mandaSMASH's blog: "And now, a word from our sponsor."

In retrospect, I've seen a lot of them in the last five years of my life.

The past is the past. There is no regret. There were no bad decisions. Mistakes have been born into lessons learned, and I'm a better person because of the battles I've encountered.

I've got some adjustments I want to make on an emotional and physical scale but, as a whole, I'm pretty content. I know too many people who can't say that these days, and that's a very sad way to live. I ought to know.

It's weird to look back on who I was a twentieth of a century ago, then glance in the mirror and practically see a stranger. So much has happened, yet I still feel like my mind was standing still for far too long. I've been feeling a breeze lately.. like there's wind in my sails. I have no idea where I'm going, but I'm ready for the journey.

A little change in my pocket. A little change on my mind. Life is all right. <3

I’m hoping I just prevented my yard from making the transition from meadow to rainforest.

It was -this- close. Indeed, I held up thumb to index finger merely a breath apart.

The attempt that was made to clear out the weeds before I moved into this house was half-assed, like much of the installation of the albeit amazing quality materials inside the place, but I can’t wait around and hope that the landlord sends someone over that’s actually willing to do what he’s being paid for. That is clearly too much to ask.

You can’t give $20 to a day laborer and expect them to do $50 worth of work. I don’t know for sure if that was the case, but it happens a lot around here.

I actually had a little fun working outside. Every time I abolished some kind of post-dandelionesque bloom, I imagined a combination of Horton Hears a Who’s and that alien race inside the locker on Men In Black being catastrophized.

Yes, that’s a word, because I used it and therefore it is.

Tomorrow will be more sweat and more sunscreen, and hopefully even more accomplishments. You’re more than welcome to help, but keep in mind I pay merely in beer.

Is it really only Saturday?

I keep typing, watching the cursor move along as I create clusters of words that seem to form proper sentences. As soon as my thoughts are down in text, my right ring finger is hunting for the backspace key and making the cursor pave down my intentions before I've given them a second chance.

It's been an on-going battle between fingertips and keys for almost a week.

There are things I want, need, to get off of my chest, but the weight of the promise of relief practically feels heavier than just hanging on to what I've got. I feel like Charlie Brown with that damn rain cloud following me everywhere I go.

Put on a happy face, society says. So I do.

I'm fine, I tell society. So it thinks I am.

I'm not. But I will be.

Sometimes, I wish the backspace option was available in everyday life. Like that time that I pushed myself too hard and nearly had an emotional meltdown as a result of it.

So, yeah, "that time" was this past seven or eight days. The main course that Chef Life served up was stress. Disguised as such a lovely dish, I ate more than my fair share of helpings, which were accompanied by simultaneous sides of overwhelm and underwhelm. You know, a nice, regular whelm salad would have been nice. I wouldn't mind just being whelmed for once.

It would also be cool if, when I typed "overwhelm" and "underwhelm", they were automatically coded to appear to be jumping out of the screen with bold colors and conversation bursts, like Batman POWs and PLAMMOs. Then maybe they'd have about 10% of the effect on you as they've had on me.

You're probably like, what the fuck's your problem, lady?

Long story incredibly short: Once upon this past week or so, I gained two roommates, moved from an apartment into a house, immaculately packed and cleaned the aforementioned apartment during every waking hour in which I wasn't at work or didn't have to be awake (sleep, what's that?), worried about people in the hospital (one will be fine; the other, not so much), forgot to eat more than once a day, and nearly physically, mentally, emotionally ran myself into the ground. Oh, and I'm a horrible person. The end.

Incredibly short story broken down and explained?

My roommates: Saying I adore them would be an understatement. I'm just a very private person and it's an adjustment. Not a bad one, but an adjustment just the same. They have been amazing to me since they arrived, and I would hug them 25/8 if I didn't live 24/7 inside my imaginary bubble of personal space.

Moving: There simply aren't enough hours in a day to accomplish this feat in a timely manner. Even an actual 25/8 table of time would still leave me craving another day, another hour, another minute to get things done. Every time I finished one task at the apartment, I'd realize another: lather, rinse, repeat for several days. I finally finished the apartment on Tuesday night, which is a HUGE relief, but the house, with all of its amazing upgrades yet super shitty workmanship, is still on my plate. That's another blog entirely, folks.

Sleep, apparently where I'm NOT a viking, and food stuffs: I put in the effort to sleep more than I was actually able to sleep. I could feel an attack coming on, but I pushed the weight and worry as far down as I could, for as long as I could. It probably didn't help that I was too stressed to eat. That's saying a lot, because I fucking love food, but during the transition from fridge to fridge, I'd stop at a store and not one thing would look appetizing. Usually lunch was when I would force myself to eat anyway, but other meals throughout the day tended to get away from me. I lost six pounds in the last week, and I'd normally be FUCKING ECSTATIC!!1 about something like that, but how quickly it happened and the reasons why do not put a smile on my face. Yet. We'll see if I've kickstarted my metabolism and can shed some unwanted poundage in a more healthily (is that a word? if not, it is now) fashion.

Hospital One: Last Saturday, my niece took an accidental dive off of a couch and hit her head on tile flooring. After a goose egg erupted from her poor little melon, she spent a night in the ER and did in fact have a concussion. All fluids in came out, and her walking wasn't quite right, so back to the hospital she went after half a day at home. A bunch of tests, some that required sedation (11-month-old babies wiggle), and a few hectic days later, she's home again and doing well. I'm glad my brother and his girlfriend took the precautions that they did. Kids are going to fall and hurt themselves every thirty seconds, but you can never be too careful with concussions. Things can go either way. I'm just happy the little tator tot is home and recovering.

Hospital Two: I don't really even know what to say. Whatever I could try to say would never be enough, would never come across right, would never matter. Sorry, you don't get details for this one. Let's just say things aren't good, they aren't getting better, and.. yeah.

PANIC! @ MY ROOM: After I got home from finishing up the last of colonic I gave my apartment on Tuesday night, I could feel myself coming off of my hinges. I was hitting a breaking point, but I didn't want to admit it. With the water finally turned on at the house, I tried to wash away the weariness brought on by the last week, but I couldn't escape the panic attack that finally broke down the walls I had built to stop it.

If you've never had a panic attack, you're a lucky son of a bitch.

In the midst of my anxiety annihilation is when I found out how horrible of a person I apparently am. The other day, I had hurt someone without even trying, when I was actually trying to make someone smile. But I clearly must be horrible after the things the messages that were sent to me during my attack, by someone that is family to me.

I'm not a spiteful person. I'm apologetic if I do anything of that sort by accident. I don't do things with malicious intent to hurt or scar, and I have no tolerance for being treated as such.

I understand when I tried to make light of a bad situation that it didn't go exactly as I planned, but does unintentionally saying something hurtful warrant intentionally hurtful comments in return? I don't think so, but what do I know. I apologized, I got even more upset, I stopped responding. I couldn't. Literally.

Feeling shitty while being bombarded with more and more shit pretty much sums up my last week. I guess I could have just said that in the beginning, eh? Needless to say, I would backspace the fuck out of the last chunk of March if I could. I would still do it over, but I would do less in some areas and more in others. Then, just maybe, I wouldn't be so bad.

I'm off to turn in the keys for my apartment. One chapter closed, another chapter officially opened. There is no backspacing that. <3

I keep typing, watching the cursor move along as I create clusters of words that seem to form proper sentences. As soon as my thoughts are down in text, my right ring finger is hunting for the backspace key and making the cursor pave down my intentions before I've given them a second chance.

It's been an on-going battle between fingertips and keys for almost a week.

There are things I want, need, to get off of my chest, but the weight of the promise of relief practically feels heavier than just hanging on to what I've got. I feel like Charlie Brown with that damn rain cloud following me everywhere I go.

Put on a happy face, society says. So I do.

I'm fine, I tell society. So it thinks I am.

I'm not. But I will be.

Sometimes, I wish the backspace option was available in everyday life. Like that time that I pushed myself too hard and nearly had an emotional meltdown as a result of it.

So, yeah, "that time" was this past seven or eight days. The main course that Chef Life served up was stress. Disguised as such a lovely dish, I ate more than my fair share of helpings, which were accompanied by simultaneous sides of overwhelm and underwhelm. You know, a nice, regular whelm salad would have been nice. I wouldn't mind just being whelmed for once.

It would also be cool if, when I typed "overwhelm" and "underwhelm", they were automatically coded to appear to be jumping out of the screen with bold colors and conversation bursts, like Batman POWs and PLAMMOs. Then maybe they'd have about 10% of the effect on you as they've had on me.

You're probably like, what the fuck's your problem, lady?

Long story incredibly short: Once upon this past week or so, I gained two roommates, moved from an apartment into a house, immaculately packed and cleaned the aforementioned apartment during every waking hour in which I wasn't at work or didn't have to be awake (sleep, what's that?), worried about people in the hospital (one will be fine; the other, not so much), forgot to eat more than once a day, and nearly physically, mentally, emotionally ran myself into the ground. Oh, and I'm a horrible person. The end.

Incredibly short story broken down and explained?

My roommates: Saying I adore them would be an understatement. I'm just a very private person and it's an adjustment. Not a bad one, but an adjustment just the same. They have been amazing to me since they arrived, and I would hug them 25/8 if I didn't live 24/7 inside my imaginary bubble of personal space.

Moving: There simply aren't enough hours in a day to accomplish this feat in a timely manner. Even an actual 25/8 table of time would still leave me craving another day, another hour, another minute to get things done. Every time I finished one task at the apartment, I'd realize another: lather, rinse, repeat for several days. I finally finished the apartment on Tuesday night, which is a HUGE relief, but the house, with all of its amazing upgrades yet super shitty workmanship, is still on my plate. That's another blog entirely, folks.

Sleep, apparently where I'm NOT a viking, and food stuffs: I put in the effort to sleep more than I was actually able to sleep. I could feel an attack coming on, but I pushed the weight and worry as far down as I could, for as long as I could. It probably didn't help that I was too stressed to eat. That's saying a lot, because I fucking love food, but during the transition from fridge to fridge, I'd stop at a store and not one thing would look appetizing. Usually lunch was when I would force myself to eat anyway, but other meals throughout the day tended to get away from me. I lost six pounds in the last week, and I'd normally be FUCKING ECSTATIC!!1 about something like that, but how quickly it happened and the reasons why do not put a smile on my face. Yet. We'll see if I've kickstarted my metabolism and can shed some unwanted poundage in a more healthily (is that a word? if not, it is now) fashion.

Hospital One: Last Saturday, my niece took an accidental dive off of a couch and hit her head on tile flooring. After a goose egg erupted from her poor little melon, she spent a night in the ER and did in fact have a concussion. All fluids in came out, and her walking wasn't quite right, so back to the hospital she went after half a day at home. A bunch of tests, some that required sedation (11-month-old babies wiggle), and a few hectic days later, she's home again and doing well. I'm glad my brother and his girlfriend took the precautions that they did. Kids are going to fall and hurt themselves every thirty seconds, but you can never be too careful with concussions. Things can go either way. I'm just happy the little tator tot is home and recovering.

Hospital Two: I don't really even know what to say. Whatever I could try to say would never be enough, would never come across right, would never matter. Sorry, you don't get details for this one. Let's just say things aren't good, they aren't getting better, and.. yeah.

PANIC! @ MY ROOM: After I got home from finishing up the last of colonic I gave my apartment on Tuesday night, I could feel myself coming off of my hinges. I was hitting a breaking point, but I didn't want to admit it. With the water finally turned on at the house, I tried to wash away the weariness brought on by the last week, but I couldn't escape the panic attack that finally broke down the walls I had built to stop it.

If you've never had a panic attack, you're a lucky son of a bitch.

In the midst of my anxiety annihilation is when I found out how horrible of a person I apparently am. The other day, I had hurt someone without even trying, when I was actually trying to make someone smile. But I clearly must be horrible after the things the messages that were sent to me during my attack, by someone that is family to me.

I'm not a spiteful person. I'm apologetic if I do anything of that sort by accident. I don't do things with malicious intent to hurt or scar, and I have no tolerance for being treated as such.

I understand when I tried to make light of a bad situation that it didn't go exactly as I planned, but does unintentionally saying something hurtful warrant intentionally hurtful comments in return? I don't think so, but what do I know. I apologized, I got even more upset, I stopped responding. I couldn't. Literally.

Feeling shitty while being bombarded with more and more shit pretty much sums up my last week. I guess I could have just said that in the beginning, eh? Needless to say, I would backspace the fuck out of the last chunk of March if I could. I would still do it over, but I would do less in some areas and more in others. Then, just maybe, I wouldn't be so bad.

I'm off to turn in the keys for my apartment. One chapter closed, another chapter officially opened. There is no backspacing that. <3

To the easssst side.

Okay, so my [our] new house is slightly southwest. Details, schmetails.

I finally tackled pretty much everything in the food cooking and consumption area. I had a shitty day at work yesterday and went apeshit on the kitchen when I got home. Gotta love those GRRR FUCKKKK I HATE YOU WATCH ME CLEAN THIS SHIT moods.

Between last night and today, I packed dishes, cleaned the oven, scrubbed the sink. All that's really left in there is clearing/wiping out the fridge, but that's last on my list right before all the floors are cleaned. I wish I could just snap my fingers and all this moving nonsense would be over with. It's a royal pain in my ass. [The crown is the worst part.]

Everything in my [our] apartment must be packed by the end of the night. It has to happen 'cause I only get truck use tomorrow and I need to make the best of it. I'm done with this place by March 31st and I really won't have time this week to move any more crap. It simply must be so!

I can has moar helpers? COME HERE NAO KTHXBAI.

Fuck off. I've been busy!

Day 11 – A song from your favorite band

I don't have a favorite band, but I truly adore Rise Against and this song, The Good Left Undone.

Day 12 – A song from a band you hate

Not really a band, but I fucking detest this song.

Bruno Mars - Grenade

Day 13 – A song that is a guilty pleasure

I probably look a retard to all other drivers when I'm rocking out to this one.

Cee-Lo Green - Fuck You

And the peasants rejoiced!

Day 10 – A song that makes you fall asleep

Not in a bad way. It's just peaceful and wonderful and beautiful and so-many-things-ful.

Clair de Lune - Debussy

Day 09 – A song that you can dance to

The Electric Slide. Only when I'm drunk.

Day 08 – A song that you know all the words to

This one is difficult because I know all the words to many, many songs. I sing in the shower, in the car, at inappropriate times and/or at work.. pretty much whenever I feel like it, regardless of the cost it may have on an innocent bystander's eardrums. Even though I sometimes make up my own lyrics, I still usually know what the original verses were.

So, ummm.. yeah.

I'll go with this one because every time it comes on the radio, I sing it all the way through. Amidst potential distraction, victory is mine!

Eve 6 - Inside Out

Day 07 – A song that reminds you of a certain event

Green Day - Time of Your Life

June 7th, 1998: The last song played at graduation. The memory I have of my past isn't awesome, but make no mistake - just because I remember this song, I am definitely not one of those people that wishes they could go back to life during high school.

Eff. That. Noise.