my morning

woke up late, due to snooze. got ready, made my lunch, out the door at 6:45. by 7:00, i was by Old Orchard. at Skokie and Old Glenview Road, i drove past what appeared to be a dog struggling in the road. evidently he had just been hit. i pulled into the Bakers Square parking lot, called 911, and joined two guys who were trying to get the dog out of the road. it was a small, white dog, a yorkie or scottie dog. he had managed to stand up, but now was just standing in the right lane of northbound skokie. one of the guys had a truck that was blocking traffic, so he wasn't going to get hit again, but they didn't want him to dart out into oncoming traffic. they finally got him on the side of the road and i came over and started petting him. he was bleeding from the mouth, just standing there, panting. he tried to walk (limp) away, but we grabbed his collar and he finally laid down. the guy with the truck left and another guy with a red VW had to leave, so i told him i would stay with the doggy until the cops showed up. i got a bottle of water from the car and some tupperware that was holding part of my lunch and filled it up like a water bowl, but the dog didn't drink. oh, well. he was pretty traumatized. the cops finally showed up, right as i realized that the dog was wearing an ID tag. the cop called the number and while we waited for the owners to show up, i gave one of the cops my info. the owners showed up in their powder blue VW beetle convertible. they were both elderly, with dog stickers all over their car. they came rushing over, and the minute that little dog saw the woman, he flopped over on her foot like, "thank god you're here." evidently, the dog slipped his leash about 20 minutes prior and ran away. i am just glad that whomever hit him didn't run over him in anyway that would have rendered him more injured. the owners bundled him up and took him to the nearest emergency vet. i did not care that i was 30 minutes late for work. sitting in the wet grass, petting a wet, dirty, panting, bleeding dog, was my good deed for the day.

waste

i don't like my life. certain things have come to light over the past few weeks that reinforced how much i don't like who i have become. i am a liar. a bad person in general. i do whatever makes me happy. i am a spoiled person. and now, because of my past mistakes, i get to have my face rubbed in it until the end of time. this will never go away. it can never heal. a good word to describe how i feel is "hopeless." utterly hopeless. and reading my past posts, really, who would have guessed i would feel so low? who would have guessed by the awful postings about my life and my job and everything in between how miserable i am? no one, that's who.

i am 39 years old. i deserve the right to be happy. at what expense? on the flip side, how happy should i make someone else at the expense of my own happiness? when does one another's happiness trump another's? how unhappy does one have to be before another notices it? a month? 6 months? two years. at this point in my life, i feel that no one truly knows me. and certainly no one understands. i have seriously been living a life on my own for a while now. i make unilateral decisions because no one else weighs in. i plan things because no one else is planning. i will do what makes me happy until i die.

at the age of 39, i have nothing to show for this life. at this point in her life, my mom at least had two kids and a house with a backyard and a garage. now the house is gone, but us kids are still here. we'll carry on her sarcastic legacy. until we die, because we're not having kids, but alas. that's another post for a later date. and honestly, my dad doesn't leave much behind either. me and my sister. but me. i have nothing. i am leaving nothing behind. no foundations, no charity work, no legacy. just yarn. i have changed no ones lives. if i died today, i would disintegrate into the ground and life would go on never knowing i existed.

to be honest, there are plenty of people out there to whom that will happen. wandering around any cemetery will make that abundantly clear. not everyone can be helen keller or paul revere. and some people are happy with their lot in life. i am not. i am not happy being mediocre. and that's exactly what i am. when all of my closest friends and relatives die, i will cease to exist. gone. a shrug of a shoulder. christ, even white trash uneducated pieces of shit in the hills of Tennessee have left more to this earth in the way of children than i ever could with anything of equal bearing.

i am merely taking up space. breathing air that i have deemed myself pretty much unworthy to breathe. i have caused a lot of pain to no end. and to no avail. this pointless life has run its course, says Pink Floyd.

i mean, seriously, what's the fucking point? tomorrow i will go to a job where i might do 15 minutes worth of work in an entire 6 hours. then i'll go not home, but to another place, because home is off limits now. i am refugee. a displaced person. someone who is unwanted. and the really fucked up thing is, i deserve it. but then, do i? how much do i deserve? how badly do i deserve to be beaten down? to be held even more at arm's length but this time treated with hidden contempt? all i wanted was someone to notice me. to say that i was so awesome, that life couldn't carry on without me, that anything would be done to make me happy. i just found it in the wrong place. and that is my greatest failure. just like my choice of career, city in which to live, dinner last night, every decision i make is the wrong one.

how can i trust that any decision made hereon out will be the right one?

ADD

my thought process over the last few hours: i'm bored. no emails yet at work. i'll read my book. oh, the spine is falling apart. i'll tape it back together. i wonder what it would take for me to get a job in book preservation? i'll look that up online. oh, the school of the art institute has a masters program. OMG, it's $85,000. seriously? ok, UWM has an online program for much less. do i really want to do that? let's see about medical jobs. phlebotomy? lab tech? microbiology? how far do i have to go for that kind of job? phlebotomy class at truman is $1600. is it accredited? it doesn't look like it. what schools are accredited? rush, U-I, rosalind university. what about a lab job? i'd like to take microbiology again. it's at night at truman this fall. then i could get a shitty lab job and get the fuck out of design. do i really want to be trapped in a lab for the rest of my life? what if it doesn't have windows? what if it makes me feel more like a moron than this job does? oh, look, an email. i have work to do... <5 minutes later> bored. let's look up design jobs. paper source is hiring a merchandise assistant. i could do that. ok, bored again. maybe a landscaping job in the summer so i can be outside. nothing. maybe a demolition job so i can destroy things. nothing. UX designer positions. the term UX pisses me off. it's just another loophole a designer has to jump through to get a job. i can do user experience with my JavaScript tied behind my back. maybe i'll take a class just to freshen up. man, this is bullshit i have to pay to learn how to do something i already do. maybe i'll look at Craigslist. floral designer. freelance photographer. interior designer. interactive designer. graphic designer for $35,000 a year. yes, please send me back to 10 years ago salary-wise, but make me have twice as many qualifications. maybe i'll just buy a fucking cabin in the middle of nowhere and do whatever the fuck i want. i feel so hopeless.