With her glasses and all her books

I'm having a very bad morning. I thought that I should come on here and vent a little, perhaps situating myself better to get to work (which I should be doing, as I type).

As a little side note; when I've had a bad day or am feeling crappy, my work really suffers. Hardly a sale, and I just get a headache after a while, which is what I'm trying to avoid.

I just brewed myself a cup of some Twinings Lady Grey and that's helping to calm me down. So here's the dig;

Monday I did not work because I had a splitting migraine from the moment I opened my eyes. I spent the day in a dimly lit bedroom with a washcloth over my eyes, occasionally turning on the telly... but I don't have cable, so Judge Judy and her competitors were all I had to choose from. I ended up eating very little until around nine o' clock in the evening when, sweet relief in site, I scarfed a tuna sandwich.

Tuesday it was to the Community College. My Uncle Dave gave me a ride to and from, but even though we arrived as soon as the financial aide office opened (eleven o' clock), it was four o' clock by the time we arrived back home. The great news is that I'm finally officially enrolled in classes for the fall semester (Spanish 001, History 001B and Intro to Cultural Anthropology). My class fees were waved and I've sent off my FAFSA, which will hopefully award me enough by August 27th to afford my books. If not, there's the local ACCESS program, which helps out poor and first-generation college students (APPLIES) by giving free tutoring, laptop loans, book loans, campus tours (Universities), scholarship help, etc. The ACCESS office is not open again until next Monday, when I will pounce on them. Still, Tuesday I got things done, even though none of those things was WORK.

Wednesday (yesterday), I got two hours of work done, and a fairly good day at that. I made seven sales, which is above average for two hours of work, and my boss said made up for my two day absence. Around noon I left to pick up Vanessa downtown at the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library, where my father would hand her off to me until late Friday evening, when her mom will pick her up. I chose Wednesday as the day to get her because it was the first, the day my EBT food stamps re-up. Since at that point I had a can of almonds, an apple, banana, and a head of lettuce to my name, I figured we'd need to go shopping for more food supplies.

Of course, stupidly, I do not check to see that my food stamp balance is above zero before I pick her up.

We get back to the condo come four thirty--thanks to the snails-pace that is the public transit system and the fact its an hour and a half from downtown to Sunnyvale, where I now reside. My feet friggen hurt at this point, since I've spent the last eight days walking at least four miles--sometimes more (Ah, the joys of no transportation). I decide to call my Uncle Dave and see if he's coming down that night so that I can avoid the three mile round-trip to the grocery store. At this point I've identified a sprain in my right ankle and, though not particularly bad, I want to keep off of it. After an hour I get a hold of Uncle Dave and find that he is, indeed, coming down that night.

At this point I check my food stamp balance and find it at... zero.

Of course, it is too late now to call my social worker and find out what is going on. I still have not called him, because I figured that the time that I am now spending typing would be spent working. As it is, as soon as I get off here I will be on the phone to my social worker to find out what is going on.

Still, I decide that I would like to try and see if the automatic system is correct in what it says, or if it is just a glitch. See, my Uncle has shelled out a lot of money for me recently; and thought I'm entirely thankful, I really prefer to stand on my own two feet. Not to mention that my Uncle is going through a messy little divorce and he's about to file for bankruptcy... I just do not want to put any additional financial strain on him. My Uncle has that affliction, you see, where he is too nice of a guy. And nice guys get drowned under their own niceness.

So, of course, when I tell Uncle Dave the news of my EBT balance, he tilts his head from side to side and says, "Well, if there's nothing there, just get what you need to get, and we'll work it out later."

See, I hate that, too, because I already owe in debt to several collection agencies and I would love to pay that off; not to mention that my FAFSA may not come in time to cover my books or the ACCESS program may not have the books I need so I may need to buy them with my own money; that there seem to always be interruptions when it comes to my work time.... so that twenty dollars an hour ends up being less then $200 a week sometimes. It seems that everyone I know right now expects me to not be able to pay for the things that I'm unable to pay for, but some of them make it much worse by trying to shove things off on me... like, babysitting my little sister without compensation or food help, or popping up in the middle of the day and expecting to be entertained.

Not complaining too much, but I'm trying right now, I really am. So many of the adults in my life are expecting me to fail and seem to be almost egging it on. When I manage to barely keep my head above water they pile more social and family obligations on top of me until I'm about to drown again. Still, I understand that many people have to deal with this and in much worse circumstances. After all, my motto is;

Worse things have happened to better people.

Alright, alright, I'm sorry, I just collapsed into babble for a bit there.

So, of course, my EBT is at zero. Still don't know what that is all about. I have the paper that says I will be rewarded $96 on the first of every month in EBT balance, and yet... nothing.

So this morning I wake up, take a shower, and a great bit more then usual hair falls out when I'm trying to comb through the wet hair. This stresses me out, because my hair has become so much thinner from the lack of nutrition and whatnot that was happening when I lived at the shop. My father does not believe in fruits or vegetable, you see. He believes in the almighty power of Cheez-Its and Dr. Pepper and salted peanuts.

Bachelor.

OK, so my hair falling out in great clumps makes me spaz a bit. And then there is my cat....

I love my cat. I cannot help but love him, but he is so damn annoying, especially in the morning. After a long period of me sleeping, all he wants to do is go outside, and he meows constantly. A very high-pitched meow, too, and it does not let up for about an hour and a half. I'm trying to clean the kitchen from last nights pasta, scallops and chocolate chip cookie meal--and he's underfoot, meowing his fool head off.

And then I do the thing that has had me crying for the last forty-five minutes. I reached down and smacked him, right across his cute little cat cheeks. Not like I'd smack a human, but a swift, sharp smack nonetheless.

Of course, this reminds me tremendously of my mother--how I would be doing what I viewed as "nothing" or "normal" and she would just, out of the blue, hit me, kick me, something. She did not know how to control her stress. And I'm realizing that neither do I.

Cats do not deserve to be smacked like I smacked Maxwell. He's the cat that has done the most for me, because he showed up right after I told my mother I had been molested, and he's always been a fabulous therapeutic kitty. Recently, however, he has just gotten on my nerves in a whole new way. I'm wondering if it's not my cat that is getting on my nerves, but just everything that has been happening in the past few months/years.

I know that every person has a breaking point. I think I'm nearing it, or very close to reached it. I'm glad that tomorrow at 2 pm I have my first counseling appointment, because I feel I really need it. But I'm beginning to wonder if I may need something stronger then counseling, as I've found that my mother needs. I'm wondering if I may need some medicating. And I don't want to be on medication, because I know that it messes with your chemistry--and I do not like that idea very much. It's just that I feel if my counseling does not work out very well, I may have to get on some meds. See how it goes. Last time I was on meds I was twelve and I flushed my pills down the toilet every single day after two weeks of crazy mood swings.

I would rather see my cat, whom I love very much, go to another home if I'm to continue to behave this way.

My father kept telling me I was my mother, that I put a "damper on everyone's spirits". My uncle is treating me like I'm some fragile little thing to be shielded from the world as much as possible. I want to tell him that I've already seen much of the world, and there's really no turning back point after what I've gone through and viewed. Everyone else is just... distant. Not there. My mother disowned me completely a few months back and I do not want to see her any more anyway, since there seems nothing but damage at that end. My sister is calling me mean and cruel, I figure she's implementing my father, for making her eat other foods then she's used to (my sister weighs below sixty pounds, 4'7", and is twelve years old). I'm trying to feed her new stuff because she does not eat enough, and I cannot believe that no one else is trying to get her healthier. When she stays with me she eats more then anywhere else. Still she calls me cruel, over and over.

I'm just starting to wonder, because I used to want to tell my mother, "Where there's smoke there's fire"--since she had no friends and no relatives that would speak to her. I find myself in much the same position now, though I have friends and family that speaks to me. Still, how they treat me is making me start to wonder.

Then again, I just think that no one has ever taken the time to actually get to know me. Everyone is running off assumptions and rumors from other people (my mother). Honestly, despite his treating me like a fragile thing, Uncle Dave has taken the most steps to actually figuring out who I am. My father could care less as long as I helped him with his cock-and-bull schemes. Everyone wants something from me my entire life, where as I've sacrificed what I've wanted for them.

God, that sounds really bloody cynical. I just find myself more and more angry these days, and close to tears, and just wishing that I had another life entirely.

When I told people about being molested, they freaked and coddled me and were "so very, very sorry". At the time I had no idea why everyone was making such a big deal out of it, but now I do. That was the only childhood I had. No chance to relive it. I had a very bad hand. An mentally and physically abusive mother, a sexually abusive step father, a negligent father... I mean, geez. That really sucks. I'm finally starting to appreciate it as such.

Vous offrir au revoir et bonne nuit,

-Lady Teigra-