Okay, I've jumped out of my sad sack tonight. It takes a few hours most nights but after I'm awake and functioning..things start to look less daunting.

Wow. Since I'm stuck out here all alone in my little shack, and I have no one else to share this with..the privelage falls to you, my poor readers.
One of the drivers from my work, he's pretty dorky, gave me a video he made of some local firework festival. And because I said I would watch it, I am. I'm a horrible liar and I know he's going to want to talk about it when I see him later in the morning. It's really funny. He did a good job filming. The quality is pretty good, but it's still a home movie of some hick ass NH festival. He pans the crowd for a good ten minutes. That is ten minutes of red-skinned, tubby, tank-topped men and women walking back and forth in front of the camera stuffing cotton candy and fried dough in their faces all to the soundtrack of a local band playing soft eighties favorites. Oh, now there's a close up of the band...nice.
Actually, the fireworks are pretty crazy.
I'll at least be able to nod my head and add a knowing yeah, uh-huh to the conversation later.

just more complaining

I'm just annoyed. And I feel like I will be for a while.
I'm annoyed because it's so hard to make enough money to live well in this country.
Because I work forty-two hours a week and still don't make enough to even begin to cover my expenses. I don't even make enough to pay for an $800/mo apartment and my food and gas. That's pretty sad. I look for a new job every day but there is not a lot out there. In fact, I have it pretty good for someone who only has a two year degree. (the issue of my education is complicated and makes me really angry. I went to Brooks School for three years of high school. It's a private boarding school in North Andover, MA. Then my parents got divorced and my dad refused to pay for my last year. I know it was intended to hurt my mother but it really fucked me over most of all. It threw me for a wicked loop as I was trying to apply to colleges and I ended up finishing high school early at the local public school. I couldn't get loans for myself because technically I was still covered by my parents, even though they were not going to pay for school, so I was kind of screwed. I couldn't get loans, but I couldn't pay. A few years later, my dad agreed to pay when I got into Bennington. That lasted a year. He and my mom were always in and out of court fighting about money for this and that but by that time I was really fed up with the roller coaster and said fuck it I didn't want their help anymore. Since then I paid my own way at VT community college to finish my associate degree. I want to get my B.A. but it takes forever only being able to take two classes a semester because I have to work full time as well. I know a lot of people have to do this, but that doesn't make it suck any less.)
That isn't even what is really making me crazy these days. The thing consuming me is the fact that I can't save enough money to get my own apartment and I can't afford the one I'm in by myself. Even if I didn't have to pay for my methadone every week, after putting aside rent, I hardly have enough left over for food and gas to get to work. Then I'm sure I don't have to list all the other types of expenses which we all have. Then I have to feed all my animals.
I want to stay in the apartment I'm in because then it wouldn't be so much change all at once. I've always been a boyfriend girl, as in I've always had one and he was always my best friend also, and as crazy as Mike makes me sometimes I think maybe it's better than being alone. I know this isn't true, but I still get really scared. And I've made friends with my neighbors and I feel safe at this place I live now. And I work with the girl who lives upstairs and I know they would help me if I needed anything. I just want to stay there and I can't think of any way to make more money without having to work seven days a week.

I know people will think that I should work seven days a week if that's what it takes and stop complaining and there's people a lot worse off than me and blah, blah, blah. Well just because it could be worse doesn't mean that we should be okay with a crappy situation. I don't think life should have to be that miserable. I think I should be able to want more for myself than to be exhausted and stressed out all the time. I'm not lazy, I don't mind working, but within reason, you know?
Besides not being able to afford the apartment, we share a car, and out here a car is imperative. Riding a bike is just not feasible and there is no public transportation. I could ride to work with Laura most of the time but it would make the rest of my life so sucky not to have a car out where I am. The grocery store and laundromat are at least twenty-five minutes away. I would be so stuck in the boonies. I really need my own car and the one that was at my mom's had, like, no floor or brakes. It wouldn't even have made it back here, so I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get my own car. Then I need a license. That's at least five hundred in fines I have to pay before that could happen. It's not for anything really bad, not even speeding. One is for a cracked windshield and one is driving with a suspended license.
What is really fucked is that the situation I'm in is really typical of so many Americans. And I don't even have kids. I don't understand why people don't organize a revolt for better wages. I do understand how people could go crazy and rob a bank or something to feed their families. It's hard to stay positive when you work your ass off and it seems like it never amounts to anything.
I'm now going to numb the frustration with tobacco, marijuana, food and mindless sitcoms. Later.

Copwatch

I'm one of those people who has no sense when it comes to budgeting or money management. So I do not plan ahead when it comes to grocery shopping and therefore I buy my groceries almost daily. I buy what I want to eat for that day and that's it. Therefore I was at the grocery store the other morning as the NH State police were conducting an investigation into a police shooting which happened in the plaza last week. The po pos did the shooting, though no one was killed this time.

I know police put themselves in danger for what they believe to be the betterment of society but I feel as though they often use unnecessary force. Apparently this guy, who I don't know personally though he happened to work at the same facility as I do, was driving like an asshole around Keene the other morning during rush hour. He was obviously high and driving the wrong way down the road and over curbs and shit but wasn't being violent in the sense that he was crashing into things like people or other cars, and he did not have a firearm. He drove into a shopping plaza which also contains the state police barracks and it seems like he intentionally tried to incite them by doing high speed donuts in their parking lot. It's clear by his criminal record that he has a dislike for law enforcement. They were pissed and attempted to stop him by setting up a road block. But they used only one cruiser to block him which seems sort of half assed to me as there is tons of room where they happened to be and there's no way one cop car was going to be effective. So the one female officer (women cops always have something to prove and, in my opinion, are way worse to deal with than male cops) decided to get out of her car, walk towards the oncoming vehicle, assumed a shooting stance and proceeded to fire three shots at the drivers side of the pickup the man was driving. She hit the vehicle but not the driver. Not more than a mile down the road, the now even more hysterical and disoriented man then head on collided with a bus.
Because people shopping in the plaza at the time felt threatened by the shots fired and felt as if the action was unnecessary, the officer is claiming that she thought the man was going to hit her and she was trying to stop him. However, eyewitnesses say that he was trying to avoid her and they were more scared by her firing than anything else.
Now, obviously this man was wrong to be driving around like a reckless jerk, but did she need to draw her weapon? Shouldn't that be a last resort? Especially in a crowded shopping plaza? I think she should at least be suspended and required to obtain more training in the use of deadly force.
A lot of people around here agree with me. But a lot don't. I just don't understand how people can unquestioningly accept the actions of police officers no matter what. The fact is that even "good" cops abuse their power to some extent, it's only human nature to relish the feeling of control. I don't blame them. But we as a society need to keep them in check. And if we don't put the smack down on shit like killing reckless drivers then we may as well just dress in sheep costumes and walk ourselves to the slaughterhouse.
So people speeding should now be killed because they are endangering the lives of others? What about running a stop sign? What if you don't notice the blue lights behind you soon enough for the copper's liking? Can he shoot you and say you failed to stop for him?
The fact is, this man was wrong and so was the cop.
Anyone who says you must be a criminal if you're afraid of the police is a fucking moron. You don't have to be doing anything wrong. It's your word against theirs, and unless you're one savvy motherfucker, you're gonna lose.
Cops are like Communism; if the system worked the way it was intended to it would be perfect. But human flaws will always ruin it and turn it into something scary it is not meant to be.

http://www.copwatch.org/

I liked this site because I think they have a good message. We do need to police our police. Officers are undereducated and under trained and it's not fair to us or them.

Blocked from Blogger - Ratty Rats

It's been hard for me to post lately because somehow someone figured out I was using blogger at work and blocked me. I could use my laptop when I'm stationed on the side of the facility that picks up WiFi from the Ramada across the street, but I gave my laptop a virus and can't afford to get it fixed just yet. At first I thought everyone had been banned, but oh no. Just me apparently, which is weird. I erase my history every morning. And it's not like I'm shirking responsibility and dicking around on the Internet when I'm supposed to be doing something else. I may be a drug addict but I'm strangely obsessive about doing what's right. I wish I could sometimes do what I want instead of what is right without feeling so guilty. But I can't. So I'm just sitting here all night waiting for drivers to arrive to log them into the facility. When there is no driver coming in, there is nothing I'm supposed to be doing other than watching for the next one. And I know it's oh so complicated but, believe it or not, I can keep an eye out for blaring headlights making their way towards me while typing and thinking all at the same time.
At first I thought it was simply a coincidence and they had finally caught on. But then I thought about it some more and realized that I was blocked from the site the day after one of my co-workers sat down at my station before I had logged off and saw that I had blogger and imeem up. I didn't think too much of it but she must have snooped around and ratted me out. Maybe I'm crazy but it just seems fishy. But what incentive would she have for ratting? Wouldn't it just fuck herself over too?
So when I came in tonight, she hadn't logged off before she left, so I stayed on as her and it let me onto blogger. We'll see if I can get away with that for a while. But that proves that I was personally targeted, right? I mean, I'm no computer genius but wouldn't that mean that I was blocked for a reason? But why wouldn't one of my bosses say anything about it?
I don't know. But what do they expect us to do for twelve frickin hours, sitting in a shed all alone? A driver shows up every hour or so and it takes a few minutes to deal with each of them and then it's back to sitting here alone passing time. A person can only read for so many hours in a row. I love books but even I get sick of reading for forty hours a week. We're not supposed to watch movies on our personal computers, they don't let us on music sights. I mean seriously, I'm not a frickin robot!
So anyhow, if I am only able to post intermittently it's because they blocked me at work and that is the only place I have regular Internet access. I'll figure out a permanent solution but it may take a couple months, as I am the world's most accomplished procrastinator.

This is the path on the way to a lake I have no idea the name of. But it's very quiet and the water is black. It's surrounded by pines, blueberries and huge granite rocks protruding out into the water.

These are some of the smaller rocks around where I was swimming (actually, wading is more like it). But some of them are much larger and you can jump off into the water which is really deep. I, however, did not do that because I am scared of deep, black water. So I just sat on the edge of the rocks where they were submerged but not quite all the way into the scary black part where, of course, there is some kind of lake serpent thing waiting to eat me.

Here you can sort of see the rock under the water, it's the brownish, shadowy lumpy thing at the bottom of the picture. That's about as far as I will go. But there were a bunch of people jumping off and some swimming all around in the middle of that thing. Crazy bastards.

Maybe if I had been with a bunch of people and knew there would be some of them around me in the water, maybe I would have dared it. Next time. Maybe.

When I was younger I stayed down in the Florida Keys with my friend Camilla. The beaches there are strange, at least in some parts. It's shallow for ever, and murky brown colored from the fine sand I guess. And then suddenly it drops off into the middle of the ocean. And it literally is the middle of the ocean. By the time you're in Key West, it's only 90 miles to Cuba. I'm not sure how far it is from mainland Florida, but it's far. Creepy ass mangrove islands.

I obviously would not linger far from shore, but Camilla would walk all the way out to the ledge and swim right off it while I was wringing my sweaty hands for her safety on shore.

Holy shit. I can write a post from my phone! Whoo hoo!

Just a quick note to say I'm too lazy to do the thinking and moving of my fingers required to post. So instead I'm going to sit here all night and watch episode after episode of Desperate Housewives.

Thank God for air conditioning.

Chicago, New York, Detroit, and it's All the Same Street....

Anyone from the Northeast has probably heard of Hampton Beach. My Mom lives in Exeter which is pretty close to the beach which is swarming with tourists all summer despite the fact that it is overcrowded, dirty, and trashy. Whatever floats your boat. So Mike has decided that it has to be there where he opens his shop, which is probably a good idea. Both my brothers blow glass too so they want in and are beginning to bring my Mom around to thinking about financing it. All of that sounds great , I want to remain friends for life. But I really want us to break up and do our own thing. I'm just a little worried that if all that happens he'll be really immersed in my life and I don't know how that will go. Maybe it will be perfect, as we are pretty much just best friends and roommates as it is now. He's talking about getting an apartment with my little brother, Sam, now. That could mean he may actually leave. Yippee! It also means that seeing my family will mean seeing him. Could be good or bad. In some ways it would make me feel less alone maybe. But would it make it harder to meet new people?
I plan on staying out here in NH for now. I can afford the apartment we're in by myself, just barely of course. And I know I can keep my dogs there. My share of the dogs that is. He has to take four and I'll keep three because I never wanted them to have pups in the first place. I love them but they are so much work sometimes. Three will be so much easier than seven. Plus I know everyone in the building and can hit them up for rides if I have to. Apparently, my sister's boyfriend bought her a beater car a couple months ago and she won't drive it because it's too crappy so she said I could have it. I'm supposed to go get it this weekend. I'm a little worried to drive it back here; what if it breaks down, what if I get pulled over? But it's a car and my Mom said I could keep it registered under her name for the rest of the year or however long is left on it. She had it registered for my sister and my Mom and I have the same legal name so I can get it inspected and shit. Mike already talked to a guy who said if it ran and didn't have any gaping holes, he'd inspect it. So if that works out that would take care of one problem at least for a little while. The fact that I don't have a ride has kept me where I am (with Mike) because it's really hard to live out here with no car. There is hardly any public transportation. Even the grocery store is at least a half hour away. So I've been holding out for some sort of car to really assert my freedom. So, let's hope the thing makes it up here.
I would not have even known it was there if Mikey had not been going down there recently. He saw it and asked who it belonged to. He got the story about my sister and her bf, and then they said they were planning to junk it because it sucked. Mike was pissed and asked if I could have it. "Sure", they said, "We didn't think she would want it".
How on Earth could they think that? Have they ever seen me drive anything but a beater? Ever? No. I learned to drive in an old, smelly Dodge caravan. I ran a stop sign and almost killed me and my mother. I had to take my driving test three times, and only was eventually passed out of pity. But, I swear, I'm not a really bad driver. I've just always been wary of cops, even before I ever did anything to be afraid for. And in Mass. a state trooper rides along for the driving exam. Full get-up, jodhpurs, patent boots, GUN and all. Scary. I just could not relax. What's really so bad about a rolling stop?
Then, after driving my mom's cars for a year maybe, because you get your license when you're sixteen, or I did, I drove a couple of boyfriend's cars. Then by the time I drove my own-ish car, I was seventeen and some. All through my junior year of high school I worked at a little fish market to save my own money. I went to private school where I had lived in a dorm for my freshman and sophomore years but then my parents split up and I moved back home and commuted for my junior year. But anyway, we had classes on Saturday mornings and all the kids were always hungry a few hours after breakfast and I managed to have, like, one class that day so all the night before I would use my mom's stuff at home to make all these baked goods; like muffins, breads, brownies, all kinds of crap and I would sell it to all these rich kids. Don't get me wrong, I lived in a nice house and had nice clothes and was spoiled by any one's standards, but some of these kids made me look poor. I made pretty good money between that and my real job, especially since my mom funded my little bakery operation and let me keep all my profits. So with the money I saved I planned to go to a bunch of Phish shows that spring and summer. A bunch of friends went too. So I took a bus out to Salt Lake City Utah the summer after my junior year and met up with my boyfriend, who was twenty years old and I had just met, like, two months earlier. What the fuck was my mother on? I don't know, but the Doc prescribed so it must have been okay, right? Must have been strong, at least.
So anyway, he picked my up in SLC in an old, gray Mazda pick-up truck with a cap on the back that was about a foot and a half too short for the bed. We had to cover the gap with a tarp. We spent a few nights in Utah, then drove route 40, I think it was called, across the mountains to Denver, CO and stayed there a few nights. After that we were supposed to go to Wisconsin but instead we decided to take our time and drove slowly over to Indiana. We arrived there a little early for the shows so we decided to find a place to sleep for the night and chill out until everyone else got there. We were driving around looking for a suitable campsite and decided to get ice cream. So we stopped at a little shop in the town until dusk and then started out again.
We must have been spotted driving in, because no sooner did we pull out of the parking spot then we got pulled over for not having our headlights on. It was barely dark yet, mind you, and we weren't even a block away from the ice cream shop, we'd barely had a chance to turn them on. So of course, they searched us. We were out of weed so we didn't have to worry about that. But my boyfriend broke like Filo dough and told them everything he knew about the mushrooms packed in our cooking supplies. I never would have told. They would never have found them. They arrested him and wanted to take me into custody for being under eighteen because they thought I was a runaway. I told them to call my mother and ask her to verify she knew of my whereabouts. That she did, and they told me to be on my way. I could go to the arraignment the next day at the town court house.
Great. I had to break it to them that I didn't know how to drive stick and I would be stuck here on the side of the road. You won't believe what they did then. The same piggies who just arrested a kid for less than a gram of mushroom shake after pulling him over for no headlights at 6pm in July, drove our truck to a motel and dropped me off. That must be SO illegal. There were no rooms available because of the Phish shows in town. They informed me there was a curfew of, like, ten for people under eighteen so I didn't want to risk trying to learn to drive stick that night. So I lurked around the parking lot until I saw some kids who looked like they were there for the same thing, the show. It wasn't difficult as most of the place was occupied by our type. I asked if I could crash on their floor after relating my story and they agreed.
I really couldn't sleep well that night. As soon as the sun rose I was out in the lot trying to figure out a stick shift. I asked a couple guys walking by for a basic explanation. From there I proceeded to buck and lurch through South Bend, Indiana trying to find the court house. I must have been pulled over five times that day for running stop signs and generally driving like an asshole. I really sucked at first. Now I would never buy an automatic car, ever. But then, I was terrified.
I am out of time now. I have to do all my end of shift stuff. I'm going to try to set up my scanner this weekend so I can add more visual aides to my stories. I felt more like writing about the past lately. Rather than continue to complain about the present. I think it's more interesting entertainment for people. It's making me remember a lot of things I haven't thought about in a long time.
Later.

Long Time Passing

I lived in the cabin in Westminster, Vermont about nine years ago. This picture was taken from the back side, you can see where the deck is already broken and sagging. That's nothing compared to what it looked like after the snow. I have, like, five old, disposable cameras from when I lived in this place and these are the only ones I've had developed yet. I'll have to have more done soon, as soon as we have some extra cash. I bring a few in every couple months but most of what comes off them is pretty bad, to the point of unrecognizable actually. I keep hoping I'll get some of the guy I lived with while I was there but I just get rooftops and pops of light in front of black trees. I cannot say what exactly was going through my mind when I/we agreed to pay four hundred a month for a cabin in the middle of nowhere with no electricity or running water. See, that seemed cheap since we had just come from Boston and rent there was so high. Besides, I think we both had some romantic ideas about living in the woods, off-grid without the poisons of the world bombarding us. Despite the turbulence of our relationship, we were totally in love and probably would have lived in a cave if we had to. There was a huge tank of a wood stove to heat the place which consisted of two 10x15 ft rooms stacked one on the other with a ladder leaning through a square in the floor to get up and down. We naively moved in in September and once the winter came there were only two temperatures, ice cold or hellishly hot. To keep from not freezing at night, we had to make the fire so big and hot that it would still have coals in the morning, it must have reached in the hundreds up in the loft area where we slept. Often I fell asleep with the window beside my head open so I could breathe, until it began to get cold and then I shut the window and pulled the blankets close until morning when one of us had to brave the cold long enough to get the fire raging again. There was no wood to burn when we moved there. We ordered, I think, only three or four cords which isn't really that much for your only source of heat. But the place was small and we made it through the winter. Only the wood came in big rounds still and we had to slice it up into chunks we could fit in the stove. Chopping wood is not as easy as it looks. Shit flies at your face, you hit knots and the axe gets stuck which forces you to lift the whole axe/log combo in the air and bring it down hard to try to dislodge it. This is as sketchy as it sounds. If you really suck, sometimes you miss the log altogether which poses the risk of possibly hacking up your own shin. And then you have to carry it inside, sometimes caked in snow or mud, dripping water and bugs.
We, well, Phil, had to dig a big hole and we built an outhouse. That was a total bitch because the ground was all ledge and hard as rock with huge, tough roots layered all throughout. And I wish I had a picture of the outhouse because it was made of all mismatched, scrap wood. It tilted to one side and was so far from the cabin I refused to go out there at night. At least not alone, as you could often hear the coyotes howling and running past in the bordering woods.

This is one pic I did get of Phil and my little brother when he was pretty young. He looked just like Harry Potter back then, my brother I mean. The part I like about this picture is that it reminds me of how the light came in through all those big windows. This must have been spring because in the dead of winter we had to cover these with blankets because they let so much cold through. Most of the time for water we took one gallon jugs and put about four milk crates in the back of the truck, each crate carries four jugs, and we'd drive to the co-op in town and fill them at the bulk water container. It was pretty cheap for purified water and then we'd lug it back. Sometimes, once we'd been there a while and realized we could do this, we went to one of several springs around here to fill them. People have set up spickets that come right out of the sides of the mountains from some underground springs. They flow constantly and you just hold the jug under it until it fills. The one I went to most often was on a dirt road so narrow it barely fit one car. There was a steep fall on one side going into a rocky riverbed. In the winter it was the most challenging not to go off the road if another car came along.

Once the snow began to stack up we could no longer drive most of the way to the cabin. We parked out on the road and walked almost a half mile in to the woods before we got to there. Then we had to drag the water crates in on a sled. Talk about a workout! Between the shoveling, chopping, carting and working on a farm, I was jacked. I wouldn't want to fight myself back then. If myself then fought myself now, I'd kick my own ass.

This is the front, I suppose you would call it as it was what you saw as you came through the woods upon the place. The row of little widows are the ones I would open by my head when we slept, low to the floor on an old futon. One of the best freedoms we enjoyed was complete privacy. We could stand outside, naked, smoking a jib and not a soul would complain. Our dogs could bark, we could scream and smash shit, we could have sex on the porch, and no one would call the police.
If you look closely, you can see just the edge of the tailgate of the truck. This was as close as we could drive, and this was in the fall when we first moved in. Once the snow came we were pushed further and further away until we were out by the road. But spring was the most difficult, with the mud and melt water. As the weather warmed, you would step and suddenly sink knee-high in the sloshy, granular snow. Even the road leading up to our driveway was treacherous that time of year. It was very steep and winding, and as the water washed down the mountain, so did the road itself. Huge sections would be washed out with water and gravel rushing in the ruts threatening to remove even larger sections from underneath the tires.

This is what the woods looked like on one side, the one closest to the road which was far enough away that you couldn't hear a car drive by. The other side was denser, dark pines falling steeply to a small river. You can sort of see the small, white figurine along the tree line. This was a saint, I believe, belonging to the woman who rented the place. We had explicit instruction that he was not to be moved. Whatever, he didn't bother me. But she also left her dog. And this did bother me. It was one of those huge, maremma sheep dogs, the big, white, fluffy ones seen hanging out in fields amongst sheep, obviously. Only she raised it using a theory she had developed to try to keep the dog as free from human control as possible. But what she ended up with was an enormous, mean dog who was so miserable you couldn't even get close enough to feed it without it trying to take off your hand. I love animals and I'm not generally scared by them, but I was wary of this dog. She had him chained to a tree in the corner of the yard near the wood shed. The chain was far to weak to be used for a dog of such bulk and he routinely escaped inevitably leading to a visit from the nearest neighbor irate because the dog attacked his sheep. The dog must have been starving and thoroughly stark raving mad to do this as it is truly not in their nature to attack the very animal they are bred to protect. In most healthy maremmas they see the flock as their pack, their duty to watch over, majestic and serene. This dog was loony. I tried to be nice to it for a while, thinking maybe it would calm down and we could keep him, but I just didn't have the ability to help this dog. I kept asking her to find him another home and she would say weird shit like, "I don't think I can find anyone to take him. Maybe I'll just shoot him and make a hat". She wasn't kidding. One day he was missing and we though he escaped again, but he never came back. Maybe she did shoot him. Maybe a neighboring farmer or pet owner did when he attacked their animals. I don't know.
This is Bob and Miss Guggenheim, the two dogs we had when we lived here. I named Bob, I'm not really sure where the hell he came up with the other name, but whatever, we called her Googy. They were a mix of Rottweiler and pitt bull and they were huge. In this picture they aren't even six months old. When we broke up he kept them because he stayed in the cabin and I lived in my truck. I haven't spoken to him since, mostly because I don't know where he is, so I don't know where they are either. That's sad.
It's difficult to see just how much damage was done, but there was so much snow that year it piled so high on the deck it disconnected from the house. We shoveled it from time to time but it would come sliding off the sleek metal roof with such force I'm not sure we could have avoided it.
This is the only pic I have of the inside. It was pretty with all the windows and the golden colored wood. It was often very peaceful and I felt like I was doing something that mattered, I don't know why. But living like that takes so much time and hard work. And it not being our own house we couldn't adjust it to suit our needs. If we had owned the land it would have been worth putting up solar panels and then we could have run a small fridge at least. We had a propane stove, it was mini and the propane tank sat right next to it under the counter. Safe, not a fire hazard at all.

I miss being younger and feeling like life went on forever. I miss loving someone so much that it hurt. I miss being strong and agile and so fucking sure that it was possible to change the world.

Of course there are so many things about getting older which are worth waiting for. It's unfortunate that as we gain awareness and confidence, we lose stamina and passion. Not that getting older means giving up, it doesn't have to. But when you're young you don't understand what it is to have the burdens that accumulate over time. If we understood then, maybe we could avoid limiting ourselves so much as we age. By the time a lot of us realize what has happened we are stifled by fear and insecurity, making change almost impossible.

Anyone reading this would probably scoff if they truly knew what my life consisted of. I am very free compared to a lot of people. I'm relatively young, I don't have kids tying me to one person or place I'm unhappy with, I have a job I could change at any moment. Basically, I could do whatever I wanted with very little negative consequences if only I weren't such a sissy. Even with my relative freedoms I still feel as if the pressure to conform is overwhelming me. Like a big, dead weight dragging me down. It's a constant drilling into me from every direction....have kids, buy a house, get a better job, get married, blah, blah, blah. I feel like we are offered this very limited number of templates from which to choose the life we want and if none of those work for us then it must be us that isn't right, not, of course, that there aren't enough options from which to choose.
Well, I don't know what possessed me to write about this tonight. I needed something time consuming to occupy my thoughts. I hate being in between books. I just bought Gravity's Rainbow but I'm having a hard time getting into it. I like the style but I think there are a lot of references that I'm either too stupid or too young to get. I'm of the opinion that if you have to force yourself to read a book, unless it is for school or you are really, really determined, why bother? Maybe I'll read it one day, or maybe, like Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I'll start it twenty times and never read it. I suppose everyone can't like the same things. How bland would that be?

You Say My Eyes Are Crazy Eyes

After work this morning I took four of my dogs for a walk at Pisgah State Forest near my house. I don't like to take that many at a time because they don't listen very well when they're all together. They were pretty good today, though it was probably because we didn't see any other people. Sometimes that creeps me out though. This forest is 13,500 acres, 21 square miles and to get to the trail head I have to drive about three miles down a dirt road with very few houses; this makes me nervous when I really think about what it is I'm doing. I'm alone, I'm small, my dogs are small, four or not, and I'm too out of shape to out run anyone or anything, even jacked on adrenaline. I probably sound paranoid and crazy. But people are nutso these days and I don't want to be left wishing I could defend myself better.

I have friends who have had really fucked up things happen to them. Is it because their luck was bad, was it their fate to experience that pain, did they set themselves up for it by doing something stupid? I don't know. I always thought I was so lucky to have never had anything really fucked happen to me. Especially travelling across country all the time as a teenager, sometimes alone, sometimes with another young, pretty girl, maybe a skinny, tag-along, wasted boy. All the hitch-hiking and getting wasted at big, dark, loud festivals. And only a few times did I feel like I may be in danger but it always went my way, thank God. I've always told myself it's because predators look for someone they think they can take with minimal effort and that's just not me. You've seen movie scenes where someone has a gun put to their head and they're all, "Go ahead, shoot me! Motherfucker! I dare you to shoot me, I want you to shoot me!!". And the one with the gun doesn't know what the hell to do because they don't really want to have to go that far, they just want to put fear into the other, not kill them. Well, I always thought that if you could just muster a crazy more dark and deep than any your attacker may have known than you can scare them off. But that's obviously not true in a few situations, or maybe that just exposes my limit, perhaps it always works if you can go that far. Most people won't.
In the most current instance, those women didn't have time to do anything to defend themselves. What the hell do you do then?
I feel kind of silly admitting that I read The Shack after hearing about it on NPR. And I was surprised that I found it to be really helpful in understanding evil in the world. It's so easy to ask ourselves why God lets all this horrible, painful stuff happen to innocent people. But we need to remember that people have free will. I have to believe that there is not a God so vindictive and creepy that they would take pleasure from watching us inflict heartache upon one another. Otherwise, being made in the image of God, wouldn't we all find pleasure in the pain of others?

I don't know. I don't pretend to know what the fuck we are here for, or why it is so terrible and so beautiful.
Death, especially when it happens so brutally, seems so unfair, so wrong. But how can something that is everywhere be so scary? Why does it seem like we are designed to rage against death when it is inescapable? Or are immortalists on to something?

Wage Slaves! Rebel!

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all,
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all.
A working class hero is something to be.
They hit you at home and they hurt you at school,
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules.
A working class hero is something to be.
When they've tortured and scared you for twenty odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear,
A working class hero is something to be.
Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.
A working class hero is something to be.
There's room at the top they're telling us still,
But first you must learn how to smile when you kill.
A working class hero is something to be.

John Lennon, of course. But Billy Joe Armstrong can sing it to me anytime if he wants.



When I get enough sleep, when there's good, fresh food to eat, when there's weed to smoke and enough methadone, and I manage to spend enough time alone to chill and settle down - times like this it's easier not to be such a huge bitch.

Mike got fired from his job, admittedly, for something stupid. He may annoy me but it's not because he isn't a good, hard worker. When he started at this place they got paid by how many pieces they picked, about ten cents per box. And he managed to be the second highest paid worker in the warehouse. But recently they changed over their whole system and it's no longer piece rate. Now they have this weird system where if you work at "100% productivity" you get paid $15/hr, if you go faster, say at 200% you would get $30/hr. But it's really hard to go over 100%. Mike would be at, like, 170% every night but he was busting his ass. So obviously he was complaining that he was working harder and making less, probably he was getting other sheep like fellows riled up. I think that's why he was really fired. He supposedly had a mispick, which is essentially a human error, and a minor one at that. Is that really a legit reason to be fired? I don't think so. But fuck it, honestly he's better off. But until he starts getting his unemployment checks we are living off my measly pay and that sucks. I don't really know why Mike started working in the corporate world anyhow. He's always made more money on his own. I think it started when we got on the M-done and his counselor was all, "You should get a real job to help you stay clean. Find some stability". I think that's bullshit, nothings really different in the years since we got on the M-done other than the fact that our legal troubles have been less likely to increase and it's been a lot more boring. We still live in a crappy apt., still only at school part-time trying to finish, still drive alright car, still wear cheap clothes, still need new shoes, still eat whatever I want spending the bulk of my money on food and drugs. The only time my life was getting noticeably better was when health insurance covered my methadone costs. When it's not covered, it's no different than being on dope. (How is that possible you're probably thinking. Because at the clinic for the two of us it's $210/week, methadone off the street is $1/mg and we need about 100mg a week for the two of us right now at the very least, and buying dope off the street we only spent no more than $200 of our own money per week. Say we payed at the most $80/bundle, we could still bring em home and cut each bag in half, still sell em for $20/bag and still get mad high, and we'd do that all week, sometimes making a profit.) My point is that I wish I had just started buying my methadone off the street as soon as had to pay for it out of pocket. And Mike should never have stopped blowing glass and got a "real" job. Because he made pipes, the counselor tried to claim that making the pipes would make him want to smoke and smoking would make him want to do dope. That's fucking absurd. Seriously. This hot, molten glass and this sweat dripping down my face from this huge flame inches from my face is doing nothing to take my mind off drugs. In fact, I'm gonna sit here and smoke out of every single one of these pipes and fuck selling them for thousands of dollars. Are people for real? Pipes or no, we never had any intention of ceasing the smoking of the weed anyhow. If anything, being able to smoke bud makes it easier not to use all the time.Mike's dream since I met him was to open a head shop and sell his and other people's pipes and paraphernalia. We almost did a few years back but it got broken into and so much stuff was ruined we had to postpone opening but we still talk about it all the time. Even if we break up I want to help open the store. We have an awesome name but I won't tell anyone so it doesn't get heisted. So he's been going to my mom's house the past couple weekends and blowing glass with my brothers. That way we can sell some if we have to until we get back up, and if not we can save them for a festival and make some real money in the fall. And it gets him out of the apartment and I get some time alone to clean without him in my way and just basically chill.
He's all depressed about being fired because he's never been fired before. But I don't think it should get him down. I think he should be happy and vow to never go back to a place like that ever again. I hope I don't have to stay here forever either. Time clocks, cement floors, supervisors, break areas, signs everywhere, forms, false friendliness, glass doors, truck fumes, long hours, and noxious cleaning agents - who needs it? And, shit, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
As far as I'm concerned, this whole crappy system could be vastly improved. And it could begin if people weren't so fucking scared of not having everything and people judging them that they won't stand up for change. For instance people at my work who work in the warehouse should be super pissed about this huge pay cut and basically having all the senior workers being forced out in favor of people who will accept half the pay they are getting now. How is that ethical? People should not be okay with minimum wage being as low as it is, almost half, HALF, of what the actual LIVABLE wage is. Can you believe that? And simply being educated and wanting to work does not guarantee that a person is able to find a job they enjoy and pays well enough to live happily.
I can't tell you how many college graduates I work with. At a warehouse, where Mike was the second highest paid selector and he was bringing home seven hundred a week after taxes at the very most, that sucks.
Especially for people who only have a GED and should have these jobs but have to compete with people who have a B.A. or better.
I have to actually work so I must finish my rant.

Why can I write a title but it won't let me write text in the post area? Anyone any experience with iPhone posts?

Ignore this text, I'm trying to use my iPhone

You can follow me into the Dark.

I'm a woman on a rampage tonight. It may be all in my mind but it's a wild rampage nonetheless. If the rage and frustration stewing within me were to suddenly burst forth, even the trees would cringe.

I suppose I carry it with me constantly and like any heat it wants to escape and is undeterred in its attempt to exit the confines of my being. And it's made worse by the fact that I have no desire to cage it most of the time. Warn the town, the beast is out...Oh, I mean bitch.

I'll be cool, driving down the road (which I shouldn't be doing, according to the po po. Some shit about you need a license. What the fuck are they talking about?) listening to some anti-establishment shit and suddenly....Boom! Four raccoons start to run into the road. Now this is your typical country highway, speed limit is fifty but people drive seventy-five, no animal crossing signs (because who cares, really, about animals who are no bigger than cats. If it's not a moose or deer and can't kill a human what's the point, eh?), blind corners, and woods, woods, woods on all sides. As soon as I saw them I started to slow down. I'm pulling over to the dusty shoulder and people are all pissed, whizzing past me, probably thinking I should have just hit the masked little trash-picking rodents. Anyway, by the time I got back to where the last little one was to try to stop the traffic for him to cross, he was so scared and he wouldn't move except to squish himself further into the brush by the roadside. He was chirping like a squirrel but louder, much louder. Not at me but just to the air for his family probably to wait for him. I hate it when people claim animals don't have souls or personalities, so if that's what you think don't comment. We won't agree, EVER and you're stupid, really, really stupid. And you must be the one with no soul. If Mikey hadn't just been laid off and I didn't need my crappy job so much I would have waited for him to want to cross and stopped the traffic, I have my yellow Security costume on so I may as well put it to good use. But I do need this job right now so I couldn't stay and that feeling makes me sick in my heart to know that I'll probably see his carcass on the way home. Because he'll try to cross frantically and it was the busiest time of evening and he'll get hit because some asshole is driving too close to the car ahead, too fast, and doesn't care anyway. If people the other direction had slowed down to begin with, he would have made it. I know this sounds silly, but it's not to me. Animals are an important part of our ecosystem and we treat them as if they are not appetizing to us they are worthless. The ones we like to eat are even worse off, just ask the cows, sheep, and chickens being transported across the country stacked one upon the other in wire cages shitting and pissing upon each others heads the whole way.

Then, last night at work, my co-worker was setting up the scene to call out for tonight. She claimed she wasn't feeling well, but that was after she had complained about how tired she was. And we happen to live in the same building which is totally a coincidence because we didn't know the other one lived there until we ran into each other one day. We are not friends. And she was out in the yard jimmy-rigging her rotted out muffler all day rather than sleeping. I suspect she had plans for tonight which I'll know when I get home tonight and her car is gone or there's a party upstairs. Anyway, I had planned on her calling out and I waited for my work to call me to ask if I would work the extra six hours overtime. I even asked Mikey to tell them I would if they happened to call while I was asleep. But they didn't call. So as soon as I got here I asked my supervisor what was up because I thought Laura was not coming in and I hadn't heard from them. He was all, "Oh, I just figured I'd ask you when you got here if you would stay." Now, I think that's fucked. You should call if you want someone to work an unscheduled shift. This is just a job, not my life, I do not revolve all my thoughts around this greedy ass mega-corp. I planned on leaving at my regular time because I figured she thought better about calling out. I didn't bring any lunch with me, I have carrot sticks, yogurt, and a pretzel. That is not enough food for twelve hours. I turn into a monster when I get hungry and my blood sugar drops. And the morning when it gets busy is when I need to be on my game with all the lecherous truckers. I don't even have any money with me. Because if I take it with me, I spend it. And I didn't need it because I planned to eat when I got home. Either way, it's just common sense to call a person about something like that. Am I crazy, or is it rude to just simply assume I have nothing better to do but lug around extra food and all the other stuff I need just in case I get stuck at work due to unforeseen circumstances. This job is about as important as a job at Burger King. It takes no skill, I do it for money, nothing more, nothing less. If it were a career I were passionate about, long hours are a given. But not here, fuck that. So the guy is all, "Well, I guess I could stay but then I'll be here straight till the morning and I've been here since one". Well, I'm thinking, it was your bad judgement call which brought us to this moment and since it's you be fucked or I be fucked, and it's technically your job to cover or FIND cover when an employee calls out, guess who's fucked this time, pal. Now, because you don't know me, you wouldn't know that this is a monumental occurrence for me. I, like, NEVER say no. Especially if I can be made to feel at all guilty, and it does not take much at all to do that. I'm your typical self-deprecating idiot who tells themselves they don't want to hurt the other person so they hurt themselves instead. But I'm getting really sick of things this way and I've been trying to find a way to linger in the place between being a pushover or a psycho. I'm still slightly disbelieving of the existence of such a place.
I hate the feeling I get in my chest when I agree to something I know I don't want to do or I think I shouldn't do. And I feel almost as bad after I go to the dark side and I've come down and have to watch the scene play over and over again in my head knowing that no one but me knows the reasons behind the rage and therefore misunderstanding continues. Once again, a note to all the dogma touting Anons out there. Don't get all excited and think I may be salvageable because of my guilt. I'm not referring to doing drugs when I think of things I maybe shouldn't do. It's more things like... snap at my dogs when they just want attention. Or take an extra methadone pill when Mikey's not around cuz I know I can get away with it.
So instead of acquiescing and sitting around pissed all night, I said no. I said I would gladly have done it if they had called to give me time to pack the items I needed for the night. But I would not subject myself to being uncomfortable all night when they had every opportunity to make plans otherwise. I'm not the only one they could have called. And if he really didn't want to get stuck here isn't it his responsibility to make arrangements. He gets paid more to be the boss for a reason. I shouldn't have to spend my personal time calling them to ask if they need me to do something I don't want to do anyhow. But, of course, now I feel guilty and I have a feeling they'll indirectly use this against me later. I'm looking for a new job anyway.
Sometimes at this job I feel like a cage girl only with a stupid security officer uniform on rather than being nude. But I know that I'm probably being pictured that way at some point anyhow. Now this wouldn't bother me so much in small doses, but it's overwhelming when it's all the time and unsolicited and uncompensated. At least if I were a stripper I'd be making some real money (and working way less hours). I'm stuck in the little shack which is all lit up and all windows. So every driver who drives by ogles me, and the ones I have to speak with deliver raunchy "compliments" without fail. Half the time I think I tripped and fell into a bad porno when I hear them proposition a rendezvous in the back of their tractor. Does anyone ever accept?? I mean, really? I asked one of them one time, "What would you do if I said yes"? This guy was all, "You can come live with me, I have this and that and I make this much a year..blah, blah, blah". Really, if I said "Sure, let's go. Would I just hop on in next to you, we'd go get some of my stuff and then I'd live with you from then on"? He kind of nervously laughed it off with a mindless, "No, really". I'm always polite and I smile no matter what I'm feeling until I go over the edge which has never really happened here, thankfully, yet. But it makes me mad that I do that. But it would be worse if I got angry at these guys, because they would take offense and it would escalate and I'd get fired or worse. It's not the forum to educate people on the way I would rather be treated, right? But what is the "proper" forum for something like that. The one which only reaches the people who already agree with you? I appreciate a sincere compliment by someone who sees me as an individual, but I don't get that from a lot of these exchanges. I feel like the simple fact that I am female is all that matters. Because it's the same with every woman in here, they have no preference or requirements other than it must have at least one hole. I suppose sometimes that's all a girl wants to be from time to time, but the accepted etiquette is that it has to be ladies choice on such occasions. Am I wrong?
I feel like by laughing it off and pretending I'm not at least slightly offended by the worst of them, than I'm simply perpetuating the cycle of men objectifying women in everyday circumstances on a regular basis.

Of course, the ones you wish would invite you into the back of the truck rarely do.

I obviously wrote this in haste and anger, so spare me the "You (I quote) said this and this, so you must be a whore and a baby-eater shit".

I'm here. I'm alive. Just grumpy lately. I've been losing myself in books the past few nights. Easier than being in my own head. Some days I have plenty of energy and my mind glides smoothly from thought to thought. And others I wake up angry and frustrated and I do not fully understand what causes me to be one or the other. I don't know until it is.

I hate being cold. I hate being hot. I want to be the perfect temperature all the time. I want my skin to be dry and my fingers not cold to the touch. But that will never happen.

I've been dreaming about homemade blueberry pie for weeks now. But there is only one blueberry bush in our yard and I never seem to be able to pick quite enough to fill a pie plate. I'll have to go to another blueb spot. I almost made it the other evening but it became dark so much faster than I planned. I could not make out the color of the berries any longer and it would have been a violetberry pie. If it were edible at all given the fact that Mike was away all weekend and I am a disaster in the kitchen except on the rare occasion something comes out great.

My cat, Reggie, died. It really sucked. I don't really want to detail it too much but I think he may have choked. Blue tongue. I cried a lot.

The times between dark and light are the best times. dawn or dusk when it's not night anymore but net yet day. The air itself seems to be thicker and tinted blue in the morning and green in the evening.