New Kitten Tomorrow

Or, well - today really since it's after midnight. I'm very excited about getting the new kitten. :) Venti and I picked it out on Saturday with Short Decaf's help. She had her "surgery" yesterday and now I'll have her very soon! I spent ALL my Google AdSense money on her, but she's going to be worth it. I really hope she's as much of a snuggly cat as she seemed to be at the Humane Society.

So Grande Decaf got my dad's computer running again. He died nearly five years ago and nobody has really touched his computer much since then. When I got ahold of it (from my sister's clutches) it didn't work very well, and I had to rescue all the emails. I exported them into a .pst file, but before I could take them off the hard drive it kind of "blew up". Grande actually blew it up by trying to plug a floppy drive into it while it was powered up. He did this about a year ago, and I didn't realize how much intense guilt he has been harboring over the situation ever since. Knowing that his grandfather's last words via email to anyone were on that computer, Grande really felt bad. However, now he's somehow fixed it and I got to read some of my dad's emails. He was so, so, so very supportive of everything I did. Man, I really miss him. As soon as I can get those emails off of that computer I'll post the last one he wrote to me - and the last one he wrote.

He was an awesome guy.

So, I had a lot of racing thoughts today. It was reminiscent of what I felt like the entire time I was pregnant. Absolutely horrible. A 1/2 of a Xanax took the feeling away, but it's just horrible to experience. I have a lot on my mind lately.

I've pissed off sister-in-law Decaf by not responding to an "annual cookie exchange/potluck/Chinese auction for an ornament" email invitation. She sent the "let me know" email a 9 days ago. Yes, I know - I need to grow a pair and just fucking reply to people even when the answer is one I know they won't like. Anyway, she called Venti and asked him about it - and so I had to pony up a response to her. I hope she's not too pissed. I think she is, though.

I just don't DO things like that. I mean, even if I wasn't agoraphobic, anxious, panic attack prone, and overweight (total body image issues here) - I STILL wouldn't be into "annual cookie exchange/potluck/Chinese auction for an ornament" parties. I'm not that kind of girl. Hell, I NEVER ONCE went to my own mother's annual Christmas cookie making get-together. Martha Stewart I am not - and that's one of the things I actually DO like about myself. I know some people would like to change that about me, but it's not going to happen.

Here is the portion of the email invite that regards what goes on at this party. I have highlighted the things in color and bold that DO NOT AT ALL APPEAL to me.

Basically, [party-holder] takes a total of all people attending, lets us know how many cookies to make, and how many bundles. Everyone brings their little bundles, and exchanges them with everyone else. We have a potluck lunch, and then have the Chinese Auction for a Christmas ornament that you bring wrapped. It is always a ton of fun watching everyone "fight" over the coolest ornaments. You go home with about 15 different kinds of baked goodies, and everyone thinks you are the queen of the kitchen. [So-and-so] has come with me in years past, and had a great time. It's all women that party-holder teaches school with, and or has aerobics class with. Let me know if it sounds like fun, and I will forward the information to you when she replies. We could get together one night before the party and make our goodies over here if you would like.

Let me just clear this up a bit by breaking it down:

• Bundles: I really don't like the word bundle. I especially don't like making bundles of things.
• Potluck Lunch: This implies I have to cook and then eat in front of 12 to 15 women I don't know. I don't like chick things like this. There is always that one woman who makes something outrageous and you have to ooh and ahh over what everyone else has brought. I fucking hate that shit.
• Chinese Auction: This is another one of those stupid party games I hate. I'm going to go shopping and get a headache, a panic attack in the mall, and spend $20 on an ornament at the Hallmark Store just so I can get the hell out of the mall. This does not at all sound like fun to me. I don't like party games, and I don't like spending $20 on a "thing" and then going home with my $2 trade. I always get screwed at these things. I honestly do. The last time it happened was at a Christmas party with a bunch of Tupperware saleswomen. I brought THE coolest gifts, and took him total shit.
  
• Wrapped: To women going to a party like this - whatever needs to be wrapped had damn well better be done REALLY cool. Like, you just might want to MAKE the paper yourself, and use something jiggy like ostrich feathers as the last festive finishing touch. The fucking wrapping is a party game in itself. More ooohing and ahhhing. I hate that shit.
  
• ton of fun: I'm thinking it's actually not. Pretty sure, actually.
  
• "fight" over the coolest ornaments: This sounds so totally fucking mind-numbingly stupid that I can't even respond more than what I already have.
  
• everyone thinks: Why do I doubt this??????
  
• queen of the kitchen: More comparing. See how it's not a party? It's a Showcase Showdown. Bob-fucking-Barker should be there. I am DAMN good in the kitchen when I want to be, and when I want to be has nothing to do with 12 to 15 women I've never met before who CARE who is a queen of the kitchen or who has the coolest ornament and ACTUALLY WANTS to fight over it.
  
• aerobics: ugh. Bunch of skinny chicks. No thank you.
  
• goodies: I'm 34-years-old. I don't like to use the word "goodies." Okay, to each his own, and all that - anyone who wants to say it certainly CAN, but I refuse to do it. I don't actually think less of people who talk like this, it's just not "me."

One might be asking themselves why I would go to such great lengths to bitch about this cookie party thing in my blog. I know there's some psychology to it - probably that somewhere deep inside I hate myself for not being more like these women who can get into shit like this. I have tried, and tried, and tried my ENTIRE life to fit in with people who seemed to be "normal" and do "the right things" - and I mean that. I said it earlier...I was at a goddamn Tupperware Sales Person Christmas party! I wasn't a fucking guest! I was selling the shit so that I could FIT IN. I still have a thing about Tupperware (love the stuff) - but selling it and going to all those goddamn meetings as if it was church, and if you didn't go you just didn't "fit in" - or as my mother would put it - "weren't being a team player" - well, fuck 'em. I. Do. Not. Want. To. Fit. In. With. People. Like. This. GET IT?????

I thought I got to put all that bullshit trying-to-fit-in shit behind me when I left my old life, but it always creeps back in, doesn't it? Somehow it always does, and I'm the one left feeling like a cast-out, creep, weirdo, not like everybody else....This totally, totally fucks with my having been okay with that for a while, and sets me WAY THE FUCK BACK.

Now I'm trying to figure out if I'll have enough money left after picking up my kitten tomorrow to buy a couple of boxes of brown hair dye to get rid of the pink streaks ... Why? Because people who ... no, woman - gaggles of women - who go to aerobics, cookie parties, etc., do NOT look at you like you FIT IN when you have hot pink fucking hair, and everyone else in the room has (a) brown flat hair, or (b) medium brown hair with blonde highlights, or (c) all gray hair. (I find those with all gray hair to be most forgiving.)

Anyway, so I'm feeling really bad about this. Obviously.

I need a fucking cigarette. (Still not smoking in the house - and still down to less than 10 cigarettes a day.)

Okay. Change of subject. I'm nervous about driving with J-Mac Decaf tomorrow to pick up the kitten. I like him. He has had panic attacks really bad (I mean REALLY bad), and so I know he knows what it's like - so that's great, but still - being in the passenger seat when anyone other than Venti is driving is really going to be a challenge. I hope that somehow it works out and that I can find a way to forget about that "silly phobia" - and just have a good time. J-Mac Decaf is a good guy - I think he's my only friend here.

So wish me luck with the whole kitten, driving, cookie thing.