Battle Kitten: Ascension

[fleaball]

On 6/22/2016 at 11:04 AM, Briniel said:

 

Ugh, that sounds a little like my situation right now regarding chores and adulting and stuff... I keep putting it off and then it just causes more stress. I love your power through idea. And I love that you already started that quest by agreeing to shadow at the animal shelter. Go you!

 

You also wrote something about your flaws and how the flaw you picked may be something to work on rather than a flaw (can't find it right now or I'd quote) - maybe you hit the nail righ ton the head with that... there are no flaws. You're not flawed. If there's something you want to change about yourself, go for it, but you're enough, just the way you are.

 

This cracked me up! I don't think I'd shave if body hear on women was more socially acceptable.

Cheers to all of this! lol. Powering through things is working so far. I've mostly just been answering emails, but it's so great to clear them out of my inbox. (I hate having things in my inbox, but I leave things there til I've responded because I know eventually I'll do it just so I can move them.) 

 

I'm always torn about this. Shaving is such a pain but I love the feeling of smooth skin. Knowing me I'd probably be backwards and shave more if it didn't matter, just because I wouldn't feel the pressure to do it. If that makes any sense. >.o

 

On 6/22/2016 at 11:07 AM, Briniel said:

Oh and I found this earlier on fb and it belongs here:

Yessssssss

 

22 hours ago, Severine said:

I end up doing a weird pose where I rest my foot against the edge of the bathtub behind me, and then kind of rotate my hips and turn my torso around backward so I can see the back of my thighs. It's not very comfortable, but it works. I'll be pretty annoyed if I fall one day and injure myself for the sake of something I wish I didn't even need to do in the first place.

Yeah no, I would kill myself by accident. No way could I pull that off haha. Please don't die. 

 

10 hours ago, athousandwords said:

 

This is exactly how I injured my back

 

My sister volunteers at a cat shelter regularly and it seems like a lot of new recruits 'start from the bottom' - doing laundry, cleaning litter, etc. They have a high turn-over rate of volunteers (she's in a college town, so it's a lot of students coming in and out) so they need to make sure someone is going to stick with it before they make them customer-facing. Volunteers who have been there for a few months get to start manning the front desk and helping out more with adoptions, etc.  But!  Even the helpers who are doing the chores still get a lot of time to play with the cats.  They usually have a schedule of when to do certain tasks, and the rest of the time, they can be in the main room playing.  Not sure if your shelter is similar, but shadowing a volunteer should give you a good idea.

It doesn't sound like there's a hierarchy at this one, just that there are 8 billion dogs that take a lot more work than the like two dozen cats (including a handful of older cats that just live in the "kitty city" room and don't need as much attention) so the dog people are busier with other stuff. As of right now it looks like I might be meeting with the volunteer manager herself next week because she's not sure what the schedule is for other people. Yikes. >< (The way the scheduling works is you login online, find and open slot, and just sign up. As opposed to them making up a fixed schedule for people. So crazy. 

[fleaball]

Cranky Flea is cranky. I'm going down to Richmond for a friend's birthday this weekend. This happens to be the same friend whosee mom's bf is fixing my car. Either she or her mom decided last week that I could drive down and drop the car off (because her mom lives in the same town as the dude and his shop) and then ride down to my friend's house with her mom, who's both going for the party and to move some of her stuff into the house. Cool, that works. Suddenly today I'm being told to meet her mom at the mom's house and leave my car there bc dude will pick it up there and then also drop it off there when he's done with it? Seems like a pain for him but okay, sure. And then my friend tells me he's asking for me to leave like, half of the money with the keys and to give him the rest later. (I texted him for an estimate yesterday and it's a lot cheaper than I expected, whee.) And ofc I'm confused because he didn't say anything about splitting the payment yesterday, but when I questioned it my friend was like "idk I'm just playing telephone." I just don't get why he (or even her mom, who seems to be in charge of this whole thing) didn't say that to me directly? And then my friend was like "do you have cash to pay him this time?" Last time she'd said to pay him in cash if I could because he doesn't have a bank account and cashing checks is a hassle. I'd totally planned on it but he caught me by surprise both times, because a) I wasn't expecting to give him money up front when he picked up the car and b.) due to miscommunication I didn't think I owed him anything when I picked it up from him and was damn lucky anxiety had made me bring my checkbook just in case. So idk if I'm being overly sensitive now because I'm bleeding or if it's anxiety-related or whatever, but the way I read that text was that I was being yelled at for not paying cash last time. So this whole thing has me extra grumpy because I don't like not knowing what's going on and plans keep changing for both getting there and what we're doing once I get to RVA, and I'm dreading the car ride because her mom's kind of a bitch, and Saturday is going to be a barbecue and I'll know most of the people there but I've gained weight since I last saw them and feel gross, and blah blah first world problems. >>

 

ANYWAY. On the brighter side of things, my financial aid decided to come through and looks like it will be in my bank account tomorrow? Which is great. And if it isn't, my car is covered anyway because my mother is lending me the money for it. (She asked when I was getting it done and my frustrated silence went on a little too long, so she volunteered it.) 

 

I might try to get another job application done this weekend. I'm on the fence about bringing my computer with me because I likely won't have time, but I'm also going to be leaving stupid early tomorrow to make sure I get to her mom's on time (according to google the 45-mile drive can take anywhere from 1h15 - 2h45. fuck DC.) so I might wind up killing time at Starbucks if there's less traffic than I expect. So the computer might come just for that reason. 

 

Haven't worked out this week. x_x I have excuses but I'm not going to dignify them by writing them out. 

 

Challenge things. What day am I even on?

 

Day 15 (6.22)

Spoiler

• Allow yourself an hour to indulge in a guilty pleasure
  • It wasn't on purpose, but I played FFX yesterday for a while. So I'm counting it.
• Something you've done right
  • I will always be pleased with myself for deciding to see a therapist forever ago. In hindsight I don't think she was the best match for me, but it was effective for a while. (And okay, she never actually bothered to tell me that I have GAD and not social anxiety like I thought, but whatever.) The bigger thing though is finally accepting that I wasn't just shy and that it was something I could handle on my own if I just tried harder and pushed myself or something. Not only did I start seeing someone, I metaphorically gave my mother the finger when she tried to convince me that I didn't have anxiety. I've never felt ashamed about being in therapy or having an anxiety disorder in the first place, and I refuse to be told how to deal with it. Which is kind of ironic, given that you'd think anxiety would push me in the opposite direction but oh well. 

 

Day 16 (6.23)

Spoiler

• Identify a relationship you want to strengthen and do a grand gesture to kick-start it.
  • I'll do this next week since I'm going away for the weekend. I've been planning to text two friends about going to dinner soon anyway. That's grand enough considering this is me we're talking about. 
• Something you like about yourself.
  • Can I cheat and use the fact that I refuse to feel bad about my anxiety? Ha, or we could go with the fact that Chik-Fil-A has amazing waffle fries and I fucking want them, but I haven't gone there since I found out they're terrible bigoted asshats years ago. Fuck, now I want french fries in general.

 

Also the mouse got caught in the trap this morning (humane one) and I let him go outside but now I have to clean the trap, which is covered in peanut butter and mouse shit. Also the poot guy was covered in peanut butter as well, which means he's probably going to be a snack for something very soon, if he isn't already. 

[NeverThatBored]

Wow, that whole thing sounds like a pain. It sounds like they're not very good planners, and they're making things more difficult for you than they need to be. It's probably just a lack of consideration more than anything. 

[athousandwords]

Ugh I hate it when people don't have their shit together and you get caught in the middle.  That would make me hella cranky pants. >_<

 

Also - I don't eat at Chick-Fil-A either, for the same reasons, but I saw this recently and thought that maybe they are finally coming around?? Or at least a select few stores are... Maybe there is hope for waffle fry goodness one day!!!  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chick-fil-a-opens-on-sunday-to-give-free-food-to-orlando-shooting-blood-donors_us_576016fbe4b053d433064c87

 

...And while looking this up I realized I share a birthday with their shithead president Dan Cathy.  Ew.

[Briniel]

3 hours ago, NeverThatBored said:

Wow, that whole thing sounds like a pain. It sounds like they're not very good planners, and they're making things more difficult for you than they need to be. It's probably just a lack of consideration more than anything. 

Seconded.

 

Stick in there! The money situation sounds really dodgy... I hope everything is going to turn out okay.

And loooove the thing you love about yourself. That's such a huge thing. Go, you!

[Severine]

Yay for victory over the mouse! Yay for financial aid and being able to pay rent and shit! Boo for disorganized people who overcomplicate things. I hate it when people are being completely inefficient and illogical but they're doing you a favour so you can't actually say anything about it or try to fix it because you just need to smile and be grateful. Also leaving cash stashed in a car seems pretty sketch to me. Why doesn't he have a bank account??

 

I've never been to a Chik-Fil-A (they didn't exist where I grew up) but I do love good french fries. I hope I would have the moral fortitude to give them up if they were only sold by companies owned by bigots. 

 

Pretend to be sleepy on the car ride if you can get away with it. I hope you have fun at your friend's birthday thing!

 

 

[Owlet]

Did somebody say peanut butter?!

Love your challenge answers  Good luck with the grumpy-inducing weekend plans!

[fleaball]

13 hours ago, NeverThatBored said:

It's probably just a lack of consideration more than anything. 

Basically this. I love my friend to death but there are times when it's like "we're doing the thing. You're doing the thing. The end." And you don't get to argue. Having spent the better part of the day with her mom, I see where she gets it. This setup was convenient for her and that's the way it was happening. Womp womp. 

 

12 hours ago, athousandwords said:

Ugh I hate it when people don't have their shit together and you get caught in the middle.  That would make me hella cranky pants. >_<

 

Also - I don't eat at Chick-Fil-A either, for the same reasons, but I saw this recently and thought that maybe they are finally coming around?? Or at least a select few stores are... Maybe there is hope for waffle fry goodness one day!!!  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/chick-fil-a-opens-on-sunday-to-give-free-food-to-orlando-shooting-blood-donors_us_576016fbe4b053d433064c87

 

...And while looking this up I realized I share a birthday with their shithead president Dan Cathy.  Ew.

Aww, boo shitty birthday buddy. Idk I'm cynical and an asshole so im more inclined to think that was a stellar team of employees and the company at large is of course not gonna be like "actually we're pissed about these people being decent human beings and getting us positive press." If they ever do a 180 for real though I will be all about some waffle fries. 

 

10 hours ago, Briniel said:

Seconded.

 

Stick in there! The money situation sounds really dodgy... I hope everything is going to turn out okay.

And loooove the thing you love about yourself. That's such a huge thing. Go, you!

It's basically people just not making up their minds. Im sure it'll turn out fine. 

 

Thanks

 

5 hours ago, Severine said:

Yay for victory over the mouse! Yay for financial aid and being able to pay rent and shit! Boo for disorganized people who overcomplicate things. I hate it when people are being completely inefficient and illogical but they're doing you a favour so you can't actually say anything about it or try to fix it because you just need to smile and be grateful. Also leaving cash stashed in a car seems pretty sketch to me. Why doesn't he have a bank account??

 

I've never been to a Chik-Fil-A (they didn't exist where I grew up) but I do love good french fries. I hope I would have the moral fortitude to give them up if they were only sold by companies owned by bigots. 

 

Pretend to be sleepy on the car ride if you can get away with it. I hope you have fun at your friend's birthday thing!

 

 

The cash is in her mom's house with my car keys. He has a key to the house so it's safe. I'm guessing it's just too expensive to have an account? I know from working at a bank that even our small business accounts weren't necessarily worth it for people. As for not having a personal account, who knows. 

 

There aren't too many companies that I remember to boycott, but fuck these people.

 

We actually talked for most of it. It was awkward as hell but I survived. Tomorrow should be great. It includes most of the same people responsible for setting up my OKC profile, which means it's going to be fun. 

 

1 hour ago, Owlet said:

Did somebody say peanut butter?!

Love your challenge answers  Good luck with the grumpy-inducing weekend plans!

Hahahaha cute! Thanks.

 

i was gonna attempt those challenges but I wound up not bringing my computer and as we all know I hate my phone. So. Assume radio silence til Sunday night unless I come on to complain or rejoice about something lol. Or drink tomorrow. 

 

 

[Severine]

Haha I really need to see that OKC profile!

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[fleaball]

If you have an account, my username is muchcatverykitty. (We were drunk.) If not, I'll take screenshots at some point. My therapist told me over Christmas break I should make it a goal just to set up a profile bc I'd said I want to start dating at some point. This came out at the NYE party so of course it became a group effort. It was hilarious. 

 

Too bad the actual being on the site is an exercise is futility. 

[fleaball]

That awkward moment when your friend that you have zero interest in dating comes up as a 90% match on OKC and you want to look at his profile out of curiosity but don't want him to know you were creeping...

 

(Hi I can't sleep bc something in the vicinity of this couch is making random noises and driving me nuts. I hope to god there is a Starbucks we can hit on our grocery run tomorrow. By which I mean today. Fuck.)

[Owlet]

1 hour ago, fleaball said:

If you have an account, my username is muchcatverykitty. 

Hahaha so great. I say be a creep and look, blame that on being drunk too. Good luck with the weird noise!

[fleaball]

8 hours ago, Owlet said:

Hahaha so great. I say be a creep and look, blame that on being drunk too. Good luck with the weird noise!

I think the noise was the leather couch settling? I totally did not sleep well even after it stopped. Womp. Lol I might just see if anyone steals my phone to "help" on OKC. The night we set it up pretty much everyone BUT me went through liking people and messaging them. It was great. (No one initiated messages. But there were several creepy neckbeard types that the guys had fun with. And then apologized on behalf of guys everywhere for what these dudes were saying.)

[Lara]

*tries to know what OKC is. googles it. wonders how did she missed fleaball was a professional basketball player*

[fleaball]

1 hour ago, zenLara said:

*tries to know what OKC is. googles it. wonders how did she missed fleaball was a professional basketball player*

I have many talents.  I'm talking about OKCupid, a dating site/app. 

[RES]

I truly hate I have missed so much this week...

 

[fleaball]

Epic night was had. It was the exact same group as NYE and it was super fun. Also alcohol. Yay. Morning is going to suck though. 

[Briniel]

Glad you had a good time. Hope you're feeling better

[fleaball]

Replies tomorrow. Wasn't hungover, just exhausted thanks to less than 6 hours of sleep. And now my brain is fried. Between that and a 110-mile drive taking 4.5 hours I am le ded. Kthxbai. 

[Owlet]

3 hours ago, fleaball said:

Replies tomorrow. Wasn't hungover

Are you magic??

[Countess D'If]

Haaaay secksi!!!!

[fleaball]

On 6/27/2016 at 0:32 AM, Owlet said:

Are you magic??

I might be. =P With a few notable exceptions I don't really get hangovers. No complaining here lol

 

On 6/27/2016 at 8:59 PM, Countess D'If said:

Haaaay secksi!!!!

hay gurl haaaaaaaay

 

 

Oof. Not gonna recap my entire weekend but I will say I lost faith in a friend who said he doesn't follow current events and probably won't vote in the presidential election because as a straight white man his opinions don't matter. I... what. This is a smart guy who's pretty accepting of whatever. And he said this in a group including a gay black man and 3 queer women (and rounded out by 2 straight women, one of whom is half chinese). Dude. Why. Beyond that moment it was a great night, especially because we went from talking about dogs and children (meh) to Orlando/Brexit/Trump/other serious social and political things, to playing a game more or less like Cards Against Humanity that was soon populated by dick jokes and dead baby jokes and interspersed with feminism. It was great. Sunday was a shit ton more driving and sitting in traffic (with her mom complaining about said traffic basically non-stop. Which, okay, it's annoying as fuck and no one wants to be stuck in it. But it's also a reality when you're driving between Richmond and DC so what's the point in dwelling on it?) My car drives so smoothly now. I'm so excited. I kept thinking the issues with it (like bouncing a lot when I hit a bump or something) were just weird quirks of the car. But nope, that was apparently the busted suspension. I'm so glad I get to drive it now. 

 

Yesterday I did literally nothing beyond playing FFX for about ten straight hours. I had plans to get a bunch of stuff done but it didn't happen. I'm guessing I needed the time to recover from the stress off the weekend, both travel-wise and people-wise. Because I love that group but people. Lots of people. (Also moments of embarrassment and getting down on myself because my answer for "so what are you doing with your life right now?" was "literally nothing." Le sigh.) I was also feeling super sick yesterday, which might be the weekend's food catching up with me. My diet is not the cleanest, but there was a lot of greasy food happening that I had no say in. Plus alcohol. (PS Strongbow cider comes in flavors and it's incredible.) My stomach rebelled in a serious way yesterday. 

 

Aaaaanyway. Nothing new on the workout front. Went on a quick grocery run today to get a handful of things and the worst thing I came out with was tortilla chips. I'm pleased with myself. Holy SHIT there is a massive rainbow outside. 

 

Day 17 (6.24)

Spoiler

Something that feeds your soul: I've posted this in previous threads, but this song is amazing. There's something about it that I can't explain. Like, when I'm feeling down it cheers me up, it calms me down when I need it, and when I'm in a good mood or even excited it can boost that too. It's so weird. It's the most-played song in my library by several hundred. So yeah. 

 

 

 

Day 18 (6.25)

Spoiler

Something that feeds your brain: language things! I don't take nearly enough advantage of the resources that exist. But I love learning new things about different languages. Not just words and grammar, but making sense of "this is why it's said this way" or making connections between English and another language or something. Lately when I have Netflix on I've been putting audio and/or subtitles in French or Spanish and I'm glad I at least do that. There's also a weird sort of contentment I get when surrounded by other languages, even if I don't understand them. Listening to music or watching a video and trying to pull words from them makes my brain happy. 

 

Day 19 (6.26)

Spoiler

Something you feel strongly about: These assholes are in love and no one can tell me otherwise.

  

 

On a more serious note, I'm struggling to answer this one. My problem isn't that I don't care about anything, but I feel like I need to show that I care. Like, I will fight homophobes (is queerphobes a word? I think it needs to be) or Islamophobes or xenophobes or people who don't see the need for Anglophones to learn another language or a bunch of other people. But then I question why I'm not doing anything about it if I supposedly feel strongly about these things. You could maybe argue that getting this degree is doing something about it, but I'm not really doing anything related to my degree right now either. Although I did just spend like 2 hours looking for volunteer and internship opportunities. But meh. 

 

There is serious impostor syndrome in like, every area of my life. Wow.

 

Day 20 (6.27)

Spoiler

Something you love to wear: Uhhh nothing that fits me right now. But the shirt I was wearing in the "share a smile" prompt, whenever that was, is like my favorite thing that I own. I got it forever ago so I can't find an actual picture of it. One day I will wear it again. And it will fit better because less boobs, whee.

 

Day 21 (6.28)

Spoiler

Something you are proud of: Maaaan what's with the almost-repeat prompts? D: I could totally do going to therapy for this one. Meh. Let's go with applying to grad school a second time. For those of you who are new here, tl;dr I went to a school in England that sucked balls and bailed after 6 weeks because it was just not worth the time or money to stay and finish the program. Coming home sucked because it felt like a failure even though it wasn't my fault. So then I applied to the school I'm at now (the only school I applied to) but felt like shit the whole time because I had to ask for rec letters again, write another essay, and tell everyone involved, plus everyone at home, that yeah I dropped out of grad school, oops. And again, it's not my fault, but the looks people give you when you say "yeah i left because it was too easy" tell you how they feel about it. So it was shit. And my anxiety ramped the fuck up and I barely made the deadline, but I applied to this school with exactly zero expectations of getting in. But here I am.

 

I decided to stop doing this challenge because I'm just not connecting with it. Maybe I'll come back to it during the fall semester or something when I'm going crazy and need to focus more on self-care or whatever, but right now the things about "take time for yourself without feeling guilty" and "spend a day in your sweats" and whatever are just not... relevant? Or helpful? And I just don't feel as excited about it as the other one. So I'm not going to stress over it.

 

Also I found out this weekend that a friend is going to see Hamilton and I am so maaaaaad. He suggested I get season tickets to the theater here and just sell the tix for the shows I don't want to go to, but ugh. So much work. And money. D:

[NeverThatBored]

10 hour video game sessions and rainbows are the best!!

 

I would argue that you don't have to "do" anything with a life. Living in the world and being a person and striving to be happy are perfectly good on their own, so you shouldn't feel embarrassed! 

 

 

[Lara]

12 hours ago, fleaball said:

my answer for "so what are you doing with your life right now?" was "literally nothing.

 

That's not true. Why did you answer such a thing?

[fleaball]

4 hours ago, NeverThatBored said:

10 hour video game sessions and rainbows are the best!!

 

I would argue that you don't have to "do" anything with a life. Living in the world and being a person and striving to be happy are perfectly good on their own, so you shouldn't feel embarrassed! 

 

 

I suppose I'm more down about it because there are things I wish I was doing and I'm not? But it's my own fault. Like I could have looked harder for a job or places to volunteer or whatever and actually do something with my time right now. 

 

50 minutes ago, zenLara said:

 

That's not true. Why did you answer such a thing?

Because it feels true. Pretty much all I've done for two months since finals is dick around at home and do nothing productive with my life. 

 

In other news, I just had impressions taken for a retainer and holy shit my gag reflex is terrible.