Between being beaten up at work, coming home and falling asleep at 6 pm only to wake up at 1:30AM WHEN I HAVE TO BE UP AT 5:50 TOMORROW TO DO IT AGAIN, the job overall, and the fact that people I thought were friends won’t talk to me because of a third party’s petty stupidity, and I’ve pretty much had it with this town and with these people and with this job and with the whole rat race in general.

I’m about one psychotic break away from packing up my car and moving to Saskatoon, changing my name, and refusing to play nice anymore. Because frankly, I may only be 24, the best may be yet to come, but if I want to be around to enjoy it, it’s gotta be more bearable now.

I now have a mop. Well, a Swiffer. With wet and dry pads, so I can use it as any kind of mop I want, even though I purchased it mostly saying “DEAR GOD THE KITCHEN FLOOR.” Bear in mind I have about six square feet of kitchen floor.

I’ve been trying to put this damn apartment in order. I’ve realized the couch is too big (anyone need a couch?) and I’m not sure where to put the bed, really, although I like it where it is, and without having a clue where stuff goes, it’s murderously hard to put any art on the walls. Not to mention I have one REALLY BIG WALL and then two with windows in them, so I really have no idea whatsoever what to do with it.

I’m thinking at this point that I need to make a sort of media corner thing on the wall at the foot of my bed, putting in a short bookcase as a footboard and then stepping up to a couplea big bookcases on the wall. Then I was thinking I needed a bigger beanbag chair in that corner (where you can still see the tv) and a smaller couch. And something to keep crafty desky stuff in, and possibly a sideboard behind the couch for linens, and a shoe organizer and a recycle bin and to set my desk up like a real desk and all that dang stuff all at once.

The next place I live, i’m getting a dishwasher.

I need to figure out a better way to force myself to update here, because it’s been way too long. Work is still blach, hockey is just starting again, i’m lying around watching Bridezillas for lack of anything useful to do and debating where all of my photos should hang.

Because I can’t get time off for a REAL holiday at work, I’m also trying to work out if I can talk someone into giving me time off around New Years. If I’ve been denied Christmas and Thanksgiving both, I feel like New Years isn’t so much to ask for. And if I really work right, I may be able to go to Boston and if not SEE the Winter Classic live, at least be there when it all happens.

But for now, I suppose I should fold my damn laundry and get it off the couch so i have somewhere to sit. or something.

I strongly dislike what I currently do. Which, at this point, is probably old news, but I think I’ve finally put my finger on why. While what I do *helps* people in the moment, it doesn’t *teach* people anything unless they’re really in the right mood/mindframe to be taught. Which, I’m finding, when people are on sightseeing tours of the nation’s capitol, they really aren’t. Teaching/learning vacations are obviously reserved for places like Plimoth Plantation where people know they’re in for the education when they get there.

I also sat around outside thisevening and made a list of Things I’m Absolutely 100% Sure I Believe In.
To date:
-Love
-Inability to control every little detail (I believe, but I’m still learning)
-Microcosms (interconnected events/groups of people that occur for a reason)
-Nobody is actually that big a deal. We all arrived screaming and naked and we all die.
-Happiness should be a priority. If you’re not happy, you need to find a way to be. (another I’m still learning)

The following page in my notebook says “CHECK THE FUCK OUT”

Sometimes I need to just take my own advice.

Everything’s been so very up and down lately. The job is good, the job is bad, friends are good, friends are non-existent, we have jellybeans at lunch but I can’t find time to fit dinner in.

More and more lately though, I’ve found myself wanting something resembling a solid continuous presence in my life-it’s like I’m living that stupid Nickelback song or something. I’m not even talking about a love interest, persay, just another brain I can turn to and be like “goddammit, I forgot the bread” that will go out and miraculously make bread appear before I need it.

I guess in a nutshell, I’m realizing that while I can take care of myself, it’s awfully high stress to do so right now. If the job were less thankless and more fulfilling, or I got more time off to recoup from it maybe I’d be dealing on a higher level, but as of right now, it’s just a grind.

Someday, maybe I’ll figure out what I can be doing that makes me feel like the world needs me a little more than it needs a glorified ticket taker. At this point I think I’m too stuck in moral fulfillment mode still. I’m still the idealistic college grad who wants to come out and CHANGE THE WORLD and either the world’s not so much in a place that supports that in anything I might do, or I’m mentally blocking myself from it because for once I’d like to be financially able to do a mess of other things, like travel.

And there’s the rub. I want to travel, I want to meet people and interact with them and basically be a cultural packrat, but to do that you need money, to get money, you need a job, and with a job comes restriction on the time you have to go wander at will.

Always a catch 22, isn’t there?

This is cheap and feels kind of dirty, but one can always shower, right? Yes, I’ve fallen to doing software reviews for free stuff. However, before you judge, it’s actually a Windows Mobile app I found ON MY OWN after getting Karppa, the new T-Mobile Dash (yes, that’s his name).

Everyone, meet Twikini. It keeps me connected to Twitter. It’s not the prettiest thing, when compared to all of the iPhone apps, but it does what I need it to, and it’s easier than using twitter on the browser in that tiny tiny little window.

Things that’d be sweet to see added to the next version of Twikini? The ability to click through on hash tags like a good Twitter addict. The ability to @reply to more than one person at once. The ability to control the world’s nuclear wessels from my phone BWA HA HA HA HA….

no, but really, those first two would be great. Especially if this’ll get it for me for free.

Not to be self centered or anything, but I’m a damn good freakin’ packer. At this point I’m willing to say I have about 75% of my stuff in the apartment packed and I don’t even have a firm move out date yet. Of the remaining 15%, about 5% of that is furniture that needs to be broken down to move (heil, Ikea) 5% is kitchen crap that I might still use but I’m not sure, and should probably be cleaned before packing and 5% is that stuff you look at and say “Where in hell does this go, categorically?”

Not that I’m really IN LOVE with packing, but once in a while my mother’s math-spacial-cubical-awareness-genetic-handmedown-skills do actually rear their ugly heads.

…I am SO BAD at anything approaching a real life update. Even in my paper journal (which I think is buried under the boxes) I’m sucking at keeping up with myself.

But yes, the boxes. I am MOVING A-FREAKING-GAIN and hopefully barring all things dark and horrible this one will be permanent for the duration of the time I deem the Capital Visitor Center worthy of my presence as an employee. (at least a year, more than likely longer.) Instead of being in Alexandria, I’m over sort of in between Ballston and Clarendon, so I’m skirting the edges of the High Rent District.

It’s a GIANT studio. I’ll have to get pictures of the move-in when it happens (I’m waiting on credit check and so forth to come back to get the info on when) because while my stuff looks great and cluttery in the room I’m in right now, it’s gonna be completely underwhelming when I move into the new place.

I’m already aware that I’ll need some sort of seating/guest bedding (couch? futon?) and some extra room storage/dividery stuff (already eyeballing an EXTREME IKEA BOOKCASE) and if anyone wants to buy me the most expensive shower curtain ever I wouldn’t turn it down.

But one thing at a time, I suppose. Job, housing, moving, furniture. Heck, maybe I can even still find a theatre to moonlight at as an assistant stage manager.

We’ve skipped Spring in D.C. and gone right for summer. I’m remembering again that I don’t deal well with humidity and heat in the same place at once unless it’s voluntary. This silly swampland thing can go… do rude things to itself as far as I’m concerned.

No, really, I know I’ll adapt. I always do, but the first week or so I’m a crabby mc crabberson. It doesn’t help that everyone here has A/C either, because then I’ll be tempted to turn it on in the apartment, and I know I don’t really need it, as I survived two Central PA summers without it and without dying. I’m just going to have to get good again at walking around with a water bottle and being willing to pee, instead of just figuring out my water balance and intaking only to a level that I sweat out, a stupid skill that I learned working in a desert over the summer a few years ago.

In other news, starting the new job tomorrow at the Capital Visitor Center, which all but promises the fact that the social media job at the Smithsonian will call me on Thursday and say “So, we want to interview you, you are made of AWESOME” and I’ll have to spend the weekend beating my head against hard objects and lamenting the fact that NOTHING CAN BE EASY HERE, CAN IT, LIFE?

And let’s not get started on the fact that Dane Cook’s car alarm guy has moved into my condo complex and is unleashing the fury on all of us any time someone drives by the car. No joke, I’ve heard it at least three times today ALONE. It’s only funny with the words for so long…

Ooof. I have a lot to do in paperwork today. But first, whatever Last.fm decides to give me labeled with “Finland.”

I need to get back to doing things that make me happy. I’m not on this planet to live for other people, and sometimes things aren’t always going to go the way the rest of the world wants.

I mean, I’m not going to go out and start robbing banks or anything, but I’m going to stop letting other people dictate what I’m feeling at any given time. I’ve got this habit of being too willing to bend over backwards for the sake of other people, but combine that with a wicked sense of justice and an abnormally short fuse for things that are just purely stupid and you’ve got someone who gets caught in the middle trying to fix everyone else’s problems until she can’t see a good way out for anyone, least of all herself, and then just goes off on all involved parties.

And frankly, I’m tired of being everyone else’s host-body right now. So here’s my new resolution.
People are not allowed to use me as an intermediary.
People are not allowed to tell me the same sob story more than twice.
People are not allowed to use things that are otherwise out of humanity’s control as a way of attempting to control me.
People are not allowed to leave emotions unvoiced and expect me to know what’s going on OR have any desire to fix it/give a damn.
People are not allowed to use material possessions as a source of power, emotionally or mentally.
People are not allowed to dredge up past events simply to pick fights.
True friends do not try to one-up the others, whether’s it’s for status, money, love, recognition, egomania or user tendencies.

So says the Teka. End transmission.

(And before any of y’all start getting all up in my grill about “I didn’t do that!” or “I didn’t mean it!” or any of that, I’m not targeting one or more person/groups of people specifically. I’m targeting where I see weaknesses in my ability to deal with life situations. Step off, it’s not all about you In the words of the immortal Eleanor Roosevelt: “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” This is my list to myself of ways to refuse consent. )