bending_sickle | Entries tagged with my daily life

i bought new markers the other day because the cheap ones i'd bought were dry. also they were terrible. i spent yesterday afternoon catching up on the daily show and coloring in pineapples in this adult colouring book i bought ages ago. it didn't come out terrible so yay.

the invertebrate kids continue to thrive. i keep finding babies so even though i only meant to keep two in the nursery i now have accumulated five more i think. they do grow fast though. freakishly fast. the slugs seem to have slowed down their growth spurt, though, which is good.

i found mold on the moss in the moss farm, which is...odd. so i've opened up the container a bit. too much humidity???

i went to the government employment office yesterday to sign up for stuff. it was horrible and stressful but the guy was super nice and explained everything like five times because i do not know this system at all yay feeling like a foreigner. also i've got a group orientation the 28th which yay. also also i opted for not claiming my unemplyment benefit because since i didn't do it within 15 days of being laid off (i was technically employed for one hour per week at my old workplace, the one i did translation stuff for before my Masters), then they'd discount the months from my being laid off all the way to now (so i'd loose three months of benefits). this...makes no sense. but anyway. it'll keep for six years so i just have to be employed and laid off (or finish my contract) again and it'll all accumulated and i can has monies.

today i had an appointment with the job psych lady (at this, um, "municipal institute of education and employment" where they help you through the employment nightmare, but they're not a job centre) and that was a wringer. and tomorrow i have a psych appointment which i only just realized i had today and just. my brain. my emotions. so tired.

so say nothing of every interaction with my mother today having made me cry, so there's that.

on the plus side, aunt gave me a bunch of threads for my cross stitch (even though she thinks it's a pointless hobby because you don't end up with a useful, serviceable product. but i'm like, "it purty. it pass the time. i like.")

i am also very tired and very sad.

* Frank Miller, Sin City, Vol. 1: The Hard Goodbye

Ah yes. Not being dead. Hello.

So I'm all caught up on LJ once again, after over half a year. And, um, not much has changed. So let's just pretend I've been keeping a regular journal, yes? Cool.

Anyway. I keep accumulating projects. I also keep accumulating life forms. The snails and slugs are doing okay (except for the baby snails, most of which are falling prey to the slugs, which is totally cool because what was I going to do with some 80 baby snails, right?). The butterflies have all emerged, except Olaf, who's out for winter, and for one of the geranium bronze butterflies. (Another of the geranium bronze butterflies didn't fly off in the 24 hours it was outside, so it's in the moss farm - a clear plastic box where I used to keep my tights and now serves as a humidity-enhancing container - and doesn't seem to be able to fly okay. Maybe that's my fault because it's gotten soaked a few times with sugar water, but I've taken that out now and put in some mango. It's been raining and these past few days, so the poor thing would be pretty much surely dead anyway.) The plants are, for the most part, okay. The little seeds that had germinated have decided to...stop? I planted them but there's not much action going on. And my tiny rose bush is super sad and loosing leaves - even though it's growing out new ones - and all of its roses dried up, some without even opening properly. So that's upsetting. What does it want?? What does it need?? Also, I haven't quite decided where to put them - my one shelf-space is crowded and sad and needs to be reorganized. (I could so use a narrow little shelf thing...) I want them in my room, though. (I'm still peeved that I really wanted a fern, so we got one, but mom was all 'Oh, no, it has to go on the stairs.' I wanted to cuddle that fern!)

As for the projects, the cross stitch is coming along. It's less enjoyable now, because the thread colours that came in the pack are wrong and about a third of the colours actually needed, which means I've raided mom's stash and am trying to match colours, and the thread thickness is all over the place, and also I'm going to have to take out a load of stitches and redo them in better colours. (There was this...neon green. It is so not staying.) The gold spray-painted stuff still needs do be finished, and the little box to exhibit tiny things needs to be finished painting. I also wanted to go through my old jewellery from when I was a kid, maybe spruce up the jewellery box... Oh, and I picked up a wooden painting frame from - and don't judge me - the ravine. Along with a ceramic cherub head. Yes, okay, it's technically trash. Or. Or it's a fixer-upper.

So that's me hiding my head in the sand.

In other, less sandy issues, I'm still seeing all the psychologists, getting my paperwork finally updated at the employment office (it's only been, what, two months?), and eventually, there will be Ye Job Hunt.

Stuff at home is still, generally speaking, horrible. So yeah.

But hey! I have snails! Slugs! Butterflies! Plants! Weekly visits to the dog shelter!

* Common expression

so today was moderately exhausting. i woke up at ungoldly hours because my body is stupid, and then we had to go out early anyway to catch the twice-every-hour train to anywhere civilized, which in this case was the next town over where all the cool shit is. i went to my psych appointment, twitched and wrung my hands and sweated like a tense mofo. (and one of th things i really, really love about this psychologist is that never once has he said anything like, "why are you so tense" or "stop twitching", unlike my therapist in rome or my gp or the nurse i saw a few times before finally getting the psych bro. and it's like thank fuck finally.) god i hate going to those things.

basically today's conclusions boils down to 1) baby steps so i can 2) get a job so i can 3) leave my parents so i can 4) live my damn(ed) life. also on the side burner is the "let's work on all the things that you are insecure about that are stopping you from doing the thing.

and i had to explain what an introvert was, because the bro was conflating it with social awkwardness or insecurity or inadequacy and i was like, no, no, see, i'm fine with people. okay, i can be shy when presented with 2938 strangers with whom i need to interact with, but i'm not sitting there having a conversation with a stranger and thinking "oh god, oh god, what do i say, what are they going to do, what's happening, how do i act????" i just...get tired. of people. i'm not scared of people. i just like the quiet sometimes.

so that was fun.

and i was feeling even more anxious and bitchy and irritated than yesterday, and it didn't help that mom was taking mean stabs at me out of nowhere, so that made the morning even more fun. and by fun i mean sarcasm.

then we got home, had lunch and a copious amount of alcohol and i whiled away the evening on the internet, not doing anything substantial. and no, i haven't read anything today. (some of you - and you know who you are - will start off the old "shaaaaaaame" song and, well, keep singing, bro. i have no fucks today.)

speaking of fucks, it was somewhat amusing to have the psychologist ask me if i was okay talking about that aspect - y'know, the rrrrromance ay ay ayyyy - of my life to which i was like, "bring it". because again, no shits. or fucks. ~~(hermits get no benefits.)~~

and then i watched the 100's lated episode which was somewhat mediocre.

also my hip hurts like a bitch sometimes. i've been trying to stretch enough to do the split, over in my pilates classes, and ahahaha ze joints, they no like.

in conclusion: i am a void husk.

ps: i forgot to say that in barcelona, we stopped by this aquarium shop, and they had fancy working tropical fish aquariums, one huge one with a piranha and other fancy river fish, and ye gods, it smelled tropical, and THE NOSTALGIA. they also had two clown fish in another one, and a tiny shark fishy with tiny shrimp in another one, and one with those tiny iridescent tropical fish. it was awesome. (no but the warm moist river smell of the tropics. we have to go back, kate!)

pps: josh helman has cancelled his instagram - word has it because fans were dissing his girlfriend, which for fuck's sake, fandom - and this makes me sad. he had cute cats. and made nice panoramics.

* Common expression

i took half a chill pill last night to see if i could get some decent sleep, because i've been having 2-3 nightmares every goddamn night for like a week now and obviously sleeping like shit. (and before that, it's been pretty much on that same track.) i've been having so many more nightmares now. and my dreams on the meds are so...exhausting and logical and they make sense and if something looks like it's going to go wrong, it'll fix itself in a real world logical way. which pisses me off. i want my velociraptor zombie apocalypse dreams back. instead i get to wake up in tears because i missed my flight or my train or my class or i had to pack or i couldn't pack or i was moving house or i couldn't move house. (transportation, education, and moving. these are my nightmares. all the goddamn fucking time and i just can't take it anymore. all my issues being shoved in my face like that. fff.) so anyway. chill pill did the trick and i slept better.

except today i've been one continuous star wars "i've got a bad feeling about this" quiet mess. which is exciting. like, i'm a step away from falling into a pit of emotion. bad emotion. and instead i teeter here in the slightly numb vacuum. but i could have a cry if i wanted to.

h'anyway. nothing much happened today aside from aforementioned anxious black cloud of fuckery. pilates was had, no social events were done, parental dirt was thrown on me thrice.

oh, and mom cut the water. because our water counter is being stupid and there might be a leak or there might not. anyway, we're haemorrhaging water somewhere or we're being duped. either way. water's off for the night.

and tomorrow i have a psychologist appointment. i had one last week. i cannot express how much i do not want to go. (and i don't even get to drive there - it's in the next town over, as is practically everything - because mom's scared of taking the car out of the garage and up the ramp and good luck me trying that, although i really out to drive more and practice so i don't end up like last time with two left feet and no memory of how to start the car. but i digress.) last week, aside from commenting that i dole out my issues with eyedrops - or whatever metaphor is more appropriate - so he has to slowly work with what little i give him (which bro. bro. tell me what you want to know. what do you need to know?! because he's all "there's totally more to this, isn't there" like yes but???) the psychologist went on about how i need to seriously consider whether i actually want to move out. (and of course he turned it into a "abandon your mother to her own devices" angle which...i see where you're going but no. i'm just scared as fuck of everything that needs to be done to actually make an independent life, and i don't think i can get my shit together enough to do it, and i don't see the point and would like to stop existing now, thank you very much.)

anyway, hemmingway. it was stressful and it's going to be more stressful and i don't even know, bro. i'm trying to get my shit together one bit at a time but. these damned bursts of accomplishments just die soppy little deaths too quickly and i can't get them back and imma stop now with this post.

i should read. or listen to a podcast. or.

*mopes*

* tagline, Whose Line is it Anyway?

so today mom and i went to barcelona for the day.

our first stop was this small dutch store called lekker (trans. tasty) which makes me just weep with nostalgia. the first time i went there, they even had the exact same pink-covered cupcakes (roze koeken) i'd buy in the supermarket. (they didn't have them this time though, which made me sad.) they had all the sauces. they had the salty liquorice. they had erwtensoep. for god's sake, they had poffertje mixes! and the pan! now, speaking of sauces, ever since i left the netherlands i've been aching for ye olden days when i made stir fries with these little curry blocks. (i also used ready-made sauces which alsdsdfhnnngh.) I could have sworn they had them. but they only had the other, wet kind from another brand i recognized. less economic but zomg curry. the look of pleasured surprise when i said dankuwell to the wee adolescent boy at the till just made my day.

then we went to a cloth store to check out options for the guest bed and stuff. at another store we bought this massive blanket that's all fuzzy and furry and a beautiful blue and had to, unfortunately, lug it around for the rest of the day. however. awesome blanket is awesome.

after a lunch of sandwiches at a cafe we'd gone to before and loved because a) good food, b) excellent coffee, and c) aw yiss them reasonable prices, we went to a place i'd been bugging my mom to go to since we landed in spain. i knew it from when i lived there before and still had the address squirreled away on a paper: la cremeria toscana. italian ice cream. i mean really freaking good italian ice cream. jesus, we hadn't had gelatto in over a year and a half, since leaving rome. they were even playing an italian radio station. it was... *kisses fingers*

then we walked about a bit more, getting progressively more exhausted, until we called it quits and took the train at sants and started the long journey home. tea, tumblr, and dinner later, and now i'm curled up in bed ready to watch some bad television.

speaking of television, yesterday i watched so much nostalgia - i mean, the x-files's miniseries pilot. it's back. my childhood, it's back. and they kept the opening credits and everything. and the cigarette-smoking man is still smoking cigarettes, bless him. i had only two eh? moments: joel mchale's everything (except his speach, because he's good at those. mainly, i couldn't take him seriously because i only know him from community.), and this one scene where mulder is all dramatic shoulder grabbing at scully and the dialogue was a bit...capslock dramatic. aside from that, though, oh sweet jelly baby it's back. and i wasn't even too much a fan of it. (now, if they get star trek: the next generation back on air, i will never stop dancing.) but it was a thing i watched all the time with my brother and enjoyed it and that one episode with the scary mysterious tree people that ends with one hiding under scully's hotel bed and her leaving the room just in time will never leave me. also i vividly remember watching the movie with my bro when it came out, one winter in montreal. so it's a thing for me. a "moment in my life" thing more than a "mah babeh show" thing.

so that's been my day. i...i should check up on y'all's. i have not been good with keeping up on that. sorry.

* "Do you speak Dutch?"

might as well jump right into it as if i've been keeping this journal updated. which i haven't. for ages. and i"m so sorry. (also, fuck capital letters)

the status quo: i'm still living with my parents, still taking meds, still seeing a psychologist and -iatrist, still with a cv from five millions years ago with nigh a new thing on it. but. i'm truckin', which i guess is enough. i'm in a much brighter mood this week than last week, which is great. (also dad's gone for a month to mexico so it's just mom and me, which might explain why the stress levels in the house are down.)

i've been trying to read more because apparently i used up all my book worm cred in my earlier years. it doesn't help that i'm reading anne of green gables (jesus chistopher will she ever shut up?) and this really interesting but...somehow frustrating book on the tasmanian devil. (it's a good book just...my science senses won't stop tingling, and not in the good way.) h'anyway. books are good. read more books.

as for doing more learnings...not doing so well on that. will improve.

i did manage to clean my room, though, so go me.

i also planted a bunch of seeds, so i am an expectant plant-mother. i hope they germinate. (this is what happens when you have a person dying for a furry pet and being denied one because Parental Veto. i throw my love on tiny balls buried in dirt.)

*scuffs toe in the dirt* yeah i don't know what to say. hi hello i'm alive.

and the x-files are back so all is right with the world.

* "Finally Woken" by Jem

The Year of 2015 in Memes and Lists

( Read more... )

* "Just One Yesterday", Fall Out Boy

PhD shenanigans

so i got accepted to the PhD program. start date is set for april 1, but it's flexible. beurocracy is in the way (visa stuff, and funding) so everything is still up in the air. the funding stuff i've worked on, but the visa stuff i'm just staring at it scared shitless. (it's been a bad few weeks)

i had a video conference with the supervisors and one of the possible funders, which was nerve-wracking but not terrible.

i'm going to have to learn how to drive, though, because field research. i'm signing up for a course tomorrow and hope to do it as fast as possible because, again, april.

mental health shenanigans

i went to the doctor's on monday. came back with citalopram (20 mg) and lorazepam (1 mg). the psychiatrists have their meeting on thursdays, so they'll call me hopefully next week for an appointment. i've been headachey, nauseous, famished, and occasionally drowsy ever since. also woke up at 7:30 a.m. today which was uncool. i had a nap yesterday (one hour and a half), and another today (three hours), and keep waking up desperately disoriented and with no recollection of the day for a good while. fun times.

other shenanigans

my brother is coming to visit for ten days wee.

the life and times, yo

( in bulletpoints )

* John Waits, "Come On Up to the House"

It's been two months since my last ~~confession~~ post. I've moved into my parents' house, which is doing wonders for my mental health. I still haven't heard back from the university (latest news from like a month ago is that my application is with the department and they'll see it at the next committee meeting, which no one will tell me when that is), which is doing even more wonders. I'm going to Pilates twice a week, which is an exercise in insecurity and holding back my life is pointless tears. I go to the beach a lot but it's getting a tad cool for lying around near naked.

Sister-in-law came for a week so we hung out a couple days. I also went to Burgos and hung out with the family there.

I'm going to be thirty-one tomorrow and I've done fuck-all for another year and I still don't know what I'm doing or whether I'll be doing it at all or even if I want to, not that I ever actually did, and my parents despise me and I feel so lost and miserable.

I thought I had more to say but I'm going to stop now or there will be more stupid fucking crying and fuck that noise to be honest.

So, y'know. Still here, still kicking, still a useless floudering aimless dingy lost at sea.

* Simon, In the Flesh

Yoooooo.

So the move is still being Moved, officially speaking, in that I'm still at my uncles' place which is a block away from my parents' new place which is still full of boxes but we can has furniture because yay our stuff got here. So we have a home and our stuff and everything's sorta working out alright.

Today I checked with UPS and they've just delivered the hard copies of my application so they'll be giving me a reply in like three weeks or so which yay.

All of these things and the time in between would be getting a shitton more paragraphs from me and I'd be regaling y'all with tales of the ferry across the Mediterranean and about the beach and the new house and fuckery with the internet and all the things.

But I just got an email from the prof person who's going to be my supervisor and.

And well everything's fucked and I'm having a not-at-all minor breakdown and. ( Read more... )

* "Everything's Ruined", Faith No More

Just a very quick heads up that:

1) application bureaucracy is almost all done except for certifying my goddamn Dutch documents
2) funding bureaucracy is nowhere near done
3) the packing people will be here Friday 20-Monday 23 which means I am going to die
4) I still don't know where I'm going to go once I leave Rome, or when exactly.

But really the main thing is THE PACKING PEOPLE ARE COMING.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to throw everything I own away. Yays.

* Michael Ryan, "Consider a Move", New and Selected Poems

So. It's been a while. I'm neither dead nor homeless nor aimless, so that's a plus. Now let me fill you in on the past near two months. ( Read more... )

* "Snow and Dirty Rain", Richard Siken

stuff's happened. lots of stuff. i don't even try to talk about it coherently. ( Read more... )

* Common expression, more often referred to by the acronym FUBAR

I've been meaning to write up an account of the whole hospital thingy. So here it is. ( Read more... )

* ibid song, Editors

hello, sweet, sweet internet! i’m back home from hospital (Feb. 14 which happy fucking valentines until today Feb. 22). still have to keep being a bit of a bed-and-couch potato but i’m (basically) okay. (okay and alone in the house for like a month which under any other circumstances would be awesome but right now is the exact opposite.)

(two to three days they said. my ass i say. also full report on all the prodding and poking later but let me tell you that the aftermath of a lumbar puncture? CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENT. it doesn't hit everyone the same but oh sweet jesus i basically had a three day migraine)

and now, to catch up on everything

or sleep. sleep is good.

* Granny Weatherwax, Discworld

I have been having a two-part flail breakdown on Tumblr so hiya.( Read more... )

* TPratchett, Feet of Clay (1996)

So. The neurologist thing's happened. ( Read more... )

* Eric Northman, True Blood

h'okay.

tomorrow morning i've got the neurologist appointment and since it's in the ass-end of the city (like, go to the end of the metro line and then take a bus), it'll be an early morning. and since it's at 10 a.m. and resonance stuff is going to be happening, it'll also be a long morning.

so yay.

this is how i feel about things at the moment:

meaning i am quietly and constantly freaking out

and my brain keeps throwing you're going bliiiiiind thoughts at me, with a dose of braaain tumors can do this toooooooooo which is just about as fun as you can imagine because i'm basically just going

and it's stupid because - well, it's just alarmist shit, is what it is.

it could be anything, it could be nothing (well, okay, it's not nothing because something's happened but it could not be happening any more than it is already, if that makes sense). so no reason to worry.

also the idea of the actual i don't even know what they're going to do to me tomorrow is freaking me out a bit.

and then i also worry 'cause the folks are going to be on holiday for like a month which means if shit really goes down i'll be on my lonesome and fuckety fuck fuck

also FUCKING KIWILAND anxiety is always there especially since goddamnit professor person talk to me (not that i've checked my email today...or will do so tomorrow because ahaha dying)

so basically i give up on being a human being tomorrow for most of the day.

(i was going to make a more coherent actually-for-livejournal post but then my brain cells wouldn't rub up against each other and yeah. i'll write a thing sometime during the weekend.)

* Robert Lynn Asprin

update on the whole “not going blind” thing

( Read more... )

* Traditional guessing game

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February 2017

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Page Summary

Hell’s waking up every goddamn day and not even knowing why you’re here.*
I woke up like this*
Please just stop*
Everything is made up and the points don't matter*
Spreekt u Nederlands?*
I have a view of the sun*
Letting people down is my thing, baby*
(no subject)
The seas are stormy and you can't find no port*
I don't want to do this anymore.*
Now everything's ruined*
Consider a move, a change, a job, a new place to live, someplace you'd like to be.*
When we were little we made houses out of cardboard boxes.*
Fucked up beyond all recognition.*
Smokers outside the hospital doors*
I Aten't Dead*
He screamed a lot, Vimes. In a heart-rending fashion, I am told*
Is there blood in my hair?*
When things are at their blackest, I say to myself, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.'*
I spy with my little eye*

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Entries tagged with my daily life

Hell’s waking up every goddamn day and not even knowing why you’re here.*

I woke up like this*

Please just stop*

Everything is made up and the points don't matter*

Spreekt u Nederlands?*

I have a view of the sun*

Letting people down is my thing, baby*

(no subject)

The seas are stormy and you can't find no port*

I don't want to do this anymore.*

Now everything's ruined*

Consider a move, a change, a job, a new place to live, someplace you'd like to be.*

When we were little we made houses out of cardboard boxes.*

Fucked up beyond all recognition.*

Smokers outside the hospital doors*

I Aten't Dead*

He screamed a lot, Vimes. In a heart-rending fashion, I am told*

Is there blood in my hair?*

When things are at their blackest, I say to myself, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.'*

I spy with my little eye*