Where have I been, and what have I been up to? To be honest, it doesn't seem like it's been much, but when you look back on the last few years, it's been a lot.

I think the last time I updated was about two years ago during the whole New York fallout. I kept up with doing the Rocky Horror thing with the Pink Invaders off and on (I took some time off in January...I lied and said I was going back to school when I just wanted time off) until Shawn finally decided to give up the good fight in October. But I really did start going back to school in September. I just came to a crossroads of my own, realized that I really didn't want to be working at Blockbuster for the rest of my life, and the only way I was ever going to get a good job was to go back to school and finish out my degree. I just finished with the fall semester...just barely, but at least I'm finishing up. I have next semester, and then just a few more classes after that and I should be done for good. I went back to doing Rocky maybe back in April and continued throughout the summer until Christina quit cast. And you know...I got tired of it. Christina's my friend, and believe me I'm not bad-mouthing her or anything, but she was the only other Janet in cast. Fez's girlfriend was flaking out on performing, she quit, and I didn't want to go back to being the only Janet again and having to perform every weekend again (especially since I was going back to school for real). So I quit. Didn't give them any warning or anything. And yeah, that was shitty of me, but I had it.

Which led to the REAL fallout, with Zero. One of the main reasons I quit (besides the "I don't want to be the only Janet performing anymore" reason) was the fact that Zero got back together with the same ex-girlfriend he gave me the shaft for after New York!!! Not only that, but she fucking joined cast. And I just had it with the shitty treatment I got from him, leading me on the way he did, not really following through on being a good friend, and then to combine it with having his girlfriend around and them making out and feeling each other up everytime I was within view...yeah. He knew I wasn't happy with him when he did this two years ago, so why the hell did he think I'd be okay with it this time? So I just started freezing him out and blowing him off. I quit talking to him. I was just not happy with him at all. And he's all, "Why won't you talk to me?! I won't know what's wrong if you won't tell me what's wrong!" And then he went on his MySpace and posted this really mean blog about how he was losing his friends. He said he lost TR to booze and women, he said he lost Fester to "just being Fester" (which was stupid--if Zero had actually tried to understand what Fester's been dealing with in the last year, he wouldn't have said that), and then he said he lost me to "work...and anger." And didn't understand why I was angry with him. I shouldn't have to spell it out--he knew what he did. We got into a big spat about it, and then he tried making me feel guilty about everything and making me look like the bad one in all of this...and I had it with him right then and there. Real friends do not do shit like this. Real friends do not pin the blame on their friends. Two weeks before the last show, I tried to make amends with him and tried to be the bigger one, and he was all, "Hey, you know what? I'm not saying a fucking word to you because you're a psycho bitch and you just quit talking to me for no reason at all."

Fucking asshole.

But you know...so what? I accomplished what I wanted. He's not my friend anymore. He quit being my friend a long time ago. I have no room for selfish people in my life who are just going to use me and make me feel bad about myself.

Fester feels the same way about it, too, and even told me he was proud that I refused to let Zero make me feel guilty about it. He was way out of line with the way he handled it. I explained to Fester that the only reason he's been like this is because he's trying to make good with his stupid girlfriend and we're the ones who have to suffer for it. He must really love this bitch (with whom he's broken up with and got back together with not once, not twice, but quite a few times) if he's willing to self-destruct his own relationships with his friends. Karma will bite him in the ass one day, I'm sure of it.

Work has sucked the big one. Around the beginning of this year, my boss' husband was put in the hospital with some tumors near the base of his brain, and she took a personal leave. And you know, it's not like I'm being an unsympathetic bitch about it, but I think she was looking for an excuse to quit. Crystal was going to beauty school, Jessica was going to her classes, and Brooke has her kid to watch, so who was stuck pretty much running the store while Sheri was on her personal leave? ME, that's who. And I really hated how Dave and Patti handled it. For a good two months, Dave would just fax the same schedule over with no changes to it, and everyone would bitch at me when the dates they needed off weren't included. Dave was also scheduling me at 39 hours a week, just barely skirting me under 40 hours for full-time or else he'd have to pay me overtime, which he's too cheap to do. I had to do payroll, I had to set up store inventory, I had to interview and hire new workers...and I am technically NOT the store manager! Finally...after about six months of this shit, Dave and Patti had a talk with me...pretty much told me they were proud of me keeping the store afloat (why don't you just give me a frickin' raise instead of a pat on the back?), and said that they'd try to get me some help in running the store. We had Angela coming from the Portage store once or twice a week to take some of the burden off of me, but she didn't last long, maybe a month before she opted not to renew her managerial contract. (I think Angela got annoyed when I flat-out told her I was not interested in a management position and didn't want to be at Blockbuster forever). Then Patti opted to come help us out from July on, and now Patti is technically our store manager. Sheri's officially not coming back (surprise, surprise). However, last month, Patti had to help out at the Hobart store after their manager had to take a personal leave of her own (for about a month, anyway), and they brought Scott in to help us out. None of us care for him all that much. I can't see what he's done for the store, except straighten out the keyboard problem on the second register and clean the grout on random spots of the floor. (Whoopie-doo.) Yesterday, Patti was telling us that Dave told her, "Don't get too comfy at St. John," and Abby and I flat-out told her, "If Dave relocates you to another store and we have to deal with Scott full-time, we'll quit." So she has been warned. If Dave doesn't watch it, there will be another staff walkout, just like with the Munster store.

Mom hasn't been doing much better. As a matter of fact, she's getting worse. Her short-term memory's getting bad, it's difficult for her to get around, and like I said before...I'm really trying not to be an unsympathetic bitch about it...but how does she expect me to do anything with my life and do things for myself when she makes me do everything for her? This morning, she pulls me out of bed to pay the DirecTV payment online because she's "scared to death to try anything on the computer." She couldn't get Hunter to do this for her last night? And the thing is, how does she expect anything to get done if I'm not around 24/7 to do it for her? What the hell will she do whenever I move out? Sometimes I feel she doesn't appreciate me all that much.

In superficial news...since I get paid considerable more at Blockbuster than I did at Spencer's...about a year and a half ago, I broke down and bought myself a spankin' new car. It's a yellow 2005 Ford Focus. I love it. That thing's my baby. I put so much money into paying that thing off, man. It'll be about five more years, but she's as good as mine anyway.

There's a crapload more for me to post about. I've been on LiveJournal, mainly. It's easy to post on there, and it's way customizable. I got a MySpace account, too, but I don't care for MySpace all that much. Too many creepy people on MySpace, too many losers on MySpace. I only got a MySpace because "everyone has one." *rolls eyes*