Wow, it's been a while, hasn't it?

I'm still here! I've just been incredibly busy lately. When did I last post on here...end of September? Wow. This semester has been complete chaos, between marching band and a massive string of choir performances. I've hardly had time to think, let alone be on the internet. But marching season is almost over (FINALLY) and choir has calmed down since all we're doing right now is Christmas stuff, so I think I may finally be able to keep a diary again.

Hmm, big things. I went to Colorado a few weeks ago with chamber singers, for a national college directors' conference. We were the first performance, and it was absolutely incredible. I spent three days in Fort Collins freezing my butt off in the snow, and it was awesome, and then I flew home early for a marching band show the next day. See what I mean about busy?

Band has been alright; fun, but incredibly stressful. I don't know that I'm going to march another season. As much as I love it, trying to balance it with chamber singers is a nightmare. And this season is just getting to be too much for me. My knees are both giving out on me, I need surgery on one and the other is strained from compensating for the first. So rehearsal is incredibly painful, show days are even more difficult, and I can't get away with sitting out much as a section leader. Plus my section either can't or won't get their crap together and it just generally makes life difficult. So while I do have fun and I do love marching, I'm just frustrated and exhausted and ready for this season to be over.

Speaking of which, yesterday was the worst show day I've ever had, for stupid reasons. All of the rookies were late. The director talked forever when we were supposed to be on break about things that had nothing to do with ANYTHING, and then kept section leaders an extra 20 minutes or so to discuss more completely irrelevant things. By the time we were done with that, all of the food was gone. Our call time for the show got moved an hour earlier due to rain so there was no time to get food anywhere else, so I didn't get to eat from about 9:30 am to about 10 pm. I do not function well without food for more than about four hours, I get sick and incredibly irritable, so that didn't help. There was supposed to be rain, so we marched in half uniforms and t-shirts, which looked stupid. The rain waited to actually show up until we were ON THE FIELD, right as we started the show, and proceed to make the field wet and slippery the whole time. And right at the end of the closer? It STOPPED, preventing us from going home for the second half of the game. So it was raining and freezing and we were in t-shirts. Fun stuff. And on top of all that, I was PMSing and felt like death. So I'm sorry for the whiny paragraph, especially in my first post, but yesterday just sucked.

Last night was much better, though. Boyfriend drove me home from the game and bought me Carl's Jr. and we cuddled in bed trying to get warm for hours. He was pretty much a lifesaver yesterday and put up with me hating the world for about twelve hours.

I finally have a day off so I am going to go bake a pie with Tricia.

Today has been a long but fairly good day. We worked on Christmas carols in choir - I have fifty (not exaggerating) to memorize, and they have to be perfect because we are singing them in quartets, one person to a part. I almost wish I was a soprano - melody, melody, words everybody already knows.

After chambers, boyfriend and I took a nap and then laid in bed on our laptops, playing Pokemon (me) and Rollercoaster Tycoon (him). I swear if you didn't know we were 19 and 20...!

Lab band was pointless as usual; I'd spent an hour working on this blues chart that I cannot seem to get the hang of, and we didn't even rehearse it today. Or my other song. I sat in a practice room the whole time and worked on Christmas carols. Matt sent me a random text, bitching at me for showing up late. Two minutes late. I very bluntly informed him that it's not his problem and we snapped at each other via text message the whole time. It's a bit stupid though, because I know it was less about the fact that I was "late" and more about the fact that I showed up with Boyfriend.

I've been feeling like death all day - thanks, PMS - but Greg made me a sandwich (because he is occasionally the best roommate ever) and I'm actually somewhat alright now. My third to last marching band show is tomorrow, and my voice recital and another marching show are on Thursday. Then on Saturday we have a football game, and Festival of Lights is Thanksgiving weekend, and then WE ARE DONE. HALLELUJAH.

Glad to see a new diary from you! Looking forward to reading!

I'm glad to be back, I miss my DDN friends


I've been worrying about school lately, because I'm now halfway through my second year of college and I've barely gotten anything done. At least not general ed wise - I've taken a crap ton of music classes, which of course I'm going to continue. I sort of have a plan: I'm majoring in vocal performance and music education, transferring somewhere (LB? CSUF?) and getting my BA and teaching credential. Hopefully getting performing jobs along the way.

It sounds like a plan. It sort of is a plan, but god, do I have a long way to go. I haven't even started theory yet. I took half a semester of the required piano class and dropped it because I signed up for the wrong level. Too easy. I lack patience. I've always lost patience with school really quickly, but in college I've taken it to an extreme. I try to do too much at the beginning of every semester, I sign up for a million classes and feel like I can juggle everything, like it will be different this time. It never is. Halfway through the semester I'm always overwhelmed with stress, with everything I have to keep up with, with even waking up in the morning, and I gradually stop going and then I just can't bring myself to go back and catch up. This is the first semester I've stuck with everything to the end, and I'm not even in any "academic" classes. I'm in chamber singers, advanced voice lessons, jazz band (singing), and marching band. That's it. So when I say I'm too stressed to function half the time, it sounds ridiculous.

I just don't know what I'm going to do. I never finish anything I start.

Another lurker popping in to say I'm happy to see another shiny new diary from you!

Aww I love knowing that people actually read these, it makes my day!


I should definitely be asleep. It is now 2:30 AM and I've been up since 7:30. But I haven't had a chance to be at home by myself for what feels like forever, so I'm using tonight to catch up on my internet.

Yesterday I had my voice recital, which went fairly well. At least, I think so. There should be a recording online once my school gets their crap together. Then J took me to get sushi (which was delicious), and we drove out to the desert to march our last actual show of the season. Sad? Not really. It was cool that the show was in my hometown; my high school was there and they always scream for me and I sort of love it. After the show, J and I had dinner with my mom. They got along great. It was almost 2 by the time we got back to my apartment, and everyone else was asleep or gone, so he finally got to stay the night

Choir today was terrible. We rehearsed Christmas carols with the student conductor, but she was PMSing (she admitted this) and took every opportunity to either yell at us for completely irrelevant reasons, or give us ridiculous instructions that made no sense. She then kept us 25 minutes late for no apparent reason other than her own frustration...at absolutely nothing. Nobody had done anything particularly wrong. So the whole thing was incredibly annoying.

After that I took J back to his house, because his family was having a birthday party for him. We got there incredibly early, so we walked to his friend Jake's house to smoke hookah. I definitely thought Jake didn't like me when we first met, but really he was just shy - he's actually really cool to hang out with. The party was fun, if a little chaotic - a lot of relatives, a lot of baby cousins, etc. I really like J's family.

I haven't really known how to explain here that in the month and a half or so I didn't post, I fell completely in love...I'm honestly not sure how that happened. But I've never been happier in my life.

So...this is what I've been doing all year: www.youtube.com . . .

This is one of the only pictures I have of boyfriend and I; it's from over a year ago. We pretty much started talking on this trip, when the marching band went to Indianapolis. And it took us almost a year to start dating.

So happy you're happy

Just dropping in to plaster your new diary with lots of love!

<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3<3

Lots of love back

It's been a busy couple of days, but fun busy as opposed to stressful busy. I appreciate the difference so much more after this semester. I spent most of yesterday cleaning the apartment. It's gotten gross, since I've hardly been home. I figured out how to make Greg (my roommate) clean - if I start cleaning while he's home, he'll eventually come out of his room and start helping. It's a pretty successful strategy. Then I hung out with boyfriend and Jake for a while and that involved boba and Jake failing at getting some and adventures in my sketchy neighborhood. It was fantastic.

Mondays. Eh. I had choir this morning, in which we rehearsed Christmas carols in quartets and I realized that I have a crap ton of work to do. Then boyfriend and I hung out at my house between classes, forgot to get lunch, and were almost late to lab band. Of course. Halfway through class I got lightheaded because I hadn't eaten since breakfast, but I had to sing, and therefore sounded like crap and got called out on it. This blues piece...I just cannot figure it out. I've been rehearsing it for two months and I'm still having pitch problems. It's just. Ugh. Luckily we finished rehearsing both of my songs in the first half of class, so I ran to the cafeteria and scarfed down a slice of pizza in about five minutes and felt much better after that.

My mom took me out to dinner tonight, and took the cats home with her. I'm going to miss them, but three was too many in this tiny apartment. There have been a lot of random people at my house tonight - Mike, Bear, and M - that I didn't exactly want to see, but it turned out alright. Things between Mike and I are barely awkward anymore; we're on fairly friendly terms although we don't really talk much. So that wasn't too bad. Bear is less crazy now, but just incredibly annoying. He was easy enough to ignore, though. M...well, that's actually not bad either. We've gotten to be somewhat friends this year, and now that we've both gotten over whatever happened between us last fall, we actually get along really well. He's funny.

I definitely just realized that my prior post about boyfriend got cut off. Fail. I was just going to say something along the lines of he's been one of my best friends for almost a year, and I love him and trust him completely and he makes me incredibly happy. It's funny to look back on our friendship now, because he insists that he's wanted to be with me since the day we met. He just never acted on it because he knew I wasn't looking, and he thought I was going to say no. But one day we started talking, hypothetically, about what it would be like if we dated...and suddenly it stopped being hypothetical and started being completely real. And then I guess I fell in love with him.

Tiiiiiiired.

Yesterday was an awful day. I've been annoyed lately because Bear, my slightly crazy ex, has been here every day for the past week or so. I'm not sure why, exactly, because nobody can really stand being around him. So that just instantly puts me in a bad mood. He used to come over occasionally, like...once every couple of weeks, once a month. And that never bothered me, it's not like I hate the guy, I can tolerate him every once in a while if I have to. But it's gotten to the point where he's here every single day and that is NOT COOL. And yet, I put up with it until two nights ago, when he woke me up at four in the morning playing the piano and "singing" loudly from the living room. I was in my room, with the door shut, and it still woke me up. So I went out there and yelled at him and then tried to go back to bed, but his VOICE. I can hear it through the walls and it's annoying and high pitched and whiny and I hate it. So that woke me up periodically every ten-fifteen minutes, because I swear, the guy NEVER stops talking. Literally, the other night, he was there when I got home at ten thirty and he did not shut up until SEVEN AM the next morning, which is when I had to get up for a concert. I was not happy. And yesterday, when I got home from an incredibly long day on twoish hours of real sleep and feeling like death, guess who was in my living room AGAIN?

I'm not an aggressive person. I'm really not. I can actually be kind of a pushover, I'm not good at confrontation, and I don't like making people uncomfortable. But I pretty much chewed him out in front of everyone last night, and it was awesome. He deserved it and I finally got out of my own head and said what I was thinking, and you know what? NOBODY CARED. Nobody's going to think I'm a witch for being mad at him for perfectly legitimate reasons. I don't know why I'm always afraid that Greg and Matt and Austin are going to judge me when I actually have an opinion about something - they're my friends and I know perfectly well that they're not. It's stupid, I really wish I didn't care so much about what other people thought. I wish I didn't overanalyze every little thing I do so much in my head, wondering what it looks like to everyone else.

I haven't told them I have a boyfriend yet, either. Everyone else in my life knows, it's on Facebook, it's not like we're hiding it...but I haven't told them. At first it made sense - Matt was all jealous and weird, and I didn't want to deal with the drama. But at this point, it's just because I'm afraid to. And I don't know why. It sounds so crazy to everyone else, but we don't really talk about those things much, and it's just...I don't know, it's just strange. But I'm trying, and I'm getting better. J and I came home the other night when I thought everyone was at a concert, and Matt and Austin were there, and the four of us hung out and it was surprisingly not that awkward. And this morning Greg came home while he was over, and it was even less awkward. I just need to get over myself.



I'm actually being kind of productive today, considering that I'm sick and originally was just going to stay in bed. I've done a load of laundry, picked up my room, and scooped the cat litter so far. Keeping this apartment clean is a nightmare. And as much as I love my friends...they're slobs. They leave trash everywhere and just ignore it until the place gets so bad that nobody can stand it anymore. And it's getting old. I just cleaned the entire living room, it was spotless, and now it's so messy you can barely walk through it. I'm mad and I made that perfectly clear last night and STILL, nobody picked up their crap. We never have any dishes and Greg's been telling me he'd clean the kitchen for weeks and it's still gross. I feel like I'm the only one that ever does anything. We definitely need to have some kind of discussion about the cleanliness thing and the Bear coming over all the time thing if I'm going to survive living here until next September.


Well. This has been kind of a downer of an entry. I'm actually in a pretty good mood, even after all the ranting. I just have to go drop off the rent check (which is inconveniently located on the complete opposite side of the city) and then I don't have to worry about anything else all day. I need to find more liquid food, I've been living on soup and Naked juice for the past three days because my throat is so sore. I don't know why, and if I have strep again I am going to be incredibly upset.

Today has been annoyingly stressful for a Friday. I woke up early and went to school to camp out in the music building until the accompanist was free, because I hadn't been able to get a time slot to rehearse with her and our finals our next week. So I managed to get in because someone forgot his music, and it was very frustrating because she wouldn't play it at the right tempo and kept yelling at me about things that weren't remotely my fault (like that people had signed up for more than one slot when they weren't supposed to), and it was just not a good rehearsal. Plus I wasn't warmed up and I'm still sick.

After that, I tried to go to the counseling office to set up some kind of plan for getting out of this school, since I've been here for a year and a half and still haven't had any help at all. There were no appointments left (as always), but the line for walk-ins was short, so I decided to wait. And then the lady left, and came back about thirty minutes later, and more waiting, and when I finally got to see her she told me she couldn't help me at all. Apparently there's no computer for walk-ins, so all she could help with were incredibly basic, general questions like "how do I register?" Useful! Apparently the counselors aren't taking any more appointments this semester, and there are walk-ins ONLY during the entire winter intersession, so there's no way I'll be able to get an appointment until after spring semester starts, when my classes will have ALREADY STARTED and I won't really be able to change them. Plus, appointments fill up incredibly fast weeks in advance (I've been trying to get one for a year and a half!), so I doubt that'll be any help at all anyway.
Basically, budget cuts suck and my school is useless. I'll figure it out on my own.

After that I finally went to the bank and got checks so I can pay my rent, thankfully. Now I just need to drive it to east jesus nowhere on the other side of town where my landlord works, incredibly excited about that. At least tonight will be fun. I'm going to my hometown to hang out with my friend Emma, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's been a crazy week and I could definitely use a break.

Orion wrote:

I've been annoyed lately because Bear, my slightly crazy ex, has been here every day for the past week or so.

Is he someone's friend? Or does he think he's someone's friend, but they haven't told him otherwise yet? What I'm getting at is that it sounds like he's hanging around because he wants to be around you. Honestly, he's probably not over you yet.

And even if that's not the issue, it's hard to be the one person everyone despises. That's not to say you should've been super nice to him, or that you owe him anything now. I'm just saying it might be good to be aware of the fact that YOU might be the reason he's still around, you know? Just something I noticed while reading.

It's been a really good weekend I spent Friday night in the desert at Emma's. We hung out with some incredibly random people - a guy that was my neighbor in elementary school, who I hadn't seen since he graduated, and the girl my ex (Ryan, for those who remember) cheated on me with last fall. It should have been weird, right? But it was actually a lot of fun. I stayed over at Emma's and we woke up early the next morning and got Starbucks, and then I headed home. It's so weird how close we've gotten in the past year or so; my senior year, we were constantly at each others' throats. We've both changed a lot since then, though, and now we're practically the same person. She's ended up being one of my best friends.

When I got back on Saturday, boyfriend and Jake picked me up and I rode with them back to their city for his sister's birthday party. It was another of those big family things, but it was actually a lot of fun. I've met his extended family a few times, and I get along with all of them pretty well. Even his toddler cousins - normally I don't really know what to do with toddlers, but his cousin is adorable and I explained Minecraft to him and his mom could barely drag him away. I felt horrible toward the end of the night - I had terrible cramps and therefore hadn't eaten all day, the combination of which made me incredibly nauseous. I really just wanted to go home, but J's dad had the only working car and so I had no way to get there. At least everyone had pretty much left at this point, so he wrapped me in a blanket and we laid on the couch and watched Netflix, which was at least distracting enough to keep me from panicking about it all. And soon enough I started feeling better, because he is wonderful and takes care of me when I'm PMSing and miserable and insists that he likes to. His dad didn't get back until around 1, when I had long since fallen asleep. Boyfriend woke me up a little after that to tell me that he had to sleep upstairs, since his mom is convinced that sharing a bed before marriage is the end of the world, but that he'd be back before I woke up in the morning. Which was true, because he woke me up at 11 with homemade breakfast. I am officially completely spoiled as a girlfriend. We had breakfast with his parents and it was great, actually. He and his mom and I talked forever about college and careers and our families, and it was really interesting. As much as he complains about her sometimes, she's a really nice person and I like her a lot. Same with his dad. Then we went shopping (for him, not me!), because he needed jeans, and that was oddly fun and then he dropped me off at home. Though I'm actually picking him up in a few minutes to go get dinner. The amount of time we spend together is a little ridiculous, but somehow I don't really get tired of him.

Wow, this has been an incredibly one track post. I've become one of "those people", you guys. This is ridiculous.

CienPorCientoPAZ wrote:


Is he someone's friend? Or does he think he's someone's friend, but they haven't told him otherwise yet? What I'm getting at is that it sounds like he's hanging around because he wants to be around you. Honestly, he's probably not over you yet.

And even if that's not the issue, it's hard to be the one person everyone despises. That's not to say you should've been super nice to him, or that you owe him anything now. I'm just saying it might be good to be aware of the fact that YOU might be the reason he's still around, you know? Just something I noticed while reading.

Completely missed this, sorry!
From what Greg has told me, it's that Bear thinks their friends and has gotten into the habit of always hanging around, inviting himself along, apparently occasionally showing up uninvited, which doesn't really surprise me. And Greg, being himself, has yet to tell him that they're not friends and he's not really welcome here. Which is understandable - the guy has an incredibly difficult time taking no for an answer. I really hope that this isn't because of me, and based on how he's acted I don't really think so. I've made it pretty clear to him (without explicitly saying so) that I really don't like having him around, and I've also mentioned to Greg a few times that he really does not need to be here every single day. And it's been better lately, he's been over much less. So hopefully it won't be too much of an issue anymore...knock on wood.


I was exhausted and completely planning on going to bed when I drove home at 2 AM, but then I got talking to Greg and now it's 2:30 and I'm in bed and wide awake. That's alright though, did I mention that the semester is over?! Yeah, my last "final" (vocal juries) was yesterday. It went well enough - I got through the piece I hadn't gotten to rehearse with the accompaniment, which is what I was stressing over. After that, boyfriend and his sister picked me up and we went to the mall out by where they live, which is huge and outside and gorgeous. We walked around a lot and then J bought me the best cupcakes I have ever had. Then we went back to their house and hung out and played Minecraft until he had to go to marching practice. It was weird not being there. The band is marching in the Rose Parade, but I can't do it because of my knee(s). And as much as I insist that I'm not coming back next year, I do kind of miss it. Or maybe I just feel left out. I kind of can't wait for choir rehearsals to start again. Anyway, they dropped me off at home and then Austin showed up, and apparently Greg and Matt forgot about us so we just listened to music and played with the cats for a while. It was fun, though. My friends have been exhausting me lately, in a way, but for some reason I like being with them better one on one. I even hung out alone with Matt a little bit that night, and it wasn't awkward anymore.

I slept in forever today, but I'm trying not to feel too bad about it, since it's my first day off in forever and the first day of winter break for me. So I guess it's justified. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I went to Jack in the Box and then to boyfriend's house again. For how far away he lives - about 30 miles? - I'm surprised at how much time I've spent there lately. I like it, though. We spent a few hours making dinner, fried chicken. Well, he mostly made it. I watched and helped occasionally and played Minecraft. It was delicious, though. He can cook and it's awesome and I benefit from this quite a bit. After dinner, we went to see what is probably one of the most intensely Christmas decorated streets in southern California. It was amazing. Pictures are included because we liked the drunk Hawaiian Santa. But it was also really, really damn cold, so we went back to his couch and shivered under blankets for a couple hours, until I was starting to fall asleep. He worries so much when I drive home late, and always tries to get me to stay, and at least insists that I text him as soon as I get home. I complain about it sometimes but it's kind of nice.

I'm so tired.

Everything is more stress. The semester's over, aren't I supposed to be relaxing now?

It's not even important stress. It's "my apartment is so messy I can barely walk through the living room" stress. It's "I have absolutely no appetite and can barely get one small meal a day" stress. It's "oh god I have to wake up in three hours and I've been laying here awake forever" stress. I've been ignoring it for weeks and blaming it on the end of the semester and marching band and everything else, but I think I might be depressed again. I'm crying excessively and I never want to leave the house and I'm just exhausted all the time.

Boyfriend makes me so happy but now I just worry about losing him, or about losing the feeling he gives me like I always do. I'm not good at relationships. I'm already paranoid when I know I have no reason to be.

I need a job so badly. I don't have any money. I've been trying to find something but I just don't know where to look. I can't stand for very long and sometimes it's difficult to walk now because of my knees. That's why I can't go back to my YMCA job, I can't chase kids around for hours at a time. Even things like food service and retail...I can't be on my feet very much. I need to get this looked at, but I don't have health insurance through either of my parents right now and I can't afford my own because I don't have a job. I'm not getting any financial aid and I don't know why. I need work and I don't know what to do.

I'm feeling a little better today. I'm still in such a low, though. I've cried more this weekend than I have in months, and for no good reasons. Sometimes for no reason at all. J came over when I got home last night, and for the first hour or so I was holding back tears, even though everything was fine and I was really happy to see him. I had my face buried in his shoulder when he figured out I was crying, and I felt terrible because I had absolutely no explanation for it. But once I promised a few times that nothing had happened, he just hugged me and kissed the top of my head a lot and let me cry for a while and then I felt better. We spent the rest of the night in bed playing video games and watching random things on Netflix. He stayed the night and while I love him sleeping here, he SNORES. Eventually I elbowed him and he rolled over and I finally got some sleep, and then we woke up way too early when my alarm clock (that I can't figure out how to turn off) started ringing from across the room.

This morning was interesting. Sleeping naked obviously led to a continuation of last night (sorry, TMI, but it's relevant to the story, I swear!), which was great until we took a break for water and he stood up and got really dizzy because he hadn't eaten since lunch the day before. I was in the bathroom, and I heard him throwing up in the other one and I am incredibly emetophobic and didn't know what to do except hide in my room with my fingers in my ears. Yes, I am almost 20 and cannot listen to someone vomit without panicking. But he was fine about five minutes later and I managed to not have an actual panic attack, which is huge progress for me. And he's proven that he can deal with my varying levels of crazy, and sat in bed with me until I calmed down enough to go to breakfast. The whole thing was a little bit backwards but it ended up fine, I got over it and he was clearly fine as he consumed a breakfast burger in about three minutes. So I really think I'm starting to get over this phobia, at least a little bit. Two years ago, I probably wouldn't have been able to function for the rest of the day.

I already miss having him around. We've talked a bit about moving in together - obviously not anytime soon, my lease isn't up until next September. But it's become less of a hypothetical conversation, and for some reason that doesn't scare me too much. This is the most serious relationship I've ever been in, three months in. I feel like that should be strange, but it isn't. He treats me so well and I love him so much. There's nothing I can't tell him.

Austin came over right after he left. He had just gotten a haircut. It is a very nice haircut. We walked to the store and the weather was perfect and my neighborhood is actually really pretty, despite how ghetto it can be. I've never really seen autumn before, living in the desert. I mean, this is still SoCal, so it's not exactly incredible, but some of the leaves turn and it's still nice. Then we watched Louis C.K.'s tv show until Matt got here, and we've just been doing our usual hanging out. South Park is on, Austin's playing video games, and I was playing Minecraft until I got distracted by DDN. The kitten is sound asleep on my lap.

I got some cleaning done today. That's about all I got done today, except for a brief trip to the store for cleaning supplies and eggs. I also watched way too many episodes of How I Met Your Mother and ate a lot of Christmas cookies. I am justifying this because it is winter break. Also, I feel that I deserve a reward for cleaning both disgusting bathrooms.

I really need to start working out again, somehow. I can't do a whole lot because of my knee(s), but I need something. I'm tired of sitting around all day, I just feel gross and lazy all the time and I'm sick of it.

I don't really have a lot to write about lately, but I keep posting because I know that if I don't, I'll get out of the habit and then never update even when things do happen. So I'm sorry, this probably hasn't been very interesting reading lately.

I'm currently waiting for Boyfriend to pick me up; we're going to go to the mall and get him a coat for Christmas. That's technically from his family, though, we're just picking it up. So I still need to find him something. This worries me. I've been looking for a while, I'm just terrible at knowing what people want. I finally begged him to just give me a list of fairly specific ideas, so now it just comes to me getting out of the house and choosing something. I'm working on it. I've only been procrastinating because I don't want to get him something stupid, even though I know he'll like whatever I get him because he loves me. I do want him to actually like the gift.

I've developed a sort of rash on my neck and I'm trying not to worry about it. It's not bumpy or anything, but it's red and blotchy and itches sometimes. I took off my necklace and that seemed to help a little, but I know that's not what was causing it. I've worn that necklace every day for two years and it's never bothered me. So that's kind of strange. Not serious enough to go to the doctor about, though.

Well, that's my exciting life so far today.

So. It's become clear over the past month or so that I'm in the depressed part of bipolar at the moment. It is not fun. It is like PMSing constantly and crying over absolutely nothing and getting irritated with people for no good reason. It is also being exhausted all the time and not having the motivation to do anything at all except sitting on the couch. I'm not even sad, really, just tired. I cry out of stress over things that should not be stressful, like not having any clean dishes and nothing to eat that doesn't require dishes. I've been having a hard time eating at all. I have to force myself. I'm never hungry. I've actually lost weight without intending to, and it's an amount that worries me a little bit.

I should probably do something about this, but I don't know what.

Boyfriend has been absolutely amazing. He is the most patient person I have ever met. He knows when to give me tough love and when to let me cry and tell me it's not my fault. He cooks me food and goes on walks with me and puts on my favorite TV shows. I'm trying not to rely too much on him, but it's nice.

I need to start writing things down again, if only for my own sake. I feel like I've lost the past month, sort of. It's gone by too fast. Maybe I'm just not ready to go back to school, starting tomorrow, sort of. Actual spring semester doesn't start until the 13th, but choir is rehearsing starting tomorrow. I haven't looked at the music yet. I only printed it out last week. I should probably do that soon.

Today was nice. It was J and I's four month "anniversary" - not something I ever really kept track of, but he notices and I think it's sweet. We went to dinner at a Japanese barbecue place that I'd been dying to go back to. It's the kind where they have the grill on the table and you cook the food yourself, and it is absolutely delicious.

He has been on a mission to fix my ancient MacBook, so after dinner we went to the Apple store so they could wipe it and reinstall the OS. He put 2 more gigs of RAM in it the other day, and it's running almost like a brand new computer now. Damn liars at Best Buy told me it was a brick. I may try to sell it; I got an HP on Black Friday that was very cheap and works very well. So far. We'll see. I definitely prefer Mac, but having Windows has been nice for things like playing League of Legends and getting a 17 inch screen for $325. First world problems, right?

There are too many things to do. I can't keep up. I'm still in bed, wrapped in a sweatshirt four sizes too big for me and my comforter. Which desperately needs washing. Which requires quarters, which I don't have enough of. And then I would need to take it to the laundromat, which is in an area of town that I really have no desire to sit in alone for two hours.

See? Everything feels like so much work. Even the little steps that I try to break things up into are too much.

So I'm still in bed.





I constantly feel like I'm trying and failing to get my life on track. This is a list of the things I can think of that need to be done right now, just off the top of my head.


- must move my new (well, old) dresser out of the center of my room and against the wall
- sort all clothes, including the ones on the floor, and put them away
- wash the dirty clothes and don't just leave them in the hamper afterward
- move old dresser into the closet and put things I don't wear much in there
- vacuum
- take dishes to the kitchen
- empty and take out trash

- remove trash from my car
- remove clothes from my car
- remove slightly smoky smell from my car
- put gas in my car

- eat something (this in itself is more difficult than it sounds)
- shower because it has been a few days
- do the dishes so we don't get fruit flies again
- remove my 2 or 3 boxes from the dining room to hopefully motivate my roommate to unpack his 10-15 boxes

- change the cat litter
- feed and water the cats
- vacuum litter from hallway

- figure out what textbook I need for my math class in a few weeks
- learn the four new pieces we got for choir plus Mozart's Coronation Mass which is something like half an hour long
- also find out what the music theory textbook is
- figure out why I'm not getting any financial aid when I'm pretty sure I should be
- figure out what classes I actually need to transfer


I am not going to accomplish all of this anytime soon. I am overwhelmed. Things that should not be stressful are making me crazy. My life is not that hard, and it doesn't make sense that I feel this way.

I don't feel like I'm sick. I feel like I'm weak and lazy and useless. I'm almost sure that I would feel better if I started taking antidepressants again, but I haven't. I'm not sure why. For a while, I was afraid to - but now a manic episode almost sounds welcome. I may have done some stupid things, but I was a lot happier. I think I'm afraid that they won't change anything, that my last resort will have failed and then what will I do? Wait it out?

I guess that's what I'm doing now.




I'm miserable a lot. I'm not a very good girlfriend. I've been insecure lately, something that's never really been part of my personality. I'm really not the jealous type, and I'm completely aware of when I'm being irrational. However, there isn't a whole lot I can do about it. He absolutely deserves my trust, and I'm trying so hard to give it to him.

I clean and organize the best and motivated to do anything the best when I download new music. So I jam out to new exciting tunes while washing the dishes.

^ Music helps. Music definitely helps. I prefer ska for this because most of it (at least, what I have) is fast and upbeat and slightly motivating. Also, coffee.

Today was more productive than most of my days have been lately. I set an alarm for 9:30, turned it off in my sleep, and slept until 12:30. It was lucky that I woke up then, because I had choir rehearsal at 1. I was only a few minutes late, at least. We have so much work to do, even though technically it's still winter break. The first day of the semester is the 13th, and we have three performances that weekend. Everything this semester is difficult! Except for the spiritual, but those are rarely difficult. We're doing Mozart's Coronation Mass, the whole thing, six (?) movements.

Rehearsal ended at three. I'm always the most motivated right when I get home, for some reason, so I started picking up my room right away. It had gotten bad. I just moved a new dresser in here, but I hadn't cleared a space for it yet so it was just chilling in the middle of the room. You couldn't even see the floor under the layer of clothes. It's still not clean, but all of the furniture is against the walls and the clothes are all put away in either the hampers or the dresser. I just need to put away all my sweaters in my old dresser, organize some shelves, and vacuum. Maybe I'll clean off my desk, if I have time. I also need to do laundry at some point, and I have a physical therapy appointment at 2:30.

I've discovered that it's a lot easier for me to get things done if I pick one task for the day to focus on. Like tomorrow, the most important thing that I need to do is take the rent check to my landlord's office. That should be simple, right? It frustrates me that even simple tasks seem so difficult that I avoid them until I absolutely have to deal with them. But first I have to find my checks, and if I don't have any left (likely), I have to go to the bank and buy more. Though I have to go to the bank anyway to deposit Greg's half - which he actually gave me on time! Then I have to drive it all the way to the middle of nowhere on the other side of town and either put it in a drop box or give it to a person, depending on what time I get there. I'd prefer the second. I don't want to have to explain to a person why I have yet to pay the late fee from the rent two months ago - I'm waiting for Greg's financial aid to come in. It's not like I can afford to pay it myself. And he was the one that was late on rent that month, so it seems reasonable. Anyway...even stupid little things that should be simple errands become these giant tasks in my head. Everything seems like too many steps for me to handle so I just avoid it all. Even though today was better, tomorrow I might be useless.



I'm not sure if I mentioned on here that I'm in a ska band. Well. I'm in a ska band. We are not very good yet and we still need a saxophone, but we actually have a few songs that sound like music and not noise now. After practice yesterday, the six of us ate 100 chicken McNuggets. Why? No idea. It was delicious, though.




Boyfriend and I have had a stressful couple of days but we're dealing with it. I don't really want to talk about it. I'm a little bit mad at him and he knows it, but I got most of that out of the way and am rational again. We're going to be fine.

Orion wrote:


- must move my new (well, old) dresser out of the center of my room and against the wall
- sort all clothes, including the ones on the floor, and put them away (almost)
- wash the dirty clothes and don't just leave them in the hamper afterward (in progress)
- move old dresser into the closet and put things I don't wear much in there
- vacuum
- take dishes to the kitchen
- empty and take out trash

- remove trash from my car
- remove clothes from my car
- remove slightly smoky smell from my car
- put gas in my car

- change the cat litter
- feed and water the cats
- vacuum litter from hallway

- figure out what textbook I need for my math class in a few weeks
- learn the four new pieces we got for choir plus Mozart's Coronation Mass which is something like half an hour long
- also find out what the music theory textbook is
- figure out why I'm not getting any financial aid when I'm pretty sure I should be
- figure out what classes I actually need to transfer

Well, I'm making progress.

I function a lot better when I have something to do. Yesterday I managed to get out of bed and color my hair before physical therapy. It's darker than I wanted, but I think I like it. I just wanted it red again; even that little change makes me feel so much better about myself.

After PT, I went out to J's and his grandma made salmon and we watched about six episodes of Doctor Who. I got him addicted, have rewatched the entire first five seasons with him, and now we're both watching season 6. I may or may not have a problem. We got absorbed in that until pretty late, of course, so I slept there and was consequently late to choir this morning. We rehearsed the Mozart and made our poor new accompanist sightread a piece we did last semester with an insanely difficult piano part.

I always come home from rehearsal full of energy. I went to the grocery store and got some real, healthy food - fruit and cheese and beef that I'm going to cook later. I've been eating a little better/more lately. At least I'm getting more than one meal a day. I would really like my appetite back.

Anyway, I came home and apparently woke up Greg's friend, who was asleep on the couch. He gave me a dirty look, and I continued putting my food away at a normal volume because 1. it was 2 PM and 2. IT'S MY APARTMENT. Then I put in a load of laundry (which I should really go check on) and cleaned off my desk. My room still looks messy, but you can see the floor now. And it's slightly more organized. I'm working on it.

Also, I am angry because the sink is ALREADY full of dishes. None of which are my dishes because I have not been here. Seriously. We just got rid of the fruit flies infesting our kitchen, is it so much to ask to at least RINSE things out? We've talked about this 3829485749 times and Matt and I are the only ones that ever clean. Matt doesn't even live here! He also doesn't make a mess. Greg, however, uses more damn dishes than anyone I have ever met in my life and washes them like...once a month. Seriously.

Anyway. I need to go get my laundry before I get all infuriated again. I'm feeling pretty good today, let's not ruin that.