Heaven in Hard Times

I am going to finish my help_haiti this weekend. I feel awful about not getting it done already, but I am completely 100% blocked and can't get over the anxiety of giving someone who paid money something that reads like I had to grit my teeth and force it out.

I'm doing that thing I do when I'm blocked in this specific way, getting obsessed with Sims and using that to play out all the ridiculous self-indulgent storylines I will never write in hopes that will get them out of my head so actual fic-worthy stuff can take its place. Kevin and girl!Ryan Ross have three kids.

I am 99% sure my jb_bigbang fic is going to be the Merlin AU; I'm fairly confident I've managed to tweak the characters/relationships enough to cast all the important parts, although I need to make a final decision whether I want to keep Uther and Gaius as some mix of themselves and OCs or keep trying to find people to fill those roles. Any suggestions from JB&Merlin fans on the flist are welcome.

Sometimes my sister doesn't suck, apparently; as a sorry-you-smashed-the-car-on-my-account gift, she bought me a box of JONAS valentines with a poster. Sometimes, my family understands me perfectly.

My sister works a half hour away and doesn't drive, which hasn't been as big a pain in the ass as we'd expected (easy for me to say, 90% of the time her schedule conflicts with mine so I've gotten out of chauffeur duty more often than not), except for days like today when she has to be in at 6 am.

That doesn't work with anyone's schedule, but it comes closest to working with mine - Georgia, where the PBM warehouse is, is halfway between here and Burlington where she works. So guess who gets to get up at ass o' clock twice this week, and is gonna end up with about 40 minutes to kill between drop-off and drive-to-work time? Uuuugh.

And, even more awesomely, I slept like complete shit last night - took me well over an hour to fall asleep, despite being exhausted, kept waking up in the night, and woke up for good around 2:30. Today - and probably the rest of this week, because what an awesome way to start - is gonna ROCK.

Also, blink and you'll miss it, but the new Jonas Brothers video has clips from upcoming episodes of JONAS, and around 52 seconds in Kevin is Danny Zuko. I NEED THIS EPISODE RIGHT NOW.

I haven't gone to bed later than 10:30 any night this week; I'm trying to take advantage of not having a bedtime tonight but I'm wiped right now and will probably end up in bed after I finish this post. Sweeet.

Work this week was not awful - I was actually disappointed to find out they don't need the temps back next week. It was just shipping baby formula - stripping labels, breaking down boxes, making boxes, relabeling, repacking, and loading up pallets - and was tedious as Hell, but the atmosphere was 1,000,000% better than Helljob, and I liked the people. Plus, better hours - 7-3:15, so I had more afternoon to myself. So idk. I did talk to Adecco this afternoon, 'cause they'd asked for feedback, and let them know I'd be happy to do that assignment again in the future. But for now it's job-hunting, which is...really really hard for me. It's the last thing left that REALLY triggers my anxiety to a point I have trouble functioning.

My Dad finally saw my AWESOME DISNEY ROOM OF AWESOME, I've been having him come up and turn my air conditioner on when I leave work so the room starts to cool off before I get home (it's about a 15 minute drive). I expected some variation on a bewildered "that is ridiculous how much did you spend on that shit" but he just said he liked the window. IDK. My Dad, he is. Something. He also seemed somewhat surprised/confused when I told him I passed on the High School Musical shower curtain because when my brother's home we share the upstairs bathroom. SO MAYBE I'll go back and get it, and if brother complains I'll inform him I had Dad's endorsement. Haha what I am pathetic.

The JoBro Collector's Rolling Stone fills my heart with fresh glee daily. I've gotten most of the posters put up now that I have a fresh supply of double-sided tape (due to poor-planning, when I turn my head to the right I get a face full of JailbaitNick crotch, OOPS), and I keep rereading the KJo/Brad Paisley interview despite my "ugh Brad Paisley" thing because KEVIN IS SO CUTE. He just...BABBLES. So precious. I LOVE HIM SO MUCH idk. Also he's fueled the Kevin/Joe fic I've been halfheartedly picking at (= "written three lines all week, despite having the whole thing plotted out"). AWESOME.

Bedtime! I remember when I could stay up until, like, five. I'M GETTING OLD UH OH.

dgdibiue;igoeiruiofbn

Sister has been using brother's room for a living room, since he's got a couch & tv in there, and she's using the living room as a bedroom so why not use the bedroom as a living room.

Anyway, problem with that arrangement is, the working tv in brother's room is mine. I let him use it when he was having trouble with his when he was home, because he watches more tv than I do and at the time I wasn't using my PS2 at all (so I also let him use that). Buuut since I need a tv to play my dancey game with, today after I'd cleaned/rearranged I went and got it back.

Sister wasn't home when I did that. When she eventually got home, she came in asking where "her" tv was; I told her I'd taken mine back and if that's the one she'd been watching then sure, I know right where it is, I am standing on a DDR mat looking at it.

She went whining to Mom and Dad about it. Because, y'know, in the midst of having these huge arguments trying to convince them that yes, you are old/mature enough to move out on your own (with no plans, no goals, never having held a single job...) the best thing to do to really hammer the I Am Mature point home is to go bawwwww to them about the world's pettiest (and most easily solvable) problem.

Soooo Dad comes upstairs, looks in our room, sees that the tv that is accurately described as my sister's is sitting unused in the corner, asks if it works, I say yep. At which point Sister goes completely flip-shit and starts bitching about how she can wait for TOMORROW and NEVER MIND. Dad tells her to chill, he'll bring the other tv in for her, and TOMORROW. NEVER MIND. *GIANT SIGH* *EYE ROLL* NEVER MIND.

WTF did she expect him to do, come in and take my tv that I bought with my own money away, leaving me with the $20 rummage sale tv that doesn't hook up to the PS2 (rendering it COMPLETELY USELESS for me) but is actually better for casual tv-watching 'cause its screen is about twice the size?

IDGI. And I know it's cruel but ohgod I can't WAIT for her to actually have to deal with reality. She's gotten all ~dramatic~ about how this town is KILLING HER DAMMIT, and I'm horrid but CAN'T STOP LOLING because it can't be all that bad if the amount of effort you're willing to put in (beyond coming up with completely unfeasible half-ass plan...things) is zero. HAVE FUN WITH THAT.

Dear family,

The minute any one of you would like to take on my anxiety and related problems, I will gladly hand them over.

Sorry, what? You didn't want the bad shit, you just wanted the "free ride" I'm getting? Sorry, can't have one without the other, unless you wanna commit a felony.

Love,
Heidi

P.S. and parents, if what you meant when you said "come home so you don't have to worry about money/a job while you deal with your anxiety" was "come home but if you don't get better on our timeline we'll make this an even higher-pressure situation than the one you're in now", I wish you'd said something before I made the wrong choice. Rest assured, you soul-sucking pieces of shit, I'm doing everything in my power to get the fuck out of here.

So I haven't posted for a while. Mainly because...I'm pretty boring.

Things at home are the same as ever. Except different, slightly. Family are just as frustrating, in all the same ways, but they're trying. Well. Parents are, to an extent. Sister isn't, but she seems to be mellowing/maturing in general. Brother and I don't really bother with each other enough to frustrate. So. Yeah.

I've started taking Zoloft, or whatever the generic version is. A tiny amount, to make sure it doesn't omgpoison me, and even when they find the right dose it'll be 6-8 weeks before it works, but...it's a start. And I had my first appointment with a counselor Wednesday, and I'm going back next Thursday. So I'm, y'know, gonna get better.

(*sigh* I hooked up my old keyboard for when I'm at my desk, 'cause I've yet to find a way to set up the laptop that's comfy for both typing and reading, but I forgot it has a wonky spacebar, so it's a giant pain in the ass for exactly the sort of lengthy typing I wanted it for)

My car got fixed! Just needed his battery replaced (yes it's a he. It's a Donny. Mom's car is Ozzy. Dad's car is Marie; Ben's is Sharon. Except our neighbor/wife of our mechanic is Sharon [we actually refer to the garage as Sharon, ie "call Sharon, we need a tow truck" instead of "call J&L"] so it's probably a good thing I never need to refer to my brother's car), and he's good as...nowhere near new, but as new as I've ever seen him. He got to be the family car for a while! My mom's car died. Donny is a sucky family car. Two doors...we only had four people in him once, but that was plenty. I'm shorter than my sister so I had to sit behind my dad, and my knees were actually poking out in front of his back rest. We were all exceedingly happy to get Ozzy back.

I have a new bed. New ish. It was my aunt's bed in her apartment. It was weird at first; weirder because it's a full bed and since we've never had a full the only sheets we have for it were hers. And the only clean ones we had had been washed at her house, so they smell like her sheets. It's still a little weird, but less so every day. It's actually, however, gotten weirder not to have her around - since she lived so far away for so long, it wasn't weird to go for a while without seeing her...but since Mom has summers off (yay teaching) we saw a ton of her in the summer after she moved back up here, so it being summer we keep doing all these things we did with her...except without her now. We have our share of the ashes now, so we've all got to decide what we're each gonna do...I've picked out a necklace, so yeah.

My Sims is broken :( I've been whining at anyone who will listen. Hopefully the torrent for replacement Sims will hurry up so I don't have to wait too long for mindless timewasting.

I've been having trouble reconciling feminism with entertainment, lately. It's an odd sort of issue I'm having - in essence, the slightest issue with racism, sexism, heterosexism, etc. sets me right the fuck off. And, y'know, nothing is free of that shit. I imagine it will be one of those things I learn to deal with, like rice - my dad alternates between forgetting and refusing to believe I hate rice in any form, so he's always making nice dinners with unavoidable rice. Sometimes the otherstuff is worth eating around the rice, sometimes it isn't. So...racism is like rice. Or...yeah.

There is wank. I will make every effort I can to ensure the only person who has any right to question my friendship knows she has no reason to, and any public criticism of behavior or attitudes will be at best preceded by private discussion and at worst linked with the understanding private discussion is welcome. Anyone else can go to Hell.

In closing, laura_holt_pi is a twat. That is all.

I'm home! Exhausted, and inexplicably anxious (although that's died down quite a bit in the last ten minutes are so).

The trip was largely uneventful, which = yay but also = boring. My dad flew to Charlotte, rented a U-Haul and drove to Asheville, where we packed up all my crap for about an hour Tuesday night (hour and a half including loading the car onto the tow-y thing) and an hour or so Wednesday morning and we were off. (The whole trip is chronicled in hourly updates on my Twitter page [my mom wanted hourly texts, so I texted Twitter with the same thing I sent her]).

Worst part of the trip was ( cut for TMI )

Best part was last night. We stayed with a college friend of my dad's (my dad dropped out, friend's a laywer now) outside Washington D.C. (outside = it was less than 20 minutes from his apartment to the FDR memorial), Jake. So we showed up and I let the cats stretch their legs a little (they promptly hid behind the stereo cabinet), Jake and my dad got stoned and Jake and I drank. I was kind of having anxiety issues at the beginning, but that went away fast enough. Dad and Jake got stoned listening to Pat Benatar. This is very high on the list of things every child should get to see their father do. Anyway after they got stoned and I had a few drinks we went sightseeing - Dad had moved out of Washington before they built the FDR memorial, so we went there, and the WWII memorial hadn't been built when I was in D.C., so we went there, and neither of us even knew the Einstein memorial existed, so a quick stop there.

Mistake: I had two cups of coffee this morning. I've been so good about avoiding caffeine! And now here I am at 1 am drinking iced coffee on the slippery slope to constant caffeine addiction. YAY.

Anyway. The drive today was interminable. Kitties behaved beautifully both days, though, which made me happy. And they seem happy here; they've been exploring and trying to work up the courage to approach the dog. So. Happy kitties = yay. And I'm still not entirely sure this was the best decision, but we'll see.

Mom: Well, my dear....I can't do much for you from here. But I do not see how you can go to school in August if you can't get over to campus and get everything in order. And you cannot live without a job. Dad and I are exceedingly broke, so we can't finance your life. But you are welcome to come home, live here for free with food and laundry services provided. You would have to agree to get some help so that you can get back into living, not just existing.
Me: Maybe that would be the best idea

Hm.

ETA: I just talked to my parents. I'm moving back home.

The funeral was yesterday. Kathy had asked Mom to plan it, and Mom's goal was..."I don't want generic, I don't want anyone to leave that funeral with any doubt in his mind that was Kathy Ford."

I think we achieved that; it was unique and celebratory and so very Kathy.

I wanted to speak, and ended up choosing "Poem" by Eeyore from the last chapter of The House at Pooh Corner. My very first memory of Kathy, probably my first memory period, is when Kathy was part of the Center for Puppetry Arts' touring cast, and we went to see the show. They ended with a preview of upcoming shows - there was a Pooh show planned, and the only thing I remember from the entire trip was Tigger bouncing Kathy down.

( Poem )

My sister had written a poem about Kathy's death she wanted read but didn't think she could hold it together enough to read, so we asked one of her friends from a local theater company (Catalyst Theater, one of the places we asked donations in Kathy's name be made to) to read it. She agreed, and asked if she could do a reading of her own, too. So she read "Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten", which fit wonderfully, and then Andrea's poem.

( Going Home )

We finished with a slideshow I put together that people seemed to like, a hymn Kathy had requested (When the Roll is Called Up Yonder), and - best part - the postlude was "Angels We Have Heard on High", because she loved Christmas and loved singing and that was her favorite carol.

And OH MY GOD we held a reception after in place of a viewing before, and one of Kathy's old boyfriends from Atlanta showed up. He was easily the nicest guy she ever dated...Tom. We found, in a box of pictures in Kathy's apartment I was digging through for the slideshow, a letter to her from my grandfather. Apparently he'd just started the letter when I asked what he was doing and he said writing to Kathy...so I asked if I could write to Kathy and "uncle Tommy", too. I was 2ish years old. And yeah. The one time those two visited, Tom brought me on a sleigh ride, another one of my earliest memories. So he showed up (who DOES that, drives all the way from Atlanta to Vermont for an ex's funeral...that's just so YES) and I got the biggest fucking hug and you guys that was the first time I've cried...Jesus, since this began.

Got home, took a massive nap...and still went to bed reasonably early and got the best sleep I've had in weeks. And now it's naptime again :)

What it feels like, really, is this massive tidal wave just obliterated our house, and we're stuck bobbing in deep water with no shore in sight.

And my brother just kinda bobbed out of sight and every now and then we see him, a little speck in the distance and we know he's above the waves but we have no blessed clue how well. And Andrea's kinda trying to do the same thing but she doesn't do it so well, so what really happens is she'll bob over and try to get me to help but she doesn't want to need help so she just splashes me and bobs away a bit again.

And Mom is just barely keeping it together, and she keeps getting too tired to tread water and Dad and I have to be watching her all the time so we can hold her up when she needs it. Except at the end of the day, Dad and I aren't in any better shape, 'cause we're all just bobbing, so there's only so much we can really do.

And you guys, I am just so fucking lost right now. *puts the metaphor - simile, whatever - to rest* If it explains things a little more - it's a long-running family joke that I'm actually Kathy's daughter, there was just some kind of cosmic mix-up that led to me being biologically Mom's.

I think I've got a game plan, if nothing else. Original plan was to go back to NC at some point this week or next, sort my shit, ship my computer up here, spend some time with the kitties, and fly back up. Neither of my parents like the idea - a lot of money and hassle for a week of kitty time, really.

What they've been saying, mainly, and this is what changed my mind, is since we have no idea the time frame we have, it's fairly likely I'll get down there and have to come right back. So I've called Elli-the-roomie and assuming she doesn't mind taking care of the kitties for...however long, I'm staying.

And getting a new computer. Dad's idea. Not arguing.

Other than that...*flails* is about the best I can do for a description. Just...*flails*