MY LIFE - JULY

Wednesday, July 21, 1999

I'm really starting to hate life right now. Things are on the decline and it doesn't look like that's going to be changing anytime soon, especially with the way things have gone so far even this week. I know it's been a while since I really wrote anything, but it's been so crazy here that I really haven't felt like being here at times, much less sit at the computer doing the work online that I probably should be doing. I'm approaching the end of my rope right now, and I've never really felt this hopeless. What's the deal? Let's start with my car.

First of all, about two weeks ago, we smelled fumes around my car and discovered that when the gas tank is more than half full, there's a small leak. Took it up to a repair shop and was told it was going to be $600 to have it fixed because it was the tank, or so the guy insisted. That's not happening since I've gotten the payment down to around $900. So we took the car and left figuring that if I don't fill the tank up more than halfway that things would be okay for the time being.

Next came the nasty sound that the front brakes starting making almost a week ago. We took the car to Midas and after an inspection, the guy called back and starting listing things that were terribly wrong with the front brakes. After adding on some other junk that wasn't even supposed to be looked at, the total came to $480. Sticker shock doesn't begin to describe how it felt when I was told that. I told the guy to not do anything to it at all and that we'd be up to pick the car up as soon as possible.

Now up to the plate comes my dad. It seems that everytime he comes back he's worse than he was before and this time is no different. Since last Saturday when we found him back in the house, there have been at least a half dozen incidents between one of us and him and this is getting out of hand. Sunday he started an argument with my mom, going so far as to call her a whore right in front of my face, which was nearly enough for me to get involved. My mom made me sit down though.

Monday I came home from work, sat down on the computer, and began to try and check my mail when he walked up and decided it was lecture time. Lacing his conversation with profanity, he told that things were going to change around and if I didn't like it not to let the three doors out of this house hit me in the ass. First of all, there are four doors, two of which that slide so they really wouldn't hit me in the ass in the first place. But that seemed rather irrelevant at the time. Anyway, he went on and on about things, most of which I didn't catch because I had stopped listening to him at one point. That was a long night.

Tuesday, while I was applying at Cuyahoga Community College, he decided that he was going to make all my decisions for me regardless of what I intended on doing. He was very pissed that I was only intending on taking two classes just to get me acclimated to things and demanded that I take more or pay him rent. He seemed to forget one very important part about me applying. That I was in fact the one who was applying, not him, therefore, I choose what classes I want and don't want. I am going with two and he can kiss my ass if he doesn't like it. Charge me rent asshole. I don't give a shit.

Tonight was the crowning achievement for him though. While I was at work, he apparently took it upon himself to take the doghouse and put it in the back of the yard for whatever reason. Then he was throwing cat litter around in what appears to be a clear-cut temper tantrum if you ask me. To top it all off, he didn't go to sleep again last night and has been making absolutely no sense at all when he talks, further instigating our suspicions of something being terribly wrong with him.

I'm just at the end of my rope right now in terms of trying to figure out what to do. It may come down to me having to move, which could either be good or bad depending on where we might move. In any case, I'm sick of all this bullshit and really want nothing more than for things to just stop being so shitty around here. There's really not much more any of us can take, and with him not going too far, we don't have too much ground to work on in terms of prosecuting him. It's too much though.

It really makes me wonder what I did to deserve all this bullshit in my life. It's affecting me in some pretty bad ways and has made me difficult to work with. This is just too much stress for one person to have at a young age and I'm really tired of it. I'm exhausted mentally to the point where I just can't function very well at all. All of this has drained me considerably and I just want to know what I did to get this mess. It seems that no matter what I do, something bad eventually happens and I have no control over these things. None of this was brought on by myself. These are things that I'm forced into dealing with and I'm tired of it.

If anything, I'm very thankful that Jennifer's back home now. Maybe now we can get things moving and get together to possibly help ease my mind a little bit. I had a really good chat with her tonight not long ago and it eased me a little to see her being upset over things as well. I know that I'm not alone now and that I can talk to her whenever I need her, and right now I need her badly. There is a silver lining, no matter how small it may be.

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As I said, I was at Tri-C as it's called to apply so that I could take a couple classes in the fall to help my grades out. I took two placement tests, one for english and one for math. I did very well on the english test, scoring a 77 out of 81 to get me placed into honors english for the second year in a row if you count high school. The math one, I didn't do so hot on. The problems I missed were ones that we either didn't cover, or never got around to last year. I had 16/25 bring my total score to 93/106, which isn't all that bad.

Next Thursday I have an orientation to go to and afterwards I'll be registering for the two classes that I will be taking, english 1010 and a math class. Two classes is all I want simply because I need to get back into the swing of things as well as work on getting my grades up, which weren't so hot while in high school. This did make my dad angry, so he accused my mom of trying to be persuasive. Only problem there is that that's exactly what he was doing, trying to persuade me to do what he wanted. It never dawned on him that all I wanted was a couple classes. He then started giving me lip, which I was more than happy to give right back. I'm sorry, but if he's going to get lippy with me, I'm going to return the fire as I do all the time.

Anyway, I should be all set by the middle of next week on my classes and all that. I'll keep you all posted on what happens next.

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All of our cats have flea collars on. That's not so remarkable except that of all the cats we have, only one has let us ever put a flea collar on. First up was my cat, Kisa. I was in absolute shock when I was able to put it on her with out her evening trying to get away. Then came Bandit, who cooperated with us. Morgue also cooperated, actually looking at the collar as we put it on him with some curiosity. Poob didn't mind it, nor did Shadow, which was the biggest surprise. You see, in the past, whenever you'd put a flea collar on Shadow, it would be gone by the end of the day. She's good at getting those off and we figured that there was a good chance it would happen again. Imagine our surprise when she came in that night with the collar still on, almost like she didn't even realize it was there.

None of the cats seemed to notice their new flea collars. It was amazing. It was funny too. We had two colors, blue and yellow. Poob, Kisa, and Morgue all got blue. Bandit and Shadow obviously got yellow. Shadow is a dark cat and it's just something else to see that yellow flea collar sticking out like a sore thumb around her neck. We couldn't stop laughing at times because it looked so ridiculous. The other cats look good in theirs though, so everything's working out.

The dog Anubis is another story. He got sprayed by a skunk. He still smells a little, but not nearly as bad as he did before. The smell the night it happened was strong though. It caused an allergic reaction with my mom and we were forced to call the fire station so that they could make sure it was indeed a skunk. They gave her oxygen, but she's still having problems with it even now. The smell was also hard to get out of the house, which made sleeping nearly impossible. It was not fun.

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I haven't been sleeping well again, mostly because of the things going on at home right now. I haven't fallen asleep before 2am once this week. It's not fun....I'm going to be forced to combine July and August into the same index for My Life simply because of that 12 day dry spell that I had. I started off writing for nearly the entire first half of the month, but things then got crazy and I haven't had a chance or wanted to have a chance to write since July 12 in any part of this site.

Tribe Watch '99

Last Game
Toronto, 4
Cleveland, 3

Summary
The Indians offense went south again in this came, unable to support Dave Burba, who allowed three runs, striking out thirteen Blue Jays. The Jays won it in the top of the ninth when Carlos Delgado just got enough of a pitch that was low and away to hit it out of the ballpark to give Toronto a 4-3 lead. Manny Ramirez ended the game grounding into a double play with bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth.

Game Notes
Toronto is on a roll right now while the Indians continue to stagger....The Tribe is only 12-15 in the last 27 games and has only scored 27 runs in 7 games, one of those a game where they scored 10 runs....Pat Hentgen had a good start for Toronto, but wasn't involved in the decision....The Indians play one more with Toronto before going to New York for a huge weekend series.

Record
Have to find out