Wednesday, July 28, 2004
I swear
Boo to feeling sick all the time. I'm really trying to get over it. It helps to do my best to stop thinking, which sucks 'cause I'll let my mind wander while I eat and so when I get to sore subjects, I'll feel sick & stop eating & make myself think of something else. I swear I'm not anorexic. Rowr.
Painting is going... okay. Last night I got the background done, and shaded areas where the rocks are going to go, so I have to figure out how to a) paint rocks and b) paint fire. I painted a sunset once which looked like fire, so hopefully that'll trigger something. Who knows. Maybe I'll take pictures of my progress so I can moniter it..... yeah that probably won't happen.
Thanks for calling tonight. I know it was only 6 minutes but it still meant a lot to me. I just don't want your trip to be ruined because you're worrying about me. I'll try to be okay, but thank you just the same for letting me still contact you if I need to. I'm really doing my best to stay on the level, though. Tonight might get bad later, I don't know, but tomorrow should be okay because it's Mom's 50th birthday so we're having a big fancy dinner, and that should take up a good amount of time. We'll see.
I really wish I could see the park from the balcony, but I can't. At least it's a pretty moon tonight. My mind is nowhere. I won't let it.
My options for a halloween costume are now in the air... if anyone has suggestions on whether I should be holy shit or the letter S, tell me.
Internet explorer erased all my bookmarks. What the hell...? I didn't know that happens...
8:27 PM
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Tuesday, July 27, 2004
no explaination, no letter goodbye
My purse should definitely not be big enough that it took me the time that it did (about a minute) to find the banana I put in there this morning.
10:18 AM
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Monday, July 26, 2004
she thinks I'm in love, and I know that sucks
Umm. I'm home. Mom slept in my room with me last night, which is really weird. Just like old times before my laptop was working again, when I'd sit in her room on the computer until she wanted to go to sleep, except now on my laptop and her talking to Lisa, her friend from high school who is staying in her room. Mom and Anna came to pick me up at the airport, and I think she asked maybe around 3 times how many times I got irritated with him or really if I was glad to be back. Every time I answered the same, that I wish I was still there. That I had a wonderful time. That no, I didn't get irritated with him, that I don't get tired of seeing him all the time. That I was just paranoid the whole time that he was getting tired of me, and we talked about that and I got set straight.
I'd say now that what's left to look forward to this summer is going back to Rochester, to not be here anymore, but I know that once we get back it's going to be the same heartache that it was in April before we left. And I still want to go back because it's not suffocating like it is here, I won't have to be upset like last night and lay in bed shutting my eyes and picturing how it was just two nights prior when I was in the same position, but I had him there to do fingertips on my back and his eyes to look into while he tells me it's going to be okay. I can have that again, and that'll be good. Ugh get me out of here.... please...
1:03 PM
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Friday, July 16, 2004
you sexy thing
Whoa they changed this again. New font???? Whaaat??
Time is the slowest thing in the world. I've been here for an hour and a half and it feels like forever. Feels like I'll never leave. But eventually I know I will! And I'll see you suckahs in a week. Except for Josh who I will be seeing constantly during said week. :-) Hoooray.
Don't miss me too much. ;-) (Ha 'cause I was worried for a minute there....)
10:34 AM
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Thursday, July 15, 2004
never gonna know
"Could this be a problem we've fixed and un-fixed? I know that's a stupid question, but this is a stupid problem. And I think a stupid problem deserves stupid questions."
I made a new friend in the bookstore of Dominican University. I've been calling people over the last couple days to ask if they want to switch credit card software, that we're offering a discount. The woman there already bought the software from us for full price but hasn't paid the invoice yet. She asks if she can still get the discount, if we can just re-bill her? I say I'll check. The answer is yes, and I call her back to let her know. She is overjoyed and exclaims "I knew that's why I love booklog!" and thanks me and hangs up. Good to know I can still make someone happy.
Other than that it's a boring day, I've been sitting here for most of it waiting for e-mails and finishing Survivor. I bought it to read on the plane but I'll finish it before I leave work today. Good thing I accounted for this and got a backup, or maybe I'll just use the flight to work on that story I haven't given more than 2 sentences thought to, and the second one I don't even like that much. Figures.
3:00 PM
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Wednesday, July 14, 2004
I'm not an addict
About twice a week or so, Rick will plug his ipod into some little speaker system he has set up in the kitchen area at work and play his music all day. This morning is one of those days. He comes in, pulls out the ipod, plugs it in, and asks "any requests?"
From the next room we can hear Tina yelling, "I wanna hear Britt-any Speahs!! TOXIC, man, WOOO!!!" (she has a headache, so she's trying to be extra-peppy to make it go away. I think she accidentally took speed instead of asprin.) and then repeating "come on, DO IT" in the Starsky & Hutch voice while Rick sets up the song. While searching for it on his 20 gigs of music, the following takes place:
Rick: Have you seen Fahrenheit 9/11 yet?
Tina: No, I'm going this weekend.
Rick: There's a Brittany Spears interview in it that I think you should see.
Nora: Yeah, she talks about how we should follow Bush 100% because he's the president.
Rick: ...and we should always trust the president.
Tina: WHAT?!? She said that?
Rick: What do you expect? She's a young pop star.
Tina: And a republican. *pause* ...but I do like the song.
Mind you, Tina's a drag king and is subject to this kind of 'music' all the time. I, however, am not, but Toxic is obnoxiously catchy and I'm sad to say I kind of like it. *hangs head* Anyway, no shame, no shame. It's been a slow day today 'cause Chance left before Rick and I even got here, and Carrie is out this morning on a 'field call', so to speak. So it's just the three of us with no new builds, no Carrie or Chance to give us new projects. We had our discussion about Toxic, after that song Rick played Foreigner's "Cold as Ice" and we had a talk about that one, too. I made some comment about how when my suitemate's older brother's wife left him, he played that song on repeat for 2 months. Rick's response was to say "well, I remember when this first came out, because I'm that old. I was a boy scout" and also played on repeat on a jukebox. It's weird being the baby of the company. I guess that's why I'm the "temp summer help" who got this job because of my grandmother...
10:48 AM
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in my life, I've loved you more
So I was reading over what my UR-provided health insurance covers, and wouldn't you know it... one of the exclusions is cosmetic surgery. There goes my idea of having my school pay for my new nose....
(p.s. I'm joking. I'm pretty disgusted by the idea that health insurance would pay for plastic surgery at all, except I guess instances where part of your face is shot off and you really want a replacement jaw.)
9:43 AM
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Monday, July 12, 2004
'No' means 'no', 'no' is always 'no'
I think I'm losing the mental capacity to do this job. Not because it's strenuous in any way, shape, or form, I just seem to mentally collapse a lot and end up staring out the window. I drew myself a cool little bookmark. I'm writing a new post. I'm doing... things... that aren't a regression test, and this regression test is important 'cause this is the version we're sending out to customers.
Boring.
The most exciting thing I've had to do today is go out to Carrie's car and find some typewriter for Arnie. There was a piece of cauliflower in a ziplock bag on top of her car, and Arnie and I thought it would be a nice gesture if we took it in to her to see if it was hers. Sadly she put it there just this morning, the oddness of the situation would have been much better if it had been, say, weeks.
My nightly schedule, so to speak, of waking up multiple times in the middle of the night was at a worst last night. It took me a godawful long time to get to sleep in the first place, then woke up at 2 to get a glass of water, then again at 5:30. It was incredibly difficult to get out of bed this morning, and I was almost late for my train. Maybe I'll try going to bed earlier tonight, although I don't think that'll do much.
Tonight I'm going to the art store to get new painting supplies since all my old stuff didn't make it into the new place, which sucks 'cause I know I definitely didn't give Mom permission to not take it. Oh well, at least I get a new pallette, new brushes, and new paint out of the deal. As much as I'm not very proud of my work, I really like painting. I haven't done anything since the summer after graduation, two years ago. I'm kind of looking forward to starting up again. I'd like to bring materials to Rochester with me and get some stuff done there, but I highly doubt I'd ever paint there. I can't see myself having the time. Oh well.....
Back to testing!
4:01 PM
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Friday, July 09, 2004
you try to take the best of me
I want to say something, but I don't know if there are words. I'm so angry. You say you understand, but I disagree. I wish I had your family dynamic, really, but truth is I don't. I tell her I don't want to go out, I'm too tired, I really just want to stay at home. She says "don't be crabby" in that tone that tells me things will get much worse. She'll tell me not to be selfish, when all being selfless is is letting someone else be selfish. It's always someone giving in. There is no such thing as comprimise. So I go, don't talk, teeth clenched to keep from crying I want to go home so bad. She says "just a few more minutes" and makes me wait for another half hour. I just want some fucking escape. I want my own place so I can make my own rules of where I have to be. I hate responsibility. She raises her voice when I stop my "everything's okay" charade for just one minute. So really, all I've learned in growing up is to pretend everything's okay when it isn't so I don't ruin someone else's time. Why not just let me stay home? I'm not going to ruin her visit by not being there. Quite honestly I think it would be more rude to go and lie. I want to stab myself with an exacto knife. If anyone understood they would stop pushing.
10:15 PM
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I hate when you say you don't understand
Exerpt from book 1 of 2 that I picked up last night (it'd been a while):
Setup (for this passage, at least): Man uses his phone number as a "crisis hotline" and if he doesn't like the tone in their voice, he'll just tell them to kill themselves.
There's the obituary to look for the next week, six column inches about nothing that really mattered. YOu need the obituary, otherwise you're not sure if it happened or if it was just a dream.
I don't expect you to understand.
It's a different kind of entertainment. It's a rush, having that kind of control. The guy with the shotgun was named Trevor Hollis in his obituary, and finding out he was a real person feels wonderful. It's murder, but it's not, depending on how much credit you take. I can't even say doing crisis intervention was my own idea.
THe truth is this is a terrible world, and I ended his suffering.
Earlier in the book, hijacking an airplane:
He says the APU, the Auxiliary Power Unit, will keep generating electricity right up until the moment the plane hits the ground.
You'll have air-conditioning and stereo music, he says, for as long as you can feel anything.
The last time I felt anything, I tell him, was a ways back. About a year ago.
12:09 PM
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Thursday, July 08, 2004
what I thought was love was just a game
- This morning walking to work, next to a trash can on the end of the block where my office is, the corner of Farragut and Clark, there is a trash can. Next to this trash can on this particular morning, was a cat, laying on its side, dead. I saw it from the back, and thought "why is that cat not moving?", then turned to see its face as I walked by and it was bloody and obviously run over by a car whose driver didn't care enough to call animal control to pick up the body. It was there all day. I hate people.
- Every day when I walk home, I cut through the park accross the street. There are sidewalks criss crossing, making a big X in the park, and along this X there are about 8 or so benches. On the one closest to Chicago and Lake, where I enter the park, there is usually a man in his late 60s, listening to music on his mp3 player, headphones sticking out of a red backpack which is always with him. He has been there every day, and I come to watch for him as I round the bend around the church to get to the park. I always wondered if he ever noticed the college-aged girl carrying a canvas purse listening to her less technology-advanced cd player (as opposed to his mp3 player) and used that sight, somehow, to mark how much time he will stay on his bench. "There she goes, I have ten minutes before I leave." Lately, though, he hasn't been there. I haven't seen him in about a week, I've surely noticed. I wonder if something happened to him, if he got sick or moved away or something. I feel some sort of strange connection with this man, as much as I can without ever having talked to him, not even eye contact.
6:15 PM
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Wednesday, July 07, 2004
I am empty, so tell me you'll care for me
By far, the best thing I have encountered yet today is a page in an installation manual that has printed across the top in 10 pt font: "This page has been intentionally left blank."
Way to contradict yourself.
11:06 AM
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Tuesday, July 06, 2004
if I want to, I can just shut up
My mind is a mess. I had a weird experience on the train this morning, and it's left me feeling really guilty/confused about my past and who I really was in high school, my motives, my anything really. So when I was in high school, junior and senior year, there was this kid Matt who kind of stalked me. Not to any serious extent, but he would follow me around in the halls and to my car after school. He was a special ed kid, and I think he had some pretty deep emotional problems as well as learning disabilities. Something to do with a missing mother, or bad mother.. something was wrong with a female role in his life so he latched himself onto pretty much any female who would let him. I think I was one of the only ones who was nice to him. It's sad, really, because it was apparent that he couldn't comprehend how creepy he was, he just needed a mother figure. And I always felt really uptight about his creepiness, the following me around, the hand always always ALWAYS trying to hold mine, even when I told him I didn't want him to. He'd get angry. He wouldn't understand. I honestly thought he wouldn't remember me after I graudated, I didn't think his mind collected memories like that.
So, as usual, I'm wrong. He was on the train this morning, with the familiar "NORA!" and smile and almost immediately grabbing for my hand, which I pulled away. People that I had classes with and who worked with me every day don't remember or recognize who I am, and that's what I expected. It's just weird feeling that uptight again, the want to run away and get off the train, to stop feeling guilty for not wanting to be touched.. I mean it's not his fault, right? I wish I wouldn't regret being nice. I wish I weren't such an asshole. I want to get away, the cabin by the lake, so I don't have to face people anymore. The good along with the bad, because the bad make me upset for life and the good just make me feel guilty.
2:01 PM
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Monday, July 05, 2004
I'm not that weak, you know
All I know right now is that I'm empty. Last night I spent some time throwing up literally everything I had, and went to bed with a grumbling stomach even though I had a big brunch and big picnic both that day. Today I woke up and still have had nothing to eat, although I'm quite aware I'm hungry. I just don't have the will to perpetuate myself, and I'm wondering how long I can keep this up. Call it an experiment, I guess.
2:57 PM
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Saturday, July 03, 2004
but I always thought that I'd see you again
I just wish that for 10 minutes of my life I could stop being such a bitter fucking disappointment.
10:20 PM
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why are you so far away from me?
You can't resist her
She's in your bones
She is your marrow
And your ride home
You can't avoid her
She's in the air
In between molecules
Of Oxygen and Carbon dioxide
Only in dreams
We see what it means
Reach out our hands
Hold on to hers
But when we wake
It's all been erased
And so it seems
Only in dreams
You walk up to her
Ask her to dance
She says "Hey, baby
I just might take the chance"
You say "It's a good thing
That you float in the air
That way there's no way
I will crush your pretty toenails into a thousand pieces"
Only in dreams
We see what it means
Reach out our hands
Hold on to hers
But when we wake
It's all been erased
And so it seems
Only in dreams
Only in dreams...
Beautiful.
I've decided that when I turn 21, I will always have 2 bottles of wine on hand, one red, one white. I'm compelled to get drunk and read Perks of Being a Wallflower and Invisible Monsters because it seems strangly appropriate, Perks moreso. But Mom doesn't keep enough wine in the house, and I don't really have the will to ask my sister to buy anything else.
My Girl is on tv. I haven't seen this movie in probably 8 years, even though my sister owns it. Weird memories. I can't tell if the kid is Macaulay Culkin or not, he's too young to tell, but I think it is.
...
1:14 PM
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Friday, July 02, 2004
all we have to see is that I don't belong to you and you don't belong to me
Okay that's the last George Michael song title. For now, at least.
So I finished my regression test around 1 today, and sat around doing a good job of looking like I was doing work until 3, when Carrie started getting rambunctious and kept repeating how she was going to disappear. She leaned over my desk, whispered "I'm disappearing. If you disappear, I won't notice." then stood up and translated for me "go home and mark that you were here until 5." Hooray for holiday weekends.
In the mornings, I've started taking the train with Alison, a girl I was aquainted with in high school but really haven't ever given much thought to. She lives near my stop in Evanston, somewhere, and works at a building a stop up from mine. She still keeps in touch with everyone that I haven't seen or thought about since I graduated and left, and tells me how they've all gone downhill. It's sad, really, but it makes me actually feel better (moreso than not caring) about the fact that I don't see any of them and probably won't ever again. Oh well, life is sad, eh?
8:43 PM
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my anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns, hun
Things that i need to listen to: Monsters of Rap, which I already own. For example:
Girl: I got a man
Man: You got a what?
How long you had that problem?
Classic.
I think maybe I was bit hasty in deciding I'm giving up on people, if there really is a purpose for my existance (for anyone's, for that matter)(not that I'm saying there is a purpose, because I don't think my existance relies on one), it'd ruin everything by giving up. It's being a bad friend, and although I don't feel like I'm needed, I should award the benefit of the doubt. I'll stop being so.... like this.
Marina moves in with me today, Mom mentioned already having volunteered me to take her around, but I'll see if Anna wants to do it. I'm not so sure how much I'm going to want to be out; tonight I'm going to see Spiderman 2 and Sunday I'll have a brunch at 9 (I'm getting up before 9 on a Sunday. Rowr) 'cause we don't see this side of the family all together hardly ever, I think the last time was a couple years ago. Later in the day I'll have the picnic with the other side of the family, then fireworks. Possibly a concert if it's not raining. Free concert = yummy..
11:13 AM
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Thursday, July 01, 2004
I guess that I'll just stop. Trying to impress.
I'm done. Just... done. I'm now a 75 year old crabby woman who's bitter about still being alive. I want someone to help me, but I'm so convinced that everyone that could once do that either lost their ability or doesn't want to. I'm lonely now, I'm going to be lonely for the rest of my life, better get used to it.
8:20 PM
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all we have to do now is to take these lies and make them true somehow
AHH such a good song. I forgot about George Michael.
So, in recent news.. I cut myself shaving this morning. Which sucks. 'Cause I knew I was coming down too hard on my ankle with the razor, and I could feel that it cut skin (not that it hurt, 'cause it doesn't), and I could see it start to bleed. It's weird how none of this hurts, yet. But the second I put it under the flow of water to wash it off.. BAM. Stinging pain. So I left before I could band-aid it, and walked around at work all morning with blood in the crease of my ankle. I just washed it off, dabbing it with a wet piece of toilet paper, and it still stings. Dammit I hate being a girl. Josh, if you leave a comment about how I'm a girly-girl, I'll... do something bad. No creative energy today, I've been running regression tests. Soo boring, but better than doing nothing at all.
I made a new friend in Australia. Hooray!
12:54 PM
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