death/getting to the other side..I was so scared and worried for him, but he was just fine, and I didn't need to have worried, he made it just fine. I hope so. It was just strange. I totally forgot he was dead in my dream, I was just running after him trying to pick him up like he was my cat Rocky, being naughty..I miss him so much. It still just feels so bizarre. I hate it a lot. And like I guess now that it's been over 3 weeks I'm supposed to act normal and go out and do things and not talk about him all the time..but it's hard. I still hate going in the dining room, where he spent his last day in the corner, and collapsed on the carpet, and I rushed to get him into the carrier and ran out of the house to try to get to the vet...that room is the most depressing room, now. I go over to the living room window and touch his pillows and blanket with his fur still on them. It's still weird just using one plate to put cat food down on the floor. I just miss my boy. My wonderful, sweet, innocent, loving boy. I just feel so bad this happened. I have so many regrets and it just sucks a lot.

Many months ago, probably like February or something, this cat was hanging around our driveway at Ray's. It was obviously not feral, it must've had a home, because it let me pick it up. It nuzzled against my arm, and I was just petting it for a while. We never saw it again, though. Well, the other night I was walking back to Ray's house from Wawa and saw a cat run under a car. I just wanted to see if it'd come out, not even thinking it might be the one we'd seen months ago, which we'd called Jack. I put my hand out for it to sniff and it came out, and let me pick it up, and I carried it to Ray's driveway. It was Jack! I was so happy, and he let me pet him behind the ears and was being nice, but then suddenly seemed to get irritated. He kept rolling around on his back in the grass, making me think he wanted me to pet his belly, but when I would try, he'd bite me or growl. I don't know why he got angry out of nowhere. I really hope he isn't in pain or something. Maybe he smelled my cats or something..anyway, I was just so happy to see Jack again, to know he's alive. I really wish I knew whose cat he was. I want to warn them about letting a cat without a collar out in the city at night. This was like 11 or 12 at night! That's how we lost Lucky, and I'll never forget that. I know it really messed up Ray. They shouldn't have their cat out at night or really out in the city at all. But I have no idea whose he is. I want to bring some cat food to Ray's in case he comes back. I wish we could've brought him inside, but Ray's convinced he is someone's cat that they just let out.. I hope once Ray moves I can convince him to get a cat for his apartment eventually..

So my mother spent every cent she had, basically, on the exhibit (even with her senior discount and my student discount, it was mad expensive) and grocery shopping. She's substituting for some woman being a lunch aide one day this week, but I just worry about her. What will she do when she runs out of cat food? Well, her boyfriend usually buys some when he comes over. She's applied for so, so, so many jobs. It's just very hard when she doesn't have reliable transportation, she has no computer knowledge or skills, and she's 61. They always pick someone younger..she was just telling me about a bunch of jobs she applied for and I felt really bad. She's a fuckton smarter than 99% of the people I have met in my life, but people hiring people probably just look at her age or the jobs she has had and are like "Next!". . I just think something really good is going to happen for her soon. She's just had things so shitty for so, so long. It can't stay that way. She deserves something really good more than anyone. I just keep praying about it.

I've had to pee for like an hour, but Baby is lying next to me, and I know when I get up, she'll get off the bed, so I keep holding it in. I have to get my mother to put my Emsam patch on, though. (It's easiest and stays on best on the back, but it's hard to apply it to your own back and not get it wrinkled or uneven or anything.) So I'll go downstairs now I guess.
Last night I put on the t-shirt I wore the day Rocky died for the first time since he died. It was sad, but I don't want to just never wear it again.

I just want to sleep until I can wake up and suddenly feel like a human being, and act like one. I'm really tired of the way my life is and how I feel, and how few people have a clue what it's like or how hard it is to live with.

I really would be fine if Ray and I could just somehow get a ton of money and move to Europe with Baby and never ever come back again. I mean, we'd stay in contact with our parents, and perhaps some friends, but I would not mind one bit if we had the ability to just leave tomorrow. My whole life here is just so...not what I want. I know I need to try to fix the messed-up parts that are fixable by me. But I just don't have the energy. I'd rather just go try something new. Oh well. I'm stuck with this so I have to try to make it work, I guess.

I really don't even know what the point of writing here is. It doesn't really help me at all, and most of the time if anyone reads it, it's just to bitch at me or argue with me about something. I have been debating just stopping for a long time. But really, the main reason is I don't talk to my dad much, and I know he reads this a lot. So this way I don't have to go over everything I've been feeling, doing, and thinking the next time I do see him. It's like my only way to give him some idea what my life is like. But I don't think it really accomplishes that anyway.

I continue to dream pretty much weekly about my ex best friend. I hate it, because she's always nice and says she wants to be friends again in the dreams. Of course one of the people who I shouldn't be facebook friends with, a bad person I do not trust, still talks to my ex best friend, and told me she is getting married to her piece of shit boyfriend in the fall. It just makes me sad, like, I don't ever want to hear anything about her, you know? I want her erased from my memory. I can't stand that someone I was closer to than anyone and trusted more than anyone completely turned on me and changed into a different person I did not recognise and betrayed me. This is just one example of why remaining in contact with Ms.X, the facebook friend, is not helpful to me. I know she tells me stuff my ex-best-friend, J, says, just to upset me. She KNOWS it bothers me that she talks to J, since she would never have met J if I hadn't brought her along when we all hung out. They were never like close friends on their own. They just saw each other when we hung out together. She KNOWS how bad J hurt me, and yet she has to go and talk to her and bring it up to me, just to get my goat or whatever. She does things like this all the time, she wants to upset me and try to show off how she can still have contact with people I can't. She mentions people from my drug-using past, too. Like, wow, awesome, I'm SO JEALOUS you still talk to a bunch of waste-of-space junkies! I mean I didn't think of them that way when I was friends with them, but I can see very clearly now what kind of people they are, and she thinks it will like impress me or something that she talks to them, but I just think it's ridiculous. Yet she's TOTALLY CLEAN, right? Sure. You're totally clean, but you associate with a bunch of the worst junkies on earth who would rob their own parents without a moment's hesitation. And you claim to act as some sort of referral service, that drug dealers pay you to refer clients to them..but you don't do any drugs yourselves. Sure. Funny, I don't have any contact at all, don't even know the contact information anymore, for any of the drug people I used to know. But somehow you stay friends with them but you yourself are clean. Right. She's proved to me so many times she has a lying problem, but just denies everything if I've ever tried to tell her I don't believe what she's saying. She's really becoming a problem. she texts or calls me like every day. It doesn't seem to occur to her that I DON'T WANT TO TALK even though I rarely ever answer her. UGH.

Well, I am going to go watch more of season 2 of Breaking Bad. It kind of makes me wish I could do crystal meth, but I never knew anyone who could get it, even when I was doing drugs. And I know it ruins lives and all. It just looks fun and when they depict people snorting it, I miss that. The first rush when you snort it and get a drip and feel amazing. But it's an upper, and they always made me feel awful. I mean, I am committed to not doing drugs. Besides, the medication I am on has all kinds of warnings that basically any illegal drugs could kill me if I took them while on it. I'm not going to, and as I said, I never had access to crystal meth anyway..mostly, I can separate the drug aspect of the show from my nostalgia for doing drugs, and just watch it and find it entertaining. But every so often they show someone doing a little bump and then being like "OH MAN THAT IS GOOD SHIT" and I'm just like "UGH I MISS THAT". I was telling my therapist the other day, like, it just sucks that you get sober and then life is WORSE! At least before you were oblivious, you were having fun and felt GOOD. Once you get clean, then you remember why you wanted to get high in the first place..your life sucks. And much of it is stuff I can't do anything about. I just mainly cling to the clean time I have, the fact that in like less than 2 months it'll have been 3 years since I took any sort of opiate, and think that I don't want to throw that away, no matter what. Plus, I know my boyfriend would not stay with me if I started to do drugs again, so I am not willing to lose this relationship. I just miss it. I just wish my sober life was more tolerable. As Gary Busey says, "sober" stands for "Son of a Bitch, Everything's Real!"
I just think these alleged "coping skills" some people have..I've yet to develop any.

Time for a cigarette. I feel guilty every time I smoke, believe me. And I do fully intend to quit for my New Year's resolution. But right now cigarettes are comforting. I hate part of them..I mean, I hate the smell a lot, I even don't like the taste most of the time, I hold my nose during and after smoking..it's just the actual smoking I like..then I have to wash my hands as soon as I come inside cos I'm always afraid Baby might lick my hand and taste cigarette..but I'm always getting bitched at to quit by family members and they just don't seem to understand the concept of you have to be ready and WANT to quit. Quitting, or trying to, because people are bitching at you is not going to work. Same as it was with heroin. When I went to rehab, it was mainly because my mother had found out I was on heroin again, and pretty much made me go. I didn't really want to get clean. I was just sick and needed detox. But I did drugs again when I got out, because I was not ready to stop. You have to want to stop, to have had enough of that life.
I will quit cigarettes. I do not want to get cancer or diseases, and I don't like the negative effects they've had on my body already. But I am not ready to do it TODAY.

I love Baby so much. She always comes into my room as soon as I come home, and stays with me usually all night, though sometimes she comes in and out of my room during the night, waking me up each time she returns. She spends pretty much the majority of her time with me when I am here, and I just love that. My mom says she only sleeps with her when I'm gone because she's a consolation prize, that as soon as I get here she's so happy to be with her "real mommy". This makes me both happy and sad. I know my cat loves my mom, but I do think she has a special relationship with me. Cats are just so good and loving and sweet. I just miss my boy so much. He's not sick anymore. He's not in pain. But I just miss him healthy, running around, chasing mice & such. I just want him back, and it sucks.

There really are a number of people I shouldn't be friends with, even on facebook. One of them has really been stressing me out lately, texting me all the time, asking when we will hang out, pestering me. I don't want anything to do with her, basically, but she doesn't know that, and I don't want the drama that will come with trying, even in any sort of gentle, non-mean way, to explain this. So I just avoid her as much as possible.

I have been at Ray's the past few days and I am of course worried about Baby..my mother said she didn't sneeze last night, so that's good..

It's upsetting to think in a month I won't be here anymore, but I'm okay with it. I like my house, I don't mind being there until we are able to get a place.

I am still a little bit sick but not as much. But I really need to come up with something better to do with myself for some tiny bit of exercise than riding my bike. I cannot stand to ride it in my mother's neighbourhood. The hills are just unbearable for someone with my diminished lung capacity, plus it's just very hard to get the bicycle to move at all. We did yoga a week or two ago, but it was excruciating because we did like all 30 poses, when apparently we should only have tried a few at a time since we'd never done it before.
I really just hate being outdoors, especially in this weather, so pretty much anything involving even walking is out of the question unless my mother and I go for walks at night again, which I guess we could.
I just have to bring my bike to Ray's whenever he gets his new place. The city is much much more hospitable to bike riders.

I miss my Rocky so, so much. I keep thinking about him and his last days and hours. I hate it. I just hate that he's gone. And the world has continued to exist and move on and such. I don't want to, I want to pet him again, I want to stare at his pictures and just sit and miss him, but I can't, really. I just hate not having him in my life. He was just so, so good and innocent. I haven't seen any of my friends lately and don't care to. Besides the usual not-feeling-like-being-social because I feel like shit all the time and am not fun to be around, now I especially don't want to, because I'm still really sad about my cat and I don't want to sit and talk about it to anyone besides my boyfriend or my mother. I probably already said this. My best friend has been back from California for a few days and still hasn't emailed me back. That bothers me. I know her boyfriend takes up a lot of her time and hanging out isn't that easy to arrange, but it takes 5 minutes to write an email.

It's pretty sick but the other day I was just going through a whole list of people I wish had died instead of Rocky. Ray was surprised at who was on it, but really come on. That was my son. I could have handled and would have preferred a great number of people's deaths rather than his.

I don't feel any different, and I just keep hoping the medication just needs more time.

My phone will be shut off on the 5th. Really, I don't even care. Ray can just call my mom's house phone to reach me when I'm there. There's nothing terribly important I would need to do with my cell phone. Fuck it.

My mother has a colleague who works for the Department of Welfare and she emailed them explaining my situation and asked if there was any sort of help available (even though I already know there isn't) and this bitch was all like "She needs to be persistent with her SSI application"..what the fuck do you expect me to do? It's under review, and has been since fucking March. What REALLY bothered me was she was like "It's really amazing all the nonsense and paperwork these people will put themselves through just for a measly $205 a month, when you can make that much doing less than two hours of caricatures." Uh. Okay, hello, do you not realise that your own organisation, when it DID offer this great big $205 a month, made people PROVE they couldn't work? Don't you think if people who received welfare could do caricatures, they WOULD? Oh, okay, they're just LAZY. It just made me so angry because she of all people should be aware of the lengths a person has to go to to receive welfare, they must prove they cannot work, or cannot find it, and if they can't find it, they have to go to all sorts of job seminars and training and take whatever job the DPW finds you. She made it sound like "these people" are just so lazy when they could be out doing caricatures. Of course! Because living on $205 a month was awesome, and people would definitely choose it if they instead could have a real job. And now they've taken that away, so people are living on no cash at all and $200 in food assistance. I would like to see this woman feed her household with $200 for food a month, and how she'd manage to live without any cash at all, except what her broke mother could give her. Be persistent with SSI? What the HELL ELSE CAN I DO? I called them! They told me it could take 10 months! WHAT ELSE DO YOU WANT ME TO DO, BITCH?

A number of people have been pissing me off lately. Don't even feel like writing about it.

I'm just fed up, tired, in pain, sad, broke, and irritated. I'll at least see my cat tomorrow.