Yippee ki yay.

My family continues to be a powder keg. Sometimes I think I'm the flame retardant standing by and sometimes I think I'm the spark. Friday night saw more yelling and slamming doors. Shelley's apartment today smelled like the holiday units we've stayed in during previous summers. I remember those places as neutral environments that acted like blank canvasses, clean slates, somewhere for our family to be different than we were before. And every year we'd come home again and find ourselves unchanged and miserable as ever, always one moment away from blowing up. I spent this weekend wondering whether, while I'm gone, my father's juvenile behaviour will subside in the face of my sister's indifference and mother's exhaustion. What do I do for my family dynamic that I will not be here to do for the next few months?

Andrea has taught me that the key to a good action movie is explosions. I guess I wonder if my actions, in leaving or just being a part of this family, make me the villain or the hero. And whether the aftermath may justify the lighting of our fuse.

Someone to share this love with.

Sometimes I think I completely understand relationships and other times I know I have absolutely no idea.

I have no social skills but I love hugs. I like human contact. I like jokes with people and laughing too hard at things. I love when you're close enough to someone that tears don't make it awkward but can be shared and understood.

I am trying to navigate my way through the different sorts of humans you come into contact with in the different sorts of ways on the different sorts of days. Quiet people. Boisterous people. People who are talkative one day and silent the next. Or those who like you one day and don't the next.

Workmates. Friends. Family. Friends of friends.

I feel like I'm drowning sometimes when I'm too tired or inexperienced to know how to talk to people. Even when I'm treading water and getting along with people; I know that it's only a couple of words, the wrong tone, the way I look a little bit confused at something that was said...

How do you make it work? Find people to complete you and the person you're trying to be, round out your projection of self? I wish I knew how to feel secure around people but ultimately that sort of security is an illusion.

Improvement is the ultimate goal in anything in life so relationships have to be a part of that. Evolution of friendships is necessary, I suppose. We have to feel lost and unsure around each other in order for that progress to occur, in order to get closer or even to find new, better companions than those we can't seem to relate to no matter how hard we try.

I have to believe that feeling of insecurity has a purpose. Otherwise I'm just inept. I prefer to think this way, that love and friendship and understanding are achievable only through uncertainty and that through that uncertainty we can feel bonded with one another. Our angst and worry and little failures- with people and communication and relating to each other- all lead to a better future where we are happy and loved better for all of our fear and pain.

And if I'm wrong... well, I'd prefer that you didn't tell me.

Kiss me goodbye.

Some stuff I forgot to write in the late hours of last night or didn't feel comfortable bringing up online until nowish.

Watched Glee the other night and it made me cry for the first time. That show don't normally hit so many soft spots at once but this episode went all out. Maybe it was also the lack of sleep I had the night before or the emotional stuff that follows neurotic teenage girls like me around. The reason behind conspicuously casting so many minorities in lead roles became clear around the same time Kurt and his Dad had me blinking furiously and saying "it's just hayfever" through my sleeve.

I guess I'm a little overemotional for other reasons, also. I could resist explaining because writing this stuff in a blog is like yelling "You're making a scene! I can't believe you're doing this in public! People are listening!" on a crowded train or something. But what the hell.

It's probably difficult to discover this, what with my amazing powers of disguise, but I'm a highly insecure, neurotic, extra-strength crazy person. As such, when people just disappear from my life or grow distant, I stop talking and get paranoid and just all-around hurt. Never mind that I can often treat other people like they don't matter without breaking a sweat. Avoid my questions or stop saying "hey" to me frequently and I lose it. But I don't tend to move closer to people and try to discover why they hate me all of a sudden. Because, obviously, it's all about me and has very little to do with them. Instead, I hide behing nonchalance and then get flabbergasted when they say "I thought you didn't care anymore". What gave you that impression?

Well, my amazing skillz with people have brought me some great rewards lately. Not the least of which is two friends being deeply unhappy while I'm nowhere to be seen. Obviously dealing with the much larger issue of why neither of them trust me enough to open up. Those selfish bitches. How could they do this to me?

...basically, I'm blogging about being a teenage girl. Tune in next time, folks, for more excitement. Blerg.

I wanna ... tear up the sky with you.

It seems that I'm a commitment-phobic blogger. Every time it seems like I'm getting into a rhythm I sort of drop off the face of the earth. Then I start again. Maybe one day I'll settle down and face my posting insecurities but for now I'm doomed to keep avoiding blogging until it breaks up with me out of frustration.

The truth is that "stuff is happening!", as Liz Lemon would say, and I really wanted to write about it. I worry about who is reading, which is ironic because the point of blogging is to let the world know your thoughts and not consider who may or may not constitute the world. I also worry about school and, despite my Olympic-level procrastination, get preoccupied with studying. And- this is what I want to write about in this post- I worry about work and money for the oh-so-impulsive trip.

So I have a job already but I am a casual there so I have no fixed hours and, of course, I am paid only for the hours and minutes I am working and not a second longer and have no real rights as an employee (just as the company has no real rights in relation to me). All of this I happily accept but I asked my boss a while ago if there could perhaps be other work for me in the next couple of months and she called me asking if I wanted to take over a full time position for late November through Christmas. I accepted the offer but recently my boss was forced to rescind this offer when one of the key accounts transitioned from us to another company quicker than expected and all the work dried up. I understand this but I was disappointed nonetheless as I had stopped looking for work in the belief I had a sufficient position.

This is where the fun part comes in.

My father took my mild disappointment and ended up explaining the situation quite bitterly to a colleague at work. The issue is that the office is made up of cubicles so one of my boss's friends overheard my father's creative interpretation of what had occurred. I have no idea where this will go but I was sort of miffed that it would now appear that I was faking the pleasantness on the phone when informed that the job I'd been given was no longer a- no pun intended- workable thing. However, Dad redeemed himself by talking me up to a whole lot of other companies around the settlement traps and apparently there are three or more places that may be interested in me. So I'm going to see where this leads me, as well as keeping an eye or three on the newspaper listings for any and all full time jobs available to someone with nothing to offer but a graduation certificate and a clean pair of socks.

I went to Shelley's birthday celebrations tonight and they were amazing, just like her. Was there a birthday cake? A Jaffa-flavoured birthday cake? A giant cupcake-shaped, Jaffa-flavoured birthday cake? Why, yes, we had one of those, thank you for asking. Shelley's family and friends- friends who seem more like family- are lovely and it was the sort of gathering that leaves you with a warm feeling in your belly, although that last part may have been aided by that sip of Tam's Long Island Ice Tea that I had.

So tomorrow I really have to start studying. My business law exam is in a few days and, job hunting aside, I really have no excuse to fail this one.