Anna

Last night, umbravita figured out why I was having so much trouble with schoolwork lately. I worked one day for eight hours solid, but didn't realise that I completely fucked myself over by doing that, ruining pretty much any chance I had of actually getting anything done. I can still feel it now; that river of "fuck it" that I need to cross to get anything done.

So I'm going to start small. Twenty minutes a day, for two weeks. And that is an absolute cut-off. No "oh just a little bit longer!" if I'm feeling good. (I did that once, for the eight-hour workday, and fucked myself over for three weeks afterwards.) Apparently I'll only start to feel it after the first week, so I'm not going to step it up until about two weeks are through.

And no, 140 minutes a week doesn't seem like much. But really, that's more than I'm getting done these days.

I have to say, umbravita is very good at cutting through my bullshit. I make too many excuses, talk and talk but don't act. A good arse-kicking from her later, and I'm a little more inclined to actually get shit done. It's brilliant, and I'm very grateful to have someone like her keeping an eye out for me. ♦ Now, I just have to keep it up... welp, might as well drop the talking and actually work, hehe. See y'all.

Tonight's just one of those lonely nights.

I haven't had one for a while, actually. Now that my friends and I have mostly sorted out balance issues, I've been feeling pretty good about life 'n' stuff. I have the best friends in the world, I really do. <3

But there's nothing quite like hanging out with a real person, and watching How I Met Your Mother this evening has kinda been chafing on the fact that, well... I don't really have many real-life friends. There's Greg, but we don't hang out all that much anymore, now that he's in a relationship, and right now I'm sitting at home, at 1AM, listening to the rain on the roof and feeling pretty alone.

I guess I should be happy that this isn't one of those "omg I'm so desperately lonely" times that I used to have on a regular basis. They were a part of what I used to be, but I've changed since then. Instead... how should I put it. As an introvert of sorts I need alone time to recharge my batteries, but right now my batteries are fully charged and I'm rarin' to go. (Right when I need to sleep, how convenient!)

This isn't a guilt trip, or a rage post, or a sympathy beacon. If anything, it's more of an observation. I don't ever recall having felt quite this way about being alone before. It used to be either "resigned to being forever alone" or "screaming desperation" but now it's just "man, I sure would feel good to be with a friend right now". Interesting.

A beer or two wouldn't go down badly, either.

I don't really blog often these days. Used to be I'd post daily, sometimes even multiple times. But now it's hardly ever, thanks to my living situation not really allowing it. Ah well, not much to do about it. :P

( In which I discuss current events. )

Well, I'm back.

I gotta say, my perspective regarding painting is changing dramatically. What's this? He's actually starting to enjoy it?

( Talkin' about it. )

TL;DR: The job's getting better, and I'm even starting to enjoy it, but I'm so lonely in my new life.

Sometimes I wonder if trying to help people work through issues I also have - and haven't really done all that much about - is hypocrisy.

I'm sure there are a million and one reasons why it is or isn't, depending on this or that, but I'm just too tired to think it through right now.

And I bet, after I've had a sleep, I won't even care until I'm tired enough to be existential again.

I have such amazing, wonderful friends. I love you all so much. <3

I hung out with Jess again yesterday. Met her boyfriend. I'm impressed - this fellow seems like a decent bloke... heh, I've given him the Joseph Kennedy Seal of Approval(TM). (Underneath his rather hardcore shell, he's a total fucking Elder Scrolls nerd! Plus he thinks Morrowind is the better game. Hellz yeah.) I beat him at Halo 3 as well - 25 to 22. It was good, we were pretty evenly matched. Jess says he's usually rather shy, but we got along just fine. It was the whole gamer thing, definitely.

We went down to the pub that arvo; me, Jess and Lewis; had a beer or two. Lewis was bored, so he took a few dollars and blew it on the pokies while Jess and I talked about things. Also, I ended up smoking a few cigarattes. Again. *facepalm* I rarely see Jess, maybe once or twice a month, and I don't always smoke with her when I see her, so it's not really that big a deal. But it could lead to something worse, later in life. I shouldn't smoke with her. It was almost kind of a good thing this time actually, it helped me loosen up when I really needed it. But I won't next time.

After talking about stuff for a while, Lewis comes back with another drink for each of us, he was in a good mood. Turns out he'd won fifty dollars on the pokies. I don't know how he did it, but it was pretty cool. And like I said, he shouted us all another round, so that was good.

That evening, after I'd gone home, I was thinking about my friends. I can't really say I don't have any friends, anymore. I'm just relatively inaccessable to them. The few that I know personally live in Brisbane or Toowoomba, and the rest live far, far away. Like, thousands of kilometres. And in thinking, I've started to wonder about my changing friendships. A few years ago, Em and I were so, so close. I mean, godDAMN we were close. It was freaky, we were the closest a pair could get to like, married close, if either of us had had any sexual desire for the other. (We didn't.) We were just friends, but fuggin' good ones. And now, I haven't spoken to her in nearly two years. Then you have Annie. We were close too. Not as close as Em and me, but still good mates. We haven't spoken much lately, either. Becca I love like a sister, but she lives in Brisbane, and I don't get to talk to her much because of her work, and I don't want to be responsible for hogging all her free time. We're planning to catch up someday, although that might not be for a few months. Jess, I see every so often, and that's good. But it's kinda awkward, what with her having a boyfriend and everything (although I must say, it's nowhere near as bad as it could be - at least Lewis and I get along).

And Greg. He's a good bloke, but he's also quite capable of being a judgemental basterd, who cannot stand being wrong. He's slightly Aspergers, which doesn't help either. Basically, I don't know what he sees in me, but I'm not sure I want to know, because I sometimes find myself treated like a little fucking child. It's weird... he's a nice guy, but there are some things that he is completely incapable of understanding. I won't go into detail. And no, he's not like that all the time. Most of the times he just acts like a normal person. *cough* I've over-analysing it.

I'm just thinking... my friendships have changed. I miss my old ones, and I want new ones. Hehe, it's weird when half your friends are people you've never met. I'm just so hard to get to. I live in a small town, with no car, a huge family (and therefore I can't just get someone to drive me up whenever), I'm STILL fucking unemployed, so I have no money. I just want to be a normal person.




Also, happy birthday to Dusty! Her 18th birthday was forty-four minutes ago.

I had a fight with a friend on MSN last night.

Actually, no. It was more of a case of "he stands there and yells at me, bossing me around and calling me horrible names while I just sit there wondering where all this bitterness is coming from."

By all accounts, I should have been really cut up. Among other things, he said that I should "go fail university like [I] know will happen because [I] never do anything", and that I was a "fat lazy fuck".

When this is coming from someone who is pretty much the only friend you come in contact with, most people would wonder what was wrong with themselves. But it was really odd - I didn't feel cut up at all, or even remotely hurt. I just... observed. Watched him get angry. And from his perspective, I probably stayed infuriatingly calm.

The reason he got so angry was because he said I should add in a nonessential but useful line of code into my computer's config files, and I said I'd do it later. After the initial "just fucking do it" outburst, saying that I'll never get it done because I never do, he resorted to insults. And I mean, SERIOUS insults. I won't go into any more detail. But I felt a massive sense of overreaction. Something else, behind the scenes.

True, I taunted him a little. But only after he got pissy. Mostly I just told him that he was overreacting and needed to calm down.

*sigh* I hate fighting with friends. Even if he didn't hurt me, his intentions were very, very clear. And I'm just wondering where all this hatred was coming from. Insecurity? Actual, honest resentment? Or is this just "his way" of showing displeasure? Whatever the reason, I need to re-think things.

I'll never get him to admit he's wrong. He's even more stubborn than I am, to the point that he'll say something regarding what is going on in my head based on his "observations", and maintain his point to the bitter end because he apparently knows my mind better than I do.

And at other times, he's a great guy. We hang out all the time, usually without incident.


But he insulted me in very strong ways about many things last night, including my weight (insults regarding which I honestly don't care about, but he thinks I do) and my inability to get a job (which oddly didn't annoy me either). I detach too easily, although it was good thing in this case. But like I said. Even if I wasn't hurt, he was definitely trying.

Anyway, I'll stop here. I wonder where things will go from here? I know that I don't want to be friends with someone who will try to cut my legs out from under me at the first sign of "rebellion". Or even a person who thinks of it as "rebellion".

But I wonder what his reasons were?


EDIT: We've made up. It's all good now.