bill collectors are calling for my ex.
my old boss asked if I could give her my extra work.

I love elimination. I will clean my house while my flush does its thing and have double elimination.

Not looking forward to a week of no food/workbreaks. Looking forward to no snot. No gas.

my ex erased his blog and now I feel like "we" never existed.

good things are happening now though. Though I have no idea when I'll really be done mourning that relationship, that part of my life and part of my history. The changes I've had in the last year of my life make the last five seem like I made them up in my head since there are little remnants to show for evidence.

I know which way i want to steer my self-propulsion careercar.

I accidently threw down a few instead of one when rewarding Yuki for scratching the cardboard scratcher. And LeMar ate one! And then he was like "I think I'll eat another."

He has never partaken in the treatwhore brigade the other 3 do. Maybe things will be changing 'round here.

I went to Rite Aid today to pick up birth control pills to prevent imaginary sperm from my imaginary boyfriend from getting me pregnant. While I was in line there was a truly Scary Person™ in front of me. He was hunched over, wheezing and wearing rubber gloves. He was fidgeting and struggling to maintain a firm grip of the orange juice he was planning on purchasing.

You can shun me for saying this, but these are the types that decide they HAVE to talk to me. I pooled all my energy into reading the back label of a product within arm's reach. But it was not enough. He saw me.

He said I was like a female Joey Ramone but pretty.

Damn you! I know that was almost an insult to some women, but that's pretty nice and cool.

I know he was polite, and did not cross the line with his comments. But I still don't like that my neighbors know my business. At the end of August, I announced to the HOA president's wife that Faris and I are no longer together. I had been avoiding it all summer because I knew she doesn't keep conversation simple. This case was no exception and left me crying in front of her in the parking garage.

This week we had some plumbing issues that had her and plumbers going in and out of several of our units. And even though I'm sure my immediate neighbors would be able to guess my situation, I know they know for sure now. I was just leaving the laundry room and my neighbor asked how I was. I gave a simple "good" and he was like "good?"... and then i corrected with "relatively speaking." And he just said "hang in there, things will get better." I just held on as far as my front door and then cried as I crossed the threshold.

I know that I think about it all day long every day still. But it something hurts more when other people bring it up to me.


Besides the hurt and confusion, the other thing I'm battling is just plain fear of faris. He left in such an angry violent state. That is the freshest version of him I have. Despite him saying he wanted to stay friends and be part of my life and the cats, and me being the one saying "no, you can't be part of my life if you do this."... he was the one that cut everything off. He erased me from his social networking profiles and put up this thing like I was going to hunt him down and sabotage him. We discussed just simply taking his name off the deed of our condo, but he wanted to go a step further and take his name off the loan because he doesn't trust me with not "sticking him with the mortgage"... which is a really stupid thing to accuse me of, because he is already completely guilty of doing that to me.

This solidifies my theory of people who are quick to accuse others of something they are already are or often are guilty of.

He is back in America, now. I know this thanks to fucking fed ex, and his band's myspace page. (he had a show last week that hopefully no one went to despite it being free, and it wounded his ego further and made him think introspectively and really learn how stupid and ridiculous he has become). Since he has been back, I've been a ball of nerves, with the big question mark of what he might do/try to do. I had convinced myself that he would still try to fight with me about something since he fought me on so many imaginary problems in our final month. But I hope he has calmed down and is normalizing. I wish I had a way of finding out if that was the case or not. But I don't have a way. I also thought that if he truly is a narcissist, then it is likely that acknowledging me is like acknowledging that internal thing he nearly brought to the surface before running away in total mad man fear. So as long as he pushes me completely out, he doesn't have to acknowledge what he knows is not far beneath the surface. So he will be avoiding me hard. That, as fucked up as it is, is slightly more comforting.

my mailbox likes to mix up ways of fucking with me. One day it will do "empty-style" to tease me. It will contain a single postcard for guitar center for my ex-boyfriend. Another day it will be "full-style", and it suspend my disappointment for 10 seconds by having me sort through several layers of things I will recycle before I am allowed to discover that my expected piece of mail is not there.

Today it was the second style of taunting.

And the dead lady who lived here before me has jury duty. There is something really hilarious about that. Like, death doesn't count as an excuse even.

I have no joy in my life in any form right now.

I feel burdened by everything. I hate my clothes, my body, my face, my job, my home and while I love my cats, they are annoying to me now. I'm not charmed by their neediness. I'm angered by it.

I'm having the hardest time working. And this is what allows me to "live." I just don't want to do it anymore. And I'm in the midst of some financial problems. I had to borrow from my credit cards to make my retirement contribution and pay my estimated taxes. Now I have a about-to-be-overdrafted checking account and hefty credit card bills that will surely show up before I get paid for any of unpaid invoices. I know that most people have credit card debt, so accumulating some shouldn't feel like the end of the world to me. It just comes as a sign. I'm not eager to earn the money to pay it back. I just don't care anymore. As i write this, one cat whines so much that I just want to slam the door and cry.

I'm getting a cold sore and the last one hasn't even finished living on my face yet.

I put myself back on my low cholesterol diet and it is making me miserable. I put myself back on my exercise regiment and it is making me miserable. The old me would somewhat enjoy obstacles become overcoming them was a form of fun. None of it is fun now. I'm sad that I'm working out again and not proud of it. I am not proud of anything about myself right now.

I know where he lives now. Fed ex just called trying to deliver a package to him and called me and wanted to know if this address other was correct. I was a jumble of "uhs" and "errs."

I really wish he would accidentally die so I wouldn't have to deal with his existence in any form... even fed ex delivery call form is more than I want to deal with. His stupid mail keeps coming here too. And some of his fringe friends who he only hangs out with to buy pot from call here too.

I'm having a nice quiet day of tidying up jobs and doing some housework. I repotted a fern on the patio. And when I stood up I got one of my super-intense dizzy spells where my eyesight gets spotty-to-black and my hearing goes some as well. I get one of these less than once a year, but when I do I'm so afraid that I will pass out. And now... no one will find me! The cats... they are useless!

Now I am just like all the old ladies in my building. People will keep checking in on me making sure I'm not dead. Hopefully they pass that courtesy over to the girl in her 30's.

still have some reserves and plenty of feelings to trigger more eye spillage.

When will it end?

i'm embarrassed by how big it is. I regret it. I don't even really want a tv but I want to be able to have friends over and not be limited to entertaining them with song and dance alone.

plus, I am not a good singer and I am not a good dancer.

last week I really felt like the bad was all behind me and that I had made all the biggest most important steps toward recovery. I actually felt happiness for the first time in a long time. I was so relieved to be at that checkpoint and had actually given myself some credit, even though I'm not totally sure that I had specifically done anything to get myself there. I had even gotten some serious ego boosts during the earlier part of the week.

I'm not sure what has happened, but I've regressed in a serious way this week, and today in particular. I worry that my neighbors can hear my sobbing through the walls.

I can't believe there is going to be a day where I don't think about all this. If my current state is not enough, little accidental things show up on top to make sure the saturation level is met. His grandparents called me yesterday, his mom keeps e-mailing me and someone with the same exact color and make of care parked out front.

I had two dreams about him in the past week... both were "us unfinished". In one I even had a new house and I was happy to have a new home and fresh start. I could feel the relief of having a new place free of any memories of the two of us. When I walked into one of the rooms he was in there packing up his things to leave. And being a jerk. And he had even invited people to check out the house too. They were sitting outside and complimented faris on his new digs.

And last night while hanging out with friends I said "we" again. But there is no we, unless I form a mental illness and develop other personalities and then regularly speak for all of them.

getting my heart mutilated.

I bought a new pillow. The pillow I was using before might be as old as my L.A. existence? older? I'm unsure. I have gone through SEVERAL pillows. You know, some drunk person might have to crash, and then drool and then you were like "how do you like that pillow? you wanna keep it?" And then we had a series of fake tempurpedic pillows faris' mom gave us and then the next year she gave us real ones forgetting about the fake ones the year before. I gave all those away after we both had a bad reaction to them. In the end, I was left with one that I can compare to a sandwich made of wonder bread that has been put to a rolling pin test. Very flat, with a coupla lumps on the inside.

I have a new "bamboo" pillow from target. It's nice and feels like a "good hotel" pillow. But if I try to sleep on my stomach, I will suffocate.

I am a hard copy day planner person. I like the monthly format. And I like to write my shit in by hand. But this year I had to upgrade to a BIGGER monthly formatted day planner. And I committed to keep it looking tidy so the virgo in me doesn't threaten suicide when shit changes. (I keep my correction tape nearby).

I am trying to challenge myself to use iCal instead. I tried using it many years ago and it is tidy and cute, but I still think in my mind that I sometimes want to leave my computer off and still have a grip on what's going on or about to go on. (I write it down so I don't HAVE to remember it inside my head).

Anyways. I learned that there is a birthday feature on iCal that is synced with your address book. So I am going through my calendar and adding birthdays to each address book entry and wondering if I even HAVE an address entry for every person on my list of birthdays. For the first few months worth, I did have an entry for each one... until I got to my MOM's birthday. I have no address for my mom. One would think I have that memorized but I don't. She moved in with her new husband a handful of years ago, and they might have even moved since. I don't know her phone number or anything. Only her birthday. So my mom has a brand new entry in my address book, and it only contains her birth date. I think I can file that under "sad."

I'm still sweating out my portfolio project.

( I have had very few breaks and several more obstacles. )

i have too many non things-I-do-usually-projects going on and my head might explode. How I yearn to simply retouch an image and be on with my life.

I am pecking away at all of these obstacles, but the rest are all in the throws of a "learning process."

I am not attending my sister's wedding which is happening very soon. Instead, I am her reception dj. I bought her an ipod (had it engraved with her new name and wedding date), and filled it with the music that will be played during the reception. This has been a week-long project. I've been packing in pockets of time where I am loading up my imac with CDs and selecting songs in between time where I do actual work.

I just fed exed the motherfucker off, and the base that I chose for her is being mailed separately... so I can relax about that.

But I am also working on my portfolio which is ultra frustrating. I am one-by-one making detailed decisions, but not entirely convinced they are the right ones. I picked a size, the color swatches, my logo that will be debossed, the thickness. And I've designed a number of the pages, but I have not found anyone who will print it for me. This means I have to print it myself. And I don't know if I have TIME for such an endeavor. Plus I'm a printing retard.

I've shimmied my decisions down to this now:
-printer to buy
-paper to buy

but they are enormous because I'll be spending oodles of money on both.

I brought some files to a local print shop hoping that they might accidentally be awesome. The kid working there was in total awe of my job... and that was flattering... but they had ONE kind of paper for me to choose from and they couldn't do border-less printing. BOO. After paying for my sample prints, they gave me free pads, and pens and a calendar. But I don't know if they can count on my continued business.

Other people do no double sided prints in general.

And then I also but the APB out to my ichat friends to get paper/printer recommendations and all of them criticized my attempt to make double sided pages. Most of them said no one does them, but my agent has all her artists create their portfolios that way.

I know i'm not the only one... but I feel like it!

I am also hungry. But i know how to fix that problem.

-getting an eight thousand dollar check in the mail in an UNsealed envelope! (sarcastic about loving the envelope part)
-one of my cactus has an honest to goodness FLOWER. And it is "in bloom."
-my new monitor stand
-my new magnetic "job board"
-my future portfolio, it's going to be gorgeous... hiring anal-retentive japanese girl to make it.
-Cornelius at the Disney Concert Hall last night (speaking of japanese)
-my brown thermal shirt
-external hard drives that don't require a power adapter
-donating money for a poor doggy's surgery
-hey, it's friday!