Friday the 13th

Woot! Friday the Thirteenth. The East Village Bookstore in the (duh) east village is closing and they're selling all of their stuff today and tomorrow. I'm pretty damn excited! Mara is picking me up at 12:30 and we'll meet Michael there. I'll be able to read something on the way to the Spam Museum this weekend! After work on Saturday, Michael, Anthony, Ryan, and I are taking Anthony's car to Cedar Rapids. We have a hotel Mike's Mom set up for us there. There's a place in Cedar Rapids with dated 70's decor and a giant 'L' Sign for Leonardo's. They sell pizza and really cheap nachos. Mike and Anthony pledged to go back and eat there, so that's the first day of our trip. We'll spend the night (maybe we'll have a pool?) and then leave the next morning. On Sunday, we'll drive to Austin Minnesota and pass through my dad's home town of Charles City. I'm excited because I miss the houses there. Maybe we'll stop there for lunch? Then- to the Spam Museum! Free admission is cool too. We'll get some spam-necessities and come back home in Des Moines. Perhaps stopping at other places as we go.

On another note. It's getting a lot harder to talk to my dad or listen to him. It's not like, I'm some punk ass teenager and he "doesn't understand me". It's hard to live with someone like my dad because of his Bi-Polar Disorder. He changes subject, doesn't speak clearly, and I can't talk to him. He'll tell me all about his day and getting his oil changed, but doesn't tell me that Jim Hawk has changed their hours to close at 8:30. So when he told me,"Yeah, I had someone come in late and didn't get out 'til 2:00 AM..." I know that's that true anymore. He's at the Prairie Meadows Race Track. I really worry about Dad going to the bank into my account and making withdraws for me. I have no bank statement or list of transactions where I can see how much he's been taking out of there. That really worries me. A whole bunch.

In the Spring

Here I am to write a depressing blog about my emotions. I rarely find myself typing at joyous occasions or times of happiness. This is probably because I'm living and enjoying life and don't have time to waste sitting at a computer. Here in these winter months though I find myself alone on the couch, watching hours of CNN or HGTV and TLC. On one hand I sit in front of the screen listening to worries and questions of Barack Obama, the economy, and a failing housing market. On the other hand I day dream while watching people changing their lives, being creative, having warm families and houses.

I come here to type because I don't know who to talk to. I feel guilt when expressing my own woes to others. My father rarely pauses to hear my concerns when absorbed in his own. My friends are going through much of what I am or worse. My boyfriend and I talk about our ambitions of large houses in a suburb or a small crappy dank apartment downtown. Either way we look optimistically towards whatever we can achieve in life, whether it's doing fairly well or barely getting by, we feel better knowing that we make the choices. No longer inheriting the mistakes of another generation or succumbed to another's poor decisions. No matter where I land myself in life, it will be by my own doing. It's a common feeling among my peers. Soon it'll be our time. And It'll be a better time.

I'm optimistic. Though worrisome of my father's troubles, the state of cleanliness in this house, and of the occupants that reside therein this house, I look onward. I won't be here in year. Almost a year. I turn 18 in May and graduate next spring of 2010. So close yet so far away. I know that if I can just get by until then. People as they get older start looking back. At the good days. When things were simple. Today, I look forward. To a better tomorrow where I have an affect on my future and I can decide. Where I work in a job I actually like, live in a home I love, and have family that's around or cares.

I worry more about the now than the future. I feel stuck in this cold winter. Helpless as to change things. I think "just until the snow is gone... Things will be different. I know it will." This spring will be close to my last in this house. Next spring I'll be so preoccupied with graduating and heading to college so this year, I'm packing up most of my old things and putting it on the garage sale. I'm learning to grow up early. Part with my bulky hand me down desk found on a curb. Willing to let go of the baskets and bags of stuffed animals. Decluttering my old notebooks of middle school and taking down the posters on my walls.

When school gets out this spring and my room is almost clear, I'll help fix the holes in the walls, paint, change dated light fixtures, and garden. This will be my last summer here before I graduate. I know my older brother doesn't care how Dad will sell the house. If he thinks that leaving so much garbage and food around the house bringing cockroaches and leaving his dirty boots on the white rug in the bathroom is fine- I don't see why he'd help Dad fix a knick in the wall, or replace the flooring.

In fall I'll have a car. Finally. Oh- and of course, a license. With this, I'd be able to get a different job downtown if available, closer to the field I want to work in with printing, music, or design. I'll have a complete savings and investment plan to safely accumulate my college fund. My applications to college will be secure and in my senior year I'll be earning several college credits that go towards my major in design, such as photography, graphic design, webpage design, and business.
In next spring, I'll be making the plans to finalize everything. My prom. My graduation. In June, I'll be taking wedding photos on my weekends. During the week, I'll be trying to earn more hours and save. Evenings will be spent going on bike rides and photographing pictures of sunsets. Photos for future career portfolios.

Fall of 2010. It all comes down to this. Hopefully moved out by then, working part time, living in a tiny studio apartment downtown, going to DMACC, and enjoying life.

I feel good looking at my collage of pictures in my room. Posters from DMACC. A college countdown calendar. Pictures of the Des Moines skyline. Gray's lake. Thompson Ave. Meridith Publishing- my someday employer. Java Joe's and Vaudeville Mews. Making money on the side designing band websites, t-shirts, and cd covers through college. Collectively over time pieceing together examples of my work so that someday, I'll be taking those beautiful pictures in Home and Garden Magazine of dainty colonial houses, lush gardens, and strawberry recipes.

It feels good looking at that poster and then I zone back in from the tv set of "House Hunters." Here I am in a cold Des Moines winter on my laptop browsing photo art online. My art desk in the corner is out of place and full of clutter of supplies. Music is playing loud from Thomas's hole in the earth- the basement. The room is dark and hurts my eyes. I've been on this uncomfortable worn couch for too long. I see my collage poster leaning against my art desk. I've almost come to tears looking at the snapshots of 801 Grand in the distance or the Meridith trowl. I feel like I should bring myself to do something. Go take pictures, go for a walk, or mingle with the artists in the Court Ave. area. Why am I not at work earning money for college? I don't mind only working one Thursday a week because there's the other people I think need those hours more than me. In the down time between work and school, I sit at home watching tips of how to decorate my dream home. Some day....
My back hurts from sitting on this couch (as old as me) and I go into my room. I take my laptop with me and sit in my bed. Listening to the inaudible bass line of a song on loop in the basement. Footsteps go back and forth in the hallway. I think about just until spring. If I can just wait until then.

In spring, it'll all be set in motion. Things will change. Maybe Thomas will move out? But I think- probably not. As I watch a show of an ambitious young couple buying a first house, Thomas is sitting in the blue tattered chair as I watch the show. I think about that being me some day buying a house. My daydreaming is shattered by Thomas standing up and yelling at the TV,"You don't need a house! You don't need to move! You don't need to!" He shakes his head and mutters 'no' as he leaves the room. I doubt he'll move, but I can hope.

Its hard to see the TV with the glare on it from the window. We have an old curtain track that needs taken down seeing as it has no curtains. The sunlight also shows the streaks of Mountain Dew on an art piece my mom had of carefully cut paper hands, and words. I refuse to clean it, Thomas sees no need, my dad mentioned it, but changes the subject to complaining more about my brother. New window curtains. I make a mental note of it. That's something we'll need to get to. In the spring.