Fuck everything.

Many factors came together to upset me - problems with the comic, the kids, and just general stress.

I feel like I want to crawl into a hole and stay there for about a week.


I didn't ride my bike today. I didn't get any of the buttload of work I need to do done today.


I did watch a couple of movies - August Rush and Atonement. That was pretty much all I did today so far, other than be upset about things.


I am going to just rest for a couple of hours until it's time to pick up Aus, then maybe I will try to reply to some roleplaying posts tonight. Really, I think that's about all I can do right now without exploding.

Sorry. I just can't handle any more stress right now.

Why do these things keep happening to us? Every time we have a small molecule of hope, something comes along and snatches it away. We got a letter saying that Aus might be eligible for 13 weeks of unemployment, so we filled it out and sent it in.

Today we got a letter back from them saying that we were ineligible and needed to file in Missouri because Aus had wages from there. Aus has lived in NJ for EIGHT YEARS and worked here until last year when he lost his job and filed for (and received ) NJ unemployment. How does this make any sense?

Why is our life a series of one misfortune after another? There's absolutely no hope. No jobs, no money, we keep slipping further and further into debt - right now we owe my mother about five hundred dollars, and we keep having to borrow more.

There's barely a reason to keep on living at this point. We've tried everything and noting ever gets any better. No work, no money, no nothing.

Unfortunately I can't afford to buy a gun to shoot myself, so there's no way out that way either.

My son had a close encounter with death tonight. He was riding with friends down towards the shore to pick up someone's brother - and the driver lost control of the car. It slid, then flipped over, and skidded 150 feet on the roof before hitting a tree according to the police. It took us an hour to get to the hospital to pick up Steve - when we got there, he was shaking and they were running an EKG on him because his pressure was so high. His shoulder was all banged up, and he had cuts and bruises all over but other than that, he was pretty much okay. All the kids were a lot less injured then by rights they should have been considering how bad the crash was - it was like a bloody miracle. Steve's pants were covered in blood, and he was picking glass out of his hair and ears. We brought him and several friends home after, and they were discussing their close brush with mortality in the back seat.

Their descriptions of the crash scared the hell out of me even more. I'm really, really glad they were as uninjured as they were. Now my PTSD is kind of bothering me, thinking about crashes in general and my car accidents in specific, and how bad tonight could have been, and how shitty life is.

I need to sleep or something but I don't know if I can.

When are things going to be better? Why can't something good happen, like Aus getting a call from a job - he's applied everywhere it seems, and nothing. I worry that after seven months of school he's going to wind up working at Burger King or some shit like that. Doesn't anyone in South Jersey need a database administrator, or anything with computers, really? Goddamn.

Why can't we have a day when something unexpected and GOOD happens?

Fuck, just fuck you life that shit like this happens and there's never a good phone call, it's all just shit nights like this.

Can the stress just stop, please?

Tonight we were at the hospital again - this time Kenedy hospital in Washington Township with Steve in the emergency room. He was at a concert at the skating rink with his friends, when a boy that had a problem with him pushed him from behind. He was on skates at the time and not expecting it so he fell right on his forehead and got a big welt on his head and blacked out. They took him via ambulence to the hospital and called me up.

I called the police on the way to the hospital, and they were completely unconcerned. They told me I would have to go down to the Franklin Township police department and report it since the rink didn't call it in as an assault. They wouldn't send anyone out to the hospital, and I couldn't get the kids to cooperate anyhow. They know the name of the kid who did it, he's the boyfriend of some girl they know and he's visiting from Maryland. I wanted to press charges against the kid, or at least get the name and address of his parents to contact them about this and to send them the medical bills. The kids want to 'handle it on their own' which I don't want them to do, because I don't want them to get in any trouble.

The hospital was completely incompetent. I got there about half an hour after they brought him in - and he'd been handed an ice pack by a nurse and brought into a room far from any observation. And that was it for another two hours - during which I tried to track down the papers I was supposed to sign (I never did manage to find someone who could bring me them) for his registration. His head was swelling up worse while he was in there, and he was shaking and his eye were dilated. No one brought him a blanket, or checked up on his vitals. When I flagged down three passing nurses, I was told that there were 'many other patients'. On the way in, I walked past about ten empty rooms and only saw about three other patients in the whole ER. There were five nurses, none of whom did a damn thing, and two doctors. When it was clear they weren't coming in any time soon, I asked for another ice pack (they'd given him a lukewarm one to begin with he said, and by the time I got there it was already mostly melty). They said 'in a minute'. Which of course, I didn't believe.. and sure enough about twenty minutes later I had to go out and flag down the nurse and demand it. She acted like I was asking her to walk a mile and eventually produced one.

When the doctor finally came in (about three hours after he'd been taken in) she shined a light in his eyes, poked the sore spot, asked him a couple of questions, looked down his throat and in his ears then said "Oh, he should be fine. He didn't pass out while waiting to see me, so he's okay." No x-rays, no catscan, two minutes of prodding after waiting three hours. I was so pissed off. Then they had a nurse come in (about ten minutes later) with discharge papers and two tylenol.

Can life just stop kicking my ass now? Please?

I have three pills of Norvasc left (I take it for my blood pressure), but thanks to brokeness, I can't afford to get my prescription filled until Aus gets paid next Thursday. Which is seven days.

Do I....

a) take the three pills , then go without for four days

b) take one pill every other day to ration them out

c) beg my pharmacy to give me four pills until I can afford to get the full prescription filled?


I hate the holiday season. The poverty has already started. We won't be able to afford anything at all until at least January.

Also, I spent most of last night with a fever, and I'm still feverish today. And I should be writing stuff, but I'm just depressed and sick and poor.

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	6.1
Mind:	6
Body:	5.2
Spirit:	5.7
Friends/Family:	7.1
Love:	9.1
Finance:	4.3
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

I think my life sucks worse than this indicates, considering I'm waiting for a phone call to pick my son up from the police station. He was staying over a friend's house, and the friend's mother went to bed and the kid decided to show Steve his mother's bar downstairs. They got drunk, wandered around the neighborhood totally wasted, and into the house of a girl that the other boy likes who called the police.

I went down there to sign the paperwork and yell at him, then the cops told me I could go home and wait for them to process him the rest of the way. They're not sure whether they're going to bring the kids to juvie or let them go home.

Having teenagers is so miserable. How did my parents ever get through raising me and my brothers? Mehhh...

1. Still have hives.

2. Kids running around saying "I'm Bored!" already and the last day of school was just yesterday.

3. Still need to photocopy and mail stuff to the accountant for the ongoing IRS fight.

4. (related to 3) have had to empty the savings account and sell stock to live on because we don't have the refund money.

5. The big nebulous uncertainty that's going on with some web stuff that I'm not even allowed to mention at the moment (just suffice it to say it's stressful)

6. (related to 1) ....so sleepy. Hive medication making me sleepy.

So really, I'm not actually all that stressed despite all these stressful things mostly because I've been doing nothing but sleeping thanks to the benadryl. I think I'll take sleep over stress, I'm cool with that.

Anyone want to buy a used family? Cheap?

Life is very stressful right now.

My friend who has been MIA for the past two months showed up long enough to say basically that he's going away again.

The IRS took until May 22 to even sign for the certified mail I sent them with the information they requested for us to get the money they owe us. Then today they sent a letter saying we failed to prove our children exist, therefore we can't get our EIC (even though we sent them each of the about twenty things they requested), therefore our taxes had to be adjusted and we're actually in debt to the IRS for fifty bucks - plus 81 cents interest. I can't afford to pay them that money, and I really need the money they owe me for the families' glasses (five pairs of glasses add up!) and clothes and such.

How the hell can they go from "We owe you 5,000 dollars" to "You don't get anything- and you owe us money"? It's ridiculous! So my accountant has to call them and see what they did, or what they considered invalid, or what the hell else they want from me, and then we start the whole cycle again.

At this rate, I might get my money by the end of the year - if at all.

Steven's school is claiming he missed more days than he actually did, and therefore he has to go to summer school... for four whole hours. That's a little ridiculous, don't you think?

So today I figured I'd go out to the bookstore to relax... I'd gotten some giftcards as an early present for my birthday. The place that the person who gave me the cards told me the bookstore was at? Dead wrong. The only Barnes and Nobles in our area are in Depford and Marlton, turns out. So I drove around the Hamilton and Shore mall area for nothing.

I feel like I can't write anymore.

I hardly have time to between all the shit going on around here, and the kids running around and being irritating with the fighting and such.... and now they're going to have off for Easter Vacation. And when I do get a little bit of time to write, I'm so stressed it doesn't come out right anyhow. The last couple of things I've written haven't even been all that good.

And when I try to read a book, there's so much noise I just wind up reading the same thing over and over again with no comprehension. And if I try listening to music to drown out the noise, they get out of hand so that I do hear them, and then the problem is twice as bad.

It's very frustrating and upsetting.

In good news, I noticed that some of the things from the old folks house that we got stuff from were childrens drawings and poems from the 1940s that came from the Girard school in Philly. I looked up their website online and got in touch with them, and I'm going to send them a package with the drawings in it. They said that the kids would really like seeing the drawings. I think that'll be nice, that they'll go back from where they came from.

On the other hand, my family is still crazy and annoying. My mother is bitching about everything as usual, with that vague sense of insane entitlement like she's the queen of everything and how dare someone say otherwise. The girls are hormonal and shrieky, fighting with each other all over the place. Steve stayed home from school this morning because he just didn't feel like getting up. Why am I related to these people? Living with them is the biggest cause of stress in my life. They're not sane and rational, you can't talk to them like they've got sense. It's very irritating.

I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get done today, but really all I managed was taking pictures for some Ebay stuff because of everyone around here being so fucking lame and stupid. Thank god it's only three more years until the girls are 18- I don't know how how much more of this I can take.

I had one of those days where I said "You know, this will make a good story someday", which is generally a sign that I'm trying to rationalize why I shouldn't kill something. You know that saying how there's no such thing as a free lunch? I had a 'free lunch' that I wound up paying for all goddamn day. My mom invited me to go out to the Olive Garden, which sounded like fun and free lunch, so good!)

( And then... )

And that was my day.

Just when I thought my life's crappy downward spiral couldn't get any worse-

I got a letter from the motor vehicle people today - not about the whole 'hey, it's time to renew your license thing that it should have been- but wanting me to accept 180 days of 'additional suspension' for having an accident while 'suspended'. Apparently, because of the ticket-that-won't die (you may remember this- it's the one I've paid TWICE- the one I got for 'failure to come to a complete stop' in 19-fucking-94 ), their computer system also thinks that I should be suspended... which means that having the accident (not my fault, says the police report that they received and says simple basic logic- but do they care?) means that I was 'driving while suspended' which means that in addition to them wanting me to pay for the ticket for a third time and the restoration fees for a second time, they want me to pay a second restoration fee of 100 dollars.

Which is, have I mentioned, about 100 dollars more than I even have to my name right now. We have a lawyer's appointment on the 14th, so I'm bringing this ridiculous fucking letter and the ticket receipt (I hope I can still find it- it's been about four years since the SECOND time I paid it)- with me. I'll be driving there (much like I'm driving to my doctors appointments today and tomorrow) on my suspended fucking license.

involved disfunctional family stuff as usual.

My dad called my mother and I bitches for not having the turkey done when he wanted to eat it, which made my brother Ron (who is like the most gentle person on the face of the earth usually) yell at him, and my brother Joe (who had been taking a nap) leave. Sort of the "sucky relative causes holiday problem" chain reaction. Those of you from dysfunctional families who recognize this holiday pattern, raise your hand.

And damnit, Joe even got me a decent present this year. I was pretty happy with his existance- we've worked out a lot of the problems we used to have with each other when he was rich married and unhappy and I was poor and happy and he resented it.

Heh.. so it goes.

We did, however, have a lot of good food. Which is the point of most holidays, I think. Good food and presents.

After Joe left, Ron went outside to smoke a cigarette and I went out to talk to him about why Dad was such an asshole and why Joe left. Ron meantioned that despite dad having mental issues and such, that we didn't know how many Christmases we'd have left with dad. I kind of felt the same way, but I still got upset that he called my mother a bitch. I can understand why he doesn't like me, but my mom is always there for him, despite how nasty he's been at times.

Today he seemed a lot better. He doesn't really like Christmas for some reason, I don't know why. He's always been more mentally unstable around the holidays.

Presents I got are a more cheerful subject:

Mystery machine candy holder/bank from Aus
Scooby Doo Dvd
Lime Green N64
A grand total of 140 bucks cash (some of which was shared Aus cash, hehe- thanks to Kara, Krista, Aus's Grandma)
A slinky
Puzzle book
Sewing kit
Angel statue
Pin
Snowman candle thingus
50 buck gift certificate to Wal-Mart (shared with Aus =) )
A peach warm blankey
A Weird NJ magazine
Cordial Cherries
Assortated chocolates
A humidifier
A book
A LoTR goblet
A sulsa dagger

I think that's everything.

Today, we got some after Christmas sale stuffs, a second controler for the N64, and Pokemon Stadium .

He called from work today to ask me if I had our boxes ready to ship.

I said no, we're taking them up on Saturday.

He asked how we were going to get them up there, since he was going to be gone this weekend. Asshole.

Now... .this is the same person who has been whining about how sick he was all week, and laying around in bed, and yelling at us every time were were even a little bit loud because he needed "rest".

I asked him how the fuck Aus was supposed to get home from work tonight, and why he couldn't meantion this lovely fucking trip last night, when Bobbi and Stacey were over, so that he could have asked them for rides this weekend.

He claimed he didn't know Aus had to work today (Even though we told him like.. five times that Aus was only having Wed. off because he had to take Saturday off to go to the stupid fucking wedding), and said to call Bobbi on her cell phone.

I didn't have Bobbi's cell phone number and asked him if he could call Bobbi, and he just said "No, its not my problem, you call her". He is -such- an asshole.

I am so glad we got our tickets taken care of last night, though gods only know if we can actually count on him for a ride to the airport. You think he'd give a damn about how his own son is supposed to get home from work. I really hate him.

Tim and April returned home just long enough to ruin my good mood by running around and talking about stupid things. Among the highlights was Tim saying "I'm going to shut the water off in about two weeks and work on the plumbing" . Think I want to live in a house with no water? Fuck no.

Then he was saying that he was going to have to call the phone company and the cable company and get the phones and cable shut off, too. Another freaking joyful occasion. The asshole knows we're going to move soon, he can't wait until we're gone to do this stupid bullshit?

I really hate most human beings.

You know.. I really don't like April. At all. And I've tried to. But its like trying to convince yourself that tofu is real meat... sure you can pretend for a while, but when it gets right down to it, its fried crap covered in some kind of coating so it can pretend to be something its not.

I used to like Tim. He played in our weekly Sulsa game with us, and took us reliably to the places we needed to go. We went to pizza buffet and movies and such with him sometimes- he was a pretty cool father in law, most of the time, and was really nice to his only son, Aus. Ever since meeting April, he's turned into a person that can only be described as Evil Tim. Evil Tim doesn't want to do things with us- he sees us as an inconvenient infestation in his home that has to leave before his new, better family can be with him. Evil Tim is never reliable, frequently breaks or changes his word, lies to friends, family members and his work to get what he wants- which is invariably something involving April. Evil Tim is also demanding, will frequently yell or threaten others for no apparent reason (expect of course those related to April), and is generally unpleasant to be around about 90% of the time. He treats his own son like he's worthless because he's not one of April's children, and won't do anything for us unless it fits into his April obsession schedule, and doesn't inconvenience him one little bit.

At this point, I don't even know if Tim will keep in touch with Aus after the move, or if he will just conveniently forget all about us, because we don't fit into his new life. I'm not really sure I even care if we don't keep in touch with him, really, because he's no longer anything like the person he used to be.

Aus and I wanted to eat a bit of candy together, maybe share one of the eggs we colored before he had to go to work. This is just another moment of our lives that they profaned by their selfishness and cruelty. I'm really getting tired of this, thank gods we move soon- I'm pretty ready to get our plane tickets regardless of whether he gets the transfer. Christian (April's daughter) gets out of school in May, so they'll probably be really anxious to move down here and be together (like a fungus on a foot). Blech.

Well, the little bitch has finally done something to impress me. I hope she's proud. She's managed to sink to lower levels than even I thought her capable of.

Worse part is that now we have to change all our passwords for almost everything, and restructure our matterials to take stuff off the domain that she was paying for. This is our repayment, for years of kindness, for making her the maid of honor at our wedding, for spending the summers with her every year.

This is why one should never trust another human being , friends, because when you do, its only a matter of time before they rip their claws into your back and tear your heart out, smiling all the time.