I am suddenly quite fond of the word asshat.

Today's project: cleaning the closets and vaccuuming
listening to: Azam Ali - Forty One Ways
(re)Reading: Moby-Dick - Herman Melville
imagining: dancing on the beach

Everyone has goals (dreams if you will) for their lives. For instance, I want to go back to school for my Masters and have a career as a librarian/archivist. I want to have a child and to own a home. I want, one day, to travel more. These are not unreasonable goals, perhaps even modest.

But what do you do when your goals conflict with those of the person you deem your partner? Where do you draw the line between reasonable and selfish?

Some people have goals that are far simpler: a roof over their heads and a full belly. Perhaps merely the means to maintain these things is goal enough. Imagine this: you have been on the streets for most of your teenage life. Having the means (a decent job) to keep an apartment and a reasonably full fridge and some leisure time is probably paradise. Not having dared to think beyond this point to avoid disappointment, how would it be to realize that you were now in a place where you could possibly think about more? Would it be too much? Too overwhelming? Would it still seem impossible, something for other people? Or would it be like a door was flung open on infinite possibilities?

The optimist in me would like to believe the latter, but the realist in me is suspicious that the former may more often be true.

"If people were actually governed by what we erroneously call 'common sense' the world would be a much more reasonable place." ~August 8, 2007

Friday night, I've just come home from work and J and I are preparing to sit down and play a little WoW after dinner when I start hearing this 'thump, thump, thump' echoing through the building. Thinking first, that since the laundry rooms are no longer kept locked, someone is attempting to break into the coin cache, and that since there is no live-in manager, I zip out into the hallway to see what's up. My neighbor is in the hall also, looking puzzled. She points upwards and sure enough, the thumping is coming from above. I head up the stairs and pull open the fire door on the next floor to see this girl kicking the door of the apartment directly above my neighbor. "hey!" I say and she spins, yanks the fire alarm and scarpers down the hallway. I run after her, but she's got runners on and I haven't, so by the time I hit the outside door she's ahead of me. I dare as far as the sidewalk, aware that there may be glass or needles or various other crap in the lot. She and her friend are long gone by the time I slip back inside. More people are in the halls now, looking confused. We confer amongst ourselves, discover that one among us is in fact slated to become the new resident manager (TG) but that no one knows how to turn the alarm off. The fire department arrives after several of us call, only to tell us that someone from the property management group has to come turn it off since they do not have access to the control panel, which is locked. We call the management group and get the run around, call these people, please hold, let me transfer you.... near and hour and a half of the damn bell going off. (And the fire marshal telling us that we should keep a 24-hour fire-watch amongst ourselves while the system was down.)

People kept asking what the ringing was in the background when we were talking over ventrilo. You have no idea how long my ears rang afterwards. Say, anyone know a good place to rent these days?

I am feeling entirely uninspired.

The flash of creativity that made the zine take shape has left me. (Nomes, Lindsie, check your mail soon.) Well, I suppose that's not entirely true, I did get started (again) on the photo album, but that's been something in the works for a while... and I have new pens, which always helps. (I have a problem with new pens and notebooks, I freely admit this, and must limit my spending in this arena if I'm ever going to save any money.)

But today, is laundry day - and I'm also doing the dishes that have accumulated over the past two weeks. Yesterday I scrubbed the bathroom from top to bottom (gawd it fucking sparkles) and tidied a bit in the living room but then got overwhelmed with the pigsty that is our house. I don't quite know how it got this awful. Probably because of some resentment on my part when J wasn't going to work OR physio for that month or so. I mean, ok, being out of work for 5 months because you're injured is one thing, but then deciding that physio isn't working and that you're not going to go anymore... (and thus screwing yourself out of any kind of compensation or leads for retraining) is just a tad bit infuriating. Especially when I'm working 5 or 6 8-9 hour days every week. So of course I'd feel a little put out that I'd have to spend my hard-earned days off doing chores, some of which could have been done by the person who had been home all day doing nothing. So I'd leave things. I mean, two of us live here after all. Is this totally unjustified? Am I being unfair? Just to the apartment I suppose, and I'm paying for it now. (And didn't I just say "if you want something done, do it yourself"? Fuck, way to talk myself in circles.)

Now J's working a job that he obviously hates, and he comes home cranky and sore every day. His back hurts where he hurt it at the previous job and his ankles are all bruised and swollen from being on his feet all day (most probably on concrete) and he just says something like "it has to be done" whenever I express my concern over these facts. Well, yeah, but there's a limit. If it fucking hurts you and you hate it, use your spare time to find something else goddammit. (Here I go being unfair again, perhaps. I mean, it always takes me a while to get started on things, but when I do, I get it done. Start to finish all at once. And I'd probably start sooner if I were in pain 24-7. Fatalism has never been my strong point.)

He wants to go back to school, but there are hangups somewhere which he finds infuriating - I would too! - but the upside is that he's got further with it this time than he has every other time he's had this plan. I just hope he gets going on it this time. I'd like to see him hit a goal.

I had hoped that the new job would affect the amount of time we spend bickering, but we seem to still be at it. Last week was mostly me, I admit, but that I blame on the knot of pms-induced fury curling in my gut over all the things I'd like to say but can't because they'd be misinterpreted. (Ok fine, it's always there, but pms time makes it harder to reign it in.) But this week, since this is something I actually spat at him on Friday, we seem to spend every other sentence talking at cross-purposes. I seem to misinterpret everything he says as well. Somehow our frames of reference have slipped sideways and neither of us are on the same page. I'd like to know how to get back on the same one. (For instance, supposedly there is no longer an ultimatum in place. Great. When did that happen and way to make me feel like crap.)

Today's project: Laundry
eating: green grapes
listening to: Imogen Heap - Speeding Cars
reading: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling

The weather is going to hell. today feels like a nice chill September evening and it's bloody August! WTF! I wanted to sit on my deck this weekend and enjoy some sunshine. As it was I spent today doing a whole bunch of nothing. (So very nice.)

And I was craving ice cream.

There was no way I was walking to the Mac's, which is the only thing open this time of night, by myself through this increasingly crappy neighborhood, by myself. (I mean, this is the place where lord knows how many dealers are now living... we seem to have at least one police chase per day, one or two obnoxious a-holes rattling the door or buzzing random people in the middle of the night and who knows what happening in the elevator at all hours. I'm taking the stairs from now on, fyi, since I do NOT want to know what that was on the floor in there yesterday morning. It did resemble someone's partially digested something though.*shudder*)

Anyway, lucky for me J has a sweet tooth. I love ice cream. I'd finished the thing by the time we got home, but it was worth it. ('course, now I'm cold....)

Cinder currently has all four paws in the air, impersonating an overturned coffee table or something. She's out cold, even with the kitten eying the way her left fore paw twitches. I sense a row coming on. I think I'm going to take my bare feet to bed before they get caught in the crossfire =P

I always stop to pet the cats who come out to see me on my walk home from work.

I like the word 'snarl'. My grandma used to use it to refer to the tangles I'd get in my hair.

I found out that rhinotillexomania is an obsessive compulsion to pick ones nose.

I like white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies.

I am currently sewing together my first zine.

Hehehe, Zoom found some interesting videos about World of Warcraft dances. I especially love the origin of the Draenei male dance... I mean seriously, wtf do they find this stuff?

Anyway, I found this clip with dance-appropriate music (except the female undead, of course...)