Eight Lives Left

“External validation of identity almost always means: an existence without meaning.”
– The Last Psychiatrist

Today was a long day. I started work at 5am to get a head start on an upgrade, but things quickly went pear-shaped, mostly because Systems Engineering didn’t do their job correctly. Then I fucked something up (and fixed it right away) but it was fucked up long enough to have an effect so I had to deal with the fall-out from that. Then the stupid work table FINALLY showed up, but the cardboard it was in was full of holes and banged up and when I opened it, the table top had three or four gouges into the plastic. So I had to call Amazon and request a refund, and then call FedEx to pick the package back up (they’ll come tomorrow), and just hope that I get my money from Amazon. Still no office for me.

On top of all that my coworkers all wanted to talk about the guy who killed his kids. Blargh.

I’m supposed to game tonight, but I’m thinking I might just climb into bed with a book and kitties and call it a day.

It sucks that I don’t really have anyone to talk with about what happened. I’m feeling a little freaked out that someone I almost dated, someone I lived with, someone I hugged and cared about (at least until he went nuts on me), would kill his kids like that. I knew he had anger management issues, but this is well beyond that. What is it about me that I attract people who are so very very fucked up? And is Lea right that we’ve moved on and are not in that place we were before, that place that attracts abusers? Because having two crazy people like that in our lives makes me feel very uncomfortable. It was bad enough that the ex-husband tried to kill his second wife and cut her face with a box knife and kidnapped his three-year old son. This is even worse. It’s sick. And I loved and cared about these people who ended up doing these sick sick things.

I am not feeling grounded today.

Scott Montgomery is a name some of you might recognize, if you used to read this journal back when it was on Diary-X years and years ago. He was my ex-boyfriend’s best friend, and he moved up to COS with me and J when we left Dallas. He turned on me because I called him out on being hypocritical about something, and from then on I received a variety of nastygrams from him, some of which I posted to the journal because they were over-the-top in his attempts to be cruel. I remember in particular the one that mocked me for having a hysterectomy in 2002, and telling me it was what I deserved and that he’d have a happy perfect life in the mountains with his family.

That’s not exactly how it worked out. (Trigger warning.)

Full article beneath the cut.

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This evening I went to the house of a woman who’s doing fostering for FoHA (Friends of Homeless Animals). I was met there by one of the main cat ladies for FoHA so she could give me some refresher training in giving kittens their vaccinations. I’m going to be the vaccination lady for this part of Loudoun County, and since it’s been years from the last time I did a kitten vaccination I wanted to have someone watch me the first time around.

It went well. There were three adorable feisty little boy kittens being fostered there, and after we got pictures of them for the webpage, Theresa showed me how to mix the two meds and fill the syringe and give the shot. It’s under the skin, not intramuscular, so it’s not hard at all. In fact the three kittens never even stopped purring or playing while I was giving them the shot, and the moment the needle was out they were off to play with their toys again.

I’ve been slowly picking up more duties with FoHA because I want to do more volunteer work, and getting to do it with kitties is very rewarding. I’m doing vaccinations, and weekly updates of the save-a-pet website, and eventually I’ll be doing blogs for each of the kitties at the shelter. I have to admit I’m looking forward to doing the blogs.

Also on the volunteer front is modding for Freecycle. I was working as a mod for one of the areas here in Loudoun, but when I moved I let the head moderator for Northern Virginia know that I was in a different town for the most part. Her response was to tell me to open a new group with Freecycle and be the head mod for it. Apparently I moved exactly to where they needed a branch-off group and since I’ve been modding for them for about six months now, I get to be head mod. Whee. Or not. Modding a Freecycle group is a lot of annoyance between stupid people and stupid posts. I’m going to give it a shot, though. I find it rewarding.

So, yeah. That’s actually quite a lot of volunteer work all considered, but I’m liking it.