Growing Restless

So...I have this idea. It's a stupid, crazy idea, but it is an idea.

And it won't go away.

Here's my life:

I have 1 dog.

I have 1 brand new nephew.

I have 1 metric butt-ton of classes I still need to take to get my associate's degree...and then I need to figure out how to pay for my bachelor's at a real school.

I have a job that I hate.

I have no idea what I want to do once I'm out of college, nor what skills I have to offer to potential employers.

I make about $130 per week after taxes.

I am stuck in a rut.

Here's the idea: I want to just forget about all of that, the dog the nephew the job the classes the fact that I'm POOR, all of it. And I want to get on a bus and go...somewhere. I just want to pack up the most important things I own, get on a bus, and go.

Hey, I did say it was a stupid idea. Thing is, it won't go away. I want to go to Portland, OR (except the job market apparently SUCKS), but mostly I want to go to Victoria, BC (that's in Canada, for the self-centered Americans among us). Point is, I just want to go. I want to make a bee-line for the horizon and not look back. I want a fresh start, I want to be on my own, away from all the homey touches around here that make me feel like a child. And the more frustrated I get with my crappy job, and the more depressed I get with how much more I need to do for college, and the more my newest family member makes me feel tied securely to my home town, the more this insane get up and go idea appeals to me. I want independence. I want the chance to grow up, by force if necessary. I'm 20. I want to feel 20, not 15 (which is the oldest I can manage to feel these days).

I want to get away from my family, my friends, from everything familiar. I'm starting to feel smothered by it all. And I can't get it out of my head. I want out!

I feel like I'm suffocating.

Halp.

Bianco is sick.

I changed his water, and it seems to have helped.

God I hope he pulls through.

Bianco Got His Groove

Coolest thing about my fishy? He always swims to the front of the tank when I sit at my desk. Then when I leave, he swims back to his plastic plant, where he likes to chillax.

He was having some stomach problems when he first came home, but they seem to have cleared up for the most part. I've figured out that he prefers two pellets to three, and a bloodworm dessert. I think he has a hard time getting down the third pellet, and they are kinda big for his little mouth.

It's fun to feed him one pellet at a time. He hangs around the surface, biting the bubbles, until I drop his next morsel. He plays with his pellets a bit, but he inhales bloodworms like a little scaly vacuum.

Mom just got a beta of her own. I think she's calling him Larry, which is weird. He's stunning with these blue-ish color-shifting scales.

Bianco is such a good fishy! I kinda hate that I can't feed him tomorrow, but it's best to let Bettas fast for a day so their digestive systems can recover and even out. But he gets foods again on Sunday!

Oh, and I get to spend Monday and Tuesday with my boyfriend, which is also cool.

As long as I can get home in time to feed my fish.

LadyG: Getting her priorities straight since 1993!

Introduczione!

Everyone, this is Bianco:

He's kinda hard to see, but he's in the top left of the picture. My mom's digital camera is made of suck and won't take a non-blurry picture to save it's life, so I had to use Hugh's onboard camera, hence the weird angle.

Bianco is a male pastel opaque veiltail betta. And he's GORGEOUS! Right now he's living in an aquaview 360 2 gallon tank, but I'm going to upgrade him to a 5 gallon as soon as I have the money. He eats betta pellets (reluctantly) but only, apparently, if he get's a freeze-dried bloodworm chaser. I'm thinking of switching his diet to flakes. Or maybe switching brands.

Right now he has a plastic plant with no sharp edges, but as soon as his aquarium regulates and starts to grow some nice, healthy bacteria (yes, bacteria in a fish tank is a good thing. For the most part) I'm getting him a live plant. That white smudge in the back is a Greek ruin. I think it's a doorway. Anyway, that's why I refer to his new tank as his Loft Apartment in Athens. ^.^

So, yeah, I've been bitten by the fish bug. I love keeping fish. It's like The SIMS only eleven billionty times more rewarding. I hope to get a pleco for the 5 gallon, because they usually get along with betas as long as there's plenty of algae to munch on. Then I want to take Bianco's current tank and put a couple of Tetras or Danios in it. For now, though, I'll settle for a new surge bar so I have someplace to plug in Bianco's new heater. Grrr! All the technological advances of the past few decades and we still haven't found a way to heat a fishtank without a handy wall socket?!

Bianco is awesome. Ever since I set up his tank, I've been using my laptop at my desk instead of on my bed so I can have him next to me when I type. He always swims to the front of the tank when I sit down, then when I leave he swims around to the back to lounge around in his plant. He kept coming right up to the glass when I was trying to take his picture with the digital camera. I would've gotten some amazing shots if the stupid camera would've cooperated. Ganesh I need one of my own.

Oh, and my boyfriend. He is an idiot. He sent me an e-mail midweek saying he needed to talk to me in person, but we couldn't get together until Sunday, so I spent the rest of the week trying not to convince myself he was going to break up with me. I finally get to see him, and the whole thing was a FALSE ALARM!!! He was just unsure about how "emotionally available" he was, and whether or not I was happy in the relationship. I wanted to punch him in the neck!

GRR! BAD BOYSHAPEDTHING MAKING GIRLSHAPEDTHING WORRY FOR NO REASON!

And then he wondered why I put him in the doghouse. Men.

Okay, that's it. Enough rambling and stupidity. I'm going to glare at the clock until 9 pm when Leverage comes on. Yay, Hardison!

Sigh...and me without any orange soda...

Things Have Happened

Oooh, but right now my head is killing me and I can't stand looking at the computer screen any longer. Ow. So until tomorrow when I introduce a new character, talk about my boyfriend's annoying antics in ALL CAPS and start getting really annoying by talking about my new hobby, please enjoy this wonderful video of super awesome:

You Have Been Warned.

Uh guh bluh

Minions, I am SO tired! My sleep schedule is FUCKED! I wake up late afternoon and I'm still too groggy to function. Blaaaaaarg!

But, be that as it may, Cheeky Lotus posted a new blog post and I will not be outdone even though I have nothing to say that isn't simpering about my relationship or complaining about work.

But wait! I have dogs! Kilo is now 75 lbs, Maddie has arthritis in her back legs, and they're the only dogs I know who get their dinner with a side dish.

I also have a nephew! Who...I only saw twice since he got out of the hospital. Apparently he's gaining weight like it's his job and also he is adorable. Somewhere in this house there exists a USB to connect the digital camera to Hugh. One day, I may find it. I promise nothing!

I have a GRRRR! Because my boyfriend is an annoyingly good guy who actually posesses a work ethic. The result? The only chance I have to see him is Monday night because all the other days of the week he's at one of his two jobs and RAWRDONOTWANTRAWR!!!

And I have a reccomendation! If you're not reading Jeph Jacques' webcomic Questionable Content, you really, really should. It's AWESOME, but don't read it if you have somewhere to be because it's nearly 2000 pages long and addictive as hell!

That's all I can think of, so... please enjoy this condensed awesome:

This. Means. WAR!

Last year, it was fruit flies.

This year, it's motherfucking ANTS!

This Job has been invaded, invaded I say, by six-legged demons from the spawning pits of Hell!

I was sweeping up the sprinkles and nuts behind the register when I noticed some of the chocolate sprinkles seemed to be moving.

Okay...a lot of them were moving...and segmented...and were way smaller than chocolate sprinkles should be and HOLY CRAP ANTS! ANTS IN MY STORE! DIE! DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!

So I called the store manager to see if this development merited a freak-out. Kickass Manager was peeved, but not freaked, and suggested that we should sweep and mop behind the counters more often than once a week (maybe) like it says on the list.

Well, being the daughter of Mum, a.k.a. "She who vacuums up lady bugs with extreme prejudice." I snatched up the broom, sent Depressive to fetch the mop, and attacked. Sadly, there were stupid ice cream customers and I couldn't pull out the far counter for a good ten minutes. When they finally went away I swept every inch of exposed floor and swabbed like a shanghaied cabin boy staring down the business end of a flintlock.

I want those ants DEAD! No way in Hell am I gonna be responsible for the mass poisoning of This Job customers. I may hate their greedy, self-absorbed asses, but I will not be the one to whom the CDC traces the epidemic.

Oh, yeah, I'm so about to become my coworkers' worst nightmare.