hmm. i feel rather strange at the moment. i decided to make up for a few hours i missed last week, and get some overtime as well, so i worked thirteen hours today. the last seven by myself in an empty store. it never fails, the one thing i can always count on my mind to do is play tricks on me. i was in that empty store, just enjoying playing whatever i wanted on the stereo and recasing and stickering these massive piles of dvds and cds. then i would hear a clicking sound, or a low murmur. it always seems to be coming from the middle of some aisle where i can not see either. damned horror movies. somewhere around two, i gave up, feeling as if i hadn't accomplished much at all.
*explanatory note* our store in round rock closed on the 1st, which made Brigette my boss, and all of their inventory ours. hence, the giant piles of entertainment on every imaginable surface. not to mention the insane degree of turnover lately, and what seems to be a higher volume of customers in general as of late. so there's that.
so yeah, i feel like it was kind of an unwarranted leap of faith on my part too, since i got basically shorted on the overtime i worked last pay period and STILL haven't gotten my bonus, though apparently everyone else has. ugh. enough. it's not as though i really had anything to do tonight. like i said, i feel really strange right now. Destiny's cat is running around at my feet making his scary Mothra noise, i am thirsty and I am going to watch Nip/Tuck til i fall asleep. oh, yeah, also, today was my first day back at work after a real two day weekend. i check the schedule and realize that my monday is also my friday, and that i have tomorrow and tuesday off. wtf?!? eh, evs, man. oh yeah. happy birthday, Jenny Lewis!

new year's eve hurt so very badly that i feel unable to describe it right now. i took a tranq to make the feeling a little better, and i drove around tonight not caring what would happen. and now i am struggling with conciousness that i am just going to surrender and pretend that it will be easier to describe in detail tomorrow.

Happy new year, all. I really need to post an update on all the madness that has been this holiday season and the year of 2006 in general, i guess. But now is not the time. I intend to have a good time tonight. I will most likely be found staggering up and down red river between the starlight mints show at emo's and the blow show at the mohawk. See you all in 2007.

Perhaps I have been spoiled to not have had to work retail in so long. People seem to feel obligated to be especially shitty and impatient with you, and one another. Goodwill towards blah.
My head is really pounding today. I have lost count of how many consecutive days that makes now. Huh. I found out today that Brigette will become my boss next week. My housemate and best friend as my boss. I don't know how to feel about that.
What I do know, however is that I am ready for this season to be over. I was all primed to go to Emo's to see the Starlight Mints and the Octopus Project on New Year's Eve, but then I found out that the Blow and Hawk and a Hacksaw are playing at the Mohawk that night. What to do, what to do... I don't know if it really matters all that much to me right now. I just know I don't want to be home that night.

My weekend off was nothing of the sort. And I felt so good getting off early on Friday after eleven straight days of work. But I still had the same headache, the same one I have now, and have had for a week now. I put some booze on top of that, and there went Saturday, all day sleeping and throwing up, half hungover, half just the same damn migraine. I slept so much that I ended up awake at four in the morning, deciding to watch Cello, which, by the way is the scariest movie I have seen in a long, long time. This seems to be my M.O. lately, I'm not exactly sure what it is I'm trying to do to myself, but it's not anything healthy. No sleep, barely enough food to sustain, going to work early and staying late to avoid these long quiet hours at home which are spent ingesting the most perversely sad and disturbing films and music and literature. Speaking of work, that is where I spent my second "day off", filling in when someone called in sick and someone else just didn't show up. The saddest thing was I was so glad when Brigette woke me and asked me if I could go, because Bonnie was at the store by herself. And here I am now, tempted to watch The Virgin Suicides(why break from recent tradition?) and basically only killing time until tomorrow, all of this time is only being killed.

Ick. It is so quiet. I am not tired from sleeping so much yesterday. I want to do something fun and exciting. It just doesn't feel like much of an option right now. How boring. I'm going to watch Suicide Club. I started to watch it about an hour ago. The beginning was a little more than I could handle at that time. I think I'm ready now.

I am so exhausted, so why do I have such a hard time going to sleep. Feel free to hit me with your own remedies. Or your phenobarbital. Or a large wooden mallet.
On a bitch/complain note: the faint/ratatat show at la zona rosa tomorrow sold out before i could get money for a ticket. Fuck that. Joanna Newsom/Smog the next night at the parish also sold out. Double fuck that. I'm going to go pretend to sleep now.

I want to tell myself that i am only tired right now. I want to believe that. It was a long day. One that started nicely enough, though two kittens in your room is generally a guaranteed rude awakening. I took Alex home, and went to work to find that Rudy called in sick and Bonnie, upset to the point that she had to leave. Apparently someone was calling her with death threats, on the store phone no less. The only other two people there were brand new. And all day, literally all day, people were bringing in massive boxes and tubs of movies and music to sell. At the time, I suppose I was grateful for the distraction. It piled up to the point where I didn't even feel comfortable leaving after closing the store. I stayed three and a half hours after closing, trying to make sense of it all. Probably also to avoid being left completely alone with my thoughts in a quiet room WITHOUT busywork. By the time I left, I felt so utterly defeated. I clearly wanted to feel useful and productive, but for some reason got the opposite effect. I need to go to sleep, but instead I am going to put on a relentlessly gory Asian movie, and write some unlucky soul a diatribe on why I want to spend at least the next ten years in my room with the lights off, and my good friend(the dark red blanket) over the window. Kittens or no kittens.

I was thinking about New Years past, and the upcoming New Year. (Typically stuck either in past or future, the present entirely lost in the shuffle.) As far back as I can remember, December 31st has always been measured only in extremes, either catastrophe or euphoria. Either way, I am afraid to attempt any semblance at a plan. Planning seems to have only the most dire effects on the outcome of that day. One of the best was a spontaneous appearance at the foot of the Space Needle with a bottle of booze and a miraculously procured hotel room just under the monorail. I was alone, maybe 19 and having the time of my life. The infamous Y2K by comparison was spent sleeping on Sara's shoulder in the ER while my ex-girlfriend was treated for alcohol poisoning and an epileptic seizure. Last year was an exception of sorts. A situation that would have been amazing and wonderful, were it not for the misery that clouded the era in general.
And where the hell did this year go exactly anyway?

The repeated failure gets so tiresome. I have to make myself continue to talk about it, simply because the fear gets so very overwhelming, and all I really want to do is hide in my room, under my blue light lamp, taking solace in melancholy music and literature. I force myself to call my father, trying not to let on how afraid I really am. Trying not to feel like such an orphan in this world. You make your own family, right? And I have done pretty well in that respect, as far as I am concerned. I could not ask for more loyal friends. That is one nice thing to be able to stop and appreciate, especially when such a significant part of me feels so wilted and hateful. So this is a love letter to the few in my life who so loyally offer themselves when I really need them most. I hope I am one day in the position to do the same for you all. I hope you aren't disappointed.

Because my bank decided to take a fee unexpectedly mere hours before my paycheck was directly deposited, several transactions of five dollars or less after have driven me back into the land of overdrawn. Fuck. Why have i had such terrible luck with banks this year? My whole next paycheck, the only one i get before christmas i might add, is going to go primarily towards bank fees. Honestly, I feel like crying.

It's now 4:30 pm. Cari and I are in an empty store listening to CCR on satellite radio. Everything that could be done has been done. C'mon people, please come buy music and movies from me, I'm so effing bored. And I am here for six more hours. Thanks.

I have convinced myself that if i start a new journal, maybe i will get back to journalling on a regular basis. So, let's find out.

Maybe. Though I can't really think of any good reason why. This feels nice. Maybe I was right and that last journal was just way too haunted. There are a lot of things I need to say, to start saying on a regular basis.
Not right now though. It's late, I'm a bit loopy on painkillers, and I have to work in the morning. I am going to watch Season One of My Name Is Earl until I fall asleep. I have to say first that though I really did nothing but go to work, today was a good day. That is good enough for me.