#there’s a new insane dangerous space thing threatening the station every other week

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I love Odo so much. He’s my weird anal-retentive shapeshifting mall cop liquid blorbo

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Bug infestation fyi.

I'm starting to get really worried...

Living here has turned into an absolute nightmare... It's nice to see the sun and to be on the top floor and have that sort of freedom and all.. but the bedbugs... I can overlook the slightly unpleasant neighbors. The thin walls. The crumbling roof (my ceiling is starting to get really bad). The leaks and places other bugs like to get in. I'm sure our neighbors do the same... But these bugs.

I didn't actually realize how tenacious and TINY they are. A female can only lay one egg a day, but in the buggy would.. that's a lot. And there only needs to be one male and explosions are imminent. Can even be from an egg she just laid, they don't have problems with inbreeding. And while a female can only mate once a day.. a male can mate with all females in his area.

So even one... One tiny, itty bitty bug that's oh so hard to see, let alone feel... Could spell disaster for an entire complex. Because those big ones I've been squashing.. yeah.. they're actually really old comparatively.. and all the new ones that have and will hatch.. smaller than a pin head. I'm only lucky enough to know that thanks to the massively gruesome display in my room rn... There are dozens.. dozens of tiny tiny, so small you wouldn't see them unless you were looking, corpses or possibly carapaces on my pad. With all the powder I've put in there they've dehydrated and ended up stopping where they were looking for food... I hope. I hope they aren't carapaces. They don't look to have moved either way.. I keep checking.. I have pictures.. but millimeters are a lot bigger to them than they are to me.... But I also keep finding more. I thought I'd just missed them initially, but I put something clean down in there a week or two ago and moved it a few days ago only to discover about 6 Tiny little dots on top of it... And a much larger, live buggy under it.

The diatomaceous earth works to a degree and I'm so grateful... But it's obviously not full proof.

....

We need to move. Because Tevie and I can't afford this place on our own...

I mean I MAY have about $200 extra by the end of the month to go towards a deposit on a new place... If our mother doesn't drop the ball on us and refuse to pay rent like she threatened... Which she can't technically legally do because she has so much of her stuff here... But may try anyway and I'm still really angry about...

But even then.. even if I DO have the extra... I can't think of a single place that will take us... Because of the risk. I don't WANT to infest a new place... I'm going insane enough as it is knowing THIS wasn't our fault....

I'm riddled with bites. RIDDLED. And I keep finding more. We even keep powdering... Tevie keeps vacuuming... I keep washing (hot water hot dryer) And the number doesn't go down. It's actually gone up. I didn't realize how bad the back of my arms were until I caught myself in the mirror today.

My legs. My feet. My back, belly, neck, shoulders, FINGERS (those ones suck). These are the ones I just happen to spot.. because they're red and puffy, but only for a maximum of 2 days before they disappear on me... And they've started itching... Due to the sheer number I may be developing the allergy.. or it's probably psychological which also isn't fun.

Who would WANT to take us in?

Even if we find someone.. which I am seriously starting to doubt... We have to get rid of so much... Tevie is distraught... Because she doesn't want to lose her bed.. or the body pillows I saved up to give her as gifts to help her sleep a few years ago... Every time I try to talk about moving she tells me to stop. To shut up... Because if we manage it.. it's going to be so hard. We're losing so much.. and we don't even HAVE that much...

I'm also worried that if we move someplace and some how manage to avoid transporting.... we're not going to be looked kindly on for sleeping/eating/spending so much time on the floor.. the couch where I'm sleeping now, the chair that goes with it, all the beds... All the pads... At least half our pillows. Blankets (especially comforters).. many clothes and our few storage thingys ( specificly ones with too small crevices).. any large/unwashable stuffed animals we still have... It all has to go. There's no way we can guarantee they'll be bug free... I'm honestly terrified I'm going to have to give up my Scooby too... My comfort blanket..

What will a landlord or property manager think when they come to check on us or if we need something repaired?

Most of the furniture we are using isn't ours anyway.. it's our mom's. Lucky me.. we've completely fallen out. There goes the kitchen stuff. Washer. Dryer.

I mean it FEELS bad enough... But for some reason people really judge hard too. We wouldn't be able to to have anyone over because of all we'll lose, and poor Tevie is even more upset because of that too. We will be lucky to have my TV and our games/stations maybe... But not right away because they will need full proof decontamination.. heavy cleaning and freezing if it won't kill them (ie any electronics).. if we can borrow a freezer or have one available to us.

I have already given Tevie my promise that no matter what, she doesn't have to sleep on the floor.. that she can have my hammock since it has made my old injury act up (mostly because I suck at sleeping correctly so I hurt myself unintentionally. Another reason I really miss having a bed.) But it makes her feel worse knowing she'll be taking it from me after I fought so hard for it (it's an old guilt thing having to deal with how she was kept in place specificly). But it's something we can clean and take with us with little danger.. I hope.

I just... UGH what do I do?

If we had.. gods.. idk.. if we had a $1000 gift even... We could manage to start over... to break our lease and throw 95% of stuff out... It would be no less painful, but we could get some cheap dressers or something brand new for storage.. air mattresses or cheap frames and pads for places to sleep.. a large freezer to salvage some clothes and blankets and anything that will survive a deep freeze, plus a place for food storage all in one.. or just a small, cheap new wardrobe if nothing else. Like $50-$75 each... Money for the cost of moving ourselves.. and a deposit, first month's rent.. just a start... Until we could start to save something. Anything.. to get whatever else we may need then want.

But then even a gift of $1000 would also devaste us rn..

Due to the reporting laws, After taxes, it would push us over the minimum income for a family of 2 per month and I'd lose my health insurance (means no meds). We could be turned away from housing due to having too much in the bank... Why are poor people not allowed to have savings anymore? Why is so much demanded up front when the reason people are going into programs is because they DON'T have it??

We could NOT report it.. and then potentially get fined for fraud...

Ugh... A lot of this is worst case scenario stuff... And I could have some things wrong here... But it's what's on my mind... And the very real possibility of living out of a car here in the near future.. if I'm even allowed to keep it. If I'm not... I lose my job, which everyone already knows... My dad will take Tevie and me in in a heartbeat.. but I can't risk infesting his or anyone he gets to help's house. He and our friends can't afford it any more than we can. None of them can.. there's already 7 of my family members living in that 3 bedroom house for Pete's sake... I'd sooner opt to throw ALL my stuff away, even the clothes on my back...

I can't tell what it's going to be yet. How far it all will go.. I just know it's going to be so incredibly difficult no matter what.

...

Slightly unrelated rant here..

Meanwhile my mom doesn't have to worry about a (crumbling) roof over her head because her bf's parents own his place from what I understand. While they may struggle like us to put food on the table here and there, she never has to fear homelessness. She has a bed, a dresser, plenty of furniture, space to be herself, support.. even a bf who wants to give her MORE of all of the above.

... She's also allowed up here with access to everything anytime (I've asked for a heads up of when she does want to be here only so I can be out of her way, but that's too disrespectful of me because she pays her portion of the rent, so she's never here)... And so is never high and dry or fearful... And so feels like it wouldn't be a terrible move to just drop this place and us altogether. To take what she wants and/or needs and leave without fear.

Tevie and I are on the brink of losing everything... And she just doesn't care. I'm still angry about that too. About her lies in caring about us.. because she clearly doesn't. She doesn't HAVE to go through this with us and has chosen not to. And I don't think there's anything I CAN do about that either. I wouldn't want to go through this either.. I mean I REALLY don't want to be going through it right now.. but I, for one, have refused to abandon my sister. My job. My pet. And my hobbies (for now).. which means keeping my clothes (work has dress code).. mandatory decent night's rests.. fighting the infestation/dealing with bites... Working on moving/losing stuff all by myself... It's exhausting.. and I'm terrified.. but I can't just run away from it... (Especially cuz I got no monies to do so).. I'm mad because she CAN.. perhaps, actually, jealous is a better word than mad... because I understand. As twisted and backwards as her logic is in a lot of places.. self preservation is pretty smart technically.. and dropping all of this does mean less stress for her which is important to life...

*sigh*... I think I will need to ask for help soon... I'm the thinker.. and I am struggling to think my way through this.

I'm struggling to find a way to remain or even BECOME independent like I want to be... ESPECIALLY Because of these bugs... If we could just move.. if there were no bed bugs. If the only obstacle was getting a place we could afford and moving Into that place.. we could do it... But losing near everything in order to do it... To have to rebuild so much.... (Beds.. heck FURNITURE is expensive)... I don't think we can do that.. not alone.

Not that, hey, a table is ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.. nor are chairs (posture can be worked on and upheld without those)... Nor are many pillows and blankets. One should do a person each... In Montana Winters it can get difficult.. but it's easily possible to sleep in sweaters and layers and stuff... Keep your head propped up carefully and it may be possible to avoid getting colds and back aches from sleeping on the floor too. And cats.. well they do need perches.. that bit IS important.. but they will gladly curl up next to you and in clothes to keep warm

..

Maybe I am overthinking... Maybe it's a GOOD thing to get rid of pretty much everything... I mean.. we don't NEED all of it... It's just nice.. don't need a dresser or books or a lot of clothes or a bed, really... We're human. We're animals... We're the only ones who have 'need' of these comforts and convieniences I'm so sad to lose... A nest is nice, but shelter is more important.. as is food.

Maybe... Maybe I can track down a 1 bedroom place we can afford instead of looking for a 2 bedroom and getting pegged with double the ridiculous prices... I mean.. without having living room stuff... The living room is just a room, right? It's technically my bedroom right now even... any kept TVs and electronics don't need to be off the floor if they're not plugged in...

... why am I freaking out exactly?

Well I certainly don't want to track in any bedbugs to a new place... That is valid... But the rest of it.. the rest of it does seem rather silly. I don't need to keep nearly as much as I want to. ... I suppose my biggest challenge now may be is working with Tevie to see this and be okay with it too...

Yay 3am second-wind ^^

[naahh]

22 soon

Never in my life have I felt so thankful for my place in this universe. My whole year being 21 years old was spent unencumbered and unattached, yet was so rich and fulfilling. Of course full of aggravation, grief and downright feeling sorry for myself, but how does one free themselves of these feelings completely? They can’t.

The phenomenon that is Mark turned my entire being upside down and inside out. The removal of him from social media a few months ago was not an easy feat, but something that had to be done as to stop the temptation of the late night messages that plagues so many of us. And thank god. Because every time I did it got me no where, except for that little bit lower in the esteem and pride scale. I still think about him every so often and wish- oh how I wish- that things were different but in due time it will all be but a memory. Positive or otherwise, a memory nonetheless.  If you’ve ever cared about your grades at all, and you take an exam that you believe you can do well in and you sit the thing, and walk away fully aware that you could get HD/A or F but even when you get the F you realise you weren’t prepared for that caliber of disappointment at all then you might know what it feels like to ask someone out and have them say no. Better yet, if you’re actually set on the High distinction, there’s no doubt in your naive mind that there could be any other outcome but sure enough, there is: you fail. Then I suppose that is kind of like what I have felt for the past 10 months. How I care about him at all after so long is curious. He’s really God’s gift in my eyes or it’s the whole ‘rejection breeds obsession’ thing. Not too sure yet.

Half the time that I ever spent this last year wanting to neck myself I attribute to MDMA and the god damn frequency of my ingestion of the stuff. My relationship with it was more intense than I’ve had with any living person in a while, unfortunate as that is. It was sudden, fast paced and abrupt. The whole time I knew it was bad for me, but of course that realisation couldn’t stop me, nor could simply wanting to stop. Though I’m not too sure of that either cause’ I never really wanted to stop to tell you the truth. I knew it was a problem but thought it was one that I could sustain for the foreseeable future- says every person that has had a habit ever. In that time I worked two jobs and was earning more than I ever had yet my expenditure was equal to that amount, in some cases more. Now I don’t have anything to show for it but memories of an entire lifetime crammed into the space of one year. Was it worth it?

Yes.

I quietly ‘checked out’ from my uni degree long before I officially made the decision to cease the thing more than halfway through. Many friends requested to film my folks’ reaction to the news because it was predicted to be hilariously catastrophic but when the time came, there was no time to get my phone out. The night before I had been with a friend on one of our seemingly innocent pursuits of debauchery. On this night we had obtained drugs from fellow participants of a party in the middle of some park in St Peters. We got a tip off from a guy that I had coined ‘Red Hat Rob’ in which we’d attended a similar gathering a few weeks prior. Ended up at his mates and without sleep, I gathered my belongings at about 8am and made my way home to fanatic parents who wanted to know why the hell I was out all the time and what I was doing with my life, if anything anymore and I told them I’m through with nursing, I have what it takes to be a police officer.  It actually seemed plausible in my mind at the time. It makes me wonder about the concept of sanity. If all this seemed so normal then and I think I’m normal now, then who the hell knows what’s what with anything.

So I continued in this fashion for the next four months. The tension between myself and my parents was so unbearable to me that the week prior to my departure to Thailand I avoided them altogether. I stayed with a guy that I’d met on New Years Eve and ended up in bed with after a drug fueled rampage and my best friend and I’ll never forget their hospitality during this time. I thought the situation would settle after I’d been overseas for two weeks fending for myself for the first time in my sheltered life. But things were erratic as ever.  After I’d exhausted all my other possible avenues for scoring pills, I asked an ex boyfriend from about seven years ago if he could for me. Upon our meeting I discovered he was in fact a drug dealer. I thought I’d struck gold and had found a regular source. How wrong I was.  My friend had accompanied me to a gig on Oxford Street one night and we had one of the pills I had obtained each. For a few hours after, things were seemingly normal. Though my sense of time that night was quite askew, hours may be generous. I had come to expect a feeling of being in between high out of my mind and being sober whenever I took anything at this point. I only felt the desired effect less than half of the time which could be for a number of reasons. After moving on to a warehouse party things began to turn. We both felt lethargic and confused. She asked me what it is that I wanted to do and I said “I want to stay here forever and ever”. I couldn’t envision a moment ahead of me in which I wasn’t sitting in that very spot, with the same group of people even though I wasn’t even particularly enjoying myself. Eventually we hijacked it back to my house and in the same breath of telling her that I wanted to be sick the entire way home, I threw up copiously. Once inside, I noticed that there was something on the mat by the front door and bent down to pick it up. I discovered that it was the street light shining through the door. There was nothing there. Even more bizarre yet, when I got into bed and closed my eyes, i began to see faces of people that I knew which morphed into terrifying, demonic and ever so vivid faces with bared teeth that threatened to engulf me. I quickly opened my eyes but the images were stamped on my pupils and they wouldn’t go away. I had never experienced any kind of hallucination before and I had no idea what was happening to me or how long it was going to last. Til the morning? Til I go insane and end this whole thing? But sure enough, when I woke up a few hours later, I could see like I normally would on any normal day. When I looked at myself in the mirror, what I did see in front of me was positively alarming. A bruise, purple and pink, the size of my hand on the side of my thigh. I had felt no pain during the night before. But that bruise had to be a result of something extremely painful. It didn’t add up. I quickly got myself together and went to a first birthday party for someone who I love so much, feeling like a ghost of myself. I almost find it laughable. The situations I get myself in.  I turned the events of that night over in my mind, examined them, for weeks after and couldn’t believe the danger I had put myself and my friend in. How I trusted the person that sold it to me. I didn’t know what the hell was in that capsule and thanked the powers that be that I was alive to wonder at all. 

Shortly after, on a normal Wednesday night in April, I found myself sitting on the side of the road with my dearly loved companion in crime, after getting ejected from numerous bars in Sydney for bringing in outside alcohol. This was not the first time that we had employed this money saving tactic and had gotten so drunk that it was impossible to conceal the prohibited bottle of our choosing. Suddenly, she got to talking to a passerby and their topic of discussion was one that I could hardly believe. It involved the attainment of something that I knew ought not to be meddled in or even inquired about. The scene startled me.  I got the two of us away from there as fast as possible. The destination was Kings Cross where we were to meet the person she was involved with, who I’d considered a friend until I considered him someone not worth a second of my time. I was fairly successfully ignoring him as hard as everyone was making it for me to do so- even her. I eventually had enough, so much so, I ventured home alone. All I wanted was to keep a lid on the container of disaster but it wasn’t appreciated and it wasn’t my job anyway.  On my way to the station I stopped at a convenience store for a pack of cigarettes. There was a man at the counter smoking a lit cigarette which I regarded as wonderfully rebellious. “Right on, man” “Wanna buy any weed?” he asked me. “Sure.” So from then on I replaced MDMA with the casual use of marijuana. It was something that didn’t wreck absolute havoc with my mind and body and it was something that I didn’t kill myself to obtain cause it was much easier to get but mainly cause I wasn’t so damn crazy about it.

 Without even realising, I was drifting further and further away from the personal hell I had created for myself. And though it was just just that: chasing after someone who didn’t want me back, chasing drugs that made me sick and fighting with my parents, I was happier than I’d ever thought possible. I found something to be thankful for every day. I was doing the best I could and because of that I would do it all over again the exact same way; the terrific and the terrible.  I made spontaneous decisions, met people from all walks of life, saw sunrises and sunsets, explored the beautiful place I get to call home, injured myself in moshpits, drove places I’d never been by myself and sang the whole way so loud and smoked so much I lost my voice. I learned the importance of saying thank you when something is done for you no matter how insignificant and of saying sorry when you have done wrong, and actually meaning it. I knew everyone made mistakes but I discovered that it can actually be okay to forgive them. I learned so much that I couldn’t possibly write all the lessons but the main thing is that we never stop learning, progressing and growing through our entire lives and that’s what makes life so unique and wonderful. I can’t wait for all the stuff I’m gonna go through in the coming year, if you wanna know the truth.