It’s two in the morning now.  My whole household is still awake.  Except that damn hamster who must have tired himself out running on his wheel all damn day.  (Hello, welcome to jenallday.com which is apparently now a hamster blog.)  It is crazy town over here.  We sleep all day and then at 1 a.m. it’s time to get down to business.

Except for me.  My two projects scheduled for today lay scattered all over my house.   My house that only a week ago was spotlessly clean.  My house that in a week will need to be spotlessly clean.  I can’t remember what I’ve been doing for the last four hours.  I’ve been in a complete daze.  I lost the battle today.  Everything that is not in my nature to ignore has slapped me in the face.  And then there were the surprises that I shouldn’t care about but I do.  Because I’m STUPID.

I can’t talk to my best friend who calms me down because of choices we’re both making.  The other spends all our conversations begging me to stop taking my medication.  He wins tonight, because I’m skipping the nightly dose.  I’ve lost the battle with today, what’s the point of trying to keep it together?  I already have a squinty eye from the stroke that is threatening to break lose and my stress rash has taken up residence all over my neck again.

For today, I give up.

Text Sent:  I’m the hobo in the south corner of the restaurant filling up on chips.

Hysterical Call Received:  You can’t tell me directions.  I DON’T KNOW DIRECTIONS!

 ********

Swamp Ass is still feverishly in love with his wheel.  I’ve learned my lesson, never take his wheel away because the next week will be spent wondering what the hell that noise is.

My Mom this morning:  “I woke up at 2 a.m. wondering who the hell was sharpening pencils?”

The back story:  A few weeks ago I was sorta ambushed into adopting a drawf hamster.  In the same week that I adopted two more beta fish.  Pictures and stories on their names were to be posted but then Ol’ Dirty Bastard threw himself out of his fish tank to his own death on the carpet below.  That ended the bliss that was my newly doubled pet total.  (And caused my neighbors much confusion I’m sure when all I could be heard yelling was “Ol’ Dirty Bastard committed suicide!!  Holy crap.  Suicide!”)

So, I’ve got this hamster.  And he’s kind of a jerk.  I’ve never had a rodent as a pet before.  (Note:  My brother had a hamster when we were little and our parents forced us to watch it give birth.  SCARRED FOR LIFE.  Learning experience my ass.)  So me and this hamster are in our getting to know you phase.  So far he knows that I’m apparently only capable of giving completely inappropriate names to pets, and I know that Swamp Ass sleeps all day and runs on that damn wheel as soon as it’s lights out. 

So when my bed was occupied with Shannon this weekend after my birthday get together and Swamp decided to pull his favorite party trick and scare the crap out of her by running on his wheel at 2 a.m. I took his wheel away.  GASP!  Yes, I am a mean pet mother. 

And then I didn’t put his wheel back on Sunday.  Because I was sleepy.  And then also Monday, because I was sleepy.  And then Tuesday rolls around and I walk into the bedroom to find Swamp Ass dangling from his front paws from the roof of his cage trying to get at his beloved wheel.  Well then I kind of felt like an asshole.  So I attempted to get his wheel back in the cage but all that little menace wanted to do was escape from the cage.  I just don’t do rodents running wild in my house so I threw him back in, closed the door and put the wheel back on top of the cage.

This morning I find him sitting on his ledge looking as pissed as a hamster can muster.  The wheel?  No where to be found.  How a hamster knocked a large chunk of plastic off the roof of his cage and halfway under my bed four feet away I’ll never know, but I figured it was time to give him the wheel back.  He’s been running on that damn thing ever since.

Jen:  “Mom, that hamster hasn’t shut the fuck up since I gave him that wheel back.”

Mom:  “He probably was missing his exercise.  OH!  Maybe I should get a wheel!”

Jen:  “…  …  … Um, we had a wheel, it was called a treadmill.  We sold it because we never used it.”

Mom:  “Oh, that’s right.  Never mind.”

It really bothers me that this wordpress theme doesn’t have the date on all the posts.  I just had to get that out.  YOU BOTHER ME THEME! 

Also, aren’t you so glad that tomorrow is the end of NaBloPoMo and we don’t have to write every day any more.  Wheew, that was a lot of hard work I did there.  I posted what, three times?

 This website is TEH SUCK right now.

You did it again last night.  That thing that only you are capable of.  My favorite part of the way you love me.

We’ve been in a holding pattern for weeks, me fighting and you silently supporting.  Me trying not to scare you with the whole truth, and you giving me white lies about not being scared.  And then my worst nightmare materialized.  The thing I am most afraid of is even closer to coming true.

When I saw you last night you just hugged me.  You held me in the way that said everything I’d been needing to hear and no one has been able to provide.  I know you’re scared too, and that helps.  Blind optimism is lost on me and I’m tired of hearing it.  If I was capable of that I wouldn’t be fighting every day to stay who I am.   And then you told me the lie that everyone has to say:

“Everything is going to be OK.  Believe me.  Have I ever been wrong?”

Buried under your chin I take a moment to think, searching for anything that you’ve ever taught me that was wrong.  And I come up with nothing.  As I shake my head against your chest you begin to laugh.  I look up and all you can say is:

“You haven’t been keeping track then have you?”

It used to infuriate me, the way you can make me laugh when I least want to.  But we’re not bickering teenagers now, you’re not “ruining” our arguments by making me laugh.  Every time you do that it just reminds me that you are my best friend for a reason.  When all I think I’m capable of is being an anxiety ridden panicking lunatic you remind me that I’m capable of more.  That I’m still in here somewhere and that you haven’t given up on me.  You also are the first person who actually made me think that it could possibly be OK.  I’ll fight this fight until the end of time if that’s what it takes, because you deserve your best friend too.

Will changing the ugly look of this website every day satisfy NaBloPoMo?  I’m so tired of looking at this thing.  But look!  This theme has a number beside every month of the archive that clearly shows how my posts are declining.  SCORE!  I have 108 days until I can kill this website.  No way to tell if that plan will change.

I’m in a really fucking awful mood this morning.

HATE.

I woke up at 8:15 this morning after having a very crappy night of sleep.  Short of adding another script to my life this is what I’m left with.  I haven’t been awake this early on weekend unless I was still up!  This daylight on Saturday thing is new to me.

 So what is there to do at the crack of dawn…  OH!  I could redesign my website.  Yeah, as you can see it’s a work in progres.  No worries, that orange link on blue background to the right is giving me a seizure too.  It shall be changed when I figure out how…

For now I’m off to shop for clothes, my least favorite chore of adulthood.  I’d seriously rather do my taxes then shop for clothes.  Wish me luck.

I really suck at NaBloPoMo this year.

Today was a big, long day of waiting.  Moving from room to room, moments of anxiety and then many more monents spent waiting.  All day waiting.  It’s surprising how a day of waiting can be more tiring the a day at work.  But, got good news, well the best the circumstances could offer, and lots of people watching.  Cops?  Mostly hot.  Boys in ties?  Nearly always hot.  People waiting in the same rooms we were?  FREAKS.  Downtown Phoenix covered in ballsy birds?  Quite panic inducing.

Then I stuffed my poor stomach with as many oysters and shrimp as it could handle.

Now I’m studying.

Next I watch Dancing with the Stars.  (Maksim?  HOT!)

Lastly I cram until I literally fall asleep on the books.

Isn’t life interesting when all I do is study?  (There is no right or wrong answer to that question strangely enough.)

Tonight my parents had an improptu slide night.  Dad had cleaned out the storage unit and found the old school projector and box of slides.  Let’s review this stroll down memory lane, shall we? 

Majority of people I don’t recognize.   Most are hippies.

Multiply family members in overalls.

Two stories of unexpected family members doing drugs.

Number of times my mother turned to me and asked “Wasn’t your dad hot?”  Lost count, however ONE is TOO MANY!

One baby cow name Herbie.  That my parents RAISED and then ATE.

Final Tally:  Six bongs.  Two bags of pot.  Two boxes of pot on tables.  One slide of father holding large mushroom.  Two slides mother admits she is not sober.

One GIANT horse dong.  Three weiners, two on babies, one on a FULL GROWN MAN.  (Please warn me when we get to the nude beach slides, kthxbye.)

One picture of father in black mesh tank top.

90% of the shots of my father he is in short shorts.  Except for the one where he’s naked.

One incident of me screaming “I do not want to see my parents genitals, put the special box away or I won’t come back inside!”

So, an eventful night.  Their only excuse?  It was the seventies.  Can’t be too hard on them, someday when my kids find my stash of photos from the past three  years I’ll have some explaining to do as well!