No Secrets

Ugh. I don't know why I've been having so many issues lately, but they're screwing my emotions so bad it's not even funny. I just want to lie down and sleep forever.

Alright. So Thursday. I woke up early because I had to. I was still pissed off from the night before, so I just got ready in, like, ten minutes, and went out the front door without a word. I picked Cara up without any problems, though a cop was waiting behind a bus and I swear it was following the bus. I wasn't sure if I could go through the stop sign, since the bus was in this sort of little road to the side, but the cop didn't go after me, so I guess I was good. I couldn't tell he was a cop, though, until after I moved past the stop sign, since his headlights were so bright.

Chemistry lab was alright, but me and my partner couldn't get our MicroLab equipment to work. It was another titration lab, which isn't that hard in and of itself. I mean, a lot of analytical chemistry is titration. It's actually starting to get on my nerves because it's so simple and repetitive, as well as so commonly used, but whatever. There is more to analytical chemistry than titration. But instead of eyeballing things on the buret as I've always done, we hooked up a drop counter to some super-specific funnel dropper and MicroLab counted how many drops were used. We weighed out a little beaker of a certain number of drops and calculated how many milliliters of NaOH dropped from the funnel thing and shit. And we measured pH with MicroLab's probes instead of using phenolphthalein to change color when the solution suddenly turns basic. The whole point of the lab was to measure out how the pH changed as sodium hydroxide was added. To aspirin. We were measuring the acidic content of aspirin. And deriving the Ka value of aspirin afterwards.

As I said, theoretically it was an easy lab. But our equipment would not work at all. First off, the drop counter my partner and I used missed a fair fraction of the drops. We counted twenty-five missed drops when we were measuring out 200 drops to calculate volume later on. Dr. Rader tried figuring things out with us, and played around with the drop counter for a very large chunk of the time. We eventually got it to work pretty well, so we tried starting our experiment. The pH counter was wrong. Once we had the stirring going on for the aspirin beaker and put the pH probe in the solution, the pH went negative. It took us a couple times to recalibrate the pH probe so that it actually worked. Then the computer froze. No, scratch that. The program just decided to quit working. It wouldn't measure pH anymore nor would it count drops. So we closed out of it, started the program again, recalibrated everything all over again, and we went to start our experiment and the program froze again.

By this time, half the class was done with the experiment, so Dr. Rader just had us take someone else's equipment set-up and run our experiment there. It worked first time. Their counter actually worked.

I think I walked out of class as soon as I had everything cleaned up (Erik was doing calculations while I cleaned) and had all my data, and that was around ten thirty? I think we played around with equipment that wouldn't work for about an hour.

Between classes I hopped online and tried finding apartments around Ann Arbor for less than $500 a month. I did find a couple, but all of those were for spring/summer semester only or a minimum of a twelve month lease.

I started texting Jake, asking if he'd give me a hand if things got out of hand at home. He was confused and couldn't figure out what I was talking about at first, but he said he'd have to ask his parents for the final word, because, like me, he still lives with his parents. Most of us do at Classic. I think Wes and Owen are the exceptions. Even Ralph and Scott are in constant contact with their parents. Jazmin I think lives without her family, but I dunno.

I almost started crying again quite a few times for the first half of the day at school. I was seriously looking around for an out.

After sociology was out, I jumped in my car and drove down 23. I stopped in Dundee to extract money from my bank account, since there's a United Bank and Trust there, but I tried twice and it said my account didn't exist. I don't get it, but whatever. I brought my checkbook just in case, and I'm glad I did.

I stopped at Paula's place first. I was emailing her back and forth for a while because she was selling an electric drum set. I'm serious about learning the drums. I can't get an acoustic set, because I'm nocturnal whereas my family runs a normal schedule, and I would have nowhere to put it. Paula's set was a decent price, it's small, and it works for me. So I stopped by at her house, using my awesome delivery driver skills to find the place (despite the fact that this was Blissfield and not Dexter or Ann Arbor), and I got to play with her dog. And the drum set sounded alright - though nowhere near as good as an acoustic set - and I wrote her a check. We managed to fit the set in my trunk without breaking it down, and then I called Even Keel Exotics and said I was on my way. I had to check between classes to see if they were available for me to come out that evening, and much to my luck, they were. I mean, I wasn't driving out that far twice, which is why I didn't get the hedgehog Wednesday like I planned.

Meeting up with him was awkward. I took a completely different route than I wrote down, but still managed to find the place. I stopped at the house first, knocked on the door, and a woman answered. She told me that Zach would meet me at the barn. So I drove down to the barn and I had no idea what to do. A car was there, but I just stared at scenery for a while instead of walking in the barn to find the guy. He eventually came out and greeted me.

I ended up getting a baby female hedgehog instead of the adult male like I was planning. Which meant I ended up spending thirty extra bucks for her, and some more money to go toward supplies, whereas the male came with a setup, but it's a lot easier to socialize a baby. I dunno. Besides, he put her in my hands, and she just ... she was adorable. He kept telling me that she appeared to like me a lot and that we clicked rather well.

So he put her in a box, I wrote out a check to him, and I plopped her in the passenger-side seat, and as I drove around 23, I kept opening the lid and marveling over the fact that I spent a lot of money I shouldn't be spending on a hedgehog. What the fuck did I get a hedgehog for?

I also ended up driving down a road called Bacon. Bacon road.

I finally did hop back on 23 at Dundee and drove to Abbi's house. I parked, grabbed the hedgehog from her box, and knocked on Abbi's window. No reply. Confused, unsure, I decided to take Abbi's advice and let myself into the house. But Abbi's mom was asleep on the couch and I couldn't find Abbi. I mean, I've never let myself in someone else's house before. So I walked back outside onto the porch, and Abbi knocked on her window from the inside to grab my attention. Apparently she had fallen asleep.

To play a joke on her mother, she took the hedgehog from me and woke her mom up. I was dying with laughter, but I hid for a while to see how she would react to Abbi having a hedgehog. She freakin' loved the thing.

After a while, Abbi and I ended up driving to work to show off my new hedgehog. I figured it would just be the closing driver and Wes left, but no one had left by the time we got there. About eight thirty. And Nate had showed up at the end, despite the fact that he wasn't supposed to work, so I got to show my hedgehog off to nearly everyone. Except all I could do for Nate was hold her up and stand in front of his car while he sat in his seat. I don't even think he knew what I was holding up. Matt and Jake held her, though. Jake freaked out after a while and complained that she was licking him or something. Matt held her up to his face to study her. I think Owen held her, too. Everyone kept calling her a porcupine, though. So I came up with porcupine grenades for my side of the war.

Abbi and I finally left the shop about quarter after nine. I don't even know how we managed to stay there for so long.

Today was pretty uneventful. I didn't get out of bed until half past one. I stopped by at work, deposited my whole check into my checking account, and went to Huron Pet Supply to grab supplies for my hedgehog.

Ohmyfuckingdear.

When I got home Thursday night, it was late. So I had absolutely no problems bringing the hedgehog into my room, setting her box on my floor, bringing in the drum set, and finding the cage to put her in. Abbi helped me name her Jules, and doggoneit, I'm sticking with that name. Y'know, Jules from Flashpoint? It's brilliant. Strong female character, fuck the world. Yeah, so I set up Jules in my closet, but the best thing I could find for a water dish was the top of a Schwan's ice cream tub. And I didn't have food. All I had was bedding, a wheel, and water. I guess water's pretty damn important. I then set to playing on my new drum set for probably well over an hour. Learned a couple new things and damn proud of it. I found free basic lessons online. So Kevin doesn't have to teach me everything.

Yeah, so Huron Pet Supply didn't have the food I feed my rabbits, so I had to double-back and go to the Tractor Supply to get that. Except the one on Jackson didn't have the food I needed, so I had to go all the way across town and to Whitmore Lake to the other Tractor Supply to buy it.

The past two days I've spent over $400. Yeah.

Turns out, though, that the rabbit food that I thought was all wasted wasn't that bad. When I finally got to feeding my rabbits on Thursday, I realized they weren't really as excited to see me as they usually are (J's still a sweetie and he greets me the same way whether or not he has food), and the top was off the food bin again. Before I left to pick up my check, I blew up on my mom and yelled at her for leaving the top off. So when I got home from pet supply shopping and everything, I scooped most of the bad food out and the pile of wasted stuff isn't that bad. My dad came out and yelled at me for losing it on my mom, but I don't even really remember what she said. Once I had everyone outside taken care of, I brought the hedgehog supplies in and finished setting up Jules's cage. But she was just curled up in a ball in the corner and wouldn't move.

I still had about fifteen minutes before work, so I slunk upstairs and apologized to my mom. I told her I overreacted, because I did, and she gave me a hug and I just fell apart and cried. According to her, it's more my dad that wants to get rid of the rabbits if I can't take care of them. Why am I not surprised? My initial response that I came up with in the shower still stands. I'm leaving if one of my pets disappears.

Kyra texted me Thursday night and told me that we could get that place in the outskirts of downtown if I need to move out. For $300 a month. I'm thinking I really, really want to do that. She said there's a shed where I can keep my rabbits. And ... fuck. If I figure out a way to make more than $700 a month (actually, more like $760 is more accurate) - whether that be asking Ralph for a raise, making bank of taking deliveries by telling Ralph I need a driving day to support myself, or finding a second job - I really, really want to do that.

I say this in my head all the time, but maybe writing it down will help. So I make $760 a month now. I put half of that in my savings, but I'll ignore that for now. $300 a month for rent. I'm left with $460. I spend $50 a week on gas. So I'm now at $260. $25 a month for the gym. $235. My general $20 a week allotment. $155. Joe's GameFly subscription, which I may be cancelling on his half-birthday. $139.

And get a second job to build up my savings account.... Huh. I don't know how well I'll be able to juggle school, Classic, and a second job, but I'm tired of the fights I have with my dad, no matter how petty they are. Run my rabbitry how I want to without risking ridicule from my family....

I should be saving up money not only for semesters at Washtenaw, but for when I got to Grand Valley or whatever. I shouldn't be thinking of this. The reason I got to WCC is so that I don't have to move out of my house and pay for rent. But living with Kyra, with my rabbits, and ... ugh.

I really want this. I still have my list of everything I'd need to grab if I'm out of my house in a hurry. I haven't thrown it out or anything.

Well, work was alright. I was cut table, as always, but I was pulled up front for a few minutes when John got to take a delivery. When he came back, he turned around and asked why there was so much shit all over the front make line, because I didn't put anything away, and I just replied, "You got to take a delivery. Fuck off."

I started out in a good mood. I mean, a good mood. I was still happy about Jules from the day before. Jules was the reason my day was good yesterday. But then Wes yelled at me for talking too loudly about an opinion, and then I didn't speak again until people showed up around five. And then he yelled at me again, and my mood took a steep dive. I mean, Sterphy managed to make me smile and laugh all night. That kid grew on me somehow. Then when I was pulled up front, I was dangerously quiet. Things eventually did turn out better once I didn't have to do anything and Wes just kept me around to give me time. By that time it was pretty much just me, Wes, and Matt, though Bernie showed up after lacrosse practice to make a pizza.

When I got home, I was looking through a rabbit magazine I bought today to find a good recipe to cook for tomorrow. I decided on rabbit soup.

I went downstairs after a while and I took Jules out of her cage. She was being a giant spike ball again and it hurt like hell to pick her up, but she did eventually unroll and stopped poking me. Joe came downstairs as she was unrolling and he couldn't figure out what she was for a long while. I showed Joe the drums I got as well, and then my mom came downstairs and saw Jules in my hand. I don't think she was very pleased about her or the drum set. She told me that I need to stop buying animals.

Well, I'm seriously debating on whether or not to leave the house anyway. Soon it won't matter to her. I mean, it's my money. Sure, my schedule makes it so that I can't take care of them regularly - not like I used to - but I still take care of them. I do spend time with them when I can.

I mean, I let Puddin out of her cage today, and she was pretty well behaved. She managed to somehow almost jump inside the food bag I have for her, and then she chewed up my good headphones that I have. Like, the connector part of it is completely missing. I tried Frankensteining those with the connector part of a crappy pair of headphones I got with the drum kit, but it didn't work. So I guess I still have the crap ear buds that came with some MP-3 player or something, but I need to wait two weeks until I have enough money to buy new ones. Working out isn't going to be as great. Nor will playing my drum kit. Although I could still hook it up to my speakers, but I have to turn the bass down or my family is annoyed.

I think I am going to talk to Kyra. Tell her we need to hang out a bit and seriously talk this over, because my life has been shit lately, and it really hasn't. I don't know what needs to change, but - meh. I don't know if I can really make this change work for me, though.

Yeah. I'm looking for another parttime job now. This is going to happen.

SONG OF THE DAY: Pieces ~ Red