Numbers and/or Dates That Are Significant in the Recent Past and Future.

63  

Bottles of nail polish I currently have.  This is massive when as of 3 months ago, my number was somewhere around 15.  Curse you, amazing asian supply stores that have all the polish at half the normal retail price!  That said, I have got to figure out a way to store them because having them sit out n the open in my bathroom is not cutting it.

A selection of the collection.

10  

The number of times I've changed my nail polish in the last 3 weeks.  It's a sickness, I swear.

Nails last wednesday. They've been two different colors since.

August 23, 2011

The one year mark of being at my job.  Approximately 10 months longer than I thought I would be.  It's been rough, and tough, and difficult, and a learning experience, and a way I've met some pretty amazing people.

0

The number of times I've gone to Disneyland since buying an Annual Pass.  On my mind because 12 of my friends went on Saturday and I was unable to join, and it made me sad.

December 15, 2011

The day my Disneyland Annual pass expires.

62

The number of applicants I've had thus far to take over my job.  20 of which are viable contenders, 8 of which have interviews with me on Monday.

August 30, 2011

Pay Day!

September 25, 2011

Chargers vs. Chiefs game!!  Only the second time I'll have ever gone to a real NFL game.  Super excited, and yeah, I will proudly be rocking a Nate Kaeding jersey.  YEAH.

12

The number of pages I have written right now for my procedures at work.  I'm currently trying to get together a portfolio with all the procedures and notes in relation to my job - covering everything I see, do, deal with or cover.  It is incredibly difficult and tiring.

14,391

The number of words I have written for my August Camp NaNoWriMo novel before I officially gave up.  Sad, but it gave me ideas for the November NaNo that's just on the horizon.

980

The number of dollars it's going to take to fix my car after that woman backed into me in the parking lot.  That's a lot of fucking money - but her insurance will take care of the entire payment as well as the rental car I'll need for the week it'll be to fix it, so no complaints from me right now.

1

The number of little boys banging on the glass window at Starbucks.

6

The number of people annoyed in Starbucks by said little boy and are turning around to give him and his otherwise-engaged mother evil eyes through the window.

1

The number of people in Starbucks laughing.  This would also be me.

5

The number of weeks I believe it to be early to put up Halloween decorations and candy and displays. ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME, RALPHS GROCERY STORE?!

August 28, 2011

The first Sunday in 9 weeks I haven't been to a basketball game at the local Boys and Girls Club.  It's weird to not have that on my schedule.

August 29, 2011

Brother's next basketball game at the local Boys and Girls Club.  Not looking forward to the mosquito bites that are inevitable.

9

The amount of mosquito bites I currently have from said basketball games.  Itchy itchy itchy.

And finally, the most important date to me right now:

September 13, 2011

My last day at work.  The final day.  The day I will go into the office and know I'm never coming back to deal with shitty clients, unfair situations and irresponsible people.  It will be bittersweet and sad and THE BEST DAY EVER.

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Fill-in-the-Blank Friday!

Join in on the fun here!

1.   One of life's most simple pleasures is  laughing.

2.   People who think they can misspell my name when applying for my job   make me want to punch someone.

3.  I like  Panera  because   they don't bother me when I sit for hours stealing their free WiFi .

4.   Shiver   is a funny word.

5.  If I had to choose one beauty product to use for the rest of eternity it would be    Cetaphil face wash.  Miracle .

6.  I'm happy that    I'm officially casting out the bad in my life.  Well...in one aspect, anyway.  But still an important one!

7.  I would never    turn down the offer to go grab a good dessert .

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Art by Nidhi Chanani

So this is just one of those really quick posts, but I had to share this adorable artist with you. I ran into her booth at Comic-con (which I still promise to have a post about, when I can get time away from work/stop being busy/halt this stupid being sick thing) and holy smokes if I hadn't resolved to not buy anything more than $2, I'd have snapped up all her prints in a second.  Her art is called Everyday Love, and I love it all.  It's so sweet and ethereal and I just want to live in all her pictures.  I did snag all her business cards because there were 4 and each was so cute I had to have them - once I get access to my scanner again, I'll show them to you.  Plus, she was an absolute sweetheart in the few minutes I got to chat with her.

In the mean time, please visit her site here, or her Etsy shop here, and please enjoy the following picture (taken from here).

Wintery by Nidhi Chanani

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This is one of those truths I try to forget, but know I never should.

I used to wake up every day disappointed.  Disappointed in me, in my life, in the day's tasks and to-dos, in the people around me, in everything.

Disappointed that I'd made it through the night, and that I'd have to live one more day as me.

I don't remember many things at that point in my life.  I can tell you the facts, I can tell you the things that I know to be true because that is what others have proven to me.  I lived in an 3-bedroom apartment with 3 other girls.  We lived on the fourth floor.  I shared an ensuite bedroom.  I went to my classes, on a shuttle; and returned from my classes, on a shuttle.  I and two roommates had problems with the girl I shared a room with; she eventually moved out without telling us, and the new one that moved in was not much better.  We had a cookie jar named Big P, because he reminded us of a larger version of Porkshop, Doug Funny's dog.  I drove a Toyota Corolla, the same I drive today.  My calendar was of Orlando Bloom.

But I don't remember emotion during that period.  I don't remember feeling anything for anyone, wanting things and being excited.  I don't remember having good days with friends, or bad days because a professor was being shitty.  I don't remember connecting with anyone or anything.

Well...some of that is a lie.  I remember feeling betrayed, and hurt, and let down, and disappointed, and like I was broken.  I remember feeling like my heart had been shattered, and that it wouldn't ever get better; I remember feeling like I didn't want my heart to get better, because that meant I could go through this again.  I remember feeling so much pain, everywhere, so much that it felt like I couldn't even stand straight.  And I remember slowly turning my emotions out, letting them all go, forcing myself to become numb, impenetrable, impervious.

I remember wanting to die.

I never tried to die, or wished horrible accidents on myself.  I just remember thinking that if, for some reason, I didn't open my eyes the morning after I laid down in my bed...that'd be ok.  It'd be fine.  It would probably hurt those who miraculously still cared about me even though my heart was frozen, but not ever waking up was better than the alternative: one more day.

I remember walking all the way across campus to the Science Library just so I'd get away from anyone I knew (SciLib was direct opposite side of campus from the Langson, which is the library humanities/SocSci primarily used). I didn't want to see people who knew me or talk to anyone, because it would be one more person I had to lie to and fake that I was doing fine.  I remember sitting in the study floor, surrounded by all these strangers, and feeling the exact same way I felt around people who did love me: alone. Consumed.  Losing.

I remember feeling so shattered I left my apartment and drove home for the day.  It was a random day of the week, and I had classes the next day.  But I felt like I was suffocating in my apartment, in my life - so I ran.  The only place I knew was home.  I remember driving, and wondering what would happen if I hit the gas and let go of the wheel.  Leave it in the Higher Power's hands.  My family was concerned, because I hadn't told anyone I was coming home, and I wouldn't tell them why I was there.  I don't think I really knew or was aware of why I'd come home or really where I was; I just knew I'd run far enough to feel ok about waking up the next morning.  That drive back the next morning was one of the hardest in my life, and it didn't make it any better when I walked into my apartment and all my roommates were surprised to see me. They hadn't even realized I'd left.

I remember most the day I locked myself in my room and laid down on my floor, iPod pumping music in my ears.  Low enough to not cause damage, but loud enough to hurt enough to feel.  I remember feeling like I had to physically keep my sanity, that I was actually clawing and working hard against those barriers in my head to keep it together.  I wrote a poem that day, that I still don't like to read today; it was about how I felt like my mind was cracking, that I could feel everything slipping just out of reach and nothing could save me. I think I was on the floor for 5 or 6 hours that day.  No one noticed.

That was my entire second year of college, and most of my third.  Thinking back on those days is fuzzy still - it's hard to believe I really did exist then.  If my life at the time was considered as existing.  I floated through, acted just normal enough so no one would really know.  I closed in on myself, tightened everything that could offer a connection to anyone, really believed that I was on my own. Forever.

At the time I very honestly believed that my soul was splintered permanently, that the damage could never be repaired or reversed.  I was half a human without hope of getting back.  I never thought I'd recover from all the pain I had gone through, and truthfully, I didn't care to.  I couldn't face it, I didn't want the possibility that feeling like that could happen again.  Everything hurt, everything made me tired and hopeless and there wasn't anything worth it to fight for.


I didn't write this into the blogosphere in the search for pity or compliments or attention.  I wrote it because it is a part of my life, and as much as it pains me to look back on it...it's necessary.  It's a large portion of my life, tightly and deeply woven into the fabric of my life.

Today is better.  I did make it through that period of my life, whether I wanted to or not.  And I can look back on it and know that nothing is worth feeling that way again. That I am worthy of more, that there are things and people who are worth fighting for.  Those were the worst days of my life, and I hope they will always be the worst days of my life.  That I've made it through, come out stronger and higher and with the knowledge of something more.  Some days are tough, and I'll feel like those days aren't as far behind as they seem. Some days I start to wonder if I really am doing as well as I think I am, that maybe it's all just a horrid trick and tomorrow I'll find the rung I'm standing so tenuously on while trying to climb my way out of the darkness is actually breaking and ready to plunge me farther down.  That maybe it's all a lie, and I've just gotten better at running.

But then I remember that I feel like it is better.  That I feel farther from that feeling, that I feel stronger and loved and not as lost and despaired.  That I feel crappy, but I know that I can feel happy, too.

That I am feeling.

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Fill-in-the-Blank Friday!

I've missed doing these blanks, so I'm glad to be back with it!  I hope everyone has some fun weekend plans, I've got a friend's birthday celebration and an almost-goodbye dinner for a best friend departing to Russia in a few weeks.  Aside from that, hopefully I'll have time to really figure out my computer and get a new resume file going since the last was lost in my old computer (RIP Dell).

Link here!

(and holy cow that drink looks DE-LISH)

1.   My go to outfit for a dress-up occasion like a wedding is a simple, just-below-the-knee dress with cute heels and a cardigan.  At least, that's what I wore to my friend's wedding a few weeks ago.

2.  This week has been EXPENSIVE.  I had to buy a new computer (my first Mac!), pay for my 100k tune-up with my car, and the subsequent repairs. Also my costume/materials for a friend's birthday celebration.

3.  When it's dinnertime and I'm feeling lazy I'll usually eat scrambled eggs and toast; or a quickly made sandwich.

4.  My favorite pair of shoes is my grey Ugg cardy boots.  Hate all you want on UGGs, they're comfortable, warm and cute.

5.  A random item that I own that is completely unnecessary, but that I could never part with is a Ziggy comic that's about reading.  It's sweet and completely my outlook on life.  One day I'll scan it and post on the blog.

6.  My favorite person is  Julie Andrews.  This is discounting people I know in real life, right?  Ken Jennings and Daria are close seconds (and thirds?)

7.  If I were going to write my own blank it would say …ummm…let's go with: In the summer, I miss ___________ the most about winter.

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Fair warning, this is a boring post.

Seeing as how I've blogged the last two times I was at the Toyota Dealership, I almost feel obligated to now...

So yes. At the Toyota dealership, having my baby Kharr (yes, that is her name; yes, I am that obnoxious; yes, I still love it) get her 100k tune-up.  It's a little different this time because I am at the computer station and not looking out at the rest of the floor, so I can't give an entirely interesting and incredibly riveting account of everyone in here.

Life is kind of funny to look back and see where I've been at since the last two tune-ups.  From unemployed in that first one, to being depressed about my job and disappointing trajectory of my life in that last one...it's kind of fitting I'd be dead center right now, isn't it?

As you can see from my last post, I quit my job.  Half-quit?  I'm back down to part-time this month, and they'll keep me as long as there's stuff I have to do or I find something else and can no longer do it.  So I'm not really unemployed, but there's still a bit of a sad trajectory of my life right now.

So what have I been up to this last year when I sadly let my blogging fall by the wayside...

• Comic-con 2011!  I was lucky to go again this year for a few days, so I'll have to make a post about that.  It won't be like last years with three massive posts - but it'll be just as fun, promise.
• Since I finally was making money, I was also spending it (moderately!).  I kind of forgot in that year of unemployment how much I love my friends.  I went out with them a lot more than I used to, and it was refreshing to see who we are and what we've become.  Lots of bar nights, nights out, nights in, dinners, and general time to love each of them.
• Been a baking machine.  I started baking a lot in college when I was depressed because it made me feel better and forced me to interact with people since I'd share the cookies.  That habit still lingers, but I also love to bake in general.  Plus, my office men are always more than happy to consume anything I bring in, so that was fun to experiment around and know it wouldn't go to waste.
• Read a lot. Not as much as I wanted to, but I kept up with it, at least.
• Turned 24.  Even though that was back in March, it was still a good time and the first time I really celebrated my birthday.  And this year has been ok so far.
• Work.  Pretty much anything and everything I did related to work.  I'm definitely a workaholic, but my company was really needing the time.  Exhausting and frustrating to be working 50-60 hour weeks while being severely underpaid, but it is the way it is.
• Met, got to know, befriended, loved and said good-bye to one of the most amazing people I've ever had the pleasure to know.  He was a work friend turned real friend, and we spent a lot of time together.  It was never romantic (even with that one night spent in his bed...), and it was never meant to be.  We were great friends, and I like that it was never tarnished.

I guess that's it.  Sorry for the boring post kids, I'm just trying to get used to hitting "Publish" again rather than "Save" before closing the window.

I've also just been told my car needs to replace 2 vital parts, and it will cost me about $700...awesome.  Just awesome.

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