You know what, WordPress? I’m sick of you always asking me for a title.

Know what I don’t miss? (Well, not that I can anymore.) PMS. I switched off of NuvaRing because of, er… female issues… (Sucks, because other than those issues it was much less of a pain in the ass than anything else I’ve tried.) Right now I’m using other methods, and whhheeeee… I forgot allllll about mood swings and zits. Yay for both of those! I was used to the lovely plateau I was constantly stuck on. Not too high, not too low. But especially not too high. Now, though… Back to crying at toothpaste commercials (and oh god, it’s almost Christmas cellphone commercial season) and exploding for no particular reason. Sorry Sean. Although, you were kind of being a jerk tonight. I think. Hard to tell. PMS brainfog of evil! Also, red wine. And not even good stuff. Box wine. Who left this here? Dan, I think? Well, Dan… you’re fired.

In other brain-squashing news… Internet got turned off, because who knew!? You gotta pay for that shit! Whoops. Currently connected through my cellphone, plugged in through USB, set as a modem. Good thing I hacked that shit long ago. Ahhh, T-Mobile. Weren’t counting on me being able to get proper GPRS when you sold me $5.99 unlimited data transfer, were you! The only web access enabled without messing around with things you’re not meant to mess around with is the part where they try to sell you $2 ringtones. Fuck that shit. Anyway, as cool as I am, this is slow as something that is really, really goddamn slow. Even with images turned off. How am I going to check MySpace now!?

Once upon a time

This is the story of how alcohol is responsible for the entire last fiveish years of my life.

I first met Sean on the interweb, because we’re just cool like that. He lived in La Porte, Indiana and I lived in Toronto, Ontario. Obviously a little hard to arrange dates for Friday and Saturday nights that way. Being mightily persuasive, Sean somehow managed to get to Canada and back a couple of times while I had to be in Toronto for classes, despite not owning a car or even having a license. How one goes up to someone and says “hey… do you think you could give me a ride to CANADA?” I am not entirely sure I understand. When Christmas vacation came around, he got a ride up to my campus, and we drove back to Indiana, where I met most of the people I am still acquainted with here, and we had a marvelously drunkenly drunken time.

My family wanted me home for Christmas though, so despite not being happy about leaving, we arranged for one of his friends to drive us all the way back to Canadia. He’d be going with me, of course, but it wasn’t bound to be the same kind of super funness, what with my family being around, and my family living in the middle of nowhere and my friends being busy and all. So he would just be along for the ride, and would head back right away.

In order to celebrate our last night before the trip back, we decided that fun was in order. Now, at Sean’s mother’s house (an A-frame known as the Gnome House), there wasn’t exactly much fun to be had. Also, there was no transportation available to convey us to a more funner-like location. There was no cable, just the few channels we could pick up in the middle of nowhere (all Christian, IIRC — and while those are entertaining, you can only watch so much of that retardedness in one sitting). There was no DVD player. There was no Internet. There was no nuffin. Therefore we did the only other entertaining thing we could do (and hell, we’d probably have chosen it anyway); we drank us some drinks.

The only alcomahol available was a bottle of Southern Comfort. Deeeesguuussssting! I don’t remember if we started out with a mixer or not, but we certainly didn’t have one by the end. As horrible as that stuff tastes, it goes down pretty durn easy. Hardly realized how friggin’ much I drank. Well. Or maybe I didn’t drink a terrible lot, considering that the only thing I’d really had to eat that day was probably half of a tub of marshmallow fluff. Yeah, you can tell this is going to end well. Details are probably lost here since I entered blackoutville at some point here…

Our ride showed up a little early, I think, on account of the weather was getting bad, and it was my last chance to get the hell out of Indianer before happy happy Jesus day. As fun as driving around (in a blizzard) is while you’re seeing 28 of everything, we packed ourselves into the back of our friend’s teensy two-door sedan and headed off to Eskimoland.

Interesting fact: two-door sedans do not have four doors. You would think that this would be obvious to anyone, but it certainly wasn’t obvious to me while I spent the first portion of the ride frantically trying to open the non-existant back door in order to not puke on the inside of the car, which is clearly not where puke belongs.

So, lacking a convenient escape hatch for my vomit, we stopped at the first rest stop along the way. Yes, this journey was definitely promising to be a joyous one. I spent, um… well, I’m not sure. An hour? Two hours? Three hours? Seventy-four years? A long-assed time, anyway… in the women’s restroom with Sean holding my hair (such a darling) while I puked. And also vomited. And then puked some more. I don’t really remember any of this well, but I believe it based entirely on the fact that I don’t remember it. I mean, usually blackouts mean I’m super sober, mhm. I do remember now that I MUST have had some mixer at some point. I can even tell you what it was. Coke. That evil bastard soda. I don’t know if I’m alone here, but Coke has a very particular texture and appearance while floating around in the toilet bowl that is recognizable every time… yeah anyway…

Eventually the toiletfest ended, and we got back onto the road to continue on our merry way. The weather outside was frightful, or something equally festive. We made it for uh… okay, well I don’t know. I was conscious, but not particularly with it, and certainly not hip to the jive. Sooner or later (I am guessing later based on the later annoyance level of our driver), a drunken Sean realizes a very important part. He had killed off those braincells that remind you before going on trips to places that are particularly international that you ought to bring some form of ID (actually, he forgot his entire wallet — he still does this on a regular basis, drunk or not, but not usually if we’re leaving the country). Durrrr. Here is an equation: vomiting + blizzard + inadequate paperwork = FUCK THIS SHIT YOU JERKS I’M TURNING THIS CAR AROUND.

And so, we never did make it to Canada that night. Because of the blizzard, I wound up being stuck in Indiana (and trust me, if you’re ever in Indiana, the only word that correctly defines your situation is “stuck”, because if you weren’t, you would leave) until New Year’s. Being stucked, even trapped, in the middle of nowhere with no form of entertainment whatsoever except for eachother inevitably led to kissy kissy etc. etc. Maybe it wouldn’t have turned out so well without inappropriate amounts of SoCo. But despite what SoCo has done to me, just thinking about it’s lurrrrrrvly fragrance makes my stomach want to leap out of my body. Even moreso than the smell of rum, and rum was responsible for many more notable occurances of stomach escapism. Delightful, no? I think I told him I loved him for the first time somewhere in there, but you know… I’ve killed too many braincells in my short life to remember that kind of thing. What kind of woman am I, anyway? Where is my mental Rolodex of every event that has ever happened to me, and every stupid thing the men in my life have ever said?

Anyway, I started off writing this as a story about how liquor made me tie the knot, but come to think of it… I think maybe I ended up married because my husband is such a goddamn idiot and forgets to take his wallet with him anywhere. I had it in my head that it was somehow booze-related forgetfulness on his part, but really… I don’t think he was nearly as drunk as I was. He’s just dumb. The only reason he ever brings that shit is because I pack it for him. Hm. Well, oh. I guess that the liquor was responisbile afterall, then. I was too drunk to remember things FOR HIM. Geez, what a loser.

The End

P.S. I hate the editor in WordPress. Remind me to change the settings one day when I’m not so lazy.

Angst + Shirking Responsibility = Art

Wow! Doing taxes is so much fun! Mhm. And I’m so glad that Sean keeps such impeccable records for Cyanotic. I think I give up for this weekend. Gotta save some of this for later, because I just love it so so much! On the bright side, I only have to file taxes in one country this year. I think. (You know, I’d better check on that.) I do get to do two sets of state taxes. Whee.

In order to avoid all of these mind-taxing taxes, I’m planning to redesign this site. I am a bad, bad blogger. Or, you know. I guess I’m not, if you know what the word weblog really means and all (durrr… it means a log of things found on the web — not a journal — maybe I’m just a blog snob). But yeah. I didn’t intend for this thing to be primarily linkage. So I am going to do one of two things: a) move the links to a sidebar and post some actual content more frequently, or b) give in and blog away, but with expanded commentary (and not using del.icio.us). A page full of del.icio.us links with two word comments is pretty lame, because you could get that right here. I’m not enjoying the redundancy.

I am telling you this in hopes that I will feel stupid if I don’t get around to actually doing anything. I’m kind of known for laziness and procrastination. It probably won’t work, because how stupid can I feel when it seems that very few people visit this site. But it’s something. The only way I ever seem to be able to get anything done is when I am trying to avoid doing something more important (e.g. those damn taxes). It’s been hard lately, since I’m not taking any classes. I guess that’s my entire creativity drain problem right there… I’ve got nothing to put off doing lately. It would also explain why I was completely unable to be sufficiently artsy-fartsy while in art school, despite pumping out pretension all through high school. It’s what I was supposed to be doing. I hate doing what I’m supposed to. Yesterday I resorted to doing $20 worth of laundry and spending eight hours cleaning in order to avoid those nasty taxes. Predictions for future receipt-sorting avoidance measures include alphabetizing my underwear, Scotchguarding the ceiling, updating my personal information with government agencies, responding to e-mail…

Fair Warning

Or it would be, if only Sean paid any attention to anything I post online. Next chance I get, the Beetlejuice ringtone on our phone is so being replaced by “Yakety Sax”. No one knows the joy that it brings to me. Maybe I’m just slightly tipsy. Imma gonna get offa the Internets, now. Imagine that. Y’know what’s even more emo than having a LiveJournal? Yeh — having a real journal. S’okay, though. I stopped writing terrible poetry in there when I was 13. Remind me to repost my pathetic depressed-13-year-old website sometime, though. Manohman, what a stereotype I was. Hay, that shit fast-tracked me into art school. If I’m gonna be a stereotype, best be believing I’m gonna be a superior stereotype. Coulda been doing that shit as a living by now. Jebus, what a joke. Tampon in a teacup. So very paradigm shifting. Ramble end.

Yay! I love utility companies!

Peoples Energy, I shake my fist at you. $16.24 activation charge? For what? To change the information on the already existing, already working account? Don’t you think that if you are going to charge $16.24 for this service that you should make some effort to at least get that information right?

Who is Dean Payne? I know that my handwriting can be a little bit messy sometimes (although I’m pretty careful about it in cases where I would like people to copy something down accurately). But if anything, half of my letters are scribbles that look like esses (at least gee, wi, dee, bee, pee, jay, and duh… ess…) I’m reasonably sure that I couldn’t possibly have made the name Sean look like Dean. And it’s a curious fact that the letter dee is right next to ess on the keyboard…

You bastards didn’t even bother to change the address on the account. You have the street number wrong. You have the apartment number wrong. It’s probably a fluke that the bill wound up in the right state. It took three weeks to convince you that my apartment existed, and even then, your customer service representatives could not figure out how to enter it into the computer. The only apartment at this address on record is “basement”. There is no basement here…

I confuses me why the account is in my husband’s name (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) in the first place, since apparently you were unable to open an account using his SSN when we called you and tried. You told us that Sean was already in your system, and that he owed you several hundreds of dollars. I wonder whose number is now incorrectly associated with us.

I look forward to paying you unnecessarily large sums of my money every month for what I hope will continue to be sub-par service.

P.S. – Metric system, plz. WTF is a “therm”. People that aren’t stupid measure in joules.

Speaking of idiotic organizations, my green card arrived today, miraculously. The address on the envelope doesn’t exist… The USPS, in a freakish episode of competenceness managed to get it to its destination. And the mailman, in a freakish episode of paying attention to what the hell he was doing managed to put it into the mailbox instead of onto the floor beneath it as usual. Thanks, mailman! That was nice of you!

Hey, great!

It finally came to me. The terrible, dreadful, awful, evil, nagging feeling I’ve been experiencing for at least the last year is impatience of a particularly anxiously irritating variety. If only this knowledge helped me in any way, whatsoever. And as far as I know, it will last indefinitely, because I haven’t a clue what I’m so busy being impatient about. Damned distracting. Stupid all-consuming impatience, eliminating my attention span completely! I find this state of being to be quite unacceptable. I guess that it will end whenever I figure out what I’m waiting around for. And then I will say “finally”, and go on to find some other excuse for my rotting brain. But yeah. Jesus fuck shit piss. Liquor.

That’s my big complaint. The little one is this: do you know how many damned papercuts you wind up with if you work at Kinko’s? Carl Sagan would be able to tell you… (Billions and billions).

W00T!!!

It sure took them long enough (I mailed my application more than two years ago), but I got this e-mail today:

The following is the latest information on your case status

Receipt Number: MSC041041****

Application Type: I485 , Application to Register Permanent Residence or to Adjust Status

Current Status:  

This case has been approved. On November 1, 2005, an approval notice was mailed. If 14 days have passed and you have not received this notice, you may wish to verify or update your address. To update your address, please call the National Customer Service Center at (800) 375-5283.

If you have questions or concerns about your application or the case status results listed above, or if you have not received a decision or advice from USCIS within the projected processing time frame*, please contact the National Customer Service Center.

National Customer Service Center (800) 375-5283.

*The projected processing time frame can be found on the receipt notice that you received from the USCIS.
*** Please do not respond to this e-mail message.

Sincerely,

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS)

Now… if only I had any clue where the hell they mailed my green card. I’ve tried to update my address repeatedly, but you’re supposed to wait 30 days for a confirmation in the mail (no, seriously — it only takes them a month to update an address — now that’s efficiency!) I’ve never seen one. Last I knew, they were still sending notices to me to my previous previous previous address, and the officer at my interview copied down my previous address, but got it wrong (plus, I have no reason to expect that her records are connected to any other record with my name on it — they have a bit of a problem with linking information at the USCIS).

Ah well. I’m going to be happy, anyway. Not because it means I can stay in the United States, but actually… because it means I can leave now. Or rather, leave, and then be allowed back in (unless I wanted to start the two year process over again, this was a bit of a problem for me until today!) I shall be visiting Ontari-ari-ario posthaste.

Red means go!

The next time someone honks at me for not turning right on a green light when there are pedestrians are crossing the street, I think I will put my car into reverse. Okay, I won’t. But seriously, do they want me to run those people over so that they can get to work faster? It seems like the only reason anyone ever honks on me is because I’m avoiding doing something illegal. Like stopping at a stop sign or red light, or not turning right in front of a bus… WTF.

(A search for “run pedestrians over” on Google leads to an image on Flikr with the title “Please don’t run over pedestrians. They cross here.” I disagree. The crosswalk in the photo leads to a Church of Scientology branch…)