not-okay-ness

i really need a cuddle right now

frustration

This won't be a long post, just have to vent a few frustrations.

I suppose I could give a little update as well, for posterity's sake.

On Tuesday, the night that Rachel (Tom's karaoke friend) did karaoke at McMahon's usually a bunch of people (myself and Tom included) went outside McMahon's and just gathered to commiserate and sort of honor those who died there, especially Ryan the bartender. Afterwards we headed to the Cardinal where they let Rachel set up her karaoke stuff (even though she usually just does it there on Saturdays) and everyone (save myself and one other) proceeded to get incredibly intoxicated. Crazy hijinks ensued. It ended up being a very late night and then I had to get up for work early the next day to do 40 mouse cell injection surgeries (the most we'd done previously to Wednesday was 30 and even that was a lot).

So got in to work on Wednesday at 7:30 and did all those surgeries. To be honest we only did 39 because one of the mice we got was waaay too small to do surgery on (the average size was about 24 grams and this guy was only 17.5!). So we didn't do anything to that little guy and I'm considering adopting him (he's so freakin cute and tiny!). Left work a bit early on Wednesday because I was just exhausted (little sleep the night before). Went home and napped and then did a bunch of work on a "schematic" (aka drawing or figure) for work (about 3-4 hours of work).

Today (Thursday) I went to work and Katie and I did some practice surgeries on really old mice. I'm getting better at coring (getting the needle in through the knee into the marrow space in the femur - harder than it looks!). Still not great at plugging the hole with amalgam though (that's the stuff dentists use to fill cavities). After lunch then Joe informed me that all of my work on the schematic was to waste because Pat (boss) wanted a totally different style now. Yep. I wanted to curse a lot but managed to restrain myself. Sigh, so I get to start all over with that little project. I think I'll work on it this weekend if I get motivated - it's really difficult for me to work on it at work because I have to use a computer with no internet and crappy mouse. At home I have the internet (for minor distractions or to look up stuff) and my awesome stylus/tablet thing to draw with.

Tomorrow (Friday), Sybylla and Vicki are meeting me at Arby's for a night of fun. We're going to eat at Arby's, get ice cream at Dairy Queen, and then go see Sherlock Holmes at the Riverview theater. It promises to be a really fun night - I hope that's how it turns out!

That's all - the frustration is for the schematic really. That and some other minor things that just really aren't worth mentioning here.

Happy Easter

So a lot's been going on and I've been really lazy. My bad.

Last weekend (3/26-3/28) was kind of fun. On Thursday before that weekend my 2 sisters and dad went down to Florida for spring break. So mom came up to the cities on Friday. I got out of work a little bit early and mom brought Belle up. We went from the VA to the dog park at Minnehaha and Belle had a blast. She got soo dirty because the river was high and then she was rolling around in the dirt with other dogs. She also found a gigantic stick, more of a tree actually, and kept wanting to bring it to mom and I. I took some pictures on my phone while laughing hysterically. Sent them to the rest of the fam down in Florida and they sent back pics of them on the beach... unfair! Went back home, tied Belle to the end of my bed, and then went out to see Alice in Wonderland. I really liked the movie - I think the low expectations helped. When we got back Belle was loose in my room after chewing through the leash. Went to bed, after retying Belle's shorter leash to her collar.

A few hours later Belle had finished chewing through the leash again and decided to join us in bed. Instead of just curling up she wanted to play, lick our faces, bat her paws at our heads, etc. Eventually I managed to retie her again but mom and I didn't get much sleep.

Saturday morning we got up and mom took Belle on a walk. Around 10:30 we put Belle in one of Jordan's spare kennels in the basement and headed over to Chanhassen to go to see Footloose the musical/dinner theatre thing. It was a really fun show but there was a lot of sitting around and waiting and our seats had sort of a terrible angle (one set piece was waay too big) but it was still a fun show. It ran really long though and by the time we got back, poor Belle had had a big accident in her kennel. And had been laying in it (ew). So after cleaning her up we packed up and started heading down to Rochester. Thats about when mom discovered her phone was missing. After a little digging we realized she had left it at the Chanhassen dinner theatre. So we drove back and picked it up and then finally headed down to Rochester.

Once back at home mom worked on Sara's prom dress (which she's sewing) and I baked chocolate chip cookies. Fun family time.

Sunday I started going through my "box of stuff" from my school days. I managed to throw enough away to actually close the lid on the box, and that trip down memory lane was fun. Eventually I drove the red car (one Sara drives to school) back up to Minneapolis.

Spent that week driving to work and being generally lazy.

On Friday, at work I learned that a terrible thing had happened that morning. At 6am a fire started in one of the apartments above McMahons - the Irish pub that Tom's friend Rachel does karaoke at every Tuesday. The entire building was up in flames, and tragically 6 people died. One was a bartender at the bar that Tom and his friends all knew fairly well.

http://www.startribune.com/local/89764002.html?elr=KArksi8cyaiUqCP:iUiacyKU7DYaGEP7vDEh7P:DiUs

Basically, it was a horrible tragedy. So that night Tom, Rachel, and all that crowd (and I) got together at the new place Rachel just started running karaoke at. So many people showed up to commiserate, including Tom's ex-wife, Char. That was awkward in the extreme and really put me on edge the entire night. Other than the awkwardness it was pretty good.

Saturday was a lazy day, sleeping in and then going to BWW's for lunch with Tom. Eventually I packed up a bit and headed to Hannah's apartment to pick her and Commissioner Gordan (her cat) up and then drove down to Rochester. Had a good night at home doing mostly nothing but hanging out with the sisters (they got back from FL this Thursday).

Sunday got up, showered, and headed to church. Afterwards Megan, Sara, and I had to find plastic Easter eggs hidden in the house by our mom. She hid them indoors this time so we wouldn't be embarrassed by the neighbors like last year... yep. I was the last one to find all my eggs (as usual) but hey the candy inside was totally worth it. Eventually mom and Sara drove me back to Minneapolis. Spent the rest of the afternoon being bored.

Which brings me to today, boredom.

Topped off with some more boredom.

Wanted to go get some stuff at Target but it looked like it was about to rain after work so instead I just came home. And sat around doing ABSOLUTELY nothing.

Lame.

Better, but still... something...

So these past two weeks have been much better than my last post.

I think a big part of it has to do with the weather just boosting my mood with the bright, sunny, warm days we've been having.

Anywho... so last weekend my sister Megan came to visit me on Friday. I busted out of work about an hour early and met her at the Mall of America, where we wandered around lost for awhile and then ate at Noodles, then wandered around some more until we headed back to my house. All we ended up doing there was watching a couple of movies on TV (Ocean's 13 and The Bourne Identity). Went to bed, got up the next morning and I think did more nothing. We eventually went over to Target and bought some necessities and eventually she had to head back to Eau Claire. Her being here was a big morale booster as well. We didn't even do much other than chill, hang out, talk. It's just nice catching up with her for once (and yes I know you're probably reading this, happy now? :P).

Right now Kaylee is climbing all over me; she just crawled inside my sweatshirt and was hanging out in there for awhile. Which is better than trying to crawl all over the keyboard like she was before. I get the feeling I have some rat poop inside my sweatshirt now though... nope! Good rat!!

Tuesday night Tom and I went to McMahon's for his friend's karaoke show. It was actually fun, with the lack of some of his less than fun friends present. I even got a free shamrock necklace thing (ok free cheap thing with a big Guinness token on the end of it but whatever!). We went out again on Wednesday night as well (St. Patrick's Day) and again had fun. A different bar this time but same karaoke show.

Saturday was at the Cardinal (same show! same group of friends - the good set). Had a lot of fun and there was a big group of people there who were really getting into the karaoke. Some excellent singers as well.

Sunday (today) Tom and I went to see Repo Men in theaters. It was AMAZING. I mean I was sort of expecting just a lame, expected plot with lots of action and gore (the action and gore I got) but there were some excellent unexpected plot twists that just made the movie great. It was also a good insight as to how far human greed can go (and sometimes I believe it could go that far). Afterwards we went to his friend's house for a BBQ. That was kind of a bust because it just got a little too chilly outside but we all hung out inside and had a good time. Good food too - some delicious cookies! And good conversations.

Well that's a really shortened version of my last two weeks, I left out a bunch of stuff from work (big boss was in for the past two weeks, took us out to lunch on Thursday to a sushi place; wants me to work on some illustrations which is both good and bad because I'd love to but haven't been trained that way so don't know what he's expecting as far as quality goes; lots of business there and staying late), as well as some other little stuff from the week (Kaylee keeping me up late or not letting me sleep with her wheel-running; trying to make plans for this coming weekend with my mom - Chicago, Vegas, anything and it all fell through), etc. But I guess I hit on the major points.

Just put Kaylee back in her cage - she did not poop or pee on me or my desk once! Now that's a good rat!! (she definitely got a treat for it too)

That's about it I guess. Time for me to clean Kaylee's cage...

PS - I just remembered the title of my post. Basically, I am better, but still lacking some level of happiness that I feel is essential in remaining sane. Maybe the weather will help me achieve that but I'm still thinking I need a vacation badly, and not just over a weekend. I'm thinking that I might do a big Europe trip whenever I figure my life out. As in, sometime between quitting this job and moving on to whatever's next I might try to do a big roadtrip through Europe or maybe somewhere else. Like a monthlong thing. Or maybe I won't, I just feel like that would be a good time to do it, between jobs or life stages. I should have done it after graduation but I was dirt-broke. Not that I'm rolling in cash now or anything but my finances are a little more stable. Anyway, those are my thoughts on that...

What's with YOUR attitude, bitch?

I sometimes really really really wish I liked beer. I wish I liked drinking it as much as some of the people I've been hanging out with lately do. I've never wished that before now, but if I drank it would make all the ridiculous outings with these people a hundred times more enjoyable. I'd be easily less bored and probably less pissy every time I go out.

What prompts this topic? Tom's working karaoke at the Cardinal (bar) tonight and a bunch of his friends are there as well. I elected to go in later (it started at 8pm) in order to get some laundry and cleaning done. So I went in around 11pm, sat down at the table with his friends, and proceeded to be completely ignored. I'm shy and self-conscious enough as it is, but having all of my comments go unresponded to just put me in a not-having-fun mood. Then, when a known not-so-good singer went up to the stand, all of Tom's friends went outside. So that left me inside alone. I went up to talk to Tom, since he had a mini-break, and got about two words in before he walked away from me to go talk to a bunch of girls having a bachelorette party. Wtf?

Eventually the rest of the "friends" came back and sat around me at the table and two of them asked one of the bar workers for their tabs. They happened to be the two sitting to either side of me. So the bartender (for lack of a better title) then looks at me and goes, "What's with your attitude?" I was shocked. Yes, I was in a bad mood, but I generally conceal it pretty well. All kinds of potential responses came to mind, everything from accusing the fucker of ignoring me when I was desperately thirsty (for water, but whatever no one even asked when I got in) to trying to laugh it off. What I did was glare at him until he walked away. The thing is, I'm pretty sure I looked at Tom's friends after he said it and it looked like they were agreeing with him. When he walked back with their tabs he then goes "Looks like your attitude's improved already!" I was so incredibly pissed and upset, with no one talking to me other than to insult me for no reason I walked up to Tom and told him I'd pick him up when he was done.

I got in the car, and immediately tears started streaming down my face. That's when I discovered I'm probably more emotional than usual tonight (hormones??? idk) but whatever. There was no way I was staying there, bored, lonely, and having absolutely no fun. I'd rather be home cleaning than sitting there.

I can't help but think this is going to ruin things. I don't know how or why but I have this forbidding feeling that I can't get along with Tom's friends because I don't drink. Basically, I rarely associate with these people while they're not drinking and I can't be as open and uninhibited as they are because I don't drink. And so I look like the stick in the mud who won't have fun with them, just because I have a different definition of what's fun. I'd like to go out and go bowling, or skiing, or go to a movie, or play board games or cards or anything but all they do is drink. Maybe I'm overgeneralizing, but that's all I've experienced.

So now I'm back home, debating on what to do now. What do I say to Tom? Do I apologize or get mad? I want to get mad, but fear that won't help my cause at all.

On other notes, had a busy week last week. We had surgery or behavior to do every day last week except for Friday. On Friday we had a big AALAC inspection, so it was just a busy week at work.

Yesterday I noticed Kaylee was acting funny, like she had no balance. She kept rolling over and walking funny and actually wasn't very well groomed. I played with her for awhile and then totally cleaned out her cage (including hosing/soaping the aquarium), replaced all her food and water, and got her a new box and tunnel. She seems to be looking better today, definitely more groomed and less wobbly, but still a bit unbalanced. According to the internets, she might have an inner ear infection, but I'm hoping it will go away on its own.

Tomorrow I'm going to go skiing by myself. Kind of lame, but I don't have anyone to go with me and I really want to go. Not to mention my parents went to all the work of getting me my skis so I'd better use them! Hopefully they still have snow.

What I wouldn't give for a time machine...

Keep on keeping on

I've got nothing new to share, even though it's been nearly a month since I last posted.

Kaylee's grown bigger and often runs to the top of the cage when I call her name but nothing really new or exciting with her.

Work is... tolerable. I'm generally busier now so even though work is no longer fun, it at least generally goes by quickly enough to not be excruciating.

I guess one thing that happened was driving up to St. Cloud on Feb. 13 to meet Tom's family at his stepmom's birthday party. That was interesting. His sisters and everyone seemed pretty nice, although I didn't spend too much time conversing with them (other than his older sister, her husband and son). The night was really long though - we had to watch a chef make our food before they brought it out to us - the dinner lasted about 3 hours. Afterwards we then immediately drove down to just outside Madison, WI to spend the rest of the 3 day weekend (hooray for President's day) at Tom's friend Julie's house. What was supposed to be exciting and fun turned into starving and extremely boring. We did nothing there but sit around and watch movies or sleep for a day and a half. And the entire time we were there we had 1 meal. It was horrible. The best part was eating at the first-ever Culver's on the way home.

Besides that, I can't even think of anything else that's happened. I guess we went down to Rochester for the superbowl. That was also kind of boring but I guess I had fun because it was my family.

Figured out my taxes as well, so should get some money for that one of these days. Been wondering what to do with it when it comes. I should probably just dump it into savings but there are a couple of things I really want. The first is a car. Mostly for convenience because really it is freaking cold here in the winter and because of that I never want to go anywhere via public transportation. Waiting outside in the cold is no fun, so unless Tom's willing to drive me somewhere (which he usually is, he's so nice) I just don't go anywhere. A car would change that. It would let me get crap done, go home to Rochester whenever I wanted, go on roadtrips, whatever! Granted I probably wouldn't do any of that but the possibilities seem endless from this end of the timeline. Of course then I have to consider how much I'm willing to pay for a car (it would definitely be used), not to mention if I can even afford it what with insurance etc. The other thing I desperately want to do is go on a vacation somewhere. Preferably somewhere warm, with a beach, but right now I'm open to suggestions. I really just want to get out of Minnesota (and by that I don't mean to Wisconsin) and relax for a week. My considerations have gone everywhere from a week in Florida with my grandparents to a week down in Texas surprising old friends to 10 days in Europe tracking down ex-best friends. That and of course flying back down to Oz (probably never to return). So what should I do? The responsible thing would be to save it or buy a car with it (practicality) but I'm really sick of always taking the responsible actions in life. That's what brought me back from Oz in the first place, my stupid sense of responsibility (or reality, whatever you want to call it). But I'm open to suggestions.

There was something else I wanted to share here...

Ah yes. I had a breakthrough the other night about what I think I really want to do with my life. More and more I've been leaning toward scientific illustration, because the more I think about it the more it sounds like something I'd actually love to do. The problem is I'm not sure if it's because I actually would love doing art for a living or that it just sounds uber cool. Since I've had this revelation I have been telling myself to just start drawing, maybe work on a portfolio for applying to schools, but haven't actually been motivated enough to start yet. Not sure what that means. Maybe I just grabbed onto this idea because it sounds cool and would get me away from my current job situation or maybe it would actually be a good fit for me, I'm just not sure. And maybe me not being sure is telling me that it's just a fantasy on my part that doesn't really fit for me. UGH! I hate my indecisiveness. And I am very surprised that "indecisiveness" is a real word.

Tom's in AZ this weekend, running some sort of relay marathon type thing (200 miles divided between 12 people) and so I've spent the weekend finally watching Castle, the series that Nathan Fillion is in these days (Mal from Firefly). It's really fun and entertaining to watch, but I had weird mystery-related dreams last night so I should probably stop watching. Kind of too late now, oh well.

Tomorrow I'm going to go see The Princess and the Frog with Hannah at the Riverview. I feel so bad, apparently her car broke down. So now, since I'm borrowing Tom's car while he's away, I finally get to sort-of repay her for all the times she's driven me by picking her up for the movie.

That's pretty much it, I hope you all have enjoyed this brief glimpse into my thoughts.

Kaylee!

Well my deadline has come and passed and I still haven't figured out my life.

I guess it's kind of stupid to put a deadline on that, figuring out your life, but still. It would have been nice to have known by now.

As far as the weekend goes, not too much has happened.

Tom got back on Friday, I picked him up at the airport, we ate lunch at Burger King, and then he dropped me off at work and went home (I said a tearful goodbye to the car I'd been using all last week). Because he's so nice though he actually got all his stuff done in time to come back and pick me up from work so I didn't have to walk home. We then hung out at my house, ate dinner (mmm sandwiches) and then went out to the Downtime (bar) in Dinkytown to watch Jordan's brother's band play (the Jason Shannon Band - original eh?). They were supposed to start at 10pm but the group on before them didn't get off the stage until 11:30pm (they weren't that good so it was really frustrating having to wait). It also sucked because the place was kind of tiny and packed so there was mostly only standing room. So that was my Friday.

On Saturday I slept in, ate food, played on the computer, was pretty much just lazy until late afternoon when Tom consented to drive me to a pet store. We went to Petsmart first, and looked at the selection of rats only to be disappointed. They were all in one cage and all looked pretty full grown. When I asked how old they were the guy looked a bit lost and seemed to make up his answer of 6 months. To me, for an animal that only lives about 3-4 years, 6 months is a bit too old to start off with. So then we went across the street to the Petco, which had a much nicer selection. The rats were separated into 3 cages - small, medium, and large; and the size pretty much directly correlated with their age (what I thought and was also confirmed by one of the workers). I hemmed and hawed for a long time but eventually decided I wanted one. Tom helped me pick out bedding, food, water bottle, wheel, and a cage topper for it (he gave me an old 10 gallon aquarium to use as a main cage) and I picked out the little rat. I picked the smallest of the smalls - she has a white body with a black head and a black stripe down most of her back. We drove her to Tom's house to get the aquarium and everything and on the way home we tried to think up some good names for her. I knew I wanted to name her something from either a book or movie I liked (I like using character names) but couldn't think of any. Finally, Tom mentioned 'Kaylee' (from Firefly/Serenity) and I thought it sounded perfect. So Kaylee it is! (If I ever get a sister rat for her, its name will be River - FYI). Saturday evening was then spent setting up Kaylee's home, playing with her, and watching her.

A lot of Sunday was spent doing that as well as playing on the computer and being generally lazy. I also started laundry on Sunday but kept forgetting about it so it still needs to be finished (hopefully tonight). Jordan's birthday was on Sunday as well, but didn't see much of him until late.

Back at work now, and not looking forward to another ridiculously slow week. On the plus side at least Tom is here to occasionally ease the tension at lunch.

I'm looking forward to getting home today and playing with my new baby (rat).