01. Fell asleep on the couch

02. Woke up in my room

03. Avoided food entirely in favor of being lazy

04. Got accused of throwing a temper tantrum

05. Threw an actual temper tantrum

06. Rediscovered enjoyment of classical music

07. Went back to sleep, for lack of anything else to do

08. Woke up a few hours later

09. Went to Wal-Mart to buy soda

10. Sped down Thomasville until I ran out of gas

11. Went back to the house

12. Ate

13. Started contemplating watching True Blood. But I don't think I'm that desperate.


Whose ready for the start of the semester? I'm fucking ready for the start of the semester.

So yesterday was a day for Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and tiling. In that order.

I got the bright idea, two nights ago, to catch up on xxxHolic, an awesome manga by CLAMP. I did, only to realize that it's sister manga, Tsubasa, which runs parallel to it with the occasional crossover, had carried on apace as well. So, of course, I had to read it, too.

It took me all. day.

It was a lot of fun, and I love the series even more than before, but DAMN. I think they started it in 2003. So, there was a lot of it.

And then, around 9pm, I became the Vampire Tile Cutter.

My mother and I are both extremely similar in that we both work our best in between 7pm and 3am. We were tailor-made for the graveyard shift. Also, our tiling project is the kitchen counters, a job we cannot tackle during daylight hours because everyone needs to eat and stuff.

We dry-fit, cut, sawed, sanded, poured, mixed, set, cursed, begged, and said, "The hell with it. That's good enough," until 4am, wherein we surveyed the newly tiled counters and agreed that it was now ice cream time.

I kind of enjoyed this particular venture into tiling. For one thing, counters are infinitely easier to tile than walls. And, like I said, late at night is my kind of shift. And, as a bonus, no one can bitch at me for sleeping in, god dammit.

My little sister has become the victim of some particularly vicious rumors (I assume) and it's getting violent. Right now, she's on the phone, having an extremely catty conversation with the girl who seems to have started the rumors about whatever, demanding that she fix it.

I'm sympathetic. I hate rumor-mongers, and have in the past threatened those who have come to me with them with bodily harm.

But the intricacies of who said what to whom about who, and who took these rumors the wrong way, and how they've mutated is just plain hilarious. In a strictly juvenile sort of way.

My mother and I are equally baffled by the rumor mill, as we both adhere a very strict doctrine of not giving a fuck. We encourage my sister to do the same, as these things tend to be nipped in the bud at a very early stage when the rumored person doesn't know you from Adam, but I think she secretly relishes these conflicts. Perhaps they feed her inner martyr.

Whatever. I just hit people with cars if they get too annoying.

Just got word that I lost my job at the school, due to budget cuts. They said if I ever did work/study, they'd try to hire me back.
At least now I don't have to juggle time between boredom at work and pissing time away between classes. Also, I'll probably get back into swimming.

In the meantime, I'm watching Generation Kill, a phenomenal HBO show about Recon Marines in Iraq during Operation Freedom. It's hardcore.

Generation Kill via watch-series.com

My social schedule for the past week has been dictated by a seven-year-old. I'm getting a little sick of it.

I'm still at that point where adults are more comfortable treating me as one of the kids, rather than including me. Which is understandable, as I'm completely at sea when it comes to discussions about raising children, clipping coupons, or people my family knew in their infancy. But no matter the trip, I seem to always come away from family gatherings needing a vacation from my vacation.

Also, my comma splices are wigging me out. I just don't know how to fix them, as they all sound okay in my head. I guess I pause a lot in my daily conversations.

The cousins are leaving on Monday. God only knows how long we'll linger beyond that.
I hate that I begrudge my mother the chance to spend time with her parents, and I probably should not have come here in the first place. Cold comfort as I slip into slow, screaming insanity.

This is why I drink. And also why I will be god damned before I come back home for another summer.

GOD, I need to find something else to bitch about.

Tomorrow I leave for the grandparent's villa in good old Mississippi, which won't mean much, internet-wise, as they've set up an access point for their laptop-toting granddaughters. Woot.

The cousins are there, three girls that I haven't seen in about a year. It will be nice seeing them. For about a day. The eldest of the girls is thirteen, I believe, and the youngest is six, at most. They like shopping at Claire's, watching Spongebob, and the Jonas Brothers.

I love them. They are not my primo-vacation buddies. To them, I am as old as the hills. Heh.

The reconstruction of the house continues apace. Today, my mother and I tiled two of her kitchen counters. In truth, all that remains of the job I've been drafted into is one long kitchen counter, and an island. Not daunting in terms of labor, but I am so tired of this. As I pointed out to my mother, I'm never going to be enthusiastic about this because I was not included in the planning process.

Here's how this should have gone:

"Do you think we need to retile the counters?"
"What?"
"The counters. They need to change."
"Uhm..."
"And the cabinets. They need new paint. And maybe I'll take this cabinet door off and make a glass door, instead."
"Great... Sounds like fun."
"Oh, also I was repainting the bathroom and discovered that the shower base was cracked and needs to be replaced, and now's a perfect time to redecorate... We should tile that, too!"
"Yuh. Uhm, Dad? Mom's at it again. You have four other children, and I'm joining Greenpeace. Let me know how it goes."

END SCENE.

My mother swears that this job will be done by summer's end, and we as a family can then take an actual vacation, but I'm not holding my breath.

And I'd feel worse about how hard my mother's working, except that, uh. She kind of brought it on herself.


Anyway, in the meantime, I've rediscovered modern punk, a genre I'd left sometime in high school in pursuit of harder rock. The lighter instrumentation and messages of non-conformity and mischief strike a chord in me, nowadays.
It's just fun.

So, in preparation for my forays into Family-Reunion Land, I'm stocking up on Thrice, Rise Against, The Used, Atomship, Yellowcard, Panic at the Disco, and The All-American Rejects.

I've had an accident-prone couple of days.

For most of the summer, my left wrist has been acting up, prompting me to wear a brace.
Yesterday, I kicked a drawer that had been pulled out of the cabinet, busting a blood vessel in my foot.
Today I lost my balance in the library and fell into a bookcase, bruising the back of one arm and jamming a finger but good.
And my knees hurt.

And yes, I would like some cheese with my whine.

Last night was the Afterglow party at Floyd's, which roughly translates into, "Let's throw some foam on people and watch them rave with glowsticks and possibly have sex on the dance floor!"

I went in jeans, tennis shoes, and a t-shirt, as I was too goddamn lazy to shave or anything, I met friends, and a good time was had by all. While waiting for the foam to actually be dispensed, we used the empty dance floor as a fighting rink, sparring with glowsticks for knives. Once the dancing started, things got fun, and then surreal. We were either chest-deep in foam or standing in ankle-deep water stained with crushed glowsticks. There were some couples on that floor that were... into it.

::snerk::

Anyways, after we ditched the party, we came to realize that our perfectly white shirts had become slightly less so. We camped out at the Mickey D's next door, and then went to go jump in a friend's grandparent's pool. We tossed the extra glowsticks in to illuminate the water.
What this friend failed to mention was that the water was FUCKING FREEZING.

I went home in my underwear, something that might constitute a walk of shame, except that I cared for nothing other than getting a shower.

Awesome night, anyway.

I'm awake way too early, which is the other half of the norm around here. Either you stir at the crack of noon or you're up and out at Oh God o'clock.

Anyway, I'm not nearly as ill as I once was, my sore throat having retreated back to the hell from whence it came, leaving a chest cough in it's place. Charming, but nowhere near as painful.
Today I get to play chaperon to my little brother, the rising star. Okay, not really. My brother (who, I kid you not, looks exactly like this, 'cept blonder) auditioned to be on a will-call cast list for FSU student films. And, by jove, they have called. So, today and tomorrow, we get to drive out to the train tracks for filming. I'm not sure what my role is, other than looking pretty off-camera, but I'm sure I can handle it.

Tomorrow's the 4th. Dunno what's up with that, other than the fireworks show our neighborhood association guards like a national secret. I say pretentious, you say pricks.

And then, somewhere in there, I get older. I am looking forward to that day being over, because I have a theory. There is no 19 years of age. You're either 18 or 20, depending on what you want to get away with. 19 means nothing.

Pah.

I'm still sick, kind of. I turn 20 in less than a week. I have pink hair, chipped nail polish, and a ton of dirty laundry. I'm running up a sleep debt. There's a new episode of Burn Notice and Royal Pains tonight. Leverage is coming back this month. I'm on something like my tenth Diet Dr. Pepper of the day. I just got finished watching Blood Diamond, and I watched Garden State yesterday. I'm listening to some kind of bubblegum punk rock that makes me want to pierce something. I have a pair of jeans from the Drowning Pool concert that smell like a head shop.

I'm focusing on the good stuff.

AND NOW I'm reading a story. The story is thus:
"Leverage and Those Sex-Ass Boys from Supernatural Do .Hack"

I SHIT YOU NOT.

It's not that I can't get a god damned job to save my life. I'm bitter but I'm not overly upset.
It's not that I don't own a car. That's gonna happen, one day.
It's that I'm at home.

Home is being remodeled, completely DIY, off-the-cuff construction. And now that I'm home, I can help! Yay!

I don't mind labor. It's something to do. It's just how it's done here.

My mother is very much one to march to the beat of her own drummer. She does things her way, on her own internal timetable that seems to defy everything man knows about its fellow man through centuries of observation. Which is awesome. I want to be my mother when I grow up.

But there is a problem. There is no set schedule to what she does. She'll be cutting drywall one day, and then will ignore the job for the next week, almost as if she forgot about it. But she never forgets. No, she'd bidding her time. For what, the world may never know. But as a result, she works in spurts and sputters, confounding us all.

How this relates to me is thus: I help out when it's clear that there's work to be done. She stops, I stop, having no idea what her next step or plan of attack is. I wait. I sit around the house, kick my heels, and wait some more. I finally get bored and make plans. Then, boom, she's back at it and I'm stuck looking like a leech, living under her roof, eating her food, not lifting a finger to help rebuild the bathroom/re-enforce the gutters/pry up kitchen counters because I'm too busy going out with my friends.

And there's nothing I can do for it, because my mother does not plan and therefore cannot tell me ahead of time when to not be busy. It's like ships in the night.

This is, of course, overlooking the typical arguments over sleeping in (an outrage that I just do not understand in the slightest), gas, who has the car which night, who's going to drop everything to take my sister to her fifth softball tournament in as many days, and, of course, who's turn it is to take out the trash.
And I really do not want to get into the peripheral drama of friends and their relationships/breakups/emergencies/frustrations/issues, either.

It feels selfish, because it is, but I do not want to be here, and I have not enjoyed my stay. Barring some freak incident or absolute necessity of my being here, I do not foresee myself returning home for another summer. I am too used to doing my own thing, and it feels as if I'm the one doing all the bending.

Yeah, got my hair did, and made it all pink an' shit. It's like cyber-punk meets The Little Mermaid, Disney edition.

Watch someone call me for a interview tomorrow. WATCH THEM.

And there is no reason for Karl Urban tongue because, frankly, you do not need a reason for Karl Urban tongue. I mean, lookit! That GQ motherfucker should be an everyday fixture in every red-blooded woman's life.

Fer serious.

All pertinent, I swear.

First off, I recently acquired the game Sims 3. That game is like a deadly sin. You know its wrong, BUT YOU JUST CANNOT STOP.
But really. God DAMN. That game.

Just. ERG.

Next, Drowning Pool concert tomorrow. Syked? Duh-HUR.

Today I tiled a wall. It was an adventure. More to come tomorrow, pre-concert.

And the big news. My grandfather is selling his truck. He may sell it to me. Or, okay, he may loan it to me after I sign a loan agreement, because I do not have four thousand dollars right this second. But I may be getting a truck.

Ask me how excited I am. Go ahead. I've got capslock.

So, we went to get shots today. Lucky me, they had just enough meningitis vaccine for me to get that, too.

A good time was not had by all, and the rest of that male nurse's day had to have seemed golden in comparison to us.

Still jobless. My mother made me pick up an application to Wendy's the other day. It's now collecting dust on my dresser. I'm hoping she'll forget about it.

My feelings on the job situation still sit around the level of frustrated rage, depression, and a creeping sensation of apathy. I'm just waiting for someone to say that I'm not trying hard enough, because that person will lose teeth.

Yeah, I try not to dwell.

Anyway, we are re-tiling the downstairs bathroom. My younger sister has monopolized the family car to work her job of babysitting. I'm broke. I go back to school in August.

I seriously doubt I'm going to come back home after then. Even Christmas is looking doubtful at this point.

The Army boy has returned!

My sibs and I drove up to the airport to fetch his ass, Taco Bell in hand, and lo, there he was, looking better than I've ever seen him.

He's disoriented, culture(?)-shocky, and slightly PTSD-y, and he has a lot of thinking to do, but he's glad to be home and we're glad to have him.

Tomorrow, we're (see: everyone and their father) going to Chili's for dinner, and going to see Star Trek after that. This will make a third viewing for me, but that is still nothing in comparison to how many times I saw Iron Man in theaters.
So, yeah. It's all good.

So, I recently got rich. While digging aimlessly in my backyard, hoping to find Jimmy Hoffa, or at least China, I found a lost Nazi shipment of gold bullion. Don't get too excited, though. I've pretty much burned my fortune on hookers and blow. That one blue girl was freaking expensive.
But she had nice eyes, so it worked out.

Anyway, in between orgies, I've been perusing st_xi_kink, where the bashful and the shameless come together to fulfill one another's wild and depraved fannish fantasies.
There's such a great atmosphere of camaraderie and perversion. Have a look!

Yeah. Also, happy Friday! I have little planned, since the Chippendale dancers kind of wore me out. There's some kind of beach party going down, with paintball and possible virgin sacrificing, but as it's been raining nonstop for a few days, such things fail to entice.

Also, what's a pack of dead virgins to watching Pineapple Express with Studly Thunder in a banana hammock?

Edit: Hmmm. I have received a kidnapping threat from the beach-goers, who vow to steal a car if necessary to snatch me from the street.
This has happened before, and I no longer have enough spare cash lying around to pay for bail (although I do have a few conflict diamonds and one limited edition Boba Fett figurine). Guess I'll have to go. For the good of mankind, you understand.

So, it might have just occurred to me that the semester is almost over.

I have... eh. Some more stuff that needs doing. Exams and the like. But essentially, the semester is done with.

So.
Now I have to pack up everything, and clean everything else.
Move back to Tallahassee.
Re-adjust to being one of five children, with only one car between us.

That's gonna be the toughest. I've been taking care of myself for almost two years, now. Going home to chores and bed times is not gonna be easy.
Not to mention the drama I just know is gonna go down. That's always something to look forward to.
Gotta find a job and do summer school, too.

...
I think I'm gonna miss school. Like, a lot.

Dear People,

Whatever it is, whatever's going on with you and your life, or with someone else's, it's a pretty safe bet that I do not care.

You do your thing, I'll do mine.

This means not calling me in an absolute, self-righteous panic about something I can do jack-all about.

This means you get to make your own choices and mistakes.

This means dealing with your own problems/screw-ups/heartbreaks.

I'm not gonna judge, because that's just smug. And I'm sure as hell not gonna get involved. You need me, I'm there. But until my ass is actually needed, it's staying right here.

Who's to say who's living a better, happier life? It takes all kinds. Take a deep breath and take a pill or something.

Yeesh.

Love,
Z

My mom, the wonderful woman that she is, came through town yesterday and gave me a chain tool with which I could fix my broken bike chain.

Today I got the broken link off, and in the process of reattaching a new link, broke the chain tool.

I now have an unconnected length of greasy bike chain in a plastic bag under my bed, a sore back, and grease ground into every available crevasse of my hands.
Yeah, I love my bike. But it's gonna have to wait.