Oh yeah... I found the following picture in a Farker's profile, and while I admit the guy's kinda goofy-looking, and the shadowy face is weird, the sentiment behind the picture is really sweet and something I can understand:

As an unintentional case-in-point to my last post, I had a confrontation with my dad this weekend and cried. *sigh*

I borrowed my dad's car to get some furniture I bought from a coworker as part of our GCWCC auction. No damage, no problem. I took the car back on Sunday night when I went over for our delayed Thanksgiving dinner, and as I did, I brought some paint supplies that I had bought to repaint a chest of drawers that's going back to my parents.

I put the bag on the seat. Something leaked.

Now, as it turns out, it wasn't the paint supplies -- and I hadn't thought it would be, given that they were all sealed and had been kept in the garage the whole time, up against the house. Rather, I hadn't realized that some of my bike supplies were in the bag, so we thought it might've been one of the bottles of oil (there was one that had been opened, the rest were still sealed). Didn't smell like motor oil, didn't smell like the fuel stabilizer... so best guess is that it's lock de-icer that had also been in that bag. That stuff stinks, but at least it's not turpentine.

I scrubbed the seat, and as I was doing so, my mom came out to see how I was doing. I told her I was crying because I'd been sick all weekend and hadn't had a decent night's sleep. She asked what was really bothering me, I reiterated that, and also said that my dad just gets so pissed over things, and that I know I'll be hearing about this one for the next twenty years. The part that I didn't say, though I was ready to, was simply that sometimes I think my parents wait for me to fuck something up just so they have something to lord over me and use to pester me... not a fun way to be.

But that was last night, and today I'm more or less better off. The DB and I are still having fights over what stuff of mine is going to get pitched, and this and that. I repeated what I'd told him when we first moved in together -- that at that time, there was stuff I was ready to get rid of, and for this move, maybe there will be more. But I have to be ready; and he said he's kinda the same way.

I've long said that I don't mind getting rid of stuff, but I don't like to throw out something that still has use, whether for me or someone else. So when we get rid of our worn-out bedding, it will be going to a vet clinic or the humane society, not the garbage. Light fixtures, necklaces, books, whatever -- they go to Value Village, or someplace that can make use of them. The DB has said he'd be willing to lend me his car, without requiring I put gas in it, if it's because I'm getting rid of stuff... so win-win for me, really.

I do need to get moving on the various preparations that go along with moving. I have made a few phone calls, and we're moving things along. Fortunately we have a week to move in, but that doesn't mean I want to leave things to the absolute last minute. Although I do seem to be getting more and more procrastinatey each time I move... :/ At least this one should be the last one for awhile.

In general we seem to be moving along fairly well, relationship-wise. There are some issues that do crop up on occasion, and we had a pretty good conversation last week going over them -- and by conversation, I mean that I did a lot of talking, and he didn't say much, and then when he came home from work, we talked a bit more and that time he did say stuff, and I felt better.

I've been bugging him to open up more on things that I believe are important to our future; not with the intention of making carved-in-stone plans immediately, but to get ideas of what he sees and when. Given the fact that I'm 28 now and hope not to be having babies when I'm 40, these are the kinds of things I'd like to have at least discussed at this point. Kinda scary to be at that point in my life, but it's a reality.

I've asked the DB if I'm sad to be getting excited over furniture shopping and home accessories. He said I am, but he also likes to have opportunities to take shots at me, as do many of my friends and family members. It gets frustrating sometimes when you're trying to have a serious conversation with someone who cracks jokes all the time, especially when I can be the same way and I recognize that. That said, I don't think I make jokes when someone's trying to talk to me about something they feel is important to them... but maybe I'm mistaken. It happens occasionally. ;)

I can't decide if it's sad or not that I'm proud of myself when I get through a serious conversation -- or one that deals with things of import to me -- without crying. It's not that the subject matter itself is upsetting to me, I just have a difficult time sometimes getting through serious conversations without crying. It's frustrating, because I feel it takes away from my message or what I'm saying, and I feel weak as a result.

It seems to vary depending on who I'm talking to, too; I was never able to fight with my dad as a kid, 'cause I'd end up crying. My mom? No problem -- although if we're talking about something that's upsetting to me, like people or pet death or something, then the waterworks will happen, too.

I guess sometimes I'm just more of a girl than I want to acknowledge. :P

Well, the default crab mode I've been in is somewhat improving, but slowly. I have days where I feel fine; then I have days where I'm just frustrated and upset by everything. I try not to get too upset, but I know comments have snuck out here and there.

I'm frustrated with our housing company, for one. They have requested showings of our place a few times during day hours; fortunately they seem to have gotten the hint that the DB and I WORK during STANDARD WORK hours, and are not available before 6 p.m. Sure, there are days that the DB is off during the week, but because they wouldn't let us out of our lease early (that is, if we gave notice September 15th, they would keep us in our lease until November 30th), our attitude is screw 'em.

So, they scheduled a showing while I was out of town; the tenant was a no-show, though the agent did turn up. No worries, it happens. They requested another showing last Friday at noon; when I said that wasn't possible, they offered up 7:30, and said the same agent would be present, and apologized for the no-show.

We did some cleaning and basic tidying up, and held off on dinner since we weren't starving. At 7:15, the doorbell rings, and it's the agent with a prospective tenant. The agent clearly knows nothing about our place -- I'm having to identify the fixtures and features that come with the house, she doesn't know where light switches are (understandable), but seems really ... not competent.

Then she mentions she has another appointment coming -- and a couple shows up to look around. Okay, no problem, I chatted with them about the house, the neighbourhood and so on. Then another woman comes, and looks fairly comfortable with the agent, so I assumed she was another employee of the housing company -- no, she was another prospective tenant. Away she goes with the agent... and then another couple comes for the tour.

In all, there were four appointments when we were only told of one, the agent was 15 minutes early (which to me was rude -- what if we had a prior engagement or went out to run an errand and weren't there when she arrived? Would she simply have let herself in, as the housing company had previous verified that the agent wouldn't need keys, since we were going to be present?), and she didn't know what was going on. She just struck me as ill-prepared and unprofessional.

For the record, we pretty much sat on the couch and kept to ourselves while everyone was wandering around. I kept watch over Thena and kept prompting people to push on the front door to shut it; it doesn't latch properly, and I didn't want it popping open. The agent tried to tell me that the final couple who came in had shut it behind them, when I could clearly see it was still open. I would have felt quite comfortable showing the place off myself, and when we looked at it it was the tenant who showed it to us -- I don't know why the need for an agent, but whatever.

The final couple to come through had a baby, and we offered to let them leave her downstairs with us while they explored (she was in a car seat, and they can be somewhat cumbersome). They declined, saying she'd cry (and I said that we'd understand if they preferred not to). The agent then asked where our little one was, saying that she noticed toys around the house.

For the record, the toys are clearly cat toys; catnip bags, balls with bells in them, feathers with a stick on them, and so on. Not to mention, there is no nursery in our townhouse: there is a master bedroom, office with two computer desks, and a spare bedroom with a double bed and a shelving unit. There are no cribs, playpens, diaper pails, changing tables, plastic children toys, or anything that would appear to indicate the presence of a child... and having been through the house with prospective tenants *three* times already, she should have realized this fact.

And finally... the other thing I discovered about our house that cheezed me off about our rental company involves our rent. When we started leasing the place, rent was $1295/month plus utilities. A few months before I lease was up for renewal, we got a lease renewal package that showed our rent was due to go up to $1313/month (plus utilities). I was nosy and checked out the listing on the rental company's website for our place -- new tenants come in at $1295/month plus utilities.

Struck me as awfully douche-y of them...

Okay, so in the end I didn't end up posting anything to LJ. Maybe I shall, but my mood appears to have improved somewhat for now. I still have issues that will need to be addressed, but there's an awful lot going on in the meantime already.

I've definitely enjoyed having things be quiet for the last while at work, what with the election and all. I was working on analyzing a lot of the coverage, so for a change I felt moderately informed as to all of the party platforms. Of course, that got somewhat derailed when I took off for a week for the funeral stuff, but for the most part, I felt good heading into the polling stations.

It's completely predictable how your priorities change when you're going in to vote at various periods in your life. Even when I was a full-time undergrad, I rolled my eyes a little at the students protesting tuition hikes; after all, it's that much worse if you're attending school in an unsubsidized place (like the U.S.), and every student is poor, broke, and so on. Students that aren't working or paying their own way only have so much of a leg to stand on, in my judgemental opinion.

Now that I'm old and crabby, my priorities have turned more towards household taxes and the cost of living in my city. The DB and I were lying in bed the other night, talking politics, and he pointed out how we were showing our age.

Anyhow, in lieu of actually continuing this stalled train of thought, I'm going to post another picture. This image is the one my housing management company uses to showcase the master bedroom in our current place. As you can see, it really helps show you the dimensions of the room, the features such as the ceiling fan, walk-in closet and window overlooking the street (and no, I don't know why this file name includes 'wince'):

I needed that.

Yesterday was rough. I was morose, I was annoyed, I was frustrated, I was definitely not wanting to spend the night hanging around the house.

I had to return some DVDs and the weather was good, so shortly after I got home, I went out on the motorcycle. I planned on just cruising around afterwards, maybe stopping someplace for dinner -- no real plans. When I finished my errand, I found a text message from JR telling me about plans to go out and celebrate RJ's last day in the city. The weather held out, so I joined up with everyone and had fun.

It was a small group, but contained people whose company I enjoy and hadn't seen in awhile, so it was perfect, and I left in better spirits.

On a separate note... I understand people who become stressed from school, work, home life, etc. I suffer from it as well (although apparently my body likes to demonstrate its stress through things like acne breakouts -- thanks body!). Sometimes I have a shorter temper and snap at people, but I do try to apologize when it happens. Most of the time, I get told not to worry about it.

That said... if you spend literally months on end snapping at people, being short-tempered and drinking to deal with your stress? Maybe you need to re-evaluate your coping mechanisms. It's not fair to put your issues on others' shoulders, and people will quickly get fed up and possibly cut you out of their lives, stop inviting you out, whatever, as a result.

Just a complaint I've been holding on to for awhile. I have some relationship-related stuff to post, but I think that's going to be saved for LJ. Though as an amusing side-note (okay, amusing to me):

I wore my cupcake underwear for the wedding we attended in Wawa. The DB gave me a hard time about it, saying I could've worn my fancy-lacy underwear or some such -- 'cause after all, everyone's underwear gets examined at a wedding for appropriateness (also, I should point out that the only time he says or used to say anything about my underwear is when the bra and underwear don't match -- which they never do, as I'm a rebel like that).

So, not only did I wear my cupcake underwear to the wedding, but I wore them as well to my grandfather's funeral (and yes, I washed them in between this) -- and after the funeral and the condolence-line, I discovered that my fly had been open the whole time. I'm the model of appropriate behaviour at funerals... flipping off my dad at Puppy's funeral, telling my mom to stop hitting on me at this one... I'm awesome.

I wish it were possible for me to just turn off my brain and/or get over things, I really do. I'm not much of one for astrology, but there are certain aspects to both of my signs (I'm born on the cusp, and have traits from both Leo and Virgo) that seem to affect my brain sometimes -- and seem to apply to a friend of mine, R, that shares my Virgo side as well.

It seems to get worse as I get older; either that, or the many years of being on the pill have affected me. Quite possibly it's a combination of the two.

It's almost funny to me how I can practically chart what issues will arise and overtake my brain and when. Oh look! It's approximately a week before I come off this cycle of pills, time to obsess over issue X.

And the greater challenge to all of this? Dating someone who feels that discussing issue X once or twice means that it has been covered and since there's really nothing new to say about it, we don't need to keep talking about it.

But my style is different. I talk things through to understand them, or I write about them (publicly or privately) to figure them out, either through the input of another or just through reasoning it through on my own. From my perspective, if there hasn't been a solution or an explanation for issue X that I can understand, then it's not resolved and it's going to keep nagging at me.

Sure, sometimes even if there has been a resolution it may come up again, but I can either recant that resolution for myself and move on, or if something new has arisen, I can return to the issue and hopefully resolve it once more.

And yes, I overthink things and I keep thinking of things after they've possibly been concluded for their other party(/ies). That's just how I am, unfortunately. Sometimes it works to my advantage, but sometimes it just means I dwell on things longer than perhaps I ought. See above: I'd love to just dismiss it and move on, but for some issues, particularly if I haven't seen a resolution to them, voilà, I can't.

*sigh* Add in a healthy dose of insecurity that likes to crop up now and again, and you have a great party in my head.

And so I resolve to myself to just not bring it up anymore, but that doesn't really work, either. Sometimes I'll bring it up, hoping for an explanation I can understand, but get nothing in return -- because of course, we've talked about it previously, and there's nothing new to say. I know in the past I've been frustrated by conversations that keep coming up and have no new aspects (hell, I still go through some of those with exes), but at the same time, I feel sometimes as though the answer I'm getting is nothing more than, 'Just because,' which really doesn't help me any -- and at least I try to provide more than that.

Maybe I don't succeed, I don't know. Sometimes, certainly, we can't give any better answer than 'it just is' -- but sometimes that's all the answer I've given to someone because I didn't want to chance hurting their feelings by saying more. I guess I fear that that's the case in this situation, even if 99 of the other 100 clues are saying otherwise.

It's a great party in my head, I'm telling you.

Well, I'm now back from the funeral and associated joys that such an occasion brings.

Observations? Well, at several times during the trip down and time there, I could've cheerfully tossed various family members out of moving cars or available windows. Ah, how stress benefits us all.

Otherwise, life carries on as per usual. I have nothing really to report -- I did have some ideas for a posting earlier today or yesterday, but now I've forgotten it completely. As usual, my cats are adorable, my boyfriend is pretty solid (when he isn't driving me nuts), and I haven't had nearly enough sleep to be coherent in any way, shape or form.

Not to mention, I appear to be riding a full-out babble lately. Fun for everyone around me, I'm sure.

I also appear to have developed narcolepsy, or I'm having a delayed reaction to the fun of the last week. Saturday I passed out on the plane immediately after finishing a cup of coffee, Sunday I passed out mid-can of pop, and yesterday I passed out before dinner... but after a few glasses of wine, so I can be forgiven.

The DB and I made the trip to lascivious Wawa, Ontario last weekend, a trip to rival the debauchery to be had in Las Vegas, for the wedding of one of his good friends from high school and thereafter. I keep raving about how nice and friendly everyone was, and what a good time I had, and it's true. Sure, I was a tad extra-goofy because of the full bottle of wine I had with my meal and the reception, but for the most part, I geniunely wasn't horrendously drunk, just happily so -- but it lead to gems such as the following:



Oh, I am indeed one classy broad.

2003:

End of May, Greg and Madeleine get married. I find out at the wedding that a good family friend died. That week, I graduate university, attend his funeral, and then go to my cousin Sally's wedding. (So that makes two weddings and a funeral in one week).

2008:

Beginning of October, DB's friends get married. I find out on the way home from the wedding that my (paternal) grandfather has died. This weekend, my cousin Colleen, Sally's younger sister, is getting married. So if I hadn't already declined to attend Colleen's wedding (for other reasons), I could once again be going to two weddings and a funeral in one week.

If either of those cousins divorces and remarries, I'm not going to the second marriage.

Either my mom or dad seemed to be saying that I could still choose to go to the wedding, but since I've already changed my attendance from "yes" to "no," I don't think it would be kind of me to say "yes" again.

Plus, going to a wedding after a funeral? Not fun. Did it once, don't want to do it again. Also, would rather just come home and hang out with the kitties afterwards instead of hanging around the Maritimes until my folks were done and ready to go -- especially when I don't have the time off to do the second (as it is, I'm taking this week off for the travel/funeral stuff).

*sigh* My dad's family likes to die at Thanksgiving -- my grandma died at Thanksgiving in 2001, her brother died at Thanksgiving a few years ago, and now my grandpa has died at the same time of year. Add on top of this that my Puppy (mom's dad)'s birthday is next week (and he died about a year and a half ago, not at Thanksgiving), and my aunt (dad's sister)'s birthday is also next week (she's not dead), and this is a wonky time of year for the family.

Also, I had a long car ride home from Moe's friend's wedding yesterday, feeling nauseated the whole time for reasons I don't know (though I'm blaming the Timmy's breakfast sandwich), and we're doing a long car ride to the Maritimes tomorrow, and I'm just glad I have a good boyfriend, understanding boss, and snuggly kitties -- Thena's nuzzling me as I write, or was.

So, how have you guys been? Keeping the place tidy, I hope?

For all that I'm outspoken and often confident in my beliefs, as unpopular as they may at times be, there is still so much I keep to myself and don't share.

And sometimes... I just want to yell it to the heavens.

Other times, I do say it, and I just don't seem to get heard -- so what's the point in saying it?

Though it does make me wonder just what I'm not picking up on.