Was there some permission slip we were all supposed to sign in our youth allowing us to be at least marginally happy and accomplish some of the things we work so hard to accomplish as adults?

Because if there was, bitches forgot to hand me my copy since I’m clearly not allowed to be on that trip.

It sucks to look in a mirror at any part of yourself and think, “Damn, I hate you.” It sucks even more to think the same thing about the way you think - a Möbius strip of self-loathing.

Patterns and repetitions often produce good results in music, writing (when used as a motif or theme), art and other creative pursuits.

Patterns and repetitions in behavior either make you compulsive, crazy or conscientious.

Patterns and repetitions in relationships? Those can leave you extremely happy or extremely miserable, worshiped or abused, or heading to therapy.

I’ve been cleaning house all day (not metaphorically; physically) and going through years and years of paperwork and printed email, photos, receipts, ticket stubs, and birthday cards/holiday cards. I’ve looked at some of them and drawn some connections between people I’ve known and people I know, and realized that there’s always a fundamental “cast of characters” in my life.

For some reason (and this might be good fodder for my next visit with the shrink) there’s always someone in the following roles/stereotypes. A count of how many times I’ve had this type of person in my life (that I can clearly recall) is included in parentheses. What struck me are the more toxic types:

• difficult to please and emotionally distant thinker (3)
• often pompous intellectual who enjoys seeing me angry (3)
• dramatically self-destructive and simultaneously ‘high on life’ extrovert(4)
• needy and confused self-destructive who needs an ear/shoulder (3)
• immature and stuck-in-the-past, unwilling to change or move on (2)

There are GOOD categories, too, and the stereotypes above are often tempered by many wonderful characteristics, but I just wonder why I gravitate towards the same type of people over and over again, through the years. Not in dating relationships, but just in friendships. It makes me wonder what’s up with me - especially since there’s a theme of self-destructive people parading along my little path.

Ah, well. I’m not going to try to psychoanalyze myself now and get all pensive. I have a LOT to do this week, not the least of which is pet-sitting from Thursday through next Tuesday, so I’ll have to get an overnight bag together. And include a blow-dryer, somehow, since I can’t leave the house without drying this haircut.

Much much much to do.

I got the majority of my taxes done today. I’m still waiting for a few forms to be posted online on Jan 31, so I should be able to file fully in early February. It’s looking like a nice refund between my educational and medical deductions. I got my first car payment bill today and just took care of that online.

I’ve been thinking about my master’s degree (which I just can’t afford right now) and whether I want to finish up with the MLIS right now, or if I’d rather switch gears and do something that’s more closely related to my career so I can leverage that while I’m still fairly young and energetic enough to care deeply about it. I know I can do it later, too, but I almost feel like I’d rather do the career development education stuff now. It might help me to advance a little more quickly if the folks I work with and for know that I’m very serious about it. It’s one thing to read books, but if I take the time to get an additional degree, it’s a little more valid. While I think a lot of the things I’d learn would be things I know already from experience or would learn better from experience, that piece of paper does make a difference.

Thinking about school has made me wander into reverie and regret(and I realize this might be because I forgot to take my medication this morning - I’ll remedy that right now) about my undergraduate studies. I don’t regret them wholly, but I can’t help thinking that the last 10 years would’ve been very different (esp. the last 6) if I’d gone away to school and gone somewhere smaller.

What if I’d gone to Wellesley or Drew University or Boston College or even Harvard? (I didn’t get accepted to that last one, but what if?) What if I hadn’t had to pay for school? What if I’d been able to study abroad in the UK or Asia?

None of them were really options since finances were the big thing. I went to an expensive school that didn’t require me to live on campus and allowed me to live at home ($aving$) and work full-time to afford it. Sure, I still have $12K to pay off, but I’ve already paid off more than that. It could’ve been $70K if I’d gone somewhere else. But I might be making more money by now by having been on the right track from the start and might have been able to pay off $70K in 10 years.

I’m not going to take this further because regret is the most fruitless of all feelings. Looking at my income and expenses and deductions and everything has just triggered this sort of “checks and balances of life” moment. Whatevs.

Since I have this car payment coming up, I really can’t spend crazily, and since I felt crappy and wanted to shop, I had to find another way to treat that craving. I had about $6 of iTunes credits from a gift certificate, so I purchased some songs off of Thom Yorke’s “celebrity playlist.” They’re all quite good. The ones I chose are:

• “Horse and I” by Bat for Lashes
• “Silikon (featuring Sasha Perera)” by Modeselektor & Sasha Perera
• “No Hope Before Destruction” by The Dears
• “What It Look Like” by Spank Rock

Now I’ll go help with dinner or something nice, domestic and daughterly.

I hear this is all the rage in Japan.

PATRICK STEWART + RICKY GERVAIS = AWESOME.

There’s a teeny weeny little bit of snow falling. I’d like there to be more so I can justify wearing my super warm and cozy snow boots tomorrow.

Alas, I must head to sleep so I can get up early. I am reading to children tomorrow morning as part of the volunteer program we have at work. I don’t like getting up early, but I like spending time with the kids and having them exclaim, “Miss Eva, Miss Eva!” when they want to show me what a good job they did drawing something or when they want to tell me something. It’s funny… I’ll be reading them a story and mention that the mouse in the story has a brother. This prompts four or five kids to raise their hands and shout my name and proceed to tell me about how many siblings they have or that they’re about to get a baby brother or whatever. It’s very endearing.

Here are two very different videos I’d like to share. First, the cute.

Well, up until an hour ago, I thought I was going to be going to Poland in March to see my family. Then, an hour ago, my mother told me that she booked tickets for herself and my brother and sister yesterday and that when she called to add me on today, there were no tickets left for that flight. Nevermind the fact that I told her yesterday to go ahead and book the tickets and that I’d find a way to make it work with my schedule since she was harping on and on about having to book them last night to get a good deal.

But, ultimately, she got tickets for everyone else but me.

This whole week, I’ve been feeling like I’m speaking some language that only I understand since every conversation I’ve had with any member of my family has resulted in arguments because either they don’t understand me or they simply don’t listen. If I say “I can’t drop this package off at the UPS store because it’s open from 9 to 4 and I’m at work from 8:30 to after 6; can you ask someone who doesn’t have work during the day to drop it off?” doesn’t that pretty much put the solution RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU? Instead, wait a week, stew over it and then explode at me on Sunday night after the package has been sitting somewhere for a week and scream that it’s my responsibility to mail the package. At which point, I will repeat that I WORK DURING THE WEEK AND AM NOT ABLE TO DROP IT OFF AT THE GODDAMN UPS STORE… and you can deny that this conversation ever happened and continue to insist that I have to do it because (apparently) none of the other people who are home all day or work from home or don’t have work until 11 in the morning can swing by the UPS store to drop off a package.

In the end, Monday was a work holiday but the UPS store was open, so I dropped it off then.

I’m angry. I’m pissed off. I am constantly reprimanded for not talking to or “sharing” enough with my family, but when I do, I might as well not be saying anything since they’re not listening anyway. Whatever words I speak disintegrate into the ether and don’t ever make it into an ear canal or into any comprehensible form. They’re just sounds. I should just stop talking entirely and provide simple “Yes” or “No” responses since they’re far less likely to get confused.

1) Sleep (a lot)
2) Drink tea (weak, warm and unsweetened)
3) Watch “The Golden Girls”, non-stop and commercial-free (thanks to the best innovation of recent years: TV on DVD)
4) Add more books to your LibraryThing catalog (I’m up to 921 books)
5) Add a bunch of new feeds to Google Reader, thus furthering the info addiction (I have 55 subscriptions so far, everything from BoingBoing to Lifehacker to Cupcake Blog to PostSecret to Tcritic to Mental_floss)
6) Get to sleep early (despite sleeping until 12:30)

This little video made me feel better for a bit.
It’s just more of the magic that Colbert possesses.

P.S. If the song has you tapping your toes, it’s the Scissor Sisters “I Don’t Feel Like Dancin’” (link to iTunes)

I went to bed at 9:30 last night and got up this morning with a raging headache. I showered and left for the train station, thinking it would pass since headaches usually do. On the way, I felt extremely sick and managed to pull over and not mess up the new car. So, I turned around and drove home, and called my boss to let her know I wasn’t going to be in today. I fell into bed (literally) and pulled the blanket over my head and slept until 12:30 in the afternoon.

I still have the headache and now a stomach-ache to boot, but I’m not hurling. An improvement. I’m getting the chills and feeling a little groggy, but getting back into bed might help that. This is one time where I wish I had an electric blanket since I am freezing, despite the heating and a down comforter and a down throw on top of it.

Could I have the crazy flu that’s been going around? I have no joint pain and no fever. I didn’t eat much of anything yesterday, so it’s not food poisoning. What the hell.

Going back to bed.