Namaste, Bitches

Josh hasn't called or texted me in about 48 hours. Either he's been arrested... or...

I keep getting this weird sensation that he's going to show up and make things truly awkward for me. It's had me scanning the casino every time I have to go out there. I keep hearing someone calling my name.

In other news, our Neon crapped out & we did something to our truck by taking it up a couple of miles of gravel road.

And it's definitely Spring. Which is a beautiful thing, because it's been a very long winter for me.

Our truck's driver-side door latch broke. It's been broken for a couple of weeks now. This truck was probably either a repo or it's been side-swiped, but it runs & we like it, so we've been trying to fix problems instead of buying a new vehicle. Anyway, Rob's folks go to a Ted Wiens auto center (on Rancho or Ann Road, I can't remember which, but if you're in NW Las Vegas, find a different service center...) & the mechanics over there have them pegged as rubes. Everytime they take their car or our car over there, something else is wrong with the car/truck aside from the problem we need to get fixed. The past couple of times we've taken the truck over there, the head mechanic (his name's Chris) tells Rob's folks that the tie rods are going to break any day & cause us to die in a fiery explosive roll-over wreck on the highway. (I've been trying for years to get them to find a different service center, but I'm a girl so I don't know shit about automobiles, even though I've helped various people over the years rebuild engines & change tires & change oil & worked on semi trucks & have had MOPAR vehicles in the past, whatever). Rob's been dealing w/these guys all morning & he's already pissed off at Ted Wiens' because they want to charge us over $600 to fix the door latch. They were also saying they would have to replace the entire handle... (These are the same bozos who deliberately broke a couple of lug nuts when we tried to have them align the front end of the truck - which didn't happen anyway because we've got different alloy rims on all the tires & to get four matching rims would have been like, $1000) Called the Ford dealership (which is a last resort) & they had the part in stock for $60. Went & got the door latch, Rob installed it. So he gets home & goes to bed. Around 6pm, his mom calls & wants him to go over to their house first thing in the morning so Rob's dad can look at the tie rods because she's been obsessing all day about us dying in a fiery explosive roll-over wreck when the tie rods suddenly break. So Rob throws his phone across the hallway & storms off to take the truck over to his folks tonight to prove to them the tie rods are fine. This is like the fifth or sixth time he's done this since we've had this truck. Rob's dad can hardly move right now - he had a nasty fall about two weeks ago - but he insists on trying to climb around under the truck while it's up on the jacks.

Sometimes I wonder how Rob's mom has survived all these years w/all her fears... she had a panic attack over our dishwasher when they had that GE recall over the rinse-aid dispenser. I don't even use Jet Dry or any of that crap because honestly, I've never seen it make a difference in how my dishes look after they've been through the dishwasher. So my dishes are spotty, bfd, but they're clean. She's been going apeshit ever since this whole contaminated Chinese dog-food episode, trying to find out which human foods contain imported Chinese ingredients that might possibly be contaminated (I just stay away from all the novelty Asian candies that Sheung-Yee tries to foist off on me... it's easier for me now because I can wave my hand at her & say "Diet!"). Last week the whole sodium benzoate thing came out & this morning it was Albertson's Moran ground beef full of e. coli.

The only thing I am afraid of is the closet monster. But the only thing the closet monster can do to me is scare me. Same goes for Pazuzu, who lives in the fireplace. The worst Pazuzu can do to me is make me hide under a blanket on the couch, petrified to go to my room, because the hallway's dark & there's a closet monster lurking in there. Okay, yes, I am afraid of mosquito-hawks. But they look like aliens & tried to molest me while we lived in Louisiana. I'm also afraid of vinagaroons, because the ones I've encountered have been bigger than my foot. I'm afraid of alien abduction, too. I'm not afraid of serial killers or becoming a victim of kidnapping & torture & rape & dismemberment because fat people are too hard to kidnap. If I lose weight, I will have to deal with the possiblity of that fear. But... if a serial killer kidnapped me, they might just find out I can play their games better than they can. I've done a lot of research... (and I get off on inflicting pain as much as I do receiving it). Aliens scare me more because they have teleporters & weight doesn't matter in that context. I have this dislike of seeing people getting their eyes poked at & their hands & feet crushed or maimed, but I'm not really afraid of it happening to me. I think it's leftovers from my own eye surgery & cutting my fingers off at various points of my childhood, & having my dad threaten to cut my toes off one time when I got frostbite. It makes me seriously not want to watch Hostel or Hostel II, though, even though that type of movie is usually at the top of my to-see list.

I'm not afraid of death. It makes no sense to me to be afraid of something that will happen to everyone eventually. Every living thing eventually ceases to exist. Why fear something that is obviously so natural? To my poor alligator brain, it makes more sense to be afraid of the boogeyman than of death.

I'm not afraid of change. I just don't like being inconvenienced and uncomfortable. Life is, generally, inconvenient and uncomfortable. Granted, there are degrees of inconvenience and discomfort, and for the most part my life is just inconvenient. I've been getting unwanted overtime at work. At 7am the only thing I want to do is go home - not stick around for another hour because my supervisor is too 'busy' to check my freaking report that has been sitting on his desk since 5am. If this shit keeps up, I'm bidding off the weekends. Alea likes OT, she can have it as far as I'm concerned.

I was right - the truck won't be done til Monday or Tuesday or even later. Which is why I went ahead & had Rob rent a car til Tuesday morning. It was bad enough being stuck in the house all week already.

But, Rob did manage to go to the post office today - and lo & behold, K. T. Tunstall was waiting there, patiently. Now I'm sitting here listening to her. She's got kind of a Norah Jonesy voice, bluesy, torch-singer sort of, but there's a raw power there that Norah Jones can't match. Her music sort of sounds like Train... So, she might be a 'female Pat Monahan'. I don't care, she's cool & wonderful and I'm quite content to just sit here & listen.

Rob went to the police station to ID our shit & help put the bad guys away for a little while. Kudos to Rob, who has been handling most of this crap far more capably than I would have expected him to. For a change, he's been very responsible and pro-active, and I'm very relieved that he's doing such a great job.

Transmission totally blown... $1100 to repair, + a coupla thousand dollars worth of antique guns that the in-laws were still holding on to for Rob. A lot of the material things Rob's been holding on to for years are gradually being stripped away & it's strange to know that he's letting go willingly. It was a good thing they didn't try to get us to get the truck looked at on Monday or it would have been a really long walk to the Henderson campus for my pre-algebra test. I need to get to the library here soon so I can work on my term paper for my computer class... 'Spam and the Freedom to Advertise'. Cripes. I was supposed to go this week, and I still might on Thursday - the bus runs up Charleston. We walked to the bank today to deposit my paycheck. It was windy and I'm sunburnt, but it made for a nice walk. Sunny, but the wind kept it from being miserably hot. Tonight we've been inside listening to it shake the porch & howl down the chimney. Doctor's appt. tomorrow - taking a cab because the Lake Mead bus stops at Rainbow & then at Rampart, with nothing near Tenaya - and then having to walk from Lake Mead to almost Smoke Ranch. My knees aren't made for it two days in a row.

Tried to explain to Jody about Turner's Syndrome - even without me knowing that I have it or not, she's like, "Oh, well me & Terry & all the girls need to get tested, too!" I started to try explaining to her that it's more of a birth defect & not typically a 'hereditary genetic disorder' (considering most people born w/it are sterile or nearly so, and most female fetuses with it are miscarried), and then just mentally gave up & said, "Yeah, that's a good idea". The best argument against Jody, Terry, Tina or Miranda having it is that they've all got kids. Jamie had to have a breast biopsy done & she's had two abnormal PAP smears. When she was a kid, she had benign colorectal polyps... I'm just hoping she's okay & it's nothing serious. At least she's got medical insurance thru Bally's.

Ah well. Same old, same old. Nothing new in my corner of the world except more worldly problems. Everyone has them, this is just where I choose to unwind.

Well, after 2 years of overheating & no a/c and various other problems, we finally got a new old car. I think it's actually the newest used car we've ever had - only 6 yrs. old. It's a 2000 Ford Explorer Sport. 6 cyl. engine, 4wd. And it's purple. $2700 and the dirty blue Olds for trade-in. Woohoo. Yet another big useless thing brought to us by the in-laws, much like the big-screen t.v. But I stayed out of it completely - I don't drive anyway, why should I care other than the gas cost? All it needs is new tires, so what the Hel, right?

I have been very busy these past coupla days, I woke up at 11am because I've been living the dayshift all week, and I'm exhausted & headachey. I most defintely do not want to go to work tonight but I have to. I hate my job so much, and all I've gotten is rejection notices from other places, or the places that would hire me pay too little. I'm fucking stuck, and I hate myself more every day for continuing to go in to work. I'm terrified that if I actually do stick out the degree thing that at the end of it I still won't be able to get new work. And I do mean terrified. It's getting pretty bad, to where I'm contemplating blowing my head off rather than go to work.

When it gets closer to payday, I'm going to start calling around to some different doctors & see if all that I'm experiencing as far as being tired & in pain all the time is all in my head or if there's something else going on... and then I'm going to go back to a shrink again and try to keep them focused on giving me new coping mechanisms for dealing with being in a dead-end job that I can't stand.

Rob spent most of today out w/his folks looking at trucks... I told him last night that I'd be more willing to move if we got a p/up truck or Ford Bronco/Jeep Cherokee/Chevy Blazer type vehicle, simply because we can tow a trailer behind it & it would probably come in handy in Washington. So out he went, into the heat & traffic w/his parents. They seem to have their heads set on a Jeep GRAND Cherokee at a used car dealer that's in the 5 - 6k range. We have $1500 to spend. I don't really want to end up owing them $4500 again. But I've also got a pretty good case of the fuckits. I honestly tried to care & found that I can't. Whatever we get, as long as it can tow something, is whatever we get. Fuck it.

Nothing will change unless I force it to. The hard part is mustering my energy to force change. I just don't have it inside me. I am a hollow drum. Keep beating me - at least I can do is make noise.

So, the second person I made cry this week was the father-in-law. Nice, huh? I think the worst part of this whole afternoon is the plain, simple fact that I don't feel any remorse about making him cry whatsoever.

I know it probably seems to my in-laws that I am ungrateful, ungracious and mean. But I'm tired of just resigning myself to accepting things they give us. I don't want a house full of knick-knacks & other crap, and I don't want to be financially obligated to them anymore. I'm so sick & tired of owing them money... so they've got it into their heads that since Alex totaled his car, they're going to buy us a car & give him the one we have now. And they were bound & determined that today we would have a new car... probably because they're tired of driving Alex & his girlfriend around everywhere they need to go... so anyway, we go to this rinky dink little car dealership on the ass-side of Polaris, & look at the cars. I didn't even want to be involved in the first place, but Rob insisted that I go along. I did my best to just stay in the fucking car, and keep out of the decision making, but Rob basically begged me to just look at the car, meaning he wanted to hide behind me & let me be the bully. And I told them all that "I don't care. My only two needs for a vehicle are that it be small & good on gas. It could be 57 different shades of primer grey for all I care." I didn't want to sit in the car, I didn't want to go for the test drive - to me, it's pointless. I'm not driving it, so why do I give a fuck if it's comfortable. The m.i.l. kept pointing out the nice interior & good paintjob & how classy the car looked, & I kept reminding her that it doesn't matter what a car looks like, what matters is how it runs & how much gas it guzzles up.

The f.i.l. so wanted me to be in love w/the car, to say, "Yes, buy the car." I just couldn't. I tried to be civil, I tried to be gentle, but I really couldn't honestly say, "Buy the car." I kept saying, "It doesn't matter to me. Ask Rob - he's the one who's going to drive it." The f.i.l. so wanted me to really want the car, but I honestly don't care. And so he got to the frustration point where he started crying. And of course, the m.i.l. comes over, glares at me & tries to get him to settle down.

And now the m.i.l. is completely pissed off at us because we wouldn't just go along, play nice & let them buy this car... Rob didn't want it - he didn't trust it, and considering how the exhaust system was wired & duct-taped together, I can understand why. I mean, sometimes the devil you know is easier to live w/than the devil you don't. We know what's wrong w/our Olds - needs brakes. Yes, it has a primer grey nose, and it creaks when making turns like a ship in high seas, but it's a decent, dependable, reliable car. Why trade it for a car we don't trust?

The in-laws remind me of spoiled children... They always expect people to just give in & give them what they want, & they throw temper tantrums when someone throws a monkey wrench into their plans. I wasn't going to offhandedly agree to a potential lemon, & they should have known that. And I'm not going to take their side against Rob, because I was basically the deciding factor in the decision... "If Janelle likes the car, we'll buy it no matter what Rob says." I would have been the deciding vote...

I get so tired of being part of Rob's family. Everything they do is some sort of passive-agressive power play. It's obnoxious. I told Rob that if he ever got Parkinson's & it made him emotionally unstable like that, I will shoot him & put him out of my misery.

I need to get a custom t-shirt made that I can wear whenever we're around them: DON'T POKE THE BEAR.

Woohoo! My amazingly talented soul-sister in San Francisco has finally graduated w/an MFA, majoring in English. Gone is her student-as-career days, now she must get something published & make lots of royalties so she can pay off those student loans. I got a copy of her Master's Thesis in Creative Writing, some of it old, some of it new, all in a 'Blue Spiral Notebook'. And, the choicest bit in the humongous package that arrived UPS yesterday, an actual letter!!! I just wish I couldv'e been there to see ye olde & terribly sexy Hula Rat in her cap n' gown.

They've finally given us a new schedule - I got the Hallowe'en-friendly Sun/Mon/Tues off. Next major challenge: Selecting & training a relief auditor so I can go on vacation before the BodyWorlds exhibit in L.A. closes.

I've got the house to myself for a few moments - the car again. We really need a different old car - the one we've got is becoming unreliable, noisy & is overheating again. Lurvly. Just lurvly.

This is basically a letter-to-the-editor I wrote earlier. Remember I was talking about impotent anger & frustration?

I'm writing this in regards to a matter involving the DMV. I received a notice saying that my car's registration is going to be cancelled because of "No response from your Insurance Company". This enigmatic line apparently means that the Nevada DMV didn't receive a computer update disk from my insurance company that tells the DMV that yes, indeed, I do have insurance. When I received the card, I called the number on it, which connected me to the DMV's Insurance Verification department. I was informed that I had until August 5th for my insurance company to provide the DMV with said disk or my registration would be cancelled. I asked if I could have my insurance agent fax proof of insurance to the DMV and was told it wouldn't do any good, nor would picking up same-day proof of insurance. It had to be information from the disk. I asked, "What if my insurance agency's disk doesn't arrive by the 5th? Can I go & get another insurance policy?" I was told that this also would do no good and my registration would still be cancelled. The agent offered me a ray of hope by telling me that once this information was received, the $250 reinstatement fee would be waived. However, this wouldn't help me in the meantime, if no matter what I did or did not do would result in my registration being cancelled. The DMV seems to be telling me that, no matter what, they are cancelling my registration and fining me $250 for no apparent reason. And I am so angry I can barely see straight enough to bang this letter out. I mainly wanted the public to be aware that the DMV is after money, and has come up with a fool-proof way to get it. All I can do is hope & pray that my insurance agency's disk will make it to the DMV on time and not get lost in the mail.
Is that fucked up or what?