The day I finally decide to wash my car is the day it finally rains. Someone tell me the universe is not conspiring against me.

So...Monday. Finally some time and space to blog. Ha. I was just about to head to my room and write in my paper notebook with some nice jazz in the background.

Things are just so pent up. I set up my DVD player in my room just so I could watch movies on my own and escape for awhile. My mom argued with my sister and it was annoying, and my mom also went on one of her cleaning tornado episodes and I knew to stand clear. How to describe how I feel: people are all around. I feel a little less lonely but also less free. Not free to do what I did before which is basically mope around on the Internet all day. But I also listened to music and read and stuff and now I just kind of do whatever everyone else is doing, mostly watch TV.

I need to be busy. I've been busy, I remember times of stress and obligations but those are gone now. But I just need to push myself a little more. I'm not accomplishing anything the way I'm living right now. The sameness of every day. Not having enough to do, getting to the point of rarely even leaving the house. Not meeting new people.

I'm just lonely and the shyness thing won't solve itself. I look at my job and it is just so cut and dried, in a way that's good, in a way it's what I wanted, not to really have to deal with people at all. But I guess that's what's bad about it, too, that I can get away with that and I don't have to push myself to speak up and make my voice heard. I can't really see myself being satisfied with that kind of job in the future, I'm going to need to learn how to get along.

I'm just really confused, I wish I knew what to do. Everyone struggles with the question. But it's like six years of school and I feel like it was all pretty worthless. I know that's not true, but it feels that way because I'm not getting a job in that field. I was stupid. Especially going to grad school, that was really, really stupid. Oh well, too late now. Sometimes I wish I could trade in my diploma and get my money back. I guess I wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't gone, I wouldn't have gotten to work at the paper, I'd probably be working in some software engineering job. I was thinking, though, that everyone eventually gets where they need to be. Like either way I would be looking somewhere else for a career I'd find more interesting, at school or at a job, so either way I probably would have ended up at this point, disgruntled and wanting to do something else with my life.

Sunday. I'm off work early. I feel so gross today as I didn't shower and my hair looks really nasty. Oh well.

I've gone out to eat for four days in a row and now I feel totally lethargic. I've been eating way too much. And you know, I don't even really enjoy it. I think like once a week it's something to look forward to, after that it is not such a good thing. Dealing with bad service, and the guilt of overeating, and having to make conversation and the expense, it gets to be less and less of a pleasure.

So anyway, I've been in kind of a withdrawn mood. I feel like I need some space to think, which is hard when there are people around 24/7 now. I used to write down so much on this blog, just to clear my mind, I don't get to do as much of that now that we are competing for computer time. But I guess I am at a point of wanting to get out there and do stuff again, wanting to work more, and that's not happening and I'm wondering what I should do. What I'm thinking about is going back to school. Taking out some loans, getting another degree, this time in something I'm actually interested in and wouldn't find a total drag to do as a job. Science or writing. I've already thought about it, those are the two things I'm most interested in. Maybe I should get a real job and save up some money before doing this but I feel like if I don't do it now I probably won't do it.

It's just weird how some activities/ideas can excite you and others just leave you col

Day off work. Watched American Idol and Lost season finales, also game one of Dallas-Phoenix in NBA playoffs. I think I need to re-watch Lost since I missed a lot of the important parts. But it was a really interesting episode from what I did see.

I'm looking at my life and thinking it is sooo boring and I need to make some changes. Probably not so good to watch six hours of TV a day and call it a life. Too much screen time. Thinking about the future, it's just hard to know what to do. What should I do job-wise? And in my personal life, well, I need to make changes there, too. I wrote this whole thing about living at home and how it's so stifling, but, really, I need to find ways to make it not so and not just blame it on that. I need to get out more. Maybe I'll finally join that church Bible study, maybe take a class or something. Try to find like-minded individuals. Try to start conversations. I haven't been trying. What might my life look like if I really valued relationships enough to seek them out? Here it is another year gone by and I still have no friends to celebrate my birthday with. That's just really sad and I think about it and am like, well, it's going to be like this year after year after year unless I try to change it and that is really sobering.

At midnight my sister's alarm clock rang and started playing the hustle. Weird. That song gets annoying after awhile.

So...I'm tired, sleepy tired. I actually did some stuff today like cleaned my room and cooked dinner and put gas in the car. Went to work, too. I'm a weird mood, a reflective mood. It's weird now that my sisters are here. Like I don't have so much alone time. And I now catch myself comparing my lives to theirs and feeling like I am pathetic in comparison. What am I really accomplishing with my life here? I see my sister spend hours applying for jobs over the Internet. Why am I not applying for jobs? Why does she have tons of ambition and I have so little? I don't know.

Now comes the point when I realize I've never had this little to do in my life. Well, maybe when I took the summer off two years ago and had nothing at all to do. But before that there was always school. And at least work was a little more demanding as I tried to master my job. But now it is on auto-pilot, and I have nothing to do during the day since I graduated already. I guess I've gotten used to the free time so it doesn't seem like a big deal to me anymore, but nearly everyone works more than I do, I am getting to be such a bum. How long am I going to be stuck like this? What am I going to do next? I'm getting anxious. I need to work more, I need to get a job with more hours. But it's like I need to decide what it is I want to do, have some kind of objective, not job-hop just to job-hop.

Saturday. Mom finally had the yard installed aka Bootsie's play area. It looks good, finally it is not a desert wasteland. And she planted the shrub I gave her for Mother's Day, cool.

Last night we heard a bunch of loud booms. Turns out it was the fireworks from the baseball game Cohen Stadium. We went out and enjoyed the free fireworks show. It was a nice moment. Summertime, I like it.

It is hot. May/June are usually hot and dry. Somehow it is catching me by surprise this year, maybe because I don't go outside as much as I used to. I used to at least walk around campus, now I'm kind of a couch potato or a desk potato or whatever.

Work tonight. I've got to get on top of things. Why do I suddenly feel so lazy? Where did my ability to multitask go? Something's got to change, otherwise I might go crazy...

I watched the movie Proof today. It was a pretty good movie. You can always tell when a movie is based on a play. But I thought it was different from other movies, in a good way. I sort of wished they had gone more into the math side of it.

Another Friday night. Dad took us out to dinner. It was a really uncomfortable dinner. It's weird, like I just don't want to talk anymore. I don't want to hear it, I don't want to listen to people talk and I have nothing to say. The service was bad, too, which made things worse. My poor dad, I think he's going through a rough time. But I just don't talk to him that much, not really, so I don't know what to say.

I guess it's going to take awhile to adjust to there being two more people in this house. Privacy, that's getting to be a problem, I kind of just want to be able to do my own thing, go out, be on the PC, all that without having people asking me where I'm going or looking at what I'm doing. It is getting to be irritating. Oh yeah and now I am eating like a pig again to calm my nerves. Great. I need some more self-control.

Things are all up in the air right now, I really don't know what I'm going to do. I'm mulling things over- more school? More work? Get a real job? I guess I just can't stand the nonsense that goes with jobs, dealing with people, handing out resumes trying to get hired, being on a strict schedule, dealing with money, trying to get promoted. I could care less about money, really, as long as I have enough to live on I'm OK. That's one reason I like my job. There's a lack of all that nonsense even though I'm getting paid so little. It's a trade-off, though. If I want more money, I'm going to have to take on more responsibility and have to deal with all that crap.

I just need to figure out whether I'm serious about going back to school, if not maybe I need to get serious about a career or at least a job where I can earn decent money.

So...this week my sisters return home. One is looking for a job, the other is home from college. Things are a lot more animated around here. Computer time is now scarce. Fighting is breaking out all over the place. I'm bored, I mean, no computer, and nowhere to go, nothing to do really. Watch more and more TV. Eat junk food. Go to work. It's kind of frustrating. Living with people is hard after you get used to being pretty much alone during the day. I should get a job.

Birthday's coming up, no friends to spend it with. Sadness. I'm not in a great mood about my b-day this year. Last year's sucked so much.

I'm just kind of frustrated. Bored, don't know what to do next, whether to quit my job and look for another. I want to move on to bigger and better things, that's not happening. Feeling pathetic. Way too much free time, I now live in a house of girls with nothing but free time. Life just kind of bewilders me, I have no idea how I'm going to get a job if I decide to look for one.

So it's early Sunday morning. Mother's Day. I bought my Mom a shrub for the yard. And a card, too. My poor mom. She is always so busy. She's always moving. I wish I could magically give her a stress-free life. But I guess a shrub will have to do.

Today I ate like there was no tomorrow. Chocolate, mini-cupcakes, chips, candy. I'm sure I will regret this all tomorrow, if there is one. I love food, I wish I could eat desserts all day and not get fat, but unfortunately not. Whatever, I know I feel lousy when I eat junk.

Work was insane. I was actually kind of glad to go back to work, since I've had a lot of downtime lately.

In two weeks I turn 24 years old. I am getting sooo old. What are birthdays good for anyway? What have I accomplished in the past year? Answer: not much.

Today was a good day. I went to see my sister over at NMSU. We went to lunch at this bakery where she used to work, and it was delicious. Sandwiches with fresh bread, delicious soup, an iced cinnamon mocha. That's what I'm talking about. Plus a cupcake to take home. I miss food. I splurged today because it was a special occasion.

My sister took me on a tour of campus. It seemed every 50 yards she spotted someone she knew. That's my sister for you. I wish I could be half that social. It's good to see that she has built herself a good life there, that she's out and about and not cooped up in her room all the time.

It's a strange time in my life. I ask myself, what do I want to accomplish? What do I want to see, what do I want to do? I have grandiose dreams, I think about seeing the world, I think about what I want to do to save the world. I dream about finding love. I think about God. I wish I felt closer to God, but all I feel is cynicism. But sometimes I have this feeling where I just know God is good and that God is love. Forget what anyone says, forget the crap that happens, God is the constant and that constant is love and forgiveness.

Today's activities: watched American Idol and Lost, cleaned the bathroom while listening to REM (you said that irony was the shackles of youth, uh-huh, my new favorite lyric), read Time magazine and M. Albright's bio, watched more TV as in Amazing Race and Lost. I washed the dishes and folded my sister's laundry for her. Not a very productive day.

Tomorrow I'm supposedly going to have lunch with my sister in Cruces. It's an hour drive each way, but it still sounds like a fun time. Don't have anything better to do, obviously, as seen from today's meager activities.

I'm still trying to think of what to do. I'm so discouraged, I'm at a point where I think I could never get a computer science-related job even if I wanted one. I feel like I've screwed that up for myself already. I guess it is just that I can't convince myself that that's what I want and do what it takes to be competitive. I guess it is obvious to me that I want to do something else, but what? Yesterday I had this sort of epiphany, science or writing or both. Those are the things I'm interested in, but what aspect? Where can I see myself in science- in the lab, as a prof, doing social experiments, what? To be honest, math intimidates me. I got through all the math in the CS degree plan but I'm no math genius. And I know what a prof's life is like, well, sort of, and it's not something that really appeals to me.

As for writing, well, I like writing for my own enjoyment, I like writing in a journal. But being a journalist, asking people for quotes constantly, that's intimidating. And I just don't think I'm at the level, even for a beginner job as a feature writer. I need practice. Then for tech writing, well, how do I get my foot in the door there? And it sounds kind of boring, too. But a corporate programming job, that sounds boring too. I'm kind of in a quandary here, I don't know what the hell to do.

So I was kind of wiped out today for some reason. I felt totally groggy. And yet I still managed to go to Wal-Mart to buy stuff. Underwear, bread, fruit, and also paid to get my pictures developed. Unfortunately, the picture CD I requested ended up not working. I was going to post some photos to the web. My sister came out really well in the pictures. So pretty and sophisticated.

I just have a lot on my mind. This weekend, seeing regular people doing stuff, my sisters who don't sleep until noon everyday, who have things to do and friends and dreams of the future, and here I am, just being a slacker. I go through phases of trying to be productive, being super-motivated, then just giving up on it and succumbing to the slacker lifestyle.

I do think about the future. I go out on job interviews only to find that no one wants to hire me. Why? I have an idea of why, I mean, I have no practial experience in computers despite having a master's degree in computer science, I work in a job totally unrelated to that and it's not something that employers like to see. I wasn't a very distinguished student or employee, either. But I guess the truth is that I haven't had much motivation for the jobs I've interviewed for.

What can I see myself doing? Something to do with science or something to do with writing. I've always loved science, I don't know how good I have been at it as in running science experiments or anything, but I just like coming up with the ideas behind it. I did an experiment for my master's thesis and it was really difficult but it was actually an interesting process coming up with the idea. Only problem with that is I'd probably have to go back to school to get a Ph.D. God, no more school for me.

And writing. I love words and language, love the process of writing and coming up with smooth, polished sentences. But what kind of jobs can you get writing? A newspaper job like the one I have now, I guess. Writing books or magazine articles. Technical writing. Teaching English. Those are the only ones I can come up with. But again, I don't have any credentials for doing any of those. Writing is not very lucrative, either, unfortunately, and it's more difficult to find a job than in a lot of other fields.

I guess I'm just trying to sort through all this, wondering how in the hell I'm going to get to a place I want to be. Sometimes I think that jobs don't matter, I mean jobs are so arbitrary, they are just means to earn money to finance a life. Why do they have to define a person? Maybe I should just take the first cookie-cutter job I can find some unwitting employer to hire me for, do it and save the money and not complain, and have fun after work and on the weekends.

What I did today: Got my hair cut. Now it's pleasantly short. I think it looks sort of boyish, actually. I bought some new walking shoes. The old ones were so beat up it was embarrassing. And I also bought two shirts. Then I went to Barnes and Noble, browsed through some books, and had an iced mocha minus the whipped cream. Yummy. I ended up buying a book by Caroline Kepcher (Trump lieutenant on the Apprentice), since it was on sale for $6. Finally I inquired about buying a cell phone. $30 a month, but I think it would be worth it for the peace of mind in case of an emergency. But unfortunately the place I went to didn't have any of the free variety of cell phones available, so I left without getting one.

It felt good to buy stuff for myself. Like finally, I don't have to be so budget-conscious, I can spend a little of the money I earn. I don't know, it doesn't bother me that much to live without stuff, it takes very little to make me happy. I once went like six months without seeing a movie. As long as I have books, cable TV, and Internet access I'm happy. As long as I have jeans and T-shirts and tennis shoes to wear, an occasional chocolate bar, I'm OK. A car that works, a house that's warm, what else do I really need? My favorite idea is to save the money I earn from working and then retire early.

After that I want to travel. Even traveling to Des Moines, Iowa, this weekend inspired some wanderlust in me. Iowa really is beautiful. The rolling hills, the tall grass, the trees and wildflowers. On the highways, signs listing mileage to Minneapolis/St. Paul. If I had two weeks to spend in the Midwest, I'd drive there. I'd head to Chicago and St. Louis, too. Just to see, just to be able to have the memory of those places in my mind.

It's weird what a family becomes after all the kids have grown up. We're not bound the way we used to be when we used to live together. We have our own lives, and we seem to have less in common every year. The two things we will always have in common: our DNA and the memories of the time when we did live together. In a way it's sad, but that's how modern life goes. People move away and build lives apart from the family they grew up with. But we're still there for each other, we're there for the big events, the weddings and graduations and illnesses. It's comforting to know that if I needed them, I could call my parents and/or my sisters and they would drop everything and come and help me (and vice-versa).

I spent an hour today making a pie chart of ice cream flavors. It's kind of amazing how many of the features of Microsoft Word I learned during school. Drawing, templates, all kinds of formatting, charts, graphs. And now I use almost none of that save doing favors for my mom such as making pie charts for her homework.

Tomorrow I hop on a plane and head to Iowa. It's going to be a long flight. I'm looking forward to it, though. I love plane rides- the take-off, the views of the clouds, the excitement of going to a new place. Also the little amenities like the soft drinks and snacks and reading those airline magazines. A few times I've taken my portable CD player to listen to on a long flight but I never do. The plane is too noisy, you have to turn up the volume too much. Besides, I kind of like to just sit and read and absorb what's going on around me.

Sometimes I just want to sit and introspect enough so that I can figure myself out enough to know what I've been doing wrong all these years. And then change it. Like there's some magical answer as to why things are messed up in my life. Like shyness. Shyness is a weird problem to have, it's not easy to conquer. But there *are* things I could/should be doing differently. A few years ago, I set a goal for myself, that in six months I would befriend someone and invite them out to do something. And then I actually did it. It wasn't that successful, I mean, I ended up going to the mall with this person once and then never doing anything else with her ever again. But I did it. Making goals like that is kind of dicey, since it depends on both you and on another person and if it's not the right circumstances then you shouldn't force it. But still, maybe I should make more goals like that. Maybe then I'd make some progress with this issue in my life.

OK, so...Day 5 of work. I'm not used to working 5 days in a row, yeah, I'm such a slacker. And it was busy, too, the kind of scut-work I don't enjoy so much. Oh well. Now I get 4 days off in a row. Very cool.

I spent an hour or so last night writing a long e-mail to this guy who writes this amazing blog that I've been reading for three years. Three years, unbelievable. I sent the e-mail then immediately thought that I would be coming across as some crazy fan who has nothing better to do than read about a stranger's life on the Internet. Which I sort of am. Then I thought, well, this guy will never answer it. Then he did, and it was such a nice, pleasant e-mail. Really the nicest, probably the nicest e-mail I've ever read. Maybe it has to do with being British and having that sense of manners or something? Or that some people are just really pleasant? I don't know, whatever it is, I just got warm fuzzies after reading that perfect e-mail.

Anyway, I'm going away for the weekend. My sister is graduating. I don't know what to think about my sister. It's like she's too good for us, too good for a backward place like El Paso. Maybe that's not reality, but it feels like it. And she hasn't e-mailed me for a month and I feel kind of ignored. Am I the one who has to do all the work to maintain any kind of relationship with her? Oh well, we're going to see her back home pretty soon, so what does it matter?

I feel like I need to be working and productive. I'm done with relishing the free time and all, now it's so commonplace for me to sleep late and watch too much TV that it's no fun. It's a routine, it's like I'm trying to create some kind of productivity among the chaos. I read Time magazine, the newspaper, Madeleine Albright's autobiography, and a bunch of blogs, just to have some semblance of a semi-intellectual society to exist in. But it's all pretty fake. I guess I want to have a more satisfying job where people actually cared what I did. To have workplace friends, I guess that's what I really want, and it's what I don't have.

To dare to dream, to believe in something. To want something. I struggle with this. Like I just have a hard time saying, this is what I want for my life, I'm not going to compromise, this is who I am. It's always, well, that's too hard, that's never going to happen, I can't do that, yada, yada, yada. And that's just so bad, that's like the worst thing I can do, to live a lie. To be something other than who I am. To have a goal and the discipline to do what it takes to make it a reality, however harrowing and annoying and punishing it may be. That's all it takes to succeed in life.

Today I made dinner again. Decided to try something from 30-Minute Meals. Got two filets of salmon, placed in glass dish, filled to top of salmon with chicken broth. Then I put the whole thing in the oven for 15 minutes. Actually came out good. Moist yet fully-cooked. Then I made a salsa-type topping for it, tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos cooked in some olive oil. That came out really well, I must say. What did not come out well: my attempt to make StoveTop stuffing. It came out really runny and gross. I don't know why, I guess I didn't put enough stuffing for the amount of water I had. Oh well, Mom didn't complain about it and she liked the salmon.

I like cooking. You can knock 30-Minute Meals if you want for relying on packaged foods, but I've picked up a lot from it. I don't want to make fancy things, just quick dinners. I think that's like the number one cooking skill I want to have- the ability to cook up a quick yet tasty meal with simple ingredients any day of the week.

So....driving home from work, a blast from the past:

You Learn
Music: Alanis Morrissette/Glen Ballard Lyrics: Alanis Morrissette
I recommend getting your heart trampled on to anyone
I recommend walking around naked in your living room
Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

I recommend biting off more than you can chew to anyone
I certainly do
I recommend sticking your foot in your mouth at any time
Feel free
Throw it down (the caution blocks you from the wind)
Hold it up (to the rays)
You wait and see when the smoke clears

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn

Wear it out (the way a three-year-old would do)
Melt it down (you're gonna have to eventually anyway)
The fire trucks are coming up around the bend

You live you learn
You love you learn
You cry you learn
You lose you learn
You bleed you learn
You scream you learn
You grieve you learn
You choke you learn
You laugh you learn
You choose you learn
You pray you learn
You ask you learn
You live you learn

Monday night/Tuesday morning. Neil Patrick Harris is on The Late Late Show. For some reason I think Neil Patrick Harris is really hot.

Work is work. I'm never really annoyed to go to work. Which is good, to have a job I actually like. If I have to work, it might as well be at this job. But I do want a vacation sometimes.

Current reading material: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Harry Potter is really enjoyable, I like it even if it is a kids book. I wanted to see why this book has sold millions of copies and now I understand.

It's Sunday night, 1 AM and I am nowhere near tired. I took a 2-hour nap today. Why, I don't really know.

I was in a really bad mood today. I don't get church anymore. I guess my problem is that I have so many questions, I want someone to convert me, to tell me why I should be a Christian, why I should believe the way they do. To just sit there and listen to a lecture of what I should do, and the only reason is that "it's in the Bible", well, that's just not good enough for me anymore. Why are things the way they are, is the Bible true and literal, why is Jesus Christ the sacrifice, why is that so important? Why are all other religions wrong? If someone could just explain all those things to me in a way that is not narrow-minded and not "just because", then maybe the arguments in my head would be put to rest. I feel like a jerk for even going to church and thinking these things.

And then there's work and lack of it. I don't know where I'm going with any of it. I see myself as such a loser, I don't see how people could value me as a worker. If you want to get ahead in a workplace, you have to a) put in extra effort and b) make sure it gets noticed by the right people. I don't do either thing, in fact, I do my best to blend in and not make waves. I avoid any authority figures as much as possible, and I know this is kind of bad but that's just what I do.

It's not like I'm just confused about jobs, it's more like I am trying to decide between careers. What's my calling, I wish I knew. Maybe a job should be just for money, I mean, like it doesn't have to define you, it's just a living, and that's the way it should be. On the other hand, maybe you should search and search until you find a job that's a perfect match to your abilities. Or a combination, something that's sort of a match but that also pays enough to live on? I'm confused. Actually, sometimes I think about going back to school. How easy it would be to get back on that old treadmill, spend my days studying and browsing in the library, doing group projects, writing reports. It would feel like I had a purpose again. I know that's horrible, that I should not do that under any circumstances, since at this point I would just be doing it to go back to something I'm comfortable with.

But at this point I'm just bored. No stimulation in my life, no people to talk to, no new challenges presented, spend hours and hours watching TV and on the Internet, and this is not good at all. It's frustrating, I sometimes think, I went to school for this? I went to grad school so I can spend 6 hours a day watching TV? I have been looking around for other jobs but it's not very easy to get hired. And I don't have a good idea of what I want and even if I did, I'm not a very motivated job-seeker. I don't really want to knock on 100 doors, I don't want people to laugh at the lack of experience on my resume. I guess at this point I'm just resigned to starting at the very bottom, not looking for a great job just a job. Any job.