Today it cost $47 dollars to fill the tank on our 1999 Buick LeSabre. This is the highest it has ever gone - I remember being able to fill the tank for $25, and being completely distressed when it got to $30. Now I'm just in shock that this is even an amount one can pay for a tank of gas.

My fuel price was 3.09 or so per gallon, and the car took somewhat over 15 gallons worth because we were a little extra empty at the time. But still! It's shocking to spend nearly fifty dollars just to fill up.

All the fun places we used to go that are a bit of a drive, I'm starting to cut back on because while the places themselves are free- the trip to get there wastes way too much of what has become a very expensive resource , gas.

A gallon of milk that once cost around $2.80 is now costing $4.39. A single loaf of bread is costing me nearly $4.00 ! I currently eat multigrain because I'm trying to eat healthier - but how long can I afford to do that if this price trend continues? White bread full of high fructose corn syrup and bleached flour is only $1.89 , after all.

We try to buy thing on sale where we can, but these little bread and milk runs are getting to be a painful experience in themselves.

So where does it end? When do we finally get to the point where we have had enough, and someone in a position to do so actually does something to stop this alarming increase?

When do we get decent jobs that will pay us enough that we can afford a basic, humanly decent standard of living that will let us have not even the luxuries - but just the simple things that we need?

I will vote for ANY politician who would actually do something about this and make our lives better, and not make things continually worse as the current administration has done for the past eight years. White, black, male, female, democrat, republican, independent, communist, socialist... ANYONE.

The problem is I'm no longer even sure our problems are solvable by anyone. I'm not sure that anyone is even really going to try to make the standard of living any better for the poor and average folks out there. But Obama is the candidate I think I have the most faith in - I believe that there's a better chance that he will actually try to do something, so that is who I am voting for.

But what I wouldn't give for there to be jobs in America again - to be able to actually 'look for the union label', like the t-shirt my father wore when he was a proud member of the Boilermaker's Union when I was growing up. Is anything at all made in America anymore?

I read today that they're closing so many parks in New Jersey, because they're understaffed and underfunded. We're heading for a Great Depression anyhow... why not use a depression era tactic and do what Roosevelt did and employ our people to do public works? Why not create jobs, and improve our economy and make us proud of our nation again?

And while we're at it, let's stop making Homeland Security about the vague threat of terrorism. Let's make a homeland that is secure, where people aren't being murdered in the streets of our cities - not by terrorists, but by each other - because they live in poverty, addiction and despair? Let's feed and educate our people. If you tap the phone of the average American, he's not talking about what he's going to bomb - he's talking about how he's going to eat, how he's going to afford to get to work at the crappy job he's too afraid to lose that doesn't pay the bills, that gets him further and further into credit debt and the shadow of foreclosure.

I'm angry when I think about these things - the car I can't afford to drive, the choice I need to make between the healthy bread and the cheap bread, about how the funny noise on my phone could either be static on the line or the government checking to see whether I'm a threat but not giving a damn about how I'm living, about how my husband went to school for seven months to better himself and may wind up jobless in America despite his certifications. I'm tired of our government throwing millions of dollars at an unwinnable overseas war while on our homefront, we are sinking.

WE ARE SINKING.

Where will it stop? Who will stop it? When will we hit bottom?

I don't know the answers to these questions - do you?

The financial situation is still glum, but at least it looks like Aus may have made some progress with the unemployment people. So maybe we won't have to wait until the 19th, at least. My mom loaned me the money for my medications, so at least those are covered. I managed to get the kids school supplies for searching for prices I could afford - I got packs of pens for 7 cents and binders for 1.50 at Staples, and stretchy book covers for 50 cents at Wal-Mart. So at least that's all covered.

Aus got some money for his birthday from one of my brothers, so that's a bit of cash that can go to food or whatever until we get back on track. My mom bought him Sims Bon Voyage, and gave us twenty for gas, heh.

My brother Ron was manning a display from the historical society at the town picnic today. My mom, my brother Joe and I went to keep him company a while - and the kids went along to run about and meet up with their friends. It was a bit overwhelming for me- I'm not much for crowds, beer drinkers and small children running about everywhere, and loud music from a local band. I did get some very good kettle corn courtesy of my mom, though. They also took me out to lunch, which was nice. My brothers are up to a lot of things this month - brother Joe will be teaching a NAMI class on mental illness and how it affects the family on Tuesdays (I think it lasts 12 weeks?). My mom and I are going to go take the class. And we go to the historical society, too - that's once a month on Wednesdays.

Mom also wants me to keep going to poetry, if they're still having it this year, at the Cherry Hill Library. That's once a week on Fridays. She's not being supportive of me by going, however- she doesn't really like poetry. She just wants to go to lunch with my Aunt Marie and Uncle Leon, which is what we do after the poetry. I told her that I didn't really want to go at least this month, because I was already overwhelmed - it would be this Friday, and we already have enough to do. This Saturday is my niece's wedding (which I really don't want to go to, but I'll get to that in a moment). So mom got all pissy and said that if I didn't go, I might as well just quit, because I hadn't gone for the past couple of times they had it, yadda yadda. I don't know where she lives that she's missed all the stress we've been having going on in our life that doesn't leave much room for me wanting to a) write poetry and b) go drive forty minutes away from the house so she can pay a minimal of attention while I read then go to lunch. Yeah, whatever.

On the way home from the picnic thing, my passenger's side window just up and stopped working in the car. Unfortunately, in the down position rather than the up. Right now i have a plastic bag over it, which I will have to remove tomorrow to drive Aus to school. I really hope it doesn't rain before I can find someone to fix it / afford to have it fixed.

Sunday is my niece's wedding, another lovely event that I really have no desire to attend. Even though she and her fiance live in NJ like we do, they decided to have the wedding in a location that's two hours away. Why? 'Because it's pretty!' They're also having it at 11 o'clock in the freaking morning, which means we have to leave at like, nine. I am not pleased. I also dislike dressing up, crowds (as aforementioned), being around people who have been drinking (which will likely be two thirds of the people there), and really don't see much future in this as they are two unemployed unstable people in an unstable relationship that isn't going to somehow get magically better by saying 'I Do.'

What is this trend towards ignoring my emails? ... it seems like I send out emails that are pretty much indicative of the need of some reply. I don't think I could make it much clearer that I want some kind of response without saying PLEASE REPLY TO ME and therefore looking desperate for human contact like some sort of social pariah. Maybe that's what I'm becoming. I try to reply to all the mail I get promptly, and with an appropriate response -or at the very least, a brief note saying I will reply further soon. Why am I not deserving of the same courtesy? Is this just a sign of the times, the way things go? Or am I that insignificant, that I can brushed off and considered not even worth ten seconds of type? Very much a pet peeve of mine, lack of communication.

Edit: Somewhat less grumpy, as I just got a message about one of the interviews I've been trying to set up, hurray! Pierre is the man. Now I will ideally have the material I need to make this an informative review!

We just just had a visit from this guy who looked like a cross between a bum and a rapist who showed up at our door at 8:30 at night to talk to Jeanette about making her confirmation. Which, you know.. it's not my thing. I raised the kids secular, but Jeanette wants to do the catholic thing - okay, that's her business now that she's old enough. But then the guy starts asking all these questions to me... which was very irritating.

Guy: Why aren't you Catholic?
Me: I grew up and got over it.

Guy: What are you?
Me: A writer.

Guy: I mean... religion wise.
Me: A heathen.

Guy: *looking at his chart* Is that.. uh... agnostic? Or atheist?
Me: Depends on the day.

Guy: ... so when you die, do you believe you'll have an after life?
Me: I believe I want to eat dinner now. What does this have to do with Jeanette's confirmation, anyhow?
Guy: Nothing - just making conversation.
Me: Well, it's very invasive. Please stick to what information you need for the actual reason for your visit.

Guy: *turning to my mother* So... do you have a hard time getting around because of your age?
Mom: My daughter drives me places.
Guy: Just once in a while?
Mom: No, whenever I want to go somewhere.
Guy: But she won't take you to church every week?
Me: Look, Buddy... not everyone wants to go to church on a weekly basis, even if they do believe in god. You done yet?

It was very irritating! He was here for a good 15 minutes... and the only real question he was here to ask was where my mother was baptized/confirmed (she's Jeanette's sponsor). He could have asked that over the goddamn phone... or don't they have them in annoying religious guy land? Oy.

I believe that everyone has the right to believe in whatever religion they want. If you want worship/ believe in Jesus, Mohamed, a robotic space chicken in the sky that lays golden eggs, Buddha, Pan, or Harry fucking Potter, go right ahead and do so just as long as two conditions are met:

1) You aren't hurting anyone else.
and
2) You aren't bothering me with it.

Serious. Conversion is lame. Let people make up their own damn minds, thank you very much. I have just as much right to be an atheist as that guy has to be a Catholic. I don't go knocking on his door and asking "So, why do you believe in that invisible guy in the sky anyhow? Isn't that a little silly?"

Mrrh.

Edit: ...according to my mother, the 'scary pedophophile/bum looking guy' is the parish priest. Um... yeah. He wasn't in uniform or anything. That's doublly sneaky!

So I got this call today from a concerned parent, one of my son's friend's mothers... who told me that they were having an emergency meeting down at the high school. Considering that every 'emergency meeting' is about something totally stupid, I had to try pretty hard not to just laugh and hang up. (For example sake here, the last one was because Paris Hilton wanted to be a teacher's aide at the school for her Simple Life show). Today's moral outrage? MySpace.

According to said mother, they were having a meeting warning parents about the dangers of MySpace, and how almost every kid has one now, and who knows what they could be messaging about? And there was a KILLER who had a MySpace, so that means that our children could be being exposed to criminals on the internet! Imagine that! She told me that she was bringing all her kids down to the school right away, so that they'd know why they shouldn't have a myspace in case they were thinking about making one. I didn't have the heart to tell her that all three of her kids have a myspace already. Why doesn't she know that? Because her kids, like about 70% of kids I know, are afraid to talk to their parents about anything they do on the internet because they're sure their parents are going to freak out and overreact.

I told her that not only do all three of my kids have MySpaces, but also so do I. What do they do on MySpace? Message their friends, send annoying bulletins (I know because I'm on their friends list and they message me to ask what's for dinner, and send out silly survey things all the time), and decorate their pages. Has anything awful happened from this? Well, they learned some basic computer and CSS / HTML skills, and their grammar and spelling have gotten better because they write more. Their typing speed has improved. This mother was SHOCKED and APPALLED that I would condone such things as MySpace, and said that I should take myself and the kids to this meeting straightaway to learn the truth about how dangerous myspace really was.

If I had gone to the meeting, it would have only been to point out how ridiculous they all were being. Why don't I worry about my kids on the internet? Because I taught them how to use the internet responsibly, and taught them to be smart and sensible in general. I also provide a good example for them with my own internet habits. That's really all parents need to do. Do I 'keep tabs' on them? I don't read their mail or their messages on a regular basis, no. But they'll call me over to show me something someone has written to them that they find funny, and if I walk into the room while they're IMing someone they don't hurry to close the window, because they know I'm not there to give them the third degree about what topic they're on.

Mass hysteria over two unrelated events annoys me. The killer in question isn't on the loose - in fact, he's now quite dead. So why does it matter that he had a MySpace? That's like saying "Oh my god, a criminal walked past me in the street once - I should never go outside again!" Millions of people use MySpace. Many of them are stupid. Some of them are psychotic. Why, that's just like the 'real world', innit?

As my son said to me, while rolling his eyes "Why are they so worked up? You know, if you don't want someone on myspace to contact you, you can just hit Block. It's right on the profile."

I think my 13 year old makes a lot more sense than the adults here.

/end rant

You know.. things are so much easier when people would just realise I'm right and going to hurt them if they insist on being wrong. It's good to know that you're right, and have the power to back up your words with actions, and use those actions to make nasty little buggers so scared that they confess their evil deeds.

Plagerism in its various forms really pisses me off imensely- mostly because I'm a writer. When Ry's picture got hijacked today, it really made me fume. But after the little fuckers confessed, the day got much better. Now, if the people will just remove it from the site or credit her, we'll all be good and my foot will not have to meet any more asses.

No one messes with my people.

Nomi had the nerve to reply to Kara's post. Yet, lacked the guts to be mature and responsible about leaving, as did Claire. I despise falseness so much in people, damn their black hearts, both of them.

Of course, it was just to try and shift the blame to someone else. Ever this, to blame someone else for their own actions. Never their responsibilty, of course not. Always "We felt we had to do this" or "You made us..." in that sick little symbiotic plural that has come to symbolize their lives. They should just screw and get it over with.

Or grow up. Or both.

Still, it is disheartening to know that people you once cared for are so vile and craven as to sneak off and leave everthing unclosed, from what happens to all their characters who were with other characters in the roleplay all the way right on down to the "hey, we once trusted you so much that you have a lot of our shit, and we'd like it back now".

Shallow, nasty, craven little cowards.

If I believed in hell, I'd almost wish for you both to rot in it.

But of course, I don't. And from my estimations, if I did, I'd say you were both already there.

So what changes?

Nothing.

The sun still rises. Spring still follows winter. None of this will matter in a hundred years, which is like a blink of an eye to the universe.

Betrayal has been a part of humanity since Cain and Able (and I'm quite sure, since that's a Christian myth, in civilizations that went before it.)

That doesn't make it hurt any less.

Its amazing that even though you know humanity sucks in general, the pain is still fresh evertime you're confronted with the fact.

Well, the little bitch has finally done something to impress me. I hope she's proud. She's managed to sink to lower levels than even I thought her capable of.

Worse part is that now we have to change all our passwords for almost everything, and restructure our matterials to take stuff off the domain that she was paying for. This is our repayment, for years of kindness, for making her the maid of honor at our wedding, for spending the summers with her every year.

This is why one should never trust another human being , friends, because when you do, its only a matter of time before they rip their claws into your back and tear your heart out, smiling all the time.

We finally escaped from our room and were going to be online for a bit in peace, because Tim and his wench were in the bedroom getting some, but then they wandered out looking.. well.. you know how people look after.. heh.

Time to retreat again! We're going to live in our room for the next five days.

Warning: Rant ahead.

If you are particularly inclined to read this, do so. If not, use the power of not reading.

I have spent the past few days getting increasingly disgusted with the self centered nature of most human beings. I suppose it started when I read about the Buddhist statues being destroyed because "They were an affront to Islam" . That's just such narrow minded BS. I'm sick of people who think like that.

Then there was the whole Jenna thing. Jenna is Aus's ex-stepsister- and a pathological liar. It is probably not her fault, considering that her mother was such a psychotic bitch. But still. She didn't go to the funeral for Aus's grandfather, then tried to play it off like it was Aus's fault, and she was really all concerned, when she wasn't, and it was no one's fault but your own. If you're going to be an insensitive bastard, at least be an honest one.

I'm also tired of all the instant gratification junkies our society brreds. As the leaders of a very large guild on Neopets (722 people) and the creators of a roleplaying system, we get this -alot-. "I want my free stuff right now!!" "Why isn't anyone playing rightright now?". We do not exist to entertain or please others. We are not here for the enjoyment or the amusement of others- we are not pawns in some larger game. We are human beings, the same as any other, and have the right to not be in the mood to play on demand, or to provide yet another free service for the greedy grasping hands.

And I am sick to death of people that hurt your feelings, then turn around and say "Gee.. I'm really sorry I did that..." then do it again, and be completely bewildered by the fact that you're not going to sit around and take it. Once is usually all it takes for me to be waiting for the other shoe to drop. That's not mistrust, that's common sense.

Then there's the person who's so completely self absorbed they'll blather for hours about their new clothes, and their hair, and about what stupid thing they did with their equally inane little friends- then completely ingore you when you try to tell them one little thing about your life, because its not about -them-. Shallow, spoiled, nasty little bitches.

Oh, and then there's the person who can't understand why you don't trust them, or give them a chance to do things, after you've repeatedly tried to get them to do something so simple, yet they never seem to have the time to help. This is usually the same person who has plenty of time to babble vapidly about their clothing.

I'm sick of people who don't live up to their responsibilites, try to blame others, stab each other in the back, and are generally false, jealous and nasty.

I don't like liars and cheaters. At all.

I don't like buttkissers, senseless flattery, manipulators, or holier than thou people.

That's just so much bullshit.

I especially don't like prejudiced people, whether against gays, religious groups, or races, or gamers, or anything, really. Every person has the right to exist as they wish, so long as they are not harming others.

I hate it when people act stupid because they think its "cool".

I hate it when people just follow the crowd, and let the media or their friends decide what they should like, wear, or listen to.

I can't stand power plays, political bs, or other hostile actions that seem to have become part of polite society because we can no longer just invade someone's castle and decapitate them when we want to make a "takeover".

I hate that there are starving children in the world while every day I hear kids in America whining because they can't have a new pair of sneakers, or a fucking Rio, or yet another CD.

It totally disgusts me when people think the online world is any less real than the offline one. You can't just treat people you meet online like shit because you can turn the computer off and forget about them. Each person out there on the net is a person with feelings, dreams, and sorrows- just like you. To think otherwise is cruel.

I really hate the fact that people who are part of this problem will read this rant and go "wow.. other people suck" and not realise that parts of this are parts of how they live.

There are, however, reasons I don't lose complete faith in humanity. There are those few beings I have met who have truely beautiful souls, who love, and give, and do not hurt others. Unlike the people who are those 90% (and you know who you are) , these people genuinely make the world a better place.. and keep me from wondering why the gods are insane enough to let our species continue.

Maybe its that 10% that makes everything worth while. Maybe someday, when natural selection gets itself back in gear, the good people will be the majority. One can only hope.

Am I supposed to feel sorry for someone who has tons of work because they spent the past four days f'cking around at a gaming convention instead of being here to help with the tons of stuff we needed people to help with while we were doing funeral stuff?

Especailly now that I'm trying to catch up with all the work accumulated from the stuff I couldn't do this weekened because we were caught up in all the death stuff. Nice to know how much your "friends" care about anything behind their own lives.

When this same person returned last night, it wasn't "How are you feeling?" or "Did everything go alright with the funeral?" . No, of course not. That would require thinking about someone other than herself (and her tag-along, sometimes). The first thing she does is brag, brag brag about all the buttons she got, and how they roleplayed for almost 24 hours, yadda yadda.

The other "friend" who went to the convention loaded the bot we've been without almost all weekend, and didn't even bother to show her face to be blatantly uncaring.

There's just some days I hate 90% of all human beings.