thicker than water

I'm really socially awkward around my family, like I feel no sense of self or normalcy because no-one in my family knows me anymore. It seems like it would take such an effort to be myself rather than the person that they believe me to be, like it would be too much of a shock to them or something. Regardless, I had a decent time with the fam., it was a mini reunion of sorts, my G-pa showed up, sans wife who seems to not care to involve herself in the clan. My Uncle Dan and cousins Todd and Jacob were there, Barb's daughter with her family, lots of little children. As always, it is strange to see my parents with their grandchildren, remembering oh yeah, my dad can be pretty fun at times. My brother in law Tom tried to get in my head a little, which he is usually pretty good at with people since he asks whatever he feels like. He accused me of always dodging his questions, but he doesn't really listen well, so I'll start to answer and then leave it go when I realize he isn't even paying attention. My poor sister irritates me so much, which also makes me sad because I see her trying, she just can't seem to help being completely self absorbed and immature. My family isn't as bad as I make them out to be really though, I should just chill.

A hard rain better fall tonight like it is supposed to, my tiny fan isn't giving much relief from the sweltering heat.

On a good note my retina is still attached to my eyeball, and I'm not seeing the spots anymore, it was probably just tiredness and stress.

I'm sorry, but it's thursday (technically friday I guess) and I gotta sleep

It is 2:54 a.m. and I cannot sleep because the neighbors apparently think its a great time to have an f-ing party and blast their music at f-ing 2:30 a.m. I'm sorry, but that is kinda ridiculous in my book. If it was a Fri. or Sat. night I wouldn't be lame about it, but since it isn't I'm old and lame and called the cops, ha!

be my friend....please

Well, the woman that Fuj and I were supposed to stay with in San Fran forgot, and bailed on us since she's going to Boston, so I'm scouring couchsurfing to see if we can find a free place to crash. The problem is, there are quite a few seemingly cool people so it's hard to choose.

I gloriously slept in this morning until 7 a.m., it felt so wonderful.

Tomorrow I'm off to O-town to hang with the fam, my siblings are making an appearance and I'll meet my nephew. I also have tons of homework to do, yeah, I didn't think culinary school would have that much homework either, but I was mistaken, it's mostly reading and memorizing though. I'm nervous about going home and interacting with my family, they tend to ask me about myself and I don't like that.

haha, I'm on myspace now, I'm a chump and set up a profile, mostly so I can hook up with hot dudes. If any of my vast readership wants to friend me, please do so since I don't have any friends, well, I have a couple I guess. Though I'm sure any bloggers I know are too cool for it. Fiona Apple is my friend and so is Maxwell.

no worries...for now

Well, I spoke with financial aid, and the lady I talked to seems to think everything is o.k. I just need to show confirmation of my new address and things should be alright. I have to call the loan people to make sure though.

As far as my spot seeing, I called the eye dr. today to see if it's something I should be concerned about, and the lady I talked to there said it is either nothing, or something really serious and I should get it checked out regardless. So I guess I'll find out on friday if my retina is detaching from my eyeball causing me to go blind.

What I am worried about is having to work with incompetent team members for the rest of the quarter. Okay, today one of the women stuck her finger in powdered sugar, clearly licked her finger to taste it, then wiped her finger on her towel and went about her business, touching dough and stuff. I didn't say anything, but talked to my understanding teammate about how I wanted to say something and was scared. So a couple minutes later, she did it again, and I asked her to wash her hands! I'm really proud of myself for being direct.

I may be screwed

I hope not, but I'm not sure if my loan for school is going to be approved since I screwed myself by fucking up my credit, so even though my mom co-signed for me, I don't know if it'll go through. I'm hoping there's just some glitch, and I'm trying not to worry about it until I can talk to financial aid tomorrow. I'm also trying not to worry about going blind and becoming bitter.

I am seeing...

spots, and I'm pretty sure that means I'm going blind, and consequently I'll be homeless or living with my mother who will become bitter towards me because I'll a burden and surely be depressed and surly. Seriously though I am seeing spots intermittedly, I'm trying not to worry about it.

substance abuse

Our "low key" party was expectedly not so low key, and despite my exhaustion I managed to party at a quality level. Unfortunately now I don't have the energy to do anything, like see Tapes 'n Tapes at first ave., or see the House of Mercy band in its original form, two quality events, but one can only do so much. Highlight of the evening was when Cassie swore she saw a large boat in a neighboring yard which nobody else could see, and didn't figure out it was a play of light and shadow until she saw someone "walking on the boat" and the person didn't have to jump off.

So I'll just be lame now and do homework and go to sleep.

falling short

My goal to work full time has fallen a little short, like 10 hours short, I feel like a failure. I also haven't felt this level of exhaustion in quite some time for such an extended period of time. I could really just use a night to lay around and do homework, but no, we are having a freaking housewarming party tomorrow. During discussion of possibility of having said party, I stated that I was feeling a little overwhelmed, and though have made some progress in unpacking my room, would not have it unpacked to my satisfaction, etc. and hoped we could do it later. But no, majority ruled, and there is no rest for the weary. Oh well, I'm sure once I've had some whiskey it'll be smooth sailing, and I've just decided not to care if there are some unpacked boxes and things aren't all pretty in my room, and I haven't been expected to help make the common areas look decent.

Well, I haven't done much other than learn the complexities of bread making. Next week is gonna be a good one, danishes and croissants and stuff, yum.

I blew it

Had I not been focused on nonfat milk solids, I maybe would have had a clever response when my cute, shaggy-haired goofball classmate attempted to joke with me about said solids. Unfortunately I instantly reverted back to feelings of awkwardness when near/spoken to by an attractive boy much like in high school, or hell, who am I kidding, my awkwardness has carried on throughout college, post-college and continues to today (except in states of drunkeness when I'm just obnoxious and loud). It doesn't help that the kid is barely out of high school himself, which one would think would make him less intimidating, but I think it just contributes to my reversion back to shy, giggly schoolgirl.

I'm really annoyed by my teammates, except Manda, who is equally as annoyed as I am. Our fifth person came back and she annoys us too. Tom, who really is a nice guy, but has a hard time stepping back from being bossy, which would be fine if he actually did things logically. Then there is Laurie, the dim one, and finally Mary Kay, who I thought would be competent, but after today I realized she has a hard time following directions I think due to lack of listening or caring rather than being slow. It may not seem like it from my disheveled and unorganized lifestyle, but I'm pretty detail oriented, so when people shrug off a step done wrong as no big deal it gets under my skin, although I guess not everyone can be as smart as me. Today I was "table captain" which meant I was supposed to be running the show, difficult for me since I don't like being in charge nor am I assertive, but I think I did alright, its challenging anyways. I'm also pleased with my dough shaping abilities.

all-purpose

Somehow a huge wasp got into our apartment, which I noticed was flying around the kitchen when we first moved in a couple weeks ago. At the time I thought, "that's gross, and it could sting" but made no attempt to rid our home of the insect. So of course in the past couple days it makes its way to my room and decides to put down roots, which I thought once again was disgusting and a little scary, but I had a lot going on over the weekend and figured it would either leave, die (how long do those things survive anyways?), or I would have to figure out some way to get rid of it. After a restless night trying to sleep in the sweltering heat with only a tiny fan for relief, as well as hearing the nasty insect flying around my room, I woke up prior to the break of dawn to get ready for school and there he was, on a pair of shorts within my reach. I wasn't sure how to approach catching him without getting stung, and in my hesitation he flew to the window and started to crawl around. I was afraid that if I took a swing with my shoe and missed, that he would get pissed and come after me. I asked roommate Jake his opinion on the effectiveness of spraying the insect with Clorox Bleach kitchen, tub and tile cleaner, he affirmed with a shrug and a nod, so I sprayed the sucker down. This only resulted in weakening the insect and I watched in horror as he stumbled around and then managed to fly. I thought to myself, "great, now I've got a bleach covered wasp flying around", but he didn't get far and fell back to the windowsill. I grabbed the nearest sandal, and while shrieking girlishly I beat him down with no mercy until he was on his back with one leg flailing wildly. Shaky from battle, I retrieved some paper towels, worked up the courage to pick him up while struggling to not imagine his insect nastiness soaking through the paper and onto my fingers, and flushed him. I hate to kill one of God's creatures like that, but for every season ya know. The little bastard made me late to catch my bus, but I still made it to class on time.

Geez, a bit of crabbiness aimed at me lately at work, one of the nurses who is usually pretty kind is taking her stress out on me even though I'm merely doing my job as I'm supposed to. It's like, I'm stressed and tired and crabby too but I still manage to remain pleasant. I'm truly sick of being treated like a 2nd class citizen because I'm just a support staff, I've got as much or more education than a lot of these jokers, and it isn't as though I couldn't be a nurse if I wanted to, puh-leeze. Yes, I like to stew in my bitterness.

incoherent

I just noticed that my last post was incoherent (not that it is much better now). I will blame my parents, and lack of sleep.

Speaking of lack of sleep, I was deep in slumber when my phone rang at 5 a.m. It was my old buddy Dan, who I guess was hoping not to wake me, but to leave me a message, and most certainly was on the tipsy side. Apparently he was hanging with another Dan, the Dan with whom I went to high school and had a diehard crush on for a good five years, and some giggly girls, and they were looking at our high school yearbook and thought hell, lets give me a call even though it's 5 a.m. I guess it was a nice gesture since they were calling to say I should get myself to Mankato (where they both live) to hang sometime. Dan M. (the former crush) and I chatted for a little bit about people we used to know, the whole thing was a little odd.

Cassie's Taiko drum recital was excellent, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and Cassie of course is very talented at percussion so it was really fun to watch her play in her hoof shoes. It was much more dancy than I expected, lots of movement, and looked like so much fun, it was very cool and nice to see what the hell Cassie's been doing these past few months.

this is neato

I'm blogging from my bedroom. I've never had internet at home except at our last apartment when sometimes Betsy could catch a wireless signal on her laptop. I'd like to think that this will prevent me from slacking at work and surfing too much, but I doubt it.

Last night I said to Jenni while we were enjoying a couple drinks prior to the Damien Rice/Fiona Apple show, that I believe I could have been a genius if only my parents had encouraged me more. Jenni didn't seem to buy it. Fiona, however, was pretty amazing, though at times her spastic dancing was difficult to watch cause it looked painful. She is an impressive artist, and I'm especially impressed by how young she was when she started composing her own music. Sadly she did not play 2 of my favorites, "Parting Gift" and "Love Ridden", but I really can't complain. Damien Rice was also quite enjoyable, though I'm not as familiar with his music. Fiona is so good to listen to when one is feeling angsty, which for me is fairly often (not that I have a lot to feel angsty about, it's just fun sometimes), her and Aimee Mann. Although Jenni and I were wondering, if one writes music influenced by relationships, then does one, especially one as emotional as Fiona Apple, feel intensely the feelings that inspired her to write the song in the first place every time she performs it, or does it change into something else as time goes on, even to the point of just being another song in one's repertoire.

I'm relieved that my first week of school is over, I think it will get easier since I now know what to expect and whatnot, and thankfully I have my vacation to San Fran in about 3 weeks so that will be an excellent break. There are some really annoying girls in my Sanitation and Safety class, I may pull my hair out if the one continues to chat incessantly about things that are of no interest to anybody but herself and maybe her parents. Gee, I'm so judgmental and harsh, but really, I think anyone would want to rip their hair out if they had to listen to her for more than 30 seconds.

My nephew's name is Noah, I was right and my mom was wrong. I like the name Noah too, but I'm a little disappointed, mostly because of the "Felicity" thing.

nice, but...

A good sandwich can't be beat.

We have a fairly new hire here at my lame job as a nurses' bitch, and frankly, she kinda drives me nuts, and usually I have co-workers that I dislike at first, but I get to know them and they become likeable. I feel bad about not liking this co-worker because she is really nice, she just has a lack of personality, and she was probably abused as a child or something traumatic like that which makes her lack personality. So there, you all can see how mean I am for not liking someone for no really good reason, co-worker Holly agrees with me though, but she's mean too. Oh well, I'm sure plenty of folks out there think I lack personality too.

confession

Contrary to popular belief, I am not obsessed with Bono. I do enjoy a hearty listen to U2, like many, but I do not know everything about Bono, about his marriage, his children, or possible extramarital affairs. However, because I once got tipsy at a friend's/co-worker's pre-nuptual get together and proceeded to do some air guitar and singing along with U2's greatest hits that was playing on the stereo at the time, I've been tagged as this die hard fan of Bono, when really I'm not. I go along with it at work though because people think it's funny, and I like to boost office morale whenever possible with my sharp wit and humor.

Also, there has been a new addition to our family, my sister had a baby boy last week. I'm not sure what his name is, it is either Noah or Noel, my mom thinks it's Noel so I'll go with that for now since she probably actually talked to Noelle whereas they just left me a message. Plus, Noel would be kinda like naming him after my sister, which they already did with Elle (get it, Noelle split is both Noel and Elle) anyways, if that is the case my brother in law Tom is getting the shaft since none of their kids are named remotely similar to Tom. Also, I prefer Noel because I loooove Noel from Felicity, and to this day will believe that Felicity should have ended up with Noel, though Ben is no chump change either.

Anywho, hooray for wireless, which will be installed in our pad tomorrow to make it really pimpin'.

And I'm sure my vast readership is itching to hear about my culinary school experience thus far. Well, as I said it is taking some adjustment, yesterday I was so tired I thought I would die, but today I feel good. It is hard work, learning about the details and varieties of flour is more extensive than one would think, plus the mathematical conversions, and all the other information one can learn about food/pastries/procedures. It's more like a science, which is also quite different from my previous educational experience which was more ideas and theories and whatnot. It is nice/unpleasant to be doing something more active, I'm used to my cushy desk job, but it is enjoyable to be working with my hands and focusing on the task at hand. I'm in a team with 3 other people, and me and the other younger girl (the other 2 are middle aged) agree that our teammates are annoying. They are both in the culinary (straight cooking) program so they aren't newbies like us, and while they are both very nice people, one just is a bit dim-witted and the other thinks he knows more than he does. Yeah, so of course instead of being put on a team with the 2 fine-looking and fun young lads (who I think may be at least of legal drinking age), I get paired with these doofuses, but oh well.

per expectation

My lazy ass self is going to have to readjust. Waking up at 5 a.m this morning was not as painful as I had thought it might be, but I imagine a few weeks of it and I'll either get used to it, or die. But then I pondered the days when I was young and virile, when I'd go to school, work in the studio til the wee hours, nap, (try) to be at work or volunteer at 6:30 a.m. and play with children, go out with my friends, usually involving Salsa dancing. Basically I seemingly never slept, and also used a great deal of energy either dancing, painting, sculpting, playing, what have you. Then I work a 9-5 job post college for far too long and get soft, get used to being done with my day and having my evenings and weekends free, and also become a master whiner in the process.

So, my first day of school was a mix of anxiety and fear mostly, with a bit of excitement thrown in. Betsy volunteered to arise early with me and walk with me since she works nearby the school, it was a nice brisk morning. My instructor wasn't nearly as weird as the one's that were at orientation, she seems pretty cool in fact. Tomorrow we jump right into baking...quick breads this week. There are some attractive dudes in my class, if only they weren't like 7 years younger than me, and I wasn't wearing a silly looking chef uniform. This whole school thing is going to be more intense then I thought, but it'll be good for me. I'm a bit slow to adjust to change, but (hopefully) I'll get there.

freakin'

I just totally porked out on A&W (one of the nurse's husband owns one and graciously brought in an abundance of fat for us to imbibe in), the only consolation for being in the office on a beeeautiful Sunday afternoon, but the day has arrived when I must work one day of the weekend if I'm to maintain my income level to which I've grown accustomed, and was already paycheck-> paycheck. Thankfully the weekends are quiet, fairly relaxed, and I get to work with Alyssa, one of my favorite co-workers.

After my orientation yesterday...I'm a little freaked out, freaked out about getting up at 5 a.m., freaked out by the scary chefs, freaked out by having to wear a chef uniform, complete with 'kerchief and beret, and I have no shoes or a notebook, I feel wholly unprepared. Actually the baking and pastry chefs weren't there, so hopefully they aren't as scary as the other chefs. I'm going into "the business" folks, there is no turning back.

I'm thinking about covering my bedroom wall in fabric, I wonder how difficult an undertaking that would be, it appears to not be all too difficult, but I have a rather large wall I'd like to cover. I always have such high decorating hopes when I move, then I get lazy.

what the hell am I doing

My bad, book club is next week, I freaked out poor Erica, and confused Cassie, oh well. I picked up my stuff for school last night, my chef uniforms, books and cutlery, I'm kinda in like "what the hell am I doing" mode. I mean, I'm excited, but it's still weird, I just hope I don't hate it, but I guess I don't have to continue if I do. Mostly I'm concerned that I'll have to be in class by 7 a.m. 7 A.M.!, and I either have to walk, bike or bus to school since it is downtown so I have to get up at like 5 in the morning, three days a week. I'm not sure if this has quite sunk in yet. And I'm going to try my hardest to work full time still if I don't get lazy, but I'll have one weekend day free still. I guess if I don't mind being broke as ____, I can work less.

Anyways, my room is still chaos and our living room is still filled with mostly mine and Betsy's shit. Not that we have any furniture anyways.

get with it

Where is my post from yesterday, and what's going on with the Font? Questions that I do not know the answer to.

I forewent? unpacking and instead immediately crashed in my room for much needed sleep, slept until it got dark, moved a box from one side of the room to the other which did not aid in figuring out where I should put all my shit, then realized I had not yet had a cigarette the entire day, nor did I have any on hand. As I was eating a fake chicken patty I devised a plan to walk to the gas station near my old place, get some smokes, and also pick up my bike that was still at my old house, essentially killing two birds with one stone. Having recently acquired said bike (which was both used and cheap), I had not yet ridden it more than a test ride, so after taking ten minutes to unlock it and practically killing myself trying to get it down the hill from the yard to the sidewalk, I hopped on and was on my way. During the entire 5 block ride, I kept thinking that something seemed awry, but as I have mentioned, it is a "vintage" bike so I just figured it was age-related and nothing to worry about (not to mention I'm not exactly an avid bike rider or expert on bike related things), but the short ride was kinda difficult and their were strange noises involved. Turns out the tire was completely off the rim, and I arrived home feeling rather moronic. I also once again messed up my REM sleep issue by sleeping for 3 hours, then being too awake to go to sleep at a normal time.

Book club tonight. I enjoyed our selection for this month, "Blue Water" by A. Mannette Ansay. The plot towards the end could use a bit more cohesiveness, but I appreciated the theme of forgiveness and coming to find understanding with fellow humans that have caused you pain. I think I should try my hand at writing a book.

back to the grind again

Today is the day of the dreaded audit, my main responsibility for "close of business". I'm too tired to properly function, and being back at work is irritating to say the least. I love my co-workers, even often admire them, but they can be ridiculously cheesy sometimes. Sometimes I'd like to say, "if you can't say something funny, don't say anything at all", the problem is the person telling the bad joke thinks it is funny. Well, I guess I'm not the epitome of wittiness at all times myself, though I think I do alright (but my friends may beg to differ). Anyways, my point is I'm not in the mood for cliche little quips, I wish to be left alone. I want to go home and sleep, which I will likely do despite my guilty conscience telling me to instead make some order of the chaos that is my room at the moment. My new roommates, Jake and Kathleen, well, their room is all cute and tidy already, but they also had like a total of 2 boxes of stuff and 2 suitcases, whereas I feel the need to pack endless boxes of crap that just compile and plague me every time I move. Perhaps one of these times I'll reach a zen moment where I will happily throw shit away.

But why am I so tired is the burning question. Well, moving on the two most swelteringly hot days of summer thus far took a bit out of me, and then forging on to a mini vacay in Duluth which, while not strenuous, was pretty filled with activity...a fine show by Wilco, followed by comraderie at the local bar, some sleep, a hearty breakfast, a lovely hike, a bbq, some badminton, more drinking and chatting and a bit more sleep. I believe this is where my problem lies, in my lack of quality REM sleep. Apparently I still managed to be "fun", even though I felt not quite up to par and lump on a log-ish, but even if I wasn't fun, I sure had a good time with Sally and MS Flava, and Jenni and Todd, and Sally's fam. I thought for sure my car was a goner last night when I arrived in St. Paul to watch the fireworks. It was making the most horrid noise, which is not all that unusual, but this was worse than the usual, but she fired up afterwards and brought me home with seemingly no problem, so whatever issue she has can continue to be ignored, and I will instead buy a plane ticket to CA.

My 2 heroes of the weekend....Jenni, for taking over a car load of shit Sat. after I made a last minute and desperate call for help, and Cassie, for helping me with my car last night and following me home. Oh, and Sally for being my sugar mama, so that makes three heroes, I am one lucky gal.

it is finished

Ahhhhhh, we are done, and I am exhausted and currently being antisocial at Carissa's "suburban retreat center". See, I've got internet withdrawels, haven't looked at a computer since yesterady a.m. Well, overall, the move went smooth, though not quite as piece of cake as I had hoped as in, moving is always a pain in the rear and takes a really long time, whereas I was thinking, well, we have everything all packed up and ready to go and pretty much cleaned, ahh no, still took a long-ass time and a lot of energy.

An update on the Landlord saga, well, he's screwed, as in hugely f-ed. See, he pissed off the remaining hipster girl who was living in the studio apt. by taking a loooong time to install a shower. The poor girl had no running water and her apartment has been a construction zone since early this month. So she asks Dan for a discount on rent, since gee, she's been pretty inconvenienced and can't even use her own bathroom, much less run water. Of course he refuses, gets pissed off, so she calls an inspector. So now there's a bright yellow sign on the door saying that the house will be condemned in five days unless it's up to code. I run into Dan after the inspector has finished laying the smack down, and he's starts making sure we're "cool" and that I don't plan on bringing him to court. He says he's in a "world of hurt" because of what we wrote, and I was like sorry, it was the truth, and we felt you needed to hear it. We actually had a very civil chat during which I expressed that I at least had hoped for some acknowledgement that he saw our side in the matter, and he seemed to understand as well as he can I suppose. Then he tells me about how he's got to come up with 6-7 G's right quick or he's losing the house. So Betsy and I go back and forth about feeling bad for him, and thinking he's just getting what's coming. We settled up with him today, and though he was in decent spirits he just seemed dazed, in any case I think we all ended on good terms or something, though I don't know that we'll get our deposit back if he's up to his eyeballs in court and fines and whatnot, he said he'd try, but he wasn't sure. It's strange to see it unfold, see someone just get into a bad situation, and see how you played a role in that. I truly wish the guy would just learn to listen and compromise, (and put things in writing and be more professional), and get a job. Just one of those people where you're like yeah, he's a real asshole, but he does have his endearing qualities.

I do love my new place. I was worried about living with so many people, but I think it will be loads of fun, and it's so big, our landlord so far has been awesome, I scored the best room, etc. etc. However, I did have to make a cigarette run, and the four (as opposed to less than 1) block jaunt was a bit inconvenient.

Anyways, spose I should flex my social muscle....