bracken

I have been busy helping my new friends Mike and Joan. They are a an older couple with a lot of problems. Mike has clots in his legs, diabetes, back injury, neck clots and injury. Joan just recently had a stroke but has made more or less a full recovery she is expected to go back to work.

I have been helping with the running of small errands, some cash, and food. Mike is on disability and Joan works part time so they are facing a major economic crunch right now. At least till Joan is working again.

I'm no longer friends with Todd. He was a parasite and I am better off without him.

Also no longer friends with Kelly and Dee. Kelly decided she could only manage one friend with bipolar disorder and she knew Dee longer. So she cut me off.

I was also contacted by Jon Huber through Facebook today. Haven't heard from him in 13 years. Don't know how much I want to go into what all has happened. From the picture on his profile it looks like he got married and had a child.

Also Erin is in town with her two sons. My parents have decided to keep us separated.

Daemon Wolf let me back on the list and I sent out an apology to the group as a whole. However there has been no response to it at this point. It fuels my paranoia. I realize I sent it late. In fact the original message to Daemon Wolf I assumed was going to be rejected, he just told me he was busy at work and couldn't get to it, and I shouldn't lurk on the list. So I am back on. Unless there is a mass revolt in which case I guess I'm off. I am expecting crap from Zark. He told me I was "A Dumbfuck who no one would miss.".

Well I'm back. And so desperate for approval that I am almost willing to call people that I am still friendly with to respond to my email. Despite the fact it's 2 AM in Utah and 1 AM in CA.

Actually I am desperate for any response. Good or ill. I just can't take the only email I am getting coming from Facebook and Netflix.

Chandra is still in pain. I wish she would take it easy. She insists on being at work, which is 7 days a week (she's trying to buy her mother's business at $10.00 per hour). Frustrates me she is popping pills and chasing it with vodka. What she needs is bed rest.

Kelly is furious at me. I told her that Dee was hesitant about moving to Florida (which is only natural she has lived near her family in Wisconsin all of her life.) and I offered her a place here instead of moving in with her parents if it came down to it. So I may lose both Kelly and Dee as friends. However getting all 900 Barbies she, Dee, is storing here would be nice.

Christine's date went well. Which sucks. I hope her new beau has HPV. Which is actually mild for me. At one point I wished Schmuck would get anally raped with a shotgun which accidentally went off mid-experience.


Gabrielle didn't respond back to my apology. Which doesn't surprise me. I don't expect to hear anything from her for a long time. I think the Boy is in sixth grade. So maybe graduation we will have kind words for each other. And little to no reason for me to talk to her again after.

I emailed my old roommate LostinVertigo. Telling her how I am doing. She is one of the people that I seriously wronged. We have made up but I thought I would tell her how tonight was going. One of the things I have decided is that I am firing my therapist. I am sick of him trying to indoctrinate me to Eastern Medicine. I want a Western Psychotherapist. We spent 35 minutes talking about an episode of Lost. I'm not gaining anything and I really need therapy. Harsh therapy.

My old therapist Sean used to be able to predict my moods. Tell me why I felt the way I did. Even invited me to his house for a session after he got a foot of his colon removed. Things went very well with him. I have sent him email asking him the best way to fire my current therapist.

Mom will not be thrilled.

I asked Gabrielle for forgiveness. Not expecting it. But at least apologized.

I asked DaemonWolf for the possibility of getting back on the mailing list. Not expecting much but I will use Zark as an arguement.

Facebook and Netflix. That's all the email I get anymore. It depresses me somewhat. I suppose it says a lot about Gmail's filter though. Just got done watching Season 2 of Heroes, which could have been great if not for the Writer's Strike in 2007. The days are longer now apparently. Really doesn't effect my timeless existence, but more sunlight early on will mean I will eventually go manic.

Chandra had her surgery successfully. She is free of cervical cancer. But is now abusing pills on top of everything else.

Christine met someone else. I'm not jealous. She told me it was bound to happen.

Dee and Kelly are leaving for Florida on Thursday. Unfortunately I can't go, I can't afford it according to my Payee. Actually I didn't bother trying I knew I couldn't afford it but lied that I had discussed it with my dad.

Todd my neighbor got kicked out of his apartment one night last week. Sophie his girlfriend is sick of his drinking. I offered to go to meetings with him. Figured karmically it couldn't hurt. But when he sobered up he decided against it. Haven't heard anything from him in 4 days. No idea if he is still in the building.

Tried calling Gabrielle yet again to apologize. I think we are past that now. It doesn't matter anymore. I'm insane and she wants no part of it. I can't blame her.

My sister is a few months from visiting with her new son. No idea yet if I will see him. She did send me a link to baby pictures. That might be all I get.

I blew up at Bri over nothing. I blew up at everyone over nothing. Now I am alone. I just wish Bri saw our relationship as more than a crush on her part. It meant a hell of a lot more to me. It hurt having it trivialized like that. But I suppose it doesn't matter. Technically I'm the Ex, she's supposed to think very little of me.

I just wish I could get over being angry for her abandoning me when I was very mentally unwell. And for Casey moving in six weeks later after seeing me at my sickest. I hate him for that. I hate both of them. I'm not an idiot however if anything were to happen to Bri I would sign over my parental rights to Luna. I think she would do a better job than I could. I'm not stable.

Dee doesn't seem to keen on moving to Florida. She does want to visit. But she has already expressed interest in moving back in with her parents come April. I offered to let her take the master bedroom and a bathroom in exchange for the electric bill and a can opener. And of course driving me around but that goes without saying. We had a long talk about spirituality tonight and that is the major thing I am lacking in my life. If she does move in I hope to have more conversations and maybe some enlightenment in the matter.

But this is all just in the realm of possibility.

Got paid yesterday. I am finally living on my own money. True I still owe my parent's $350. But they are taking it in installments.

So I have about $550 to last me the rest of the month. Of course I still need groceries. But at least my bills are already figured in.

Chandra is not doing well at all. She is worried she won't be able to come up with the $300 copay for her surgery. Apparently her mom won't help. Personally I think she should ask her uncle who she spent 1k to bail out of jail. To top it all off her grandfather just died, well the grandfather of one of her children. She is also expected to put together the funeral. Insane.

Tried calling Christine today but apparently she had a male visitor. So must accept the reality of that. No point getting angry or distressed. She did warn me. She did think it was sweet that I called to check on her after she had a bad night last night. But I don't think it is enough.

Kelly is still trying to convince me to go on a trip to Florida. I don't want to go. And have given a lot of valid reasons. But she is a force of nature.

I want to go to the Chinese place by my apartment for dinner but it's pouring rain tonight. Guess it's Mac & Cheese tonight.

Bri listed me as a college crush. Despite a 4 year relationship, a marriage and a child together. Utah won't be a problem anymore. After what I did no one will be willing to speak with me except Luna and Boy Plankton. Even Luna is questionable. I'll never be allowed back on the list. So I hope Bri is happy without me touching her life at all. I still can call the Boy. I did that today.


Christine is a little freaked out by me right now. Especially after I related Reagan's email of "You're a dumbfuck and won't be missed!". She couldn't handle me being self abusive. I promised I wouldn't be that way tomorrow. However I am going to tell her I make a horrible Ex. No point trying for boyfriend.


Severely depressed and lonely at the moment. Closed my facebook account. Barely any reason to open Firefox now except to download shows. But we will go on. Thus is the curse.

Had a massive attack of paranoia and anxiety yesterday. It was so bad I couldn't leave my apartment, turn on the lights, not even to go on the relatively secure second floor balcony to smoke. Couldn't sleep from Wednesday night it gradually got worse and worse. Finally around 3:00PM I finally got up the courage to call my Mom.

Explained I couldn't take any more colazapam was dying from lack of nicotine. So she brought me nicotine lozenges and waited for the Ambien CR she gave me to kick in before going home.

I slept till 8:00PM Thursday. Was still anxious. So turned up the music on my iPod and waited two hours to take my nightly meds which included another Ambien.

Today I am better. Went to the store got some lime aid. Hung out for a few minutes with my neighbors Todd and Sophie. They are putting their cat down today which is sad.

Now I am getting caught up on Damages. Apparently I am two weeks behind still.

Christine likes me. Thinks I'm pretty cool. But doesn't know if we can ultimately date. This won't end up like another Lady situation. I will end this if it looks like I will get hurt.

In other news the craziness I was feeling last night was because of television. Heroes was on, so I took my pills. Then I watched House, on the DVR, thinking it was Tuesday and all ready off from the first dose took the second dose for Tuesday. I slept until 2PM. And went for 4 hours without cigarettes. I was sucking cough drops to survive.

I got the number for the Ticket to Work program. I want to see if they will pay for me to go to a tech school and get a networking certification. I also applied for a job I found on a business card which was on the street for a data entry position. So hopefully I will hear back tomorrow.

I am now downloading 4 episodes of that. I thought the season had ended already. Apparently Fox is running it 22 episodes.

Also today was Valentine's Day. I had hoped to talk to Christine. But she was never around online today. Or at least I missed her. Kelly thinks it's doomed if she's still humoring her ex-boyfriend by letting him call her. I don't know. I like her a lot but it may just turn out being a friendship and nothing more.

Two weeks with no internet or cable and only my iPod for entertainment. Nearly went nuts. I am however enjoying living alone. There haven't been any major snags living alone yet. Just a small slip with my alcoholism. I had the flu. Went to the corner store for anything to treat cough since it turns out the medication I bought earlier in the day didn't cover cough. When I was first diagnosed my doctor told me to use Robotussin, Mucinex, and Benadryl only with my meds. I get to the store at 8:00PM in the pouring rain, totally miserable and the only thing the Chinese grocer has is NyQuil. My options were green or red. So I chose red, thinking cherry flavored. No idea what flavor green would be. I get home. Take a shot of NyQuil and go lie down. Thirty minutes later I am still coughing so I go take another dose. Then things start getting blurry. I ran out of NyQuil. Went to the store and asked if they had bourbon. Because I was having intense alcohol cravings. I was directed to a liquor store three blocks away, which somehow I managed to make it to and back home. Got through about a quarter of the bottle before Chandra called. She said I didn't sound right and demanded to know what I was doing. I explained I had bought NyQuil, and she stopped me right there.

Apparently NyQuil is 10% alcohol. I got drunk off cough medicine and then started binging further. She had me pour out the rest of the bourbon. I then induced vomiting because I didn't want to wind up in the hospital (had to be walked through putting my fingers down my throat).

But I survived and am sober right now. No cravings. Just a stupid slip on my part. Went and bought non-alcoholic cough medicine the next day.

Now I am getting caught up on emails, downloads of Lost. I programmed my DVR to record Heroes, House M.D., Lost, Nip/Tuck, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse and Battlestar Galactica. I guess only 7 hours of television a week is pretty good.

My date with Christine didn't happen last Friday. Both of us were sick. Me with the flu, her coming off Zoloft. So hopefully we can reschedule at some point.

Today is going well, other than I had to buy 50 feet of CAT-6. Well actually 100 feet. I am hoping to return the other 50. Fortunately I got it at Best Buy and not Circuit City.

Turns out that the reason why I didn't get my disability payment for January on Wednesday was that Social Security had already paid it on the 2nd of the month when I got my back pay. So it's already spent and gone.

Which means more help from my parents. Which I was hoping I was through with. Mom isn't happy. Neither is Dad. Now they are saying I should have waited till March to move out. Which isn't what they were saying two days ago.

I also found out that the six month lease that I supposedly signed was actually a year lease. Which is causing further displeasure.

Chandra saw the doctor today and informed them she isn't going through with chemo. The doctor was less than enthused by her decision. I am even less happy with it. She wants to go with an all natural solution (or rainwater and berries)and the process will cost about $2000 a month. Which I have no idea how she plans on affording. I am trying to be supportive. However she could go with chemo which is covered by her insurance and go back on disability but she won't.

In whole lot better news Christine and I will be seeing each other again next weekend. I can't afford to go out but she trusts me enough now to come to my new place and let me make her dinner. We will also watch the movie Elizabeth, which she has expressed an interest in. So it's the first pick on my Netflix list. (The rest of my picks are all TV shows.)

Been a disappointing day. Hadn't heard from Chandra in a couple of days, either by phone or by IM. So I called her on my Tracphone since she didn't have that number. Apparently she got the biopsy results back and she has breast and cervical cancer. She was also incredibly smashed and high, and out in public with her kids. Driving them around. Which I really hope doesn't end in disaster. She also doesn't plan on getting it treated, forgoing radiation and chemo.

Also my disability didn't get deposited yesterday like it was supposed to. So I had to borrow money from my parents to cover a check for my meds yesterday leaving me with $14 in the account after the $100 loan.

Christine signed on. Her day was merely, "Eh." She's going through a medication adjustment right now and is having major depression and bouts of crying. For some reason her doctor is taking her off Zoloft and putting her on a mood stabilizer alone. So it will be at least a month before she gets any kind of relief.

Bought some new computer equipment, a new wireless DLink router, a Lexmark 4 in 1 printer and a speaker set for my iPod. I am now down to $3.56 of my initial backpay from Social Security so that's it on shopping till March.

My friend Kelly who uses a dating site called OkCupid found a profile of a girl that she said would be perfect for me. At her repeated insistence I finally created an account and looked at the profile. The girl was attractive, well read, into music, working on a Masters Degree in MIS, divorced and has a 9 year old son. She also dug guys who wore fedoras.

So I posted a picture of me in my hat. Which when I went back to the site the next morning she had rated the photo. This encouraged me. So I filled out my profile and planned on emailing her to see if I could attract her attention further. Two minutes after I finish the profile she IM's me through the site and we talked all day Saturday and Sunday. Today she worked from home so we chatted some more and decided to meet and see if we hit it off. I already told her in advance that even if this doesn't go anywhere romantically at least I have met a really cool person.

So we had dinner tonight, smoked cigarettes, talked for two hours. Then ran errands to get some things for her son. When it was time to drop me off. We sat in the driveway for a few minutes and talked. And not knowing what else to do I moved in to kiss her. She kissed me back and pulled me in closer. So I asked her if we should consider this a date and she said yes. I told her I would like to see her again and that I had a wonderful evening. She agreed she had too and wanted to see me again as well.

Oh and her name is Christine.

The rest of this week will be busy as well as this weekend. Getting utilities switched to my name. Tracking down whether or not a bill has been settled. Getting a new cell phone. Then the actually heavy lifting. So I might not get to see her again till next week. But there's always IM and phone calls till then.

Spending a lot of time on Final Fantasy XI. Which is my new job. At least until I balance out enough to get a part time one. I don't remember where anything is anymore. Techno who encouraged me to play the game again isn't being much help. Although I did go up 9 levels on my Warrior yesterday. 2 more levels and I will be level 30 Warrior with 15 Thief sub job. 15 Thief gets me the Treasure Hunter ability and the Sneak Attack ability. Sneak attack I especially like. Instant critical damage. Which from a Warrior enhanced with food and Berserk will be a lot. Right now I am trying to reach a town called Jueno. The recommended level to do this is 20. Which I did 5 years ago. I think they upped the difficulty since then.

Other things more important. Filed my taxes today. Despite only paying $56 in taxes this year and not paying any taxes on my $8000 of unemployment I am still getting $124 back. What a wonderful country we live in.

Also keeping tabs on the news. Obama has made several decisions of the first two days of his presidency that I approve of. Ending the war in Iraq in 16 months. Closing Gitmo and stopping waterboarding and torture. Even if the Gitmo thing will be in a year. I really can't imagine anyone in there knowing anything of any value after 5 years.

Another thing confusing me a social worker with the county encouraged me to apply for medicaid, even sent me forms. I haven't submitted them yet. But today I got a letter saying I was denied medicaid despite being disabled (which is taking some getting used to officially being disabled). So gotta call on that tomorrow.

This weekend I spent nearly the last of my initial money on furniture. I got a couch, recliner, snack table, coffee table, end table, lamp,and microwave oven.

I now have everything I need to move in. I still have to get electricity in my name and cable, internet and internet phone. But will probably hold off until the last week of January to do that.

Today I got into an argument with my father about my hat. Which I don't understand what the problem is all of a sudden. I have been wearing a fedora for nearly 20 years but this weekend it's suddenly a problem and he won't take me anywhere if I am wearing it. Can't wait till I am out of here. Mostly I will be dealing with my mother if I need to get somewhere the bus can't take me.

I can't wait till I am out of here.

I have my lease signing at 2PM today. I am excited about that, woke up at 3:00AM and haven't been able to go back to sleep. Even though moving in is still 16 days away. Also will be shopping for furniture this weekend. I have $1800 left and found a deal on a living room set, couch, love seat, coffee table, two end tables and two lamps for $1100 and a kitchen table with two chairs for $359. Which will be nearly the last of my money (well at least the money my parents know about), but should leave enough for hook up fees for utilities and cable if there are any.

I am hoping the new place doesn't have the bandwidth issues this place has. I am getting nowhere near the speed that Time Warner promises for their Road Runner service. I can't use uTorrent and Vonage at the same time. Also can't use uTorrent and have someone on a different computer browse the web at the same time.

My application was approved for a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment just outside of downtown Racine. I know I wanted to get out of Racine but the apartment is right next to a bus stop. There are a couple of small shops nearby and the rent is only $630 a month with a $250 deposit. I will be moving in February 1st.

Only 16 more days living here and I will be relatively free again. We are going shopping this weekend for more apartment supplies and furniture. I will also be setting up an appointment to sign the lease tomorrow.

Got all the checks out on the smaller bills today. Got a cashier's check to overnight to Memphis on Monday. Got two direct debits that are happening on Monday. After that no more debt. And $2200 left over from the back pay with my next payment being on the 4th Wednesday of the month.

Using some money I had saved up I went to Goodwill and bought some glasses, bowls, forks, knives, and spoons. Then to Walmart to buy the bulk of what you need for a new apartment set up. Toaster, rice cooker, crock pot, dish drainer and various cleaning supplies.

Talked it over with my father. I found a place that is in the town of Oak Creek. He's willing to co-sign or even sign on it since the funds are guaranteed. It's on the Milwaukee County bus route. Within walking distance of grocery stores and other shops.