2am and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake.

I get really productive about three hours past my bedtime. Tonight, or this morning, I discovered just how much one can get done when drowsiness doesn't kick in when it should. I always get good at things right about the time I should be focussing on something else. For instance, I am blogging a lot currently because a) there is nothing left to tidy in my bedroom and b) I am supposed to be studying for exams. I never thought I'd be writing much in this blog because, seriously, 'sif my life is interesting. I resolved to be committed anyway, in spite of my lack of inspiration and poor history with follow-through, and here we are. I've written so much here this week I think my journal is going to get suspicious and hire a Private Investigator to tail me.

I have everything organised for tomorrow and, at this rate, I'm going to be awake to greet it. I hope my passport arrives. I hope Julia isn't disgusted by my home and hostessing skillz, respectively. I hope I get a lot of study done and have some fun in the process (HA!). And I hope I can get some work options lined up.

I am so sleepy right now, finally, and am watching Gabrielle and some adorable little punk girl get cornered by a gang of greedy men (is there any other kind? Don't answer that with a "hey!" or I might have to apologise for my lazy and unfunny generalisation). If this beautiful drooping of my eyelids gets any more intense, I might be forced to retire to the Land of Nod and give up on completing minor projects tonight. Oh, what we do for sleep.

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.

And you're not invited.

So I'm trying to study for Democracy exam (entails 3 essays over 2 hours and counts for 50% of my grade. Are you as flustered by all those numbers as I am? Good.) and I'm sort of thrown by the sudden disappearance of the wankerous vocabulary I've come to rely on. Exhibit A: a sample from the essay I wrote earlier in the semester; "The Charter's internal sexism and external reliance on representation could not negate its significance as a document capable of revealing democracy's susceptibility, as a concept and a reality, to evolution." Exhibit B: someone's annotation on my Creative Writing draft after workshopping "...I know you like using big words but would [insert character's name]?" So where the hell are my freakin' big words, I ask you?! I hope I come up with something better tomorrow.

I've been living off the baked goods I made for the party on Saturday so at the moment I'm on my third cookie of the day. Don't even get started on cake, birthday or cup. It's a sickness, really. But I'll be baking some more next Saturday on account of the "family" Birthday gathering my mother wants to have which, I must admit, I am rather tickled by for a number of reasons:

1)I've always been a bit unimpressed by the concept of cousins. You know, people talking about/hanging with/abiding their cousins. It all just seemed odd to me because my father's side of the family kind of didn't exist to me for most of my life and my mother's family, while nice, are very different to us strange, complex, liberal city slickers. But, of late, we've been doing the whole solving-issues-with-estranged-relatives thing and one of the casualties of this process have been my cousin Bernie and his family. He has a semi-vego wife who is nice about my cooking, a nine year old daughter who likes to talk to me about school and a four(ish) year old daughter who draws me pictures. Oh, and Bernie himself is uber nice and charming. What's not to love? So yeah, I find myself enthusiastically uttering phrases that used to make my skin crawl like "My cousins are coming over!", "My cousins called to wish me a Happy Birthday!" etc. Needless to say, the new favourite relatives are coming over next Sunday to celebrate my newfound old age.

2) I'm getting my wisdom teeth out the next day. So the little shindig doubles as an "in-case-you-don't-wake-up-from-the-general-anaesthetic"/"good-luck-with-the-whole-eating-old-people-food-for-a-week" party.

3) I am actually really sick of baking right now. It was sort of a marathon measure-whisk-pour-cook fest last week. But nobody in my house can really cook like I can (I know, don't you love the exaggerated sense of self importance?) and I abhor most things store-bought. So I'ma bake some cupcakes for the littleys and scones for ... everyone else.

I better go actually study. Oh, I guess I ought to add this next thing as a new section of le blog.




Heard

"My mother has a problem with my Monday night drinking." - Marlowe.

"It makes me sad when they sweep up the leaves."- Ash.

"Your Dad's really funny."- every young woman I work with *sigh*



'til next time, children.

That's the way it is in Minnesota.

I guess the idea of not revealing personal information online is kind of ridiculous, especially in a blog. What do I write about if not the personal? And if I'ma start with the personal, I suppose I better write about the uber personal as well.

I blew off a party last night partially due to schoolwork. But that's not fair; I don't spend enough time doing schoolwork for that to be a valid excuse. I didn't go because sensitive, heterosexual males trust me too much.

But I digress. I spent the day trying to study and failing. So around the time it started getting dark (which is around 4, admittedly) I decided I couldn't be bothered going. There are too many things to deal with there. A friend I haven't seen in a month or so who at the best of times is awkward with me. Another friend who got dumped by a long term partner recently and needs some support from little old me. Too bad I'm emotionally bankrupt and unwilling to deal with the - quite reasonable- need for a friend right now. And then there's the final friend.

I've met one just like him recently. Someone who likes the look of me, befriends me and learns to trust me more than is humanly natural within a very short space of time. I mean, of course the feelings are reciprocated but that doesn't change how perilous it is. I'm great fun, sure, when all you want from me is friendship. I guess that's all I can say. To all the heterosexual male friends I have out there; don't want anything else from me. Don't see me as your only confidante, the only one you can trust, strangely perfect in a completely unattractive but safe sort of way.

So I blew off the party. And tried to keep studying, failed and then didn't sleep.