::
2009 5 February :: 3.23pm
:: Mood: content
:: Music: Super Mario Brothers Tune
Life/Fire/Wreck.
Holy smokes, un update from Rachel. And, assuradely, one that will take forever for me to type.
So, on December the 6th, my van that I was driving (which was totally my parents') caught on fire, along with my friggin house. So I lost like two hundred dollars of emergency cash, all my school books (worth $450) and a ton of other stuff. So I moved in with Grandma and Grandpa and used their van (I assure you I was getting good at driving those stupid things). Then on the 12th of December, Grandma sent me to get us all some lunch before I went to work.
I met a tree. lol I drove straight into it and I haven't a reason as to why. I split open my left knee cap on the dash, nine inches across and two inches up it, shatterring my patella. I broke a piece off the end of that femer, blew the middle of it out, and broke the top of it next to my hip socket.
On my right leg, I dislocated the hip, fracturing the socket and breaking off a chip of it. Later they found a fracture under the knee cap in my tibia.
Left arm: Friggin broke both the radius and the ulna.
Right arm: Blew out the middle of the humerous, and broke the radius in a spiral break next to my elbow.
They salvaged 2/3 of my knee cap, holding it together with three screws and two pieces of wire. Stuck a titanium rod in my femur and humerous. Metal plates screwed to the other breaks in my arms, one that curves around my right elbow, which might have to be taken out in six months, and the rod in my humorous might be taken out in a year.
I had hip precautions so I didn't pop it out and I could only put 50 percent of my weight on it, so when I stepped I had to divide the weight up between my arms and the right leg with my walker.
However, to-friggin-day I saw my surgeon and he said I was doing so good I could go ahead and nix the walker and go to a cane when I felt comfortable doing so. I wasn't even supposed to be able to walk yet so I'm totally kicking ass on this.
The only other problem I had was I have Radial Palsey, where the radial nerves i my right hand/arm whatever, suffered so much damage they shut down on me. I'm getting them back, some movements quicker than other, but still. Like I couldn't even raise my arm of my wrist and now my fingers are just like uncordinated, and I can't do a thumbs up either. But some of that is due to weakness from not using it.
I was in Cox Hospital for 18 days, and in Select Specialty Hospital for 28 days, a total of 46 days. Ugh. I don't know when I can go back to work, but Social Security is giving me disability so I can pay my bills, luckily. I just found that out today, actually, so that was awesome.
Aaaaanyways. That's what's up.
<3 and miss everyone!!!
Last weekend I finally confessed to Nathan how upset I was about his mixed messages on whether we'd be living together after graduation. On the one hand, he kept saying things like 'I hope someday we can make this permanent' and 'maybe it would be fun to move to Oregon with you after all,' but on the other, he would always speak hypothetically ('if we're still together, maybe if we're living together again later,' etc. etc.). It was driving me crazy. It was getting to the point where I felt like maybe I ought to just break up with him because we wanted different things -- and since I didn't want marriage, I felt like it was wrong of me to demand any other kind of serious commitment. Still, the thought that maybe our relationship was based on convenience rather than a real desire to be together ate at me.
He heard me out and then he apologized, and he explained that he was shy about commitment because he had been confusing 'long-term' with 'permanent,' and not thinking about them as separate things. He said that his opinion had changed since our original conversation, where he'd flat-out refused to go with me somewhere simply for the sake of staying together, and said that now, if I'd have him, he wanted to follow me if I left.
I was so relieved I cried.
So it looks like we'll be moving to Oregon at the end of the summer. We're not sure where, yet. I wanted Eugene, but he's hesitant because it's apparently hard to find work there. He said Portland, but I'm not convinced there because I might be forced to socialize with the awkward family I have there. I'm thinking maybe Corvallis or Albany, now. We'll just have to see what happens. Maybe over the summer we can drive up and visit a bunch of cities to see where we think we'd fit best.
I went out to lunch with Jeff yesterday. When we don't talk politics he's actually quite nice to be around. I was afraid that it would be awkward, but we never even close to ran out of things to say to each other. Maybe it won't be so hard to get back in touch with my high school friends.
After lunch I went to my grandparents' house to download a font for my grandmother. They paid me in chocolate and had me help them finish a crossword puzzle.
My grandfather is improving slowly. We spent a lot of time at their house over the holidays, helping out with work. I fixed their TV and DVD player and helped them put together a jigsaw puzzle of an antique world map.
I had a CAT scan today, to make sure it isn't cancer or some other structural problem causing my chronic headaches. They gave me a prescription for some preventative meds when I went in initially a week or so ago, though, and I've felt much better since, so I'm not too worried.
Nathan got his journal out to write something yesterday, and as he sat down on the couch next to me and opened it up I happened to read the first line of his most recent entry. "Lily and I got in a big fight last night." I'd mostly stopped thinking about that -- it was one of the worst fights we've had -- but accidentally reading that brought back all the insecurity and the despair over how he says he wants to be with me but won't give definite answers or make any plans for the future together. I don't want to think that our relationship is based solely on convenience and if he's going to keep implying that he hopes it's permanent, can't he stop speaking in ifs and maybes? I spent the rest of the night morose, playing flash games on the internet.
101 things
Instead of making resolutions this year, I've made a list of 101 things that I'll hopefully have accomplished in 1001 days, by September 29, 2011. Got the idea from an LJ community.
My grandfather may be dying. He went to the emergency room twice the other night due to pressure building up in his heart. They gave him some medication to help control it and reminded him that he's only mortal. Not the kind of thing that it's particularly encouraging to hear from medical professionals.
Yesterday I was at a high school reunion which was actually a lot of fun. I'm coming more and more to realize that I occupied an uncommon position, socially, back then. Most of the people I wandered over to talk to last night complained to me that the same cliques that excluded them in their high school years were still in effect. I never really felt reined in by clique boundaries because I never really felt myself in one. I just talked to whomever I wanted, and they were chill with me. Every time I see people from back then that I've lost touch with, it surprises me all over again how happy they seem to see me. I was less alone than I thought.
Probably because of the reunion I had a disorientingly lifelike dream about Dria. We talked about what had happened between us and I finally got to pour my heart out to her about both how I feel I handled things badly and how it wasn't entirely my own fault. And she was really listening. I thought for a moment that maybe we could even rebuild the friendship, and for the first time ever in a dream about Dria, that prospect didn't frighten and distress me. In all of the other cases, we've never addressed the problem directly, and so what was in line to be rebuilt was not the friendship but the dependancy, I suppose.
I woke suddenly as we were on a bus going somewhere and was both shocked and disappointed to realize that it had been only a dream.
I actually ended up getting that job I talked about blowing the interview for last entry. No idea how that happened. Maybe they didn't get a lot of applications.
My first day was today -- they took me into a buzzing, air-conditioned room filled with racks of servers and explained to me what each one was and did. It was explanation after explanation using horribly complex terms like "asynchronus versioner somethingorother" and I went back to my desk feeling properly cowed. I thought as I was sitting there that my life has been a long stumbling from one thing that I want to do but am ill-equipped for to another.
But then I spent the rest of the shift updating programs and operating systems on the organization's laptops, which I could probably do in my sleep, so who knows. Maybe I was what they were looking for, after all. At least the servers had funny names. The main one responsible for hosting all of the user profiles is called Flashy.
The winter rains have begun. It's been wet and gray since last Thursday. Everyone complains but me; I love this weather. Except when my feet get wet. Time to retire the thin canvas shoes full of holes until the spring.
::
2008 24 October :: 10.47am
:: Mood: embarrassed
I just went for a job interview. It's left me feeling rather low -- I don't think I made a very good impression. They were asking a lot of questions about things that I don't really know how to do. (It was a tech-support, computer-related job. I thought it would be like my old job at the library, but it's not really.)
I guess it all comes down to my worrying that they'll feel like I wasted their time. But they didn't tell me yes or no yet, so...I dunno. We'll see what happens, by Wednesday of next week.
Back at school now, and having more trouble with my schedule than I ever have before. I guess it was courteous of the bad luck to wait until my senior year, when I'm the most familiar with the system and better able to deal with hiccups.
I was taking Japanese for a day before I got kicked out of the class, because I enrolled very late and the teacher said it wasn't fair for me to get the spot before any of the waiting list students. I understand that, but I was still disappointed about it. I went for a long walk in the woods until that mostly dissipated. Part of what bothers me is that now, for the first time since kindergarten I won't be studying a language. At least I can return the books and get my 78 dollars back, which will be helpful.
I'm also trying to find a job which isn't going particularly well. I should be getting a call sometime today from my old supervisor to let me know whether or not there's room in their schedule for me to come back to work. Keeping my fingers crossed, because I really liked that job, but I don't have a whole lot of hope. Nobody else I've sent an application to has yet replied. I may have to start searching off-campus, or quickly learn how to do web design. It seems like everybody wants that these days.
I can hear seals borking from my apartment. Nathan and I went over to the wharf to see them one day, and discovered that it's mostly just one seal that WILL NOT SHUT UP, and occasionally the others that join in when they get irritated at his noise. We named him Larry for no specific reason, and they all have such different toned voices that now when they bork I can tell whether it's him or not.
I finally had the break down I knew was coming... at work. Not fun. My boss/friend, Ryan, pulled me into a room and let me cry my heart out, then I continued on throughout the day, feeling no better, but thinking it was done. Then I get in my car and get ready to go home, flip on the radio and "Chasing Cars" (our song) came on. Everything went all through me and I lost it again. I can't wait for this stage to just be over.
I love him. As horrible as it is, I don't want to love him anymore, because then everything won't hurt so bad. I know that'll never happen. Kelly was/is a HUGE factor in my life, and he'll always have my heart.
I don't know if I'll continue on with this thing... it was kind of a place for he and I. Plus all my friends were originally his friends and I don't quite know how the feelings are with them and I anymore. I still love them, but... I don't know.
Fuck. I wish this didn't hurt so much.
I am so confused... I don't know what to do. Actually I already did what I felt like I should do, and it makes me feel like shit, and completely sick to my stomach. Then he left without talking to me.
I love him but I don't feel like I'm IN love with him, which is a completely overused line, but it's fitting. This week didn't feel right to me. I didn't feel like I used to feel, and I didn't get that little kick like I usually do when I first saw him. I knew something was wrong, but I kept telling myself it would blow over. After two years, you can't just stop having those feelings... I realize now that maybe you can. I talked to him and he just left without saying a thing. I don't really blame him, but... I don't know.
I don't want this to end on a bad note, but I don't really see it being a happy ending. There's nothing happy about it.
I'm sorry, Kelly. I don't know what to do, but I'm not going to pretend to be happy because then we would both just be miserable.
The horse didn't work out. I realized, after thinking about it, that it was too much of a commitment for me to make, in terms both of money and of time.
I'm moving to Santa Cruz tomorrow. Looks like Nathan is going to be living with me for a while because he still hasn't found a place of his own. School starts on Thursday.
Despite being 21, I still have not purchased any alcohol in the United States. I did order alcohol at a restaurant for the first time today, though.
So I went to the casino with the guys last night, everyone's in town so it was the first time we had hung out in forever. I made twenty bucks, so it was all fun... but then when I'm getting ready to go to bed, I go to plug in my phone, an cannot find it at all. I know I did not leave it at the casino, because I put it on vibrate on the way home because the battery was dying. However, other than that I'm fuckin lost. It might have fallen out in Wheaton, it might be in Renkoski's car. Or Tylor might have grabbed it thinking it was his (same make and color) when he and Jacob were leaving my house.
I'm pretty much freaking out, fyi. I know Kelly's going to call, and my mom was supposed to call me as well, but... ha. Not going to happen when I don't have my phone.
/dies