Today was so, so very long. I had to go to that stupid fucking McDonalds Corporate meeting. And, by the time they asked me to leave, I had incited what was rapidly devolving into a riot. I don't feel like getting into specifics right now, but my manager who went with me told me I should start a career as a workers' rights advocate.

The meeting was two hours long. I was kicked out in the first half hour.

Then there was a whole mess of trouble involving my parents. I decided to tell them, for better or for worse, about the content I stuck in the rape diary. As in, the lost memories, what I believe happened, etc. They took it surprisingly well, and my dad and I ended up talking for a long time about what could've happened. So I wasn't expecting that. But I will have to wait until later to see how this is gonna work out.

Tomorrow is my last day of McDonalds.

Tuesday, Kent will have been dead for a year. Sigh.

Wednesday, I get my AIDS test results.

And Thursday I start my new job.

Goodness, this week is filled. Jackie got me the cutest present today. It's adorable. I dunno what to name it yet.

It's squishy like a Stretch Armstrong, but… blue and orange. I think I am in love with it now.

29 September 2002 at 11:25 pm | 3 Comments »
shutterbugs, the daily things

So, I had a massively shitty day, was fully prepared to have a massively shitty night as well, but ended up feeling not quite that bad.

Among other things, Jackie and I had a fight last night, and its development was only delayed because she decided to go to bed. I was still pissed, so I wrote her a note and left it for her to find on her way to work this morning. It wasn't rude or snide or anything; it was quite civil and showed none of the sarcasm or anger I was feeling. I simply told her some things that were on my mind, and I told her how things were going to run in our "democratic" household from now on.

Knowing that this was going to just further the arguement, I braced myself for when she got home. And sure enough, we started to fight again. It was pretty bad, but somehow, despite how angry I was, I stayed calm enough to think straight.

And in the end, it ended up being a good arguement to have.

I can't remember what it was that she said to get this reply, but whatever it was, at some point I told her this:

"Maybe you don't realize this, but I bust my ass for you. I am quite aware that you're at a job that pays you far better than mine, that you don't have to worry about paying your half of the rent, etc. But maybe you haven't thought about how hard it is for me to afford to live here, and when I can afford living here, I can't afford anything else. Maybe you haven't thought about how much stress I go through in order to find the money to pay my half of the bills, how much work I do just to pay them, all other expenses aside. And it really hurts that I go through all of that just to come home and be berated and yelled at and ordered around."

And as soon as I told her that, we had a joint epiphany. Something in her clicked. A light went off, something I could visibly see. And I realized that it wasn't fair for me to be angry at her for how she was treating me, because aside from the fights, I never once told her how she was making me feel. I never told her how much she was upsetting me in the first place. Because something about Jackie makes my normally ferociously strong will curl up and run away. So I have a hard time talking to her about anything, because she's so dominant.

And I could see quite clearly that she realized how badly she was making me feel. And I could see that she had no idea of that before. All of the anger between us just sunk out of our bodies and she grabbed me and hugged me and told me that she was sorry for hurting my feelings with everything. So we sat down and talked, and made agreements on things, and did it together. And I think that things will work better between us now. God I hope so.

28 September 2002 at 11:13 pm | 4 Comments »
the daily things

"McDonalds, Kim speaking."

"Hey Kim, it's Josh."

"Hey, what's up?"

"I was calling to see if you had written up the schedule for next week."

"Not yet, why? Do you need a day off?"

"Well actually, I don't think you should put me on at all."

"Why not?"

"I got another job."

And that is that. No longer am I chained to the shitty world of McDonalds Corporation.

Granted, I am still in food service, but at least it's a step up from where I used to be. My new job takes me to the weird and zany (?) world of Quizno's subs. I got called back for the second interview today, and after quite a bit of haggling, I think I came out on top. They wanted to start me at minimum wage, but since I make nearly a dollar than that already, I refused. So in the end I got them to agree to give me fifty cents less than what I make currently, but with the promise of a fifty cent raise in a month, followed by another fifty cent raise in two months. So I will end up making more than what I make right now.

And in order to compensate for the decrease, I made him put in writing that I would work at least thirty-five hours a week. He told me he'd probably be able to give me fourty plus overtime, which is a concept I never heard of at McDonalds.

So, the thirtieth of Septembre is my last day there. Then I will start working at my new job on the third. I didn't want to work on Kent's…. I don't know what you call it. Anniversary of Death? Whatever. I didn't want to work then, so I get a two day break before I have to start.

Now let's see how they take the news of my immediate departure tomorrow.

28 September 2002 at 12:34 am | 3 Comments »
hear ye!

Kevin wrote me an email a couple weeks ago telling me about this book that he figured would help me, since it had something to do with my research into multiple-personality disorder. Well, I finally got a chance to pick it up yesterday, and it's incredible.

The Myth of Sanity: Divided Consciousness and the Promise of Awareness by Martha Stout, PhD.

I am barely into the book right now, but it's already thrown open my brain. It raises a lot of very interesting thoughts, and in terms of my own issues regarding this subject, it's giving me a lot to think about.

All in all Josh's mental state seems to be doing better. Perhaps the rape diary will be relinked soon.

27 September 2002 at 4:23 am | 1 Comment »
the daily things

Thomas says my eyes are brown.

I say he's insane. (They're so totally green!)

You decide:

27 September 2002 at 3:49 am | 2 Comments »
shutterbugs

I have been a total mess at work today. I didn't want to be here today, all worries of the hurricane (that passed over while I was sleeping– a total disappointment) aside.

I had another Kent-dream. The worst one so far.

It was so real that for a while, even after I had woken, I expected to see Kent again. I expected to hear him in our kitchen making breakfast, because it was nine when I woke up and he had this annoying habit of getting up at the same time every morning to make breakfast, even when he'd been awake until a ridiculous time in the AM. I actually got up and went looking for him, because I thought he was in my house.

And then it occurred to me, that there was no way he'd be there. Because he'd left long before I even moved out.

In the dream, he had come back– or never left, I guess– because he was on my balcony with a gun, about to kill himself.

And somehow I diffused the situation and convinced him not to. I don't remember the logistics, cos my subconscious sped through that part pretty quickly. I guess it knew no line of reasoning would have worked against him.

'You can't talk to a psycho like a normal human being.'
-POE

Anyway, the dream managed to be sufficiently realistic to make me believe it, and when I woke up I cried. Real, fucking tears.

Because I felt emptier than I ever have felt before. I think all the grief hit me today. Hit me directly in the face like a rocket, and I crumpled against the wall of our kitchen in tears, the afterglow of some boy I knew a year ago standing in front of our sink. All the loss, the pain, the realization that he is gone, hit me in that spot today.

And I cried. For nearly fourty-five minutes. Until the tears were gone and I just rocked back and forth, my body shaking with the effourt. All the while, part of me was saying, "Well, there, you finally did it."

In five days, it will have been one full year since he left me. Well, left all of us. One full year.

And I can still hear his voice. I still remember his jokes. I still remember the way he smelled and the way his face felt beneath my fingers when I blindly searched for it in the dark.

I still remember how he pulled away when I tried to kiss him.

And my heart still lurches through my throat every time I see a boy his height with dark hair and a buzz cut.

Through all of the sadness, I think mostly what I feel is anger. Because killing yourself is a selfish, shitty fucking thing to begin with, but killing yourself in such a way as to intentionally leave that hope in the people you desert that you're not really dead is beyond shitty.

It's cold. It's spitting in the face of those who love you.

And there will always be a part of me that hopes– because of who he was, because of how this all went down– that when he said "Gone on a trip" in his pseudo-suicide note, maybe he just meant a vacation of the corporeal kind.

Rational Mind knows that it's not likely.

But still. What place does rationality have in dreams anyway?

I'll never find someone quite as touched as you
I'll never love someone quite the way that I love you

26 September 2002 at 4:26 pm | 1 Comment »
dreams

• VAST
  ("Visual Audio Sensory Theater")
  You need to download Flash if you see this message.

close your eyes,
let me touch you now
let me give you something
that is real
close the door,
leave your fears behind
let me give you
what you're giving me
you are the only thing
that makes me want to live at all
when I am with you
there's no reason to pretend that
when I am with you
I feel flames again
just put me inside you,
I would never ever leave
just put me inside you,
I would never ever leave you

26 September 2002 at 5:41 am | No Comments »
soundtrack

A quick check of the weather says that Isidore hit land about an hour ago. I'm disappointed. Granted, I'm apparently sitting in the eye of the storm or very close to it as of right now, but the rain has almost entirely stopped.

I hope it is the eye. I've never experienced something like that before, and it's always been something I've wanted to go through.

So, Jackie and I already helped two people whose car stalled outside the apartment today. There's at least a foot of water in the street; makes me glad to have an apartment on the second floor.

However, I haven't slept, so I'm going to go do that. And hopefully I won't sleep through the really cool parts of the storm. G'night!

26 September 2002 at 4:54 am | No Comments »
the daily things

This thing hasn't even hit us yet, and the street around our apartment is flooded. My parents couldn't even come get me if I asked them to.

It rained really hard all this morning, and it finally let up about an hour ago, so I took that time to go outside and take pictures of the flooding.

Expect more as this thing continues.

God I love storms.

25 September 2002 at 5:51 pm | No Comments »
shutterbugs

One simple thing to ask. Just one.

I am trying desperately to find a ROM for this one particular N64 game that I played several years ago and have not seen since. Yes, videogames. It was totally awesome.

Anyway, the name of the game was Spacestation: Silicon Valley and if anybody can either send it to me or directly show me where I can, without a doubt, get it, I will give them sexual favours. I promise.

Uh, sure I own the game already. I just want it for backup purposes.

25 September 2002 at 4:47 am | No Comments »
hear ye!