watermelon brains

I'm starting to think that I stopped letting myself get enough sleep because subconsciously I didn't want to deal with the disturbing dreams I'd have if I'd let myself get enough sleep.

Last night I dreamt I was at my parents' house. It kept switching between being inside and outside, but I think mostly it was outside because there was some flying going on. Asshead, my very first "boyfriend" ever (although I hate to even call him a boyfriend after what he put me through), was in it as the aggressor, as he usually is.

Up in front of this cupboard thing that we had to fly to get to, there were hovering plates where holograms of objects would appear and solidify into whatever they were showing. For some reason he and I were "together" in this dream, although I hated and feared him and did not want to have any sort of involvement with him. I think he had "claimed" me or something like that in the dream. It was as if he were a demon--long greasy hair, dressed all in black. We were fighting about who got to keep their own apartment, although I think it would be more accurate to say we were gambling or playing a game of chance because of how these hovering plates worked. I don't know why someone had to lose their apartment in the dream, but that's what was going on. We had to look at the hovering plates and if a cake showed up in one, it meant that whoever touched it got to keep living in their apartment and not have to move. Someone beyond us was controlling the plates, and ultimately my fate.

(At some point during all this, a picture/collage of Jesus showed up next to the plates. Jesus was kind of "alive" in it and could react to what I was saying via facial expressions, almost like the "alive" paintings in Harry Potter. I started yelling at Jesus for allowing this game to happen. His face started to contort into some kind of anger, but I kept yelling at him, basically telling him to shut up and listen and his facial expression calmed down. It's really interesting to me that this part of the dream happened because normally something like that would scare me, but at this point, Asshead was the scarier situation, not that I was yelling furiously at the Son of God.)

I really wanted to keep my apartment because it somehow meant that I wouldn't have to move in with him. I think if I "lost" the deal that I'd be bound to him. Right before a cake was supposed to appear on a hovering plate, I had remembered that he wasn't even living in his own apartment anymore, that he was living with his mom. I tried to reason with him, but he was being incredibly selfish by saying that he was going to touch the cake so he could keep this apartment that he wasn't even living in--an apartment he didn't even own and would have to pay rent for. It made no sense and he was doing it so he could control me. I reminded him that he didn't need it, but he didn't listen. It was a very sneaky move on his part to act like he needed that apartment.

Unfortunately, right after I told Asshead he shouldn't be able to keep it, a plastic cartoonish cake appeared on a plate closer to him, he reached over and touched it as quickly as he could. He had this "too bad for you," attitude when he did it and I was so upset.

Seeing as how he'd just "won," he started coming after me. I could fly, so as in all my flying dreams, I was fighting to fly but could only manage to get about an inch or so above his fingertips, just barely escaping his grasp.

I floated around, trying to get away but it wasn't working and I had to land in this apple tree in my parents' front yard. Apple trees aren't that tall so he started running toward me and almost got me, but something happened and he turned into a watermelon. Quickly, we (I think my sister was there) picked up the watermelon and I remember it sort of had a crack in it so I threw it hard onto the ground from over the railing of the front deck. I knew that the watermelon was his head and that when it broke open on the gravel driveway that he would have to be dead/destroyed because his brains were coming out of his skull.

EXCEPT...

I turned my back, ready to get away from there, relieved he was finally gone, only to hear the scrambling sound of his body morphing back into his human form, completely unharmed. From there, he started chasing me again almost Exorcist crab-walk style and I woke up.

friend end, part 2

I ignored her for about a month. I figured I owed her an explanation if I'm going to just stop being friends with her so she at least knows. I don't really know what I want to say to her so basically I'm just keeping my distance at this point until it's clear what I want to do with the remaining friendship I have left with her, if any at all.

I unblocked her from IM so she IM'd me and we spoke for a little bit while I was at work. She first asked if I was OK because she was beginning to worry about me that there might be something wrong since I hadn't spoken to her in a while. (We used to talk about every day or every couple days. We went from that to nothing.) After I told her I was fine, I asked her about her new apartment and from there on the conversation was mostly about her.

She went on and on about different things that had happened to her, how she went with her sister to look at apartments for her sister's friend and her sister ignored her to talk to the rental agent who was driving them around, then she told me about how the rental agent was rude to her (she told me what happened and the "rude" part is debatable), then she had some food mishap stories to tell me. She didn't really ask me about what I was up to, which I kind of expected because one of the problems I'd been having with her is that she'd go on about her troubles, but when I tried to talk about mine it didn't really seem like she cared much or had anything to say. Normally she'd just change the subject abruptly or would start telling me stories about people I don't even know who she barely knows. I'm sorry, but I don't really care what her boyfriend's brother's wife did on Saturday.

I feel bad saying this. I used to get enjoyment out of gabbing about ourselves and other people, but it's kind of getting to the point where she's talking about other people who I don't know and who aren't even really her friends and/or a big part of her life. I'm not saying that I never want to hear about them at all, but most of her stories are about these relatives of her bf and she doesn't even really like them. Plus, there are so many brothers and sisters that she mentions them by name like I'm supposed to remember them and all their info. They're not even that exciting sounding, either. Maybe I'm just being a brat or even a hypocrite without realizing it, but I don't want to hear about how they went to another bar and bossed her bf around like they always do. I mean, if she cares so much about it, she could say something to them about it instead of just getting mad at her BF later for letting his siblings boss him around.

Oy.

So during our conversation she mentioned she was going to keep her distance from her sister because she was rude to her during their time with the rental agent. Ironic, seeing as how the reason she and I hadn't spoken for a month was because I wanted to keep my distance from her after she was rude to me regarding that money she claimed I owed her dad when she really owed it to him.

Ahem.

So now the whole time we were talking about her new apartment, I didn't want to ask if she'd found another roommate to take her place since she'd had like 5 months left on her lease. I knew it would make me mad to hear that she'd just moved out without finding herself a replacement roommate. Basically what happened was she messed up her relationship with the roommate in her previous apartment, got the OK from the landlord to move out IF she found another roommate, couldn't find a roommate, then found another apartment and moved in there without giving notice or anything.

Before we stopped talking, I told her how bad of an idea it was to just stop paying rent and move out. Her mom ENCOURAGED her to do this. She already has a horrible credit/financial history and I told her that if she just up and left that her landlords could sue her for the money and she'd be in even bigger trouble. Plus, I know in CA you can get a complaint filed against you by your landlord that future potential landlords can look up. They can deny you an apartment because of a bad rental record. I thought I'd talked her out of it, because she seemed to understand my reasoning, but something happened and she did what her mom said to do and left without finding a replacement roommate.

This morning she sent me an email confirming what I didn't want to hear. Now the landlord at the place she moved out of is threatening to send debt collectors after her if she doesn't at least pay one more month's rent and let them keep the security deposit, which I find completely fair, considering that she owes them about 3-4 months of rent, which might be about $2000.

I honestly don't know what she expected from me when she wrote me the email about what was going on. Sympathy? I wish I had some to give her, but I don't. It's not even an "I told you so" type of moment for me, either. Mostly I'm just upset that she's acting irresponsibly and her mother is her "enabler." When the going gets tough, she literally gets going. She's always been this way and I just wish her mother wouldn't encourage that behavior. She's my age--she should know how to be somewhat responsible at this point. I can completely understand being in debt, and even being in a lot of debt because of having made some major mistakes as an older teen or a young twenty-something. I understand having made financial mistakes. It happens. What I don't understand is not learning from mistakes or, at the very least, not putting in any effort to try to improve or make the situation better. By letting this happen and inviting more debt collectors to come after her, she's just digging herself deeper into this hole. What if her landlord sues her? She might have to pay for a lawyer or end up paying the entire amount of rent if a judge reads the lease and sees that she's in violation. I'm not 100% sure how this works, but they might even be able to take money out of her paycheck to pay the landlord, which would mean she might not make enough money at her job to pay for her new rent, which will give her even more problems. When she makes big decisions like this, they're often shortsighted because she's fleeing from something that's upsetting her. I sincerely want her to be able to break this pattern and be able to take care of herself.

Ultimately it's not my job to worry about this. It's not my job to support or encourage her when she's making what I consider to be terrible decisions. It's not my job to lie to her. It's her responsibility to be responsible.

complexes are so complex, man

This (cute) outgoing guy from work added me on LinkedIn tonight. We've only ever talked two times, once at a happy hour and another time when he invited me to go to another happy hour, which I had to decline, but he wrote me a note after I accepted his add that kind of made me wonder. He basically was letting me know that he was let go and that he wanted to message me before I forgot who he was.

I have a history of silently going through all kinds of emotions when people are fired or laid off from work. Honestly, I really care about some of the people who've left, usually more than they care about me. One person in particular kind of upset me when she only let a small circle of people (myself excluded) know she was leaving and then I didn't even get invited to go to lunch with her a couple months afterward. (A group of coworkers went out to meet with her.) A lot of the time at work I feel like people like me, but that they like other co-workers more, even though they work closer with me. I'm a little sad that I'm no one's favorite. I often feel like I'm the third wheel or the odd girl out. Granted, many of the people are super outgoing and loud and I'm not, so I think that could be why things are the way they are. I'm totally down with the quiet folk, and the loud folk are down with each other.

Keeping this little complex of mine in mind, I found it surprising that a guy I'd only spoken to a couple of times had actually thought of me and wanted add me on LinkedIn and give me his personal info. I guess I just would have expected him to forget about me and disappear just like everyone else has when they've left the company.

So basically I wrote him a note back saying I was sorry to hear about his job and offered to let him know if I heard of anyone looking to hire someone who has his skills. Then I signed off with my email address.

He wrote back a little while later saying he was fine and would appreciate any job leads I had...and then he made a confession lol. It wasn't an "I've been longing for you since the moment I set eyes on you" type confession or anything. Basically he commented on some of my cube decor and said that he had thought of playing a trick on me where he would switch some of it out to see if I noticed. His comment was pretty funny and made me l-o-l. He ended it with an "I don't know why I told you that," which kind of makes me think there's a reason for his messaging. That's the kind of think I'd say when I'm flirting. In fact, he kind of reminds me of my exbf (Mayor Baby) who was very outgoing in the same way.

I don't know. I could be so sleep deprived that I'm reading too much into it. Maybe I'm too skeptical of people. Maybe there is a reason for him messaging me, maybe there isn't. After all, he's new to the area. Maybe he just wants more friends. I think one of the girls at work said she thinks he has a gf because she saw him with a girl at the grocery store. Who knows?

I guess most of all, it's just nice that someone who's leaving but who doesn't really know me, WANTS to get to know me and keep in touch.

P.S.

I'm in a book club now with mid-to-late 20-something girls/women at work. I READ now. Oh my effing gee.

<3

Mayor Baby or Baby Mayor

My friend and I are going to this concert in the summer and it turns out this band called Mayer Hawthorne is also on the bill. A former bf (from the entry where he IM'd me and called me baby and I ran away from the IM lol) is working and possibly traveling with that group as one of his recent gigs so I may end up running into him. I'm not sure I know what I'd do if that happened. I have a history of never seeing a BF in person after we've broken up. I talk to one every so often online, but never actually see them face to face. I've definitely avoided this one like The Plague. I'm not even sure that I'd be able to act like a normal person if I saw him in front of me. I've changed a lot since I was 25 and in "love" with him, but seeing him may bring me back to the (more) awkward girl I was back then.

WHY GOD WHY? etc

I keep running these scenarios through my head where I see him but play it cool by teasing him about the sound for the opening band being bad (which would be partially his responsibility) to scenarios where I go diva on him and give him attitude for treating me the way he did while we were together. He was 25 at the time we dated, too, so maybe he's learned some lessons himself. Even though I was extremely disappointed by the way things ended, deep down I always wanted to at least be friends with him--but NEVER on his terms. I wanted him to apologize and WANT to be my friend rather than being my friend because it was convenient for him. No matter what shit he pulled, I'd just want to be given the opportunity to forgive him because he was sorry. Face to face, not over instant message.

At least I have an incredibly smart and attractive boyfriend now. He's almost five years younger than me and has a lot of learning to do, but I guess I don't mind too much being a cougar. It's just too bad he's getting his MA in England and won't be in town for the concert.

In other news, because of this potentially uncomfortable situation, the ex bf's new code name is Mayor Baby or Baby Mayor. Haven't really decided yet.

dream log

Last night I had a dream that I was at some type of festival. There were tons of booths and, for some odd reason, classrooms. I walked into one of the classroom and there was this man who I can only remember as being Simon Cowell-esque. I think he was a teacher from my past with whom I'd had a love/hate relationship. I remember he was extra hard on me but I was one of his favorites (kind of like this professor I had in college). When I walked into the classroom, things were set up like a normal classroom--desks for students, a chalkboard up front, and a teacher's desk to the side. There were items hung on the walls and what I guess were class art projects hanging from the ceiling.

As I looked closer at the walls, I noticed that some of the wall decor were actually my old wall calendars from years past. They had all these appointments, dates, notes to myself, indicators of when I was having my periods, etc. marked on them for everyone to see. I have no idea how he'd found the calendars or why he'd hung them on the walls, but somehow I wasn't freaked out about it. In the dream, it was odd just how it would be in real life, but it wasn't creepy. In fact, I almost walked out and just left my whole personal life out on those walls for everyone to see, but I think I was with someone who gave me the idea to start pulling them off the wall and taking them with me when I left.

The next dream scene was walking somewhere on the festival grounds where I was with friends. We wanted some ice cream so we stopped at this booth that looked like a convenience store. I remember it being really hard to get the ice cream, like they'd run out of it. I think I ended up with something that wasn't ice cream but was supposed to be, but that part isn't really important.

After the festival, I think I had a new dream, but it kind of had a similar theme of people stealing my shit lol. So I think my sister and I were at my parents' house hanging out on the front deck during the summer. We could tell someone was in the house, but didn't know who it was. My sister was her 11 or 12 year old self in this dream, but she's the brave one who checked to see who was inside. I peered in the window and everything was kind of dark, but I could see a silhouette of a man putting his hand into the bird cage and bringing out my birdy. At this point I thought it was my dad but my sister came out and told me it was CJ, the stalker/sexual harasser I had in and after college.

Just like in the other dream when I was faced with complete creepiness, I didn't experience any kind of reaction to it in my dream. I was completely calm, despite the fact that I wanted him OUT. I walked inside, and made sure he wasn't still holding my bird. On the floor by the kitchen/dining room (which is right near the front door entrance), I saw this pile of my things. Evidently he'd snuck into my room while I was in college and stole some of my belongings to keep as little souvenirs. It was a bunch of random things that I might have even had as a child and not necessarily in college. Before I went through the pile, I looked at him and told him to get out and to leave me alone. It was almost like he was a ghost or evil spirit because as soon as I told him to leave, I felt that he had to, like my word was stronger than any power he had. Just like that, he vanished.

I began sorting through the pile of things he'd left on the floor--there was this toy purse/pouch that I unzipped and found an old dishrag in, an unopened bag of socks that were new. The stuff that he'd stolen was stuff from my childhood. It was strange. I know this because I looked at my 11/12 year old sister when I found the pouch/purse thingie and was wondering if she'd remembered it because it was something that we used to play with when we were younger. The socks were these colored cotton socks that I used to wear when I was in middle school or junior high, but wouldn't wear now. I have no clue why the dishrag with the giant hole in it was in the pile lol. I think it was my mom's. I woke up as I was looking through the pile.

I'm not exactly sure yet what my dreams mean, but I just wanted to write them down before I forgot. I definitely have some odd things floating around in my head when I get enough sleep to be able to access them.

favors for friends

I'm pretty sure I'm breaking up with the person I've considered to be my best friend for the past 13 years. We've been growing apart, and as I've gotten older, I've realized the things that used to annoy me about her aren't really things that I want to deal with anymore. She can be moody, very bossy, and at times condescending like she's the adult and knows best. Mostly everyone I've told about my trip abroad to visit her has said she's lucky I was still her friend after that trip. Long story short, a mutual friend and I went to visit her and she kicked us out of her apartment on the first night in town because we were whispering while she was trying to sleep. She never even asked us to quiet down--I honestly thought she couldn't hear us with the fans/air conditioning blowing. It was a non-English speaking country and we were afraid so we basically had to submit to her anger over the whole situation because we knew no one and she was the only one who could help us get a hotel, etc. My guess is that she wasn't just pissed about us having been whispering, but from a mistake she'd made earlier in the trip where she showed up a day early to the airport to pick us up. I didn't apologize about it because it wasn't my fault she'd misread the itinerary; I have a feeling she was mad that I hadn't apologized and frustrated that she'd messed up. I've never seen her as rude and almost cruel as she was during that trip.

That was three years ago. Eventually after that trip I started talking to her again, but at first I would only respond to her, not initiate anything. Eventually time healed that wound and we were friends again. She came out to where I lived the next year and stayed for a few days. She was still bossy and kind of rude during that trip. Then she came a couple of years later and I introduced her to my new friends. Out came the rudeness again. She was mean to my boyfriend and my male friend.

Maybe the only reason I've been able to be friends with her is because of the distance. We've never lived in the same city, or state for that matter.

A few months ago she asked me for a favor. She wanted to know if I could empty out her storage. I drove out to her storage facility and went through and took pictures of all the things in the space, opened the boxes--everything. I uploaded all the photos and had her tell me what she wanted to keep and what I should get rid of. I made multiple trips back and forth and lived for a couple of months with her stuff sitting in my kitchen and in my car trunk while I tried to organize it and pack it for shipping.

Her dad sent me some money to pay for shipping. Unfortunately the first check he sent got stuck in the ATM when I tried to deposit it and the bank said they couldn't get it out. He sent another one for twice as much and with a note saying it was a bonus for me. Then the bank ended up getting the check out of the ATM somehow and deposited it in my account. She also sent me a check for shipping. This is where the trouble started.

Since I still had more stuff to mail her I gave her two options: 1.) I could write her dad a check for the amount of money in the first check since it had been found and deposited or 2.) I could rip up the check she had sent me since it was the same amount as her dad's first check and she could pay him back for me since I was spending that amount on shipping her things to her. Basically I'd be saying that since I owed her dad X dollars and she owed me X dollars, that she could just repay her dad to cover my debt to him. She told me to rip up her check, which meant she chose option 2.

I ended up spending all the money he'd sent, minus the "bonus."

Last week she came to visit me. I still had some boxes of her stuff in my kitchen and car but kept them so she could go through them and maybe carry some back with her to save on shipping. Instead, she just ended up mailing the packages to her house. She asked me if she was going to be able to use the money her dad had sent me, but I told her that it was all gone from all the other packages I'd sent, so she'd have to send it using her own money. Finally all the packages were sent and the only stuff that was left was a box to go to Goodwill and a bag of papers I told her I'd shred for her. I didn't feel like she should be spending her vacation in CA shredding her documents. I was doing her another favor.

So the day after she gets back home I get an email from her saying that she's talking to her dad and that he wants to remind me to send him a reimbursement check for the one that had been lost and then found and deposited...the same check that SHE was supposed to pay back since I'd ripped up the check she'd written me. She said he said I could also just send the money to HER. WTF?! I was so pissed when I read that. It seemed the only part of my email that stuck in her brain was the part about ripping up her check. She never even told her dad that she was supposed to pay him back since I hadn't deposited her check. She just didn't want to have to pay out of her own pocket.

This is weeks after he'd sent me the replacement check with my "bonus." So in this picture, it looks like I'm a crook who's holding his money hostage. I gathered all my receipts from the Post Office from shipping her stuff and attached them to an email reminding her that by telling me to rip up the check she's sent that she was agreeing to pay her dad back for that first "lost" check. I wrote a paragraph explaining the checks, the receipt totals, and the "bonus," including a direct quote from the handwritten note her dad had included with the replacement check.

Her response back to me completely ignored the part where she was responsible for repaying her dad and went straight to "I didn't realize you thought you were keeping it as a bonus" and ended with her saying she'd talk to her dad about it and how she didn't think he'd have a problem with my keeping that original money--the money SHE was supposed to pay him back. She made it seem like I had read some freaking tea leaves and they told me I could keep the money, or, that I felt entitled to keep it so I kept it. I didn't ASK for reimbursement! Her dad is the one who wrote the note with that "bonus" included! She's making it seem like I'm asking for money and she's also acting like I'm not believable. Most of all, she's just ignoring the parts where she has to claim some responsibility in the situation.

Fuck it. I'm just so tired of this bullshit. It's so offensive that I did all this work for her and spent all this time going through her dusty, moldy shit, just to have her not communicate clearly with her dad about the money he sent over and to make me look untrustworthy by not having sent him his money back. I did her a fucking favor. The least she could have done was to own up to having to pay her dad the $50. That would be the right thing to do. It's not even about the money at this point. I could take or leave $50. It's about how you're supposed to treat your friends when they're trying to help you out.

Oh, thick skin, where did you go?

Running off somewhere to hide from the blows.

Don't call me baby

Yesterday evening, the same guy who broke my heart into more pieces than I'd like to count and then didn't speak to me for about two years, IM'd me. Every so often he'd Like links I'd posted on Facebook, but other than that, no phone calls, no emails, texts, or any kind of communication, which is something with which I was COMPLETELY satisfied. In fact, I encouraged the lack of communication. I ignored the shit out of him--never responded to his Likes, haven't looked at his Facebook in over 2 years, etc.

Normally when so much time has gone by without speaking, one would think you'd start out a conversation with something like, "Hi, long time no talk. How have you been?" That's how I would start out a conversation with someone I haven't spoken to in years, but not this guy. I didn't get a "Hi." I didn't get a "Hey what's up?" I got a "baaaayyyyyybbbbbyyyyyy."

What the fuck am I supposed to say to that?!

I wanted to say something snarky with just enough sass that I didn't come off as still angry at him lest he get an idea in his head that I pine for him. I wanted to come off classy, witty and end up with the upper hand. Unfortunately, the only response I could muster was physical; my bowels twisted and turned and my head began to ache. Shortly after, my boyfriend picked me up and I escaped my apartment, leaving the IM unanswered.

Why would he do that? The last time he tried to IM me a couple of years ago, it was because he was visiting the area and just "figured [he] would say hi." My guess is he wanted me to ask him to come see me, but instead, I told him to bring an umbrella because it was raining lol. (Later, one of my friends told me she thought it was probably because he wanted to use me as a booty call, which, in hindsight, it might have been.)

God damn.

So why now? Did he just break up with a girlfriend and feel nostalgic about the time he and I shared? Did he have such a low opinion of me that he imagined I still had feelings for him after all this time and that I'd be there to boost his ego for him? Or was he going to start a conversation with me, so he could remind himself about how much he disliked our conversations and promptly ignore me just like the old days? Is he coming back to the area and trying to sweet talk me because he needs a warm body with a fine ass keeping a bed warm for him? Did he accidentally hit my name and IM me by mistake? Either way, I feel like an apology is in order.

If you don't have anything nice to say, how about not IMing me?

28

I haz it. (almost)