much wiser since my goodbye to you

it's dawned on me that i've had this thing for nearly a year and i haven't used it in five or six months.

and a lot's changed in those five or six months.  not a whole lot, i guess, but enough.

maybe i'll come back to this.  i could probably say anything i'd like and i might as well be talking to myself.  that'd be a good thing. 

except, these days, almost every time i try to get my thoughts down, i discard the attempt.  still censoring myself after all this time...

so i guess--yeah, not a whole lot's changed.

hmm...

clearly i am an idiot, because i have two months.  actually, one and a half.  but if i think of it as two, i'll be more likely to finish it early.

so!

a man will be around starting... saturday.  assuming he's still romantically interested in me, i expect that will stop as soon as we hang out.  which is... okay.  i'm not like "OH GOD NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE ME" but i'm purely friend material.  it doesn't bother me, which i guess is a small blessing.

i'll just be happy to hang out with somebody cool.  mom's being weird about it, because has this 'one year' rule thing, but whatever. 

i mentioned to dr keith that sara's gonna run through the story.  i sent it to sara today, but beforehand there was, like, nearly a week where i was all "UHHH MAYBE I'M STALLING?  because i am being dumb about sara again."  but obviously i got over it, because when am i not being dumb about her?

suddenly i don't feel like this story's worthy of my pride.  what the fuck ever.

life isn't horrible, but i still feel like it is. 

i need to get over myself.

Flutterby

and why am i in love with her?

(oh, right.  breathing.)

never mind that.

i am going to finish this story.

and then i am going to get it printed.

and then i am going to give it to dr keith for her birthday.

this means i have until april.  one month.  i can do it!

"you and sara are a lot alike," mom said.  "no wonder you two fight so much."

is that why? 

we didn't used to fight.  i mean, not really.  we had those short periods where--i don't even know what to call them, those periods of... whatever.  i'd become withdrawn and eventually bring the topic up when it became apparent she wasn't going to.  she did, once or twice, i'm sure.  but i was mostly the one that said there was a problem.  and then we'd have some 'meaningful' discussion, only to act like the conversation never happened a day later.

i guess they just kept happening more often.  it wasn't until a couple of years ago that we really started fighting.  though i'm not sure you could call it fighting.  i'd get angry and say some pretty rotten (sometimes true) things.  she'd either get angry right back at me for a brief ten minutes and then not talk to me... or go straight into not talking to me.

...yeah, never mind, that is fighting.

four years ago i doted on her and couldn't think a mean thing about her.  i knew she had flaws but i blissfully ignored them.

today i acknowledge them.  hell, i even mentally bring them up to remind myself that doting on her still isn't healthy.  but i'm just as bad at dropping everything for her as i was then and i still don't give much of a shit, when it comes right down to it.  except now i'm more cynical about the whole thing. 

i'm definitely more biting towards her.  95% of the time we talk, you'd think i hated her from the things i say.  i don't.  i never mean them unless they're a direct reflection of her flaws.  i'm just as quick to call myself into question, though not always in front of her.

such a radical change from back then.

it's weird.  not too long ago (in fact, just the beginning of last year--it seems like only a week), when talking about her, people would be like, "...you say you two weren't 'together', but it sounds like you were."  at first i thought they were missing the point.  then i mulled it over.  and looked at past behaviour.  and realised, 'holy shit.  they're right.' 

talk about a weird fucking feeling.

i mean, obviously, we never said we were together.  because in the conventional way, we weren't.  and i'm pretty positive that i was farther into it than she was. in fact, she was as little in it as she possibly could have been.  yet that little bit she was in is enough. 

i remember an odd stretch of time where we were... almost-flirting.  i've never outright flirted with her, at least seriously.  even when i was joking around, i immediately retracted whatever i said and acted freaked out.  in truth, i was freaked out.  flirting with her seemed (still seems)... not wrong, exactly...  i flirt with basically everyone else, but she's so above that it feels...

unnecessary.

but, yeah.  there was that--i don't even know.  it wasn't conventional flirting, either, but i also remember thinking at the time, '...what the fuck was that?'  the majority of it came from my end, duh, but... i can't tell if she was responding subconsciously or what.  i'll probably never find out.  mostly because i think asking is just a damn good way of opening a can of worms better left untouched.  we do enough of rehashing the past (something i do just fine on my own, as you can see) as it is.

after that, then there was a period of... i still don't know.  i don't know much of anything, apparently.  but looking back on it, it's... mm.  i don't want to say that if i had pushed the issue, i would have gotten anywhere.  truth is, i probably would have gotten the opposite result.  actually, i'm pretty sure at the time it was impossible.  there just wasn't what there needed to be for it to actually happen.  which is fine.  i'd resigned myself to the fact when i fell in love with her.

but we acted like a couple.  the spats, more almost-flirting, the hanging out which wasn't all that different from normal yet somehow was.

at least to me.  at the time, i was sort of aware, but i told myself i was looking too much into it and to see anything meant being crazy.

maybe i am crazy.  i mean, what everybody else knows is what they've gleaned from the things i've told them.  i've done my goddamn best to give the clearest picture--i say what happened/happens and then i give my personal opinion on it.  never, ever the other way around.  in the off chance i do, it's an accident and i do my best to repair the mistake.  so... i mean.  yeah.  this could all just be in my head.

but somehow i don't think so.

i don't think she was aware of it.  but i don't think she wasn't, either.  like i said, i don't know.  i'll never know.

maybe that's what bugs me so much.

so now...

now, i don't know.  fuck.

we've always been friends.  though... i mean... if we aren't friends, what else do you call us?  is there even a word that exists for such a thing?  probably not.  or if it is, it's in something other than english. 

i need to stop this introspection bullshit.

i love her.  i want her.

what else do i need to know?

What is your earliest memory? 
Submitted by Megan.

The Remixes 1997-2000

i can still remember, after going to the san antonio zoo with my mom, coming home with a balloon.  and it popped.  and i cried like my favourite person just died and mom promised to get me another one.  and got me a whole package and blew them all up for me and i seriously can't remember being so clearly happy in my life.

anyway.

still crazy about a girl.

i'm pretty sure i'm doing nanowrimo this year.  except the idea i have is kind of lame, and i want to do action--but my action is about as well-written as my sex.  which is to say not very well... nothing i can like for very long, anyway.

blah.

sigh.

i dunno.

i am pretty sure i am a complete idiot.

no matter how many times i tell myself not to get interest in unobtainable women, i just KEEP RIGHT ON TRUCKIN'.

gonna shoot myself in the face.

it's really not cool, because it's all on my side, and i'm dumb, and i'm getting jealous and (become) growly(pants), and irritable and this needs to stop.

overlooking the fact she's my brother's age (this doesn't bother me, of course), overlooking the fact she's more into dudes, overlooking the fact she's just not interested...

...i'd probably screw it up.

i fail at relationships!

and at being happy!

SO THAT IS FANTASTIC.

sigh.

i don't know why i decided to update with this fact.  it's already known.  i guess i just want to bitch and whine and there's nowhere else to do it. 

blah.

Kill Bill: Volume 1

i've always said hate is a pretty strong emotion, one i've never particularly felt for any one person.

well, i hate myself.

haha, i really wish i was joking.

i feel like the hugest asshole in the universe.  not to say i think i'm a bad person.  ...i'm just saying that i just--

...actually, i don't know.  i don't know what "i just."

made a decision i thought was best for me, even though it meant going back on my word.

i really don't feel like i deserve to talk to anybody except abby right now.  and i'm pretty sure i don't want to entertain the idea of talking to anybody but her.  (dr keith doesn't really count; i always want to talk to her.)

i want to cry all the time.

god, how fucking emo.  it's disgusting.

and yesterday was all good and i was hanging out with mom because she was trying to cheer me up.

and today she's yelling atme and then grandma yells at me and i mean, yeah, they're great and i love them and, okay, so they had bad days.  i shouldn't take it personally.  and i'm not--not really. 

i just...

don't wanna be around anybody.

yeah.  definitely emo.  jesus.

i don't feel like making the effort of relationships anymore.  except, of course, for the aforementioned ones.

lord, how i wish i could start over. 

How many pets have you owned in your lifetime? Tell us about them.
Submitted by jennajellopy.vox.com.

i think i need to stop doing qotd's but this question allows me to talk endlessly about my animal companions (that sounds like i'm one of those furry freaks) so how could i possibly pass up this chance?

Otherland Vol. 4: Sea of Silver Light

the actual number is impossible to calculate.  as far back as i can remember, there's been:

assorted (fish)
blue (dog)
zeus (dog)
amelia (cat)
toby (cat)
martin (mouse)
roo (mouse... ...thing...)
bowser (gecko)
jack (bird)
gunter (dog)
loki (cat)
mackenzie (cat)

but we have to also remember my aunt's fifteen cats over the years, the endless strays that we occasionally house or just feed. 

i'm not exaggerating when i say i'd be nuts without some sort of animal in my life.

speaking of animals, mackenzie's home (since wed.) and i love this cat so much it's insane.  my mother's already in love with her and my grandma adores her and i've pretty much accepted that i, too, am head over heels for her.  she plays fetch, she's sweeter than loki, she talks, she's adorable and she's rather tiny like amelia. 

she's probably the best cat ever but don't tell amelia or loki.

she keeps worrying at the sutures on her paws and stomach, but i think she won't actually do anything damaging.  at least i hope not.  she had a little bit of fever but i'm pretty sure it's broken.  she's not been in pain as far as i can tell, but then we gave her the pain medication the vet gave us. 

right now she's curled up in my lap.  i've slept for the majority of the past 48hrs, a leftover from my breakdown (more on this in a minute), and she's acting just as she did when we first got her. she curls up on me, rubs against my face, and talks to me while i read.  i found out that she does that thing cats do when they see a bird and purrs when i laugh.  this is endlessly endearing. 

i love her.

my cell phone is yet to be in my actual possession.  i adore my brother something fierce but he said he'd do it--technically--yesterday and now it's friday.  i leave on sunday.  i can't help but wonder if i'd be terribly disappointed if i end up not going.  maybe.  maybe not. 

i'm glad i had my breakdown before i went rather than after, which has been the habit so far.  i just fuckin' hope i don't have one when i come back home, though.  i also can't help but wonder if the rest is going to go like it usually does: we'll hang out, there'll be some painfully awkward moments, then we'll go our separate ways and not talk for several weeks or even months afterwards.

i'm pretty sure i'm too exhaused to be pissed if it happens--that, and i'm all but expecting it. 

earlier when i was actually conscious for about five minutes, i asked mom, "what are you gonna do when i'm gone?"  i'd been referring to mac, because she cries when she's left alone.

"worry about you," she said, staring at me.

"wh--i--no, i meant--"

"worry about you," she repeated.

"i meant about the baby," i said quickly, baffled.

"i'm going to worry about you while you're gone," she said, like she had to clarify.

i just looked at her and changed the subject. 

i think i'm probably going to be worrying a little about mom while i'm gone, too.  and mac.  jesus.   on one hand i'm glad i'm going to have things to be preoccupied with emotionally up there, but on the other hand... jesus, i don't know.

i need a cigarette.  my mom still laughs and teases me about burning myself on that match.  i don't have the heart to be annoyed by that because i just can't be annoyed by anything that makes mom laugh these days. 

yeah, i'm going to be worried.  a lot.

shit.  i can't go outside by myself just to smoke and i can't open my window to smoke because i'm still worried about mac inhaling some and, ugh.

try as i might to make it otherwise, i'm overwhelmingly lonely and i just don't see that changing.

sigh.

add on top of that i'm bored. 

suck it up, jo, don't be such a fucking retard.