My Past 24 Hours: A Hellish Roller Coaster

Yesterday I spent about...4 hours watching the first two series of Black Books which was created by Graham Linham and Dylan Moran. It's a fantastically awesome series about three misanthropes. Bernard Black run Black Books, a used bookstore; Manny goes bonkers and starts working there and Bernard's friend Fran spends a lot of time hanging out in the shop. They live drinking, smoking and being all around ridiculous.  The characters remind me a bit of a British It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia at times, the humor isn't as dry as some British comedies can be. It made yesterday pretty damn awesome as I started sinking into being depressed.

Speaking of being depressed...I went to counseling yesterday morning, like most Tuesdays. Prior to I did that stupid thing where I sleep for four hours. Seriously, I think it's a retarded side effect from quitting smoking. I don't know, it's really friggin' annoying. I woke up at 6, I was able to get back to sleep, but being awake was not plesant. It's not like I didn't feel rested, but I know me and I know my habits so I don't understand why I keep waking up after only four hours of sleep.

In councling I spoke about what's gone on over the past week including going to a festival this past Friday and going to a youth church thing. I can appreciate where the group is coming from by using rap to make the youth feel closer to the message [it was a predominantly black church group] but I don't agree. It sounded mostly like hardcore rap which seems a little counterproductive. What I mean is, if it sounds like gangster, shoot-'em-up rap and you can't understand what's being said, how do they know the message they intended got across to the youth? If you look at my track record of music habits I'm across the board, except for hardcore rap. I never liked that sound, it has never been pleasing to my ears so I was judgemental. If you remember my earlier blogs about my opinion of religion I was already going in judging. I tried to get with it but I couldn't. When the speaker got up on stage to preach I was more or less fine with the message. He spoke about not giving up because something is too hard. That's the Devil's work getting you off your proper path. That I could get behind. I could not agree with his use of a cancer analogy.

For the newcomers, my mother died from cancer. I don't like talking about cancer in that ambiguous manner that if someone died from it, they gave up. Bull-fucking-shit. My family and I never 'gave up hope' we held out  candle for my mother the entire time she was ill. We prayed, our church prayed, her co-workers prayed. She's now on a prayer list or something with some church, still. People have not forgotten us. There were a lot of people who didn't give up praying for her. The doctors did the best the could and ended up trying to keep her pain manageable. She died because of science. Why do I not want to accept it as God's will? I'll tell you. I don't want to accept it as God's will because I still needed her. I still need her.

I have met a lot of people who care, who will give me advice and help me should I ask, and even if I don't ask all the time. That's all well and dandy but my mother is still dead. It's not the same. If God cared about me than why did she need to die? So I could grow up? What's going to happen in my life that I couldn't stay naive for a few months longer, a few years longer.

Why did she have to die, science can explain. The massive amounts of chemicals in her system took their toll on her body, it could not take it anymore. Her kidney's stopped flushing water from her blood; her lungs deteriorated from pneumonia getting a hold of her chemotherapy weakened system and her body was too far deceased and disconnected to continue. Her body knew it was time, it tried to keep up but it couldn't repair itself fast enough. The thought that biology happened, that it's the natural order of life and death, that all living things die at some point made me feel better than saying 'God wanted her to come home.' Science gives me answers. I believe in science. I believe in some deity getting things started and is now sitting back or just plain gone and this world continues circling that fucking star. Science has yet to give us all the answers. I can accept that. I mean, if the universe started from the 'Big Bang' where did the elements come from for that initial beginning? If they came from an even earlier universe, what happened to that one? And where did that one come from?

We don't know, so I believe in science as far as it can give me an educated answer. It might all be wrong but it makes enough sense and seems plausible enough for me.

I left counseling this morning with my counselor asking me to detail how I felt as my mother was sick, when she died and after. Thankfully I have so many damn blogs and journals it's kind of like aggregating it and maybe writing something new, or taking this. Not too sure yet.

I left counseling and killed some time until I went out to Jerry's Art-Arama to get supplies for my color theory class. I spent $184 to get my supplies, giant 19X24 bristol, color aid, pencils, triangle, compass and a shit ton of 'other'. I did get to save abut $20, my friend who is now dropping the class, is letting me borrow some things for the duration which is pretty sweet.

Now, the trip back from Jerry's, which is out in Virginia Beach was an interesting and highly irritating one. Remember how I said I was slipping into depression last night? Well it reared it's bastardly ugly head. Fucking bastard. People's driving was irritating me and my friend tried to give me some advice on how to deal with it. It didn't help. I was in the middle of being depressed, being told just about anything does not help. We were stuck in traffic because of an accident on 64 and people just kept irritating me. My friend couldn't placate me and was actually counter productive. When I cry I don't want to be told it's fine to cry, I like rationalizing things out. I like words, I like taking the elusive and explaining it to the best of my ability. Why? It focuses me. It keeps me in control. I like being in control.

That's not to say I don't let myself go and go with the flow of things. I have been stepping out of my box, out f my comfort zone for a while, trying new things. At the festival I tried crawfish, I went back to a church for the first time in three years, I've gone out with people I don't know. I have no problem feeling joy, happiness, bliss, anger, irritation, depression. I feel, I like feeling with words. Tears do nothing. No, crying doesn't make me feel better, I hate crying, I hate it when I cry, it's like I've lost control in an unpleasant way.  Science on wikipedia gives me a few answers but not much is going on right now to really prompt this. It's irritating and I really can't stand crying.

And looking at that and knowing me I can now predict a few things. As I said yesterday I knew I was getting depressed. As I cried I said I was feeling depressed. I've written more journals in the past few weeks than I have in a while. Writing is one of the things I do when I'm depressed, I'm trying to put my feelings into words, trying to work through it. Writing about any thing that comes to mind. [Yes, I want 'any' and 'thing' to be separate words]. I've been depressed and I'm PMS-ing. I'm not as hard up about candy unless I'm pms-ing, and I want peanut butter. It was never chocolate for me, always peanut butter. At the moment it's peanut butter M&Ms, yeah there's chocolate, but it's about the peanut butter. It's usually Reese's Pieces, I know these things.

So I'm in my car, trapped in my traffic, in the Virginia heat [with A/C], and I'm crying and depressed. My friend it telling me it's fine. It's not fine. It's never fine when I cry. Very few of my friends have seen me cry and it's always when I can't put my frustrations into words.

I hate crying. Period.

I dropped him off, came home, and made a 16 oz Cosmopolitan in a water-bottle. I downed it in an hour and rolled around on my bed drunk and doing nothing on the internet until I decided to see Toy Story 3. I have been thinking about not seeing it, but in the long run I had to. It was awesome. I didn't like that the three trailer's before the movie were for 3D flicks, I saw Toy Store in classic 2D and these trailers seemed like those movies weren't going to be distributed in 2D, I assume they will be but we'll see. One of these days on my movie blog I'll put up my opinion about 3D and elaborate on my distaste for it. And if you pop over to my movie blog, you can see my opinion on making pseudo 3D/CGI animated films, as critiqued by the Smurfs movie slated for next year. I also have some ideas about photo-realism, which can fit into that blog but will get it's own, because that owl movie looks creepy (it had human eyes..wtf?!? -ovular-). But, I don't like barn owls, their faces are disturbingly flat, and the movie seems to 'star' a barn owl. Joy. Or it's a masked owl...I don't like the flatter faces. The other things I noticed in the trailers is that there are two animated movies for this summer/fall that seem like they're supposed to be sympathetic to villains. The Will Ferrel one, Mastermind or whatever (...'it's BIG for a reason'...great, penis envy jokes); and the Steve Carell one, Despicable Me (reading this plot, this seems weak. I like the beginning idea, but where it goes, not as much). I think the trailer could be made stronger if the minion characters said the word right, instead of tailoring it to kids, if they broke it down on the screen for the kid to learn the damn word and not having the minion stumble on the word then having the announcer say it correctly.

So, Toy Story 3, fantastic. It was also hella depressing. It was also hella brilliant. I loved the toys that were there in the the day care, I loved how things played out. It was all really well written an animated. I don't want to spoil much, but I do with that more had been done with Bonnie's toys, they were awesome. And great voices all around. I could have gone with the Spanish Buzz joke, it went on a bit too long for me and seemed to be a little contrived, but outside of that bit of nit picking I enjoyed everything. It was written on a kid's level, but was great for adults without it needing to be vulgar, a la Shrek.

Yeah...I came back home and wrote all this out. It's taken me a bit more than an hour. So today was a roller coaster of hell, kind of. But I feel better now that I've written..something! See, crying doesn't help, words do!

Jasmine P.

Adventures in Virginia Aug 10

Well, this morning on Twitter I announced my plans for the day as follows "morning all! time for New Glasses Adventure, Lease Notarizing Adventure, then 'Back to Norfolk Adventure. too bad it's not that exciting" apparently only 14 hours ago around 8 am.

Things went off normally. Got dressed, went to the bank to get my cosigner lease papers signed by Dorien, but the notary wasn't there, so we went over to the UPS store and got that taken care of. I went my separate way from my brother and was going to get my eyes checked out, but of course, Hour Eyes doesn't open until 10, and not 9, so I went over to the Safeway and got a Doubleshot plus, and some doughnuts. Munched on those in the parking lot than went into Hour Eyes. Sadly, one of the guys who works there that I normally see since I'm normally there in the evenings wasn't working, but oh well. Got checked in and had those fucking annoying tests. The one with the puff of air, and the one with the green rays around a red dot that goes in an out of focus. Went into the exam office and I apparently had the same doctor I had last year. Got my eyes checked out, and apparently my eyes have gotten a wee bit better, so my new glasses will have a smaller reading section of the bifocal lenses. Cheers, motherfucker! I picked out a nice new frame it's black and a bushed bronze. They're half rimmed, which makes me happy that I can finally find half-rimmed glasses for the size of my lenses.

I head back home and to my horror I see my brother on the naked side, thankfully from the side, but then I can see him man-tits. They hang, it was gross! ugh. I get my shit together, clean up the living room then head out in the midst of lunch hour traffic. it takes me almost an hour to get gas, wash my car, and get some food before I take the County Parkway instead of the beltway to I-95S.

On the actually interstate, the traffic moves pretty rapidly. I'm going at 80mph for most of the time. Before I actually get to 295S I stop in Ladysmith for some caffeine, tea and to use the euphemism in defense of the impending traffic I know I won't miss. Back on the road the congestion I'd been in the middle of was way away and the road was mostly clear.

Things are going well enough. I'm making alright time, it's going on 4 and I'm out in Yorktown, about 45min from Norfolk without traffic. With traffic, about and hour and a half. Seeing that things are getting on the congested side, my windows are open and I've hit the bored mood that happens from driving when I kind of don't care anymore and just want to get off the road. I'm looking for my Golds because I figure I'm going slow enough to be able to smoke one. Things are slowing down and my car is going faster than I thought and I rear-end this little piece of Taurus. Fucking a, indeed.

We pull off to the side of the road and I'm shaky. I get out of the car and look at my hood which is now mashed up behind one of the bumper bolts, and the bumper is cracked. The lights look a little cracked, but end up working fine. I go to the kid I hit, he just turned 20 at the beginning of the month. We exchange information and call the cops who take 30 min to get to us so we're out in the sun with traffic blowing past us. I have a smoke while we're waiting.

The cop, a state trooper, get there and checks out both cars an writes no report and we don't have to go to court. I mean, it gets filed and everything, but I don't have to go to court for riding too close to the kid, and he doesn't have to go to court because his license is expired.

I was a bit of a wreck, I was shaking and I started crying. I'm still not sure why. The left side of my neck aches a little and even now I kind of want to crack my back. My neck seems a little stiff when I look the left, but I think I'm pretty much alright. I figured I'd go to the hospital tomorrow if it seemed necessary.

Getting into Norfolk I just want to go to sleep. I'm tired from sleeping 5 hours and then driving for 5. I call Dorien while I'm in tunnel traffic, and later send him some photos. I take some of my own and call AllState. That takes me another hour and I'm just plain worn at this point. On Thursday I go to get AllState to check it out and hopefully soon I'll have a rental and my car will be fixed.

And on top of this I have work orientation in the morning. Promptly at 9. I'm cuttin' out and going to bed now. Waking at 7 to get ready, and hopefully have the time to swing by Borjo for a cup of coffee, or at least for something to eat. I'd rather be drawing.

On a happier note, my Pacino and J. M. Barrie biographies arrived while I was gone, along with my Threadless tees. Cheers! Josh bombed the apartment and killed a whole mess of roaches. downside? They're migrating to my room, fuckers. Duke was fine, and I think Josh may have watered my plants, if so, awesome. I need to dead head the peace lily. Soon. I watched Bonnie and Clyde. Horrible. Horrible flick. I think that's just about everything. I think I'll doodle right quick, then to sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.

Jasmine P.