librarians - hip

After such a fantastic Thursday & Friday, I figured my good day good luck would run out.

But it didn’t. This weekend was fantastic. A few friends were camping up at Hitchcock so we drove in to visit them. We didn’t stay the night due to lack of sleeping bags/camping bedding, but we were there pretty late both Friday and last night.

Last night was especially crazy with the giant storm that swept through. We heard the weather forecast predict winds of up to 65 mph, with hail and rain. We ate dinner and began to batten down the hatches. The sky started getting dark and a huge gust of wind blew through. After that, the woods were pitch black and all the leaves were turning over with the wind gusts. At this point I started walking up to where my car was parked to listen for any emergency radio news. T was not far behind me. I got up to the car and looked down the hill in time to see a huge branch fall right behind T as he passed it. He glanced back but kept heading towards me, and that’s when I saw the other branch fall on my friends tent.

I was pretty sure no one was in the tent at the time, but got pretty nervous. I didn’t hear any screaming for 911 or help, so I figured it was okay. Soon enough, the rest of the group came up the hill to seek shelter.

5 minutes after, the park officer rolls through and tells us about the high wind warning and hail possibility. Thanks! He was a little late for the first round, but he kept coming back when the rain died down to let us know if another wave was going to come through.

It was an exciting evening. We took both branches to our fire pit and made a huge bonfire. In addition to fake chicken burritos that I was eating, everyone had hot dogs, s’mores, bananas, strawberries, baked beans, everything. I even bought jiffy pop but the fire was way to hot for it.

In addition to all this crazy outdoor adventure, I got the first of my plants in my Hugel mound on Friday evening. Lavender, rosemary and coriander. I hope they survived the wind!

Now I must resign myself to 3 more hours at the library. I’m trying to dig into this 1Q84 book, but so far I’ve only managed to bite off a tiny piece. I know I’m here to work and all that, but today I really feel more like reading.

but it feels like it despite the fact that I was woken up multiple times in the early hours to slamming doors, screaming, and general chaos at 2am, again at 4am, and last at 6am. My alarm goes off at 7:30.

Luckily I was sleeping so heavily that I didn’t hear most of the details; just the yelling and slamming; the arriving and departing of cars in the driveway. I heard just enough to know who it was, and just enough to be royally pissed off. Basically, our entire house (and surrounding property) is a battle ground. Our room mate and his girlfriend (not sure if this is true officially, but it is always changing) are constantly at war. It’s not fair. She comes to our house at any given hour (midnight or later, middle of the day, whenever she feels like it) to unleash an arsenal of shrieks, screams, crashes and slams. Even if her boyfriend is not there, she waits in our driveway, sometimes in our living room, for him to return. When he gets back, she lashes out. I don’t think he ever gets a word in. If she’s in the house, we vacate to the pasture. If she’s in the driveway, we draw our curtains and try not to eavesdrop. That failing, we escape to the pasture. This is probably the most awkward thing ever. If T and I fight (and we have been because we’re both so fucking ON EDGE with these people) we don’t scream or slam or cause chaos. We keep our voices down (even if we’ve got that harsh whisper) and we do not broadcast our shit to the entire household. Sometimes I boo-hoo a bit, but I try not to wail unless no one is home. Tact? Respect? Pick one?

Even though the first thing that came out of my mouth when the alarm went off was “FUCK”, and even though I hit snooze enough times to only allow myself 30 minutes to get ready and go, I was on time (actually early) to work and had a relatively easy drive. My drawer was balanced, I got to have milk in my tea, and there were strawberries in our break room. I never say it out loud, but I said it out loud this morning: “today is going to be a good day.”

I’m also wearing the Good Day Tunic, which I think has surpassed it’s abilities to comfort me. It was a thrift find, on a badly needed therapy shopping trip, and it is a gift that keeps on giving; everyone loves it, compliments me on it, and I look good in it, which makes me feel better even if I am feeling awful. Confident, I guess is the word.

So far, slow day at the desk, mostly watching the lighting people fix lights on their giant ladders and lifts, wanting desperately to eat lunch at the top of one, and also being a little weary of the fact that, from that high, they can all probably see down my blouse.

After this, I will head off to the park to meet up with E and we will hoop until we can’t hoop no’ mo’, or until one of us has to go. I promised myself I would treat myself to my favorite dish at my favorite restaurant tonight; just because it has been the past two weeks from hell. I’m also running out of money until payday and I am tempted to splurge it all on myself so I can’t be asked to pay for anything else for anyone else. I want my nails done, and my eyebrows waxed, and my hurr did, and and and (I will never do any of these things with my money, btw).

In more booky news; I just started Murakami’s 1Q84. This is the biggest book I have taken on “for pleasure” since Thomas Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon. I’m stoked.

Not much to say except: I’m going to start calling this place the Funny Farm. As in, a place where you keep insane people or, where insane people reside regardless of where you try to keep them.

Have to stop keeping my groceries in my own home; they eat everything, don’t tell you it’s gone, and don’t offer to replace anything. I have to laugh when I think I expected anything more. Well, I’m no one’s mother, so there’s no reason I should feed anyone besides myself. It’s hard to keep tabs on the food when I’m at work all day, yunno, making a living, so I decided to bring it with me where I know it’s safe. At least my co-workers are more respectful of my property. Only thing that sucks is that I can’t make whole meals in our break room. So, whipping up Eggplant Parmesan will have to happen either in the middle of the night when no ones awake, or not again until I have regained respect in my house (calling it a home is pushing it). Or when I finally get some balls to say enough is enough and move the fuck out.

Got mad sick this week; spend most of it in bed, hiding and attempting to heal. Yay, food poisoning.

My second Hugelkultur bed is nearly finished; should be ready to plant in this weekend. I ordered the lye for soap. I’m trying to decide the first recipe I will try. Probably something with lavender. One of my seed trays was ravaged by the wind and the seedlings are dying. I hope I can revive them by keeping them out of the wind/sun. However, I guess I won’t be too upset if I lose the tray; fennel, thyme and spearmint are out. I hope the spearmint I got from my friend will revive; it is not having a good time in the furrow; too much wind. The wormwood finally bounced back; it’s just really crooked from the wind.

Okay, general pissy announcement: I have to stop believing anything anyone says, ever. I have to stop believing that just because someone is “nice” doesn’t mean they won’t take complete advantage of me. I have to stop handing out “benefit of the doubt” like I’m an old lady and “benefit of the doubt” is hard candies. I’m up to here with everyone else’s bullshit and excuses.

It’s another one of those times in my life when I yearn for my parents homes: clean, respected, safe, comfortable and free of the smell of feet and rotting food. It’s becoming more and more apparent to me that I need to live alone again. At least until more accomplished and/or promising room mates come along. And I won’t even get my hopes up about that.

We used to have this saying at 4H: No drama unless you are in the drama barn (the drama barn is a barn where the drama class meets). I’m trying to come up with something clever in regards to the farm. We don’t have a drama barn, just a cow-barn and an un-finished chicken coop. Keep the drama in yer chicken coop? No…bah!

Anyway. After 2 days/ 2 nights of quasi-driftitude, I went back to the ranch to make my stand against injustice! And also, to water my seedlings because I was more concerned about their well-being than any of the people there I was in disagreement with. Whatever, people can water themselves, seedlings can’t. (Big thank you goes out to my friends E, &T, who let me crash on their floor, and HB who put up with my panicky bullshit the past few days).

To my surprise, my seedlings had been watered. My second tray is starting to germinate! I’ll probably have to get the first tray of seedlings into the ground this weekend before they start killing each other off for space. After fussing over my darlings, I went inside armed to the teeth with logic and common sense. Long story short, I have a very rigid stance on “couch surfers”; others do not agree with my policies. When it comes to surfers, I don’t mind if it is someone I know well, trust to be honest, and someone who will tidy up after themselves. Also if you’re down/out with no where to go and need to crash for a couple days (as I recently had to), fine. This wouldn’t be an issue if we didn’t have so many people coming/going to work on projects, or help us do some things on the farm. However, there are those with their eyes on the couch(es) who do not intend to do much else besides eat/sleep/live for free. Coming from someone who has had to pay for everything on her own and has worked her ass off for the little money/nice things she does have, that garbage is unacceptable. You want to stay on my couch and you don’t have money to pay your way? Well, here’s a list of chores. Get to it. Rah.

3 hours later; a compromise had been reached, but with a standing ultimatum from my end. No free-loaders or I’m outski.

Okay, so there’s my rant on freeloaders/hippies/scumbums/ect. I’m still baffled at why this had to be such a huge contention point. But, I guess that’s what I get for believing that hard work and determination is a larger deciding factor in survival than just waiting around to get what you want.

Rant over. Going home.

tarp + blanket + empty park = a few hours of real sleep.

making my final stand in about 3 hours.

for now, free wifi and rice.