the call is coming from inside the house

Next week I escape to a vrbo cabin up north. Alone in the woods with my thoughts, possibly bears and hopefully northern lights. On Friday the 13th.

Had a whole conversation this morning about vitamin d, sunlight and if it still works through a window. South African man says no, google confirmed.  He also said iodine is my friend.

Was going to request a mental health work from home day but when I logged on to check my outlook calendar, the source of my distress had messaged me that she was working from home so I went in.

Turns out they were doing some utility stuff across the street, power was out, cable was out. 

Wanted to leave work early but as 2:30 got closer and I was getting stressed I had an epiphany. The call is coming from inside the house. The majority of the pressure I feel is self imposed. 

Poetry group meets at a retirement complex. I heard an ambulance arrived right after I entered. I was overcome with wooziness in the lobby as we were leaving. As I was getting in my car another one rolled up. That building was strangely quiet tonight.

I'm telling the truth but not telling it slant

Writing poems about popping zits

Maybe the next will be about triangle shits

safety day

Try boobz with a Z

inappropriate places

I am very uncomfortable in my body and tried to sneak out of work early, like ten minutes and I can't stop scratching my head and its been too much month end whack a mole. Anxiety? New meds ... not sure when to take them. I'm not sure if I'm hungry or full. I'm tense.

Walking into the office this morning, my south african coworker caught up with me. I confessed to being exhausted when he asked how I was. He said you know what you need and I exclaimed, "pills and coffee!" And he said no... I think it was going to be Jesus, but he got sidetracked and I escaped.

I don't know why I am so TMI with him. Probably because one time a psychic told my aunt that my soul mate was from Africa so now everytime I meet someone from Africa I try them on in my head. It's like trying to buy shoes online except the shoes usually are married with a wife and a bunch of kids and take vacations to the creation museum and are oddly Republican for an alien and are actually colonial shoes not African shoes.

I also eavesdropped at work that tomorrow's government test is actually going to kill us all or melt our brains with the tone or something. 

the struggle continues

After a beautiful Saturday weekend womens retreat that left me feeling filled up, creative, silly and even a little bit horny, Monday has brought the shit show. Sunday showed signs of backsliding and even though I tried to stay in good spirits as I worked from home, by 3pm I was cursing everyone. It's month end so there's a crunch. Regrets, frustration,  and my own pungent body odor combined with a med change that maybe leaves me a little bit manic or extra anxious... had signed up and paid for an immersive sound healing this evening but fell into hyperfocus panic and worked for 12 almost 13 hours instead. I only hopped off because I noticed That Bitch had logged back on and even though I was incognito she would undoubtedly notice I was loading her workflow up with invoices from September 29th. Then she woulda called me and I'd still be on a Teams call with her instead of blogging on my phone waiting for my sheets to dry so I can shower and cleanse away 2 days of underboob sweat. Seriously global warming, 86 in October snot cool. 

working on my coven

previously recorded from Kellys couch

This weekends thoughts go to my journal for the women's retreat

sup full moon 🌕

transcend the mundane

* brought to you by costar app

Mundane existence. That is the existential dread rearing its head. I am not supposed to be an accountant. It's just a means to an end, right? But it's more exhausting than that and its a trap. The deeper I get, it becomes more performative. Do I want to strive to get ahead? Take development courses? They want a bachelor's degree before you can become a manager. I don't want to do any of this. I just want to make enough money to live and not be emotionally exhausted by 4pm. I want my coworker to retire instead of moving the goal posts. She is an emotional vampire, everyone knows it. And nobody calls her on it though today I told her not to roll her eyes at me. Sometimes I hope something happens to force her into retirement. Maybe a small stroke. I don't know if I can handle her until 2025. 

The kicker: she likes me. This is her being nice to me. So I pretend to be her friend because that's what you do at work. I don't really like her at all. I feel sorry for her.

The resources: money. The things I have been buying compulsively are pretty things or broken things or dusty things. Projects. I see things and I want to make other pretty things and then either sell them or honestly, have other people look at the things and say "oh skindee, you are so good at making things pretty, you are so talented, you are an artist, here is a million dollars so you can open your own store with your own vibes" and people will flock or not and I can just hang out and chill and make art all day or go treasure hunting at thrift shops for inventory. 

These stores exist and are owned by stay at home moms as tax shelters. What I actually need is a booth or a shelf at a collective or an etsy. 

I was looking into Debtors Anonymous so I did some binge shopping tonight. Kinda like the day before a diet. Must stockpile.

Love my house. I have crafted (almost) every room into an homage of my shifting moods. Each room has its own vibe. The dining room is black and white, red accents, witchy goth meets The China Garden (the old school chinese restaurant down by the dam in my hometown). The living room is rich jewel tones, gold, dark brown furniture, and vintage cat figurines keep watch from the crown molding around the door frames. The parlor/office was first so its the most Chip & Joanna, soft blues and grays, white furniture. Elegant. The kichen is a sunny teal and more vintage finds. My bedroom is everything purple and feminine and the walls are crammed with art by women and my crystal. The spare room is claiming its identity as The Rainbow Room as it becomes my art room and I strung christmas lights to offset the weird angles and north window. Unicorn art and all the weird things, stickers, magazine photos, cool cards ... the collage wall I never had in college. Its the art room and I embrace my inner child. She decorates tbnis one.

I still hate my neighborhood. It is also a trap.

I have an escape plan. Or at least I'm inspired to create one.

a lack of appreciation & a practical matter

Have you ever had your debit card decline at The Dollar Tree? Man, what the fuck is even my life?

Everyone is pushing me to my limit.  What is a nervous breakdown if not being pushed into snapping by everyone wanting something from you, expecting things from you, and there not being enough hours in a day that I can not do everything I am expected to do AND do what I want to do?  I feel like I am saying the same thing every day.  This is my end of day rumination.  This is the beginning of my new plan to sit down at 9pm every night, blog or journal it out so I am not up until midnight or one o'clock scrolling and ruminating in my head and then having weird vivid dreams in which I am some kind of sociopath that is really only reflective of the shit I've been watching (right? ..... right? ...?)

I have yet to actually do it at 9pm but it's only day 2.  I started at 10pm then just took a 30 minute sidebar to look for stickers to send to my aunt in her birthday card that will likely be late.  One of the things I was going to purchase at the dollar tree was a card for her (among others) then I looked in my drawer of other cards and there was a birthday aunt card I had already signed and forgot to mail to a different aunt and luckily I didn't write on the envelope so thank you kismit I guess?

KISMIT is only a word when capitalized I guess. Thanks, blogger.

Today's creepy horoscope keeps bringing up relationships.  I am trying not to think about relationships.  I haven't been to therapy in a month but go next week.

I see my boyfriend for about ... a day and a half on weekends.  Usually late Friday nights when he is done with work, and he goes home Sunday morning to afternoon, usually earlier now because football.  And when he is here I think, this isn't so bad.  We enjoy each other's company for the most part I think.  I sometimes get annoyed with him.  He is a bit of a child.  I don't know that I have ever referred to him as a man.  He is a boy.  A big ol' baby boy but he buys me things and pays for my meals and I dumped him because of the drinking and when he cried and cried and I agreed to give him another chance he did stop drinking, at least around me.  I did not institute a weed rule though so sometimes he might overdo it on the Delta 8 or real thc if he hasn't gobbled or vaped everything up from the last time we ran to Illinois.  Then he's kind of an idiot baby boy.  So I take a 10 mg gummy and get lost in an adult coloring book.   

My problem is that during the week, when he is gone, I think about how and when I might be able to get out of this.  And then I feel guilty.  It's all the same old codependent shit.  I can't handle his reaction to being broken up with.  Even if I make it about me, he makes it about him.  I feel fucking trapped.  I feel like I want to be alone, all the time.  Maybe that is depression or anxiety.  I think that if/when I were single I would not try to date.  And I don't think I've ever dated without trying, without being on the apps or going to bars and shoving my tits in someone's face.  I walk around with resting bitch face, fucking talking to myself these days, having conversations in my head while making the external facial expressions like a fucking crazy person -- dudes are not coming up to me in stores.  The only store I go into is The Dollar Tree because they don't have curbside pickup.

Wait, the interloper next door tries to talk to me.  Fucking Randy.  He has ex-con written all over his face.  Not literally but it's the way he says "knowma sayn?" I think he goes and sits on the deck smoking cigarettes waiting for me to get home at 4:45.  Usually I try to avoid eye contact.  Sometimes he leans on the railing and stares at my house.  I can already tell he is going to be back for the winter, probably packing the fucking snow down again in my driveway.  Maybe I'll kill him before he kills me.

Seriously my cat is at the top of the stairs  yelling at me to come to bed.

Anyways the point was that I don't know if I really want to be alone or if it is fear or depression or anxiety.  I don't know if the lack of passion in my relationship is menopause or just reality.  I think almost everyone settles.  Romance is a myth.  We're friends.  We're companions.  I don't want to live with him.  I certainly can go a day without talking to him.  I'm 44.  I've been waiting for lightning to strike in many ways and I think it's time to grow up and realize that it's climate change baby and we're in a fucking drought.

Getting bleak maybe.  Almost 11pm.  Can I be asleep by midnight?  Can I keep the phone at least across the aisle from my bed so I don't buy shit in my sleep?  I have plans. I don't have any execution.

I need an executioner.  

;)

a human party bus

Its always right.

I'm not eating or smoking or drinking really. So I'm buying things, mostly online and in bed.

I have been noticing seashells more often. I did a puddle this morning and my toes were wet all day. 

one of my recent Temu binges included a sticker that says everything is temporary.

I have been having weird disassociative feelings, dizziness, spacieness accompanied with swirling epiphanies that I can't even capture or articulate fully. They are half baked. Maybe its a brain tumor. Or a midlife crisis. Perhaps a spiritual awakening. New meds. Crippling anxiety.

I wish for many things. I wish for discipline. I wish my boyfriend would leave me. I wish a fairy would clean my house.  I wish I was a little bit taller. I wish for a hundred thousand dollars.

A mysterious and pungent odor

 So here's a funny thing, internet, if you are still listening.

I go and login for my 2023 post of the year and see my republished version of a rant about being overwhelmed from way back in oh 2008 I reckon, about 15 years ago.  I think I was trying to copy the post with comments to a word doc, archiving the old records and shit.

I feel exactly the same way today as I did that day.  What a fucking hoot.  Some things really never change.  I suppose the difference is that now that I am older and now that my ADHD is diagnosed I know that I easily get overwhelmed when I am overstimulated or say yes to too much  and am bogged down with obligations and while I want to freak out and yell at everybody to fucking leave me alone, I know that I really just need to step away and try to corral my ducks and draw some boundaries.

I came here to brain dump everything that is overwhelming me/pissing me off.

I've just now decided that I've also come here to brain storm solutions, in no particular order.

• This fucking kid riding her bike down the street in front of my house ringing her bell as she's trying to thirst trap the other toddler across the street.  My nice quiet street has become full of screaming children as all the old folks have slowly died/moved away.
• Keep telling myself they are renters, they are renters, they are renters and hope they move away sooner rather than later.
• Shut the windows.
• I could also yell at her like the mean old lady that I have become.
• My wegovy coach who sent me links to videos every week and nagged me to login to the portal every couple of days to set my SMART and reward has dumped me.  Because I ghosted her.  And now I feel bad because she doesn't like me.
• I hate SMART goals and this coaching program did not work for me.  I only signed up for it because I had hoped for a WW like forum with recipes and group interactions.  Mostly it is basic ass articles that anyone on a diet could have written.
• It's okay. I wanted a way out.  And now I have one less AI robot nagging me.
• I keep forgetting to take the Wegovy ... I'm already late this week.
• I just did it.  This needs to be the thing that I can do right now.  If I can't do everything they tell me to do, at least do the injection because it's the part that actually works.
•  My co-worker is on vacation this week and I have taken it upon myself to prove that I can do the work of two people without being a whiny bitch like she will be when I'm on vacation.
• It is easier to get work done when she is not there constantly trying to talk to me or interrupt me.
• My boss has noticed and commented on how hard I am working so point proved, no need to kill myself working 12 hours a day.
• I am fucking tired.
• Chill out tonight.  No working from home tonight, tomorrow I can kick ass.
• Had signed up for a new local poetry group/open mic tonight but just canceled.  Last time I went I gained some fans but I just don't have the wherewithal tonight.
• Hey how about I put the phone down instead of doomscrolling from 10pm til midnight and go the fuck to sleep?
• The biggest problem weighing on me at this exact moment is my broke-ness.  Ever since I bought my used car and let the payment creep up beyond what I had said I was comfortable with ($300 turned to $400 turned to $450 and ended up $457 a month) I have been robbing Peter to pay Paul (more like robbing myself to pay myself).  I have a disconnect notice from the electric company.  It won't be disconnected but come on man, I'm almost 44 years old and this is still happening?
• Canceled Amazon Prime, one of my favorite places to buy things on my phone while in bed.  Heck, I just uninstalled the app from my phone.  Double heck, I just went and removed all stored card numbers from my online wallet.  Take that, impulse spending.
• Canceled my YNAB (you need a budget) subscription which sounds counter intuitive but they had upped that shit to $100 a year and I wasn't really budgeting, just using it as an overpriced check register app.  Just switched to Quicken for $35.  
• Did not take money out of my 401k, but did request a loan.  I would like to get a bonafide consolidation loan but my credit score is atrocious at the moment. I will use the loan money to bring down balances and catch up on the dire needs and hope to see my score go up enough that I can get approved.
• Going to need to get an actual budget set but still working on importing all my accounts and sorting out the nuts and bolts.  Needs to happen soon because I have been procrastinating on this.  Head in the sand sort of shit.
• Also, I have not been just willy nilly blowing money on silly stuff (just nilly), the problem is also that I have no emergency savings so when I owed taxes to both the feds and state, I had a car repair that wasn't even fully repaired, and I had to call in an exterminator to rid my house of a yellow jacket infestation, that also meant turning more to the credit cards.
• I have been saying that I am going to have a rummage sale for three years now, maybe four, ever since I moved and I declared that it will be the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.  A friend is coming to help me work it but that now leaves me with 2 weekends to finish cleaning the garage, purging my house and getting ready to get set up and it is a time crunch.
• I asked my therapist if I could push it off but the week after would not work and even if it did I would end up spending my vacation prepping and who wants to do that?  And then it's fall and who has rummage sales in the fall? This one might even be too late in the season as it is.
• The problem is that everyone wants to hang out with me on the weekends.  Boyfriend, friends I haven't seen in ages. It's nice to catch up but also it's really the only time I have the bandwith to do these projects.  Boyfriend says he will help but I am all codependent and stuff still so I can tell he doesn't want to or he's in the way so I say I will work on it Sunday but I don't because by then I'm super worn out so I told him not to come over this weekend until Saturday evening.  I need time and space and everyone outta my way.
• The boyfriend situation argh.  I don't even have the bandwidth to go there and I also have guilt about procrastinating working on all of my codependent literature.  I said I was going to read Codependent No More and do all the writing prompts by the end of summer.
• I have failed at Self-Care Summer.  Or have I?
• Does self-care work like that?
• I went thirty days no contact with him which were nice and quiet and productive.  I took him back because he promised to quit drinking but it's slowly creeping back and boundaries and guilt and obligation and yes, do not have the bandwidth. 
• At heart, I am an introvert and I have not been filling my cup.  I need quiet time, sleep.  I have off next Monday to spend time with my mom and then the week of labor day.  

This is enough dumping.  I'm tired and hungry and my cat smells like a farm, or maybe this town does.  I am miles away from any farm fields though, so who knows where that shit smell is coming from.

Olivia, right now, annoyed that I said she smells like a barn.