Meh. Work sucks when there's nothing to do. I feel like a fraud for getting a paycheck for this! Not that I'm really complaining. It's just very frustrating when there really is nothing to do and my boss wanders past and tells me it's rather sad that I don't have the initiative to find stuff to do.

I've inventoried the DNA samples from the mice, I've counted our stock solutions and made up spares, I've chased Mayra asking for jobs to do, I've randomly re-ordered drawers of equipment and test tubes. Of course, when it's time to clean the incubators (which would be a great nobrainer for today) I've got shitloads of stuff I have to get set up and end up staying at work till 7pm. Maybe I'll eventually get it sorted out so the nobrainer stuff gets done when I've got nothing better to do, rather than after the important stuff at 9am on a SATURDAY morning.

*melodramatic sigh* It's such a hard life here in San Diego with no co-dependant creatures to eat my salary but me and the tax man.

Speaking of co-dependant leeches..no calls from you know who yet...may it long continue thus.

22.

Twenty-two.

Zwei-und-Zwanzig.

Veintidos.

Um.

Thingy.

I've run out of languages but hey, my point is: Why does that sound so much less young than 21?

This may be the first time it won't take me half the year to remember that my age has changed, with all that's happened the past year or so, not to mention actually graduating, 21 just didn't seem grown up enough to cover how much I've learned all of a sudden.

It's also the last of those legal landmark ages, until I hit retirement.

Lets wait and see how I handle 25 (quarter of a century: makes a girl think...) and 30 though. If I start contemplating plastic surgery, somebody please shoot me.

Bloody typical innit? I get all maudlin and mopey in the anticipation, and on the actual day it really doesn't bug me. Starting the day out with my parents calling to say hi was a good thing, it made up for not actually being in the same country with them. They were surprised that I didn't have some big blowout party planned, but up until maybe last night I really didn't feel like planning any kind of "do" All I really want to do tonight is sit about with the Faeries and watch ER. Maybe with some booze involved. I'm so boring.

I'm toying with the idea of inviting some other ppl over, but I know K'wyn and 'Lia have a paper due tomorrow so prolly best to wait till the weekend for any celebration. It's prolly really bad form to wait till the actual day to start thinking about organising a gathering, but I really do better with after the fact birthday parties anyway, that way the inticipaiton isn't spoiled by my pre-birthday depression. I didn't tell Mum and Dad that was why I hadn't planned anything yet, I think in some ways it would help Mum to know she's not alone in her mourning, but then she'd feel bad that it affected me. *shrug* Best not to call her in tears when she's most likely feeling pretty low herself.

Meanwhile...is it really that wrong to hope very much not to get a birthday call from some people?

This is one of the harder times of year for me. Especially right now, the week preceding my birthday. This is the week in which my Uncle died. On my 18th birthday he called (I thought to wish me happy birthday) and told my Mum his cancer had come back, in a different place this time, so we knew there was nothing to do but wait for the end. Almost exactly a year later he died. So my birthday has become a remembrance of death more than a celebration of life.

There's kind of a running theme of being far from family, the frustration of being so far from California when we wanted to do something to ease Glenn's pain, and reliving that by feeling the distance I've put between myself and my parents by moving back to California. Classic homesickness I suppose. I always feel homesick when there's some special event, like our housewarming/open house yesterday. It reminds me how far away I am from a lot of the people I'd really want to invite along. Living in europe wouldn't solve it, it would just mean missing the people I'm around NOW instead of the people I left in the UK. Whine whine, no solution...DEAL WITH IT ROSE-POSE

Part of me wishes for one of those sit-com cliche surprise parties, a wish which is always tempered by the knowledge that half the people I'd want to be there live on the wrong side of the Atlantic, but mostly I just want the week to be over and done with because I'm crying much to easily. Especially since there's really nothing I should be crying about.

I had a really great weekend, second hand clothes shopping with Colin, followed by resisting the pull of the giant lips loveseat and buying a big comfy chair for my room. Yup, I bought a new armchair, in a fabric of my choice, and I can afford it. How very strange that feels. I don't want to get used to buying stuff without guilt, because someday I'll forget to see if I actually can afford whatever it is and end up in debt!

Colin and I tried on many variations on the silly hat theme, and I laughed so much I'm sure I was in danger of developing a hernia. Mixed into the hilarity was a lot of good talking without any particular direction and the occasional running over a dead skunk. Well, ok, we only did that once, and it was by accident, but it really STANK. Ever tried to stop laughing at the stink when every time you take a breath to laugh you get a nice big dose of skunkyness??

Colin has been around for my last two birthdays, he took me down to the Gaslamp to wander around photographing random stuff when I turned 20, and he visited me in London in time to come to my "Birthday dinner" when I turned 21. It's kind of funny that he's been around more than my parents have for my birthdays! Not their fault, I've lived in a different city form them since I was 18. It's just rather amusing that I now have a birthday tradition of "hang out with Colin"

Perhaps it's the actual day itself that's the problem, I've always had great celebrations the weekend after, or even 3 weeks later, but on the day itself I just feel sad and lonely. Even if every family member calls to say happy birthday, like they did when I was a kid. My birthday is one of the few days when I really wish I were grade-school age again, because that’s when your birthdays were just FUN. Cake and presents in bed for breakfast, getting to have a party with fireworks in the garden, all that good stuff. Birthdays away from family are one of the reasons I dread my first Christmas alone. The best bits of those days are the whole sitting about with tea and cake and just celebrating and enjoying being there it never even felt like it was celebrating me specifically, it was an excuse for group family fun. I looked forward to my sister's birthday and my parents almost as much. April fool's day too. It's the traditional innocent fun days that I miss. That's the best bit about being a kid.

I've not forgotten how to have fun, but somewhere along the way the days that were supposed to be all about that good natured feeling have fallen by the wayside and become odd days I don't know what to do with any more.

The 15th was my mother's 60th birthday. Now both of my parents are sexegenarians. *giggle* You wouldn't guess it to look at em...

The pool is very nice, kept at just the right temperature to encourage you to keep moving without inducing hypothermia and ranging from 3-1/2 to a spectacular 4-1/2 feet deep. It's also a good thought that I'm not paying directly for that heating bill, it's included in my rent and split between everyone else in the complex. It is a little disconcerting to think that half the apartments in the building look out over the pool. Potentially making little ol' me their evening entertainment. Don't look up. Well...do look up, but focus on the square of starry sky, not the looming balconies.

I was imagining a Jimmy Stewart type in a wheelchair overlooking my regular exercise and tutting to himself when I only did 10 laps instead of 20 or more like I should. Or commenting to his no-nonsense middle aged physio on my *ahem* boyancy

I watch way too much Hitchcock.

Having made it though the whole move without my back going ping, I put it out last night by forgetting to be careful shoving my dresser back against the wall. Not as bad as it's been before, though going over the speed bumps at work was interesting. Hello swimming pool, hello hot tub. Which I'd been meaning to do anyway.

Way. To. Go.
Why, do you ask, is there a lime green stripe down the entire driver's side of my dark red car? Because there's lime green paint on the pillars in the parking lot at my new apartment complex, that's why...

Good God that looks so morbid.

*ahem* I am doing so much better than I have in the past years it's unbelievable. It just goes to show all emotions are relative. Put it this way, this time last year I was barely coping with the help of therapy and antidepressants (AND smoking AND way too much food) now I'm doing pretty damn good with the occasional cigarette and no extraneous drugs. Unless you count pearl tea.

I suppose it's only natural to come back to a low-level sadness once the newness of getting settled in has worn off. I keep reminding myself that after Sunday I won't have to move homes again for 12 months. Once that sinks in I'll probably be sleeping better again.

Marc sweetie, I know you probably don't get a chance to read this, but if you ever do, I'm glad I got to talk to you last night. The feeling that I've got such a fan as you means a lot to me when I'm doubting myself.

There's a lot of things needing to be said or thought through right now, going into them while I'm at work is most likely not going to happen. That's one of many reasons it probably won't go up *here* added to the fact that much of it may come out as accusation when it's not intended to be so. I've used this forum to accuse before, though mostly it was the action of yelling it out that was the most important. So if I do happen to "talk" it out here, it's not aimed at anyone, it's my need to talk.

January 6th, epiphany, will be a new start for us three, moving into the new apartment and setting down our roots for at least 12 months. Considering I've been pretty much in transit since the end of August that's a big step forward. The 6th was supposed to be a different kind of new start, on the other side of the continent, but that path is gone. Not closed off, simply not there. The realisation of what we had planned to be happening this week, and what ended up happening, hit me hard last night. There's still an internal battle between feeling like a fool for letting myself be blind for so long, and anger/resentment for being so ill used. Whichever one is on top temporarily, mostly it just plain hurts.