domestic stuff

yesterday i brought lulu over to D's. it was a bit of a mad rush to get in and out of there without running into my roommate, and in the process i forgot to grab a few other things (like my checkbook! damn), but i am so happy she's here. she seems pretty pleased as well. D's room has a million little nook's and cranny's for her to hide in, there's lot of space for her to jump and run around, and this is just one room. for now i'm keeping her in here so she can get settled and get used to the smell of the other animals. there's another cat, puddin, and a dog, daisy. no one is sure how long daisy will be with us, but we know puddin is here to stay. so far, lulu seems totally curious about puddin, and puddin seems nonplussed. i guess we'll see how they really do when they are actually up close to each other, and not just eyeing each other across a room.

today is all about doing stuff around the house. D and M went to borrow the lawn mower from his folks, C and i are going to fold clothes and watch firefly. we need to do all sorts of stuff in and around the house, and it's a gorgeous day to get stuff done. this morning was lovely and leisurely and included the making of german pancakes (thanks kristy!) and drinking of coffee. i have some hankies i need to finish embroidering for a friend's wedding, and a mountain of clothes that need to find a home. i should have brought over my dresser yesterday too, but i wasn't really thinking.

the housing situation is a pretty crappy one right one. my roommate is being a bitch about me not being there, and ever other second she's either pissed that the cat lives there, or doesn't want me to take it because her kids love it. there's no winning in this situation. she's a whole lot of drama i don't really want to deal with, hence the sneaking in and out of my own house. ugh. this is why i hate living there so much, and why i can't wait to get out. i want to be with my man and my cat and the kids, not avoiding my roommate and getting mad that her kid is now pretty much just stealing stuff right out in the open. what a sucky situation. hey, if anyone is ever looking for a good roommate, don't pick her, okay? great!

go enjoy your mother's day!

on porn and roommies

the other day at work i was having a typically strange conversation with my friend josh, when the topic of porn stars came up. josh is in most ways a pretty ordinary 21 year old male, so i asked him who his favorite porn star was. he told me he didn't have one, and i almost had a conniption. honestly, porn stars are everywhere. they write books, they appear on regular tv shows, and while most don't exactly cross over into "mainstream" media, i think it's safe to say that the average american can name a few porn stars off the top of their head. he asked me if i had a favorite, and i said sure. in fact, i have a few. don't you wish you knew who they were? ha! in any case, i told him that maybe he should go home and do some porny homework. i can't have this conversation with him again. i gave him a short list of girls to google when he got home, and sent him on his way. imagine, a 21 year old boy knowing nothing of the porn arts. jeez.

also, i'm pretty sure my roommate slept with her best friend's boyfriend the other night. at the very least i caught them sucking face in the living room like they were hungry zombies. it's hard to look at her now, much less carry on anything even like a normal conversation. if i thought moving sounded good before, now it sound epically amazing. after the new year i'm going to look into it seriously. i just can't wrap my brain around what she might have been thinking. i can't even make out with anyone who's shown an interest in any of my friends, much less sleep with a guy who's dated one. or is dating one. not even casual acquaintances! ugh. i'm torn between wanting to tell her how i really feel, and keeping my mouth shut because i have to live here a bit longer. i suppose if she actually confronts me i'll give her the nutshell version and not hysterically try to pin a scarlet A to her chest, but i just can't take her seriously anymore. if she'll do that to the person she claims to love the best, then she's more than willing to throw the rest of us under any oncoming traffic. i know rightous indignation is unbecoming on me, but i take my friends seriously. i'm ashamed of myself for not saying anything when i caught them, i should have done something right then. at least brought to their attention that one of them, you know, has a girlfriend. and one of them is friends with that girlfriend. being quiet about it makes me just about as guilty as they are. shit. at the same time, i don't want to tell my friend about her boyfriend and my roommate; and i can't tell if it's because i'm totally chicken shit, or if it's to spare her feelings. i'm not sure what to do. goddamn it.

revenge!

oh, revenge is sweet and delicious. especially when it's all sorts of covert! i am going to tell you about it, though, don't worry.

this morning i discovered not one, but two of my favorite eye shadows in my roommate's daughter's room. this coming on the heels of yet another theft (of my crackers) and a mild blow-up on my part. confronting her does nothing. confronting her mother also does nothing. i even told her that last night; that i knew she wouldn't get in trouble for it, that i knew she didn't care if she got caught, and that my being irritated was useless. i had to vent anyway! this morning, i simply collected my things, then went through her make up. i had given her a really nice nars face palette, mainly because the colors were mostly brown, and partly in an effort to keep her the hell out of my shit. this morning i took it back, took it to work with me, and threw it away. now it's gone forever. tomorrow i'm going to take back the set of purple eye shadow cremes i gave her, and the day after that i might feel better, but i might take something else back as well. let's see how she likes it when her shit goes missing! if she asks where it went, i'll just give her the same dumb look she gives me and ask "what?" i might play it off like i have no idea where it went, or i might just tell her i threw it away. i haven't quite decided.

tonight after work i bought a big ass tool box and a padlock. guess where all my make-up and favorite jewelry went? bingo! i'm also getting a new door knob for my room, with a lock as well. i should have done this months ago, it feels amazing. petty, sure, but awesome.

fairly full of rage

the 12 year old i live with has a problem with taking my stuff. first it started that she ate my food, so i started writing my name on everything so she couldn't do the whole, "oh, i thought it was my mom's." then the other day i found one of my bangle bracelets in her bedroom. i found it by walking by; it was right there in the middle of her floor, door wide open. i noticed all my make-up brushes gummy with her make-up, i confronted her and told her under no uncertain terms was she to use my make-up brushes; it's not a very hygienic habit, and i wouldn't stand for it. then this morning i was in the shower, finished washing my hair and went to wash my face. guess who's face wash was missing? and hidden under her mom's bathroom sink?

part of me wants to pen a very angry letter, especially since i specifically told her yesterday that she is not to use my bathroom at any time because she takes my stuff. i made a point of being firm but not jackass-y, just laid down the law and said, "if you do X, Y will be the resulting action." take my stuff, get banned from my bathroom. at the same time, she's only 12 and i don't want to sink to her level. she isn't a real "roommate" since this situation isn't of her own choosing. i understand that she's going through some shit right now with her dad's family (her fifteen year old step-sister is five months pregnant! no one knows who the baby daddy is!), and can sympathize with her need for attention. it's just very, very hard for me to figure out what to do without feeling angry and upset that she constantly goes through my shit.

i've tried confronting her directly, i've tried involving her mom, i've taken things away from her (like my bathroom privileges), i've even given her stuff of her own so that she won't have an excuse to take what's mine. none of it is working and i tell you, it makes living here very difficult.

does anyone have any suggestions? aside from moving? which to be frank, sounds good to me. i think what i'm going to do today is just leave a small note letting her know that i found what she took, and am going to talk about it with her mom at work this afternoon. let her stew a bit after she gets home from school, maybe worry her a little. although i'm sure it won't work, she doesn't seem to care when she gets caught, or else she turns on the crocodile tears for her mom's benefit. grrr!

smoke 'em if you got 'em

most of you who know me know that there are times when i indulge in smoking cigarettes. however, this year i tried earnestly to cut it out for good, and did a whole six months without so much as a drag on a smoke. it was easy in a lot of ways; i mean, i really like smoking, i like the lighters and the ashtrays and going out for a smoke break at work or with friends at the bar, but never really had much of a nicotine itch. for me, smoking has been primarily a social activity. that's not to say when i was in my hard-core smoking days (ha! at the most i smoked half a pack a day, but usually it was a pack a week!) i didn't crave it, but i always felt like it wasn't so much physical as it was psychological.

however, i have been smoking more since i moved in with a smoker (she smokes about a pack a day), and i'm telling you, if i knew she'd left her smokes out on the back deck i would sneak out there right now for one while everyone else slept. i'm going to buy a pallet of gum at costco and stop with all the smoky goodness. honest!

paging the nanny

oh boy, the amount of noise these kids create right after waking up is amazing. it's a scientific marvel, i'm sure of that. i know part of them does it for the attention (they are the sort of kids who want all attention, regardless of whether it's good or bad), so i just let them go until they peter out. i don't want to start my day as the evil british nanny i know i am on the inside, so i just take my coffee into my room and turn on some cartoons. they're still not great with the concept of personal space and why i need it, but they're getting better. truth be told, they are good kids, but this is a weird situation and it's taking some time for us to all settle into a nice routine.

bleh

i am not hungover, but i am tired. my roommate, she is hungover. i stopped drinking early, made all my drinks weak as hell, and drank a giant glass of water before bed. it's just that i went to bed like 6 hours ago and i need at least seven hours to feel human.

it's going to be a long day.

it's official: i'm a dick

i hate to say this, because i realize that teenagers are inherently annoying and abrasive and weird, but i really do not care for the one i live with. the situation is livable, that's for sure, but goddamn, the girl never stops talking. she never takes a breath, never stops to think about what is actually going to come out of her mouth, never lets more than five seconds pass before she's on to the next inane story. the only time she isn't talking is when she's sleeping or eating. her stories are also horrible; all about kids i don't know, situations i have no context for, family i don't care about. i am trying hard to be patient and kind, and remember how awful adolescence was and cut her some slack, but there are times when it takes a giant force of will to stop me from rolling me eyes or asking her to just shut the fuck up. ack. maybe motherhood isn't for me.

i don't feel this way about my kids, though. they can talk till the sun goes down and even if i'm not glued to their every word the sound of their happy little voices is nice to hear. i'm biased though, because tiernan and maggie and jude are ridiculously smart and funny and cuddly. teenagers, not so much.

plus, she's been into my cupboard. i know for sure she ate one of my kinder buenos, and then she left the empty box in there. i asked her about it and she was all wide-eyed and "i have no idea!" until i pointed out that i would not put an empty box back into my own cupboard. she's also been eating my lean cuisines, which is petty for me to be irked about, but i am. i buy them cheap at the g.o. and eat them for lunch, because i am lazy. having to pack lunches for the next few days annoys me, and i will now be putting my name on all my stuff so she can't do the whole " i thought they were mom's." they weren't, and she knew it. her mom would rather die than eat a lean cuisine. true story.

okay, i feel all jerky and embarrassed now admitting how annoyed i am. i'm a grown-up! i should be above all this! alas, i'm not. we'll all settle into a nice routine, and i might have to act a bit more stern than i would like, but we'll all survive and this will build my character. or something.

i am so annoyed!

remember how i ordered some knitting needles and yarn and shit from joann's? LIKE THREE MONTHS AGO? yes, once again they said they shipped it and left it on my front porch, but once again, it's not here. never has been. i am so fucking annoyed i can hardly stand it. i've been patient, i let them try again, but this is too much. i sent back a terse reply today and politely told them i don't want their goddamn needles and shit, i want my money back. now. i've ordered a lot of things from joann.com, and never had this kind of problem, but i can assure you that i will never order anything from them again. sucks to be them, because i spent a lot of money that way.

ahem. enough of the yelling early in the morning. i went to a party this weekend where the birthday girl alternately cried, sobbed, puked, yelled, laughed, and puked some more. it was fun, but not really. i'm all for sloppy drunkenness (see: a lot my saturday night posts), but there's a line that shouldn't be crossed. also, getting kicked out of bars isn't as much fun now that i'm an old lady. i did, however, look super cute that night and that should count for something. i slept most of yesterday away, which was fun, and i have the house to myself for a few days now while my roommate's house sit their parent's/in-law's house. i was asked to do it, but said no. they wanted to show me how to feed the dogs, and i'm sorry, but my little brother is a dog and i have a college education. write it down if you're worried, i'm sure i won't kill them. they were insistent on the "showing" though, so i declined. i might be retarded enough to move to the middle of nowhere, but i can feed dogs, goddammit.

jeez. i should go have something for breakfast before i bite some one's head off. must have woken up on the wrong side of the couch this morning...

she's not mine, except she sort of is

maggie doesn't look like me at all. except for our big cheeks, that is, but i have that in common with most babies. she doesn't look like my mom or pop either; she looks exactly like her dad, with my sister's eyes and perfect little mouth. sometimes this makes me sad, because i want her to look like us, at the same time i know she's ours so i could care less who she looks like specifically. no matter what, you have to admit she is one cute baby.

i got thanksgiving off, finally, and i can start planning on going to california and being surrounded my people for a few days. i can't wait to see maggie and chew on her for myself, and as dorky as it sounds, no one hugs me like my mom. i don't get a lot of hugs in my everyday life, what with getting yelled at by crazy customers and stuff, but mom hugs me. i miss that the most about home.

we've been celebrating my new job at the house for a few days now (um, okay, two!) and i have to say, coming home to cocktails and happy good times is fun. my roommate's new house is coming along beautifully, and i just found out that for the first time in something like five years i'll be living above ground. i'm going to ask my roommate really nicely if i can paint one of the walls in my new bedroom robin's egg blue, because that's what i've always wanted.

i might be too tipsy to write this post and have it make a lot of sense, but fall is here, i have a fridge full of things that taste like pumpkin and apple, and the whole day off tomorrow to catch up on emails, laundry, movie and phone calls. i'm very much looking forward to that. (and seeing baby!)