So I'm sitting here, unemployed and directionless, and I've discovered something about myself--I've always been this way.  Indecisive, that is.  I don't know whether it's this urge to do everything, or a fear of picking something, but I have such a hard time picking a track and sticking to it.  

I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up any more when I was a kid than I do now.

So right now, my current goal is to finish something that I've already started.  It might be something small, like that book I put down, or something bigger, like an unfinished story I was writing.  Or maybe I'll finish cleaning the garage so my dad can put his car back in there.  Whatever it is, it's gonna get done, and when I'm done, I'll move on to the next unfinished thing, if only to prove I can.  

Because not knowing what I want to do with my life doesn't mean I have to do nothing.

Cover letters are the best and worst part of the resume process.  They give more personality to your resume, giving you a leg up if you do well--or a leg down if you don't.  My problem is always trying to figure out how not to sound needy/pompus/pushy/dumb as bricks, not to mention the problem of sounding completely generic.  Here's a conversation that pretty much sums up my opinion of the cover letter:


 Jadesfire chan (4:00:14 AM): ugh, I need another word for "Experience"

So I was in Iran because my parents wanted to join the protest, though for some reason Iran was a British colony yet the protests were over the election that just happened.  Then it turned out the protest was a game of dodgeball.  

After I got out for failing to make a catch, I wondered off trying to find the car--I'm not sure if it was a rental or if we actually DROVE to Iran--and struggling to keep a scarf on my head and tying this long skirt thing over my regluar clothes.  I got lost, the street signs were in Farsi, and then I passed two nuns who made fun of me by talking about me like I A) wasn't there and B) was a boy.  

Then this skater boy type guy shows up, and aparently we'd met before and he started telling me how I was taking bad care of my rat.

WTF am I supposed to make of all this?

 I got my money back! props to Sony customer service and my bank--yes you got me into this, but you got me out pretty quickly and politely.  I shall now reorder the reader I wanted over the damn phone because I'm not doing that website again.

So graduation went off without a highschoolesque hitch, that's a HUGE load off my mind I can't even tell you.  I was very worried I'd fuck up the ceremony like in HS, and it was freaking me out.  Sort of a "if you fuck up somthing this easy, you might as well give up on life" kind of freak out, but everything went smooth so it was nice to know I hadn't ruined the rest of my life and all that.  Now I can save the drama for my llama.  (you heard me)

 Family came and went with everyone behaving their usual, dad and I are suitably exhausted.  Rita treated for brunch at Fox and Goose on Father's Day  (Lis has totally turned me on to scones and lemon curd), and also for father's day I tried to buy daddy a Sony ebook reader...and that's where things get interesting.

Some kind of problem happened with the website.  Maybe it doesn't support Google Chrome (in that case, post a warning!) or maybe it was a problem with the site itself, but I kept getting an error message every time I tried to place the order, so I tried again FOUR TIMES and each time it said it was a no-go...but tell that to my bank account.  TWELVE HUNDRED DOLLARS LATER I am on the phone with customer service at five in the morning and I can't use my checking account until this is straightened out and I get my money back.  I'm assured the money will be returned by both bank and Sony (which aside from shuffling me around to tens of departments were very polite) but I do need to keep an eye on that.  THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME FOR NOT GOING FOR THE KINDLE? BAD SONY! BAAAD!

Meanwhile in rat land, Simon has decided he's had enough of antibiotics and warm compresses and has started squirming up a storm every time I try to help him.  What's more, he's on a second antibiotic and I still found a new abcess in a completely different spot.  WTF.  Seriously. Scientists should check out this rat for superbacteria or something.

Cleaning out the storage pod I found yet another sketchbook from 10+ years ago, this about the time I discovered science fiction and Star Wars.  Fanart insued, and I'll tell you something, at least two of the orrigional characters I invented back then are still being tossed around in stories, though they've evolved quite a bit from their first conception.  It's weird to look at a sketchbook full of old OCs and realize I used to know these people's names and their backstories and I had plans for them, and now I've forgotten who they were like so many old classmates fallen prey to my short term memory.  Remind me to post some then and now scans of the characters I still use.  OOH! I also found a pokemon fanart I did in MS Paint, wherein I kinda sorta predict what the grass-type form of Eevee looks like before it was actually created.

In closing, I have a complaint for The Buzz, the so-called "90's station" that has replaced my beloved KWOD.  I've barely heard any boy bands, Spice Girls, and I haven't heard the Macarena even once.  THEY HAPPENED.  STOP LIVING IN DENIAL.  AND ALSO STOP PLAYING THAT "SUMMER GIRLS" SONG. 

 everything's so up in the air right now.  I know I've gotta get out of Sacramento for my sanity's sake, but I dont know what next.  I could probably move to the Bay, but there are other places I could try too, and then what?  I still need to find a job, or graduate scchool, something...I don't know, something...

So I'm thinking about joining a gym (That sound you hear? it's former roomie laughing at me all the way from Oakland.)

I've never been particularly enthusiastic about exercise or most sports.  I was an active kid, but as I grew older, being active grew increasingly more and more embarassing.  Still, I am not so sloth that I don't miss walking around Santa Cruz.  I avoided the bus when I could, often speedwalking across campus, up and down hills for 20 mins to reach my next class in time.  

And now I'm in Sacramento, which is not so pedestrian friendly, and don't really have anywhere to walk to except the store or the park, and what's more it's so....flat.  We don't really have terrain here.  So while I'm not jonsing to kill myself on a stairclimber, I do want to be more active and a gym is a good place for that.  Plus, what with my terrible sleeping schedule, if I joined 24 hour fitness I'd actually have something to do at 1 in the morning.  

So after the whole grad ceremony shebang is over, I'm gonna get a trial membership and see how I like it.  Because seriously, I have been playing nintendo for four days straight and my fingers are in PAIN.  

Things that would be good about the gym if I can actually manage to make myself go:

1. It would make me healthier
2. Endorphins, doctor recomended for my anxiety  
3. Gets me out of the damn house
4. Sofy and Anthony go to the gym so I'd have gym buddies
5. Steam room! I have always wanted to try one of these
6. Something to do when I get bored in the middle of the night
7. Dance classes and yoga, to force socialization down my throat
8. Something to do when I get bored in the middle of the day

 Okay at the end of this washload I will have collected every sock I could find in the house.

NOW!  Now we shall see how many have escaped, and how many will be reunited from their long lost mates.

I also realized that I have a fuckton of underwear, a lot of which needs to go.

 so tonight I happened to notice that my retainer is fucking gross.  Retainers do that, they get gross, what with being all moist and mouth ajacent and all, however when you use one you get into a rythm with it and after a certain point stop looking at the darn thing so it was kind of a revelation.  Hey! I should clean this thing!

So it's soaking in peroxide and I'm wondering how to tell if have a mouth infection

 I don't know what it is about the month of May, only that it's a shit trap in my family.

Let's just forget that the month has mother's day, my mother's birthday, and the aniversery of my mother's (and fraternal grandmother's) death and focus on what's happened this year, or this past week.

After dealing with conehead Simon, Charlie the other rat came down hard with a respitory infection.  I spent the weekend driving him to Fair Oaks and Elk Grove (because nobody in Sac can see a rat on the weekend) for emergency service.  He didn't take to the antibiotics, so when it was clear he wouldn't make it I had to put him down.  

Two days later I had to put down Magic, my sick cat, who probably should have gone long before then but I just couldn't make myself call the pet van.  I don't know how long he would have lived with me taking care of him, but probably not much longer.  Right after we buried him in the back yard, I went to bed and when I woke up my hypochondria was in full force, my panic attacks--pretty much gone four years now--returned and havent gone away and really what the hell?

Most people when they get upset, get CONSCIOUSLY upset.  They cry, they scream, they deal and eventually they move on.  Me? It skips normal and hops right to the back of my brain, that part I can't controll.  Instead of crying because my pet died, instead of being wholly sad, my lymph nodes swell to the size of painful tennis balls and I get insomnia.  Consciously I know I'm sad, but it doesn't connect to whatever part of me is supposed to feel emotions properly.  When I get somewhat upset I laugh too much.  When I get very upset it turns right into a physical symtom that my overactive imagination names cancer.  So I know that I'm sad, but do I feel sad? No.  Honestly no.  I'm too busy trying to talk myself out of mistaking bones for tumors.

 And it doesn't work, you know.  In theory if I acknowledge the subconscious problems they become conscious and I can deal with them.  That doesn't work.  I know what happened, I know why I'm frazzled.  Even when I was in therapy the guy said I was one of the most self aware people he'd met, but all the knowing in the world doesn't make the swelling in my throat go down or keep me from feeling trapped when I get in my car.  And I love my car.

 Simon needs a cone so he wont chew on his stiches.  It was adorable and hilarious for like five minutes, but now it's kinda depressing since he can't walk with the thing and its hard for him to eat since he cant reach his paws ot his face and rats like to hold their food.  

I'm supposed to go back in like 10 days to get the stitches removed, but all the rat websites say that he should be fine in a few days.  I don't think this vet has much experience with rats, but she did her best and the abcess is drained nicely.  I'm gonna take him in late tomarrow to see if it's healed enough to take off the cone.

Sick cat updaite-  Okay so Magic, one of my two male 11 year old cats with a girl's name, has most likey got cancer.  Test after test, we actually havent FOUND the cancer, but given his symptoms it's pretty clearly in there somewhere.  If it's not cancer, then it's some crazy rare cat disease that you'd need tons of money and Dr House to find.  We're not going to look for it anymore, it from the looks of him it's progressed too far to treat if we knew where it was, and looking more and treating it would cost even more that I can do on my own and my dad's thrown in the towell with it.  It bugs me a bit that I don't know specifically what's wrong with him, but I can't blame dad for not wanting to put more money in something that probably won't help him.  Whatever it is either is in the nervous system or has spread to it, because he can't sit up very fast once he's been lying down for a while.  He tries but he flops over and needs a minute to regroup before he can walk.  You don't realize how disturbing it is for a cat NOT to land on its feet until you see one unable to try, poor baby.  

So instead I'm giving Magic an IV once a day ( I didn't think I'd be able to needle him, but turns out I can do it without getting sick) so he doesn't get dehydrated, I syringe him some food cause he won't eat on his own, and otherwise let him nap all he wants to.  I'm hoping he can go quietly at home, because I really dont want to have to put him down at the vet's office if I can avoid it.  He hates it there so much I don't want it to be the last place he saw.

In adition, my rat Simon's abcess is back and bigger than ever!  I found a vet that sees rats just around the corner (shocking! Since in santa cruz it took forever to find rat care) and everyone there was really nice.  Unfortunately, they're kind of expensive.  I wanted them to lance the abcess, but it was so hard the vet thought it was a tumor because it was so hard.  So I had to pay for them to needle the abcess and microscope the puss and yes it is an abcess like I thought.  184 dollars total with antibiotics. The vet things Simon may have a small tumor deep within the abcess that keeps stirring up the infecting, because the full round of antibiotics aparently didnt cure him last time like it should have, but really it's hard to say. She couldn't drain it there because the scab wouldn't come off easily, so he'd need to be sedated for that which the vet could not do that day because a winerimer with a torn pawpad was also in the office getting bloody footprints all. over. the. clinic. and she had to deal with that.  Also it'll be more expensive.

Here's the thing, I burst his first abcess and...so gross.  It's like popping a gigantic zit on a squirming rodent who is scared and in pain and therefore SHITTING AND PEEING EVERYWHERE and if you get it then you can add stinky puss to the bodily fluids that are getting EVERYWHERE and you know I may just spend over a hundred dollars to avoid that mess again...except that makes no sense, so I'm supposed to give Simon a warm compress a few times a day and "hopefully" the scab will soften and fall off and I can have the happy abcess draining fun time but avoid yet another large vet bill, probably at the expense of me vomiting because this abcess is bigger than the last one.  Ew.

So yes, bring your pets on down to my house.  50/50 there'll be something wrong with them.  I'd love to get Charlie a checkup just because he's friggin crazy and his fur sticks up all the time so it looks like he's an angry rabid rat, but given everything else he'll have to wait in line.  Also my other cat is in major need of a diet.

I had a migraine tonight.  It wasn't as bad as usual because I downed advil and sudafed at the start of it, but these things never improve the day.

 

Because I love Friends and when someone says "scone" this is the first thing that comes to my mind.  

So last weekend former roomie Lis celebrated her birthday with a tea party.  It was pretty damn awesome, and I must facebook the pics.  But anyway, her mom made these scones which were awesome.  I had three at the party and the whole rest of the week I was craving me some scones.  Of course, these scones were the only really good (read: not dry and hard) scones I could remember eating.  I got the recipe from her mom and made them tonight (at 2 AM, as I am wont to do).  

Here are the tea party scones:



And here are mine:

 
Candy Tan at Powell's Books Blog:

"The same things about what makes romance novels so good and such rich fodder for analysis is also what makes it the genre ghetto's genre ghetto. The happy ending, for example. Happy isn't sexy, happy isn't "realistic" (oh, to have the time and space to unpack what "realism" means in the context of fiction), and happy certainly isn't literary. Bleakness is where it's at, baby — or at the very least, bittersweetness. Because we have to be real, man.

Add to all that the stigma of effeminacy, and the constant undervaluation — and devaluation — of that which is culturally associated with the feminine, and you have the makings of a very convenient whipping boy. Romances are all about emotional vulnerability. Romances are about finding love. Romances, in short, are mushy, and romances are girly. Most guys would rather be caught reading porn than romance novels. Bustin' a nut: totally acceptable. Bustin' a romance: what are you, some kind of girl?"

continued at http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=5980

Awesome.

http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1319632.html

 Dear Texas,

Cry more :(

Love,
Liz

 so aparently there's some kerfuffle about California getting paid to use a lot of water on crops.  Farmers in California revieve government subsities to purchase water at a low cost so they can produce crops like cotton and rice.  

Problem: we've been having a few dry years, and cotton and rice take up a lot more water than the average crops, and some of the land itself is transformed desert so yeah, it does use a fuckton of water.

So now the subsities are in danger of being reduced dramatically to save water and cut costs.

Problem: This does not just hurt the farmers of cotton and rice, but of all crops.  Farmers who can't afford to keep in buisness without these subsidies.  Oh, and did I mention CALIFORNIA GROWS AN ENORMOUS PERCENTAGE OF THE NATIONS FOOD.  (yo! farm belt! all those states you got, pick up the pace whydontcha?)  So prepare to see some grocery prices go up by a lot.

Further problem: YES cotton and rice are important crops.  I don't know how much of the nation's cotton we grow.  I know the south used to do a lot, but my information of southern cotton kind of ends with the abolition of slavery.  I'm pretty sure there's still plenty of cotton there.  The real issue is the rice.  Rice may seem like a waste crop to some people, but do you know who we export that too?  JAPAN.  California grows a LOT of the rice for the entire country of Japan, and do you know how much rice Japan eats?  We need this export people.  California needs the income, but you know, America needs the income too.  Even if the rice farms cant afford to stay in this state they need to exist somewhere.

A lot of things and people in this nation waste water.  I do believe we should cut down on water waste, but I don't think we should hop right to hitting the producers of our food where it hurts.  For my part I'm trying to cut down on shower time (yes Lis, really).  The utility companies should do more to promote the benefits of water saving.  Also they should give us more benefits.  Like, raise the price of water but make the price hike only aplicable if you use over a quota dictated by the size of your family and property. Encourage people to water their lawns and wash their cars less.  Promote plants, flowers and foods for the home gardener that don't need as much water--they could even team up with garden stores to do this!  Now's the time people are picking up their annuals, now's the time to promote a garden that will look great in spite of drought.  

Santa Cruz resturants do this thing where they don't give you water unless you ask for it.  This is a big deal, because think of all that complementary water that the waiter keeps refilling even though you just got the damn check and can't possibly drink another glass.  Or some resturants leave a pitcher of water on the table, so you can serve youself just the amount you want.

The biggest thing to do is to simply remind people we are in a drought.  I've seen places handle droughts way more seriously than we do.  Our lawns are still green, you wouldn't catch Georgians with green lawns in a drought. We are just too ingrained in our accostomed ways that it doesn't occur to us that somebody isn't out there taking care of this.  Seriously, we've been having budget problems for years and years, and this water issue is NOT.  NEW.  So why isn't the damn Governator on the television encouraging his constituants to stop taking baths?  Oh yeah.  Because we elected an actor. 

 Sat down to write, ended up neck into Pride and Prejudice fanfic.  I'm not sure how or why I do this to myself, but there you go.

Now to give my cat his pill.  Ever tried giving a cat a pill?  Wacky fun!

 Dear Cable,

What time do you think it is?  Even the satelite at the apartment--which thought we were on the east coast--managed to get the network channels right.

So why on CBS, when it is eight and you think it's seven, are you playing the schedule for nine?  

Now I have to watch Big Bang Theory and How I Met your Mother on my slowass internet streaming Megavideo!

Thanks for nothing, 

Liz

  I made some fanarts.

They are all in sketch mode right now, and need some alterations before they are presentable, but because I'm bored I'm posting them anyway.

I was gonna cut them, but then lj started giving me sass and I didn't want to deal with that.  So, thumbnails.  

Secret Life of Dolls



Star Wars

 Well we're forcefeeding Magic through a syringe.  Guess what doesn't go through a syringe easily? CAT FOOD.  It got everywhere.  On the walls, on the floor, on the cat, on ME...some did get IN the cat through, so it's working out. I  only have to do it four times a day, ngh...  

He's got an ultrasound scheduled first thing monday morning.  Hopefully it can pick up what's wrong.  Once the food is in his mouth it goes down no problem, I wonder if the problem is he doesn't realize he's hungry? No idea.  Anyway I smell like cat food, and Mr Fat Kitty is howling in protest because he doesn't get any wet food.  Seriously, one needs to gain weight the other needs to loose it.  We gotta regulate these boys better.

In other news, I applied to 3 jobs today.  Know what sucks about applying through email?  The mailman only comes once a day, but over email you just keep checking and checking and checking compulsivley even though it's three in the friggin morning and who in human resources is gonna answer you now?