Tony’s Neighborhood

I detest irresponsibility, and yet how I crave to be irresponsible. I want a better life, a more peaceful one. The pursuit of that though screws a lot of people over. I've always said, "You need to be a little bit selfish," but how much selfishness is too much? The environment is so toxic. I'm filled with anxiety. I feel it balled up in my throat, a mass of rotten emotions. I can't sleep.

I have a bad habit of disappearing for many moons, only to return unexpectedly for no apparent reason.

The MA Exam (the test that determines whether or not I graduate in May) is March 23rd and 24th, and most of my free time has gone towards that. Let's just say I've been doing a lot of reading. Any test that requires you to know multiple works by 74 authors (this does not include any theory or literary movements, which are kind of a big deal and also necessary to know) would ultimately lead to such a result.

Surprisingly, I'm feeling all right about it. Spring break is the 14th-22nd (yeah, I'll be here, reading) so I'll have a week without classes or work, and that gives me a lot more time to get some crazy-last-minute studying in. But we've been doing this study group since last semester, and have started meeting twice a week, and have been getting a lot done. So no panic yet. Ask me in a couple weeks though.

I hate my bosses at work. But at least I have a job. Gotta look on the bright side.

I'm also addicted to a particular song at the moment and I have no idea why: "Strange Magic" by ELO. But it fits ridiculously well with this story that I've been working on, so that at least explains why it won't go away.

Have I mentioned that? I've been writing a lot lately. Well, not lately-lately, since all I do is read since January, but in general. I've decided that I'm going to publish or die trying. I've also decided that I'm not going back for my PhD anytime soon, and that I don't care where I get a job after school, as long as it pays off my student loans. Amazing what a year can do for you, huh?

If all goes well, I graduate May 19. Eeep. O_O

I wish there was a way I could write all the shit going on now, but it's difficult to keep it straight and understandable. The one thing I know is that I want to not be here so damn bad. It feels like being a kid all over again, stuck in between two manipulating parents who have no concept of empathy. I know my dad did wrong, but I can also understand that he hasn't really been with my mom for over five years and before that there was always just bitterness and disgust between them. He was seriously ill and when I talk to him I get the feeling that he thinks the end is close for him and watching him I can see it too. He doesn't look healthy or himself. In the end, to him there was no relationship there and nothing to be faithful for. His kids are grown and he wants peace and as he says over and over again, he can't have that with my mom. There's too much bitterness and anger for them to ever be even remotely friends, I've witnessed that with my own eyes. I know that he's also playing up the victim card as hard as he can, I'm not dumb. Nothing he's done is right, but there's also some truth in what he says.

My mom wants desperately for us to pick a side, but I can't be a bitch to the old man. In the end he's my father and I see him so rarely. I'd hate to say the last time I saw him I didn't speak to him. It's also not my bone to pick, if my mom feels she's owed an explanation then she should be the one to ask for one. Instead she fled, though. She used some money of his without his knowledge and fled to NY, leaving me and my sister to deal with the rage once he finds out. I feel betrayed by her. When this all started I tried to support her, to be there for her and offer whatever she needed. I even started hunting for a lawyer and she just didn't listen. She followed my oldest sister's advice, my oldest sister who can't even get her child support payments from her father's kid, but has some strange and greedy interest in my dad's money.

That's what it's all about really. All the anger stems from the money he took from this house and invested in so many failed projects. There's this idea that he's over there in Nicaragua giving all his money away to his 22 year old lover (who he says isn't 22, but I really don't care). What people fail to ask themselves is what money? Everything my dad has tried to make over there has failed, if the economy is shit here how could it be in one of the poorest nations in the entire world? Yea, I do ask myself why anyone would invest money in a third world country with an "ex-communist" president, but he can do whatever he wants. He's old and that's what he wants. Who am I to stand in his way? In the end I don't count with my dad for anything and I never consider anything of his mine. That's what I work for. I really don't want anything from either of them, but to be left alone and out of all this mess.

I'm sick of my mom's games and I'm sick of the way she uses my paycheck as her own personal piggy bank. The money I give her for the mortgage just went to a last minute airplane ticket to New York. I feel bad for my sister, not the oldest, but older one. In the end everything falls on her shoulders and I'm overcome with this fierce feeling to protect her because it's enough. She's had to be the responsible one for fucking long enough and she should get to live her life and not clean up after my mom and her bad spending habits. I feel so helpless and pissed off. I feel like a fucking kid. It's not the separation, my parents should have never been together. I could see that as a small child. It's strange because I feel so helpless, but at the same time as if I'm forced to be responsible for their bullshit. It's all just so much bullshit I feel like throwing up.

I've never felt so incredibly fucking busy in my life. I have tons of papers to write, books to read and presentations to prepare, service learning hours to complete and work, of course. Horrible horrible work. Not to mention that I've yet to complete any of immunization paper work necessary to register for next semester in a new school and I'm fucking panicking because I may not be able to actually go to school next semester if I take any longer. Crazy thing is that no matter how hard I try to buckle down and take things seriously and fucking FOCUS I can't stop myself from procrastinating. I have the attention span of an excitable two year old at the moment. Like for example, right now, I have two papers to write and a book to read for a presentations and I'm typing this instead. I somehow felt writing this and checking my facebook were imperative to this very moment. Shit.

For no other good reason than to have a blog where I talk about things and enjoy comments on them, I have created another Vox, this one will probably go die or something. I've always wanted to private everything on here and start over with a more public approach, then I decided one day last week that I'm just gonna do it.

http://iambicstrays.vox.com/

If I really feel the need to say something detailed about my personal life, I'll post it here. Basically, I'm in a constant state of happiness, I have few sad feelings now and when I have them, I have release for those feelings outside of blogging, hooray! Instead of coming to Vox only when I'm sad, I want to blog when I have something worth reading.

I need to confess to a guilty pleasure of mine.

Every night before bed I log onto FoxNews.com to check the headlines. More often than not the headlines are the same as on every other news website, but sometimes I get lucky and find pure gold. You see, despite how you feel about the network and their close political ties, Fox News maintains one of the most hilarious websites on the interweb.

The prime example of this, and the one that brings me the most joy, is the enormous image headline they maintain on their front page. No matter what crisis the country is currently, or how many people have died, FoxNews.com always manages to display the poorest taste imaginable. I honestly can't tell if it's intentional or not, which makes it all the more wonderful.

'Sensationalist' doesn't even begin to describe the situation. I mean, for the duration of the election their front page featured fear-mongering quotes by Sarah Palin, and an unhealthy obsession with international pirates. Here are a few of my favorite examples:

So are they are in on the joke or not? You decide!

So this year I've volunteered to make the entire Thanksgiving meal. My only request was that the oven be clean. I usually take care of the deserts, so I'm no stranger to the madness that is the Thanksgiving kitchen, but having to plan the entire feast is a bit intimidating. Still the little gourmet inside me is all excited. I'm thinking salted turkey, two kinds of potatoes and well... then the rest is pretty vague to be honest.

I'm lucky enough to have Thanksgiving and the Friday after that off too though, so all sorts of Christmas decorating and tree installing will be going down. As well as the official trading of the dog's Halloween collars for Christmas collars. I know I'm a little dorky, but that's as close as I come to dressing them up so it's okay.

In other news, it's very worrisome to me that JJ and I still haven't planned any wedding stuff. This is supposed to be happening April 4rth...

does anyone remember a movie about a girl who gets wronged by her boyfriend or something like that, ends up murdering him and several other guys to collect their body parts and make 'the perfect boyfriend' out of said parts? I remember the movie clear as day because it was so gory, but the name totally escapes me. From what I remember, it was titled after the name of the main character. She would see a guy and be like "That guy has nice arms, I'm going to add him to my boyfriend," and then she'd murder him. Then she stitched all the perfect parts together and decided that 'he' was missing eyes, so she cut one of hers out in front of a mirror very graphically and put it on her new boyfriend.

Has anyone seen this and can tell me the name? bahahaha

As far as Saturdays go this one is turning out to be a pretty shitty one. I hate that I don't have a car. I feel so trapped and lonely. All I really want to do right now is get the fuck out of here. I'm so independent in every aspect of my life. I pay my own bills, I do my own chores and I make my own plans, but it's so devastatingly crippling to have to depend on people to get me where I want/need to be. I'm just so tired of being surrounded by little kids who think they're smarter and better than me, by my mother who thinks I owe her something and my sister who just can't seem to get over her depression and get on with life. I love them all, but I feel so suffocated and I really wish I could have some alone time outside this house. I don't want to retreat within myself, you know. I just want to get the fuck out and not feel so incredibly tired and stressed and unfulfilled. When I was in high school I never saw myself here, taking the same shit from the same people. Buried under responsibilities that aren't even mine. I don't even know what to do anymore and all I'm doing right now is only helping to depress me even further.

But I'm going to bed now instead because my body is dead, I've had unexplained and incredibly severe rib pain for the last week, I end every night with two Excedrin Extra Strength for the raging migraine that blurs my vision and for fucking once I get to actually sleep in on a Saturday. Sigh.