cosmic_celery

I haven't made a proper journal entry in quite a while, it seems, apart from showing off the bits and bobs of my costumes. (As it happens, the tights for my girl!five thing showed up and they're very cool - they've got a cool cable-knit pattern on them like the sweater. See?)

There's a couple things I've been wanting to mention on here but I haven't really sat down to do it, so:

There's been some business with my grandmother that came to a rather frightening moment this weekend. We learned several months ago that she has a growth on one of her ovaries. As far as they know it's not cancerous and it could have been there a very long time before they even found it. For a while they were talking about the possibility of going in and having it removed. Initially, she agreed, but then after talking with my Dad, she agreed to reschedule to this weekend. The night before last, grandma got a ride up to the hospital to go over everything and then came home. Once at home, she got a call from one of the nurses saying that she could come back to the emergency room immediately because a test had come back showing signs of renal failure. She refused because she felt fine, and called my mom and me to tell us what had happened. It's at that point that I freaked out a bit. It seemed like nobody was caring that something potentially fatal was happening to a member of our family.

However, it turns out that the readings were perfectly normal for her based on her history (she has one kidney, which skews the results) and furthermore, she's decided not to get the surgery at all. This is largely on my Dad's influence, who is extremely suspicious of hospitals. He thinks that once you walk through the doors, you lose all ability to make decisions for yourself. That part is unfounded, definitely. The other side, which I totally understand, is that my grandmother is an 89 year old woman. Surgery to deal with something that isn't causing her discomfort is definitely a risky proposition. Still, it irks me that nobody is weighing the options.

So, she'll be making an appointment to go see a geriatric doctor...who, I suppose will look over everything - and we'll see from there.

The second thing I wanted to talk about is an incident that happened at my mom's work several months ago. A man who had been fired during the holidays came in, shot one of the management, and then himself. My mother wasn't directly involved, though she was in the building when it happened. As far as these sorts of things go, I think it qualifies as "close to home". Though I have the same sort of detachment thinking about it that I get when I've heard of any other shooting. I don't know if that's good or bad, really. People do strange and terrible things that make little sense to me, and I'll never understand that sort of thing, no matter how close to home it is. But...I'm not horrified by it. Just sad for humanity.

Hm.

Anyway. I think my dad's coming down today, which should be lovely given I as good as hung up on him the other night when he was rambling on about how surgery should have never been an option at all for my grandmother. ...and I haven't had any sleep.

Despite the tone of this entry so far, I'm alright. School is going nicely and I'm learning things I'm interested in. On Monday I'm going to go see about cashing in a bond I've got lying around - I have a list of things I'd like to do and most of them require a bit of dosh.

I've been to all of my classes now, and the English classes (Mythology and British Literature 2) seem like they're going to be manageable. Physics still scares the crap outta me. I definitely need to apply a lot of time to that one. If I keep on top of things (read: don't slack off) I should be able to get through this semester.

Mom likes the Self Defense class a lot more than I do. I think she's much more aggressive than I am. I'm okay with learning different moves and stuff, but I don't want to imagine the pad I'm hitting is some imaginary dude getting a knee to the balls. Also, it's much more an anti-rape class than a self defense class. Okay, it's common, but that's not the only scenario in which someone might attack a woman.

Being in the British Lit (actually, aside: The Professor, who was born and lived in England, mentioned that calling someone from Britain a 'Brit' is considered an insult? I've never heard that before) class has reminded me that I haven't written much of anything lately and I really need to start writing again. So starting now, I'm going to try writing a short story or poem every two weeks. With all my classes, I know that once a week is just going to be too much.

I'm going to make a list of everything I write this year, and post them to this journal (under lj cuts, of course). I'm also making a list of all the books I've read this year. Right now it's a measly two books (both EDAs). Hopefully this will make me a bit more motivated to do both more writing and reading.

Understandably, I'm probably going to be online a lot less than I have been recently. Sorry, guys.

(Also, sorry for cluttering up your flist with the two posts to follow)

It seems like I've not made a proper journal entry in forever.

Christmas went nicely and I managed not to make my mother angry about something or other, which is nice. It didn't seem to become the big deal that it could have...though at times it nearly got there. We did Christmas dinner at Grandmas and my Dad was there. Dad pushing himself last minute into holidays always pisses Mom off to no end, but things moved peaceably along.

I didn't really have much money at all this year, so she got a book and journal with the first page filled with nice things I think about her. ...I also wrapped up some tangerines and a banana, which made for fun unwrapping, and hopefully she thought it was as amusing as I thought it was.

For my dad the hit gift seems to be a book on beautiful experiments done in the history of science. He called me up and told me how much he likes it (no word of the other two books). When I was in the bookstore so much in the science section looked interesting, so maybe I'll head back later when I have more money and buy up a whole shelf's worth for myself.

I knitted my grandma a nice, warm scarf. I think that she liked it, and even if she doesn't she can still wear it while she's watching TV or something.

As for myself, I received some lovely things, including some awesome gloves from mertondingle a couple Past Doctor Adventures from shinnyjenni, as well as a bunch of wonderful cards.

Thanks, everyone!
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On New Years I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with mom. She hadn't seen it before. I drank a rum and Coke because mom bought rum....but I don't really like rum. Or at least that rum. Ah well. I'd like to figure out more what sort of drinks I like. How's that for a New Year's resolution? Drink more.

Maybe I'm missing the self-improvement angle.

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Oh, and now I'm sick.

Have a meme:

Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really! I will answer them all in a new post.

_____

In other news, my mom bought a dog. A tiny mostly-Chihuahua thing. She mentioned going by to pick out a dog with her boyfriend Joel -for him, and I knew I was in trouble. Then she shows up with this tiny, squeaky thing and expects me to be super pleased about it, when all it really means is that I'm going to have to clean puppy piss up off the floor all the time. Me and the cat are not pleased at all.

She's been named Margaret (Maggie).

Oh, I haven't made a post at my proper journal in a week. Well, here's a post to rectify that.

Also, a quick pimp for brb_gallifrey since we're talking about Mark of the Rani this week!

Things that have happened in the past week:
- I've filed my FAFSA (free application for student aid), so I should know within the week what sort of aid I get, if any. I hope I get something in addition to the fee waiver, since I really don't have money to be buying books and things.
- I made my mom's boyfriend upset enough to leave the house after I yelled at him for suggesting that gay people are more likely to become homicidal lunatics than straight people. The whole situation was not good and I've reminded myself that I need to stay logical when people push my buttons instead of storming off in a huff.
- In related news, my mother said "You don't really want a rainbow umbrella, do you? People will think you're gay." GAH. Seriously, mom? Grow up.
- On a lighter note, I got some fabric:


That's some Hawaiian shirt fabric for my Six vest (still need to get a couple more in the right colors) and some gingham for adding to my shirt. I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to do that part yet, but I'll figure it out.

I applied for the fancy greeter position at the casino, and I'm hoping, despite my piss-poor resume, that I'll get an interview. The woman who is running part of it used to date one of my references (drama teacher) and has said she'd watch out for my name - so that may help. There's more than one spot open (quite a few, actually) but I keep getting terrifying information from my mother like: "so far, 60 people have applied" and "one of them is a runway model" and "you'll have to wear a dress".

My mother's wisdom on this one: "You just have to communicate easily...be friendly and outgoing. Basically, be the opposite of what you really are and you'll do fine."

*headdesk*

Isn't there a position like...in a basement somewhere? Maybe with books?

I got a bank statement this week that said 500 dollars had been taken out of my account last week. Automatically, I had a minor freak out that somehow, somebody had found out my information and gotten into my account. When mom got home, I showed her the statement, and immediately I knew. It was her. She took 500 bucks out of my account without asking in the hopes that she could put it back in before I noticed. Aagh. I get that our money situation isn't great, and I don't have a job, but damn, she could have asked.

I've got a couple things in the works that I'm going to need money to complete, least of all that I've been saving up for a nice new laptop that doesn't have bits falling off of it. (Seriously, one of the hinges is damaged, and a few minutes ago, a bit of plastic came out of the spot where the power cord goes. That can't be good.)

One project I'm thinking about involves screen printing t-shirts. I've made up a couple of designs (most of them geeky in a Doctor Who or Red Dwarf sort of way - or just geeky). First of all, I'd like to see if I can make them look nice, and secondly I'd like to see if setting up an Etsy or something for my geeky wares sounds like a good idea.

Okay, so my mother rents out this property, and with the housing market freaking out (and the economy wallowing in self-pity in a corner somewhere) my mother is also freaking out. The renters at the place just decided to leave at the beginning of February, and apparently, mom doesn't have the deposit money to give back to them. She's freaked out and is calling some real estate person tomorrow to talk about short selling the whole place, and in the meantime is sobbing to me about it.

The thing is, I have this Savings Bond that a friend of the family gave to me when I was born, and she tore up the house looking for it. And here she was, crying in front of me about how she messed up and she'd wanted to leave me and my brother the property an all this, and I'm just sitting there thinking about how she didn't even ask about using money that's rightfully mine. 

I'm living under her roof. I don't have a job. But I have been very good about saving money and I have a fair bit. Along with all the money I have in the bank, and the savings bond, I probably have enough to pull her out of this mistake if the real estate person doesn't have any other options. But, I still feel like it shouldn't be my damn responsibility.

So, I think I will drop that first class. It's a really lovely class and I like it a lot but it's the massive-amount-of-reading cherry on top of a literary all you can eat sundae...and I never was very fond of maraschinos anyway.

Geekiness served me well in Brit Lit today, as I was able to both name the warrior race from Star Trek (Klingons, of course) when he couldn't remember for a reference they made to Shakespeare, and an off-hand comment about Noel Coward (whom I know about thanks to Doctor Who) that I think got me in some serious student/teacher banter.

Mom stayed home today not feeling well. She's not been doing grand and I hope I can alleviate some of her stress somehow...I just need to figure out how to deal with mine first.

Now, test in Math class, then home. Wish me luck!

So, I woke up this morning to the sound of my neighbor using some sort of dremel tool next door...on METAL. Not the best "hello morning" I've ever had. Then mom comes in and reminds me that I need to take everything out of the kitchen cabinets because we've got termites and the guy is coming today to spray. I guess I said something wrong because she stormed out of my room and went off to work. Ah crumbs.

Eh, so the past week I've been pretty depressed but I'm emerging out of the funk a bit. Yesterday I went down to the mall, watched the people arrive in the morning, bought a book (Ender's Game) and picked up a couple applications (Barnes and Noble and World Market) and walked home. It was kinda nice.  I think I may just need to get out and among people that I'm not actually required to interact with.

I've also been having really weird dreams, but more on THAT later, I think