One of the people I work with is an immigrant from Kosovo. She's been in Canada like 16 months now, after having been here for I think a year like 6 years ago. Anyway, none of that's my point.

As a barista at a not to busy Starbucks there's lots of downtime and if you can't talk to the person you're working with you are going to go insane. So Z (that's her first initial) and I talk occasionally. Usually she talks about her kid, and her family, and the other day she was telling me about how her son loves this food called prosheshmikos ( I have no idea if that's how it's spelled, but that's how it sounds). It's what you get when you tear up bread and mix it with yogurt. If you're just eating bread it's called buke (book) and yogurt is kos.

So Z is trying to teach me Albanian. She tried to tell me how to say bless you, as in "achoo", "bless you". It's shneit, or something like that. And thank you, which is something like falemnderit.

Albanian is tough man.

Also, my feet hurt. I'm pretty good about it, but at the end of an 8 1/2 hour shift by the time I get home I'm ready to chop my own feet off to escape the pain. Which is only going to get worse, I fear.

See I was just recently "promoted" to back up to the operator, which if we had a management position would be called "assistant manager". So that means that I can work almost real full-time hours. Because I was hired at Safeway after 2002 my full-time hours max out at 30. But because I'm now assistant I can work 37 hours a week.

So I expect my feet to continue aching for as long as I work there.

Well, my friend met me at the movies. I was totally nervous even after he said that he would.

I went to the mall early and got a haircut, so I was feeling pretty good about myself and then he was there!!! I was so excited. The only bad thing was that he's lost some weight since the last time I saw him, and I haven't, so he was looking better than me.

We went and saw The X-Files. It was a pretty fun experience. But since them I haven't talked to him at all. My other friend and I haven't connected at all since then.

Well that's all for now.

I just asked a friend to meet me for a movie tomorrow, and I haven't seen him in like 2 years. I like him fine, but our relationship is one of distance, and separation. I don't know how we'd do sitting together in a movie theatre for 2 hours.


I'm worried that he's going to back down, and then I'll be all alone at the movie, which is what I was pathetically trying to avoid in the first place.

We'll have to see how it goes.


Oh, and my other friend crapped out on me. Maybe we'll be able to hook up next week? We'll see on that too...

Why am I getting nervous that my friend doesn't want to talk just because the last two times I've called it's gone to voicemail? As far as I know I'm the only person in the world who doesn't have their cell phone with them every minute of every day. So when someone calls me it will most likely go to voicemail because my phone is up in my room while I'm downstairs or at work or in the yard or out shopping. You get the idea. But my friend, she seems to always have her phone right next to her, so then I start wondering why she's not answering.

I vacillate between knowing that it's nothing; she just doesn't have her phone, and thinking she's screening my calls because she doesn't want to hang out and she thinks I'm annoying the hell out of her by asking, twice now, if she wants to hang out.

On the other hand, I like that I got to leave a message. I find phone calls really awkward. Not knowing whether the other person is in the middle of something and is just to polite to say that they can't talk right now, or if they're in a bad mood and just plain don't want to talk to anyone. Now that I've left her a message the proverbial ball is in her court and she can call me back when she's ready. If she ever calls back at all.

This is why I don't like calling people.

I love Lee Pace and Pushing Daisies and am so excited for him that he's nominated. Goooo Lee!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1unIV275uBw

I have to remember that I like Toblerones better in my head than I do in real life.

Do not buy any more Toblerones!!!!

My brother and his gf are having sex outside on our front porch and they are NOT being discreet. The windows are open and everything. Holy awkward batman!!!

Why is it that whenever I want my life to change, and think that this time I'll be able to straighten things out nothing comes of it. I don't think that sentence made sense. So I think I'll post a thought a day (or more realistically every once in a while).

Why won't James just tell me if he's free next wednesday and thursday? I have to make plans.

I was never really a social butterfly, the truth is that I'd rather be at home then out with drunk people. But when my friend invited me to her birthday party I didn't want to say no.

So I went to my friend's 21st birthday party and it was, um, a success I guess. There were people there and the alcohol was flowing and everyone seemed to have a good time (and there are pictures to prove it)

So I participated. Yeah, I really haven't been missing much!

I slet myself sleep in until 11:45 today hoping to avoid any horrible hangover effects, and for a while I thought it worked. but it's now 1:45 and I'm feeling a little queasy. I just ate food, so hopefully that'll help. I didn't have the Oh My God My Arms Are Dying From The Inside Out feeling. Which is good. I'm actually kind of glad that I don't feel totally awesome the day after.

With dad being an alcoholic I am a little wary of heading that way too. But I don't like this hangovery feeling.

I'm currently drunk, for like the second time like ever. The first time was like 2 years ago at a company christmas party and they had an almost open bar. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking that my arms were dying. Well tongiught I got drunk again. It was my friend Lindsay's burthday pasrty and we started on her friednd jeesee's balcony and flavored vodka. I had 4? drinks at her place and then we headed over to Toad in the Hall, which turned out to be closed. Then we headed ocver to Shannon's Pub. and I had 3 shots. 1 Dirty Hooker and 2 Sex on the beaches (sexes on the beach?) and a rum and coke. And then everntually like half of Lyndseys Smirnoff Ice. So I think I'm officially drunk.

Hoping to avoid the arm incident of 2000 whatevcer, I've eaten food and a banana, adn I'm going to take an aspirin before bed. I just have to finish watrhcing this episode of Gilmore Girls first.


All in all, considering that I only knew two people at the party, I'd say it was pretty much a success. It was slow in places. It was funny in places. After experiencing a typical twenty-something party, I can say that I haven't really been missing much.

And I''m out, because my eyes are very tired.

Goodnight.

SS8BELNVWYW22N5E

Well, I just told mom about my marks, and even though I was all happy and bubbly about telling her she still couldn't muster any sort of enthusiasm at all.

Aaaaand that's why I don't want to tell her things.

And why I don't feel like I should attempt anything until my family is ready to accept me "as I am" not "as they want me to be".

It's moments like these that make me want to do something drastic, like picking up and moving somewhere far, far away.

but for right now I just need to focus on not sobbing until I'm somewhere private.

In an hour and fifteen minutes it will be my 21st birthday!

I'm half excited and half very sad. I don't want to be 21, I feel like I should be more of a grown up, and I doubt that I'll wake up tomorrow and feel more mature.

I'm thinking of going shopping tomorrow, so that might be a fun, grown up thing to do to celebrate.

So anyway, birthdays and christmases always make me judge how much my loved ones love me based on what they buy me. Not how much they spend necessarily, but what the choose to buy me. The thought behind the gift, so to speak. I keep waiting for someone to buy me that perfect gift, the gift that even I didn't know that I wanted; needed!

Anyway, I'm sick of talkting/thinking about it!

I didn't really accomplish enough to report.

I did make a doctor's appt though, so that counts.

I do have a few future posts waiting in the ether to be typed up, but that won't be for a couple of days.

That's all for today folks.

Well I woke up REALLY early and then got very little done.

I gave mom a check, with a little bit of guilt-money tacked on and then I watched 3 episodes of Made in Canada in bed while eating half of a little bag of ketchup chips. I then piled some clothes into my laundry basket, filled a garbage bag with trash and headed downstairs for the rest of the day.

I worked on our family photos, and worked on filling photo albums for my Grandmother.

Yeah, that was pretty much all that I did today. Not a shining example of what I'm capable of achieving. Tomorrow can only be better.

My plan, and I will stick to my plan, is to gather the rest of my laundry, take the doggies for a walk, wash my hair, clean the room so that the floor is clear of all unnecessary clutter and then maybe do some light baking.

Wow, that seems like a lot when I list it like that. I think that's because I'm really a pessimist, so I think that everything's going to take longer than it really will. I have an interesting theory about that, but I'll save it til another day.

ETA: I REALLY need to call my doctor. It's way overdue!

I want to recap my day so I know what I did today. Hopefully I can inspire myself by seeing how much I complete or do or accomplish and set my sights higher for the next day. Not a huge thing, but it's something I want to try.

So here is what I did today, or at least what I can remember.

1) Woke up at 10ish and headed downstairs.

2) Talked to mom, and found out that there was a message on the machine from Sharla wondering if I could come in at 11:30 instead of 12:30. It had come in yesterday at 5, so it was too late to do anything about it.

3) Made a delicious chicken sandwich, with toasted panini bun, muenster cheese and mayo. Ate it with Coke.

4) Made custard for mom, because she hasn't been feeling well for a long time, and custard gives her a temporary happy-jolt.

5) Headed to work for 12:30, where Corina was working. I had a 6-hour shift, which means that I got two 15 minute breaks, but was able to scrunch them together into a half-hour, so I was able to come home, have a Popsicle and eat some strawberries that mom got at Zeller's.

6) Corina left at 5:30, and as soon as she left I got a mondo rush and everything in the store went to shambles. I got out of there pretty close to 6:30 though, so it didn't get too off track. And by working on a Sunday I earned Premium pay, which is 1$ for every hour. Woo, 6 whole dollars!

7) Came home and watched tv with the family. We watched 3 Jeopardys and then the boys left and mom and I watched a Wheel of Fortune.

8) Made another delicious sandwich, ate it with Coke.

9) Introduced myself to Six Feet Under, which I downloaded the first episode of. I decided to try it after seeing Dexter, which I love, and after seeing Lauren Ambrose in The Return of Jezebel James; the show was crap, but she seemed cool. I'm not sure I'm completely sold on it, but enough to give it another try.

10) I'm going to download 2 more episodes of SFU, and head to bed.

11) Ooh, I have to write mom a check and give it to her in the AM.

I finally realized what my deep, dark secret is, and it really did shake me to my core.

I knew it yesterday, but today when I tried to remember it I couldn't think of what the hell it is.

Could it really have been my deep dark secret if I couldn't even remember it?

Crap

Well, as soon as I remember it again, I'll make sure to write it down.

Well, I was doing pretty well there for a while.

I made the pastry for the Pear with Gruyere pie, and decided to just go for it and make the pies altogether. It was a pretty smooth process, and I got to listen to some of my music at the same time.

The pies had to cook in the oven for a while so I was using the opportunity to catch up on an episode of Gilmore Girls, which I mentioned could prove to be a distraction and the phone rang. I answered it, because I'm a good person and answering the phone is definitely a part of that, and it was Sharla on the phone wondering if I could come in.

So instead of cleaning my room and talking to mom, I headed in to work to do a little 4 hour shift, which really eats up all my energy.

I decided to get a sub after, and I got some more goodish news. Safeway (and Starbucks) employees get 10% off! That's super. I saved a whole 70 some cents on my supper.

Well, I need to finish eating my tiny pie (I'll post oodles of pictures soon) and then head straight to bed with me.

All in all, a pretty good day!

Well, I'm having a fairly successful day so far. I made a trip to the library to return some books, took out some new ones including a couple of cookbooks and a how-to art book. After that I headed to work to check my schedule for next week.

I work Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Which is fine, except that for two of those three shifts I have to work with Tom. God Tom is annoying as hell, and I have to put up with him for 10 hours in one week. That will be stressful! But the nice thing about Tom is that the only thing he's good for is making drinks. He'd rather make all the drinks than do anything else, which is fine with me because frankly I like being on till and drink-making is the only (somewhat) stressful part of the job anyway.

My boss Sharla was working, which was great because I had to talk to her about my summer plans. I said I wasn't sure if it was okay to sign off two weeks in August, and she asked if I wanted the beginning or end of August. I told her, beginning, and that works out because she's taking two weeks off at the end of August. I'm so happy that I've dealt with that.

So, so far my plan for the day had been successful, and there was only one stop left to make. I had to go to the bank because the bank canceled the account option that I use, so I had to switch to a new one. The teller there told me about the different options I could choose, and then when I was resistant about making a change she said "Are you a student? I see some U of M transactions here?" I tell her "Um, well I just finished a term there, yeah".

She says that if I go back to school they can give me a free account, and then when I still hesitate she said that she'd set it up for me anyway. So now I get my banking for free! I still have to look into it a little more, but I think I won't have any charges at all!

Now the only problem I have is trying to keep that momentum going. I made myself a sandwich, but it wasn't very good, so I think I'll have to find more food to eat, and then here's my plan for the rest of the day.

1) Make a pie crust with Gruyere in it and put it in the fridge to set up.

2) Do some cleaning in my bedroom. Sort laundry, gather garbage, maybe find some stuff for the Canadian Diabetes people, who are coming to collect on the 13th. Find more books to read.

3) Make a pear pie with the above-mentioned crust.

4) Tell my mom that my marks are in. The only reason I don't want to do this is that I'm not sure if I want to tell her that I dropped my psych course, or just let it go and not tell her that. My instinct is to lie, as my first instinct so often is, but I also want to tell her the truth so that there's no way she can find out some other way.

Okay, well I'd better get started on my plan for today before I get distracted by a rerun of Gilmore Girls and get thrown off track.

Here I go...