But we still had the radio...

To save Brendon and most of the people in my life from having to deal with my quarterly breakdown, here goes:

My back is killing me. It hasn't hurt like this in years, and I can't figure out why. Its like my vertebrae and mutinying in different directions.

My teeth are rotting out of my head. Graphic, I know, but I don't have health or dental care until August, so I'm kind fucked until then.

I make absolutely nothing! My paycheck has gone down almost 400 dollars thanks to the bankruptcy at New Century. This sucks because I have to pay for my car, my house and then hopefully have money left over for food.

Eating junk food has caused me to gain weight. I can't afford all the good stuff, so I have to buy the shit, and hello poundage.

My mother is making me move all my stuff out of her house. The great question of the year is, where the fuck and I supposed to put it? Its not my fault I live in an apartment. Southern California has done a great job of making it impossible for Brendon and I to be able to afford to get married, get a house, or even get out of debt. And before you say it, I can't afford to move to another state. Then, there's starting a new job and not having health insurance for another three months.

I feel like just breaking down. I almost did yesterday. Its just so much shit at once. This time three months ago, I had a great job and felt like I was actually accomplishing something. Then someone had to fuck up big time in accounting and there goes my job. I hurt everywhere, I feel like crying, and I"m trying to figure out where the fuck to store this shit I'm taking home from my mom's house.

Just Fucking Shoot Me.

what pisses me off, is I can't get this song on itunes...except as a karaoke version. WTF?

Okay, so Heroes fans...this is kind of a spoiler. So, I'm trying to get down all the people who are alive and dead going into the final episode.

Dead:
Sylar's Mom
Ted
Hiro's girlfriend (red headed waitress)
Issac Mendez
Peter Petrelli (well, alive now)
Mr. Linderman
Simone Devreaux
Jackie Wilcox
Dr. Chandra Suresh
(Mohinder's little sister)
(that guy Matt was hired to protect, guy with diamonds)
Metal melter guy
Girl with super hearing
Someone with frost powers
A cheerleader
Half of New York ?

Alive;
Peter
Nathan
Petrelli mother
Claire
Mr. Bennet
Ms. Bennet?
Claire's brother
Wireless
Mr. Muggles
Sulu/ Hiro's dad
Hiro
Ando?
Sylar
DL?
Niki/Jessica
Micah
Matt
Mohinder
Haitain
Claire's real mom
Molly





Please tell me who I missed...I'm going off drunken memories. I started watching Heroes about halfway though the season at the insistance of my roomate and boyfriend, so I may have missed some one.

That I kind of think John Wilkes Booth is hot....At least he's replacing my Davy Crockett obsession. I don't want to talk about the hearts I drew around that woodcutting in tenth grade...Hilary and Ashley know...

Heroes comes back on tonight. Yay. That's at least something I don't feel like killing someone over.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-vonnegut12apr12,0,3447222.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Mr. Kurt Vonnegut passed away at the age of 84. This is one of the first times I have cried when I heard that a writer has died. 

If you don't recognize the name, maybe the titles:

A Man Without a Country
Slaughter-House Five
Galapagos
Cat's Cradle
The Sirens of Titan
Dead-Eye Dick
God Bless You Mr. Rosewater


And there are several more.

At the top is a link to the Los Angles Times Obituary.

So, I'm sitting on my mom's couch for the second Tuesday in a row. I was laid off from New Century Mortgage Corporation last Monday. Can I just call a spade a spade: Mongolian Clusterfuck and a half. It was...interesting to say the least. First, our paychecks were mailed to us, when they told us that they would be deposited directly. Hmmmm, interesting. Then, they gave us a job fair; I got a job interview today. I didn't go...I did some research on the internet last night and it turned out that it was a Scam company. Pretty much Mary Kay for Vitamins. Oh, and right now, I'm sitting on my mom's couch trying to find out who the father of Anna Nicole smith's baby. Oh how the mighty have fallen. Oh, and this Ismus guy is in really hot water for calling a basketball team "nappy headed ho's." He's pretty dumb. However, my mom has taken to calling our dog by this somewhat affectionate nickname. I'm writing a porn with my boyfriend. He's been working with a guy to film and edit a porn. Yes, I told him that it was okay to do this. Actually, Brendon was hesitant and I told him he HAD TO DO IT. I'm one of those whack jobs. 
Oh well.

Its all Brooke's fault...

Let me just say that it has been the month from hell. I've requested that March 2007 be stricken from the record. My car has decided that it will no longer function properly. This is perfect timing as it is any day now that our company will start lay offs. JOY.

A woman almost ran into my car today. I checked before I started to back out. She whipped into the parking lot, and felt I was taking too long, when I paused so I wouldn't hit her car. She tried instead to go around mine and I waved a hand in the air, showing her that there was no place for her to go. I managed to back out and move so she could go around. She started screaming at me. Like a gracious woman (no violent hand signals ladies and gents) I said "excuse me?"
"Learn how to drive bitch," the monstrosity replied.

This woman was repelant. She was the sort of pale you find only on an albino with hideously small eyes and craggy skin. Her hair was completely white, but she couldn't have been more than thirty. It was hard to tell with the excess weight. She looked like a cross breeding of Mr. Potato head and Medusa minus snakes. I was very angry that she was so rude to me, but instead, fumed about it while I walked around in Target instead.

Here were the comebacks I could have used:

I. I'll learn to drive when you learn to use concealer
2. So Perseus didn't get your head
3. Can I change your eyes and hair by using the pegs in your ass?
4. Yes, this is a Colt .45
5. All dogs must be leased in public places.

Please let me know what else I could have said below.

Tommorrow is another Monday.

Yesterday was a blast. Intitially I wasn't planning on going to my boyfriend St. Patrick's day party. I was invited, but with one of those "you aren't going to have fun." I'm not a very social person. Being drunk with a bunch of people I don't know usually isn't my idea of fun. So after having a twenty minute fight with my boyfriend over all of it, I declared that I was in fact going to his party. If I didn't have fun, I told him, I'd sober up and go home. we went on a mission, running to Bevmo to get some English/ Irish imports for the party. Fun, people liked them. After that we ended up going to the grocery store to get food coloring for the beer. I was pissed because someone had stolen the green out of our packet and replaced it with yellow. That's shady, man. Luckily, I remembered my color wheel and put a few drops of the blue coloring in a yellow beer. YAY its green. Drinking green beer is kind of strange, actually. I'd spent the entire morning watching television about the infamous Irish gang the Westies, so of course I was all atwitter with information regarding Mickey Featherstone and Jimmy Coonan. I was the only person at the party who knew who they were. Bren and I started drinking at 5pm. Shortly after, we got a phone call from my friend Sara, asking when she was coming over. Its pretty much a given that Bren has a party whenever there is a holiday. She walked across the street to Bren's apartment (she lives with her boyfriend in the complex across from Bren), holding a beer. Very illegal, but then again, Brendon was drinking out of a bottle of malibu walking down to my car yesterday, so go figure. After a screwdriver and a hard cider, Brendon, Sara and myself walked across the street to the grocery store to get both of them a pack of cigarettes. I sat outside and drunkely read OC weekly. we then walked across the street to her boyfriend's apartment complex. This is where it got weird. we ended up taking several shots of tequilla. Soon we were back at Brendons, and before I knew it, Sara was walking back home and Bren and I were in the bathroom. Then people showed up, so we went back out and I fell asleep on his couch. There were about three people when I went to sleep. when I woke up there were 25 people in the living room. My boyfriend has two Danish guys living with him. They are two of the coolest people I've ever met. I stopped drinking, knowing I'd eventually have to drive home. bren came over and whispered to me that he wanted to come home and sleep next to me. He's being really sweet lately. I love him entirely too much. So about two hours later, Bren is matching beer for beer with this guy named Pat. They are outside smoking cigarettes when all of the sudden, Pat and Brendon are punching each other in the chest to see who's harder. I felt like I was in Sparta, or rere world. So, today Bren has these huge purple bruises on his chest. Dumbass, I love you. I however, have no bruises. YAY. His friend Day and I talked for a long time last night. Day is one of the coolest people Bren hangs out with (mike is as well). They are just all around good people.  I was finally sober around 5 am, so we went back to my house to sleep. we woke up about 11am today, suprisingly early. Then we went to Ihop...yummy. Bren is at work right now. Its finals week at UCI so starbucks is open 24 hours a day. Nice for them. He pretty much gets to work whenever he wants. If he wants extra hours, basically, he just shows up. I however, don't know if I have a job tommorrow. I didn't get any phone calls over the weekend, and the paper hasn't said we've declared bankruptcy, so who knows.  I was dicking around looking at wedding dresses online. I don't know what's wrong with me. I don't want a wedding. They're expensive, and then Bren and I will have to work out both of our family dramas long enough to get people to be civil. My friend keeps telling me that I don't have to invite people I don't want to our wedding...oops, well I guess we can't really do that with family. Damn. Its not like Bren and I are getting married anytime soon.  If we get engaged this year, it won't be until the end. Even then, we probably won't be able to afford everything for another two years. He still has partying he wants to do, and I still want my bits and pieces of solitude, so, go figure. All the married folks I talk to say take your freedom as long as you can get it. Its strange because after three years with the same guy, I love him more now than the year before. I've never been this comfortable around someone before. Now, if we could just work out things with our families....Anyhow, off to sleep.

I"m so lucky to have Brendon. I"m so wasted right now, and I have Brendon and Sara. I love my life.

Here's exactly what I'm talking about.

And I listen to the sounds of Glasgow
in a distant memory
running across streets
because the cars had the right of way
and we could never run fast enough

Sand colored buildings
over one hundred years old
and despite that fact
still hold the crowded
modern Starbucks

I read in a building
much older than my country
and find myself talking
to people I've never met
about things I've just heard of

My heroes were born here
my family walked here
my ancestors died here
and as an American
I walk here

I don't really feel like writing. This whole week has been so draining I thought I would go nuts. My office is either going bankrupt/ bought out. They don't tell us anything. They just work really hard at making us feel uncomfortable. My head hurts. My boyfriend wants to chill with his friends tommorrow. Its St. Patrick's day. That's cool. I just kind of wanted to go out and get drunk with someone. Then again, I'm really good at going out and never leaving the house- like that song Flagpole Sitter. I'm irritated right now, which probably has something to do with the fact that I"m so tired. However, my bright spot is this singer Lily Allen. She's really good. Its pop, but its really intelligent. So, yay. Her music makes me miss Scotland, however, which makes the frustration a little worse. I really want to wear this shirt tommorrow that says "Fuck you, I'm Scottish." I think I might get the crap beaten out of me though. The Irish get a lot of crap from Americans when they go to Dublin. we had one girl who talked to us who was pissed because Americans kept asking her where the damn leprechauns were. I mean, seriously people. A lot of people go to Dublin, get drunk and stupid, and can't figure out why a lot of Irish people HATE Americans. Hmmm, I wonder. The Scottish go out and get shit faced with you though. That was pretty cool. we had a student guide who was chastizing us for not being able to drink more than her. She had two bottles of wine and was still fine. I really miss all the people I studied with, and my professors. I think about going back to Scotland all the time. It was one of the best times in my life.

I am a hack!
A poor writer
a lover of genres
of guidelines 
of mistakes

I heard Jonathan Lethem
say we are all hacks
until we finally make it
and show the world
the true value of ourselves

So, I'm still in hack stage
learning and trying
faking it
because I'm not there
yet

So its pretty much guranteed that my company is going to file bankruptcy. Craptastic. I've started circlating my resume, and outlook is dismal. I don't want to go back to retail. I dread that possibility. I worked in it for 3 years. People are not my forte. All I've ever wanted to do is write...hah. Its interesting. I have a BA in English (aka degree in Unemployment). I really want to just relax, write my book. I jokingly told my boyfriend that he should support me. He gave me a look of terror. He said he wouldn't mind paying my rent, as long as he didn't have to pay his own. Can't I just be a rich housewife? (knows that she will get so much crap for that last line). Oh, and in great news, my car just died. The radiator has had problems forever, but it pretty much is in its death throes. GREAT. Oh, and almost all my bills are due this week. Oh, and I still haven't gone grocery shopping. So, my mom came to rescue me from the car. Now my mom is feeding me meatloaf and I"m curling into a small ball on her couch.

I now find out about my companies eventual demise through the wonders of the Los Angeles Times. Every day the situation becomes more dire and I feel stranger heart palpitations. The lay offs two weeks ago were bad. I was suprised I came back to a job. And then, the stock started to crash. I had to find out about that from the Times. Then, the company stopped taking loan applications. Again, the Times. Now, evidently, our funders have cut us off. we are in a word screwed. So I started circulating my resume today. The problem is, I was making great money at this place. It was disgusting. And now, well, now I have to drop down to like 1/2 my salary and find another job. I'm really happy at this company. However, I don't think there's going to be a deus ex machina.  I'm so stressed out that sex with my boyfriend has become one of those, oh, I'm sorry were we doing something? sessions. I can't focus at home because I'm so worried that I won't have a job tommorrow morning. And I know there's going to be someone who says, don't worry about tommorrow. I can't help it. I was raised by the champion worrier. I'm firmly convinced that it is her sole purpose in life to worry about other people. So, I'm going to go work on the blanket I'm knitting, snuggle with my boyfriend and watch the new Eddie Izzard show The Riches and hope against hope that there will be a job for me that can support my rent and food.

Sunday is a bittersweet day for me. It is the day that my boyfriend and I spend together, but it is also the day before I must return to a small grey cubicle and discuss the continual downfall of my company. It is stifflng in my house at the moment, despite the fact that the windows are open. Most of this has to do with the fact that there is no air conditioning in my home. I live in Southern California. Our repuation is for the most part correct about weather. It is the begining of Spring and we are experiencing Summerlike conditions. Nice if you have a pool. Gross if you are living in an apartment that doesn't get too much wind through the windows.
My boyfriend is eating Doritos and watching me over my shoulder. I don't know if that is unnerving or comforting. Last night I had kind of a break down after we got home from watching the 300.

Last Thursday my roommate Haven and my best friend Hannah were hanging out in the living room. All boyfriends were in attendence. Hannah's husband was at home. It was determined that Saturday night was date night (per our council of feminine hormones) and that we would attend a night showing of The 300 (testosterone partially influenced). Because this is a comic book movie, my boyfriend is all over it. Frank Miller makes him make faces I only see post coitous. After many times watching Sin City with or without me, he has become somewhat of a Frank Miller junkie. Truth be told, I can't watch Frank Miller movies. I found myself almost vomiting during Sin City at at least three parts in the film. when I was sixteen, it was a lot easier to just sit back and watch a gore fest movie with no reprecussions. And then something snapped in me at the age of twenty one. I found myself unable to watch children die in movies. People in chronic pain or hurt for no reason other than growth of empire or wealth caused me to grow angry. The strange fact is that I am able to read all of this in a novel, or even write it, but I cannot watch it without growing physically ill and having some sort of mental reprucission. Most of my friends will remember the most startling incident at Knott's scary farm about a year ago. All night I'd had a blast, walking by monsters with only a laugh, protecting one of my friends from attack and giggling about supposedly dead cartoon characters in a TV Maze. One idea, undead cookie monster. Take that, think about it for a while. Giggle and warm your brandy in your palm. we walked into a maze called "The Asylum." I warned my boyfriend before we went in. "My aunt had electroshock therapy. I"m really not good with mental hospitals, even fake ones." He smiled and told me he'd protect me. It would be fine. And I thought, of course it would. I will tell you straight out that my boyfriend would never, ever, do anything to hurt me intentionally. He told me it would be fine, and agreed. My friends are still pissed that he took me in the maze. I'm telling everyone right now that I agreed to it. The first two minutes of the maze were fine. I was a little icked out by the supposed fake fetus in an incubator, but it was the flashing lights and bloody hand prints on a plexiglass wall that started to get me. I was able to by pass the anorexia nervosa room with a false Karen Capenter vomiting her guts up Then I saw the sign: "Electroshock" and "Frontal Lobotomy." I saw flashes of light. I heard screams. I collapsed to my knees and started rocking. I couldn't stand up. My friends were trying to figure out what was going on amidst the scream . In the end, it took my boyfriend and one of the monsters to help drag me out the emergency door. He held me for like ten minutes while I cried my eyes out and screamed. My friends all kind of have this weird taboo about this moment. we don't talk about it. Almost like we were in a war together. I think my pain and crying were just something that they can't think about.
So any way, we all went out to dinner last night, and then stood at the back of the line for the 300. Because most of the people who were in line ahead of us were die hard fans with this crazy desire to sit in front seats, we miraculously found 6 seats at the back together. Much to the chagrin of a group of teenagers who were about to sit in the seats when we did. The movie started and the first image is a pile of baby skulls...fuck. I looked over at my boyfriend who squeezed my hand. He did warn me that there was a weird hunchback guy that would freak me out. It wasn't the hunchback. The next thing that freaked me out was a tree made of human beings, and a wall as well. Not a good sign. So, I spent the rest of the movie trying not too look at the violence. I've got to tell you that 98% of the movie is violence. Thus, I started to grow bored and so I ended up HATING the movie. My boyfriend loved it. The rest of the group thought it was good. I came home and broke down in my boyfriends arms about how I couldn't get the damn images out of my head.  So in the end, I tell you, if you are suddenly creepy sensitive to other people's pain, this is most likely not the movie for you. If you love Frank Miller and supersaturated film, this is a great movie for you.

Crying is tiring work. And because the clock change started today, I woke up to discover that it was not just late afternoon, it was 3:30. Damn, I only have so many hours left before I have to go back to work...if I have a job tommorrow.

The first thing you will probably notice from repeat readings of my blog is that I am a total spaz. I find an idea...and I run with it.  And then I attack it with several smaller ideas that pepper the initial idea until it looks like a piece of gum that was dropped in the dirt and stepped on repeatedly. I like to think of it as being a gum visionary.

I was late to work this morning. Traffic was horrible on the street that runs by my boyfriends house, so I was forced to sit for 40 minutes in traffic to go 1 mile. Yes, you read that right. 40 minutes to go one mile to get on the freeway. The best part is that there were not a lot of people on the freeway. This compounded into me being 20 minutes late for work. A big bad idea, seeing as my company just laid off 300 people last Thursday. I will try very hard. The problem is, my office is 15 minutes away from my house. It is ridiculous for me to leave more than 45 minutes before I start for work. Yet today, I left that early and was still late. Very late.

Anyhow, after the daily powerplays and continued coverage of our corporate stock dropping the newspapers has left me in a funk. Thus, I find excitement elsewhere.

I came home, plopped down on the couch, and then realized that it was probably time for me to put taquitos in my belly. Interesting fact...taquitos are not authentic mexican food. However, they taste really good when you nuke them for 2 minutes and then give them a light dusting of parmesean. My boyfriend got me started eating them with parmeasan...people kind of make gagging sounds, but its nummyrific!

I returned to the couch with my taquitos and well earned diet coke and the tv became my friend/ enemy. Its like Steve Colbert says-frenemy.

One of my roommates loves MTV. She pretty much lives off it. Its acceptable because she's 19 and I think that's still okay. I'm 22...I've attempted to move on to Crime Dramas. Heroes is still an addiction, however. Anyway, MTV has this new show called Engaged and Underaged. There is nothing I like better than a bride having a meltdown. Combine that fact that most of the girls on this show are like 18 and have kids...it makes it even better. I feel like I'm watching my Southern relatives (I know, unfair to the south, but you can take that up with me and the rest of Arkansas). I blame my cynicism on living in The People's Democratic Republic of California. The screen was instantly filled with the Clown-like face of a hideous blonde 17 year old, crying her harlequin tears because her fiance was drunk off his ass the night before the wedding. I was instantly hooked. So, here's the real problem. After turning off the TV and calling back my best friend (I'm babysitting her kids tonight), I began to surf the internet for weddings, marriage, happy fun time.

About a year ago, Brendon (the boyfriend) and I started shopping for engagement rings. Per the Dr. Laura definition, we are not engaged. There is no date. There is no ring. However, he has asked me at least 25 times, and each time I've said yes. He's started to call me wifey every once and a while. I'm young, so no rushes on either date or ring. He's working on getting his life all straightened out with job stuff. When all this started, I was in finals at UCI, so I took up wedding stuff as a happy distraction. And that's when it all went to hell. Brendon was stressing out about moving into a new apartment. I was asking him who he wanted in his wedding party. I was constructing elaborate family reunions and cake plates...so, it wasn't suprising that we started fighting; constantly. In May, we collapsed into a fighting angry mess which turned into a very audible break up over the phone while I was closing at Barnes and Noble one night. The night turned into body shots of tequilla off one of my friends and my now roommate. That and a jaunt to a sex toy shop. There were many tears. Brendon and I spent the rest of the week secretly talking on the phone and having wild monkey sex. He is my first ( a long time ago) and only. Needless to say, we got back together, and I've laid off being a spaz. Here's hoping I don't go there again.

Ah the wonders of self loathing. And now to read before I go baby sit.

I'll probably be back after Heroes.