Entry 000114; 03.01.02

I'm reminded of that day mom began to doubt the altruism of Karen's friendship.

Mom was living with tino in a two bedroom apartment with 4 people, 5 cats, and three dogs. Not to mention the fish. I don't even know where she put those huge fish. So Karen offered to keep the two smaller dogs at her apartment. She also offered to let me hang out at her apartment on Saturdays because I visted Drooly on Saturdays and had no place to go (I was homeless except for the school dorm 80 miles away - and Drooly's mom hated me).

After about a week, Karen started bitching at mom. "Oh god I hate your dogs. They are so annoying. They take up all my time, having to take care of them." Blah blah blah blah. "Oh I really wish Ashia wasn't in the apartment so much - I can't bring my boyfriend there when she's around." (She of course didn't tell me this to my face - mom had to tell me. So she kept getting annoyed that I kept coming over even though I was invited). I won't even talk about Christmas - when i was homeless for three weeks and had no place to go.

Of course, relaying this all back to me, my mother let her full annoyance show. "What the hell." She would start - "She knows I don't have any choice. She knows I'm in a bad position. Why did she offer if she's going to make me feel guilty about it?" And on she went. Mind you, for a year or several - we took care of Karen while she was going through chemotherapy. We even had her stay in our house for a while, taking care of her when she was too sick. And this woman was complaining about dogs?

I can just imagine my mother's face as she listened to Karen. That pleasant smile on her face. Unless you know her very well (unless you are me, that is), you don't realize that she thinks you are a complete moron.

It escapes me - the capacity for people to be...people. You go out of your way to do things for them, be polite, do them favors - and when you are caught in a hard place, when it's bad enough to have to ask a favor (which is embarrassing enough) they whine. Not a lot. But just enough to let you know that you are asking to do something that they really don't want to do.

Do I do that? I try not to anyway. I go out of my way to do stuff for people and NOT whine about it - especially when I HATE doing it. I'll admit I have been faltering with that on the dishes aspect of things. But then, I've always hated doing dishes more than anything in the world.

I get people birthday presents. I get people christmas presents. I make it a point to remember birthdays and anniversaries. (Ok except the one this week - which Drooly didn't care about and I had finals during. I am not even going to go into how he's never gotten me an anniversary present - probably my fault anyway). I stay up late when I have to get up early talking to people who need to talk to someone. I drive all over the place when Lychee is having a crisis at odd hours, I listen to Davey bitch and moan. Just in case they might get sad if no one thinks about them. I drove that stupid prick and his girlfriend to Rhode Island in holiday traffic (took about 5 hours or more) with 10 minutes notice, after a VERY taxing day of driving and didn't complain. And of course, he didn't even give me any gas money.

So really, what the hell is wrong with people? Am I that repulsive of a human being that they feel no need to even consider that I might like reciprocal treatment? What do I do? I insult people. Never on things they actually falter on (calling fat people fatty lacks creativity - and it's just cruel). And I'm condescending. Yeah sure ok. But I hardly think that warrants making me feel uncomfortable the few times I ask for favors.

In other news...

I'm out of books. The stupid library apparantly doens't open during break, which is silly since graduate students don't get breaks, and some of us like to read for fun. Though probably not many, knowing these boring tech students. Uncreative robots.

I know I have to apply for jobs this week but I'm terrified. It's frustrating to sit here knowing that I'm just sucking up money with food and rent and school and not replenishing my supplies, but working is such shit. The only jobs who will hire me treat me like a pariah. Customers somehow believe that just because I work, I deserve to be yelled at, mistreated, they even think it's ok to THROW THINGS AT ME. Last summer I had a couple of customers who made me pull out the entire selection of mattings (about a couple hundred samples) and frisbeed them one at a time at me as they decided they didn't like them. And the customers aren't even the bad parts. It's the incompetant employees. The old, stupid men who thing because you are a young girl you are an idiot, so they won't listen to what you say. I have perfected my method of suggestion into an art, so they always think the ideas are thier own. Then you have to cover for them, because thier incompetance pisses off customers, and if the customers are pissed off, it's YOU who have to bear the punishment. Fuck work.

But them there is always the money issue. It's always money. No one listens to you unless you have money. No one treats you like a human being unless you have money. Today my roomates wanted to go out to dinner with them. Oh that's a fine idea. Images of elementary school shot through my head - Sitting there watching the other kids eat and hating them because they took it for granted. Hating them because thier parents just handed them money in the morning, they didn't have to work and most of them didn't even have to ask. Sitting there, crying from hunger but really hunger was better than asking for money. When you asked for money from the teachers or the other kids they have you this look. This charity case look. Like I was a mooch. Or like I was no good and filthy because I didn't have people supporting me. Fucking money ruins everything. I've never even asked for money, and I try not to ask for anything else if I can help it. I hate that look too much.

In other other news...

I'm trying to think of the next thing to work on (until the inspiration for the transfer application hits me anyway). I read some old stuff and most of it was...blech with the exception of a few parts. Why? Most of it is just...filler. It's so useless. Cushion for those who can't take writing that actually does something. Of course, if I took out the filler, I'd end up with something like Whitman's song of myself and that in itself was intense but...difficult to read. Almost painful, like staring into the sun. I think I just need to work on making the filler have a purpose other than cushion between one point and the next. Give it a style, meaning, make it sing or something. Just not this drivel that's been pouring from my head.

Erg in other news.

I was going to try to avoid this but eh fuck it. all this dwelling seems to be wearing off so I might as well excrete the shit left in my mind. I don't even care about what happened earlier today, just that it made me think of this.

I officially realized that Orgasmic just Didn't Give A Shit about me anymore that day when I had to walk home from Bill's house at 2am. Alone. I had asked him to walk me home and he gave me those big blue eyes, those stupid pouting lips and that in that STUPID voice said "aww do I have to?" So of course since my saftey was not worth being way from the precious Bill for 5 minutes, I didn't push it.

I got halfway down Highland street before someone in a white, beat-up car started following me. I was too terrified to see who it was since I was scared that if I acknowledged thier presence, it would probably encourage them. I do know the mentality of gutter snipes, after all.

When I reached ghetto getty, I tried to walk quickly across the station to give myself a head start before they could follow me down Goulding. If they were actually going to follow me down a dark road with no people around, I was in a lot more shit than a couple of drunks slowing down to scare me on a main road. They veered off the road quick, over the sidewalk, and pulled the car in front of me, blocking Goulding. Ok yeah this is about when I went from scared to terrified.

I dodged to the left immediately but kept facing them, strafing so they wouldn't know where I was going to go next. I made a show of backing up a couple of steps as if I was going to run back down the way I came, and as soon as they started to back up to follow me, I ran past the back of the car and down Highland in the other direction. I started running and I couldn't breath. I was too scared to even look over my shoulder. Thank god it was a Saturday night (or was it a Friday?) So there were lots of drunk people standing outside in a well-lit parking lot a few houses down. I went into the crowd and watched the road to see if they would follow me and go down Highland looking for me. They didn't. The fuckers had pulled a little farther into Goulding. The dickheads knew that was where I was heading and were waiting for me to come back. I couldn't breathe because I had been running, my heart was pumping because I couldn't see them and I didn't know how far down Goulding they had gone, and I was trying to think of a way to get the hell out of there without being seen. How long would they wait there?

I think I waited in the parking lot of the bar for about 5-10 minutes, trying to get my lungs to work and my heart to slow down so I could think. I could go into the bar and call for help but who would help? My best friend was sitting 3 blocks away, not even willing to walk me home. So would he come rescue me? Fat Chance. I think that's right about the time I started to feel little pangs of hate. He didn't care if I got mugged. Or raped. Or fucking killed.

When I finally went home I RAN, illogically terrified that someone was in the entrance to my building but willing to chance it, I ran keeping a frantic eye out for white cars. My hands were shaking so badly it took me a minute (felt like an hour, but that is illogical) to get the key in and race up the stairs. I vaguely remember sobbing, or stalking around my room furious with Orgasmic for leaving me in this situation while I was struggling to get my lungs working again. I can't even remember. All I remember was realizing that Orgasmic was a filthy liar and he didn't care about me at all. He said he loved me and he said he'd always walk me home. He promised he'd always, always be my friend.

When he got home 15 minutes later (it's enough to make me SCREAM how annoying that is), he didn't ask me if I got home OK and I didn't even bother telling him what happened. Why bother? He doesn't give a shit.

It's sad really. I feel worse for him. I'm more vunerable on a dark street, I'm more lonely, but at least I'm not a piece of shit and I'm a good friend.