Words cannot express my complete lack of faith in my father. When my mom leaves after visiting me, she will be taking back the car that I paid so much money to fly up and drive back for nine hours to use in my time of need. Just to have my dad turn around and take it back within a month of me borrowing it. If he would have just looked into their other car and made the repairs it needed, or else determined its inability to get my mom where she needed to go, I would have never flown up there with the false sense of hope that I could prolong my transportation issue until I was financially stable enough to find my own solution. Out of their three children, I have been the most willing to help them in their time of need, and for them to do this… what did I honestly do to deserve this? I am so through with all of this. Hoyt said he would get his car back up to me, and I love him all the more for it. But I am sick of driving, tired of borrowing cars from people. He needs his car despite his best intentions. If I have to walk two miles to get to a bus stop, so be it. If I have to be so independent, then fine. And I was feeling pretty good today until then. Must go find my happy place, with butterflies and pretty flowers that don't have lots of scary little bugs on them. Especially the biting kind.

This morning I had an encounter with an interest bug… it looked like one of those teeny red spiders except the body was white. The little critter was crawling across my keyboard at work and caught me completely off guard. Me being from Minnesota at first thought it was a variation of this little red harmless spider, but the white body screamed danger. Usually bugs that look pretty or have bright colors are visually warning creatures to stay away. Out of curiosity I looked up images of ticks and mites as well as chiggers. Now, I had never heard of a chigger before, but Hoyt's mom referred to it before moving to Kansas… totally freaked me out how they were described. Well, I think I may have seen my first chigger. I cannot even describe what they do… well, maybe a little. Essentially they secrete digestive enzymes on the skin so it can eat up skin cells. This will then form a tube that pretty much acts as a straw for the creepy thing to suck out as much of the digested skin until it is full at which point it leaves the host. That hole it leaves forms into a horribly itchy area that can consequently lead to infections.

Okay, that was quite descriptive… but dude, it's better to know thy enemy then let the skin get sucked right off you. No wonder why people get a little paranoid… I freaked out with ticks. At least you can see ticks. Chiggers (or mites, they look the same to me) are freakin' tiny! Remind me to like NEVER go into tall grass… or anywhere wild… scary…

Other than freaky little bugs, Hoyt got some good news today. He finally got a landlord to respond to his inquiry, so he took a look and ended up signing the lease and putting down the security deposit. He'll be moving in on June 1st. I am trying to convince him not to purchase any new furniture… he makes it seem so permanent! Not like we don't already have two whole apartments' worth of furniture and crap… now he wants to add more. *sigh* Have to get him to focus on bills first! :-p It's hard not to spend lots of money when you haven't had it for half a year! I love him anyway.

I find myself more and more apologizing for things I have said or reactions to words being said. While in the past I was very good at just whining about silly things, I seem to have taken it too far recently. It may be because I feel stifled, or unconsciously I feel I have been wronged and am now taking it out in every thought I have… but I do know that I am finding myself quite outspoken on just about every subject. Maybe it is because of how frustrated I am; Hoyt keeps carelessly mentioning me leaving my job so he can feel better about moving to Oklahoma (by me joining him there that is). I really do want to be with him, and I know he really does have nothing but good intentions, but why do I have to leave my job? That's so archaic. And it's not going to happen. Unfortunately, it's stressing me out enough to make me rather unpleasant at work, somewhat blame shifting my wanting to keep my job for our relationship's current status. It's way not cool. I'm probably thinking into it too much.

In the very least, I am finding my voice is more annoying than creative, innovative, or even plain useful. I come off as irritated to people, and somehow offend just about anyone that hears me. I would be better off not speaking at all. I tried this once while in Mongolia, taking a short vow of silence to regroup my thoughts and only say pertinent useful thoughts and information. What resulted was just a lot of distress by those around me. Imagine first trying to interpret someone speaking English (a language not very recognized in Mongolia), then trying to interpret a mute English-speaking student… in the end though, I felt a lot better having no obligations to respond and letting my own thoughts mull about in my own head. With Hoyt on nights this week, it doesn't seem like he will be calling at all. Not that he informed me of this, he's just not calling… argh!! Looking at my work schedule, the only day I could consider taking a vow of silence is Friday, and I have a dentist appointment that day… so I'll have to talk to them… I just want to focus on my writings, whether it is a story, a proposal (I have mixed feelings about my bus proposal now… why should anyone care about my misfortunes?), or a letter to Hoyt. Too bad my desktop wasn't more portable.

Weren't the Eagles great? Some might be spooked that I even know who they are… then again I was flabbergasted that not everyone knew who Aerosmith is… or Meatloaf… in any case, Hoyt was able to come up from Oklahoma for the entire weekend! And we had a wonderfully lazy time together as well, hence the Tequila Sunrise reference. It just doesn't get easier, saying goodbye that is. I have had so much practice and it still tears apart my heart everytime I have to do it. Speaking of tearing apart…

I finally got around to interlibrary loaning Brian Stoner's first novel entitled Sorceress. Sadly I returned it with only a third read, simply because of how completely and wholly frustrated I grew every time I picked it up. Try as I might, I could not stand his writing style or any part of the book. The plot was hard to follow because he kept coming up with all these new races. And not only did they multiply, but each one only had one still alive… And he describes one of the main characters with the same words, “gentle” and “soft” every single time he's mentioned. Now, that wouldn't annoy me so much if I didn't know he felt that he was that person, and that he truly felt he could do all these things this being of power since creation first born could do… Argh!! And grammatically, I am surprised something written that flows so terribly could be published. I feel like I am being very hard on him, but I have read a lot of fiction, and while I've dealt with some pretty graphic content, it has at least been written clearly and in a readable fashion. So, unfortunately, I have to say do not read Sorceress if you are able to find it (I could only find four libraries in the world having it), I would recommend not doing so.

The other book I recently looked at was Kevin Trudeau's “Natural Cures 'They' Don't Want You to Know About”… need I say more? The book is riddled with incomplete explanations and horrible propoganda. Even I, who really dislikes the current administration, found the book to be offensive and extremely overdone. Many of his “cures” include cleanses that he doesn't explain what they are or how to do it even if one was interested. And apparently getting a Candida cleanse, body fat cleanse (what is this and how do I get one?), liver/gallbladder cleanse, and colon clenase will cure just about all your ailments… if you can figure out what they are and how to do it. Half of his suggestions require you to go to his website to see exactly what he's talking about because he's “forbidden” to list brand names. Oy… gives me such a head ache. But I did find some things that were useful, or ways of thinking that should be considered more, such as do not put on your skin what you wouldn't eat. Or, aka, only buy things you can read the ingredients for. Otherwise, I think the book is a waste of time, unless you enjoy reading extremely anti-anything (except organic treatments/foods)… and if that is your bag, more power to ya.

All in all, let me just say I am glad I also checked out Brian Greene's first book. At least I'll get some good reading in this week. Brian Greene is like my hero… if only it didn't cost $20,000 dollars to have him speak for an hour. Pfffft. Money rules everything in today's society. So sad… but that's a whole other issue.