well, i put another $217 into that fucking car today, but it should be good for the trip now. whee. that includes 4 tires, alignment on all 4 wheels, all that shit, and a tank of gas.

got a lot done today though, banking, car, doctor's appointment, stuff like that.

mom wants me to stay here through my birthday. i don't really know how i feel about that, it is my 21st after all, and none of my friends will be here, they'll have all gone back to school. bleh. i would really rather spend it with jared. :/

wish list

8 days until i'm on the road. things to do before then, namely on monday: call swedish auto dudes about tie-rod ends. call doctor about rescheduling appointment.

today i could sort my stuff into "take" and "don't take" piles, that would be useful. hmm.

my life is exciting.

car repair tally: $144 for new catalytic converter, $39.50 for inspection (IT PASSED! WOOHOO!), $2.44 for new wiper blades. still need new tie-rod ends. whatever the fuck tie-rod ends are. (they're a part of the steering system, right by the front wheels. fun stuff, yo.)

days until departure: t minus 9 days. woohoo!

check out my route. whee.

i painted yesterday, i should take a picture of it and upload it. i should also get that online gallery thing that i keep talking about up and running.

i took my car into midas to get the catalytic converter replaced. the dude told me they couldn't guarantee that it would pass inspections. but then, no one can, because it's a piece of shit. but it runs, and that's what matters, right. sigh.

life is boring.

fucking hell. moving ain't cheap.

*sits here and prays that her dad will pay for car repairs needed before the move*

My life is rated NC-17.
What is your life rated?

i feel like painting today. the problem is that my room is so full of absolute utter shit that i can't find a spot on the floor to sit and prop a canvas in front of me. so, before i can paint, i must clean. let me tell you, my motivation to clean is a lot lower than my motivation to paint.

in other news, i lost the ebay auction for what would have been an amazing christmas present for jared. :(. oh well... i bet i can find that rare vinyl again next week... or next MILLENIUM... sigh. funny story, i was telling my brother what i was bidding on, and my mom overhears, and she goes, "does jared even OWN a TURNTABLE?" as if him owning some sort of relic from another generation as a turntable would be unheard of. actually, mom, he has two.

i hate nothing more than calling someone i don't know on the phone. it just really, really bothers me. what if they don't want to talk to me? what if they're busy, or in the middle of a meal? i'm trying to convince myself it won't be that bad, and if i don't call people, i'm never going to get a car. siiiigh.

random thoughts: (i'm blogging a lot today)
i should come up with some sort of sketch that i can make be the background for my title bar.
i found jared's christmas present, if i can win the ebay auction. and i figured out what to give jamie. woohoo! i'm going to paint tomorrow, if i can clear enough room in my room to sit down at the canvas. stupid shit, all filling my room up. and i need to make some phone calls and go look at some cars tomorrow. christmas is coming up faster than you think, a week from today is christmas eve. weird, yo. not that i really care all that much about it, as it's a holiday for a religion that is not mine and embraced by consumerism which disgusts me. but somehow underneath all that i'd like to see that i can find some sort of faith in humans around this time of year. man, i'm sleepy. but you know, the sooner christmas comes, the sooner it'll go, and then it'll be new years, and then it'll be time for me to get my ass out of texas. yay.

despite all my rage, i am still just a rat in a cage.

so i went to the doctor this morning. 9:30 appointment, got there at 9:45 (i've learned not to show up on time), finally got called around 10:45, and was out by 11. I hate it - I wait for more than an hour, and I get five minutes of face time (IF that) with the physician. oh, and also the physician's assistant nurse bitch decided to lecture me on how to take my birth control pills. because "they're not effective for a full 30 days." right. i read the patient information flyer in the packet, and i know how my reproductive system works, and according to both of those, if you start taking them at the right time in your cycle they're "effective" immediately (or, well, they will be by the time you should ovulate, because you won't, and if you're not ovulating, you don't need them). Sometimes I feel smarter than her - then i realize that she didn't go to med school, and probably only has a 2-year degree, and that i AM smarter than her. dumb bitch.

but anyway, the point of the visit was that i hate effexor and havent taken it for 5 days, and i tell the doctor this and she flings trial packets of lexapro at me. no no, you don't get it, i dont want to be on a fucking ssri. oh well. i took one today, and i feel pretty good, the withdrawal symptoms from the effexor are gone. i think i'm gonna wait a week before i take it again, and if i don't think i need it, then fuck it. i'd rather not be on antidepressants anyway, and according to the internet, anorgasmia (the worst thing in the world btw) is just as common a side effect in lexapro as in effexor. wonderful. i really think the answer to my problems would be found in a bottle of adderall or some other stimulant - not to abuse mind you, but to get me out of bed in the morning and keep me there. preferably something that wouldn't make me psychotic as ephedra is prone to doing.

blah, i say. blaaaaaaaah. i want to get out of this fucking state ASAP.

home. it's exciting.

:: how jedi are you? ::

it's my last day here. in 24 hours i'll be on a plane back to texas. and gone from branner, forever. goodbye, stanford, i won't miss your stupid fucking classes and prickish people and insane workloads and social pressure.

It doesn't seem real that I have to be out of my room in 4 days. Not real at all. I have 4 more nights in this dorm - ever. And I still have so much to take care of - from establishing a forwarding address with the post office to filling out a termination of occupancy card to actually moving out. I wish it were a month from now though, because it is not the moving OUT of branner and AWAY from Stanford that is exciting to me, it's the moving to Seattle. I really can't wait. I think I'm going to set out the week before my birthday, maybe on tuesday or so, and hope to be to jared's house by thursday night. happy 21st birthday, Kat, you can legally drink now. how about spending the night at your boyfriend's parents' house, and meeting them for the first time? sound like fun? yeah, i thought so.

It's kind of bizarre but I think talking to Jared's mom on the phone the other day (for some reason she called me to see if i knew where her son was) eased my fears about meeting her. he says she likes me (it always baffles me how moms can like their son's girlfriends without ever having met them, but it's happened to me before - see entry under mikey's mom and the st. patrick's day socks) and i guess the fact that she called me makes it more likely that that's true. it's weird.

My goals for christmas break: buy a car and get off the effexor. i've been reading about withdrawal symptoms (to see if this weird head- nausea thingie i've been having might be because i've been skipping it - it's probably not, 'cause jared has the same thing, but anyway) and they sound pretty nasty. not looking forward to that. but i'm conflicted. If i stay on it, i won't have anyone to monitor me every few months and see how it's doing. plus, there's that whole annoying no orgasms thing. but if i go off of it, how do i know that i'll be able to function as a person? I've been doing pretty well on days that I haven't taken it - I think i've taken it three times in the last week and a half, and have only felt depressed on one of those days. I need to go to Cowell and pick up a refill on that - i've only got 2 pills left. But it kind of bothers me that the withdrawal symptoms are so pronounced for some people - i'm physically dependent on it, and that rubs me the wrong way. it's kind of like an addiction. and i'm taking such a drastic step in my life to try to beat the depression (since all the effexor has done is make me happy and depresssed, if you can imagine such a thing) and i think it just might work. it would be nice if i had something to fall back on though, access to a psychiatrist that doesnt charge an arm and a leg, so that if something goes wrong i have someone to help me out.

I think it'll be easier overall though being there - for that very reason. this quarter has been really tough on both Jared and I - we've both had our rough spots, times when you want absolutely nothing more in the world than to have someone hold you and tell you that they love you. and we haven't been allowed that simple luxury. and for that reason, i think I'm making the right move - no matter what I'm giving up here, I'm moving closer to those comforting arms, and if things get bad, I'll have him close by, and he can put his arms around me and tell me that he loves me.

wow, what a long and rambly blog.

i think that mellon collie and the infinite sadness may be my favorite musical composition of all time. sure, it's simple, and repetetive, but it's just so soothing, and so beautiful that i can never hear it without stopping to *listen*. it's a tough battle between mellon collie and a couple of debussy pieces, clair de lune probably being at the top, but i think mellon collie takes the cake. plus, it's the intro track to what is arguably the pumpkins' best recording, the album from which came most of their big hits. i mean, thirty-three, tonight, tonight, 1979, bullet with butterfly wings, zero, tales of a scorched earth, beautiful, we only come out at night, porcelina... god damn. what an amazing recording. billy corgan, i may be 8 years late in saying this, but i salute you. this is truly a genius recording.

man, i can't wait until i have a job and my income is not *just* negative. today i sold a lamp for $20 and a string of rope lights for $5, plus promised my futon to some people for $100, and someone is interested in buying my bike. i might be able to get 150 or maybe even 200 for it depending on the condition. so exciting. it'll be so cool when this "income" concept isn't so foreign and i'm getting paid every 2 weeks... maybe for 2 jobs... =D

well, i woke up feeling a lot better this morning (after one weird night of simultaneously sweating my ass off and freezing my ass off - which subsided after I took off my hoodie and 2 of the 3 blankets and turned my heater off... funny that) but it's still a pain in the ass to try to get out of bed. i don't have any energy and my legs still don't work quite right. it's so bizarre that the flu can affect your whole body like that. still got the cough and the sore throat and the chest pain going on, but i can deal with that now that my entire body doesn't hurt like a motherfucker and i don't have a 102.7 degree fever. And I have soup. And apple juice.

blahhhh, i have so much to take care of this week, and i don't have the energy. i'm thinking about putting off buying the car until i get home - that way i can have my parents help me out with it. buying a car is kind of scary and i've never done it before, so it might be easier to have someone along who can help out. it'll mean i'll have to drive all the way across the country, bleh, but i could handle that.

it's so weird. this is the week before finals. everyone is in panic mode and writing 20 page papers and studying biology and shit. i don't remember when the last time i did school work was. it's like i'm in a completely different universe from everyone else.

blah.

Oregon is a nice place, isn't it? Yes, it is. You
should live there. So should I. As of now
it's not crowded, but you never know. So
ummmm, ok...Oregon....yeah.


What State Is Perfect For You?
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only off by one, i guess that's close enough...

when mom tells you to get a flu shot, for god's sake, listen to her.