a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

yesterday was one of those days.

not good.

i don't know what it was, but i was in such a funk.

it's probably mostly due to how bloated and fat i feel lately. and how messy my life feels at the moment. i'm really struggling with getting myself back into a routine.

so anyway, i found some things that helped me through the day:

1. abba

have you ever tried to stay cranky when abba is playing? i think it might be impossible.

2. target

who doesn't love target when they're in a bad mood. if you're in an especially bad mood, sit down and read children's books for a half hour or so.

3. coffee

duh.

4. hunter rain boots

it rained just a little bit today, so i took the opportunity to put my beloved wellies. i also took the opportunity to stand in a gutter full of water just because i CAN!

5. taking charge

so here's the thing: i have a tiny face. if i gain any weight, like even 1/2 a pound, my face bloats up like a boozy old man... well, that's how it looks to me anyway. this and my bloated stomach were what got me into my funk, so i decided to get myself out of it by going on a diet. just for a week or so to get rid of the extra couplefew pounds that are making me so unhappy.

i didn't snap out of it instantly or anything, but these few things were enough to get me through the day. and i'm sure that today will be better because i took charge yesterday.

what do you do to fight the funky and/or bloaty blues?

reenactment of a tennis crime

it started out like any other time we've played tennis together.

we stretched.

rallied for a little bit. hit a few serves. then we started our first game.

i was losing...AGAIN.

and i kinda lost my temper.

and i kinda threw my racket.

and i kinda broke it...like a moron.

here is a dramatization:

(grrrr. i'm scary.)

and here is the damage:

i was SO sad. and so angry with myself. i'm kinda fake pouting here, but i did actually start crying right when this picture was taken.

it all ended well though. levi forgave me for being an idiot.

and then he even said we could buy a new racket for me the next day, which i knew i completely did NOT deserve. but he said that i probably needed a new one anyway since mine was a hand-me-down that i got 13 years ago.

really, i don't deserve levi. he truly does love me unconditionally. i hope i can learn a thing or two from him as his wife.

lesson number one: don't throw your tennis racket. EVER.

the one where i cuss

someone slashed two of our tires last night. they stabbed them five times each.

i discovered this just as i was leaving to have lunch with the women in my family.

merry fucking christmas to us.

this is the most recent thing to happen in a long line of shit occurrences in the last week.

i'm feeling pretty defeated & miserable.

i don't want to be alone today, but levi had to go to work, so i'm stuck in the house with no car trying to force myself not to think about all the bad things that keep happening.

some busts and a tree

i'll start with the negative stuff and move on to the positive.

overall, the last week was a bust...better yet, one bust followed by another.

i'm not going to candy coat them because they sucked, and i'm still a little upset about how things went.

last friday (not black friday - the friday before) was the first day of a suuuuper busy week for me. so what did i do?

i went ahead and got sick.

now when i do things, i do them. i go all out. this includes illness. i never get a little sick. i get really sick. this time was no exception. in fact, i'm still sick. levi got what i had on thanksgiving, and he's almost all the way better. but me? still hacking away over here.

anyway, even though i got sick on friday, book club was still a blast. i'll do an update post on that later.

sunday was levi's birthday. i had a fever and felt awful, so we spent most of the day inside. levi even ordered takeout for his birthday dinner. i felt so bad that i wasn't able to do nice things for him all day. in fact, he had to do stuff for me all day. it sucked.

monday was our disneyland day, and i was still really sick. fever and everything. we couldn't just go another day because someone was signing us in for free, and i really didn't want to miss out on seeing the christmas decorations for the second year in a row. we went for a couple hours in the morning and then came home in the middle of the day. i slept for a few hours, and we went back again. the only thing i wanted was to see the fireworks. i love fireworks, especially christmastime disneyland fireworks. they were going to be around 9:30. we got there around 7:00, and the park was PACKED. more crowded than i had ever seen it in my life, and i have been to disneyland a lot. i had an annual pass for five years. it was like every single person in southern california was there. it was totally miserable. you couldn't even walk. all you could do was shuffle and try to avoid getting run over by strollers. i couldn't handle it. i just felt like punching and kicking people. so we left. and i cried.

and now the biggest bust of all - san francisco.

very early wednesday morning, we flew to san francisco. i was still really sick, but we weren't going to skip the trip. the adrenaline of traveling got me through the flight, and when we landed, we were both really excited to be in san francisco.

until we got to baggage claim.

where our bag was not.

we brought one bag with both of our things in it and no carry on.

i can't even talk about it really. my blood pressure is rising as i type. this bag had everrrrything in it - makeup, underwear, clothes, coats, phone chargers, toothbrushes, contact lenses, glasses, socks, walking shoes. you get the picture - everything.

levi and i don't have that much stuff so all of our best clothes were in that bag. i couldn't stop panicking. my biggest fear wasn't that we would spend our vacation without it, but that we would never see our stuff again. i know it's just stuff, but i really like my stuff!

long story short - we wore the same exact clothes and shoes for the entire three days, not knowing whether or not we would ever see our things again. we got our bag at check out time on the last day of our trip...which meant that everything had to stay inside of that suitcase.

it was a nightmare. it totally ruined the trip. i'm not gonna lie - we still had fun. it was great spending time together, being with my family, and being in san francisco, one of the best cities on earth (btw, we are seriously discussing moving there...maybe in the next year or two. we are truly in love with that city). but the bag thing ruined the trip. we were totally stressed out - about our bag and about the money we had to spend buying necessities. (we're being reimbursed for the stuff we needed to buy, but we had to front the money. we won't see that check for at least two weeks, and we've got rent to pay.) we were cold without our coats. our feet hurt from wearing inadequate shoes. we had to waste tons of time on the phone with the airline and shopping for stuff to get us through the three days (i.e. face wash, toothpaste, and underwear). it sucked.

i'm not going to tell you what airline we flew yet. i'm calling them today and giving them a chance to redeem themselves - i'm asking them to give us a new trip to san francisco since they ruined this one - our first vacation together. my first vacation in years. probably levi's first vacation in ten years! if they do what we ask, they get the customer service of the year award, in my opinion. if they don't, i will have no problem telling the world about how badly they screwed up. i know mistakes happen, and people lose their bags, but i think consumers really need to hold businesses accountable. it's how you can tell the good ones from the bad ones.

anyway, i'm very relieved to be able to say that we have our things back and we got home safely.

now to end on a positive note!

we got our christmas tree!! it's beautiful, and i love it! i am so happy that the christmas season is upon us. there are so many terrific things to look forward to, and i know that this is going to be a great christmas.

(sorry about the crummy photos...we still need a new camera. santa?)

alright, that's it. sorry for the insanely long post and for all the negativity, but sometimes things just get you down and you have to get them off your chest! i really shouldn't be surprised. i'm known for my bad luck. my mom wanted us to remake the out-of-towners on our vacation. :) if only we had a camera crew following us around at all times!

i hope you had better long weekends and better thanksgivings than we did!

p.s. levi and i are over at our.city.lights today. check it out!

p.p.s. i don't know what was going on with blogger last week, but i lost more than 50 comments (blogger wouldn't let me approve and publish them). so if you're wondering where your comments are - blogger ate them. i'm sorry.

on the bus ride home from school

yesterday, i found myself sitting on the bus resting my head against the window at a red light. the vibration from the idling engine shook the tears that had already been welling in my eyes causing them to trickle down my cheeks. i was crying. on a bus. packed with a ton of people who don't know my name. who don't know my thoughts and ambitions. who don't know my likes and dislikes.

to begin with, bus people, my name is jasmine lael hunter. my thoughts and ambitions change too rapidly for me to sit here listing them for you...or for me to pretend like i understand them myself. today, my likes seem to be few, and my dislikes seem to be vast. i feel aimless. i feel undisciplined. i can't make myself fit into any categories i've come across...God knows i've tried to find an appropriate label for myself. i don't know what i want "to do." i can't seem to find the proper fit. well, that's not entirely true. i want to have children. i want to be a mother. but, right now, i'm not a mother. i don't have any babies to look after. so, bus people, please tell me, what do i do now? how do i kill time until i get to do what i want to do? why has this been the only consistent answer i have to the question"what do you want to be when you grow up"? what am i supposed to with that? can any one of you tell me, oh distinguished patrons of public transportation? i can't major in preparation for motherhood. i can't take classes on what's best to feed my children or how to put on a cloth diaper and administer cough syrup. i don't want to live my pre-baby life simply longing for the day i can have children. i don't want to feel like i'm waiting for something. because, just like everything else, waiting can turn into a bad habit. if i feel like i'm waiting, longing, and killing time now, who's to say i won't feel like that when my desires have been realized? who's to say i'll ever be satisfied with anything i've done? bus people, can you tell me anything?? can anybody help me?

no one said a word.

they all just sat and stared.

i wrote that yesterday. i wasn't exactly in a chipper mood. but it was how i was feeling at the moment...so i wrote about it. and now i'm sharing it with you, even if it's not exactly positive. please don't worry about me. i'm a moody girl, and i tend to feel things more deeply than is necessary in the moment. it is true that i don't really know what i want "to do" besides become a mom. but, right now, i don't think of my time without kids as "killing time". time isn't meant to be killed or filled. it's meant to be treasured and used wisely. i don't want to just kill my time; i want to do important things with it and make it count for something...even if it's only something small. when i was rereading what i wrote, this popped into my head:

"delight yourself in the lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. commit your way to the lord; trust in him, and he will do this: he will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun." psalm 37:4-6

so i choose to keep my face turned toward the sky and to just keep going.

a switcheroo

i didn't start my day in such a fantastic mood:

i felt like the fattest i've ever been.

i was irritated with myself for not getting to the laundry before levi had to ask me to do it...again.

the dishes in the sink have been threatening to take over the whole kitchen.

and i just didn't have an ounce of energy to face anything.

but my day has totally turned around:

the laundry is almost done.

the people at my bank greeted me with a super genuine, "hello jasmine!"

i picked up some of my favorite pretzel bread and bleu cheese at naples gourmet grocer for my lunch.

and i made plans with my mom and brother to hang out tonight while levi's at work.

now on to those dishes!!

blown off

This week has been a little bit awful for me. I have been agonizing and waiting for a phone call over this flower shop job. You may remember me mentioning it here. The owner said she would call me on Monday. TO SET UP TRAINING. In my mind that means I have the job. I mean that's what anyone would think, right? 

She never called on Monday so I called her on Tuesday. She said she would call me right back, but she didn't. I called today, and one of her employees said she was "on the other line" and took a message. I doubt she'll call me back this time either. I'm pretty certain I am being blown off. 

This woman doesn't know that this little part time job would have changed our lives. We would have been able to move into an apartment with more than one room in an area that wasn't considered the ghetto. We would have been able to afford car insurance and pay all our bills on time and go out to dinner sometimes. She doesn't know how high my hopes were and that I was really counting on this. I was trusting what she said. She didn't have to say that. She shouldn't have said it if she wasn't positive.

I am sad, frustrated, and dejected. And, honestly, I'm feeling really sorry for us right now.

hmmmmph

ugh. today has been a roller coaster. i woke up in a fantastic mood. levi and i had some good talking time before he had to go to work. after he left, i got a bunch of stuff done, went grocery shopping, did a ton of laundry, prepared dinner for tonight, hung out with my sister, took some stuff to the tailor's. i was on top of things, taking care of stuff, making things happen, in a good mood.

then my sister and i get in a huge fight. yuck. i hate that. so i go back home to long beach.

on my way home, we resolve our fight. okay. everything's cool.

NOOOOO it's not. i park and walk to my building with two huge garbage bags filled with laundry digging into my shoulder, my laptop under one arm, my 9 pound purse on the other shoulder, a paper grocery bag filled with glass products, and a big, giant tupperware bowl filled with tonight's dinner. i'm precariously waddling up to the front of the building only to find that

I AM LOCKED OUT.

i use my foot to bang on the door for the idiotic apartment manager, WHO NEVER DOES ANYTHING, to come open it for me. his girlfriend comes out and yells at me for knocking on the door like that after i ask her if they're ever going to fix it. it's been broken for over a month, and we've been asking for an extra key that entire time. and get this - she says to me, "you better chill out, home girl." who talks like this??? why do i have to live in the ghetto??

ummmm HELLO, i'm obviously a little bit frustrated here!! my arms and shoulders are full of heavy things, and you're not doing your job! i'm not going to smile sweetly at you and thank you for opening the broken door for me under these circumstances!

sheesh. what is the point of having an on-site manager if they NEVER DO ANY WORK???? seriously, this building is falling apart. this guy doesn't even vacuum!! we've had a big pile of dried up leaves under one of the windows in the hall for two weeks now. it's just sitting there.

so now i feel all flustered, and my adrenaline is pretty much as high as it can get. i'm alternating between wanting to cry and wanting to scream. i hate stuff like this. i HATE getting into fights with people. and i HATE not being able to control my temper.

but i'm frustrated, and i'm sick of people not doing what they're supposed to be doing. i'm sick of just having to grin and bear it and keep my mouth shut every day. we live over an alley where there are always homeless people rummaging through the garbage at all hours of the night. we've had noisy construction waking us up since we moved in in august. our neighbors are scary, insane, LOUD MOUTH, low life people. seriously, most of them are on parole for some reason or another. one of them is always talking to spiders and herself directly under our window between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 in the morning. another stands directly across from our window and screams down to her mother (apparently she lives in another apt. downstairs?) asking things like "hey mom! do you wanna come up and eat pork chops and rice-a-roni?" or "hey mom! did you tape soaps?"

grrrrrr. i want to live in a house with no apartment manager surrounded by normal, non-scary people. today is one of those days where i really really resent being poor.

Angry and frustrated health care rant.

What the hell is WRONG with healthcare in this country??? I know I'm not the first person to ask this question, but it's on my mind a lot lately. I went to the local Planned Parenthood (oh what a delight!) yesterday to get my annual exam and birth control, and they treated me like crap, like a street urchin. I actually left because I couldn't possibly imagine feeling that angry and uncomfortable and allowing one of their nurses (a NURSE, not a doctor. I know nurses have training too, but I would like a doctor, with a medical license, to look at me.) to examine me. I understand that those kind of places have all kinds of girls and women walking in, and I understand that working there would get some people kind of jaded and even a little judgmental. But if that's the kind of person you are, then QUIT. There are plenty of unemployed people in LA County who would joyfully do your job and provide quality service and care to people who cannot afford healthcare. I don't appreciate being treated like I don't matter and like I am some sort of low-life just because I happen to not have a job right now and am struggling financially. I probably have a hell of a lot more class than the bitter b*tches who work there. That's not really fair to call them that. I know not all of them are like that, but I'm mad. And another thing, what is the point of making an appointment if I have to wait TWO hours to be seen?? TWO HOURS. In a overheated, tiny, packed room. With not even a single magazine!! It's depressing. And, on top of that, I can't go to Planned Parenthood or a clinic for all of my healthcare needs. Free health care only seems to be attainable in clinics if you need emergency care or if you're looking to get birth control and an annual pap.

So today, I was online looking up health insurance plans for me and my boyfriend, just to know what we're in store for when more money starts, hopefully, coming in and we can afford some coverage. HOLY CRAP! You pay almost $300 a month and then you have to pay a deductible and then you have to pay a CO-PAY and sometimes 30% "co-insurance." What?!?! Why am I paying monthly? Where is that money going? If we're paying almost $300 a month, then why do we have to spend all this other money too? There is something severely wrong with our system.

So THEN, I looked up Medi-Cal. I mean I seriously cannot afford health insurance. I don't foresee a time in the near future when we'll have that kind of money, so there's gotta be some kind of option for us, right?? An option between paying thousands of dollars to take care of our bodies and paying nothing to be treated like crap and given sub-standard care (trust me from experience - I have been misdiagnosed AND manhandled in clinics: don't worry; I reported him). Nope. No Medi-Cal either. I don't have a baby. I'm not blind or disabled. I'm not a refugee. And I'm not pregnant. So apparently, MY body doesn't need to be taken care of. 

What am I supposed to do? What is Levi supposed to do? I have terrible vision and can't use glasses. I have to wear contacts because of my neck. Levi has scoliosis and works 40 hours a week on his feet. His back ALWAYS hurts. Do you think the clinic is going to take care of our problems? Nope. Do you think Levi even has time to wait two hours in a clinic if he needs to see a doctor? Nope. 

It just feels wrong. It seems like there should be some sort of option for us besides never going to the doctor. It seems like going to a clean, legitimate doctor's office, without having to wait two hours, to have a sore throat checked out or an eye infection treated shouldn't be a LUXURY. 

I don't know. Maybe we should just move to England or Canada, where the government values the health of their people. The United States is supposed to be a country where ANYONE can make it. Rags to riches and all that. How can you go from rags to riches if you don't even have your health to support you? How is anyone supposed to get ahead in this place? It just doesn't seem possible in a system that doesn't value all of its citizens.