school again

January 27, 2010 | 1 comment

I actually didn’t fuck up as badly as I thought I had! I am the kind of person who tends to avoid looking at things or dealing with them if something goes wrong because I always expect the worse. When I finally felt well enough, I checked my last semester’s grades, and found I had actually still passed one of my classes with a C+ and got a D in another that actually counts because I started going to my college before they enacted the C or better policy. I hate leaving those classes with such shitty grades (my GPA is usually an A-) but I’ll take credit where I can.

I thought I’d have to do a medical withdrawal for the other two classes, but one of them I have to take for my program anyway so the F will be replaced with whatever I get this fall, and the other teacher is being amazingly awesome and allowing me to make up the work. This means I can still graduate this fall, even though I kind of lost it there for a while.

The spring is going to be a really difficult semester though: I have five classes, plus the class to make up, and though I only have class for two days a week, the days are 12 hours each (10:30am-9:50pm). I’m pretty nervous about it, but I know I really need to do this in order to get my degree and just move on with my life.

I’m also making a goal to read one poetry book per week. I’ve been reading books as normal even though I’ve been feeling shitty, so I think it’s gonna be a possible goal. With my financial aid, I went ahead and bought a few extra books that I didn’t need in order to have enough for this goal, though I’ll need a few more.

School started for me on Tuesday so I haven’t had all of my classes yet. Plus work, this is gonna be rough, but I think I’ll be ok.

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finally getting the ball rolling

January 14, 2010 | 3 comments

I’ve seen a therapist twice, which is going well, but then she didn’t call me back for a week. She had previously told me she’d be busy, but I was getting kind of irritated. This morning I was woken up by her calling me (love that ringtone from that NES game Uninvited, heh) and she told me she had been previously out of the office, which is good.

See, the problem, as usual is money. The psychiatrist (who I was pretty irritated with because his “appointment” with me was him reading off the depression checklist) thoroughly questioned my past use of Ativan, something that really helps my panic attacks, asking if I abused it and shit. That made me really uncomfortable, but I digress. He gave me a script for something that the generic of was fifty bucks…yeah, that’s not cheap at all.

Couldn’t afford that but my mom gave me the hook up temporarily until we figure what’s going on. You know, Walgreens and CVS have prescription cards that give you a discount? That’s pretty cool.

Anyway, I’ve been taking this shit for 2 days and all it’s done so far has made me feel kind of pukey. I’ve been spending the past few weeks playing non-stop Dragon Age: Origins, which is keeping me busy, but I’d like to be a sane person soon.

Also I made a formspring account, so if you go to this page you can ask me whatever questions you want, even if you wanna be a super douche: http://www.formspring.me/imagesfromapoet. See you there!

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The Coen Brothers

January 2, 2010 | 2 comments

Okay, this New Years Day (and partially today), Dan and I did our normal ritual of a movie marathon. Two years ago it was the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy — extended editions. Last year when Dustin and Chris were here, we watched alternating horror movies and Disney movies, meaning that Cloverfield was followed by Beauty and the Beast or something similar.

This year, I let Dan choose, and he went with “available Coen Brothers movies in chronological order.” A few days beforehand, we had watched Barton Fink (which he had never seen before) because it was only streaming on Netflix until December 31st, so we had that covered. The marathon started with Raising Arizona, a movie we had both seen before. Miller’s Crossing is streaming on Netflix and it’s one of the rare Coen movies neither of us had seen, so we watched that. And then Fargo.

Today we skipped a few (uh…I played Dragon Age: Origins all day) and just watched No Country For Old Men. I’m ashamed to say we bought that DVD over a year ago and just got around to watching it because it was really great. So now that the only Coen movie we haven’t seen is Blood Simple, I’m gonna put them in some kind of arbitrary order for my pleasure.

Here’s my top eleven starting with the “worst” one (quotes because even a bad Coen movie is still awesome:

  • 11. Raising Arizona (1987) – An interesting but early film, has all of the Coen charm but they’re still figuring it out.
  • 10. The Ladykillers (2004) – The characters in this movie are fucking amazing but the plot barely holds my attention.
  • 09. Intolerable Cruelty (2003) – I like this movie a lot but Catherine Zeta-Jones really irritates me and that doesn’t help.
  • 08. The Big Lebowski (1998) – A hilarious classic with plenty of quotable lines. Also Philip Seymour Hoffman.
  • 07. Barton Fink (1991) – It’s just strange enough to be surreal and I love that it’s about a writer with writer’s block written as a way to cope with writer’s block.
  • 06. The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) – My memory might be clouded with time since I haven’t seen it in 5 or so years, but I loved this one.
  • 05. Burn After Reading (2008) – Probably the most laugh out loud of the Coen movies.
  • 04. No Country For Old Men (2007) – There’s a reason everyone always talks about this movie. Cormac McCarthy is also amazing.
  • 03. Fargo (1996) – Everything about this movie is perfect. I don’t even know how to surpass it.
  • 02. A Serious Man (2009) – But somehow they did. Tighter direction and editing make this untouchable to me.
  • 01. O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) – Even though I just said ASM was untouchable, it’s not a movie I could watch every day if I wanted to. One of the top ten movies of all time.

Now, if you haven’t seen any or all of these movies, I can tell you they are each worthwhile and amazing and you should check them out. Joel and Ethan Coen are definitely the best filmmaking duo out there.

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from thanksgiving til new years

January 2, 2010 | 1 comment

So I’ve not posted in the past month, but I’m probably about to post twice in a row to make up for it a little bit.

I’ve since found a therapist and possible psychiatric solutions, but I’ve been completely fine for the past week or more because I’m not having to worry about school — all of my stress seems to stem from the idea of “growing up” or “finding a career.” I think it’s just the idea of finding something I have to do for money 40 hours a week.

Anyway, I actually saw my family on Thanksgiving, which was kind of awkward but not completely unpleasant. My grandmother recently found out about my money troubles and about how we don’t have much money for food and she sent me a fuck ton of stuff to eat, so that was awesome.

My New Years Eve went well too. Dan and I went to a friend’s party. It wasn’t super fun because the majority of people there were really conflicting with me in interests (they spent a portion of the night doing drinking games) but we left around 1:30am and headed over to Abi and Tayler’s place to hang out. We had a few more drinks and were there until 5:00am playing Uninvited, a point and click for the NES. The game is ridiculous, but still pretty fun when you’re drinking and taking turns. We never beat it but I’m sure we’ll play more of it next time we see them.

I’m trying to look up for this next year, but I see a lot of issues. Because I failed all of my classes, if I actually choose to go back in the spring I most likely will not get financial aid. Do I want to continue going to school? I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.

Stay tuned for a less personal type post.

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for those of you who have been wondering where I’ve been

December 1, 2009 | 6 comments

I have not been really interested in blogging much lately. I guess you could say I’m “depressed” but it’s more like extreme apathy. I’m really behind in school and struggling to even go. I sought out mental help at my school and they told me I should really take medicine. Because I don’t have insurance, I literally called 30 places, and they either told me they weren’t accepting people now and it wouldn’t be possible for a few months or that they don’t handle situations like mine (i.e. not their specific field — some of the places were rehab clinics and such).

At this point, to be honest and completely frank (those of you who know me well should know that’s something I’m used to), I really could care less about going to school and only go to my job because I cannot afford to get fired — if I get fired, we cannot afford to eat, and overeating is pretty much the only thing I get any joy out of when I’m depressed.

I am trying to “be strong” but there’s just not much out there. My life isn’t hard by any stretch of the imagination: I have somewhere to live, friends, options, fun things to do, but I literally care not for any of it. I don’t even care enough to cry.

I find it pretty weird that I would post this in a public entry, but it’s just the only explanation I have. Sorry for my absense.

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part of my dad

November 26, 2009 | 3 comments

My mom was my dad’s second wife. I met the daughter my dad disowned (because he told his third wife she “wasn’t his” when there’s obvious proof she is), the one from his first marriage, when she found me on the internet after ten+ years of looking for me. She told me some horrible stories like that he told Mary, her mom, that he was going to medical school, had a pager and scrubs, and went to class every day, but had been lying and never enrolled at the school.

My dad and my mom both did horrible things to me as a child. Never sexual abuse, but they had their own issues and paid very little attention to me, even when I acted out to specifically get it. My mom was on drugs. My dad was a workaholic. When they got divorced (I was 9 and my younger sister was 7) my dad fought a custody battle to get my sister and me, won, and then moved us away from my mom and blatantly ignored us.

Years later, my mom cried and apologized to me for not being able to be there for me; my dad’s response to me has always been one of “I never did anything wrong, why are you so fucked up?” I moved away in 2001, when I turned 18.

In 2006, his third wife’s parents went on a Caribbean cruise. They invited every child and grandchild (my stepmother has 4 and my dad has my sister and I) and their significant others except for me. I found out through facebook. My stepmom felt so much “guilt” at me not going that she and my dad paid for my trip, barely talked to me the whole week, and though she hugged me tight and promised she wouldn’t “forget” to call me the next time one of my grandparents died like she had earlier that year, we haven’t spoken. Her father died a few weeks after we got back.

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memoir: Glenn

November 3, 2009 | 1 comment

Seven years ago, when I was about 19 years old, I started dating someone who was not only 33, but also my boss. He was also my boss at a retail establishment. I pursued him because I thought he was really cool and interesting, but things seemed off from the start. He, at first, would say that we weren’t really able to date but then he “gave into me” or something equally as awkward.

One of the first weird things happened when we were at the store waiting for a meeting to start. I was telling him about the one tattoo I had at the time, and he showed me the one on his arm. He talked about it a little and then started to tell me he had a tattoo on his ass. He described it in great detail, about how it was from a dare, etc, and I kept asking him if he was being serious. He continued to respond that he was, that he definitely had a tattoo on his ass but obviously couldn’t show it to me because we were at work.

But weeks later, when we were both naked together for the first time, I found he had no tattoo. He didn’t even bring it up, kind of pretended I was crazy when I said we had that conversation.

He spent most of our relationship telling me he did all these cool things like parties and late night poker games with his friends, but I know he was just playing Morrowind to the point where he could jump over buildings — we never actually went out anywhere and he would have had to have 36 hours in a day to accomplish everything he said he did. When we finally broke up, it happened in a fucked up way too: we were at his apartment and he asked me one morning if I still loved him. I said no, so he packed up everything I had at his place into a garbage bag, with no expression on his face. We got back to my place and he pulled my stuff out of the trunk and started crying like a petulant child.

“I hate you! No, please don’t leave me,” he said on the sidewalk, but I was so glad to be rid of him that I just went inside with my stuff. I changed his name in my address book to “DON’T PICK THIS UP” and tried to move on.

The next few months after that were pretty bad: he called me at all hours of the night; he showed up to my job (he was transferred to another store when they found out about him dating me) in a suit and tie at 9am and proceeded to tell me about how he was at an all night poker game with celebrities and that he was going fishing with his dad now; he sent my mom roses when he found out she was sick just to get contact with me again. There’s a lot more, but this is already so long. It was just a fuck ton of pathological lying and he would get mad when I called him out on it. But we did stop talking in October of that year.

On New Years Eve, he called and I didn’t pick up, but the message he left said pretty much that he wanted to apologize for everything he did to me. I never responded because that would have just started it all up again.

tl:dr: Seven years ago, I dated my boss who was 13 years older than me and a pathological liar.

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