IveBeenThwarted

Rage

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:22:44 GMT

I've been dealt a ration of shit by Qwest. About two weeks ago, I experienced intermittent connectivity on my laptop, until finally I couldn't see the signal from my wireless modem at all. I could see other networks in the neighborhood, though. After repeated calls to Qwest (my favorite being "Well, use wires then."), I had an appointment for a technician to come to my house to repair the modem, as I had spent the last hour on the phone arguing with the modem and the guy at tech support, "Yes, I did that. No, I still can't see the network." The appointment was originally set for Wednesday, but after hanging up, my mom told me that she'd have Thursday off, so I called back and rescheduled. So I thought. I get home today to find a tag on the gate. "Your Qwest technician was here." At 2. When I told tech support that I'm never home before 3:15, and 3:30 would be a safer bet. I was livid. Wrong day, wrong time. And he had the nerve to write on there, 'You have a short. Unhook everything and rehook it up. That should work." Hey, fuckstick. I'm not completely ignorant. I've done all that. Repeatedly. Double-and-triple checked that everything is hooked up correctly, that all the wires are intact (we have a cat that likes to chew wires), I unplugged, re-plugged, restarted, cursed and cried.

So I call the number on the paper and hear, "Qwest, what do you need?" No, "How can I help you," or "Thank you for calling Qwest." I explain the situation. She says, "Well, my notes here say that you told us to have him come out then." I'm afraid I lost a little of my composure.

"Well, did they also tell you that I called back two minutes later and talked to CHRIS and had them reschedule it for Thursday?! I work from 6-230, 40 miles away from my home!"

"I'm not saying you didn't," she replied. "Just that they never changed the appointment."

"Yeah, well, I'm not surprised that they didn't since this is pretty much par for the course with the way Qwest does business."

She sighed and said that she'd have to open a new ticket since the technician closed the older one.

"Go right ahead. I'll wait while you do that."

She pauses, and tells me she'll have to transfer me, "In case someone wants to talk to you."

Oh, I wanted to talk to someone alright. I was pissed to begin with and this woman's woeful lack of the most basic customer service skills was doing nothing to buoy my mood. A man came on the line. I explained everything. Again. I had no connection. He was getting annoyed, cut me off. I restarted both of my computers. He hesitated, then mumbled, "Hold on, let me do something." And there it was. 2WIRE044, my network.

"What did you do?" I demanded. I had no patience left for courtesy after phone call after phone call. "What did you do?"

"I changed the channel the modem was on."

"...Well, it's working. It's a pleasure to finally locate someone semi-competent."

Well. I was wrong. My mom comes in my room tonight. "The phone doesn't work." And it's true. When the modem is plugged in, the phone has no connection. And finally, I went outside to feed the outdoor cats (not mine, but some skinny little strays that have started coming up to me for food), and there are ANTS in the shed and in the food an on the floor and the walls and the cracks and crevices and biting my feet. I lost it. I was so fucking angry that this all came together. I do pride myself that I didn't take it out on anyone or anything, and I was gentle and quiet with my pets, but inside my stomach was roiling with frustration and built-up anger.

Jon asked me this evening about it.  I told him what had happened. I was in a bad mood, though it had nothing to do with him. I was just getting frustrated about a lot of things. He asked if I was alright. "I'm alright. I just don't have must positive to say right now, and I know you don't like that." I did eventually tell him all the crap I was frustrated about even though it went against my better judgement. He got upset he couldn't cheer me up right away, and went outside. I logged off. I didn't want to snap or to have him snap at me. I thought it best to retreat for a while and just read quietly.  I hate Qwest and ants and paint fumes (the house is under construction) and the uncertainty of "when are we moving? Do I have to wait another year and a half? How long? When?" Etc., etc. I eventually logged back on and am actually getting ready to pack to go to his house for the weekend. I miss him horribly, and especially now would really like to just lay next to him as we watch a movie and feel his arm around me, his chest under my cheek, and smell his scent. It sounds awfully corny when I write it out like that, and I'm just cringing looking on it, but I could write pages about him. I hear his lungs straining under my ear because he smokes, a lot, and it terrifies me. I had an awful dream that he got lung cancer, sickened. I watched him waste away, die, I went to the funeral. I fell to my knees in the kitchen, crying so hard my legs failed me. The dream was months long. I woke up crying, hearing his labored breathing, and I feel the prickle of tears just thinking about it. Am I going to have to watch him die again? He's everything to me. He is my first thought, my last thought before going to sleep. My dreams are all wrapped around creating a life with this man who came into my life so unexpectedly and who I fell for so hard and so fast. His sensitivity, courtesy, love, gentleness, and passion make me miss him the moment I walk from his house to my car on Monday mornings. Even when I get exasperated with him (rare, but like he and common sense say, nobody will get along with someone 24/7), I still love him and the bare thought of hiim upset with me or disliking me is enough to tighten my chest. This sort of came from nowhere, but I've been a little down, depressed and angry all day, and it's good to remember feelings of comfort, love, and belonging, and he gives me all of that. I feel so much better, really. I feel bad for upsetting him, but glad he was here with me and will continue to be here with me. I love him.

Holy crap, 8 months?

Wed, 12 Sep 2007 01:00:21 GMT

Slipknot! Alright, that's a joke that only my friend losertini and I would get, but wow. You know, whenever I write in this thing, albeit not very often, I have to sit and think, "What do I want to put in here? It could be seen by someone I'm grouching about, and then I'm up shit creek without a paddle." That's the problem with journals, see. You either A) keep them and pour your heart and soul into it, leaving yourself vulnerable to someone finding it and reading it, B) keep a journal and don't put anything personal in there, thereby sounding boring, or C) don't keep one at all, and when you have a mind like a sieve like I do, you forget the lion's share of your life until some event occurs to remind you of one memory or another. But, I'm bored, I haven't played WoW in months, and I'm not particularly interested in my ROMs right now. I played Lufia a bit, but damn that split monster in the Treasure Sword Shrine!!! At any rate, a pipe above my water heater ("cleverly" located in my closet) sprung a leak the other weekend, so when I came back Tuesday after the long weekend, surprise, surprise! Flooded room. Okay, flooded closet and slightly damp rest of the room thanks to the little metal...band...thing. What I'm getting at is I found my old dream journal, miraculously spared from the flood by the virtue of laying on top of a plastic bag. I had told losertini I was going to use this thing to record my dreams, and why not? I'm bored and need to pass the next hour or so before I hop in the bath and make an early night of it.

Damn my chicken scratch.

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8/15/2004-Dream
In this dream, I was a sort of ghost hunter. I didn't remember this dream until I started reading the old journal again, and I still don't remember most of the details (I just read the first paragraph).

The main part of the dream, I remember I was a ghost hunter or paranormal expert of sorts. I was called onto a case. Big building. I went into a very cluttered room. There were shelves on the walls, files, and moldy old bedding-linens that may once have been white on a decrepit old brass-framed bed in the corner of the brick-walled room. It looked like someone had emptied out an apartment and had crammed everything into this little room, and had locked it away. It was frosting-breath cold, and I could hear a man's heavy breathing coming from an undetermined location. I could feel a heavy sens of hostility, and for the first time in the dream, I felt afraid. I berated myself mentally for going in there, thinking, "I can see it and hear it and feel it, but I haven't yet learned to defend myself against it. What am I doing here?"

The fear and adrenaline that accompanied it quickened my breath, and I glanced over my shoulder at the two people who had called me in. One was a small Asian woman wearing a red, knitted, longsleeved top and black pants. All I can recall about the man with her was that he was very tall, he was old, and he had white hair. They were standing in the doorway, refusing to cross the threshold. They looked worried.

As I looked back into the room, it had changed. There was one sheet-wrapped bundle on the floor, then several more appeared. The bundles were tied with rope, and they were crying. I realized they were women, and knew that the ghost of the man who inhabited this room was actually taking these women and tying them up, hurting them. Soon, there were rows and rows of them, as if I'd been transported back to a hospital tent in a war. The rows of women disappeared just as quickly as they had appeared, leaving only one woman left. The ghost murdered her while I was in the room, but before he could hurt me, my guardian appeared, throwing him back and pulling me out of the room.

8/25/2004-Dream
I had a dream that was sort of split up into three "acts." At the start, I was in a creepy apartment with my friend Michelle. We were dressed fairly nicely, and I knew that her uncle Joe had died, and we were cleaning out his apartment before the funeral. Michelle seemed kind of down, but she wasn't crying; his health had been failing for some time and it was inevitable.

"Well," said Michelle, "it's time to get going. We don't want to be late."

We put on our coats and headed downstairs. The two of us started to cross the street to her car, and that's when I was hit by the car. I went to a bird's-eye view of the apartment building. It was six or seven stories, red brick, and had a flat black roof. Things got disjointed for awhile after that. I was laying down, and crying people were leaning over me. I was floating in something clear, like water, but much thicker. When I looked up, I could see my friends standing above me. It was as though they stood on a pane of glass suspended in the viscous liquid above my head. Then I was alone, back in the apartment we had just left. the room was long and narrow, and cluttered with junk: T.V. stands, desks, clothes, dolls, toys, books, magazines. Suddenly, I heard a voice. "The" voice. A woman started laughing and whispering, but I couldn't understand her. Her gibbering voice was malicious and completely, utterly insane. It scared me and I ran out of the room.

I found what was to become my room down the narrow hallway. it was square and of a fair size with a lacy bed, a tall dresser with stuffed teddy bears on it, and window seat on which I could sit and look outside the apartment. I'd often sit there, staring down at the street, watching the people go along their way. I watched the trees grow. I'd sometimes drift around the house, staying out of the cluttered room for the most part, though she and I came to an agreement. She stays in the room-that's HER domain, and I respect that and not bother her.

Time had no meaning. People came and went and pretty much ignored me, and that made me sad. I do seem to remember sitting on the windowsill, the door opening, and the person stoppping in their tracks. I turned to see who it was. A young man, college aged, was frozen in the doorway, one hand still clutching the doorknob. Unlike everyone else, he was looking right at me. I smiled. "Hey, somebody's finally paying attention to me!" I thought. He ran out of the room so fast I hardly saw him move. The door shut.

As time passed, I had taken to visiting the lady in the cluttered room, the voice, when I was particularly lonely or had a question. The funning thing was, she turned out to be a decent woman for the most part. She just acted like a lunatic because she preferred to be left alone.

One day, I was very frustrated, bitter, and angry, on the verge of tears. "Why does everyone ignore me?" I cried. "Why won't they listen to me? Or if they do pay attention to me, why do they always run away?!"

"Because you're dead, dear."

I froze as the words hit me and stared straight ahead, my eyes unfocused. It seemed to take no time at all, and at the same time it felt as though I had been standing there, letting the realization wash over me for a thousand years. Of course. I was dead. That explained the heavy moving fog that "lived" in the hallway, or the voice in the cluttered room, or being "ignored." When this enormous concept finally sunk in, I was sad that I wouldn't get to see my friends or family again, but I then decided to have a little fun with the current tenants. I think I had inadvertantly frightened off a few groups of people from the apartment when I still thought that I was alive and they were just being jerks and ignoring me.

I went to the front of the house, and the kitchen and living room looked just like mine. I didn't know if I was still in the apartment or if the realization that was dead had freed me and allowed me to move about freely, but my mother wasn't there in any case. There was a young man in the archway separating the kitchen and living room, standing with a can in hand.   It was the man from the apartment!

"I wonder what happens when I do this?" I say aloud, and stand right where he is. He froze. "Cold spot!" I gleefully exclaimed. I think he heard me; his head was whipping around, and he grimaced like he was afraid.

Then I was standing on the little road in front of my house, and many many people were walking east, shoulders hunched, heads bowned. I focused in on one man in jeans and a white T-Shirt.

"Him," I thought, and I...accelerated until I was standing right behind him. It was strange-one moment I was standing fifty yards from him, and then my peripheral vision was a blur, my stomach dropped to my feet, and I was speeding along. and then I know (in that dream sort of knowing) that now that I had no physical body to impose its limitations upon me, I could move as fst and far as my imagination would allow. I impacted with him, through him. Every muscle and sinew in his body went taut , and I could see through is eyes. I had possessed him. I remember running up to people and shaking hands, grinning maniacally. I remember thinking that it was all well and good to be hopping and bouncing around like an extra in The Matrix, but this was a BODY.

I started to body-hop throughout the neighborhood, but after seven or eight, "jumps" I suddenly couldn't do it anymore.   I was confused and frustrated to have so quickly lost this new skill.

"You've drained yourself," said the voice of the ghost from the cluttered room. Over the course of my dream, she had transformed from a terrifying presence to a friend and mentor. "You need to rest before you can possess someone again."

I shrugged and moved down to the common area, a tiny grassy hillock in my neighborhood, continuing my people watching.
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Well, I've flipped forward a bit, and the next dream going in here is a doosie. To me, anyway. It was creepy as hell, but it'll have to wait until later. Maybe tomorrow. As for now, I'm getting in the tub.

Don't they test these things out first?

Tue, 06 Feb 2007 06:20:07 GMT

So I get into work today and see Becky sitting at my computer. Turns out tech support decided they were going to send out a new version of HEAT, but it wasn't installed on mine. After two hours, it finally was, but then it was going incredibly slow (for everyone). Long story short, they told me to go home four hours early because nothing can be done without that program. I have to go in on Saturday though because of how backed up we are.

As for the home front, there are whisperings that maybe, just maybe, Jon's parents will be building a duplex and he and I would get one side. Now, this is still in the, "Hm...maybe" stage so I'm not holding my breath, but I've definintely got everything crossed that can be crossed. With every passing week, it gets harder and harder for me to be apart. But I've gotta go home sometimes. Mom misses me, Melody's going half-feral without me there, and I miss them. But I miss Jon, and I don't want him to think that I'm not coming over (because he's made it plain I'm welcome whenever I want, for which I'm grateful) because I don't want to, because I DO want to see him and be with him...bleh. I can't articulate myself.

Another thing I can't articulate myself on is the fact that I'm getting a grand in financial aid, and I had intended to use some to spay the cat (Kess), and put the rest in savings for moving. However, mom seems to have decided I'm buying us a new gate. I'm of two minds on this. First, I live here, she's my mom, and the gate is trashed. I ought to help. On the other hand, I'll be moving soon (<crosses fingers>) so I want to save my money for that and the gate will be expensive, and I just spent 150 on groceries for us and the pets. So I'm annoyed that she keeps, not asking but telling me I'm going to be buying this or that, and then I feel guilty for getting annoyed.

Lol. I just got a text from Jon asking me if I'm in bed yet. He's so sweet. I'd be up til 1am sometimes if I didn't have him there making sure I'm in bed on time so I'm not tired at work. So yeah, time for night night.

Getting better

Fri, 05 Jan 2007 03:43:06 GMT

So I had to call out the last two days from being sick. Typical cold: stuffy, body aches, chills, headaches, nausea, sneezing. I've been taking Zycam like a crazy mofo and I've been blasting through tissues. I'm feeling better and will try going to work tomorrow.

Bleh

Wed, 03 Jan 2007 05:15:15 GMT

Happy New Year's. Getting sick. Headache and bodyache. Rest now.

Fear my subject

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 04:02:41 GMT

Finished the paper with time to spare, and got some World of Warcraft time in. Oh yeah. But now I need sleep. I'm at my house tonight and I've slept like butt the last two nights. I never sleep well away from Jon. He says we need to break me of that. I'd like to sleep well alone, but I'd rather be with him.

Fri, 29 Dec 2006 01:01:18 GMT

Not sure why I've created this. I've always muttered about livejournal as a place for 14-year-olds who are entirely too full of themselves to rant about how "nobody understands me" and "oh dischordia, why dost thou plague me?" I suppose I'm doing it because I have the memory of a retarded goldfish and need something where I can write things down. Maybe I'll make a dream journal. Who knows? Anyway, this is enough. I have to get to writing my paper. Well, one of my papers for the fifth and final week of my class.