Perpetual Smile

I’ve come to the conclusion that the best job in the world would be one where I could blog and get paid for it. If I could do nothing but blog all day, and make money that way, I’d have it made. Seriously. Just think about it. Blogging is addictive. If you blog, you already know how motherfucking addictive it is. Once you start, you want to write about every little thing. Thankfully, someone invented Twitter, and now I have a valid excuse for random annotations.

I know there is a really quick and easy way to make money off of blogging, and depending on how popular your blog is you’ll make a lot of money. To me, though, putting advertising on your blog is just as good as selling out. I know that some people pay for their blog by putting ads on it. I get that. I don’t have to agree with it. To me, if you want to have your own little niche on the web, you’d better be able to pay for it by yourself. Quite frankly, what happens if no one reads your blog? You’re stuck with ads that no one is going to click on and your ad provider is gonna say, “fuck you”. No more money, and then no more blog. (I dare someone to argue with me.)

One of the biggest reasons I left Screw-You-Over-Journal was because their advertising had gotten way out of hand. (The straw that broke my proverbial camel’s back was when they altogether got rid of the basic-level user account. I’ve heard that account level has just recently been reinstated, but still.) It got annoying when the choice came down to one of three things:

• You could have a basic account with minimal features and no advertising. This later changed to minimal advertising, since you could still see ads on the home pages and all that.
• You could have a mid-level account with better features, sponsored by advertisers. In theory it wasn’t a bad idea, but the ads were everywhere. There was no relief.
• Finally, you could purchase a permanent account with all available features, with no advertising. My opinion on this was if you were going to shell out the money for it anyway, you might as well buy your own domain. At least you wouldn’t have their domain name as part of your web address, and you could do whatever you want on your own site.

Where was I going with this? Oh. Right. Getting paid for blogging. I got way off topic there. Heh.

Ads just don’t do it for me. I don’t want my readers (or me) getting bombarded by stupid ads just so I can have my own space. Still, I think it would be pretty cool if I got to write a daily or weekly blog for some company and got paid for it. The thing is, what sort of place could I write for? I love writing for Scars Can Speak, but that’s my own site and I obviously can’t pay myself. I think it would be neat if I could find a similar blogging site and get paid for writing about my experiences with depression and self-injury. I could do it from home and get a check in the mail every so often for sitting on my ass and telling the world what I think.

It is so nice to dream.

Right now I’ve got about two and a half hours of downtime until my next class. My Painting I class let out early, at about 12. So far I’ve eaten a bagel and smoked a cigarette. Woo. My phone is dead now, too, so I can’t even call anyone to chat. I think I might go down to my car and get my notebook so I can write.

I got wake and mass info for Liane last night. If anyone needs it, you know how to get in touch with me. I’m going with Sandy and Sean S. for about 5.

My first Painting I class was okay. She just went over the syllabus and kind of told us how the class is going to go. So far, it sounds like it’s going to be fun. At least, I won’t have to study or take any exams. Besides, I get to paint! The only problem is, between Painting I and Crafts, I have to buy a lot of supplies. Luckily I already have most of the colors for Painting I as well as some other stuff, so I only need to buy a couple of other colors, get a portfolio and get a smock. I also need new brushes; my old ones fall apart as I paint, so they’re kind of crappy in the first place.

Anyway, I’m in the library and I’m terrified that I’m going to get kicked out, since I’m not doing anything for school and all of the computers are taken. Heh. I’m going to try and read some blogs while I can and maybe update my Twitter before I go get my notebook and start my Tent City series. Which reminds me, I lost the piece of paper I wrote notes on for all of that….

Why, oh why did I think it would be a good idea to stay late today? I normally work from 9 in the morning until 1 in the afternoon, but since our offices were closed on Monday I agreed to put in extra hours today and Friday. Normally, I wouldn’t really care but a) Indianapolis is not gonna pay for itself and b) I need to catch up on work. Here I am.

It wouldn’t be so bad if what I was working on, well, worked. My task is to create image rollover effects using just CSS and XHTML, rather than clunky old JavaScript. In theory, this is easy. I tried doing it from scratch and it wasn’t working entirely right. I believe that Google was made for a reason, and I proved myself right again by finding something relatively simple that I could build upon. Well, all is working fine and dandy.. except now the images are displaying vertically, instead of horizontally. In my mind all I can think of is, I have all. day. to work on this and get it right. Oh, shoot me. I basically picked the worst day to stay late. Sigh.

Anyway, Everett contacted me and told me that the wake for Liane will be at Woodtick Memorial. He’s not sure of the when yet, but he said he’ll keep me posted. I’m going to try like hell to go. I still feel sort of guilty for not going to Devon’s wake or funeral, and I’d hate to miss Liane’s. Personally, I hate funerals and wakes. The last funeral I went to was for my Grandpa Wish. It was more of a memorial, because he’d been cremated, but it was also a military funeral and it was really hard to get through. Before that I went to Chef B’s wake. That sucked, too. It was open-casket, but he just looked so.. different. All of the light and personality was just gone. So it’s kind of a double-edged sword for me; I love the few memories I do have of Liane, and I’m not sure if I want my last of her to be in a casket, but at the same time I wish I’d gone to Devon’s wake/funeral, so I could have had that goodbye.

One thing I do know is, my friends need me. I have friends who were much closer to her than I was, and I know they are all taking it hard. I really would like to be there for them, even if it’s sucky for me. Another sucky part of it is, I haven’t seen some of these friends in a while. I feel kind of guilty for letting it go this long, only to be reunited because of a mutual friend’s funeral. It makes me feel like a bad friend. I felt the same way at Grandpa Wish’s memorial service. I hadn’t seen Grandma Wish or him in a few years, even though they were like grandparents to me growing up. I haven’t seen Everett since New Year’s Eve a couple years ago, and I haven’t seen Leena since Sandy and Bearrin broke up. I don’t know if Sean S. is going, but I haven’t seen him since I worked at Toys R Us. Mike saw him a few days ago.

Sigh. Well, I’m going to take a smoke break now. 3:00 is forever away.

I just found out that my friend Liane from high school passed away this weekend. I was uploading the photos for the week at work and saw her picture. I didn’t want to believe it was her, so I hunted for the article. I didn’t really have to do much hunting; it was on the front page of Rep-Am.com. I still didn’t want to believe it was her, but then Sandy called and confirmed. I’m having a hard time not crying here at work. This really sucks. The last time I saw Liane, when I was working at Toys R Us, she was buying stuff for her baby. She was really happy and really in love with her daughter. I remember telling someone — probably Mike — that I was really happy that she was happy. She looked good, too.

I am trying to track down information for arrangements. I guess they are being held this week at St. Michael’s Church. The people there are going to email me when they know the details. I am going to try like hell to go; Sandy and I are friends with all of Liane’s friends (we’re mutual friends with Everett and Lena, Sandy is friends with Liane’s boyfriend Jeremy, and I’m friends with mutual old boyfriend slash good friend Sean).

I can’t wrap my head around this. It seems like just yesterday we were in high school together, hanging out in the stadium smoking cigarettes — among other things, heh — waiting for the first bell to ring. It feels like just yesterday I saw her, all grown up and happy to be a mom. We weren’t real close, but I still have a lot of good memories with her. Like my sophomore year. She and Lena publicly announced that they were dating, and started a whole lesbian revolution in our high school. Because of them, every girl claimed to be either a lesbian or bisexual. Thanks to them, I was able to figure out my own sexuality. I also have goofy memories of hanging out in the parking lot before school with her, mainly smoking and of course Kurt Cobain’s anniversary (Lena loves Kurt Cobain). She was a great person and we’re all going to miss her.

I think I’m sort of in denial, though. I mean, your friends aren’t supposed to die. Not this young, anyway. She was just getting her life started and back on track. I don’t even know what to say anymore. I’m just so sad.

Sigh. I’m trying to get the NextGen Image Gallery plugin to work here but I’ve been having problem after problem with it. I uploaded a zipped folder but it didn’t work, so I ended up importing a folder from the server. That worked, but there is no way to see the pictures. You can’t see them from my home page and I can’t edit them (add captions, etc) or anything. So I decided to add the widget to the sidebar, and it worked.. but it deleted everything else on the sidebar.

Grr. So now I’m running late because of this stupid thing. I gotta go get in the shower. I guess the Penis Party pictures will have to wait.

Kate’s party was last night. Mike and I got there when it was basically winding down, but we had a good time. I played a quick “Thunderhorse” on Guitar Hero after Mike couldn’t figure out how to do it. Heh. I paid for it afterward, though; I can’t play that game because of my arms/hands. Good thing I had a Guinness to make me feel better. There was a kid who looked like McLovin’ who was nasty on expert “Thunderhorse”. It was kind of painful to watch him play, because I know my fingers could never bend that way and not make me feel like offing myself.

We watched her play beer pong and Mike filled in for this guy a few times. The guy was wearing an MSI shirt but I’m not sure he knew who they are. (His NY hat matched it, so that’s probably why he bought it in the first place. Sigh.) Mike and I helped Kate clean up when it was over. Her coworkers Brian and Liz were gonna crash there, so we got to sit and talk with them once everyone else left. Turns out Brian is as much of a video game freak as Mike is. They talked about NES games that I’d never even heard of for like an hour while Kate and I chainsmoked and Liz and I watched them like you’d watch a tennis match.

It was a pretty chill party. It kind of reminded me of my garage days. Part of me misses those days but Mike used to freak out when I hung out with those guys, so. Besides, I hear Steve is a “drunk bastard” now, as a mutual acquaintance put it. (I love Firefox’s spell check feature. I forgot how to spell “acquaintance” and of course Firefox had my back.)

At about 3 this morning Kate kicked us out, so we went to Denny’s. It was my first time. I know Mary would be proud. Heh.

I’m supposed to be going to Mike’s for a picnic today but a) I don’t feel like moving yet and b) he hasn’t called me yet. (I’d probably still be sleeping now, too, but my mom woke me up around noon.) I should probably get moving, though. I really don’t want to sit here all day. I guess.

Those pictures from Friday night should be coming up soon. I’m just waiting for Sandy to post them on MySpace.

PS: All this partying made me forget the reason I wanted to post in the first place! Heh. I was just looking at the syllabi from my art courses and I now know two things: I’m going to go broke, and I’m probably going to fail (at least the crafts class). I have most of the painting supplies, but the crafts class is going to run me penniless. Did I mention that the requirements are ridiculously hard for a basic level class? Fuuuck.

It’s way too easy to waste time online. I need to do some laundry, get in the shower and get some work done on Letters of Love. I sort of want to go to Target and get some new clothes, but I also said I would help Mike’s mom with something. I don’t know if I can fit it all in. Heh.

This weekend has been interesting so far. I had pizza and ice cream cake with the family last night. Kate brought our Aunt Gayle as a surprise guest, because she was in town house sitting for our Aunt Karen. So that was cool. Aunt G was in rare form last night. She was really funny.

After that Mike, Lauren and I went to Sandy’s for my surprise. She and Tyla threw a little party for me. A picture is worth a thousand words, so I’m going to have to post some as soon as I can get my hands on them. Let’s just say that there were little male “parts” everywhere; even my cake was shaped like a you-know-what. I think Mike may have been a little uncomfortable at first. We had a good time, though. We sat around and talked about horror movies and I posed for terrible pictures that can be used as blackmail if Sandy ever decides she hates me. Heh.

Tonight, when Mike gets out of work, we’re probably going to New Britain for Kate’s promotion party. She got promoted to the manager of the floral department at Big Y. Go Kate!

In the meantime, I guess I’d better go throw some things in the laundry. I need something nice and clean for the party tonight.

I normally don’t do this, but this was too good not to make fun of.

I hadn’t signed into MySpace in almost a week, so a little while ago I thought it’d probably be a good thing if I did so. I had a friend request, with the following note attached to it:

wow! damn u just look so cute and innocent but idk cause it says ur from waterbury land of the huge players so idk im confused? lol but damn your hot

Where, pray tell, does my profile say “Waterbury, Land of the Players”? Oh, I’m sorry — “Land of the Huge Players”! If this is something assumed — like, all Waterburians are huge players — then why would you tell someone that you are attracted to that they come from the land of players?

I mean, I get that you think I’m “hot” and “innocent” and all that, but why in hell would you write a note like that? How is that in any way convincing? What ever happened to subtlety? What happened to plain and simple, “hi, how are you”? My profile is private, so he has no way of knowing whether or not I’m seeing someone; shouldn’t he not come on that strongly? Maybe he just doesn’t care.

Anyway, I couldn’t help myself. I sent him a message with some advice.

Dear King of Cleveland,
Let me first say I have no interest whatsoever in accepting your friend request or having further relations with you. I do, however, feel a little obligated to point a few things out to you. The first, my friend, is SUBTLETY. I don’t know of any women — myself included — who think it’s attractive when a guy comes on that strong. Aside from that, you have no way of knowing whether I am seeing someone or not — which I am, happily. I doubt you’d appreciate it if some random dude started hitting on YOUR girlfriend.

I’m not sure where you got your misconception of Waterbury being the “Land of the Huge Players.” Sucky people are everywhere. Maybe if you got to know people first you wouldn’t have that problem, and you should probably not judge people just by what you’ve heard or by previous experiences. Not everyone is a “Huge Player”.

I’m sure, with a little more subtlety and some luck, you’ll find the right person someday. I hardly think MySpace is the place. Good luck.

Regards,
NOT a “Huge Player”

As I was writing this, Mike called. It was good to hear him laugh.

Well damn, it’s here. The big 2-0. I can’t bask in the glory of being 19 anymore. (The number 19 is a really big part of Stephen King’s Dark Tower series. Yeah, I’m a nerd. Whatever.)

Today has been relatively uneventful. It kind of sucked at first. Dunkin Donuts screwed up my breakfast sandwich. I couldn’t get some code to do what I wanted it to do at work. It got better once I got home. I finished Breaking Dawn. I’m sad that it’s over, but I loved every minute of it. I won’t say anymore, because I don’t want to give anything away, but I’m so glad I caved and read Twilight. So, so, so glad.

Later tonight I’m going to Mike’s to watch Burn Notice. Tomorrow night I’m having cake with the family. Other than that, I’m just trying to get used to not being a teenager anymore. As grown up as I’ve always felt, I’ve still just been a teenager. This morning, still half asleep, I thought to myself, “well, I’m 19 today.” Yeah.

Whenever you do something stupid, you always get caught. Or at least I do.

I got lucky this morning. I pulled into the parking lot at work and it was nearly empty. There is a chain link fence that surrounds the lot. When I pulled into a space, I accidentally bumped the pole. I thought China heard the seemingly loud clang it made. None of the passersby, off-duty fireman or cars stopped at the light even glanced in my direction. (I swear, everything sounds louder in the morning.)

I didn’t get so lucky this afternoon. I pressed the button for the WALK signal and when I got the little lit-up white guy flash in front of me, I started to cross the street. As I came to the halfway point I heard sirens blaring. I could see an ambulance speeding up the street. Fleetingly, I wondered what would happen if the ambulance needed to go through where I was walking. Would they run me down? (Yes, I have an overactive imagination.) A half-second after I thought this, the ambulance paused and waited for me to finish crossing before heading straight through where I just walked. I swear, everyone was staring at me, giving me the stink eye for being in the ambulance’s way. I climbed into my car, hoping that whomever needed the ambulance hadn’t died while the ambulance waited for me to cross the street.

Yeah. Toldja I’m neurotic.