It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

Today was like...the best day ever. My ribs hurt from laughing and my cheeks are sore from smiling.

Ness should have birthdays every day :D <3

Too tired for details, but I am just so happy!

It's already 2012 where I live. Here in Montana it's still 2011, but only for a few more hours.

These last few days with my family have been perfect. Yesterday I bought sheet music for Malik and we wandered around, talking. I played games with them all. Kelly keeps asking me to tell stories because apparently I'm hilarious. My aunt is here too, which is awesome. And oh oh, Malik had to do this project on 12 Angry Men for his English class. So he wrote, played and recorded a song in like an hour. And it was awesome. So incredibly creative, it's ridiculous.

I can't wait for 2011 to get the heck out. Here's to 2012 not consisting of jumping from one natural disaster to the next, combined with personal disasters that never seem to end. But really, I wouldn't change these last few days for anything. If 2011 always ended this way, I would slog through it again and again.

My family is amazing.

Cantabrians, Treat Me (http://www.treatme.co.nz/Christchurch) has a deal for a $79 dentist check up and clean. I totally took that, since as a poor student I can't usually afford the dentist. Now to book in before heading to the US. Which is difficult since much of my time before I head off, we're going South to Fiordland. Though if I don't use the booking before I head off, I have until the 2nd of Feb. I'd like to do it before though. YAY dentist!

Guy Fawkes was awesome. I hate fireworks and since I live two houses away from Firework Park, I decided to partake in some Bravery Vodka in the form of vodka and oranges. Better than anything else where you can taste the alcohol, bleh. Apparently I spent a great deal of time hugging people and clinging to Alison's leg. And Woot says I nommed his ankle. I also professed my love for Simon about 20 times and called him pretty, according to him. Spamming Tumblr askboxes is so classy. Hey, at least I'm an affectionate drinker. And now that Guy Fawkes is over, let's just NOT have more Bravery Vodka. Until next year.

I have to say, it did help. Instead of screaming and hiding and crying, I was lying on the grass and staring up as the fireworks went off above me. It was pretty.

Now if only all my friends were well again, that would make me happy! In the meantime, I will settle for walking to the store once it's open, and purchasing and eating a chicken. Yep.

EDIT: DENTIST BOOKED for Wednesday at 9:30am. Woot! Now to the store for chickens!

EDIT 2: AUUUUGGHHHHHHH I opened the door to let Helios Tiberius Fassbender in and a white-tailed spider FELL ON ME! AAUUUGGGHHHH HEART-ATTACK SPIDER! So I killed it in the midst of my freaking out and then felt bad I didn't just trap it under something and relocate it. Sorry, spider. But pls no falling on me.

I don't know if I could ever possibly explain the hilarity of Alison and me trying to push/pull/drag/spin this rolling chest of drawers from the garage to the house. It is too heavy to carry and has no handles because it is meant to be rolled. But the ground is pebbley and dirty and the chest of drawers didn't want to go. So we dragged it awkwardly and drawers came out and it tipped funny and then we settled on walking it by tipping it one way and then the other so it ambled like R2-D2. This was after we have to move this huge thing in the garage to even get to the chest of drawers.

We giggled the entire time. And then Alison said she wouldn't have traded the experience for anything.

So now I have a chest of (Woot's) drawers so I can get my closet sorted, as I have been using my suitcase as pseudo-drawers for over a year now. Then I will hang up the rest of my pictures on the wall and my room will be all done! And I can post photos of my little paradise!

Now if only I could find a Papasan chair! I WANT ONE SO BAD YOU HAVE NO IDEA! And all the ones on Trade Me are too expensive and on the North Island. Screw you, Trade Me. GIVE ME A PAPASAN!

I have been so productive the last few days. I did my meeting, shopped, got my hair cut, contacted Petersgate for counselling, went with Alison to take Helios to the vet, finished over half of my essay BEFORE the day before it's due (I know, right?! and I am pleased with it, too!), did some work for my mom, did some dishes, and dyed my hair. I am about to go shopping again for other stuff we need. And wine glasses, since I broke one the other day and now we have only two (I think...) Then I will make chili and cupcakes. And the day before that I did a million errands as well. And not a single bit of it made me anxious.

Awesome.

Talked to my sister and my mother on the phone which was a grand way to spend the afternoon! My step-father is so adorably awesome, by the way.

Mom: "Larry, I'm on the phone with Lara, do you have any questions for her?"
Larry: "Is she happy?"

I'll tell you what, Larry, the fact that you asked that makes me very happy, indeed. You win all the things.

♥

I used to spend my life in my high school theatre. There were days I could be at school from 8 in the morning until 9-10 at night. I didn't drive until I was 21 because instead of taking driver's ed, I was doing everything I possibly could in that theatre. I ate, slept and breathed that place.

When I was in my final year of high school and I was on my way to rehearsal when I saw a little girl in the hallway behind the theatre, crying. She was about eight and I went over to her to ask what was wrong. She said her mother was supposed to pick her up a half an hour before that (why she was being picked up at a high school when she was 8, I still do not know) and she was scared that her mother had been in a car accident. I asked if her mother had a cell phone and she nodded, so I led the poor girl through to the speech office so she could try calling her mother.

When there was no answer, and the girl started crying again, I told her we should go out to where she was supposed to be picked up and I would wait with her.

I ended up waiting with her for nearly 45 minutes. I kept her calmer than she probably would have been by talking about stupid things and telling her ridiculous stories about myself and my very strange friends. Her mother eventually came by and the girl hugged me and they went on their way. I have no idea why the mother was late, or what happened, but I never saw the girl again and I don't remember her name.

What I do remember, was that I was late to my rehearsal. I knew I would be, and since one of the advantages of my crazy brain is that it traps things inside its cage of memory, I had the entire play memorized already so I figured it would be okay. The director wasn't pleased however, and he informed me of this. I told him I had been waiting with a scared, little girl, and he asked me why that was my responsibility.

You know...if that's how you think, then I guess it wasn't. My responsibility was to my cast mates and my director and despite the fact that I was never late before and always went above and beyond to help and be do whatever I could to move the production forward, I was still late this time and that had inconvenienced people. I still feel like the right thing to do was to stay with the poor girl. What about my responsibility to help out another human being; to care for someone who was scared and alone? If I had been that scared little girl, I would hope someone would have extended the same kindness to me. I just apologized and we got on with it, but I never really forgot that.

I'm not someone who can pass people by. Which is why I am the one who ends up sitting with the homeless person on the street who passed out and hit their head on the pavement so hard they are bleeding into their eyes, while they wait (for over an hour) for the ambulance to come. The amount of people who walked by that day, averting their eyes so they didn't have to see, makes me feel ashamed. I don't ever want to be that kind of person. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing, despite the fact that I am not okay. The helping people is as natural as breathing. It's not going out of my way, because helping people is my way. It's everything else that's the problem. Forcing myself to leave my home, when it's the only place that I feel safe. Forcing myself to talk to people, even though I'm terrified of it. All that functioning as if I don't panic about every little thing, that's the hard part. It makes me feel like I have no right to act like I could actually help. I feel barely human. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But I won't. I can't. I'm taking responsibility. I just wish it wasn't so hard.

This made me cry.

What I Know About Women: Tim Minchin

( Tim Minchin, you are beautiful. This is beautiful )

Alison was supposed to go to bed but she just came out here to get a drink and there is no way that we could possibly ever explain the conversation that just occurred between us, but it was epic hilarity though it was the kind where you had to be there and now my stomach hurts from laughing. It was pure ridiculousness and we both laughed so hard, and I feel like I might vomit.

And then I thought, "you know what? I think I feel like this at least once a day." I think living in a house where you laugh so hard you think you might vomit at least once a day is pretty damn awesome, no matter what else is going on in my messed up little world.

Long live the LFoD and all it's denizens, past and present!

EDIT: For more examples of why the LFoD is the greatest place on Earth, I present Alison's Overheard in the LFoD tag in her journal which is chock full of hilarity and quotes.

My head hurts from laughing.

Had a wonderful time the other day with Kate and Tina, despite the random rain and Westfield Riccarton being evacuated. I still have no idea what that was about... But yes, YAY lovely! We went to The Cup and had lunch and Tina and I talked about American Things, you see. :D

After having a wonderful day, I was all hyper and lalalala! and then I tried to sleep early because I had to get up at 7:30 for a conference call. I was smart and stuff. I went at like 9:30 because I actually felt tired. But no. I stayed awake all night. And thought about things I had to do. And when I ran out of real life things, I thought about role play things. I fell asleep for about fifteen minutes and dreamed a conversation with Simon I only remembered wasn't real in the middle of the next day when I realised it was about John and Patrick opening a donut bar... (Chelsea suggests they call it HOLY DONUTS and I think she is the most adorable thing ever)

But mostly I was awake. And THEN I couldn't figure out the STUPID number to the conference thing, so I was 20 minutes late to the conference call. And then I was tired all day yesterday because of no sleep. So I kept almost crying for no reason. Finally put myself to bed around 10, hoping to sleep for about 12 hours and then get started (well more started, I did some when I was sleepy) on this work thing for my Mom.

Then I was awakened by a 5.1 earthquake (as I wrote this, the tiniest aftershock just happened!) and they have been happening all day and ARGH!

But I am warm, despite the cool day outside. I am safe, there was no damage to the house, my housemates are okay, and I have my kitty. And so much else. Despite the little rant, I reckon I'm doing far more than just okay.