I just had probably one of the nicest conversations I’ve had on the phone with my mom in a long time.  I had told her I had been putting my old journal entries (the current obsession of my life! lol) into LiveJournal and she asked me when they were from.  I told her I had stuff from as early as 1984 but that I kept daily journals for English class from 8th grade through high school.  So, I asked her if she wanted me to read some of the entries to her and she said she did.

So, I spent about an hour and a half reading entries from 1991 and 1992 – my senior year in high school. There were some entries in there about how I regretted having skipped school a lot the previous year and all that and also some nice entries about my mom.  I asked her a couple of times if she was getting bored and she said that she thought it was interesting and didn’t know I had all that stuff.  

When I was reading them to her, I sort of felt like she was getting to know me a bit better and what I was thinking and going through and how I felt during that time of my life.  It was during the time when she was in and out of the psychiatric hospitals and, for a kid that age, I had a lot on my plate, especially emotionally.

I talked to Bonnie on the phone for about an hour or so before I talked to my mom. I had IMed her and told her about the journal stuff, too, and she said she still had our old notebooks, too. I hadn’t even remembered what she was talking about, but then it came back to me – we used to have these notebooks that we’d write in back and forth during class and would pass it off to each other to read in the next class.  I told her I’d really like to get my hands on those so I could photocopy them or type them all up in LiveJournal as well.  She said she didn’t want to give me the originals, so we said we’d have to try to figure out how I can get my hands on a copy of them somehow.  I was thinking it would be cool to scan or photocopy them, so I could actually re-create them and see our handwriting and stuff.

I guess I am so into these journals and stuff right now because I’m searching for something about myself – to figure out things about me from seeing what I used to think and feel and say about things and how I handled things I went through.  Some common things I’ve noted so far in almost all my entries is that I was very focused on my health and not feeling well – lots of headaches and “I feel like crap today” and stuff like that.  I was reading some of the stuff from the beginning – and later, the end – of my relationship with Bonnie and I realized that I never really believed that she loved me.  I mentioned that to her when I was talking to her on the phone and she said that she always felt that no matter what she did or what she said, I would just never believe her.  Maybe I, like Tracey, test people, too, so they will “prove” that they care?  I don’t know.  Bonnie read me a few entries out of our old notebooks and she said in one of them that she felt like I would sometimes say or do things just to piss her off.  I said, “I wonder if I’m an instigator???”.  If I piss people off or do something and they come back, then that means they really love me, right?  I wonder if maybe that’s what I do?  Thinking about it…I don’t know, honestly.  I don’t think I do that. I think that maybe I just speak out loudy and sometimes harshly when I don’t feel I’m getting enough from someone.  Is there such a thing for me?  That’s a scary thought.  I don’t think I was that way with Manon, though…points to ponder!

Shit, I hope I’ll be able to get all this stuff out of here when all is said and done!  I’m starting to wonder if I should start typing them into Word or something and then bring them in individually after that.  It would be easier to format them into grade or age or year or whatever and have it all in one document.  I’ll have to think about that a bit more.

Tracey and I got into an argument this morning when I told her my grandmother was back in the hospital and my dad was surely upset.  She said, “What do they expect? That she’s going to recover and go on to live a full life? She’s at the end of her life…” and I got super pissed.  I tried to explain that, intellectually, people know everyone is going to die at some point and so will we all.  But, that does not prepare the emotional side for the loss, no matter how long you have to mull it over.  She can just be so fucking callous and insensitive sometimes – this from the same person who was upset because a girl at work she barely knows quit and now Tracey won’t get to see this chick’s dog anymore.  Give me a fucking break!  So, I just told her that she did the exact same thing with me when my Granny died – made it about her. She was going on about how “Well, isn’t it worse for someone to just die out of nowhere?” (suggesting how her mom  died) and I said, “Well, the thing is…it isn’t up for comparison! It sucks all around and none is better or worse!”  She just always wants to win an argument and make her point, however valid but totally inappropriate it may be.  It’s like she can’t remotely relate to or sympathize with anyone who is dealing with something emotional if she herself doesn’t feel something about that exact same thing.  I asked her, “How would you feel if Jesse died and I said to you ‘oh, well, what did you expect? she was old!’”.  I think she got the point, but then she was on about how me invalidating her feelings about being upset about that fucking dog that’s not even hers is the same thing as her invalidating my feelings (or anyone else’s) about my grandmother.  It’s like HELLO, fucking idiot!  There is SUCH a huge difference between those two scenarios!  She said “Well, it’s because you think it’s insignificant to you that you invalidate it, but it’s the exact same thing you’re saying I’m doing now!”  And, in fact, logically, she’s right.  But, the thing is, sometimes you just need someone to shut the fuck up and not play devil’s advocate – just sit there, nod and say “I’m really sorry to hear that” and think of the OTHER person for five fucking minutes!  What a total fucking idiot she can be!

I sent off a couple of invoices for hosting, cleaned out some of my old e-mails and followed up on a couple of client leads. I also made empty Illustrator templates of pieces I create frequently, like business cards and letterheads and stuff like that. I put the slug area down below and crop marks and put guides in the vertical and horizontal centers – all stuff I do every time I start the same type of piece for a new project. So, hopefully I’ll have saved myself a little time in the long run for having finally set those up.

Where the fuck is Frank?  God, I’ve been dying to talk to him since last night and he’s nowhere to be found!  🙁