Audrizzle

Well it's been pretty cold here lately, usually under 10 degrees by 5 pm. But it's sunny now and warmer. I still have to go out and feed the damn animals tonight, though, which won't be fun. But anyway.

Yes, I am living with sheep and chickens. No, i'm not back in St. Louis. What happened was: I was back for like 3 days to clean up my stuff from my dad's house. I hung out with charles, hilary, and amber briefly. I got a UTI and then the flu. I didn't get any sleep and felt shitty because i had to keep asking for rides. Sorry I didn't make it public, but this was not a leisure trip.

Here's what I wrote earlier!

I'm writing from the ante-room right now (on my laptop, it's 11:58 am on sunday and we'll be going to the library in like an hour and a half) and there are a few people talking in here so it's a little hard to focus.
--- intermission ---
Hard to focus? Yeah, now it's 12:51. But anyway. What is there to post? I can't think of anything exciting. Not that there even IS anything exciting! I guess something cool is on Tuesday we went to this Abbey right near the house, which is really beautiful. The nuns there do a ton of cool stuff, they have sheep and cows and they make milk and soap and wool and all sorts of stuff. Speaking of making soap, today I am wearing my Goatboy shirt!

Hmmm, what else is new. Oh! Got my Connecticut driver's license which is really... well, it's an awesome looking picture, that's for sure. I guess my issue is that putting forth the effort to get the license is a major step forward, which is quite frightening. Last week I was like "OK, let's just get this done, I can do this before Friday... my birth certificate will come in on Wednesday and then Thursday I can get the license and Friday I can buy the car."

I really wasn't thinking about much else after that. I think I've mentioned that the deal is I have to start paying off the car within 30 days of buying it. Sooo I need to get my act together and get a freakin' job. I've got all these damn things on my to do list and I really have been avoiding the most important ones. I made a card for my mom's birthday but of course I didn't think to mail it out on time, so it can't go out until tomorrow which will mean it's got like one day to get from here to there, which is impossible, which means Mom will be upset with me again, and blah blah blah.

Basically the last few days I've been really disappointed with myself. I haven't been doing what I need to be doing in the time frame that I need to be doing it in. I've been letting myself get caught up in things that I shouldn't care about, I'm letting myself be affected.

The worst was on friday, I was feeling really guilty for stupid stuff. I was like "Oh, I am going to think about x, y and z and that's horrible, I feel so horrible my mind is going there when it shouldn't be, i'm so horrible and fucked up boo hoo hoo for me" and the whole pity party thing to get attention. Then I realized "This is stupid, I'm being an ass and this is total bullshit so i'm going to quit it." And then I got a strike! ANd i felt better all night. Didn't have to be everywhere all the time, didn't have to be the center of attention or the freakin' watchdog, just felt good. Still lost in Chess though.

Anyway, here are some pictures. The abbey, a cardinal, window of the car, and my freakin' dumb driver's license.

Before I begin:
St. Louis Artists
The humorous music of Mustardfish and the sloppy pop of Googolplexia, as well as the films, art, and other media projects of RØB Severson, all await you at PancakeProductions.net.

Awesome stuff.

So much for the afterglow... Well, immediately I can't think of anything to write. Which is good, I guess, because I usually just complain.

Oh, here's something. Yesterday was my 6 month anniversary of being "in treatment." Yeah, that brings up a lot of feelings. I'm trying to think of what that means, but I really don't know. It means I was in a pretty crummy place six months ago, that's for sure. I'm definitely a lot better now. The fact that I am so much better really makes me feel embarrassed about how "sick" I was last year. A lot of people say it was a certain point for them when they "got sick," but for me it was certainly a gradual thing. I had been sick for a long time and I just happened to hit my low last summer.

I think something that is interesting is that there are probably people who are slightly more or less "sick" than I was, but who continue to function/have people who enable them to live without function. No matter how much I hate it, I am certainly grateful that my parents (my mom in particular) weren't just going to let me leech forever and keep screwing up my life. It's so weird because I'm hearing about all these different hospitals and programs (cottonwood, angelus, spruce mountain, silver hill, four winds, menninger, gould farm, etc.) that exist a lot to deal with peoples' ... psychological/behavioral shortcomings and it's stuff I had never heard about before. I just can't help wondering what happens to people who don't have this opportunity. I mean, I guess you see people who live with their parents forever or people who don't know how to be in relationships or, really, people who don't know how to be happy.

Clinical depression does exist, I have no argument with that, but I think a lot of depression today is just people choosing to be depressed. I know that was the case with me, however embarrassing it is to say that. I've been on nearly every antidepressant made and though they do help prevent depression, they don't make you happy. I'm not on any antidepressants now, and it's working fine for me. I get sad occasionally, but I can be okay with that and get over it. I'm generally happy, and that is a good thing. Hopefully not annoyingly happy. But I guess people who I always considered to be annoyingly happy weren't really happy, just trying to please others or put on a front to try and fool themselves. Well really, I can't know any of that, but I know I used to pretend I was the happiest person in the world to show off. Wow, how wonderful I used to be.

But I guess you never fully recover. The way you never were an alcoholic, you always are an alcoholic even if you haven't had a drink for years. I guess all I can do is try to keep up what I'm doing now and stay humble. Not like I am constantly kneeling before god or anything, but I just need to remember the old amanda and make sure she stays boxed up and taped shut inside me. Haha, that sounds like such a load of BS; one thing I will probably always be addicted to is dumb analogies.

SO! Enough with the boring analytical stuff. Here's what's actually going on:
The "possibly getting a car" thing has turned into "definitely getting a car as long as I get my shit together and do it." I need to call this dealership that has what appears to be a good deal.

OK, I just got my act together enough to call, but they were closed. It's kind of weird because I called the toll free number and there was that robot woman "Please hold while I transfer your call" thing and then she said "The party you are trying to reach is not available. To leave a message for (normal human voice) HP Scarpo and Son (back to robot voice) Please wait for the tone or press 1..."

Basically it sounds kind of ghetto. It's in Hamden connecticut, but I really have no idea where that is. I mean, I can look at it and see it on a map but I don't really understand because I haven't driven at all here. I guess I can say "ok, take this road to that road to this highway then get off here and turn here" but I don't really get it. I'll figure it out, whatever, and someone else will be driving me there.

Anyway. This weekend I was introduced to a guy who runs a restaurant/cafe type place that I might be able to work at, which is really... intimidating, but good at the same time. It would be cool to work there, but I've never worked in a restaurant setting before, and I certainly don't have any white shirts. Who knows.

So yeah. Let's see. Meal captain is going well. There's a lot of stuff going on in the house but I'm pretty disconnected from it, not like I'm totally... unsympathetic to everyone else, but it's like... you can't let stuff affect you.

But I am still letting stuff affect me, I'm pissed off a lot at people for stuff that they can't really change. I get pissed off about stuff they can change, which is less of a problem I think.

Anyway.... I'm out of time here, but I hope you enjoy these photos!

Update LJ:
Saturday - 01-13-06 - Treatment day 178
Soooo. It's january. I don't remember if I updated since new years. The only resolution I could come up with was to NOT EAT WHITE CASTLE. Haha.
Anyway. I'm doing really well. I've been totally sick the last week and a half, though. I got a urinary tract infection which was HELL for about 3 hours and then i got antibiotics and these pills that made my pee orange, which was very exciting. I also got a really bad cold type thing the same day, and I was hoping the antibiotics for the UTI would help the cold but unfortunately that is not the case. I am not coughing as much which is good but I'm sneezing a TON. Can you sneeze when you're asleep?
Things at the house are weird. One person left in a storm while I was out of town, and I don't know if she took my LOST season two with her or not. I keep forgetting to ask.
I am working on myself as usual, I don't really know what to say I am working on. Two weeks ago I realized that everyone was right and I AM too negative. Which sucks. haha. But I've been better on that since I did some expressive work, which is good.
On the discharge front... a while ago J. had told me February possibly, but at this point it's looking doubtful. My mom wanted me to go to a step down place after this where I might get a job and go to community college or something while still living in a group type place, but it seems that it might be better for me to be HERE and do that stuff. And D. said that he wants to convince my mom to get me a car because I do really need one here. So hah! And I found out that insurance for me isn't that expensive, because my record only has 2 tickets, one in may 04 and one in may 05, so booya mom because I DID get the three tickets from last spring fixed. haha. Insurance will probably be between $1,000 and $1,500 per six months. Which is really really good, when I paid for it (which was after I'd had one minor accident and no tickets, but I was 18) my car insurance was $1,800 per six months. And my mom said my car insurance last year was like $4,000 or something, but that was a brand new car, too. If I still had that car I would have to pay $1,500 for six months now. And all these prices are for full coverage.
But anyway. Socializations are what... okay. Oh, I'm "Meal Captain" now. Which is hard. I basically have to do the chore charts every day, which means splitting all 15 or so chores between the 8 people here. And so and so complains that they just had one chore and someone else complains that they can't do another chore because their back hurts or another person has yells at me because they think one person doesn't have enough chores. The worst is when someone gets mad at me for asking them to do their chore, or tries to ask "Can I just not do my chore?" ...
But anyway. We got one new person last week and this coming week we're getting two new people. Two people who have been here as long as I have are leaving within a month. This means that I.D. will be the only person who has been here longer than me by the middle of February. I guess it doesn't matter, since I haven't even been here 5 months. I mean, i've been "in treatment" for... oh god, in a week it will be six months! Insanity. haha, literally.
I am so tired! I hate being sick! And I hate the fact that I want to stay up all night. I hate that I need to call adam but I want to do things on the computer and I don't want to spend a half an hour on the phone. I hate that I want to see him but I don't want to sneak out at night, especially if he's going to drive an hour and fifteen minutes here to see me.
auuugh.
Wellll I can't think of much else to say. So it looks like: Get a car. Get a job and/or start taking classes at Naugatuck(sp?) Valley Community College while still living at Angelus. Move out of Angelus into an apartment, continue classes and/or job while still coming to Angelus on a regular basis(2 or 3 times a week). When classes or done or when I think I'm ready, ???. It would be nice to be back in St. Louis but if I have a decent job and a car, I would love to live in New England for a little while. I really think they should secede and become their own country, because that's certainly how they look at themselves. Europeans seem to have seen a wider range of europe than new englanders have of their own country. If that makes any sense...
Anyway. I would like to live in New England because everything is up here. Not everything, but a ton of things that aren't in st. louis. And with a car, I could drive all over the place. Boston, NYC, Jersey, Baltimore, Washington DC, good god, i can't even think of all the sweet places I would be able to go! So DC would be like 4 hours, but oh well. When we drove to DC from St. Louis it was like 11 hours... it was actually longer than that because we drove in a huge arc instead of a straight line... actually, we drove kind of like a 2 rotated counterclockwise 90 %... but anyway.
Right now what I'm upset at myself the most about is that when I make dinner (pretty much once a week) I am always late. Friday I was half an hour late. It's really ridiculous. The day we went to the museum in Hartford I was an hour and a half late! When I made Pork Fried Rice even with Isabel's help and starting two hours early I was an hour late. What kind of example am I setting?
I really want to make like, GOOD chicken salad. But I'm probably the only one who would put all that stuff in it (FRESH chicken -they use canned here- mayo, mustard, raisins, walnuts, celery, maybe lettuce... who knows. oh man, just thinking about it makes me very excited.) and like it. But who cares, then there would just be awesome awesome chicken salad for me for like a week. Mmmmm.
Clearly I'm not really in my element. I have been so absent minded lately, maybe because I'm sick and tired. I hate when I can't sneeze. Also they changed my klonopin to be at night instead of in the morning. so it sticks around until like 2 pm the next day and then i kind of get jumpy. When i was cooking friday I was just whining and fretting about being worried about being late for dinner.
blech, I wonder where mucus comes from and how much can get in your stomach before you die. yuck.
anyway. hopefully there will be pictures here. goodnight




(i made that ornament and won the "funniest" category)