Maybe this will help me sleep. Sweet dreams.

My two cats are mirroring each other on my bed while I listen to singles by Daughter that I just bought on iTunes. It's been a long day of watching random videos on Youtube and season 4 of Parks and Recreation. I managed to do one load of laundry, but I still haven't folded the clothes. The fridge is empty, my bathroom's a wreck, my night stand and dresser are covered in used dishes, glasses, and empty Amazon boxes. My period started this morning. I feel sick from lying in my bed for the last two days, eating oatmeal, old pasta, and peanut butter with chocolate chips. I've been having dreams of my dad this last week and have randomly smelled at work that horrible smell from his bedroom, that combination of bile, blood, starvation, death. 

That room that held so many memories, mostly bad ones. But when I went down there and stayed with him for those six months in 2012, we actually had almost a few, normal conversations in that room. How many times did I see him take naps on that bed? And that's where he died. Except that he died on a hospital bed that was brought in for the last two days, so the blood/bile coming up out of his mouth wasn't quite as much as when he was lying flat on his bed. And now I'm crying and I swear, I didn't set out to write about him, but he's been on my mind a lot the past couple of weeks and I can't help but feel horrible, absolutely horrible, even though there wasn't a damn thing that could be done to fix our relationship, because he was inflexible, so strange, completely lacking empathy, and never once recognized that the way he had treated us was abusive and wrong. But I should have gone to see him that last Christmas, I should have called him more. He wouldn't have communicated anything and my reaching out really would not have changed anything, and I don't regret not having him in my life now, but I hate, I hate how he died. No one deserves a death like that. No one. Why am I smelling it?!!! And at work, I've had so many patients' accounts with the date of birth of March 7th and it's like a little, precise stab into my psyche. Or, even worse, and this has happened a few times, when Moody Blues suddenly comes on the hold music for an insurance company while working on a patient with that date of birth and I'm already thinking about him. Argh!! 

He's been dead eleven months today. I just realized that. I was only thinking about it being about a month until the one year marker. I asked for March 7th off from work. Hopefully, I will get it. I have nothing planned, I just can't be there that day. 

I don't really have the heart to write about my personal life otherwise. Well, except I may possibly have a new job soon in HIM, fingers crossed. But I've hit so many walls in this application process for this job, it's been such a long time, and now, at the very end, I've hit one more wall, and it's killing me. I want, I NEED to turn in my two weeks' notice. My current job is absolute poison to me. The HIM department will be another hen house, but it won't be tinged with memories from the worst years of my life. Granted, I only started here in Feb 2013, so 2011 & 2012 weren't included (and those years were BAD), but it's still toxic to me. I can't stand the people I work with, the work itself, and, well, everything else. 

Finally watched Only Lovers Left Alive.

I could watch Tom Hiddleston forever, his face, his voice. Especially as this jaded vampire/musician. Quoting Shakespeare. "This quintessence of dust." Damn.

 I love how so many of the scenes are quiet. The vampire couple sitting still in gorgeous, shadowed lighting.  Listening to the world around them.

Love the soundtrack too. It fits the pace of this movie and gives it such an atmosphere. 

And just, aaaah..

Space

I'm always amazed by how self-centered I can be. Tonight, I was wallowing in this haze of "nothing matters," and even a phone call from Julie to tell me about a freaking hilarious ad wasn't enough to pull me out of it. You may have already seen it on Youtube:

I know, what the hell, right? And it goes on and on. Julie says she wants one for Christmas. 

But I was still in my haze, despite the random/hilarious/disturbing interruption. Until I remembered a guy who makes videos about 10 random facts on a certain subject. I love his videos about space. He's made 5 videos and they get more sophisticated as you go forward through the collection, but he still has a quirky sense of humor that I appreciate. 

Mmph. For whatever reason, I can't attach Part I, so I just picked another Space video in the series, but you should check all of them out. It brought me right out of my self-pity cloud and made me feel almost euphoric. We know so much about the universe and so little! I love it. 

Check out his video on the ocean, too:

I had a productive, normal, happy-feeling evening. First time in MONTHS:

-Deposited check from Dad's estate in the amount I had contributed to fix up the house...oh, you know, $10,000. That was how much we each got from his 401k No biggie. ("Umm, WHAT?!!" you shout in your head). And we should be getting another 10 grand once everything else gets paid off, due to profits from selling the house. And then, of course, there was the life insurance we split between us that Dad meant for his millionaire brother to have (lucky he picked Uncle Chris, who was too good to keep it and insisted that "your dad would want you girls to have it." Baahahahahaha. The lies we tell). With that in play, between five of us, we each got $90,000 from Dad's death. And Julie and Bobby get an extra....wait, was this information too specific?? Are the evil people going to come after me now. Maybe. Shitheads.

-Cleaned kitchen/did dishes/took out garbage/took garbage cans out to street

-Brought in mail (yeah, you heard me. Pro-active!!!!)

-Cleaned my bathroom after, you know, a month

-FINALLY cleared out the clog in my bathroom sink that I've been tolerating/ignoring for MONTHS

-Reorganized the crap under the sink

-Took a look at my crammed closet and ran to get some boxes from the garage. Packed up all the stuff I love but won't actually need for the next couple of months. Came out with four giant, heavy boxes and now I can actually see what's in my closet and I have access to all my dresser drawers for clothes, which, in turn, allows me to see how little I have in the way of a wardrobe. Which I already knew, but seeing it makes a major difference. Worked on this for over two hours!

Tomorrow:

Make appt with optometrist (my eyesight has been seriously blurry/degenerating since April...and it's been four years since I last saw a doc)
Fandango tickets
Work on cleaning the rug of shame (bad cats!!)
Clean the house since Mom has company Wednesday night and we're hosting Thanksgiving!!!
Work on Xmas lists

My goal is to find a new job by the end of January. Once I've found said job, the goal will be to move out within two months. BOOM! Plans/drama within the family died down and my one happy hope died with it. But I'm getting over it and now is the time to focus. Because I can't stand my job,  I cannot stand living in this house with my mother anymore, it's her house, not mine, and what were the last two years of schooling for if I don't pursue a different position? And I need to effing grow up. There is literally nothing holding me back. Not money (obviously), not school, no personal situation happening, just the sheer combination of laziness/fear/self-loathing/self-destructive tendencies. Grrr. But today, I'm feeling none of that! And hopefully tomorrow, I'll still feel the same.

I was 12 the last time I was mesmerized by a song used for a commercial--Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" to advertise a car...

And on Youtube today:

What's funny is that sometimes, the commercial using this song appears before viewing the video. :)




I passed my RHIT certification exam today, by the way. Barely, but I passed!

And there's no one to celebrate it with. The only person I instantly wanted to tell was Julie and she never called back. I don't have anyone else. Last night, Mom talked about all the things in her life, ended the 5 minute conversation abruptly to look at her LDS voice of warning websites about all possible impending dooms, and I called her out on it. She then remembered, "Oh, you took your test today, right?" "No, Mom, it's tomorrow." "Oh..." Ugh.

Seriously?

Dad's house was officially sold a day early, on Sep 10th.

His mother called my mother (Aaaaah! First time in over 11 years!) to offer her a book she and my grandpa had written on their family, which apparently includes my mom a lot. You know, since she was married to their oldest child for 30 years.

And I saw Kj/Kell two days in a row! Went out to Anthony's on Thursday night and ate out by the water at dusk. So pretty! And almost chilly, which is perfect. AND we saw a seal come up a few times off near the dock. It was a good night.

Here's where I'm at:

1. Tomorrow is the six month marker since Dad died. No matter how many times I think it, write it, or say it aloud, it still seems impossible to me that he is dead. What makes it so easy to forget is how normal it is to never hear from him. We would go months and months at a time without one phone call. Whenever Julie calls me and says she's at Dad's house to water the lawn, I instantly picture him there, doing his goofy walk in his blue and white sweatshirt, watching football or something. Sheesh, just writing that got me crying. I still haven't managed to write the whole experience down yet. That's going to be a really rough one for me. I guess I just prefer to just keep picturing him that way, keep that lid closed. His house is going to be officially sold this Friday, September 11th. Which is sort of ironic. We moved into that house on October 1, 2001, less than a month after 9/11. Anyways, it's the last major thing to take care of that really hits home that Dad is truly dead.

I don't know what I should to do to commemorate this time passing by, if anything. I tried to find a good picture of him yesterday, one that maybe I could frame or something, but he really did scowl in most pictures. Might just use the birthday one I posted back in May.

2. I'm taking the RHIT exam this Saturday, September 12th. Funny how major things always seem to happen around the same time, right? Am I ready for this test? Not in the slightest. To be honest, I find it even hard to care, as if the whole last two years at school were a waste of time and money, as I feel that I've hardly retained any of the material I "studied," or killed myself just trying to skim through it all while working full time and being swamped in depression, self-hate, Dad was dying, etc. But, I can always take it again. And money is not an issue in my life anymore, enter here a bitter "hahahaha." Yep, each of my sisters and I got a pretty sum from Dad's life insurance...and we will be getting more when the house sells. It all seems like such a joke. And it's a terrible thing to happen. Hey, your parent died? Here's tons of money to recompense you for that loss and yet can never fill that void left behind...

Not that it's a bad thing. But it was just another horrible reality that stabbed--Dad's really dead. I almost started crying at the bank counter when I went to deposit that monstrous check and I couldn't hold it back once I got into the parking lot. I cried in my car for a good while and on the way home.

3. How did I end up back on Dad? I didn't start writing this entry with the intention of talking about him the whole time. Sorry.

4. Work, the other aspect of my life...it seems that I really can't write about that one either. Things constantly change, the workload manages to get worse somehow, I take on too much, put up with too much,  and there's nothing to look forward to and plenty to dread. More stuff that I've locked away this year.

5. I meant to write more, but I'm suddenly really distracted. Sometimes, I think I have ADD...

Have a song! Of course! :)

I guess I give people the benefit of the doubt too much. Is everyone just a cutthroat waiting for the opportunity to strike? Why is it so difficult to just respect others, communicate when an issue appears, and just be responsible and treat others gently? People are so loud, so demanding, so certain their opinions are the only ones worth anything.

Why didn't I turn when he sighed? I knew what he wanted, and I wanted to do it so badly it scared me. So many months ago...........

I didn't graduate. I failed in some way. Will find out this week just where I went wrong.

Mumford and Sons can be so damn beautiful.

I shouldn't be tickled by a misspelling, shouldn't be on the verge of tears because it will never happen again, shouldn't suddenly glow over something that happened almost a year ago, shouldn't constantly wonder...

And my dad...

Have another. I love this one. 

Just listen. 

Been watching the first season of House, M.D. Never thought I would like a Dave Matthews song, but never say never, right?

This last month has been an absolute nightmare. Once the school quarter is officially over, I will write it all down. Just enjoy the song for now, okay?

And this one!