Emotions! Y U NO?!

Today marks the first day of Zach's Florida-bound bachelor party excursion for his best friend's wedding.  They are coming back on Sunday.  Today is Friday and they left at about 4:30 pm.  All-in-all, it's about two full days.  So, I pose this question: Why did I find myself earlier in a nearly debilitated state of depression?  Seriously.  I lay on my bed for about an hour and cried.

The weird thing?  I knew this was coming up.  I knew it was only going to be a weekend thing.  Why did this affect me so much?  Why do I know that around 11:30, it will hit me again that I won't see him again until Sunday afternoon/night?  I do not understand. I mean, I realize that I have crazy jealousy issues and insecurities.  For the most part, I manage to control these things.  It's not like I don't trust Zach or anything, because it's quite the opposite. 

He thinks, for some odd reason, that I am mad at him.  I responded to that in a playful manner by saying "Not unless you give me reason to be."  I hope that the tone was conveyed through text message.  You can never tell.  The last time that something like this happened, I was mad at him.  That was a completely different scenario and it would be ridiculous to think that it would translate into every situation.  To be honest, I'm not mad at him at all.  Really.  I'm just sad because I know that it will be Sunday before I can see him again.  I think it's also just knowing that if I need him, he'd be more than his usual five minutes away; I guess I always just kind of flash back to when I was in the hospital in Jacksonville.  (Wow, that was five years ago... I feel old.)

I admit that any reasoning that I could possibly think of for me being mad -- or even sad for that matter -- are entirely selfish.  I'm naturally a jealous person; I don't know why, but it is true and I am trying to work on that.  It's that whole childish, "If I can't have him, no one can" mentality that I hate to admit that I have.  I worry a lot...Perhaps that's it?  There's also this pathetically impairing mental block that I have that says "If neither of us have done X before, we should both do it together."  I haven't the foggiest notion of why I have this mentality, but it is there.  In fact, that odd little block has caused at least two fights in our history that I can recall.  Perhaps that stems from my expectations of a perfect little couple that does absolutely everything together.  That isn't to say that we don't spend time together or anything; we're almost always together, even if we're just watching television.  I know there are no perfect couples, either, but we're pretty good together.  We will have been together for six years in June, so we must be doing something right.

Anyway, I do want him to go.  I'm glad he did and I hope he is having fun, even though he's probably still in the car.  (My geography skills are pretty sad, so I don't know for sure or not.)

I've been working on a list of things that I could do while he's gone.  Funny enough, all of these are solitary.  Zach added to the list that I could go and visit Ashlie for a while.  I considered it for a few minutes, then I realized that the majority of my class is at Camp Autism Smiles this weekend as counselors (their teacher requires it as a grade).  Ashlie is included in this group.  Among my list of things that I could do are working on my armor for my World of Warcraft costume, play video games, and possibly give myself an at-home spa day tomorrow (complete with fake nails, bubble bath, and hair dying).  When I realized everything was solitary, I text Zach with a fake conversation with myself.  "Hey, Jesh, how do you deal with lonliness?"  "Oh, that's simple, self, I isolate myself more!"  I understand how strange that is....

Now, on to the MMORPGs!  [I got sucked into Aion...]

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In Which I Find a Notebook

In one of my classes for the past month or so, there has been a spiral notebook floating gradually to the front of the room.  It didn't quite seem to belong to anyone.  I fought every impulse I had to take it the first day that I saw it and instead let it sit for a few weeks, waiting to find its owner.  Apparently, the owner had since moved on to a newer notebook, so I welcomed it into my bag with my pink binder and textbooks.

I came home and started going through it.  Finding an abandoned notebook to me is like finding a discarded diary of a total stranger.  There was only a name on the first page that was tucked away in the pocket of this five subject, UAH spiral notebook.  If I were Evan Fowler, I would have been rather sad because the UAH bookstore overcharges for anything with the school's name on it.  I sifted through a few pages and learned that he was studying chemical engineering, as it was written on the bottom of a sheet of what I could only assume to be homework.  Everything like that seems like gibberish to me; at least with an education major, all of our work is easily read by anyone.  Whether or not it makes sense to everyone is a different story entirely.

I flipped through Evan's work, but learned nothing more personal about him.  It almost seemed like he was in a freshman composition class because he had a handout on flow charts and what looked to be a small storyboard.  I also assume this because the engineering building is across campus from the building where I found the notebook.  There was a lot of math and he drew a cone very well; this impressed me because cones are rather difficult for me to draw.  I did note that he had an odd habit of skipping a strange amount of pages.

I wonder what separated Even from his notebook.  Perhaps his classroom moved when the contractors were installing the new windows and it got lost in the shuffle...  I feared the worst, though.  I know that eventually, someone would recycle it -- or worse, just throw it away.  Instead, I saved this poor little notebook.  I lovingly pulled out all of the scribbled upon pages and all the little perforated edges that strayed in the binding.  I haven't quite decided what I am going to use it for, but at least it won't be wasted.

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Spring Cleaning?

Ever walk into a house and feel like you're walking into an episode of Hoarders?  Okay, it wasn't that bad, but it paints a pretty good picture.  We've picked up Dungeons and Dragons again, which is so amazing.  The only bad thing is, three of us live here, and one (or two, depending on if Caleb wants to play, too) live about ten or fifteen minutes away.  (Not to mention the fact that I'm neglecting school work to play.  Everything's been turned in on time, don't worry.)  Because I have a judgmental, nosy mother that I live with and Zach is part of a family of six that all lives at home, we'd rather not do it at either of our houses.  That leaves either the long drive or the episode of Hoarders.  (I am intentionally not using the person's name because if he happens to stumble across this and read it, I don't want him to feel embarrassed or anything.  I feel kind of bad enough as it is...)

Now, I would be lying if I said my room was always spotless -- or even that I could always find a clear path on the floor to walk on (hey, it's only one room out of the house)  -- but there comes a point where you just look around and say, "I have to clean all this up."

Heath had recently had a conversation with him about the state of his house, and while Zach and I haven't said anything to him, we've decided on a plan of action to clean it up.  After all, if it is going to be our central hub for D&D, we all need to feel comfortable in it; I feel like I can't think creatively sometimes in clutter, which is a large portion of what D&D is.  His fiance is trying to lose weight for their wedding, but I don't see this living environment to be conducive to a healthy lifestyle.  (Not that I'm one to be lecturing about this, since I'm on a diet myself...)

Let me paint a more realistic picture for you rather than the over-dramatic Hoarders image you may now have in your head.  (I apologize for the vast over-use of the word 'stuff' but I have no idea where to even begin what to call it.)  The living room has a couch to your immediate left upon entering; to the right is a hallway.  All but what seemed like one cushion on the couch was unusable because of stuff.  There are Magic:  The Gathering cards all over the floor, along with miscellaneous change, empty soda cans, and Qtips of questionable origin.  We discovered a hole in the floor where a vent used to be (which was previously hidden by more stuff).  The remaining seating in the room is pushed to a side along with storage boxes, overflowing with stuff and a coffee table that had to be sat on its end to ensure a walkway.  Half the hallway seems to be taken up by...stuff...reducing your walkway to the bathroom.  There are two bedrooms off of the hallway, both piled.  There is a large pile on the bed and on the floor of the only bedroom I looked into.  I picked up a stack of two plates with what was possibly food at some point on it -- it was still there, I'm just not sure it was food anymore.  It turns out that it was actually two plates that had been fused together over time. On down the hall is the bathroom.  Sorry, bro, but your bathroom smells like so much pee; I held it until I got home.  From the other side of the living room is the kitchen, master bedroom and master bath.  I haven't ventured more than a few feet into the kitchen, but it seems just as piled up.  There are plates all over the counter and towels (and miscellaneous other stuff) on the floor to leave only one clear path to the bedroom.  This is a brief, but I think, accurate description.  And again, I'm sorry if you read any of this and it offends you (you know who you are).

Yesterday, while waiting on Heath, Zach started picking up Magic cards to "look" at them.  He formed them into a pile as he gathered change from the floor into a large jar lid.  Before long, the floor was pretty much clean and he went on to the bookshelf.  While he did that, I grabbed a garbage bag and started picking up cans.  I am not exaggerating when I say that the large garbage bag was full when I got all the cans I could see from the living room.  We filled about three garbage bags (not counting can bag) and took them to the side of the road.  His desk and the entire couch is usable now.

Zach and I (unsure on Heath's status in this) are planning to sneak over when he's not home and deep clean.  I've even formulated a small divide-and-conquer plan.  You see, you start with the bathrooms and clean out the bath tubs.  Once they are clean, you fill it with water and dish soap to let dishes soak while you do the rest of the house... Oh, it'll be like a whole new trailer by the time we're done with it.  Like Zach said, "It'll have that fresh, Pine Sol sent in no time."  But there again, he's also the one that said "If he lets it get this bad again, I'm going to burn it down."  Silly boy.

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