equinox

tomorrow (or i guess technicall today, now) is the equinox. it's also a new moon in pisces, and i can feel the energy building to create a shift in my life. i spent the last several days in a cabin on kentucky lake with dustin and ivy (and ivy's girlfriend, hannah) and it feels dreamy and strange to be back, so i don't want to take any steps forward in this moment, but i'm hoping it's just a lack of sleep that's got me shaky.

i really think things are going places with alex. i stayed at his house saturday and we both had work at 11, but I had to go home first because I forgot to pack work pants. he kept asking me, "you can't just wear that skirt to work? you're sure?" and it was really sweet. he was kinda beat up from the show (he played that night and was also pretty active in the pit) so afterwards we just went back to his place and he laid back on me on the couch and let me play with his hair. he played with the runs in my tights and we were just quiet together. tonight i bumped into him while i was grabbing coffee and working, and he told me about how "i'm gonna love" the cabins he and his family built up near jasper since i liked camping this week. it's early in knowing him but things seem to be moving in a relationship-y direction and right now it feels very sincere and sweet to be with him.

i'm feeling wonderful, physically. i'm being really careful about what food and drink i put into my body and being conscious about the choices i'm making with my activity level. i'm hoping this weather stays nice so i can get back on my bike. i always feel better when i'm riding on a daily basis and i think that will help me balance the panic i get about spending all day sitting at a computer or standing at the front desk at the salon.

it was kind of weird to be with ivy and dustin again for the first time in so long, but it was good. i was surprised because i felt more connected to dustin than to ivy this time. she just got so angry any time i talked about dana (who i spend more time with than ivy these days) and i didn't know how to handle it. i don't know. ivy and hannah were also having some issues i guess, and ivy's ferret binx just died, but it was still strange and a little uncomfortable. but dustin and i connected a little bit and he said he was glad we were hanging again because he was worried that we hadn't spent time together since i moved back and that i was getting along so well with other people at PG.

it's weird to hear all these people who aren't active in my daily life say how proud they are of me, how much they love my work, or that they are impressed by my networking. to me it feels like i just have my head down and am trying desperately to keep making and being and connecting without losing my shit. it is nice to have people tell me they're noticing what i'm doing. and it's nice to realize that, in general, i am so much happier than i've been in a very long time. in evansville. because of that, a lot of things feel possible. it's amazing to look back to six months ago to the new moon on september 23  that catapulted this idea of buying a press and moving here, and to see how much progress i've made already.

overload but in a good way

life in indiana has been surprisingly great. i'm busy all the time, i fell like i'm eating about 20% of what i should be, i'm exhausted all the time, my period is like 4 days late so i'm stressing over that, my room is a shit hole, i have so much laundry to do that it's probably going to take me all night tonight and all night tomorrow, but things are generally good.

i spend so much time doing what i love lately that it makes things ok. and when i'm not busting my ass at solaris or working on my design stuff, i hang out at PG with a bunch of cool people and listen to seriously mindblowing music that i had no idea could come from evansville. people at PG tell me how cool they think i am, they seek ME out and come say hi to me, they buy me drinks and invite me places and make me feel welcome. last night at PG i met a girl who started following me on instagram back when i still lived in Chicago and has been desperately waiting to meet me out and about so she could tell me how much she loves my work and ask me to do business cards for her. i have clients literally rolling in faster than i can deal with them, which is getting me a lot of exposure and bringing in a lot of cash. i love the girls i work with so fucking much, and no one else wants to put up with our bosses' collective bullshit, so it's good to have someone to vent to about that crap. im signing a lease in a few weeks for a retail commercial space downtown between 2nd and 3rd street on carpenter, subleasing from an incredibly sweet woman next to her fabric shop (called Grateful Threads--hilarious). and i've also been seeing someone named alex who is sweet and tall and strong, which makes things nice. we're still getting to know each other, but we have an amazing physical chemistry (like i was mad at myself because my casual sex friend in chicago and i had amazing sex i thought i'd never top with anyone i actually had an intimate connection with--and alex and i already have even though we've only been fooling around) and last night he put his arm around me and kissed me in front of a couple of his friends, which he hadn't done before. 

i'm incredibly excited for this spring. alex and i have been talking about doing yoga together and riding bikes on the greenway passage once the weather stays warm, and i'm feeling pretty good about myself as a person lately.

i just felt like this site needed an update from me. promise not to be a stranger so much in the future.

moving (again)

i feel like i haven't written in forever, and it always seems like i end up writing when i have something very important to do that i'd rather put off for another half hour. this time, it's packing and getting ready to move (again). I can't even remember if i posted on here about the fact that i'm moving home, but i am; i bought a press last week and have been getting all my things in order to move back into my parents' house (sigh) and start my own little business.

i've been in a weird mood lately, i just don't want to talk to anyone (sorry i've been distant, blake--i feel distant even from myself right now.) i think it has a lot to do with the fact that winter has slipped its frigid noose around the city of chicago, but i also think that i need to talk to my doctor about upping my anxiety meds. the depression part hasn't been as bad lately (or maybe i'm just content with feeling sad about leaving chicago), but my anxiety has been off the charts. i can't even be in the same room when any of my roommates are eating or discussing something or singing, because the sound of food crunching or lips smacking/voices over each other/the phrase "i understand what you're saying, but _____" 100 times in one conversation (read: civilly-mannered argument) is enough to literally cause me to have a panic attack lately.

i don't know. big changes are happening, and i'm really excited by the prospect of getting to work for myself and being with gitsy and having access to a car and an indoor gym, but i'm also nervous. it's hard to choke down the fear of getting myself in way over my head some days, but other days i just want to be back in evansville and getting things sorted out. i think the hardest part right now is the waiting: my press is mine, but it's in storage until i find a place to rent out as retail/studio space. i can't rent out a space until i'm back in evansville and have a small business loan to help me out with startup costs. i can't get a loan until i finish my business plan. i can't finish my business plan until i come up with a name for my business, which is where i'm stuck right now, and (unfortunately for me) packing and making money has to come before brainstorming for the time being.

so, stress. but in a good way mostly. i have lots of etsy orders coming in, and i've made $63 in the past 4 days because of it. i have to do laundry today, but a lot of it is packing up clothes i know i'm not going to wear during my final 7 days (!!) in chicago. i'm looking around my room and realizing there's still a lot of work to be done today, so i'm going to go clean and pack now!

punk house

sorry, but if i do my chore wheel clean up (cleaning the stove and sink this week) every night, clean up my stuff in public areas when i go to bed, and immediately do my dishes and put them away after i eat, why exactly do i have to participate in a day-long house cleaning on saturday where we'll be "straightening up" stuff that isn't mine?

punk house life isn't agreeing with me right now; sam and leah (who have lived here 3 years) have monopolized the pantry and bathroom space. we have a small room that is all shelves and drawers for food and dishes, yet i have two tiny shelves (one of which i have to stand on a step stool to reach) for all of my food and dishes. the bathroom has a small shelving unit, lots of shelves inside the mirror, and a decent number of shelves above the toilet, yet i literally just have enough room to keep my shampoo, conditioner, face wash, and razor in the shower, and the rest of my stuff has to stay in a shower caddy in my closet. yeah, i have the biggest room, but i don't have a door, i have curtains. and the one door I do have is a restaurant-style swing door that leads straight into the pantry & kitchen, where it is constantly noisy & the door won't stay shut unless it locks from the pantry side.

ugh i'm just pissed. i'm so pissed.  there are constantly people in my space, sam keeps fucking touching me, leah is weird about where things go, and despite the fact that i spent about 6 hours scouring their filthy bathroom until it was sparkling last weekend, i somehow have to help straighten up their shit this weekend. i feel like they think i just lay around all day, when literally all of monday and most of yesterday was spent doing freelance work and embroidering stuff for etsy to make money.

ugh please let this feeling pass. once i get unpacked all the way & get my room straightened up i'm sure it'll be fine, but right now when i don't feel like my own space is inhabitable, it's just too much for me to deal with.

september already

when i moved into my new place almost two weeks ago, only one of my four roommates was here; sam was house-sitting for a friend, emily hadn't really moved in yet (except her stuff), and dan was (still is) in israel. it was just me and leah, who i get along with best of the group, and it was really peaceful. and then everyone got back (except dan), gitsy had to leave, and we decided to clean the house up. there's way too much furniture (nancy & eric, who just moved out, left a bunch of shit, including a queen and twin bed, a huge coffee table, and kitchen table, a gigantic armoire, and a bunch of random art supplies and building material), but with my ankle fucked up (oh yeah, i tore the muscle in my calf when a shelf fell on my leg & have internal bleeding and scary bruising in my leg rn) i opted to clean their DISGUSTING bathroom. literally, the tub was black when i started cleaning. 2 rolls of paper towels, 3 towels, a bottle of CLR, half a can of ajax, 6 steel wool pads, 3 sponges, and 3 swiffer pads later, and that place is sparkling white. i'm so proud, and i finally feel like a member of the house.

i'm the only one up right now, but last night we gave each other tarot readings and leah told me she'd bring me home some vegan ice cream from the ice cream shop where she works when she goes to work later. i think the plan is to go through the pantry and fridge & clean/re-allot spaces for everyone tonight, but this morning i have to do some design work & do a little embroidery before i can do anything. my etsy shop is doing well & i'm doing lots of good work for my clients with good responses, so things are ok right now even though i'm sad for my mom and sad that gitsy's not here.

i applied for a letterpress/graphic design job at this amazing print shop that is hiring in st. louis, so right now i'm trying to wrap my mind around the idea of possibly moving there, or possibly going to grad school. trying to keep all my options open i guess! september is always my favorite month, so i really hope that by this time in october, i'll have more of a concrete plan in front of me

moved

so i moved today, and as exhausting as it was, it really wasn't the end of the world. I assure you I will not be leaving this apartment until i find a job and have enough savings to pay movers (this day feels like it was 3 days long and my entire body aches) but i'm doing ok.

my mom and jaime drove up as a surprise to help me move, which was an absolute godsend if nothing more than for the fact the my mom was there when i got to the new place and had a major doubt meltdown. but more on that later! so mom and jaime got here at 230 and alea was there by 3. we ended up having to literally throw my mattress off the balcony, which pisses me off to no end, but we got it down. some random guy walking in the alley named jorge saw how pathetic it was for three girls to be struggling with heavy boxes and offered to help us out, free of charge, and managed to move a lot of heavy shit that took two to three of us to get into the new place, all by himself. he left before we were able to get his contact info, but i know his name and where he works and fully intend on delivering him a thank you and $50 when i make some money and am able to do so. tim came by around 630 and was also a big help.

the room in my new apartment was shared by two people, who both left a lot of stuff in my room, but leah and sam failed to mention this. so when i got to my room (in which i am supposed to squeeze my bed, tv, couch, desk, coffee table, vanity, and all of my other shit that essentially furnished daniella's & my entire apartment) i discovered that nancy had left her bed, her kitchen table, a gigantic red armoire (like ok that's awful but the fact that it was RED was adding insult to injury for me) and a whole bunch of shit in the closet. and for some reason, this was the tipping point for me. i saw my bed leaned up against hers and my shit thrown in the floor of the closet because she still has shelves and hangers and sheets in the way, and i was just hit with a flood of doubt and regret. and i'm pretty sure that if my mom wasn't there to just understand what i was feeling and talk me down, i would have had a complete meltdown and probably would be crying myself to sleep right now instead of being relatively calm about the whole situation.

mom and jaime had to leave around 830 or 9, when we were about halfway done unloading. after a hellacious assembly line load-in to the top floor of a four-flat (without the help of jorge's superstrength), we finally managed to get everything in my room. i drove everyone back to my old apartment with 2 people in the cab with me and three people in the actual uhaul on speakerphone with us (hilarious), returned the uhaul, and bought everyone dinner at jeri's grill. it was only $60 (a gratuitous tip included) for all of us to stuff ourselves (like most people got two meals) and for everyone except me to get desert (i had like 3 diet cokes & was sugared out), and we had a really good time just sitting around and laughing. so worth it, and it made me feel better about making all of these people haul my shit around all day.

tomorrow i have a ridiculously long day ahead of me which includes ditching all of nancy's stuff (eric was kind enough to at least put his in the other room), organizing the closet, assembling my couch and bedframe, and essentially making the place liveable, but i'm not setting an alarm because i worked my ass off and deserve to sleep in.

moving

tomorrow i'm moving and it's exhausting and sad and horrible. and it doesn't help that i don't feel built up by anyone i have a relationship with except blake. ross was too depressed to date me and has been fucking weird since (i just want my book back.) and i'm talking to another guy i met a pixfest who i really want to like but i'm just not feeling amazing about it anymore. my mom is dealing with her own issues and jaime's issues so i can't burden her & yet somehow feel like i am without really even saying much. daniella is being really awful to me and i just cant deal right now.

i just feel like everyone is draining me, and it makes me really sad because i thought things would be different by now. i thought i'd have a job and a little apartment and a boyfriend. and instead i got none of that. and i know i need to keep positive but it's just really hard right now. feeling like ross liked me felt amazing, and i know that i don't need other people to validate me but i liked that connection. and i'm glad that he said something to me and is not with me because i know he's depressed, and he would just be draining me too.

i don't know. everything is scattered right now. sorry for a scattered post

Big D, pt. II

basically I have a lot of really positive stuff to blog about in regards to being connected with my church again, but I'm alone for the first time all vacation at a coffee shop (where I should be working, shhhhh) and I just need to vent about some stuff.

I think that the Welbutrin has finally kicked all the way in, and I've had a pretty rough couple of days. (It doesn't help that I'm also about to start my period and am wayyy more emotional than usual.) Ross has had some low days too in the past week, and I've just been thinking a lot about how depression was handled in my last relationship.

I got a message on Wednesday at church that was basically like, "this new guy in your life is really good for you & we support you dating him and see him being a wonderful influence in your life, but you have work to do in your sacral chakra about letting go of your relationship with dylan & until you do that, you're not going to be able to be fully present in your relationship with ross"

ugh.

it's probably true (i mean how can you argue with your dead grandpa), but ugh. the sacral chakra is about sexuality, creativity, intimacy, and empathy, but it also is greatly concerned with fear and guilt. (hah, bingo, ms. guilt internalizer right here!) the problem is that i don't know how to fix these issues, and it's bringing me down. i think maybe a lot of it has to do with letting ross know how things with dylan were so horrible at the end, but i think it's also going to take me to stop comparing my life to dylan's. it doesn't fucking matter what is going on in his life, and i need to keep reminding myself of that no matter how many times he tries to invite me to shows and shit.

i guess this kind of got off track? because i wanted to post about how i'm already proud of ross and me for being able to say "i'm having a low day and i just really need to not skype with you tonight" or " hey, things suck for me today, send me something funny." it just feels like so much more of a team effort in building each other up, already this early in the relationship, when from day one with dylan (even if i didn't see it until later) there was always some manipulation and put-downs (on both of our parts) when it came to issues like this. i think a lot of it comes with being older and having experienced depression firsthand for me, but so much of it is about how open ross is wiling to be with me and how open that makes me want to be with him. i feel like i'm probably still the most emotionally stable in the relationship (which is scary because i don't feel very emotionally stable a lot of the time) but it's better.

the deed

when I realized that things with Ross were going to be serious, I decided that I didn't want to have sex with him before i was going to leave chicago for 3 weeks. After a week of seeing him almost every day, the first week we met, I knew it would be rough to transition so quickly into being back in my parents' house, feeling insecure and child-like again. (My mom has had it rough post-clot #2 and everyone is trying to be nice, but she's on a short fuse and needs a lot of help, which leaves me, the adult child in the house, in a place of being told what to do and fussed over a lot, which is exhausting.) but what's that saying about the best laid plans of mice and men?

Basically we had a perfect opportunity, and we decided to take it. It was rainy out (both our favorite weather) and we had my newly air-conditioned apartment to ourselves. I realized that I didn't want the first time we slept together to be with Daniella 25 feet away. And I'm not sorry that we had sex. It gives me something to anchor myself to when I get into these depressive rifts about my body image & feeling like maybe he doesn't like me as much as I want him to. But of course it sucks to be far away from the person I want to have sex with. Blake sent me a buzzfeed article today about choosing between food and sex, and it made me realize that it's going to be another two full weeks before I can cuddle up with that sweet boy again.

I'm not really sure why I wrote this. I guess it just feels nice for someone to be genuinely interested in me who I also want to be with. And things aren't quite right with me emotionally yet, and I feel like a lot of the time when he tells me that he thinks I'm cute or sexy, it's really hard for me to believe him because I am in such a rough spot with liking my own body right now. And for the first night of having a very bad body image night since then, I am glad to be able to focus on that memory & feel not so shitty.

lucky #3

so tonight was date #3 with the lovely ross, and it's for real, i really like this guy.

we met at reno, a pizza place near his house, and even though i got there 15 minutes early, he was already waiting there with a table for us. we got a chorizo pizza (omg, so good, i'm going to start eating pork if only for chorizo. seriously amazing.) and a desert cake thing to go, and he paid for it all, but promised he'd let me pay next time.

when we left the restaurant, there was a step down that i didn't notice, and he warned me to watch my step. while we walked, he talked about how he used to be a christian but considers himself more of an agnostic/buddhist now, but that he finds it really admirable when he has friends who are christians who are spiritual & let it uplift them more than dogmatic & centered on putting people down/placing restrictions on them. i talked about my spirituality and how i agree completely; that blake and i have different religious beliefs but are still thick as thieves because she is that wonderful type of person. he would tell me how long we were going to be on each street, because he hates when people are leading him somewhere new & he feels like he's walking forever. he lit a cigarette for the second time around me, asking if it was ok first, and literally stepped off the curb and started walking in the street any time we passed kids so he wouldn't make them breathe in his smoke.

i talked with his roommate, brad, who went to saic with me, and then when brad left we just sat on the couch and watched an episode of friends. we made out for a little bit, then went to his room & made out some more. it was really hot (there's a/c in like maybe 5% of chicago buildings, it's awful in the summer) so we both ended up in our undies. he was very explicit about the fact that we didn't have to do anything i didn't want to do, and i told him i didn't want to sleep with him yet, and he felt the same way. any time we went past just kissing, he stopped to make sure it was ok first, and was all about making sure i was comfortable and into it. we just talked & kissed & made jokes, and then after a while he went and got the cake & 1 fork from the kitchen, and he made me play this game where we traded off playing guilty pleasure songs on his computer. it was so awful/wonderful. ludo, coheed and cambria, riff raff, j-lo, big sean, mayday parade, and lots of my chemical romance. we had to listen to the whole song, no matter what, so we normally ended up laughing at the music videos or feeding each other cake. 

it started getting late, so i pulled on my dress & went to fix my hair in the bathroom, and when i came back in the room he was lying half on the bed, playing 'moon song' on his ukelele. ~swoon~

he's coming over tomorrow straight from work, and we're going to go walk around my neighborhood and take gitsy to bad dog tavern. this feels unreal, and wonderful, and positive in a way that no other date situation has. so here's hoping it stays

healthy

i feel like i've been really bad at updating this lately, but right now things are rounding out & feeling much more stable than they have in a while. i started taking welbutrin, and while i still don't feel like everything is under control, i feel a lot better. and i can't drink on it, which is good; i think i got to a point last semester where i was so depressed and anxious all the time that drinking almost every weekend just made me feel overwhelmed and unbalanced. i've been eating a lot healthier, being a little more active, and my thyroid is slowly working its way back to normal, all which are helping. i got a haircut & the 8 or so pounds i've lost have boosted my body image significantly.

i've also been seeing this guy, ross, and it just feels pretty right. i talked with him for weeks before meeting him in person, and i really think that made a big difference. while i'm pretty sure he's rebounding pretty hard from a serious relationship (less than a year, but she dumped him for some other dude), i really like him. like, actually. i don't think i've ever felt this way about anyone i've met off okcupid, except maybe zach, but we didn't have much chemistry. ross is really geeky & kinda awkward, but in an endearing way. plus he is very tall and dresses really well. he's always making jokes that i find hilarious, and i've been able to be really open with him about a lot of things, including the fact that i'm struggling a little bit emotionally right now & a lot about spiritualism, both which normally scare guys off.

i found a dime in the bathroom on our first date (i'm sure i've posted about it on here, but my mom's dad, who died when he was 24, leaves my mom and me dimes--always heads up in plain sight--when we're struggling or are wondering if we're making a right decision, as a kind of confirmation that we're doing the right thing & that we have spiritual support) and last night he came over to make pizzas and watch game of thrones, and when he left we made out in the foyer of my apartment building. so for now it feels pretty nice, and i like talking to him, so we'll see where it goes. i think it's really easy for me to get worked up about emotional health in relationships--my own & that of the people i'm interested in--because of how dylan's & my relationship crashed and burned because of it, but i think it's also ok (as long as i am being open about the state that i'm in) to look to someone else for emotional support and to help me remind myself that i am an interesting and valuable person.

i only have a few more days left in chicago before i go to plan-it-x fest with dana and then head to north carolina with my family, and i am so stoked for it that it's unbelievable. i cannot wait to see my aunt and cousins, to hike in the woods, to see the sunrise on ocracoke, and to hang out with my best friend in my favorite place in the US.

with a whimper

i finished college. i did it. i graduated from the top-ranked art & design school in the nation, as one of the top in my department, and i did it in three years.

this semester kicked my ass. a lot of really great stuff happened, i made the most compelling work i've ever made, and i grew as a person. but i also suffered a lot health-wise, and a little bit emotionally. it was a roller coaster of 4 months if i've ever seen one. but i did it, and i'm typing this from my cozy bathtub in an empty apartment with a level of contentment i haven't had for a while.

no, i'm not 100% proud of my final pieces. i'm downright pissed at myself for not spending more time on the press this semester after my bfa show. but i worked my ass off to get where i did, and i made still pretty amazing work while my foundation was crumbling and i was scared of everything.

my mom still isn't ok, and the more time i spend with her, the more i realize that. honestly, i think it's a good thing i didn't get the internship i wanted because i want to be able to be there for my mom this summer. i want to listen to shitty emo rock on rooftops with dan, swig gin between stick-and-poke tattoos with sam and leah, grab beers with the viscom kids, ride the tilt-a-whirl at riot fest, sleep in a tent in the middle of indiana with dana & a bunch of midwestern punks, go to ocracoke and see my family and blake, get my etsy running, edit my website, and maybe even go abroad if i can find some people to backpack with me (my parents' graduation present to me was the money they would have spent on a new computer for me, which they decided they would rather give to me to do what i want to do: travel.)

but mostly i want to be there if something goes wrong, and i want to figure out what is causing this shit so i know if it's something i'm going to be battling for the rest of my life too.


i've been sick this past week & i feel like the end of school snuck up on me, so this week has been quiet and sleepy. but for now it's nice. a lull at the end of a very hectic year.

going home

i will be driving home as fast as i possibly can on saturday morning & won't be getting back to chicago until close to midnight on monday

i managed to time my trip to where i'll be home when both blake & chantel (with new baby clara who i haven't met yet) will be in town, so that's good

i've been considering extending my reservation and driving home friday morning instead, but it depends how much work i get done today and tomorrow.

i'm really thinking that i might actually be depressed, and i have a feeling that (as long as i get my work done in time) this weekend could do me some good

crash

any time i spend not singing sad pop punk ballads in the shower or compulsively ordering & devouring $10 pizza boxes is spent sleeping. literally. i've gone to bed at 8pm the past three nights, and today is the first day i didn't sleep all the way until 8am (i slept until 4am, which is still ridiculous)

all i can think about is my mom and how much i hate being in chicago right now. i don't want to do anything. my arm is mega fucked up from my bike crash, i can't even hold anything heavier than my phone in my left hand for a few minutes before my whole arm aches. i'm pretty sure my thyroid is completely messed up again.

this just hasn't been a good week, and the fact that it's following a few really amazing weeks just makes it that much worse.

Crushers anonymous

Hi my name is Cassie & I might actually be interested enough in backup boy for this to become a real thing??

3rd call in the past two weeks that was over an hour long, I get to meet him Friday & I absolutely cannot wait

ugh

i woke up early today, feeling well-rested & ready to face this freezing day, and the gitsy peed on my bed right in front of me, 5 minutes after i woke up. when i changed the sheets, i realized she had also peed at the foot of the bed (last night i'm assuming?)

so of course after changing my sheets and sanitizing as much as i could, i went to go check on the couch, and voila! there's pee. i went and picked gitsy up from her bed to take her outside, only to find out that she had also peed in HER bed.

so instead of spending the day at the field museum, i'm patiently waiting until 9am when i can call the vet & trying not to look at all the google articles telling me that either my dog has a UTI, is so depressed and stressed out that the only comfort she can find is masking her scent in mine, or she's dying. so positive thoughts are appreciated.

casual, pt 2

damn. i'm sitting and just thinking about what a whirlwind the past couple weeks has been while i wait to hear back from a client, and damn.

everything with chris happened last weekend, i had my design show, i've been contacted about two different internships, one letterpress and one at an ad agency, i fooled around with another cute boy, i went to parties with my friends, i had a girl's night, came up with a concept for my next letterpress piece, and my client (who i was afraid i wasn't making good work for) just called back and was highly appreciative and open to changing up his style because he liked my work so much.

things have just been good. the design show on friday was absolutely amazing; we set up the show that day and had at the very least 500 people come through. i found my work on instagram, i saw hordes of people walking around with my work, and got to watch people stand in awe of my piece, looking at the tiny bits of lead all glues together. it was amazing. i got more drunk than i should have, but so did everyone else, so it was good. i ended up alone at a bar with a girl in my dept who made me feel like total shit about the whole chris thing ("you shouldn't fuck him, he's too nice, he's slept with xxxx and xxxxx and xxxxx in the department & it never ends up well") but then actually made me feel a lit better about the situation when i told her that i felt like he was way above my level (in terms of design & just in general) and she told me he absolutely doesn't feel that way about me & was super flattered. so that's good.

we ended up texting and agreeing it's probably best not to keep pursuing whatever it was that happened, and i was feeling iffy about it until we ended up at the same party later that night & he gave me a really good, tight hug. it just made everything feel ok again, and im actually hoping we can become closer as friends because of this whole thing.

it's weird, i hadn't watched my tv shows in a couple of weeks & i sat down to watch parenthood today, and one of the characters is having trouble with her husband (they're separated) and she sleeps with some guy she works with, and she doesn't want it to keep going, she goes and talks to him and just tells him thanks for "releasing" her, that she was so tied down & caught up in shit with her absent husband that she needed to let go a little bit, and while she doesn't want to sleep with him again, she is grateful that he was the person who helped her do that. and that's how i feel right now, i guess. because i would never have had the balls to sleep with someone i had just met after my first. it just felt still too sacred, like it needed to matter enough to not be some arbitrary thing. (not that i think it's not sacred anymore, but there was a certain hurdle to jump over first, i think.) so it was good because of that.

and now i'm more open to the fact that this loren guy wants to date me, and i was ok bringing a boy home from a bar just to mess around a bit. and it's freeing. it's like the first time i drank or smoked weed, i feel like i'm now living outside of some weird set of restrictions i had put on myself needlessly. and it has me in a good place to evaluate myself and the choices i want to make when i graduate. like i never thought i would be ok living in a studio/one-bedroom apartment by myself, and now i crave it. i feel more grown up, i feel like i'm capable of making my own Big Decisions when the only thing keeping me back before was myself.

casual

this weekend was wonderful; i got the balls to tell the guy i've been crushing on that i'm into him, and it went surprisingly really well. he's looking for something more casual & right now i really don't think i can deal with anything other than casual, so it's good. i spent the night at his house saturday night after a literally perfect day & i have no complaints about anything except that sometimes i hate having a girl brain that is going to freak out about the whole thing until i see him again & can judge how he feels about everything & how he acts around me at school.

you know me best, i'm like a fucking suckerfish i get so attached, but i don't want to be that way anymore; it's actually amazing that after just having had sex with someone else, i literally have no emotion about dylan anymore. the last few resentful & hurt bits of me that were clinging for dear life have (seemingly) vanished. so i'm hoping this thing with chris will be good for me. he's really a sweet person & i would be happy taking this further someday if he wants to, after school is over & my thyroid isn't fucked up anymore, but if he doesn't, i've actually also been talking to another guy from okcupid who seems nice & is interested in me. and maybe that situation shouldn't feel different than any of the other guys i've talked to on okcupid, but i don't know. something about this guy feels safe, and i like that he's there in case i get in over my head with chris and need to take a step back to guard myself from getting hurt.

i don't know. i haven't been the most emotionally stable person lately (thanks, thyroid) but i'm proud of myself. i feel like all of this good/new has stemmed from stopping myself from feeling sorry for myself anymore. i have nothing to apologize for. i'm no different than any other human being on this planet; people find me attractive and interesting. i am a creative and beautiful person, and i need to stop looking at myself like that doesn't show. having my physical self esteem in the shitter lately was no good for me, and i didn't realize how scary, almost body dysmorphic i had become about my body image. shit is so much easier when i feel sexy and confident & am not spending every god damn second self-monitoring my appearance in class, and if fooling around with a sweet beardy boy helps me realize that i am physically desirable (because i know my personality is fuckin rad, i don't need help with that ;) ) then i'm perfectly ok with that.

Dreamland

I had a dream the other night & Dylan's mom was in it, and I'm getting chills writing about it now. The night of the winter formal when we didn't stop by their house for photos beforehand & dylan got beaten for it has been on my mind lately. Or the time his parents came home when we were upstairs & he hid under the dining room table and held his finger to his lips, his mom popped a blood vessel in her eye when she yelled at us.

I'm not sure why I've been thinking about all this out of nowhere, but it's just strange how real my dreams have seemed lately

STL

i've been putting off writing this because i was having a pretty decent day so far & didn't want to risk tanking my mood, but i started searching for apartments & ended up getting frustrated anyway, so here goes. for spring break (thursday through today) alea, leah, sam, & i all went to st louis to go to the city museum. alea is from there, so her mom let us stay at her house on thursday & friday night, and we traveled via bus & train on thursday and saturday. it was only around $40 round trip, and it was a nice break from school & responsibilities; we smoked on thursday night & played at the museum almost all day friday.

but the social aspect of the trip was really unpleasant for me, and i very much felt like i was back in middle school at a sleepover that i just wanted my mom to come pick me up from. i'm sure some of it had to do with the fact that my thyroid is messed up & i'm running on very high anxiety levels & spend the time i'm not panicking in bed or wishing i was in bed not having to deal with anything. i'm sure another big part of it was that sam and leah were both on their periods. but none of that excuses what was, in my opinion, incredibly rude behavior from both leah & sam.

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this is way long & you don't have to read it, i just need to vent somehow. tldr; my friends are dicks.

all weekend, sam dominated conversation to the point that it was incredibly hard to get a word in edgewise. like, constantly told stories about how she had been through things other people hadn't, and loudly on buses and trains, and wouldn't lower her voice even when i tried to tell her she was being loud. when i was talking about tj (who they didn't like, apparently?) i mentioned that for a while tj was coming over every weekend, and sam went, "yeah, we noticed." little comments like this were common all weekend.

leah kept asking to eat my food or borrow my phone, and she literally always has to be in control of the music (like when i took a shower and played music, she sat in the next room over and played her music so i could hear hers too.) same for tv; she only wanted to watch weeds & then when she did, she just kept saying how much she hated these different characters & any time i tried to defend them, she would just shake her head at me. she was also rushing me places--asking me how soon i'd be out of the bathroom as soon as i went in, telling me we really needed to leave when i was getting ready (after i'd spent the morning cutting her hair and cleaning the kitchen while everyone else showered), and even asking me at one point if i would be willing to go upstairs to a different bathroom at the city museum on the offchance it would have a shorter line when i was next in line to pee--AFTER she, alea, and sam had all waited in line and were done going to the bathroom.

plus the both of them wouldn't stop bitching about my friend kelsey in line at the arch because she's still friends with juan. and i get it, i do. it seems like she's betraying them. but the thing is, they never liked her anyway & they're using this as a reason to think she's a bad person--and they CONSTANTLY do it around me and alea, who are friends with her! it's so inappropriate. and the thing is, i highly doubt that kelsey knows what is going on. she knows juan was kicked out of the lease, but that's it, and for all we know, juan (the sociopath in this situation) probably made up some bullshit lie so he doesn't have to tell her what really happened. and leah and sam don't want to tell kelsey what is going on (rightfully) but then they're upset that she doesn't know, saying "she should have figured something out by now." really?! and kelsey is in a really horrible living situation that she is constantly trying to get out of, so she asked leah if they were looking for a roommate to fill the extra space. maybe stepping on boundaries, but she's desperate not to have to live with her domineering roommate anymore, & if she doesn't know what's going on with the juan situation, innocent in my opinion. after i told them i didn't like the kelsey hate, sam kept going on about it until leah shut her up by saying that they could talk about it later, not in front of me.

and then there was a point at which we were talking about living together and sam just kept going on about how she didn't know if she'd be able to get an apartment with me and leah because she didn't know how much she could pay per month & would likely have to pay less per month than everyone else. when leah and i were trying to figure out what a happy medium would be (leah was thinking $500 per person per month) sam got really upset, saying she was already at the end of her rope and couldn't be expected to pay more than she's paying now ($350 per month--in an apartment with 5 people), and could do $400 at most. i said that was fine, but that i needed my own room with a door & wanted to find an apartment with good spatial balance & closer to the ground than my current apartment, maybe with a yard or park nearby for gitsy. at that point, sam and leah both chimed in, sam saying that the only reason my apartment is well-balanced is because there are only 2 people (it's possible to find the same with 3 rooms, i've looked) and leah saying she wants to live in the top floor of a building, and saying she would take gitsy out, like i was being lazy about it. but neither of them live with a dog who sometimes has to go out 6 times a day, nor do they have to haul a bike up and down 3 flights, plus sam has a support system to help her move her queen size bed up a bunch of flights of stairs, but i'm going to have to hire people or make my parents come up to chicago and help, which i don't want to do.

and then sam brought up the idea of living with dan, too, which is fine with me so long as we find a bigger apartment, but it also requires finding an apartment with 2 bathrooms, which is hard. when i said i really didn't want to end up in an apartment like theirs (in which 2 sets of 2 people share rooms & 3 people don't have doors, sam started listing all of her monetary problems. leah told her she knew her situation, and before i could get in that i understood, sam yelled "i'm saying this for cassie's benefit, because my parents don't help me pay for my rent every month" at which point i couldn't even take the conversation anymore. i'm privileged enough to have the support of my parents, i know that and am the most grateful person in the world that they are able to do so. but i don't need anyone to talk down to me about being privileged. it's not like they pay for everything i do. i have student loans in my name and will be helping my parents pay mine off when i'm done with school. and yeah, they help with my rent, but i work hard for a paycheck too, and i have to make financial decisions, too; lately all of the money i've saved up from work has gone to doctor bills and new prescriptions, and it sucks & is hard. and sam acts like i just get everything handed to me. i bought nothing on vacation except a mug for daniella (she couldn't come and was sad about it) and food, because i don't have a lot of money right now. it just pisses me off. i'm not about to get in a rent situation where she's paying $350 and i'm paying $600 for a slightly larger room, because that's not fair to me, and that's what she wants to happen. especially because i won't have an unlimited CTA pass through the school next year, so i'll have to pay my way for transit. when i told leah and sam that i wouldn't live at their current apartment because i don't want to live that far from the loop (i live 7 miles away from the loop now & it's really hard to bike, & they live over 10 miles away), they argued that "rent would be cheaper so you could afford to get a card" but that's not the point either. i want to be able to ride my bike to work, that's part of the lifestyle i want to have, and i can't do that if i live 10+ miles from downtown. and i don't want to move into juan's old room! i don't want 5 roommates, i wanted 2 or 3, at the most.

on top of all of that, i volunteered to shower last on friday night (after literally climbing through caves and running around all day at city museum), and everyone else smoked way more than me so they were really high when i was just buzzed, and each took a 30-minute+ shower, so there was no hot water for me when i wanted to shower. AND when i did get to shower the next morning, i went to find my clean laundry from washing it the night before only to find that, because i told alea that my clothes needed to be dried on low heat, that she just dried everyone else's clothes on hot & forgot to put mine in the dryer after, so my clothes were in a wet pile on the washer & i had to change back into my dirty pjs.

so at this point i have no idea what's going to happen next year. nothing happens quite by chance i guess, but if i want to stay in chicago i have to find a roommate. maybe this means i should move to NC or california or something (or at least put feelers out to see if i could get a job either of those places) but i just really wish this could be easy.