Yes, I get up late on service days, since I don’t get a chance to nap later on. Rather than come downstairs to request food, then go back up to shower, I shower first and try to have stuff ready before coming downstairs. Stop lecturing me about “keeping weird hours,” especially when you’re the one staying up until 3am cooing over puppies.

And for the last time, I’m NOT going to eat a $300 penalty just to can the insurance contract early, it’s cheaper to just wait until the term is up and close it out at renewal. >_<

ARGH.

I need to do something… this “living in a vacuum” nonsense is getting to me.
If I wasn’t already painfully aware of my irrelevance to the universe… I don’t know. It’s getting to the point where I fear I’m offending people with my very existence, so isolated and uncultured and such. I could watch nothing but news channels all day (in fact, I DO), but I still feel ignorant.

“LOL BULLDOGS” is a legitimate reason to have not been able to do much of anything, but it’s not the only one. Probably the ass-backwardness of dealing with the DMV (such as being penalized for what I thought was following the rules) dropped a gigantic nuke on my confidence, and I’m such a timid, incompetent tool if it’s taken me this long to even BEGIN to regenerate…

I can’t instantly grow a backbone. (with apologies to fanafox and others who share her sentiment on the matter) I don’t care how much others think I’m “talented” or such nonsense, it does not enable me to just will myself out of this… lacking of any kind of confidence, not after years of being told how much I’m a good-for-nothing and how I’m so unappealing that nobody will ever want to associate with me.
I can, however, jumpstart it… I think…
…but I can’t pinpoint how, or where to begin.
I wonder if I need to fall back on something…? Something that I was pressured into casting aside or just indulging in secret because others pointed or complained, or declared me a bad person over it…

Buh. Perhaps I should sleep.

This is a stupid thing to be annoyed about, but at the same time…

My mother and stepfather watch TV… mostly stuff about dogs (lawl) but also, well… let me put it this way, please tell me I’m not the only person who finds the thought of a 65 year old man being a fanboy for Ugly Betty, or just about any show meant for younger people for that matter, to be just a BIT creepy. (If you saw last night’s SNL with the middle-aged dude who was a fanboy for Zac Efron, that’s not too far off.)

But that’s not what bothers me.

It’s how my mother calls just about every woman who makes any sort of sexually-motivated comment a slut. And she says it like it’s something to laugh about. It’s odd because she’s otherwise squeamish about swearing.

They were watching some dog training program, and there was a demo on how to greet an unfamiliar dog… afterwards, the lady was chatting it up with the owner and playfully asked “can I pet YOU?” I shall translate this into internet for simplicity’s sake.

Mother: OMG. SLUT! lol
Evil Stepfather: lol XD
Yoshi: o.O;;; okay, was that really necessary?
Mother: y so srs? killjoy >:(

I know there are bigger things to be all “argh STOP IT” about (like, oh, mother’s inability to think anything through, or her “I can throw you away at any time” view), but this is just as much a “nails on a blackboard” moment. Yes, mother hates people and can’t be bothered to go outside and put SOME attempt into making friendly with the neighbors because, now, she thinks they’ll all call animal control on her (though she still claims it’s my fault the neighbors hate us because I’m so ugly), but, come on… is it REALLY necessary to call women sluts like it’s something cute and funny? That’s just really tasteless and unfunny.

But, what do I know? I can’t even confront mother over that because I’m “too serious,” yet it’s okay for her to be silly all the time without considering the consequences of her actions, so it’s not like my opinion counts for anything here…

Bleh.

Slingbox: YOU MUST HAVE AN INTERNET CONNECTION TO PROCEED WITH INSTALLATION
Yoshi: Um… I AM on the internets.
Slingbox: NO YOU AREN’T, LOLS
Yoshi: This icon in the corner? That is my network. It says I can has internets.

Why does my Slingbox think I am a liar? All I want to do is tap into my replacement Slingbox so I can finish configuring it. I should be able to just do this LAN-only, but noooo, they want me to log into my (Also it forced me to patch, but because SOLO-series use different firmwares, it appears to be safe from the dreaded brickware on the Pro units. Just to be safe, I’m doing mine first before I add in mother’s.)

Argh, finally it lets me in. All seems well, now I just need to beat mother’s wireless bridge into submission. @_@

Yeah, I’ve had no itch to draw… or do much of anything. I load up Painter and I’m all “bleh, what am I doing…?” and stare at it for several minutes before I either close it or go read forums or, worse, doze off.

Also I still fail at sleeping at night. This is made worse by California being all “lol I want it to be SUMMER!” and suddenly it’s 97F for most of the day. (Oh, Kestine was SO not amused by this, probably less so than me. Poor kitty… fending off ear infection that I’ve spent the past 10 days giving him eardrops for, and now it’s suddenly hot and he’s sneezing lots and lots. He goes for a recheck on Wednesday.)

The MMOs are just to make time go faster and such. There… really isn’t much else to do otherwise aside from other incompletes in my pile. Damn my non-existent confidence and fear of setting off CACOPHONY OF WOOF. Seriously, the slightest unexpected noise just triggers all the dogs into a barking fit… but the part about that which annoys me the most is Evil Stepfather trying to shush them. IT DOES NOT WORK. IT ONLY MAKES THEM BARK MORE. Why does he not get it? Oh, right, he conveniently goes deaf if I try to– yes, even tactfully– mention it.

Also nobody seems to listen to me on why the bulldogs keep snarling at each other… and getting into scraps. Hello, three of the bulldogs are male, one of which is not neutered (mother refuses to get Wilson neutered, she’s all freaked out about anesthesia… WTF). Has nobody considered “same-sex aggression?” And that just about every bulldog breeder around here warns against if you’re going to get more than one? You would think at least mother would since she’s convinced Louie and Toby are gay (I am SOOOO not joking, she’s all giggling at how they teabag** each other while tumbling and, well… look really turned on by it, to put it politely). And yet when they all start fighting… well, not that I would mind a downgrade in the population, but only in the context of them being resold back to the breeders or otherwise transferred into better-equipped homes, as opposed to mother killing them out of anger as she did to Lucky in ‘00:

“You know, when they all fight like that… I’m a bit concerned you might snap and get rid of them in anger.”
“OMG why would I do that? o_o”
“*ahem* Lucky…”
“Why do you have to bring her up?” (this was the only time I did, to her, in recent memory.) “You always have to be so negative!”
“I don’t want a repeat of you throwing others away out of impulse–”
“Well nobody’s going anywhere…” *proceeds to coo and babytalk the bulldogs and forgets about the conversation*

LOL BULLDOGS.
Actually, what makes me REALLY depressed about this? I don’t even like these dogs, yet I probably know more about taking proper care of them. These workaround solutions that mother’s using… they’re just workarounds. They seriously need more obedience training, even if it feels like just rehashing the same old stuff. I’m an idiot for agreeing to that 9-month CD, I should have gone with a smaller term because I want to buy mother in-home dog obedience lessons for Mother’s Day but it’s sure to put a huge dent in my checking account… which I am supposed to make last until January. Unless, like… well, no, I did all that repair work for House Cantlay because it was a critical situation that couldn’t wait, and blaaah bad Yoshi no more venting for now.

*beep*

**FFFFFF I knew I should have taken video of bulldog teabagging and posted it during all the “LOL TEABAGGING” shenanigans. Oh, you people and your double-entendres. :P You want teabagging? You watch the Pups of the Apocalypse.