So my cat is sick. And there is no one online to get e-hugs from. So I am ranting at LJ.
Actually, I am quietly going *kitty* to LJ. Because I am not angry, just nervous.
We are taking him to the vet tomorrow.
But Little Guy, our silly fat cat, is not eating. He has been just sleeping for the last two or three days.
He will eat if you bring him food, and he can be coaxed to drink, but this is a cat who would, last week, come cry at your if his food bowl got empty.
When Dad was in AZ for a week and I was on food-duty the cat almost pushed me down the stairs to get me to feed him in the morning.
And now he won't stand up except to turn around and go back to sleep.
Maybe move to a different warm spot.
He doesn't seem to have any sore spots, he does not protest if we pet him or rub his tummy, so he is probably not hurting anywhere, but still. Kitty.
Tagie does not seem to be worried about him, at least not that we can tell.
I don't know if that is a good sign. He isn't much older than 10 I don't think. We got him when I was in middle school? Tagie is older and didn't suddenly age overnight.

I hope it is something easy. I hope it is just he is bitching about something and eating while we are asleep.

I know we don't have the money to fix something big.

And that is the scariest part.
He is my cat. Where do I draw the line between something I can afford to fix and something I can't? I strongly believe that when we took him home we were promising to take care of him.

But I don't know if I can spend thousands of dollars on my cat.

Likelyhood of me sleeping tonight? Very low.

So I only post here when I feel like shit. Or a bit shitty. And I need to vent.
Today was good. A bit odd, because my sister is abroad and my folks are away and I am home, but not too bad, because a family that is basically related by time and proximity had me over for the day.
And it was good.
And yesterday I was at a totally awesome concert.
And today my sister and I bonded (and I am totally right, the girl is a ninja.)
And tomorrow night I am back with the almost-family for Friday night dinner, which will be a party.
But right now?
Right now I feel alone. And technically, I am. There is no one else in the house aside from me and the cats.
But it is deeper than that. I feel lonely. I am jealous of the happiness of others. In their relationships. Because I want one. But I don't know how to even begin to find one. If I had one, I would not know what to do next. I fear taking the first steps so much I hide in my room an pretend I am content with my life how it stands. I am not. I know I am not. I have a plan, but it does not include what I really want.
I am afraid I am wasting my youth.
I am afraid I will regret the choices I make today.
I am afraid I will regret not being silly and foolish and young and doing all the silly foolish young things while I am young enough to recover from them.
I am afraid I made all the wrong choices before I had a chance to find the right one.
I can feel myself spiraling down into sobbing myself to sleep.
I am considering calling a suicide hotline, not because I want to hurt myself, but because I know that someone will answer the phone.
I know there are people who if I called they would answer. But I am not really that upset. I just want to talk.I have four people I consider my best friends. Two are too far away to even consider calling. One I talked to earlier, and is now alseep. And the last? Well, I am not going to ruin her sleep at 1AM just because I am feeling a bit down. A crisis, yes. Mope-y at 1AM for what is really just an adrenal crash? Nuh-uh.
So I will type instead. And tell the truth, although I tell it slant.

Because the truth is? This is simply a touch of jealousy. Tinged with a bit of regret. And a bit of loneliness. And a bit of exhaustion.


The stupid thing is?
I hate sleeping alone.
I have never slept with anyone else.
I regret that.
And that is the plain and simple truth.

So it seems I have been ignoring my LiveJournal again. Take that to mean I have been surprisingly cheerful this past winter. Or at least busy. And posting my inanities on the slightly less permanent (at least before the Library of Congress got involved) twitter.

And the death of the wireless above was actually a dieing gasp from my UNC laptop. Which died an honorable death by old age the last week in October. Now I have a shiny new laptop. Of which I am fond, but less symbiotic.

I killed my wireless. I don't know what I did. I am sad.
I will go play sudoku till my brain melts.

I did it! I listened to all of my music! I started this project in June. June 19th, to be precise. It has taken me over two months of listening whenever I was at my computer to hear every song. I am incredibly excited.
I think I need more music. I am going to go listen to the new stuff Alicia sent me know.

If friends are like songs, then I have only two I can listen to at any moment.
Songs come and go in your life, holding different meanings at different times, telling different stories each time you hear them.
Some songs fit into a specific portion of your life - the song you loved in high school, the band you were more than a little in love with in college, and the one that you have loved as long as you can remember.
Sometimes songs lose their meaning. Sometimes you listen to a song and suddenly understand the lyrics. Sometimes you hear something in a song that means you can't ever listen to it again. And there is nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you grow away from your friends, realize you are not as close as you once were, or you hear a note in your relationship that you never noticed before. Because people change. And that is fine, and normal, and healthy.
I love music. I have a few hundred songs that I count as my favorites, and as it turns out, some days I just don't want to hear them. I am just not in the mood. This does not mean I don't like them, just that I need something different at that moment.

I am listening to a different style of music these days. I don't know why, but some of the music I have appeals to me now when this time last year I could not listen to it at all. And this stuff is pretty cool.

I don't know if this post is about music or about people. I think it is a bit of both. And that is fine by me.

So, to those who have been using my journal as a measure of my mood and general attitude towards my friends and those around me:
I did not intend to cause any upset. I was, and to some degree still am, upset with the ways in which everything was turning.
I expressed this both here and in person. I did not intend to further sour any relationships with other people. It seems that the ways in which I have been trying to communicate have failed spectacularly, and that these failed attempts have actually made the situation worse for everyone. Which I did not intend at all.

I am sorry I have been so pissy lately. I am upset, and there are some real and valid reasons for that, but I should not have been so bitchy about it. For that I am sorry.

That said, I wish someone had actually, ya know, told me I was being bitchy. I have been trying to suppress the general discontent and be my normal cheery self around people despite feeling disconnected, but evidently I have failed at that, and made things worse.
Again, oops.

In more productive news, I deal best with people on smaller groups, or in one on one conversations, which may be why I have been so unpleasant in public recently. So, if I have not screwed up permanently my friendships with people, I would love to talk to you.
And again, I am sorry if I have been hard to deal with recently. I will try to be more cheerful in the future.


Also, remember again that 90% of what I say here in my LJ is heat of the moment ranting that is necessary to get stuff off my chest, and is not representative of how I feel all the time.

I deserve so much better.
I deserve to not be a second thought.
I deserve to be remembered.
I do not deserve to be forgotten.
I do not deserve spending an entire day feeling alone, ignored, and left out because my friends spend most of their time talking about things they do together that I am not apart of. My friends are more than welcome to have their own lives and friendships, but I do not deserve to be cut out 99% of the time.

And when I make plans with people a month in advance I would think I deserve to at least be told if people decide to back out. "Oh I'm sorry I forgot" sounds great, but it really sucks to find out that all the guests forgot they were invited to a party. I may be extending a metaphor, but still. I guess its too bad I had my heart set on a girls night out. Because yea, I will be OK eventually. And yea, I get that you made better plans, but "Oh we can do it next week" sounds so trivial after "Oh I forgot."

You knew I wanted to do this because I have been feeling left out. You knew this was me trying to feel like I was actually your friend.

Well guess what.

It is now perfectly clear that you can't even tell when I am holding back tears by force of will alone. So no. No I won't try any more to be closer to you, because you clearly don't want to be closer to me. I have been telling you for months how I feel, and you have done nothing but tell me I am wrong. Words mean nothing more than the actions they are demonstrated by, and nothing has changed. I am tired of reaching for something that isn't there.

I just wish the next six weeks would pass faster so I could get the hell out of here before my self confidence is entirely gone.

You who built me up have knocked me down, what it took nearly four years to build is in shambles. You have proved to me that I am incapable of dealing with people. Can I go home now or would you like to continue to jump up and down on my chest? It only hurts to breathe when I am around you about half of the time now. Shall we go for all of the time?

You told me I should put myself out more. That I should suggest activities, declare that the group should do things, go over and hang out with people. But are we(you) not excluding people for doing just those things? Isn't that why we(you) no longer plan things on the listserve? I was taught that it is impolite to show up for events you have not been invited to. I was taught that it is rude to just show up at someone's home and demand that they entertain you. You tell me that I have to be rude, that I have do go against how I was taught to behave to be your friend.
I can not do that. And I am not sorry. I have no place here any more. But I am going to stick it out for six more weeks. I will grace you with my company at lunch, sit and watch cartoons on Tuesdays, and wonder why I bother to show up on Saturdays.

You have hurt me more deeply than you imagined. And you didn't even do it on purpose. I think that makes it worse.



Also, damn you for reading this. Even now I can't bear to hurt the people who read this, but I have no where else to let it out. It hurts the ones I still trust to hear. I do not wish to hurt you, as I still hold you precious, but I am not sorry. This is how I feel. This is why I can not sleep at night. This is why I can not bear to sit at lunch and pretend that everything is OK. Because it is not. Don't you dare tell me you are sorry, that you want to help. This is long past healing. I knew a month ago that it would not go away. I still know that the best I can hope for is a clean break, and staying in touch with the people who actually talk to me over AIM or email. But I have nowhere else to go, and I can not live entirely alone for the next six weeks, so I will be content with the semblances of connection I have here, although I wish I had the strength to walk away.


I wish I could just cry this out so I could get some sleep, but I will be damned if I let this make me cry again. I have wasted enough tears here.

You say "I got you"
I think, "No. You don't"

You say "I'll see you later"
I think "You never have before"

I have never been more ready to just walk away.

My friends back home think I grew away from my friends here. I am starting to think they are right.

Who watched the Watchmen?
Me.
I watch(ed) (the) Watchmen.

And it was AWESOME.

So there.







also, that is the worst rendition of Jeff Buckley's Hallelujah I have ever heard. It rendered me momentarily speechless. Other than that, joy abounds.
Although we were challenged to find a slash pairing in the movie and decided that the only option was Nite Owl/Rorschach which is rather horrifying to consider.

Kill that mental image, I dare ya.