Heather

Today I made a chocolate raspberry cake from my vegan cookbook, except it wasn't actually vegan because Megan threw out the rice milk so I had to use regular milk.. unless I had wanted to drive to the store and spend more money. I don't have much money right now because I'm trying to save, I took a bunch of hours off, and on top of that my boss forgot to give me about four hours last week. Admittedly, I messed up with the cards, but still.

Also, this morning I weighed in and had almost reached the halfway mark for my weight loss. This is probably a lot of water loss because of that wonderful time of month for me beginning to end, but I am still excited about it.

Something that's interesting about being on a more regular diet is that I focus a lot more on my body. I notice things. For instance, my memory is very bad. I don't know whether this is because my brain is faulty or if it's just because I remember different things than other people. I hope for it to be the latter - that maybe I just don't care enough to remember what I ate for breakfast or what I did over the weekend. I mean, I can usually still remember these things, but it takes too much time.. People will ask what I did on Friday and I go, "Uhhh.. I don't remember.... I think I stayed ho- OH, no, I went and saw a movie." It's ridiculous. I mean, I remember things, but most of them are vague things... I'll remember an intuition I felt, or a feeling I had, or the tenor that someone said something to me, or the meaning of a person's action... But I won't remember the specific instances.

Tomorrow is the day before my huge practical exam in Human Anatomy. I absolutely need to get an A on this. I have to get close to 100% on the rest of my scores if I want to even have a chance of getting an A in the class... and hell, I might have already even lost my chance of an A. Still, I have to try. I neeed neeeed neeed to get into Nursing school. I want to step out of school and make good money easily, to have a career where I succeed and things make sense and have purpose.

Also, now that my hormones have subsided, I am enjoying a sunny, clear mind. Seriously, two days ago I thought I was the ugliest person in the world and that I would be completely alone forever, until the day I died. What's odd is all through these terrible thoughts, I am thinking in the back of my mind "this is just the hormones, with no valid logic" and yet my mind won't even let me believe that, because my body just wants to pity itself. It's a really disgusting state. Guys are extremely lucky not to have to go through that.

In other news, I have developed a suspicious freckle on my hand. It could be cancer. Seriously, who gets freckles in a couple of weeks during the winter in Humboldt county? People with skin cancer, that's who. With things like this, my foggy mind, my sluggish body, I'm starting to believe all the hype up here about eating only organic food and stuff.

I am happy today. Work was lame because it took forever, but no matter how shitty of a day I have it always makes me feel better just to leave work. Which is kind of sad. I mean, I just don't like being a lifeguard - I like being a cashier. It's incredibly draining to stare at a pool for more than two hours straight... especially when you know you absolutely have to see everything. I mean everything. And most of the people who wear bikinis really just shouldn't. Especially kids... I mean, seriously, what kind of child has the time or mind to correct the bathing suit that won't stay on their body? I just feel bad for them. Put that damn kid in a one-piece so she can jump off the diving board and not lose her clothes.

Anyways, life is good. I'm finally thinking about what I eat and so far I've actually lost weight. Clothes feel looser. I've gone in one belt hole. My bras actually work now. It's surprising to see success from such a small change. I mean, I still mess up, but for the most part it's not that hard to keep myself from eating the ridiculous amount of terrible food I used to - huge bags of Hot Cheetos, bagels with Nutella, endless Oreos and other things... It's funny, because all my "diet" really is is just keeping myself eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Granted, sometimes dinner is three Reeses pieces and a hot chocolate, but at least now I know that if I want to waste 500 calories on sugar, I can, but that means I'm going to feel like shit later and wish I'd eaten something with substance instead.

Now I eagerly anticipate the day I will reach my goal, so that when I'm really old and fat again I'll actually be able to say, "I wish I was as fit now as I was in my 20s."

I am becoming a cashier at work. I finally got a bicycle. It was forty five dollars and the gears are clicky and the brakes take a while and I don't have a helmet or a light but I ride it anyways. My legs aren't very strong at all, I've come to learn. I feel better riding a bike than I do walking or driving, though. I feel like my dad.

I love my dog. He is sweet and just wants to make me happy though sometimes he makes himself happy too, like when he chases seagulls or eats dead things on the beach and then feels really guilty when I say that's disgusting. Sometimes he barks when I ride away on my bike because he wants to come. It makes me feel good that somebody cares like that, even if it's just my dog.

I am okay with school right now. At least, you will hear me say that while the work load is light.

I am at terms with who I am and the things I will never be. I will never be the person people think of first when they think the words nice, fun, cool, etc. But maybe I will be third or fourth for a couple of people, and that might be enough for me. I will never know absolutely everything about the world and myself, and I know (today) that just because I can't define something, that doesn't make it any less important.

My fishtanks are awesome and I feel like an aquarium genius. Enough said on that front.

I wish I could trust myself to have a brain like this any other day. Most days my thoughts are usually so self-hating that I can hardly do the things I have to and it makes everything else really suck. Today I can drop my toast butter-side down and not want to break out into tears because I can see that it's just a piece of toast and I have dropped worse things. But tomorrow I may not be so optimistic.

Anyways, maybe one day I'll own huge, beautiful property and I can have horses and not have to think about any other stupid shit. 

I saw 500 Days of Summer. Fuck the ending of that movie. Like you have to end up in a relationship to have a happily ever after ending.

Life sucks today. I can't see the good things today because the bad things are so huge. I'm not passionate about anything right now aside from getting to see horses once a week. Work used to be really good but now I'm done with it. I want the huge friend group that I abandoned back in high school. I'm tired of having one or two friends and then when both of them let me down, I'm all alone again. I'm tired of thinking about boys and relationships when it's just too much for my immature psyche to handle. My dog is one of the biggest positive influences in my life, and even he decides a squirrel or another dog is more interesting sometimes and just ditches me. But he's a dog, so at least I don't take it personally.

I don't feel like I have a home place anymore. It only took one year and already Humboldt is full of my mistakes and regret. I love it here, but I can't take being so quiet and hopeless alongside a fighting, thriving, playful generation as my peers are here. I come back to my house and can only sigh deeply. I am happiest when I'm driving, or on the beach by myself with my dog, or laying in a field with my dog, or sleeping. I had a dream that I was flying again last night, but then again I was in a much better mindset before I went to bed last night.

I want to go somewhere else. I want to go somewhere with snow, so I can embrace one of my few passions in life. I want to be free of the limits I already have here about who I am, what I do, who I talk to. I want to meet someone who says, "I agree - love is bullshit." I want to stop fearing the fact that in the end, it will always be only me. I will live and die, and the only constant in my life will be myself. There is nothing in the world that will be more stable than I will to myself, and so I need to be on this ship 100%. There's nothing else to catch me if I fall off, no matter what shitty promises people make.

Anyways, whatever.

I'm so tired of my friends needing me constantly, and then when they get their significant others back, they just don't need me anymore so I never hear from them. I'm sure it's great to have a person like that, but really? Do I mean nothing? Am I the kind of person you can only hang out with when you're really that desperate?

Anyways, it's not like I'm surprised or anything. I just wish I didn't have to go through the same let down time after time. I don't need a person's company every second of every day, but I know when I'm being ignored and forgotten. And it sucks.

School started again today. I'm taking a human development class that I'm super excited about. I have yet to go to my human anatomy class yet... It will definitely be a true test of my guts. I'm also taking another sociology class, which promises to be as vague and common sensical as my last one, but that's okay. My history class I'm staying optimistic about. I think any history class will be great in comparison to APUSH in high school. I'm also being optimistic about my three hour political science class. Hopefully it's not filled with a bunch of wanna-be politicians with big mouths, but you know.. win some, lose most.

In three days.

My life is okay. Tomorrow I have my longest work day of the week. It's okay though, because my mind is where I go when I work, and no amount of madness can truly touch me there.

I visited Novato and it was hot as hell. Zeke got beat up by Ali's dog but I had a good time anyways. I went to the city with my mom and Andre and not only did they ditch me for four hours so I could walk alone in the city with my dog who was too scared of everything to even function, but I couldn't even find the car afterwards and my mom kept hanging up on me because she was too busy to tell me where to go. I was very mad, but then I got over it. I wish they realized what a really great person I am for not ruining their day just because they ruined mine. Story of my life, though. I'll be the person who dies to save someone who doesn't even realize it.

Work is weird because people are nice and I don't know if that's because they're being paid to work with me or because they genuinely like me. Well, I do know, but I wish it was the other way around. If anyone actually wanted to hang out with me they would ask. Except the people I actually am interested in as friends would rather go do their own thing than go to coffee with the girl from work who looks a little too chubby to save anyone's life. But that's how things work for me. I wish people would realize that just because I say let's go outside doesn't mean I don't want to go inside and play video games all day or something "lame" like that.

I feel like I'd be the perfect girlfriend because of that. Yeah, I want to play video games, and I want to beat you at them. I want to cuddle but not really that much. I don't want to hear gross stuff like love poems and I'd rather we just cut all the rest of that dramatic stuff out like talking about how much we love each other or whatever. One semi-sweet note every few days would make me feel like a freaking rockstar.

However, there is the problem of my face as well as my lack of actual charm, so I don't think even those earlier listed good attributes do that much for me. Also, a lot more girls than me are like that. I tell myself it's so amazing how cool I am because otherwise I might hate myself out of existance, but I know better. I'm not dumb. There are plenty of girls out there with those qualities as well as being fucking hot and really charming on top of that. And they'll date all of the men at once.

Also, I actually don't like boys. Or men or girls or women or anything in-between. People in general are kind of odd. I'd prefer if they all just stayed an arm's length away from me at all times - mentally and physically. I'm just glad I'm the kind of person who can be totally estastic from the fact alone that I'm installing a DIY c02 system on my fishtank (!!!!!!!!!!!). Because if I was the kind of person that was always really desperate to have friends and a boyfriend all the time, I think my life would suck about a million times more, because that would be pretty much impossible for me to actually accomplish. Put simply: if I'm going to be alone, at least I enjoy doing it.

Anyways, just what I'm thinking about right now.

I wish I would write more. I never really like writing about my life, because I feel self-absorbed when I do, but I always love being able to look back and read older stuff, and see what I was thinking.

Work today was okay. Only one guy who works there really bothers me at all, and it's not like he's even that bad of a person, he's just not the kind of person I'd pick to have a conversation with. Actually, I think my resentment towards him is mostly because he came up and corrected me once when I let a parent break the rules at the pool, aaand I'm still kind of sour about that. At least we can all be honest here.

The house we got is a modest one. Wendy and Megan and I were mostly seduced by it because of its great location. I'm going to make a list now.

1.) Short walk to HSU. Yes, walk, not bus ride!

2.) Possibly only a short bike ride to work. This is still only possible because I still do not own a bike. I have a laptop, car, and a house, but not a bike. That's so Marin...

3.) It's in Arcata. Period.

4.) Something I only appreciated after living here - extremely short walk to two different parks. One with tennis courts enclosed by an actual fence! Which is good because my dog off leash = my dog gone.

Speaking of. My dog is adorable. There's pictures of him on my facebook. He's a border collie/german shepherd mix with floppy ears and only wants to be pet in life. At the shelter, his name was Cowboy (puke) and he was so adorable and sweet. Even with all the other dogs barking their heads off and about losing it in that place, he just looked at us sweetly and wanted to be pet. I heard about another lady looking to adopt him and so I raced to get him first. I won. And I renamed him Ezekiel - though we mostly call him Zeke. Katie tried for a little while to convince me to name him Carlos...

Anyways, he's a very good dog. Sensitive, and he's very good when he wants to please you... which is most of the time. He likes to get his good running around and exploring on walks every day, which I actually enjoy. It gives me a good reason to get outside everyday. I actually need to get out and do that now.

My last final is in an hour. It's Biology, so I'm not worried about it.

Tomorrow I do my first shadow for lifeguarding.

Saturday I'm moving out of the dorms and will be pretty much homeless for a little while, waiting until June 5th when we can move into our next house.

Sunday I work my first shift.

I'm a little nervous. Real life is really happening now and it scares and amazes me.

But when we get our house, I'm going to get a dog! Yay!

So Megan, Wendy and I go to look inside some houses we want to rent on Friday. I am both terrified and excited to be living on my own. Mostly excited, though. The only thing that scares me is the money factor, because my parents have been crowing about how there's no money and I should just come back to Novato over the summer! Which I would not do. Winter break was terrible. It crushed the amazing motivation I had built up to go on runs every day and made this semester a much physically harder one as I fell out of shape again and lost all my progress.

Going back over the summer would destroy me. I need a job, and I won't get one in Novato. I will sit around in my PJs all day and feel absolutely disgusting and play the sims nonstop, because I just get angsty when I'm there. I don't know why. I don't like it at all.

I'm making a life for myself up here. I love being here. I mean, I do miss Novato occasionally, and I want to visit, but that's the keyword. Visit. If I go and live there, my mental state will atrophy into depressed mush.

Anyways, there's a certain little house that, though it's in Eureka, is really ideal. We drove up to visit it and as soon as I saw it I knew it was my soulmate house. It's absolutely beautiful. The backyard is green and amazing. The house itself is a blue-grey color, and the interior is just gorgeous (at least what I've peaked from pictures and looking in the windows). I mean, I love it. Plus they'll let me have a dog, and it has a washer and dryer. I'm just hoping hoping hoping it's around long enough for us to snatch it up. It's walking distance to bus stops, close to a park, close to food... I just love it. The one thing is that it is in Eureka, which isn't Arcata, but it's really worth it in my opinion.

Whenever I do get a place, there will be pictures to show! I'm so excited.