rena_librarian | Entries tagged with kat

Even though Terry stuck us each with about 50 extra calls to do over today and yesterday, and I'm leaving an hour early, my followups are NOT going to last me the day. I have about an hour and a half to go and six calls to make... *whistles* I don't really want to start Utah this close to the end of the day. Or the week. Or right before a holiday.

As soon as I leave here I have to run by the Post Office to get my Marvelous Mail sent (I hope they're open, or failing that, I hope the DIY machine is running!), then to Wal*Mart to get gas, then off to my parents', where I'm leaving my car.

Hooray. Another two hours in the car with Dad doing nothing but brag about how his car is better than mine. Geez, Dad, Zorro's ONLY sixteen years younger than Laurien. Imagine that.

So, like, it's nice to get compliments on clothes from random people (mostly women @ work, like I did on Monday--someone told me I had cute shoes, which was nice, because it was the first time I'd worn my new red pumps), but when Nico tells me I look good the ego boost counts for double, lol. One of the last days he was at my house (if not THE last day, come to think of it) I got home from work and he took one look at me (he hadn't seen me when I left that morning) and said, "Holy that makes you look thin!" ^_^ He also complimented my "Asian persuasion" shirt (it's really a scrub top styled to look like a wrap top, but it does look kind of Chinese, I love it), and then a few days later I was at his house wearing my lace-neck purple shirt and jeans (and thinking I didn't look all that hot) and he was all, "So, OMG, lately you really seem to have developed a STYLE. And it's working, most days..."

Hey, coming from him, that's high praise. And nevermind the fact that he said I was fired from life for wearing the purple shawl Katchan crocheted for me. (It was kind of funny, at first he just said "You're fired!" a few times, and just as I was about to say "You can't fire me--I QUIT!" he goes, "You're fired from LIFE!" And I told him what I'd been about to say and then, "But I guess I can't say THAT now..." O_o)

But yeah. That made me happy. And I'm wearing that same red sweater tonight, and my Asian persuasion top tomorrow. We shall see if my family notices. This is the grandmother who is cool enough to own video game consoles (nevermind that the newest one is a Super Nintendo, IIRC), but has relatively little tact. (Not that she ever out and out called me fat, but the last time she saw me she said I had lost weight and my hair was cute--"Now if only we could get you to wear makeup!" -_-*) In fact my mother was asking me about my hair (and my three-inch roots O_o ...Nico and I have determined that my hair grows twice as fast as most peoples') and was all, "Are you going to have money to dye it before Thanksgiving?" and I asked, "Is that your way of telling me that Grandma will complain about it if I show up with three-inch roots?"

But anyway. I look fabulous, AND I have my own place, and a better job. The only POSSIBLE thing she can complain about is my lack of a boyfriend, and, well, I'm complaining about that myself.

Damn. I just got my paystub, and between the taxes, insurance, and 401(k), they're taking out well over $100. Two days out of every pay period I work for money I'll never see. (Well, the 401(k), I guess. But DAMN.)

Honestly, I chose the insurance and 401(k), and I don't mind them so much. (That's about $60 total.) It's the f'ing taxes. >_< All I can say is I hope my refund is HUGE this year. Considering that I'm now eligible to file as head of household, and I'm paying Nico to do the long form and ~~cheat~~ find deductions for me (I'll do the short form myself and we shall mail whichever gets me more money), it should be.

Well, looky there--I'm off in 8 minutes. Toodles! (I'd say TA! but Nico's copyrighted it...)

Current Location: work
Current Music: Boulevard of Broken Dreams--Green Day, from Kristy's cube

I s'pose I should be in bed, but alas, I am flatironing my hair and can't very well go to sleep with that half-done.

Prayers for Californians; with the wildfires. I know that at least two people on my flist are close enough to be personally affected, and I hope that the situation improves soon!!

FINALLY read the flist; it was two pages backed up and I hate when I do that. But then RL's been pulling me away, sorta...I've been spending a lot of time with Nico lately, and I realize now that I haven't said a lot about that.

Long story short; his roommate has over the last six months or so racheted up from annoying to hellishly intolerable, and he finally hit his breaking point and told her he was moving out ASAP. Since I have an extra room in my house now (moving nextdoor gained me an extra room as well as a new-and-improved kitchen) and my plan was to only use it for storage anyway, I told him a few weeks ago that he could put stuff in it rather than pay money for a storage shed. About a week-and-a-half ago we started putting his nonessentials in there, one carload at a time.

Things between the two of them kept escalating (she started hanging out again with the man who she's in the process of divorcing--Nico thinks they will probably get back together so she won't have to keep working; Nico found out one of the men she's been running around with is a convicted child rapist; she put a lock on her bedroom door--the kind she could lock from the outside when she left--and started taking stuff that was theirs and hiding it in there so he couldn't take it; she started accusing him of harassing her at work (he IS kind of her boss; and he's nothing if not professional, so that's utter bullshit >_<) and tried to tape-record him. He sent her home over it twice--the second time was Friday night, and he called me to tell me that he might very well have to take a police escort with him to get the last of his stuff. Luckily it didn't come to that, but we DID go and take the last of his stuff sans furniture, and today April met us there with her truck and we got his furniture. (Said child rapist was there when we got there and I really wanted to go up to him and be all, "So, I heard you got your picture on the front page of the paper the other day..." but I totally didn't have the guts.)

So as of Friday night Nico is staying here. (My parents are thrilled; Dad is convinced he's never leaving. XD) He's sleeping down in the living room now. He can only stay for two weeks per my lease; after that he officially becomes a tenant and the rent goes up and all. He's getting an apartment sometime this week--we think; he's taken a loan from his 401(k) so he's doing it whatever day the check arrives. If he needs someplace to stay after the two weeks are over April's already said that he could stay with her (she and Kevin and Ryan and Nicole have just moved into a house house).

The more I look at it, the more it strikes me that it's like he's getting out of a bad marriage. They say the average woman in an abusive relationship takes seven attempts to leave before she actually gets out and stays gone; given the number of times Nico's said he had HAD IT UP TO HERE and started to try and get out before, that sounds about right. April and I both told him today that we were so happy that he was getting out of there. It's been really hard to see him getting more and more stressed out even though pretty much every other area of his life is going so well (work, financial...hair XD). Even Ken (my old boss) noticed and told him he needed to move out. "Nico, you're not related to her. You're certainly not married to her. Why the heck are you still there?"

We spent the weekend moving stuff and watching Lost (SCORE, I SO got him converted AND addicted!), and I got him a key made.

Now THAT I never thought I'd do; my sister Jennifer gave my brother Jason a key when she moved into her house and I simply could not imagine trusting someone so much. I certainly wouldn't give a key to either of my parents, or anyone in my family, really. Not even Jennifer. But then when Nico and I got to thinking about it, our work schedules are so disparate that it only made sense, even if it's only for two weeks. I certainly trust him to be in my house when I'm not there a lot more than I trust the strangers that are my neighbors to not break in, lol.

But I think I'm gonna let him keep the key even after he's got his own place. It probably is just smart logistically to have another key out there (I may, theoretically, lock my keys in my car and then he could come and let me in and I could get the spare car key or some such), but the honest truth is I just plain don't have a problem with him having it, and I'm not entirely certain why. He understands boundaries because his have been violated, I think.

It scares me a little that I trust him so much. I trust him more than anyone I'm biologically related to; Katchan is the only other person I can think of that I would want to have a key, though I might give Jacqui one if circumstances warranted.

(On a side note, we got awesome keys. They're black, not metal-colored, and have a dragon on the top part, with some Chinese or Japanese characters on them. I would assume they say something like "health, prosperity, and love," lol. We couldn't decide who would get the cool-looking one so we just both got them and the "normal" key is in my drawer with the spare car keys.)

I'm also beginning to see that we would probably be compatible as roommates if I wanted one; our levels of cleanliness and privacy-craving are about the same. We both have idiosyncrasies but nothing we couldn't work around. (Though, dude, what is with not being able to drink out of a hard plastic cup? They went through the same wash cycle as the glasses and they're kept in the same cabinet. WTF, seriously??) But I've already explained this to him: the only reason I ever wanted a roommate was that I didn't think I could afford to live on my own, and now that I know I can, the only roommate I ever want to have is one I'm married to and screwing on a regular basis. (Nico has said that if neither one of us has any prospects on the horizon when we hit 40 we should marry for the tax benefits, but when he said it would be a sexless marriage I told him no. That would suck. Plus with my luck I'd meet someone before we even filed a tax return. XD) There's also something in the back of my head that says we could possibly end up like him and his now-ex-roommate ten years from now, and I would hate that.

So yeah. He's getting the stuff that's screwed up in his life taken care of. He said after 25 years of helping everyone else out (no kidding) it's time to treat himself. And he's so right. I think we're going to do a lot of traveling this year, weekend trips and stuff. He's talking about getting a motorcycle, ZOMG. Long story short (again), things have been really screwed up for him lately, but he's being proactive and getting it fixed. YAY. I'm so happy for him.

I so have to get up in, like, four hours...

Current Location: home
Current Music: What A Beautiful Day--Chris Cagle (might be the 2nd time it played tonight, lol)

I've been working crazily this week, but goshdarnit I actually have some freaking OVERTIME. Four hours, I think. My check might actually break the $500 mark for once. (No telling with the damn withholding taxes...the last time I had overtime, though, I had two hours, and my check was around $475.)

Next week, however, I have two days off. ^_^ I have to work tonight and tomorrow and then I get to STAY HOME.

Or go see my parents. Whatever. (I need to go see Grandpa and get my dishes!!) I'm going to call Mom and see what's up with them Tuesday, since my Thursday will probably be spent with Jacqui. Maybe. She's been kinda "I wanna stay home" since she's been living in the trailer (on her parents' property, but not technically in their house). Whatever.

In other news: I think I am officially addicted to the Sims.

And me and Kat are playing the best realtime RPG EVER. *huggles Audries, even though his soul has been destroyed and as such he's being a bit of a dickhead at the moment* Well, as much as we can around her being sick and taking care of Esme.

Oh yes. I think I saw Duncan on Friday. Just as I was leaving the Village 5/Stage parking lot to get to work, he was pulling in. (Or at any rate someone with the exact same car who looked an awful lot like him.) Whoever it was waved, lol. If only I hadn't been going to WORK!! *sigh* I called him and got his voicemail and was all, "Was that you?" But no callback. (Like the last few times I've called him--I think our phones still hate each other.) I just messaged him on MySpace and am cursing myself for not sending it last night, because his last login was today. *facepalm*

I am not a creepy stalker. I am not a creepy stalker. I am not a creepy stalker.

Stalker, yes. Creepy, no.

Current Mood: sore
Current Location: home
Current Music: none at the moment

I've been having nightmares. I think I've had one every morning for the last four or five days.

Not, like, scary-creepy nightmares like I used to have, the kind where I'd wake up before anything horrible happened and then think that it might make a cool scene in a horror movie. This is (for me) an entirely new breed of nightmare--I find myself hopelessly stuck in an immensely frustrating situation.

( Details and analysis... )

So...on to happier topics.

( Duncan, of course... )

Kat's seriously starting to research me coming up to Alberta for New Year's. YES. (I wanna see my goddaughter, dammit!)

So I shall leave you with this quote, which made me think of Duncan when I read it earlier today. (What with the carpe diem-ness of it, plus it's a musical metaphor...)

No one imagines that a symphony is supposed to improve in quality as it goes along, or that the whole object of playing it is to reach the finale. The point of music is discovered in every moment of playing and listening to it. It is the same, I feel, with the greater part of our lives, and if we are unduly absorbed in improving them we may forget altogether to live them. --Alan Watts

Current Mood: confused
Current Location: school
Current Music: I Want You--Savage Garden

Kat and I communicate in strange ways...I just sent her this email in reply to a missive in which she told me that she was working a lot and couldn't be online much, among other things...

More FAERIE TALE! WOOT!

S'okay. Kinda busy. Finals week. Except not busy today because it's Dead Day and I have nothing (I thought I had Acting but Dr. Dilday's sick) to do until I have to leave for work. So I'm BURNING CD'S! MWAH!

Yes. Very good to have ending of FT.

Well, like my dad's mug used to say:

I <3 my job.
I <3 my job.
I <3 my job.
I need the $$$.

Hate the weather. Got soaked yesterday and then the electricity was out and I couldn't restraighten it at all. Bad, bad, bad. Wearing hat today. Look like cancer patient. >_<

Thrusday...*mental note*

BAIIIII!

By which I meant:

I'm glad you're adding Tilly and Ventane POV bits to Faerie Tale!

I don't mind that you can't post anything because I'm busy, too, except for today, because it's Dead Day and I'm only here because Dr. Dilday was supposed to tape our monologues but he's sick. So I'm killing time until work.

It's also good that you've already posted the end of Faerie Tale because waiting this long for more parts would kill me.

Yeah, you think your job sucks, we can trade.

It rained really really really really really hard yesterday, and I had to run to my car during the worst of it because I had to go to work. My hair got wet and recurled, and I had to work with it like that (normally I put on my uniform at school and then go, but I took my dry uniform into Taco Bell in a plastic bag and changed there), and when I got home the electricity was STILL out. And this morning, too, so I couldn't restraighten it. I'm wearing a knit snow hat today and it makes me look like a cancer patient (Cameron Duncan! OMG!), but goshdarnit, that's better than looking like Carrot Top.

Okay, I will check The Rainy Garden on Thursday.

Bye!

Current Mood: crazy
Current Location: school
Current Music: About Last Night--Vitamin C