And then there was one.

All I have tried to do for the past few years is to be a good person. By 'good person' I don't mean the Christian-influenced, super-law-abiding, or ass-kissing type, I just mean an honest, true person who is willing to give everyone a chance. If someone is good to me, I'll be good to them. That sort of thing. But it seems now that this has gotten me in a bind- I've given too many chances, I've simply been too nice. And I have gotten nothing out of it, except heartbreak. I've lost again.


   I have answered my phone to someone needing to talk at 3am when I had to be at work at 8am. I have dropped what I was doing to be with someone who called me to say that they just didn't want to be alone. I have sat and listened to someone go on and on about things they couldn't change and things they shouldn't even want to change, and tried to encourage them the best I can through the situation, without mentioning the things that I could have really used some help with. I have stopped someone from smashing someone else over the head with a pool cue due to drunken emotion/pride/leftover anger that wasn't worth it. I have let people cry on my shoulder and get snot all over me and not said a word about it. I have passed up the opportunity for personal pleasure/possible date in order to make sure an overly intoxicated aquaintence got home safely. I have become close to such an aquaintence when they felt they had no one else to go to. I have let people crash at my house so that they didn't drive home/walk alone drunk. I have sat and listened to people lament about having no one, while in my head deciding whether I should remind them that at that moment I am there with them or thank them for letting me know that to them I am 'no one'. I have declined rides home to walk with others after bar closing hours, or at least arranged to do so (only to be left alone later on when they found another way home). I have allowed myself to be emotionally abused, screamed at for no reason, called horrible undeserved names, deserted, left behind from the crowd, lied to, made fun of, picked on, and exposed (in the case of the few people I've opened up to and shared private things with) and embarrassed in front of my group of 'friends'. And I've always forgiven those people and not thrown it back in their faces and just tried to make sure that they were O.K.
  
So where are all these people now? Gone, of course. Well, most of them are still here. But not really involved with me anymore. They got what they needed from me; a drinking buddy, a sorrows dumpster, a warm body to be around. And then when they got back on their feet, met some new friends, regained their confidence- they kicked me to the curb. I played the part of interim confidant. But I never seem to be good enough to keep around once things are better. Why am I only good enough to pick them up out of the wet gutters, but not to walk with them through the sunny gardens?

   What sucks most about this situation, this whole 'I'm-your-friend-when-I'm-in-need-but-not-after' situation is, who am I supposed to go to when I need a lift? Who is going to be there when I need to call someone at 3am? Or when I need someone to be sure I get home safely? Or when I simply can't stand to be alone anymore and just need someone to be there with me?
  
Once I've gotten done doing my good duty and raising up everyone else, I find that I am standing in the sinkhole alone. And there isn't anyone around to throw me the rope and pull me out.

   I just don't know what to do anymore.

Explosive!

So I'm guessing that with Sadie in her current condition, it would be a bad idea for me to feed her this:

Same old, same old

Six weeks ago, I was seriously ready to just pack up everything and get the hell out of here. Sadly enough, I really can't lie and say that that sentiment has gone away. Because it hasn't. Nothing much has changed, other than the fact that I renewed my lease and therefore am under contract here in Athens until the end of next June. I suppose that should I feel the need to bail I could try to find a subleaser(s), but that is just so unreliable as far as a time frame goes that it doesn't seem worth the trouble.Time frame meaning the time required to quit a job the proper way, and plan getting all my shit from Point A to Point B, including cats, etc. without owning a car and not really knowing how to drive one, and the whole big thing of having a specific Point B to go to. I could have done it six weeks ago, had I had the balls to just do it, but I don't because I really am just a big wuss. Another thing that keeps me here is that though I am a pessimist and always am thinking that this is as good as it can possibly get (and that's never that good, really, in my mind at least, because logically I do know that things could be WAY worse; I'm not completely clueless...), I also have this strange optimist bug in my brain that keeps wanting to believe that next week everything will be awesome. "Yeah, you should get the hell out, just leave. It doesn't matter anyway... but then again, next week may be great. You never know until you get there, wait and see..." So it's like I set myself up for continual disappointment. Which over time just worsens the situation. I stay here because I am too chicken shit to do otherwise. And I stay here because I keep wanting to believe that this town will deliver what I hope it can. And I stay here because I also know that what is getting to me here isn't city-specific... it'll follow me. And so it's me choosing from the lesser of two evils. What is better? Staying here, in a place where I have nothing, a place where everything is temporary and nothing is stable or reliable, a place where it seems I can go nowhere else but down, but at least I am familiar with it?? Or to be somewhere (go somewhere) where I have nothing, no stability or reliability, etc..., but where I also know no one and have no familiarity or 'home base' at all? Is it worth the risk at all, knowing that nothing will really be different other than my actual address? Because it's all the same really... at least here I know which bus to take to get to the grocery store.
 
I wish I had come with an Owners Manual...

  In other news, my landlord rented Ye Olde RotoRooter thing-a-ma-bob and came and snaked out my main drain (har har... doesn't that sound dirty??). So now I can do dishes and take a shower and do a full load of laundry without the water making my toilet bubble and backing up into my bathtub. That was gross... Oh! And I can flush my toilet more than once a day without it backing up into my bathtub. That was grosser. Yay-hoo!
 
Today I took The Bus to Earth Fare for the hell of it. I was off of work and wanted out of the house, and decided to go buy some organic steak. Not that I can really afford organic steak, but a craving set in and that was it... off we go. After buying my junk and leaving the store (equipped with a Flagpole for the bus wait/ride... I attract 'colorful, eccentric' characters; i.e. crazy people who want to chat with me/old men who try to ask me out and give me their numbers and stalk me at work, so I have to be prepared to not make eye contact with anyone just in case) I go and sit at the stop and wait, as I had about 10 minutes to kill. Of course some crazy older lady shows up to wait as well, and she starts waving her UGA ID around and talking to herself (like conversations...) and then singing at the top of her lungs... She started hovering a little too close to me, like she wanted to get my attention to chat, but since she was also singing out loud at the time, I just kept my head buried in the Flagpole. It makes me laugh a little, simply because other than the bums downtown, who don't count since I so often ignore them anymore, I rarely see people like this unless I am either on The Bus or at the DMV (or sometimes WalMart). Though the DMV wins hands down as far as being the Ultimate Human Wasteland and/or the Point of Entry to Society for anyone who is able to be described as "Crawling Out Of The Woodwork". Yes. I am going to Hell.
  
There was something else I was going to write, something that was one of the reasons I wrote anything to begin with, but for now it has escaped me. Probably because I need to just go to sleep. It's late. I'm tired. I wanted to sleep with my windows open, but the 'fresh air' tonight feels more like wet paper towels draped over my face. Refreshing! So I sucked it up and just turned down the A/C to a comfortable temperature. Huh, ok. It's not coming back to me, so I will just give up and end it here. I know, it's sad, whatever will you do??

lazy Sunday.

Really. That's what I've been all day. Though I have actually gotten a few things done, I've done them all in what I wear to sleep. *ahem*   That means no outside for me yet, without risking an indecent exposure citation. This is what you can do without even brushing your hair or teeth, let alone putting on clothes...

-A load of laundry. Just one. My drain can't handle any more, because it's blocked and making my toilet bubble and backing up into my tub and needs to be snaked out. Fun.

-Bills/Rent paid. At least all this bills I have received so far. But currently, I'm settled up. And that's cool. Cause late fees are a bitch.

-Financial finagling. This involved 3 seperate credit cards. Yes, three. But they are not near maxed out or anything like that. I don't have near the amount of debt a lot of other people do, I just used them for some bigger purchases (new bed, new AWESOME mattress, plane tickets) over the past few years, and it's added up. Recently all three have raised my credit limits (not like I will use it), so I decided to transfer a majority of the balance of one card with a high interest rate to another with a significantly smaller interest rate. That means the balance left on the high rate card will be gone in about 3 months, and then I can cancel it. Or finagle The Credit Card Company into the lowering the rate. We'll see. It's nice to know I have that level of credit should there be an emergency. Either way this took lots of visiting of websites. I am also considering transferring my savings from my crappy free savings account with it's crappy .0072nterest rate (or something like that) to something with a better rate. I figured on one calculator that in a one-year CD with a good rate my current balance could make $60 in six months. Better than my current $5 in six months.

-Selling shit on eBay. I love eBay. You can find anything you want there, and a lot of stuff you don't want. And things you didn't know you wanted, but just couldn't resist when you saw it. This is why I now own an unopened Milton-Bradley 100pc. Smurf puzzle. And a pair of brown leather like-new bowling shoes from 1972. But I did just sell a nice dress I bought on clearance from J.Crew's website a few years ago on eBay for $40. That's $20 more than I paid for it. I never wore the dress because it didn't fit me, and I forgot to send it back. And I have more stuff. So I just listed another dress that doesn't fit me. Maybe I'll resell that Smurf puzzle, too.

-I did eat lunch today too. Leftovers. But still food. And lunch is a rarity anymore for me.

I hope to do one more load of laundry, but I have to sit there and monitor the drain so it doesn't flood. I also would like to do dishes, but ditto on the drain situation. Tonight I think will find me at Transmet/Taco Stand for some Family Guy and Fred visiting.