So work was boring as usual today, but I did get up the nerve to tell my boss I'm leaving in 18 days!!! So yeah, I was anxious to get home cuz, ya know, I was sick of working and all that... so I'm driving home and when I'm on my street I run over this frog that's hopping all over the place - scared the shit out of me. I know it seems silly, but frogs just really freak me out, and I've actually been blessed the whole time I've been here because I've only seen like one or two (and the backyard is a freakin jungle). Anyway, so then I walk through the door when I get home, and a frog leaps over my head (he musta been hanging on the outside of the door) and lands on the floor in front of me... and then, as if a scary frog weren't enough, a MONSTER dragonfly flies in and starts chasing me around the house! Aaaahhhhhh!!! Yucky creatures are out to get me I tell ya! So while I was huddled against the wall on the ground in the pantry, my aunt threw the frog out and tried to shoo the dragonfly out the door... but to no avail. I swear it was out for blood and kept trying to get at me... but then it somehow got between the bookshelf (bookcase... is that a word? You know how sometimes you want to say something, and you think it's a word, but you question yourself and then it starts to sound more and more ridiculous, like "You retard - you actually think that is a word!?!" Oh, that never happens to you... hmmm...) and is now stuck there, beating its monster wings till it dies. I feel bad for it, but at the same time, there's no way in hell I'm moving the bookshelf (bookcase? :-P) so that it can try to attack me again. You wanna know what's funny though? I didn't even realize I was afraid of dragonflies. I probably wasn't until the MONSTER one tried to attack me, and now every dragonfly I see is gonna be it's child looking for revenge. My fears are so irrational, and the fact that I know and can admit that is equally disturbing. For example, this is why I'm afraid of frogs: When I used to live in the trailer park, my mom tried many times (unsuccessfully, thus the many times) to grow a garden. During one of these times, she planted a bunch of tomato plants in our tiny, yucky yard, and it became infested (well, maybe there were like four or five) with frogs. One of them was huge (this time I'm not exaggerating, he really was huge), and EVERY time I walked out onto the front porch, he would hop out of the tomatoes, onto the front walkway, and stare up at me. No matter what I did while on the porch, he would stare, and only when I went back in the house would he hop back into the tomatoes. I AM SERIOUS. He did not do this to anybody else. I became convinced that this frog hated me and wanted me dead, and until all the tomatoes died and the frogs made their homes elsewhere, I refused to step foot onto the front porch. So now I can not handle frogs - I can't touch them or even look at them... their sound doesn't really bother me... unless I allow myself to think too much about it and then I start getting paranoid. So now everyone knows the roots of my fears of frogs and dragonflies... now if I could just figure out why snails scare me so badly, I'd be set :-P

This is shaping up to be the worst week of my entire life. This is not and overstatement or an exaggeration. I haven't had the easiest life - I've had some pretty bad fuckin weeks. But this one... granted, it's not over yet, so it still has time to redeem itself, but with my luck going the way it has, I really don't think that's gonna happen. It all started on Saturday, when I found out the bad news about my grandma. Then my sister's ex-boyfriend called me and told me he was gonna kill himself, but he loved me, goodbye. So I had to call the cops and worry all night long till my mom talked to him the next day. Also, Saturday was the worst day that I've had at work so far - I seriously wanted to shoot someone in the head, and that manifested itself in the form of me almost having a nervous breakdown in front of a whole slough of customers. Anyway, so on Sunday I went to visit my grandma, and that was hard. Just about the hardest thing that I've had to deal with in a long, long time. She's not like a "grandma" grandma that just sits and watches TV and knits, or whatever other people's grandmas do. She's fun and adventurous and wonderful... and to see her just lying on the hospital bed, with so many tubes going in and coming out of her, while we wore protective gloves and gowns... well, you can imagine that I was crying a river. I talked to her and told her that she has to get better because she has to be at my wedding. I can't decide if that's selfish or not, but I don't care - my grandma has to see me get married. I'm crying now just thinking about it. Anyway, so I went to church after that and cried some more. But apparently it was just what I needed. I talked to God a little bit, and he told me that everything's gonna be okay... I was still worried when I got home, but when I woke up on Monday morning, I wasn't worried at all. And I'm still not. I know my grandma's gonna be fine - the only thing I'm concerned about is when she's gonna be okay. She needs to get better now so that I can spend time with her before I leave. Oh well, I should count my blessings - she's gonna be okay, and that's what's really important... a timeframe is rather secondary to that. I'm the only one who's optimistic, but that's alright - my faith is enough... everybody else is just being realistic. Okay, so I'm gonna continue bitching... On Monday, I thought I was supposed to work from 5-9, but turns out I looked at last week's schedule instead of this week's, and this week I was supposed to work 1-8. So I got a call at 3:30 from my manager, and she's like, "Uh, where are you?" So I confidently reply, "Uh, I'm at home. (Where you called me...) I'm not supposed to work till 5." Then she explained that I was retarded and I was in fact almost three hours late to work. So yeah, at least I didn't get in trouble, BUT Mondays mean that I have to work with Jessi. I can not explain the painfully annoying experience that is working with her. First of all, she DOES NOT shut up. Second of all, she INTERRUPTS, which is something that I HATE. Third, she is retarded. Fourth, blah blah blah non-conformist blah blah blah. She's way too fucking concerned about what other people think to consider herself a non-conformist. Okay, she bitches about "preppies" like they're horrible people because they're starting to dress the way she dresses (no, they're not though...) so she can't dress like that anymore because people will think she's a conformist. Then, she orders stuff from Delias and Alloy. Ummm, are those not two of the most popular teen clothing catalogs? But in the immortal words of Erick, "She tries so hard to be different and to look different... but I don't think she looks different. I think she looks like every other lesbian." hahahaha - the best part about that is that it's SO true! Fifth, if I have to hear ONE MORE TIME about how she's a born-again Christian who's saving herself for marriage, but she thinks that once she has sex she'll be really freaky and she's gonna get her nipples pierced, then I think DEATH WILL ENSUE. Sixth, I have no respect for someone who bitches nonstop about the music they play at work. It's mostly pop rock kinda stuff, like NSync, BSB, and Britney type stuff, which I personally think is fun and it makes work go by a little bit faster. Okay, but I don't dislike her just because she doesn't like music that I like. I think she's retarded, is basically what it comes down to. She bitches about how all those groups are sellouts, too popular for her tastes, not "punk" enough, unoriginal, blah blah blah. But THEN, she goes off about how much she LOVES Alien Ant Farm. Hmmm, I hate Alien Ant Farm, and I'll tell you why. Groups like NSync and Britney Spears are clearly just talented frontmen. Somebody else writes and plays most of their music, does their choreography, picks out their clothes, and basically tells them what to do and when and where to do it. If they put up no false pretenses about who they are (or who they are not), then more power to them. BUT, AAF is a punk band. Punk bands are NOT supposed to get famous off of other people's music - that's one of the things that makes that genre of music so great... the fact that you know that the music is original, and most of the time it brings out a passion in the performers that I truly envy. So screw AAF for getting famous off of Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal." I have no respect for that. So I explained this all to Jessi and told her that if she was gonna LOVE AAF, then she might as well be listening to NSync or BSB, and geez, you woulda thought I burned a cross or something - she looked at me like I was the most blasphemous person in the world. Ummm, I really didn't intend to go off about Jessi for that long - it bothers me that someone so petty and obviously lost can consume so much of my energy. Okay, so where was I? Right, Monday was crappy cuz I had to work with Jessi. Then I had to go and say stuff that could've waited, adding sooooo much extra, unnecessary stress. Oh, and somewhere in there I forgot to say (I think on Sunday) that Ruby, Diana, Kevin and I didn't get the apartment that we wanted, so we're still homeless for the time being. Oh yeah, I'm staying in SD! Okay, so Tuesday... I went to see my grandma by myself, and even though I know she's going to be fine, it still kills me to see her like that. This time they made me wear a mask as well as a gown and gloves. That was hard... even though I know she's gonna be fine (like how I keep emphasizing that? I really do believe it!), seeing her like that makes me cry. She deserves better than to have to lie unconscious amidst a sea of tubes and monitors... And I know that I'm being redundant, but this is how I feel... these are the things that just keep running through my mind... that it's not fair, and that it's hard, and aw crap I'm gonna cry again. Okay, so then work today was so freakin long... I was in agony all day because I was hungry and I really wanted to talk to my boy. I've been rambling for so long that my fingers are tired... or maybe it's just that it's 4:30am and my whole body is tired...

My stomach hurts, my mouth is dry, my heart is racing... all because I haven't talked to my boy yet. He needs to come home and talk to me so that I know...

So I'm thinking seriously about staying in San Diego and not going to South Africa. My reasoning? I think that when it comes down to it, I want to be in SD more than I want to be in S. Africa. Seems pretty simple... But I have all these doubts about whether that's what I'm gonna want later, or if that's what I want right now. I've been praying about it a lot, and I realized that if I was gonna stay, then I needed to find a more permanent living situation than Helen and Annie's couch. So then I was talking to Diana, and she said that they'd like to have another roommate... how perfect is that!?! So I talked to Ruby tonight, and she found a place in Clairemont that's 4 bd/ 2 bath for only $1700/mo. I'm not sure, but I think that I'm supposed to take that as my sign that I'm supposed to stay... I'm gonna talk to my mom and e-mail my EAP counselor tomorrow and see what they have to say, but pretty much my mind's made up that I'm staying. My grandpa's gonna be so happy. The thing that I'm most disappointed about is not actually going to and living in S. Africa, but just being able to tell people that I'm going to and have lived in S. Africa. So I think that's also a sign that I probably shouldn't go. It's a big decision, but I'm an "adult," supposedly capable of these sorts of things...

Anyone who prays, please pray for my grandma. The doctors diagnosed her tonight with Acute Respiratory Distress Failure, which means that the lining of her lungs has hardened and isn't absorbing oxygen the way that it's supposed to. There's nothing they can do for her except wait and see if her body fixes herself. I'm trying to keep the faith that she'll be alright, but the doctor told a nurse that he didn't think she'd make it. This is really, really hard for me to comprehend, but I can't imagine what it must be like for my grandpa, not to mention my mom and my aunt. So I'm gonna go see her tomorrow, and then I'm gonna go to church... since there's nothing I can do but believe that she's gonna be okay, that's what I'm gonna try to do.

Babe, thank you so much for making me feel better - you really don't understand how much you helped me tonight. You are wonderful, and I'm so lucky to have you. I miss you with all my heart, and my only smile of the day is for you. :-)