If you sneak up on me when I'm home alone, you'll get shot.

I'm a total pussy. I'm afraid of my own shadow. I won't admit how many times I've gotten shampoo in my eyes because I've opened them in the shower, convinced something was creeping up to kill me. I have an irrational fear of the dark, and am terrified of not-normal hiding places (that grudge girl was creepy, damnit!). I've seen way too many scary movies, which scare the shit out of me, and yet horror is my favorite genre... Do I learn, or at least grow a pair? No way.

So I'm taking three classes this semester (while working full time... I know, I know. I'm insane). One of them is a Literature class, which I'm VERY excited about. The first week we were assigned four short stories. One I had already read (I read it again anyway, 'cause I'm awesome like that), a new one I had heard of but hadn't read yet, and two by Edgar Allen Poe. I was very excited about the Poe stories. I've read quite a bit because my hubby wrote a research paper on Poe for our last English class, so naturally, I had to educate myself so that I was qualified to make informed edits. These were new ones though (new TO ME, obviously). However, although I'm aware Poe stories are often creepy, they aren't downright scary. I've never been as scared of a Poe story as I was when I read The Shining. (The bedroom lights stayed on for weeks after that one! But in my defense, I was like 13). That is, until last week.

So I decided to read "The Fall of the House of Usher" at about 11 pm. I shut down the house (all lights except the bedroom), turned off the tv, and climbed into bed with the book. I had already read the first half of the story, and it was going pretty slowly, so it never crossed my mind that the story might scare the shit out of me. PSA: If you haven't read it but plan to, this is where you should stop reading. So the narrator is visiting his buddy Usher, who has lost his fucking mind. But even the narrator is kinda creeped out by this house. Anywho, Usher's twin sister has just died, and they have her in the dungeon, right below the room the narrator is sleeping in. There's a storm outside, and the narrator is creeped out and can't sleep, and Usher comes in because he knows the narrator isn't sleeping, so the narrator starts reading this story to him. There's a knight on an adventure, and he bursts through the door to get to the dragon, and the narrator hears it happen in the house. Then he slays the dragon, and hears a shriek in the house. Then the hero pulls a shield down, and the narrator hears metal in the house. And if you're observant, you haven't forgotten about the FUCKING DEAD BODY downstairs, and the little details like the loud metal door on the dungeon. And the narrator stops reading, and the crazy guy tells him that he heard the noises too, just like he always hears them, and that it's his sister and she's probably right outside the door now, and OH MY FUCKING GOSH MY PHONE GOES OFF!!!!! I almost had a heart attack, I'm not even fucking kidding. The narrator is hearing noises in real life while reading an exciting book. Really right now?!? That's not the kind of shit I need to read about while I'm alone in a dark house!!! Thanks a bunch, Poe! You just did the same thing to books that The Ring did to the television (I know you did it first, for obvious reasons, but still...). Just. Fucking. Great.

So, for once, I've learned my lesson. I had to reread "The Yellow Wallpaper" for this week's class, so I read it while getting a pedicure. Take that.

If Transformers ever happens, I'll be the first to die.

All electronics hate me. I'm not even fucking kidding right now. I know that all people say that when the printer jams, but really, no joke. So after my fiasco with the truck a couple weeks ago(first the alarm clicker thingy rejected my battery and made me replace it a million times, and the damn alarm kept going off, then the truck needed a jump start), my car wouldn't start the following week. It was making this rapid clicking noise, so I had to get my buddy (yeah, same one who jumped the truck. I owe this guy endless rides to the airport and help moving for life) to cart me around. I dropped my car off at this awesome mechanic. He called me the next day and told me it needed a new battery and he wouldn't charge me for the diagnostic or labor. (Advantec in University Heights - what what!!!).

Okay, so my car died and cost over a hundred bucks to repair. Then my phone starts telling me that "This device is not compatible with iPhone" but, ummm... Nothing is plugged into it. This was ongoing for a couple of days, and after a few hard resets, my phone managed to narrowly escape me throwing it against the wall by shaping up. That's what I thought, bitch.

Then last night, after I got home, my tv worked just fine. I turned it off to go to the gym, and when I got back it didn't want to fully turn on. Backstory: sometimes when you turn my tv on, it makes a sound like it's warming up, will flash the picture for a second, then turn it off and the lights on the front will flash. It'll think about it for a few seconds, then turn on for real. Well this time it just kept cycling through. It would flash the picture for like 4 seconds, then flash the buttons and think some more. Over and over and over again. Who knew my tv was such a fucking tease. It's too bad you can't rape a tv. That would show it a lesson! So I decided to let it rest and just went to bed. Today when I got home from work it did that for about 30 seconds, then I heard a loud POP! noise, and now it won't show me anything. Fucker.

I'm an extended warranty kind of bitch. My dad always said "If it weren't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all." Well, I inherited his luck, so I pay for the extended warranty on everything I buy. I pulled out my trusty warranty for the fucker and wouldn't you know it, it expired TWO FUCKING WEEKS AGO!!! You have got to be fucking kidding me!!! It was a four year warranty! My fucking tv worked fine for exactly 4 years and 2 weeks. Bullshit. Now it'll be $150 just to come out and tell me what's wrong with it.

So I went and worked out, and when I got home I decided to go start the truck because I want to drive it to work tomorrow (part of my plan to never have to jump start it again). And wouldn't you know it, it's dead again.

Fuck electronics. I'm gonna go read a book.

Chivalry is DEAD.

I'm not completely hopeless when it comes to cars. My dad taught me to change my own break pads on my camaro when I was 17. I know what spark plugs and pistons are, and understand their functions. However, when it comes to jump starting a car with a dead battery, I'm completely hopeless. iPhone to the rescue!

When the hubby deployed, I told him I would start his truck a couple of times a month so that it wouldn't be dead when he came back. And I did it... at first. I know it only takes a couple of minutes but I'm lazy. What can I say? So after a lovely conversation with my dear father, I decided it was once again time to start the truck. I put a fresh battery in the alarm clicker thingy (hey, I never claimed to know proper terminology) and headed over to the garage we rented on the other side of the apartment complex. I open the garage door and push the disarm button. Nothing. No beep. Shit. I try the door, and it opens (thank you Jesus). I turn the key in the ignition. Nothing. Fuck.

So I call my neighbor/coworker/friend and ask him if he owns jumper cables. He does, and is home, so he drives his car over and helps me hook the stuff up. Yay iPhone!!! According to my research, it will take a while (that was the technical measure of time multiple websites gave) to charge it from being completely dead, and if you accidently touch the clamps to one another, you will not die. It will hurt badly, but it will not kill you.

So we get the truck started, and I am advised that it is a good idea not only to let it run, but to drive it. Okay, I get as far as my apartment, and it dies again. I open the hood and wait for Friend to come, and during the time that I'm leaning up against my truck with the hood open, not just one, but two guys see me and don't offer any assistance. One is the carpet cleaning guy (understandable) and the other is a neighbor who stops is truck, gets out and throws some trash in the dumpster, says hi, gets back in his truck and leaves. Okay, whatever. Friend comes back and jumps it again, and tells me to take it on the freeway. I get as far as the turn lane at the intersection outside my apartment complex and it dies there. Fuck fuck fuck. I call Friend again, who says he'll be right over. I can't even turn the hazards on because, duh, the battery's dead. So I wave cars past me who are pulling up behind me and wait. Some guy passes me in the opposite direction, slows down, and shouts out his window "You're fucking lights are off!!" I yell back "I'm broken down!!" and he speeds away. Fucking douchebag!! What kind of an asshole do you have to be to yell at someone like that?!? I was so caught off guard that I couldn't even form the word douchebag at the end of the sentence, but regret not doing so. He deserved it.

So we got the truck going and I decided to call it for the day. We jumped it the next day and let it charge, and I drove it for a bit just to make sure. Now I really am going to drive it to keep it running. For real. I mean it...

A kick in the face.

Has something ever left your mouth without your permission? No? Shit. Well this happens to me daily. I took my mom (in law) out for coffee after church on Sunday (yes, I'm a cafeteria Catholic thankyouverymuch! You may not have guessed that because of the amount of times per day the word "fuck" leaves my mouth, but you may now stand corrected. A post for another day...). Anywho, I'd been craving an iced coffee for Ishityounot a week and my husband can tell you that if I'm craving something I will bitch about it until I get it no matter how long that takes. So I order a quad venti iced nonfat upsidedown caramel macchiato (wow, I really am from California, aren't I?) and when the girl calls my order and I pick it up she hands it to me and says, "You must have a lot to do today!" Before I even know how to respond my mouth says "Yeah, I need to clean my whole apartment." WTF?!? I didn't okay this plan! Who the fuck told my mouth that my apartment needed to be cleaned? My eyes? Oh. Well then. Now I stand corrected. Well played...

I'm thinking that subliminally I realized that since I had a root canal on Tuesday and subsequently felt like I got FUCKING KICKED IN THE FACE for the past week, my apartment has gone to shit and although my conscious self was refusing to acknowledge that anything was wrong, my subconscious had enough.

*~*SIDE STORY*~*

So I go to the specialist to have this root canal and he leans the chair back and starts to work on my mouth (that's what she said) when that song "In Your Eyes" comes on. You know the one. Peter Gabriel. Say Anything. Oh yeah. Love that song. And the fucker (the dentist, not Peter Gabriel) starts drilling into my mouth and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD AND ALL THAT IS HOLY I'M NOT NUMB I'M NOT NUMB PLEASE STOP OH MY GOD!!! My arm shoots up (the agreed upon method of alerting the dentist that you can feel something) and he stops immediately. He then gives me this shot that I shit you not makes me flinch. This is, of course, after he's already given me a million painful shots in the beginning. I'm slightly numb already but it made me fucking FLINCH. Anywho, he starts again, but by this time it's taking all my energy to blink back the tears in my eyes and not sob uncontrollably (I'm already shaking). And Peter Gabriel is still singing, as sweet as can be. Now that sweet memory of cute little John Cusack holding the boom box over his head is forever RUINED by the damn dentist from hell.

*~*END OF SIDE STORY*~*

So I get home and flop down on the couch with my coffee madness and watch some TV for a while, but boredom comes quickly and I start weighing my options. I look at the clock and whatthefuck it's only 11:00! It's too early for wine, even by my standards. Damnit. And then the caffeine starts kicking in, and I remember those horrible words that escaped my mouth in Starbucks... And I look around. Okay: game plan. I need to clean the litterbox. (sigh) I also need to vacuum. I have no more clean bowls so the kitchen needs to be done. I can't see my dining room table, so the mail needs to be sorted. 4 things. No sweat.

Except I have ADD when I clean. Or all the time. Whatever (semantics). So the first thing I do is clean the litterbox, but I can't just scoop, or change the litter, I have to scrub the damn box with disinfectant so that it's CLEAN. Thirty minutes later... I febreeze the carpet in that area and vacuum that corner. A few times. But wait! That's right by the bathroom and I realize that I haven't swept the bathroom floor in forever and the broom is now an outside broom so I sweep with the little broom that goes with the dustpan, but the toilet is dirty, so I clean that (inside and out) and spray the shower down with the cleaner that needs to sit, and start the floor mats in the washer. I vacuum/febreeze another third of the carpet and get to the bookcase and turn the vacuum off. The dvds were all pulled out at one point to load onto hubby's external hard drive for his deployment and so they're all out of whack. So I sit down and alphabetize them. But that leads to dusting the whole bookcase. Which leads to reorganizing the books. Which leads to securing the bookcase to the wall. Which leads to sweeping the patio (because the power drill is in the outside storage closet, off the patio). Which leads to cleaning the end tables (where I set the power drill down). Which leads to cleaning the coffee table. Which leads to moving the coffee table and febreeze/vacuuming under it. Which leads to cleaning the entertainment center thingy. But then I realize the shower is probably ready by now, but the mats need to be moved to the dryer, but I can start the blankets from the living room in the washer. Then I clean the shower. Then the rest of the bathroom. Then wash all the towels. But I step on something on the kitchen floor (laundry is off the kitchen) so I sweep the kitchen floor. Then wash all the bedding. Finish vacuuming the living room, and then give it another full go with the vacuum, just for good measure... By the time I've finished vacuuming, most of the house is clean, I've done like 6 loads of laundry, and it's like 6 pm. And the dining room table is still covered in mail, and I still have no clean bowls. Game plan? What game plan?

Prostitutes and Common Courtesy

When I got married, my husband and I reached an agreement. I don't do trash. Not my thing. He doesn't clean the bathroom. Not his thing. Deal.

So now that he's gone the trash piles up until I can't stand it anymore and finally grow the balls to take it out. Now since I'm only one person, and I work full time, that takes a while. Long enough for me to forget whatever it is that I've put in there. I reached that point today (mostly because I did the litterbox and refuse to let my kitchen smell like cat shit, because that's apparently where I draw the line). I lifted the bag out of the trash can and holy fuck what the shit did I put in the garbage can?!? Did I somehow forget about a body that I cut up and threw out or what? It seriously took two hands to lift that damn thing, and I think I proved I'm not a total pussy after my day with the jackhammer at Habitat for Humanity. (Oh yeah, and that totally proves I have a heart. Take that! But I digress...) So I suck it up and start moving toward the door, when what can only be described as garbage spunk starts dripping down my leg. WTF?!? Can a bitch not even get the courtesy of a warning?? That's just rude, if you ask me... No manners at all.

Okay, one more thing to bitch about, and then I'm done, I swear. What the fuck is up with whoring it up to go to the gym?? I can understand if you're still wearing makeup from your day. I'm there at 6ish so I understand if you just got off work, blah blah blah. But seriously? Fake eyelashes??? Fake eyelashes are only excusable in certain situations:

1. Performances (dance, stage, etc) and maybe a super formal occasion

2. Halloween

3. Prostitution

This bitch walks in wearing leggings, a push up bra, and a super low cut, white (see through), v neck shirt. Oh and her head band is color coordinated to her bra and running shoes (which are pristine, btw. They were purchased for aesthetic value, not functionality). She gets on the elliptical for maybe 15 minutes, spends most of the time on her phone, then saunters back out. Are you kidding me? I'm sweating my ass off trying to lose weight and these bitches just throw up what they eat and pretend to work out. Whatever. I hope your esophagus disintegrates. Prostitute.

SuperBITCH

So since my husband was recalled and deployed, I'm discovering lots of new things. Mostly, however, these are things that I dislike.

Living alone? Yeah. Fuck that.

"Oh, but Katrina, you'll get to know yourself and have time to really discover who you are!"
Really?!? Shove it!

I'm mainly just creating a running list of shit I don't like about living alone. And at the top of that list? Yes, above taking out the trash (yes, I know, it's all my trash, shutthefuckup), is SPIDERS. Granted, I knew I hated spiders long before I lived alone, but why is it that when the hubbs is home, the spiders I find are baby daddy long legs in the bathtub. Seriously?

So the other night, I decide to take my laptop to bed with me and finish an episode of Lost (what what!!) there. Usually, when I make the journey from couch to bed, I call out and one or both of my cats follows me. Emmie starts to follow, but stops at the doorway and won't come all the way in. Evs, her loss... I continue watching and becoming increasingly confused (seriously, we're flashing forward now?!? wtf?!?) and she starts meowing. Really right now? I call her. She doesn't move. She's sitting in the doorway with her back to me. Still meowing. This goes on for another five minutes. It's odd, but so is she, so I disregard it. But she seriously won't shut the fuck up, so I grow impatient. I call her and finally get her to come over to me, but she doesn't get past two paws on the bed, back paws on the nightstand, staring at the door. She goes back into the doorway and resumes the incessant meowing. Either this is Poltergeist and I'm going to have to start throwing tennis balls into bright lights, or she needs me to change the litterbox before she shits on the floor. Fine. You win this round Cat.

I go and get a bag, turn on the hall light, and remove the lid to the litterbox. When I do this, a spider the size of the aforementioned tennis ball (okay, I might be exaggerating a smidge) and super mean and scary looking desperately clings to his web, and bounces over to the wall. I'm not even kidding right now, this thing looks like something out of Arachnophobia. I panic. The first instinct is to run into the living room, at which point I realize this spider is in the doorway to MY BEDROOM ohmygodIloseconsciousnessinthere so I realize I can't just flee. Or I'll seriously never sleep again. I find a shoe, and about seven smacks and untold amounts of profanity later, the spider is dead. I change the litterbox, vacuum up the spider remains and half the living room (maybe the other spiders will run in fear, like the cat?) and return to Lost. *sigh*

The boy cat, Zero, curled up by my feet (he knew I needed comfort in the post traumatic period after the attempt on my life). The girl laid down on the floor in front of the litterbox. I don't know if she was upset because I stole her kill, or was guarding my life. I've chosen to believe she was being a guard kitty, remaining vigilant in case the need arose to warn me of subsequent attacks.

I decided to go to sleep after so much ass kicking. I needed my rest for the next day when I would be building a house because I'm just. that. awesome.