the trail

I'm reading about addiction for my disabilities studies course. I have a horribly addictive personality. If I had any money, I would be a complete alcoholic. I already have enough compulsive behaviors for a room full of people. I'm just good at hiding them. I thought they were better this summer, but...I was wrong.

Plus, don't even get me started on relationships and how hard those are for me to let go of. My mind still drifts in his direction about 5 or 6 times a day at least. I've even dialed his number a couple of times but I never have pressed send, so...I suppose that's a step anyway. I know that I have to make a clean break. I know that there is no perfect ending. I know this because its the only way I could do it before. But for some reason, it felt easier when I was 18.

Everything did I guess.

Closure

So I flew to Chicago for Diane's memorial. It was lovely. My mother and I and my great Aunt and Uncle gathered with 6 of Diane's neighbors and friends at this café and we told stories and talked about Diane and all the joy she brought into our lives. It was so lovely, I think she would have really been pleased. I hope my family and friends do the same thing when I pass away. And I want them to play the story by brandi carlile.

My favorite part was when, looking through Diane's pictures, we found one of her dressed as a hobo for halloween. She had stippled on a scraggly beard, she had a forty in a paper bag, and she had a handful of dollar bills and cigarette in her mouth. What a ham.

Anyway, I feel better. I feel like I'm finally letting go of some of the things that have been holding me back. I'm excited now to graduate from school, be an adult, enter the real world. Feel like I'm contributing something meaningful! I guess I needed closure in a lot of ways.

Although now of course I have impossible amounts of work this week. In any case, it was a good weekend for looking at life as it actually is and not how it feels when you're burried in it. I need that from time to time, I get so emotionally entrenched in the day to day and I blow things out of proportion and get so discouraged...

I feel lighter!

Maintenant

Maintenant, c’est la perte qui m’embête. Qui me fait penser à lui, même plus qu’avant, d’ailleurs. Je meurs d’envie de lui parler, de le voir, de me perdre dans ses bras, d’oublier tout qui est passé entre nous, comme un cauchemar extraordinaire, et de commencer au début, au nouveau.
Maintenant je me tiens profondément à chaque souvenir tant que ces images deviennent comme des peintures obscures et fluides qui se décolorent lentement derrières mes paupières.
Même le son des lettres qui forment son nom, murmure dans mes oreilles comme des prières aux vêpres,
Et quand le soleil se couche vers l’horizon, je rentre à la maison qui se cache ton fantôme. Il reste là, dans mon lit la nuit. Il attend que ma tête lourde et lasse se tombe sur l’oreiller. Il me prend doucement par la taille, sa main froide sur mon ventre, son souffle froid sur ma nuque, jusqu’au lever de soleil le matin.
Toute la nuit, je ne me dégage pas. Je ne sais pas pourquoi.
J’aime la froide. Comme ça on s’engourdit, on glace comme des ruisseaux sans courant.

Hell Doom Destruction!

Today I got about 6 medical bills in the mail.
ALL of them were supposed to have been paid already by my insurance.

One in particular sent me a very terse letter, explaining how irresponsible and incompetent they feel I am. ACTUALLY Hospital for Special Surgery, it's your fucking billing department that is irresponsible and incompetent, because when you originally billed it, you billed it to the WRONG INSURANCE COMPANY and when I explained this problem to you and gave you all the information for the correct company - over the phone and through fax - you then refused to bill the correct company because it had gone past the filing period, and you expected me to pay it. I explained to you that in the state where the incident occured AND the state where my insurance company practices from, there IS NO FILING PERIOD, not to mention it was your fucking mistake in the first place and it is your responsibility to file it to the correct agency! We had this discussion WEEKS AGO and now I get a letter that you sent literally on Christmas Eve, telling me you're going to send the bill (which of course, still hasn't been paid because IT WAS NEVER FILED TO THE INSURANCE AGENCY) to a collection agency and you're going to ruin my credit!

Oh my god.

So then I figured I would go ahead and check my credit, just to see if there has been any movement due to all these royally fucked up medical bills. These has seriously happened a half-dozen times. And I figure I'll just go ahead and check my credit, because checking your credit is supposed to be so easy and free online! Hooray!

So I go to check my credit, I give them all of my personal information, I answer a million questions about what my favorite food is and what color my first car was etc, and then they tell me they don't have enough information to confirm my identity. That I have to call customer service.
So I call customer service in India or wherever, and they ask me another round of personal questions, including the first 8 digits on all of my credit cards. Then customer service tells me THEY don't have enough information to confirm my identity, and I have to send them a copy of my drivers license or passport, my social security card, and some sort of billing statement such as a phone bill or credit card payment!

WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK!!!

Well anyway, that means there must not be much on my credit report in the first place, or they would just ask me questions about all of that crap. So anyway. I just can't believe this, NO WONDER no one has any idea what's going on with their financial records in this country! No one in any of these bureaucratic agencies knows anything, nor do they do anything correctly ! Ever! And somehow, its still always your fault and you're expected to pay hundreds of dollars for their mistakes!!

Oh man.

I am veering dangerously close to becomes an expat and moving to fucking Timbuktu.

This Is Completely Serious. Seriously.

Today in the Moscow Art Theater cafeteria there was a woman with a monkey.

And I don't like a little monkey on her shoulder.

I mean a MONKEY. Wearing clothes, drinking juice from a cup, and eating with a fork.

A monkey.

And no I don't have photographic evidence, because I didn't want to be rude to the monkey. He clearly thinks he's a human. I didn't want to give him a metaphysical complex.

But it was definately a monkey in the cafeteria.

That is....there'snot even a word for what that is.