Massive catch-all end-of-2007 post

Steve has been pushing me to update my blog, but it's not like he hasn't been present for everything that's happened to me recently. I like to think that I've been too busy to update, which I guess is sort of true, but things calmed down a couple of days ago. I guess I'm in denial that everyone has gone back home and I'm still, well, here and stagnating again.



My birthday and New Year's were, for the most part, fabulous this year. We went to Sunset, which has become my yearly tradition, mostly because they have over 100 beers on tap and the food is really good. This year was really no exception, except we managed to have the worst waitress ever. My sister waitressed for years, so I like to think I'm fairly sympathetic towards waitstaff in general, but this particular woman was intolerable. She seemed incapable of putting orders in correctly and coming back to the table more than once every 30 minutes. Every other server was doing just fine, so it wasn't the restaurant's fault.



We were so fed up with the service that Nate went upstairs to the bar and bought two yard-long beers. I started losing my buzz while I waited for my second beer, so I walked across the street to the liquor store and bought a bottle of Knob Creek, which I then "snuck" into the restaurant under my coat. Despite the sluggish and otherwise failing service, it was great to be with my friends, especially after spending a couple of days with my family. It's nice to be reminded that at least some people enjoy my company.

I have pretty much decided that if I've been drinking, I don't notice my anxiety, or it actually does go away (as evidenced by my solo trip to the liquor store where some guy totally invaded my personal space and I didn't try to break a bottle and stab him with the shards). Now all I need is an occupation which encourages drunkenness at all times; then I can be a functioning member of society!



The following weekend I went out to western Massachusetts to hang out with Steve's sister and re-meet his little brother (who I'd met for like, 15 minutes prior). I felt pretty crummy going out there, but I managed to not come off like a completely aloof asshole, somehow. I carried on a decent-length conversation with someone I had barely met prior (drinking a beer and having knitting to look at helped a lot), and I managed to find a common interest between the two of us and talk about that, rather than just blathering on about my problems. That weekend I played guitar hero for the first time, and now I'm sad that I own a Wii (and not some other seventh-generation console), because the software is impossible to find, and they don't actually manufacture Wii guitar controllers for sale on their own (you need to buy them bundled.. which is probably why the game is so difficult to obtain). The above photo is from the directions from a 1980's (or maybe 1990's?) version of Taboo, which we started to play but never followed through with (we played Cranium instead).

I am pretty sure that Steve's siblings don't hate me or think I'm psychotic, which is good, because I'm marrying into his family.



New Year's Eve was the train wreck that didn't happen for me this year. Tradition states that my group of friends goes to Nicole's (mother's) house in the middle of nowhere, everyone gets trashed, there's a lot of laughing, usually some crying, and sometimes people get lucky and/or throw up. It's a lot more than that, but that's the gist.

The night pretty much started with my mother accidentally throwing out my makeup, which sent me into this ridiculous fit about how I do not want to be living in my parents' house anymore, and how they're not-so-quietly trying to get rid of me. I hit my head against something (I really don't remember what) a few times, and back of my head only stopped hurting this Friday. I think Steve drove to the party.

I really set out to get drunk but only managed to feel angry and isolated. And of course, feeling isolated because of my own ridiculousness made me feel even more angry. I drank a lot and couldn't get drunk. I calmed down a bit, but never got drunk and happy. It was miserable watching my friends have fun without me. I woke up the next morning and didn't even have a hangover -- just pain in the back of my head.

Since that night I have pretty much resolved to get the hell out of my parents' house. My mother had this exact conversation with me:
"So... how are your doctor's appointments going?" (because she can't say "therapy" because god forbid she admit that there's something actually wrong with me.)
"They're kind of okay, I guess. I just started."
"...So when are you moving out?" [pause pause] "Because your father wants to retire soon." [pause pause] "...yeah."

It's easy to see they don't want me here and that they have never given a shit about my condition. It's also easy to see that I am never going to get better if I don't get out of this house. So I applied to a couple of jobs and now I'm determined to move to Cambridge. Even if I'm doing data entry for minimum wage, it would be better to live in poverty than to live here. Everything about this house disgusts me, and I think it's full of mold from when the ceiling in the kitchen was saturated for three days. Point being, I walk into this house and I burst into tears and vomit.

My out-of-state friends are all gone and no one who still lives in-state has the motivation or energy or time to make plans for us... least of all me. I can't do this anymore, but maybe I can quietly suffer with my anxiety if I'm living close to a few friends in an apartment where I can be happy and have silence once in awhile. I'm not convinced that I will thrive anywhere, ever, but I have to try, right?