Coffeebration

UPDATE: I know hundreds of lives had been lost and I wasn’t saying that this wasn’t a terrible event. Man, I was just making fun of Geraldo. And now New Orleans is being flooded by the Mississippi River and a lot worse than it was right after the storm. I wish the best for everyone. We’re taking donations at work, so if you want to give some money and don’t know where to call, leave me a message! We are also taking online donations and I can give you the address.

Hey Miss Cleo, I heard that the MSM has an open position and “At Large with Miss Cleo” is sounding pretty good. Wahaha, I’m bored. I’m glad that the hurricane wasn’t a “disaster of bibilical proportions” and that the New Orleanian’s aren’t “wading through a cesspool of waste.” Those are pretty strong words Geraldo. Sure, there was lots of damage and that isn’t cool at all, but I thought Louisiana was going to wash away or be uninhabitable for months – a swampland rampant with disease and critters that would eat humans alive … oh and uprooted skeletons floating through the city. Unless it was fake, they just showed footage of residents in New Orlean’s walking around downtown NO checking out the lack of damage, and the ground wasn’t even wet! Man, MSM is all talk and no action … Ha, maybe they finally figured out that we were getting tired of Cindy Sheehan and Natalee Holloway.

Anyways, today was nasty outside, but I felt kind of bad feeling pissy about it since there are others who are climbing into their attics to escape drowning in flood waters. But hey, nobody said you had to live in hurricane city … just come here where the sun never shines and you’ll never get dehydrated … you can drink the humidity in the summer and eat brown sludgy snow in the winter. I guess I’m just bummed that summer is like almost officially over although fall is nice, especially if that means I get to go to Kennywood for Fright Nights. I guess I’m kind of excited about breaking out the fall wardrobe. Not like I really have to “break it out” since it isn’t like I store it away in a hidden room somewhere. Everything is in my closet … somewhere. Of course, fall will also mean shopping because everytime the seasons change my clothing line for that season seems to have disentigrated since the year before.

I can’t really think of anything else related to talk about. Yes, weather is the most interesting thing I have for today. I do have several stories about my life that I could write about here, but I just ramble. I can’t be concise, and it pisses me off. And being pissed off equals the end because I’m a quitter. Cheaters: Losers, Quitters: Awesome …. yes that is the correct answer and I guarantee bonus points on my coolness list if you mark that on your test.

Ingredients:
Water
Clorox
Swiffer Wet Jet (with swiffer multipurpose cleaner)

Directions:
1. Look at your kitchen floor and think “wow its dirty”
2. Mix some clorox with a little water
3. Slosh clorox and water mixture on floor
4. Use swiffer wet jet to spread it around on floor
5. Press button on swiffer and make solution come out
6. Slosh swiffer/clorox solution around on floor until floor is clean

Possible Outcomes:

1. Die
After completing #6, make sure that you have no open windows, begin to cough, fall on floor, die.

2. Live
After completing #6, open windows and turn on fans. Open nearest door if necessary. In the case that you do not have any windows, run outside quickly. Do this for a long time. Fumes do not dissipate quickly.

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for your death if you choose option #1. I’m posting this for humor …. or as a warning if you are stupid, like me. I think that college should have a class called like “Adulthood 101” where you learn the basics of cleaning and cooking on your own without poisoning yourself or setting things on fire. I’m 24 and I still can’t get it right.

This is quite possibly the scariest picture of me that I can find. It was taken on February 15, 2004. I’m bored, sorry.

One year ago today I had $9 to my name. I had just begun working at my current job and was eagerly awaiting my first big paycheck. I suppose I had been spending a lot of money during that time period since I was going to job interviews, buying clothes, missing work at my other job that paid a whopping $6.75 an hour, and still trying to afford luxuries such as toilet paper and soap. Oh, and I had just gotten a 50 cent raise because I had been making $6.25. Well, sadly I had to give up that job because my new job was offering me like twice as much and you know, things like paid sick leave, lots of paid vacation, benefits … the sort of thing one needs in order to maintain sanity.

So there I was, all cool with my new job, calling my mom to ask her if she could send me like $25 so I could buy some necessities since I hadn’t gotten paid yet. I’ve always been pretty independent and a little too proud to ask my parents for much, but I figured that since hopefully it would be the last time I’d ever have to ask for money, that it would be ok. My mom laughed at me and said she would send me a few bucks. Well the $25 came and went quickly …. and I was broke yet again. I remember Todd lending me $20 so I could go out to the bar with Julie and at the time I didn’t even have a credit card because I had closed all of my accounts, refusing to rack up any additional credit card debt. I had decided that if I was too scared to go out and find a decent job, well then I didn’t deserve to have things. I guess I thought it was ok to start begging money from people when I knew the loot was about to come rolling in. Even though I tried to be as independent as possible, if not for my parents and Todd I would probably be a homeless bum out on the street.

During my last year of school at Pitt I was having like a financial crisis. Pitt was expensive. I took out loans but they only covered my tuition. I got a job working 30 hours a week while taking 6 classes for two semesters in a row just so I could get my degree and be done with it. I was pretty burned out from going straight from class to work, then studying constantly and on top of that I didn’t even have an extra buck or two to reward myself after a really hard week. Afterall, $6.25 and hour is like slavery, seriously. And that is more than minimum wage. My job wasn’t difficult but it was physically tiring. I made pizza, stocked things, and was on my feet all night. I was exhausted when I came home and usually went straight to bed. My schedule was crazy. I woke up every morning at 5am, showered, took the 30 minute bus ride to Pitt, studied all morning till classes started, went to classes all day until 3-4, went straight to work, came home, slept. Did the same thing the next day. I worked Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri and Sat. Wednesdays and Sundays were nice, but never long enough to get everything done. I was going insane. I graduated in December 2003 and was so relieved.

I took some time off from the pizza job in December / January and spent some time at home with my family which I really needed. After that, I don’t know what happened exactly. I got kind of depressed and crazy for a while and didn’t really know what I wanted to do with my life. Time went by fast and I was spending more money than I was making. My parents helped me out a little bit financially a few times. And Todd was just wonderful. He bought me food when I was starving and he bought me clothes when I needed something nice to wear for an interview. He bought me presents and took me to the movies … and I felt guilty as hell. If we wanted to do anything other than sit around and stare at walls, well he had to come up with the $$ to do it because I sure didn’t have any.

In August I was offered a new job and took it. I was so happy that I danced around in circles all day. I couldn’t wait to have money and buy things for people and prove that I wasn’t going to be a beggar forever. I found my new job to be very stressful though. Money was nice, but I was longing for the days of working in the land of pizza. I started having bad anxiety problems again around October-November and couldn’t figure out why. I had my first bad bout of anxiety back in November 2002 and ended up in the ER because I thought I was having a heart attack. For literally months afterwards, my right leg was numb 24/7 and went to the doctor constantly because I was paranoid. I tried counseling for a while but that was stupid. I self diagnosed myself with having anxiety because I was always in financial distress and couldn’t deal with being an adult …. or the fact that I wanted to be an adult but felt like a loser because I wasn’t successful. So, I figured a steady job in a professional environment was going to solve this whole anxiety thing once and for all. I guess I was wrong because after starting my new job my anxiety levels rose back to the way they were back when I first started having them. I guess I was kind of feeling insecure about my job and didn’t really feel like anyone there liked me. I thought a lot of the women were bitchy, and the company was going through a rough time because it is small, and they had just lost like 7-8 employees so there was always some kind of crisis. I just came into all of it at a bad time and didn’t understand what the hell was going on.

Things got much better though. I’ve received my praise, my promotion, and respect of my co-workers. I still dislike many of them. What can I say, women suck and most of the people I work with are of my gender. At least one of my bosses is a man and he is probably the most crazy and sweet person in the world, but he is usually traveling overseas, but I manage to maintain some sanity at times. And in the past year I’ve paid off some debt, saved some money, gone on vacation, and for the first time was able to help others out financially. So …. overall its been good and I’m sure glad that it isn’t August 26th 2004 right now.

So it isn’t all about the money people, but having some definitely helps in working out all the other crap. When your first priority is figuring out how to buy a roll of toilet paper, well the other things just don’t seem as important. I’m by no means well off, but I can say that I’m so much happier now and have a much more positive outlook on life. And that is very good. I don’t know why I just decided I needed to recap my life story here because I’m sure I already did that like 5 times in this blog, but I was reading old entries last night and came across that one from exactly a year ago and I just thanked God that I’ve moved on from all that crap.

But then I have to ask myself if this is going to happen again if I move, change jobs, or anything else significant happens in my life. And honestly, I don’t think it will. The whole time I was in college I was so scared to graduate and join the real world. I didn’t know what a real job would be like and it freaked me out. I feel confident now. My job is insane but the good thing about it is that I know I have so much experience now and can do anything I want. I dream about going to interviews and knocking the socks off people. My job experience now exceeds shredding paper and cooking pizza. I’ve lived alone now for over a year and haven’t died alone in my apartment yet, so I think its going to be ok. For once I finally feel like everything is going to be O.K. I’m still gonna knock on wood after writing that though. Knock Knock 😛

So I was cleaning my apartment and I found something that I wrote down because I wanted to remember it. This was only about a month ago and of course I already almost forgot about it. So, I’ll put it here, just in case my apartment fills with sewage and destroys my note.

Todd, just being Todd …. while driving down the road one night with me in the passenger seat.

Todd: Mmmm … this drink is pretty fruity. Its, its like …. a grapevine exploded in my mouth!

Me: ……….

Todd: So, like, I was driving and like there was a pothole, so like I swerved and put a hole in my new Gucci tires! And then, I was driving again, and there was like this chipmunk, so I swerved again. You know, that chipmunk had like his whole life to live. Oh my God, the chipmunk, I don’t want to hit him! Oh my God, I can’t see! What if I hit the cute little chipmunk!

Me: ….. Um, its night time Todd. The chipmunks are all asleep now.

That is all. Todd was pretending to be, well I’m not really sure. I think it is his inner desire to be a really feminine gay man. Its dumb, but it makes me laugh.

I designed my page again! What is this … the millionth time? Well, as luck would have it I’ve been quite ill for the past three days, only leaving my house for pop. I forgot what sunshine looks like. And the medicine I take wacks me out too much to just sleep all day. So, this is the product of being a prisoner in front of my computer. I’m applying all the new CSS I’m learning! Except, it isn’t really CSS I want to learn. I just need to get good at making graphics. Figuring out where to stick them is easy, but making them is hard! I used a new program I found called Xara to make all the cool curved edges. Don’t even say that you can make that stuff in Photoshop. I won’t believe you because Photoshop sucks and that is the end. My nose fell off so I have to go glue it back on.

I’m going into the third day of being sick. I got up this morning at 6am, took medicine, drank loads of coffee, and was determined to go to work. I’m about out of my mind with boredom, and I want to scream! I can’t scream though because I’m sick and I can’t even talk. Todd said that I should be going to bed early because I will want to sleep a lot. This is not the case. I cannot go to sleep at night. When I do fall asleep, it is short-lived because I just want to get up at like 6-7am. My usual ritual of hitting snooze 10 times and falling back into happy dreamland is gone. Now, I wake up and feel nasty and want to take medicine. Then I’m thirsty. Then I resume feeling nasty and want to shower. Going back to sleep won’t happen, especially after I take medicine because it has wacky stuff in it that makes me unable to sleep. So its 8:28 am. I’ve already determined that I can’t go to work because my nose is like a sink, I am coughing 62% of the time I breathe, and I’m having these sneezing fits that often causes mucous to involuntarily project itself out of my mouth or nose across the room. At least it is something to amuse me. Aghh. Bedtime is far away. Its going to be a long day, trapped in this cave, I can’t even enjoy sunshine. I want some hot cheetos and icecream, I know that isn’t healthy. I don’t care.

I’m sick for real this time. As stated here I said I would cry if I got sick from Todd. I don’t know if I’m sick from him, but I’m sick and if I cried I’d probably stop breathing because I can barely breathe by just sitting here. I read about a cold remedy on the internet that said that you are supposed to pour a capful of hydrogen peroxide into your ear and let it sit there. If it bubbles, that means that there is bad stuff (or lots of wax) in your ear and you should leave it in your ear for a few minutes and then tilt your head, drain it out, and repeat until the bubbling stops. Well, being the desperate believe anything is possible until proven to be false, I tried it. The first time it bubbled a lot. It would not stop bubbling so I finally just drained it out and poured new stuff in. After pouring new peroxide in my ear, it disappeared into my body somewhere. I had the same problem with the other ear. Poured peroxide in, peroxide did not come back out … EVER. So I decided I might want to quit doing it just in case I was poisoning myself. I mean, you aren’t supposed to ingest peroxide, so I don’t think it is good to let it seep into your body from your ear. Oh well. I’ve lost my voice completely and right now I can’t even squawk. If I had to call someone, they would hear “screech screech” and they’d probably think some kind of tropical bird was prank calling. I went to work for about two hours this morning to do some random stuff that needed done then I was all clammy and sweaty and came home. It feels like it should be like 11pm right now and I’m so bored. I can’t sit still, can’t sleep, can’t really concentrate on anything. Being sick sucks. If anyone knows any remedies that will cure my inability to talk or just make me better, please share.

This is totally cool and funny, and soooo true if you live in an apartment. I’m loving this guy’s website! APARTMENT SIMULATOR! (Make sure your volume is turned on!)

I think I want to move … maybe around this December or next April. Currently I’m paying off any debt I currently have and want to save some loot to hire some movers and buy a few furniture items since my place is furnished and the furniture I have stored at my parents house is just plain old fugly. The biggest thing I need to buy is a new bed. I actually own my bed, it is one of the only things here that is mine, but its a full sized bed, sagging in the middle, and pretty much shot. I cannot settle for a new small bed. It must be a new BIG bed. I also want to move somewhere with windows, allows cats, has dishwasher, a/c, a bathtub (not just standing shower), and laundry facilities somewhere (doesn’t necessarily have to be inside the apartment but would be nice). I’m willing to pay electric, but not gas. Rent must be cheap. I mean, I’m not going to beat the rate I have here, but still, the cheaper the better. And I need to live somewhere with stores nearby, and public transportation. I am a very quiet individual and I don’t have parties. Friends may visit occasionally, but most likely not. Parking is not necessary because i don’t have a car. I pay my rent early and the check won’t bounce. In fact, I can give you a year’s worth of checks in advance, all postdated to the due date if you like. If you are a landlord willing to make me an offer I cannot refuse, please email me: nellie at coffeebration dot com. I can give you references. THANKS.