Oh baby!

For anyone who reads this blog and actually knows me, this is probably news you've already heard. For anyone else, well, if you care, here goes.

My younger sister is 10 weeks pregnant with twins. Obviously, as her older sister I am concerned about her. I worry about her health and comfort level, and the health of the babies. She's not unhealthy, but she's a really picky eater, and I want to be sure the babies are getting all the nutrients they need. I got her some prenatal vitamins with DHA, so hopefully that's going to be a good enough start.

My initial thoughts about the situation were purely stressful. My sister and her husband are not in the best financial situation. Of course, my mother will be able to provide free childcare so that is a major load off their shoulders, but they'll have to move into a bigger apartment and my brother-in-law will have to get a better job. I feel partially responsible for my family. Yes, I moved away, and that separates me from them somewhat. But at the same time, if they ever needed anything, I would feel like it was up to me to help them out. I'm not rolling in money myself, but I get by, and if money got really tight I could get a second job, move into a smaller apartment, or get a piece of junk car instead of the nice one (well, it started out nice) that I have now. I'm comfortable enough, and I don't need financial assistance. Babies are a major expense, and the fact that they have the equivalent of one decent-paying full-time job between the two of them worries me.

Before I had time to truly get over my initial worry, we found out there are two babies instead of one. This means he has to get another job and they have to move into a bigger apartment. No question. I just hope he will step up soon. These babies are going to be well taken care of and incredibly loved, and as worried as I was at first, I am now as excited. I have been fighting my own biological clock for a little while now. I am neither in a financial situation nor in a relationship conducive to child-rearing, but I want children very badly. The fact that I'm going to be able to be around my sister's children so much is going to help me sate my own maternal desires.

I have this major problem about worrying about things that are beyond my control. I need to just relax and let them do what they are going to do, but there are children involved now, and I want them to have the best life possible. I just have to hope everything works out, and I will help as much as I can or as much as I am needed to. Mostly I'm just excited about being an aunt and watching these children grow. I have to focus on that.

Don Jacobs Paint and Body sucks.

Remember all of my car drama in December and January? Yeah, well, I have something to add to it now.

After all that mess where it took so long to get my car back from the body shop and they gave me a coupon for free detailing, I finally took it up there to take advantage of the offer. I got up at 6 this morning and dropped the car off at 7:30. I was in the parking lot before they unlocked the doors. Issue was, I had to be at work at 7:30. So, I had to wait there in the lobby for their shuttle service because, well, I have no one that I can ask to come give me a ride at 7:30 in the morning. I waited there until 10 after 8 and had to ride in a van with six strangers, three of whom got dropped off before me. I didn't get to work until almost nine. I went to pick up my car at 3:00. It was nice and shiny on the outside and I could tell it had been washed and the tires cleaned, but once I got inside I was unsure the job had been done properly. After I got back to work, having checked a few things by glancing while sitting at stoplights, I ensured that, not only had the job not been done properly, it had not been done at all. How could I tell? Well, there was a soda stain in my cupholder, hair on the seats (both cat and mine), and a French fry under the passenger seat. Guess what? Those things were all still there.

Here is the e-mail complaint that I wrote to the dealership:

I had my vehicle repaired at your paint and body shop in December/January. When I picked up my vehicle, I was very displeased with the appearance of the interior. There was paint dust inside and it was clear it had not been cleaned as well as it should have been considering the extensive amount of damage that had been done to my car. My estimator, Tim, gave me a coupon for free detailing for me to use at a later date. I took my car in for this today. When I picked the car up, the outside was nice and clean and my wheels were shiny, but I didn't think the interior had been cleaned as well as it should have been. Sure enough, when I got to my destination I discovered the French fry that had been dropped under my passenger seat was still there.

Seeing as how I paid nothing for either my body work or the detailing, I don't suppose I have any right to complain, but my vehicle initially was in your dealership's posession for five weeks and now you have had it an additional six hours for the detailing. I find the cleanliness of my car to be appalling considering the time wasted at your dealership. I just wanted my complaint to be heard so that you can correct this for future business: future business that absolutely will not be provided by me, as I will never visit your dealership in any capacity again.

So, for anyone who gives a rat's ass, in support of me and my frustration, do not ever visit Don Jacobs Paint and Body in Lexington, KY. Thank you.

I yam who I yam and that's all that I yam.

Hello! My name is Lora and I am a control freak. I think everything should turn out a certain way and when it doesn't I get all freaked out. I think that I am responsible for being the one to take care of everybody, so if you do something I don't think you should, I am going to help you try and "fix" it. I think that everything has a reason for happening, and that if all you do is take life as it comes, you are not living it to its full potential. I also think that you should be constantly trying to better yourself and your situation, so I get pissed off if you are completely content with your life the way that it is, especially when your life is spent with you being poor and undereducated when I think you deserve more than that. I am bossy and particular.

If you don't like it, go away, 'cause I ain't changin'.

The Untalented Miss Riggs

I am good at nothing. This is something that I am finally coming to terms with. All my life, I've always thought I was special. I partially blame my parents for that. But due to thinking I was special, I always thought that eventually, I would be able to do something great with my life.

The very first thing I truly thought I could be good at was acting. I've always been a little overdramatic, and that's part of it, but I am ruled totally by emotion. Isn't that what acting is all about? Tapping into your emotions to portray a character? Why couldn't I do that? I've been practicing my whole life. I create monologues about characters that aren't entirely unlike myself, and I'm always able to evoke tears when the time calls for them. Of course I can act! But that dream died when no one supported it.

Then I tried to convince myself that I was a great singer. My experiences haven't totally gone against this theory either. I was the section leader my last two years of choir in high school, and I had multiple solos and feature parts throughout the years. But I have never heard anyone tell me my voice has brought them to tears, or even evoked emotions from them. I've been complimented on my voice, but to be a great singer, one has to make others feel the lyrics. I don't suppose I can do this. So this dream sort of faded away.

One thing I do know without a doubt that I'm good at is putting others before myself. I have let people mock me and belittle me and not fought back because I didn't want people to get upset with me. I am a good friend. I put others desires before my own, and I don't ask for anything in return except the attention that it requires to even allow me to be in those peoples' presence. I want to take care of people, and I want to please them. But the problem is that this one aspect of my life that I actually show strength in is my greatest weakness. In my last blog, I spoke about the hatred that I had been feeling in the weeks prior. I think that a lot of the reason I was so angry was because I got tired of the way people were making me feel so inconsequential, but in reality I set myself up for that in the first place. How should I expect others to respect me or care about me if I can't even give myself the same courtesy?

But old habits die hard, and it's going to be really difficult for me to change behaviors that I've been carrying on for a dozen years or more. Being more outspoken and telling people what I want from them is one of the things I've been trying recently, but I have a bad feeling that prior events have pushed some people that I care about out of my life completely. I do believe that there are people that care about me, but most don't care about me enough to do the kind of work that will keep me close. I enjoy having lots of friends, but I've always been the kind of person that would rather have a few really close friends than a lot of casual acquaintances.

So, in conclusion, I guess what I'm saying is the only thing I'm good at is being a doormat.

The last few weeks of my life, I have basically hated myself. I've hated my job, the person I've become, the excuses I make for not changing things in my life. If it's there, I've hated it. I have always had vague goals that I was working toward to improve myself. But apparently somewhere along the way, I either got derailed from these goals, or they changed so drastically that they got lost in everything else that was going on inside of me. There's still part of me that thinks I maybe need to be on medication. I have this really bad habit of getting mad about something, letting it fester inside of me while I pretend I'm not mad, then I get so furious that I explode. Sometimes I explode on other people. When I was growing up, this tended to be my sister. I don't ever mean to hurt people, but when this rage finally ends up bursting out of me, someone in its path always gets battle wounds. This weekend I blew up, and not in a private way. I blew up in front of a bunch of people at a really inopportune time. The worst part: I was drunk and don't remember exactly what I blew up about. Fortunately, today I have felt less stress and anger than I have in a really long time, so I guess it was good that I got to purge. It just sucks the way that it happened. I apologized to people who fell in the path of my rage. That's all I can do, because I cannot take it back. But honestly, right now all I want to do is run away from anything and anybody in my life and completely start all over, and in some place completely and utterly random, like Idaho. I can't correct mistakes I've made, and people may not be able to forget them, but if I were to have a clean slate, maybe I wouldn't feel like I was such a demented piece of garbage.

Relax, go to it.

I will never live a stress-free life.

I can't. My mind won't let me. If I'm not stressed about money, I'm stressed about my health (needlessly, mind you). If it's not that, it's my relationship status (or lack thereof). I just can't win, and I don't understand it. Am I afraid of being happy? Am I preventing myself from relaxing, or has my life up to now conditioned me to believe that a new stressful situation is just around the corner, so I don't relax out of routine? I'm not saying I never relax at all. There are fleeting moments, where all of the stars align and the feng shui is just so, and I can have a few hours of sheer bliss. But then the worry of another day at work, or another day of tightening the pursestrings in order to eat, comes along, and I'm back to square one. Vacation is incredibly helpful in all this. Any time I'm away from home/work/family, I can totally chill out. I don't think about what has to be done when I get home, or worry about what's coming out of my next paycheck. Any time I'm away from Kentucky, I feel totally uninhibited.

It's kind of funny, though. Right now I'm in the middle of planning three trips over the course of the next three months. One hotel stay is paid for, but the rest of my expenses have yet to be covered, and I am totally freaking out over it. Usually I just charge it and worry about it later, but my credit cards are all maxed out. (Thanks, new bite guard. Thanks, new eyeglasses.) I could nix a trip, but I have been looking so forward to them all, and there's one I absolutely can't get out of. I'm stressing about planning something that is going to allow me to destress. Ironic.

Thankfully I have this new Stevie Nicks album to help me through. Otherwise I'd be a total nutcase right now.

Poo on you, Paste Magazine.

Here's another review of In Your Dreams that I take issue with. Specifically, the part I have a problem with is the part that calls "Wide Sargasso Sea," "a corny, overcooked tale of fading beauty, tarnished lust, and backfiring arson." If anyone is to blame for the cheesiness of "Wide Sargasso Sea," it is the screenwriters of the film that inspired the song. If people did their research, then I think the reviews would be a little more positive. You have to put the music into context. Stevie Nicks songs are not stand-alone. They are always part of something else.

This article is another that mentions the changes in Stevie's voice. Don't make me reiterate my previous post, people. I mean, to insult the voice of someone like Whitney Houston, who has squandered her talent the last ten years and has allowed her vocal cords to be damaged by hard living and drug use, is one thing. But to insult a 60-year-old woman's voice for natural aging is pathetic. Yes, Stevie's voice is far different than it was 30 years ago. I'll give you that. And yes, some of the damage was caused by drug use and hard living. However, everyone knew that going into this album. Stevie's voice is, if anything, better than it was on her last album. She has been working hard at maintaining her voice. She has a vocal coach, which is something she never had in the '70s and '80s, because she realizes now - after all of her life experience - that a beautiful voice is a gift. It is a blessing that has been received that can easily be taken away. Just ask Julie Andrews. As a matter of fact, ask Stevie herself, who had doctors tell her in the late '80s that she was lucky she could still sing at all thanks to all the cocaine she put up her nose.

She has a dime-sized hole in her nasal passages. That is why her voice is nasally. *sigh* I just get really tired of people listening to an album once by an artist they know very little about, and being able to put their opinions of this album and artist out where the public can read them. It's so annoying.