So let's see.

I currently have no car, I'm probably going to get laughed out of the bank and dealership when I go to try and see about a used car loan, I'm pretty sure I can't fit it into my budget regardless, I can't seem to get a part-time job to make up the difference, I'm horribly tempted to e-publish something just to try and make some quick cash, aaaaaand my cat won't stop throwing up.

Not enough FML on the planet right now, honestly.

Soooo ...

... instead of going to the bank or the dealership, I spent the morning filling out online forms and gathering paperwork to be mailed to apply for food and cash assistance from the state. Which, in all honesty, probably has more chance of success in the long run than begging the dealership for a car.

EDIT: And I just applied for the same job that my brother has. Considering he's bringing home almost twice what I'm bringing home, I'll just have to suck it up and deal with working in manufacturing/warehouse jobs again.

Ironically, "No Air" is currently playing on my MP3 player.

The phone conversation went something like this:

Dad: Are you coming up to see your grandparents?
Me: I'd love to, but I have no car and I'm still mad at Mom.
Dad: Hey, you were the one who cursed at your mother.
Me: Because she told me to quit my whining and crying when I was upset! Jesus, Dad, I'm really fucking sick of her treating me like shit every time I get upset, goddamn it.
Dad: ... fine, whatever. Are you coming up or not?
Me: I HAVE NO CAR. After she left me there, I had to call Uncle Richie and we got the car to his house.
Dad: That doesn't mean you can't come up here.
Me: I need a ride.
Dad: It's four blocks away. If you can't summon up the energy to walk up here, then ...
Me: *gets frustrated and hangs up*

So I started fucking walking to my parents' house.

Let me explain something. My hometown is on a hill. It's a steep incline from here on Main Street to my parents' house at the top of the hill, maybe fifty or sixty degrees depending on which path you take. It is not for anybody over a certain age or people who don't do it that often. And it's seven blocks from here to my parents' house. They're ALL uphill, and I'm not really fit right now, and it's eighty degrees out.

By the time I got to their house, I was seriously hyperventilating.

I stumbled past everybody into the kitchen where my brother was and could not catch my breath to save my life. My brother had no clue what to do, so he went to the bathroom. (... as you do.) Five minutes later, after I'd collapsed to the floor because I didn't have the energy to stand anymore, after NO ONE had come to check on me, I crawled over to the bathroom door and banged on it.

My brother came back out again and helped me up, at which point I stumbled into the living room. I still can't breathe. I was lying there for ten fucking minutes -- during which both of my parents went in and out of the kitchen for shit -- heavily hyperventilating before my grandmother came in and said, "Jennifer, are you okay?"

"No, I'm not," I'm sobbing between breaths, and she took my pulse and said my heart was going fast but nothing too serious, and I *still* can't breathe, and my parents STILL had better things to do.

Then my grandma went to the bathroom, and I stumbled up into Bryan's room and lie on his bed for twenty minutes or so STILL hyperventilating. By the time I could breathe again, I was fucking LIVID. I got my MP3 player, which I'd dropped onto the nearest table upon arriving and which had been deposited in the kitchen sometime while I COULDN'T FUCKING BREATHE, walked out onto the porch, gave my grandmother a kiss and said, "Thank you for checking on me. I'm going to go now," then left to walk down the hill, which is obviously a lot easier to handle even though I managed to stifle my lightheadedness with volcanic rage.

... I'm pretty sure I heard my mom and dad tell everybody at the party I was doing it for attention.

I should probably add, in reference to the incident I mentioned before ...

... that if I really wanted attention, I would have walked directly up to my dad as soon as I arrived, threw the nearest glass of liquid into his face, told him he was lucky it wasn't a rolltop desk, and left so that he would have had to explain to everyone that the rolltop desk in my bedroom was what he tried to throw at me when I flunked my first two college classes.

And thanks for the hugs, you guys. 'cause I needed those.

*hugs you all right back*

EDIT: I also spent most of today applying for financial aid and filling out a form for financing for a new (used) car (that will probably be turned down, but whatevs) and shooting off an email to a bankruptcy lawyer. So, you know, I got some stuff accomplished in between all the drama, even if I've barely edited Heroine Addiction today. Urgh.

You want attention-whoring? Okay.

My Facebook friends fall into three categories -- people I knew in high school, people I've worked with the past few years, and relatives. LOTS of relatives. Not my parents, though.

There's a birthday party tomorrow for my cousin. I'm not planning on going, but a lot of my relatives are, including my parents.

I just posted this on Facebook:

JFC, if I were "looking for attention," I would probably pick something a liiiiittle less stressful and painful than hyperventilating myself through a panic attack alone in my parents' kitchen.

They're going to have a LOT of fun at that party tomorrow.

The serious business of not actually being all that serious.

So I've been casually coming up with a playlist for the all-female post-apocalypse fantasy story that I've been slowly slapping together in my head, basically just picking songs up as I hear them lately. Right now the story's a lot of women wearing cowboy hats and guns and magic and zombies and prosthetic legs and pregnant nuns and no real plot (that part'll come eventually ... I think). I think I'm stifling my plotting brain by currently constructing the story by the incredibly serious and intellectual process of going "OMG YOU KNOW WHAT WOULD BE AWESOME?!" and making a mental note to write the FUCK out of that shit.

I'm basically at the build-a-movie-trailer-in-my-head stage. Hence the playlist, which is incredibly short at the moment:

Elbow - Grounds For Divorce (Thanks, callmesyd! :D)
Roisin Murphy - Ramalama (Bang Bang)
David Jordan - Sun Goes Down
Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)

I keep trying to decide if I want slow music on there. Because on one hand, it's after the apocalypse, it's supposed to be depressing at times, but on the other hand, there's TONS of ass-kicking. Or at least there is in my brain.