Trying to Fell a Giant Oak With a Razor Blade

Work is running me into the ground.  I won't bore anyone with the details, but making do with what you have really sucks.  Also trying to get stuff done outside of work is pretty impossible considering the hours I'm trying to get in.  For example, here are some things I just realized I'm without of as of this week:

• Winter clothes.  (Really fun realizing this as I'm freezing my butt of trying to get dressed for the day and the weather report says we're going to hit a high of 66.)
• Underwear.  Lately, my dog thinks he's helping out by chewing out the crotch of my underwear.  I found his stash the other day spread all over the couch and him lying on his belly knowing he did a bad thing.  Needless to say I was pissed.
• Kitchen furniture.  And an acceptable delivery time period to receive it all.  I have a kitchen dining set I want from Target's online site, but if I order it now, I won't get it until I'm in NY.  This means waiting and waiting to have a place to sit and eat.
• Time to go shopping-for anything.  With my work schedule, I get out of work when other shopping stores are closed.  I really wish I had a whole day I could spend at the mall to stock up on shoes (I've ruined so many flats this year it's pathetic), the above the necessities, and whatever the hell else I can think of.  My brain doesn't function when I'm unorganized.

Not to mention I still have yet to finish unpacking and organizing the new place so that I actually feel like I live there and not in this chaotic temporary state.  I wish I had a week to just be the stereotypical housewife and have everything cleaned, scrubbed, washed, put away and lined up in its proper order.  Then I could feel more relaxed.

I'm acting like a neat freak only because if you saw what my house looked like right now you'd probably scream.  Because I'm without a dog bed and a clean second bedroom to put him in, he sleeps on the new couch, which I abhor.  I don't like naughty behavior and I don't like having to discipline him every two seconds.  I have a giant fleece blanket laid out for him by the TV, but he never sleeps there.  Last night he slept on my lap on the couch while I watched The Best of Chris Farley on Netflix.  Terrible.  And I feel guilty because I have to board him while we're out of town and I've never done that before and I'm terrified they'll neglect him.  He's so social that if left alone all day he'll get depressed and exhibit OCD behavior (for example licking the fabric on the couch repeatedly...I don't get it?).

I may be overreacting, but never being at home really bothers me.  Having school and a full time job is really stressful and I'm not sure how long I'll be wanting to do this.  Hopefully I can graduate and be done soon, but I have no clue.

New costs, new responsibility, new ride

After nearly 10 hours dealing with car dealerships and quite possibly EVERYTHING that could go wrong with my life in one day, I'm a happy jeep owner alongside the boy.  This took more work than I ever imagined, but I was still able to drive away with something amazing.

In the midst of dealing with loan people and finance people, I received news that my father had suffered a heart attack.  As I was signing the papers, he was in surgery.  With all the other crap I'm dealing with right now with my job and my relationship, and my guy's family, this was spreading me too thin and I cracked.  When your parents show weakness, that kind of thing just hits me like a blow to the chest and I fall apart.  Nothing is scarier than that for me.  So here's a scene for you to picture-Pamela crying like a 5 year old in a dealership office and everyone staring at her like she just grew a third arm.  The good news is that my father is doing fine, it wasn't too serious and other than this, he is in great health.  Here's hoping he outlives his mom-she's pulling 92 this December.

So now this kind of backtracks my semester a tad bit.  Financially I'm looking at conserving as much money as I'm able to so I can afford plane tickets and trips home.  I'm looking at going home for Thanksgiving than going with the boy to NY for the holiday.  Not sure how we're going to coordinate all this traveling and such, but I'm going to make this work.  I'm going to have to go and be a grown up about my weekly schedule for things.  So no more sleeping in and no parties until I've got a handle on my responsibilities.  Got to figure out splitting responsibilities with the boy about living conditions and the pup.  He's driving the both of us nuts with not getting enough exercise.  I'm hoping with the car that will be fixed so we can take more trips to the dog park.  I'm also going to have to figure out something with my work schedule.  Probably going to have to figure something out with the boss that doesn't kill me or ruin my school semester.

Smiling Through the Tears

Being strong for everyone else is probably the most abrasive thing anyone can endure.  I've been hit over the head this week with pretty much everything that could go wrong with my life.  After going through a fight that nearly ended my relationship, I'm told that the boyfriend's father, who he hasn't seen since he was in diapers, has been diagnosed with cancer.  They've only been in contact for the past 2 years and have a wonderful relationship, but I'm looking at flying out to New York far sooner than originally planned.  This is a real game changer.  I'm looking at missing a week of school and work with this, but I'm staying positive for him and this whole thing.  I can't not be.

On top of that, work issues have sprung up just at the right time (sarcasm, if you will). I'm not sure how I'm going to get through all this, but I'm hoping it ends up working out for the best.  I'm just gonna have a rocky month to go through.  I don't want to go into this, but it really sucks having so much responsibility when the above just happens to hit you too.

It seems the only good news is that I'm 90% sure I will be an owner of a motor vehicle again. I'm sure this will help with some of the problems going on with my life.  I'm looking at testing it out tomorrow and if all goes well, I will make an offer.  I know the guy who is gonna be meeting with me and he seems pretty excited to get me going with something, so hopefully he can offer me something good.

I feel so overwhelmed with everything that's going on though.  I'm pretty sure when I go home tonight I will just break down and cry.  The stress and reality of everything is starting to sink in and frankly, after being hit continually over the head about everything, I can't act like everything's fine and I've got nothing to worry about.  These things are serious and I need to do something about it.  I'm not sure what exactly I'm gonna be doing, but it needs to be done.

Life has a good way of making you feel wonderful when everything goes to shit.  It's like, I may have lost everything in the fire, but at least I still saw the sunrise this morning.  It's insanity.

I have time for....nothing

Between starting school this week, setting up the new digs, car shopping, working full time, and taking care of myself, I don't feel like I have a moment to myself.  Except for maybe writing this little tidbit.  Where to place my head?  Well, let's digress...

After a nightmare of a move (I have now acquired 3 couches, and lots and lots of mess), I'm starting to get settled into my new home.  And this is a home.  Oh my God do I want to stay here until I have children or something.  We'll see where time takes me.  I've already sorted out most of where all my kitchen items go (like creating my own spice drawer!  And I already know that statement makes me a dork), as well as create a sort of studio/dog room/closet for myself in the second bedroom.  And the medicine cabinet is not crowded with crap anymore.  I'm excited to see a dining room table get put in, as well as bar stools for the breakfast nook, and get a small table/chair for my vanity, as well as get my tv and xbox set up in the bedroom for Netflix.  Oh yes, this is coming along nicely.  But I can't really get any giant items until I have a car, which (hopefully) will happen this weekend.  I would love for that to go down, but I've never purchased my own car before and I'm pretty anxious to see what happens.

I kind of started on the wrong foot today with school.  I don't know why but the longer I'm in school the more ambivalent I get towards the first day.  I already have an assignment that I'm not really sure how I'm going to do since it was so vague and broad and open-ended.  Plus I have to figure out a way to bring 3 of my favorite drawings to class Thursday that I've created.  I'm not sure but I'm hoping emailing a .jpg file will suffice since I don't have "slides" or whatever.  If anything I can probably email my old drawing professor and see if she still has pictures of my work since she gave me such wonderful marks for all of them.

I think what most ticks me off about studio art courses is the dry attitude about work ethic.  My professor today told me this class wasn't going to be fun, and all I could think to myself was, "When the hell has drawing ever been as delightful as a root canal??"  Drawing is the one things I LOVE doing because I can zone out and create something beautiful and powerful.  I push myself so far over the limit and I love that feeling of accomplishment-hell, just the feeling of making marks on paper is exhilarating at times.  So I'm not sure how the attitude of this course will be for the duration of the semester, but I intend to make it known that I'm going to have FUN and it's going to get me an A, because I make A work.  Nothing else will suffice.

Hopefully tomorrow will go better since I'm taking a film studies class.  I was always told those were fun and easy courses, so I'm hoping that I can just fly by that class and put all my focus on this drawing course.  But this also means becoming a music junkie again since I cannot live without having a soundtrack while I work.  In all honesty that's been long overdue though.  I haven't updated my iTunes since probably march of this year.  Damn.  I'm ashamed of that.

So basically I'm going back to where I was 2 years ago, which I cannot complain about since times were good to me and friends were there.  I can't help but feel a major disconnect with meeting new people in my classes though since they're all around my brother's age.  I'm out of touch with them, and rightly so, since I'm on the edge of moving on to bigger and better things.  I never want to be that person who hangs out with teenagers and shit because I'm trying to hold onto my youth.  I'm not about to join a retirement group though, either.  I'll never be lame.

Anyway, I'm off to figure out some sort of drawing that pertains to some of the topics discussed in class.  So. Boring.

Labor Day Weekend is Gonna be Filled With Labor

And by labor, I mean hard work!  Since I've been so bombarded with work priorities (such as hiring/training 2 new people), I've had zero time to actually go through all my belongings at home and pack them up.  It's also pretty difficult when you have no car in which to pick up and bring home boxes with.  But one would think that the boyfriend would pick up where I've faltered and have all that stuff taken care of...except that's entirely not true.  So 2 days before moving day and I still have all my shit lying around and nothing to show for my attempt at selling furniture on craigslist.

I'm not even sure how I'm going to get anything done this weekend and I'm not even going to think about it until I get to that point.  Everything I'm doing now is what I need to do, now.  All the worry will come to a hilt the day of.  And, whatever.  Moving sucks, I'm not able to do anything to make it better, so I'll just bite the bullet and deal.

What's really surreal is the reality of school starting next Tuesday.  I feel like I've totally checked out of school now that I've finally stuck with a major.  I'm so focused on getting a job and keeping a job that school seems kind of irrelevant now.  But I have to finish.  I know if I don't I'm only going to piss everyone who loves me off.  And I don't want to deal with that, and also with having school loans.  I'm so close to being done, but with the boyfriend constantly watching all the news he can get his hands on, I just feel so hopeless sometimes when it comes to starting the job I want to do.  Ugh.  Not all the time though.  I know that if you really want to do something, you'll find a way.  And right now I want to finish up this school business and get a little more settled before I go onto the next endeavor.

I feel the only way to really look at my life somewhat successfully is to just say "onto the next one."  I think that's from an old Jay-Z song.  I can never stay too long on one thing before something else is continually popping up in front of me.  Some are obstacles, some are opportunities.  Either way, it's something else happening.

I can't believe that in a matter of about a week and a half I'll be driving a car.  I've never done this before, so I'm probably going to make all the mistakes any other new car owner would make, but I figure what the hell.  I'll figure it out eventually.  If I fuck up, I have to deal with it anyway.  I'm mostly excited because I can actually afford to do this now.  I was always too afraid before.  Guess having a full time job is great like that.

I'll be test driving this next Saturday!!!  This exact one too!!

But for now, back to work.

Life doesn't want me to succeed

There are things I cannot control.  And it sucks.  It upsets me that I am unable to accomplish the things I need because of outside factors.  Because if it's something I hate, it's not having anything to blame my failure on, including myself.  That doesn't really make sense, but then again, I tend to never make sense.

I'm trying to make things work financially, but I think I'm over-estimating what I can pull off.  I hate having only 1 source of income at the moment.  Seriously not okay.  Costs keep popping up that I never thought about and I'm pretty sure it's going to bite me in the ass pretty soon.  That's always how it is though.  I start thinking "I'm gonna get on top of this, I'm gonna finally be stable" and then it all comes falling apart.  But then again, it's only a temporary thing that I start to fall apart.  Everything evens out, I reach an equilibrium and then life is okay until the next incident.

Maybe it's because I'm an optimist and I like to believe that there's always going to be a happy ending despite all the horrible stuff that keeps happening to me that when things go downhill, they tend to propel to the bottom.  It's like I'm keeping this naive and whimsical attitude about life even though I continually get screwed.  That sounds like insanity.  But once I get through the worst or the best, I know that it is what it is.  I shouldn't keep these expectations for things when they never turn out like I expect them to, yet I do and I don't even realize I'm doing it until I get disappointed.  So I guess I just complain about certain points in time that sucked, but then I move on.

My hardest issue in life seems to be accepting what I cannot change, and forgiveness.  I found a really good essay by C.S. Lewis about forgiveness and it really made me realize how difficult it is for me to forgive.  The whole saying "Forgive and Forget" really is what it's about.  When people say they forgive but don't forget are basically misunderstanding the entire meaning.  What they really mean is they allow excuses, but they never really forgive.  Obviously no one wants to be played for a fool, so you don't just entirely wipe past sins like it never happened in the first place, but when it comes to really forgiving someone, you can't hold on to what it was they did.  If they wronged you, forgive, and don't allow yourself to be wronged again.  People make mistakes, that's a part of life-no one should be held accountable for their wrongdoings after the fact.  What's in the past is in the past-live and let it go.  I have a really hard time with letting things go.  Mostly because I want to immediately feel better when I'm upset.  And that's unrealistic.  But I realize I'm still learning, and I think being able to realize that and understand what that means makes up for a lot of the shit I kept doing in the past that pissed so many people off. Ugh. Growing up never stops.

Things I wish I had time to do

• Downloading music
• Putting said music on my ipod
• Get all errands run the day I need them run
• Walks around the lake
• Reading
• Baking
• Sewing projects

I get into a routine with my life, and that routine always leads me to a rut.  So I change up the routine to incorporate other things, but then I just get another routine where I end up unhappy.  I guess you could say I'm still trying to figure out a routine that makes me happy.  I like to think this is a part of growing up.

Yesterday I was thinking about my future.  And I figured out that I want to go into art direction.  I like being the brains behind ads, displays, etc.  I like that I'm the evil genius behind the screen directing everything to correlate perfectly.  Like the conductor.  But let's be real: I have ambitions to do everything I come across that's remotely interesting.  Hell, I'd volunteer in an archaeological dig for the hell of it.  And I'd really like to get a fashion mag for Minneapolis put together.  

It all seems so far away though.  I never know what the steps are to get anywhere.  Everyone just tells me internships are the answer, but I don't hardly ever hear about those unless you're interested in curating an art museum-which I personally think is boring.  Museums in general tend to bore me because it's just old shit on display.  And I'm not really a fan of different art "movements" or abstract stuff.  Lame in my opinion.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting through this week so that next week I can feel like I'm crazy again.  Not really, but there's the State fair to attend, including a concert, and moving to be done, as well as a vet appointment and school to prepare for.  Hopefully I can afford another camera and post real pictures on here instead of using Google images all the time!

Lovely.