I cannot art under these conditions

 

Coco. What to do with the bundle of trouble that is Coco. She’s chewed through my headphones. She attacks Ampersand and not for fun and games. If I show Ampersand affection, Coco retaliates by attacking her the moment my back’s turned. Doesn’t matter if I’ve spent all day holding, petting, playing with Coco. Coco behaves like she’s the only cat and becomes a total bitch if anything breaks this fantasy for her. Maybe it’ll take a long time, but the only thing I can think of as a sufficient punishment is denial of attention. Which. Well. It’s a pain in the ass when she sits at the door crying at the top of her lungs and the second she’s let back out/in, she goes right back for Ampersand, as if Coco blaming her for her own estrangement when it’s Coco’s fault.

What’s worse is that Ampersand’s movement is restricted. She doesn't sleep in the cat tree anymore, only in defensible positions like the top of the bookshelf in my room. I don’t like the way she’s restricted by Coco being a total selfish brat.

I went to the café today to have a break from Coco. Seriously. To not be anywhere near Coco and her constant stream of whines. Away from her relentlessly trying to eat my food, tearing apart my trash and strewing it across the kitchen floor so I can wake to coffee grounds and the bottom crumbs of a bag of cereal sticking to the bottoms of my feet.

At the cafe, I opened up the laptop case to find my headphones gnawed through.

This fucking cat has toys. She has a goddamn cat tree. She has the “Cat Show” (bird feeder) practically to herself now that she’s run Ampersand away. But she won’t settle. She doesn't fucking *sleep*, not if there’s half a chance at getting attention from me. I suppose this wouldn't be as bad if a) I had a larger place b) if there were other people Coco could pester for attention besides me when I’m trying to write or sew or bead.

Seriously, if I’d wanted a pet that required this much time an energy and was this destructive, I’d have gotten a fucking dog.

Am frustrated and a bit upset.

Therapy is. Not a bad thing. I think the most useful thing I’ve gained so far is a better understanding of why I’ve made the decisions I’ve made. Why I’ve made the poor decisions I’ve made. They were choices that supported the wants of others and not my own dreams and desires. Gratifying my (valid!) immediate financial need for employment, but not bringing me closer to a something that will allow me to do a job I’m proud to do. These were the option available.

Jackie, my therapist, wants me to be open to any and all ideas about what I like and not shoot down every notion that occurs to me or plague my mind with thoughts about all the ways venturing out on my own is likely to fail or how total unfeasible the employment option is. But telling someone not to worry about failure or feasibility and not worrying about failure are two different things. She tells me I’m looking way too many steps down the road, that if I shoot things down at the start, I won’t be considering all the possibilities. What she says doesn't not make sense. Still. It also feels like being back in grade school and someone asking you what you want to be when you grow up. And Grown Up is such a faraway country, you can’t even fathom. In those imaginings, you can be anything because there are no consequences to fantasy. All the hard work can be skipped over, the experience of failure after failure isn’t even conceivable. Your realization that you needed to have started preparations for grad school two years ago if you’d ever stand a chance and not two terms before.  

The trouble with knowing what it takes for publication is knowing you don’t have what it takes for publication. Namely, ideas. Ideas are most important. A good idea can be poorly written. And you have to finish. Have a beginning, middle and end. Anyone, everyone, has beginnings. You’re not impressive until you have an ending.

Did I think ideas would come to me? Yes. Yes, I did. Because ideas sort of used to. I thought there were guiding forces to my life and things would happen because things had always come to me. Maybe I was better at recognizing them as opportunities when they sauntered by. Maybe I was better positioned—at the right places at the right time. Then I walked away from them.

Ranting now.

 

Am in such a terrible mood. Angry. Frustrated. I wasn't feeling great after I finished writing the above, but I was feeling better than I had been. Still, I have work tomorrow (5!AM) and there were errands I had to run before I could call my weekend over. I couldn't go home without a working pair of headphones—NOT going to spend another afternoon having to listen to annoying Japanese anime music blaring out over the loudspeakers at the Bean (When you are in a pissy mood, you are not up for J-pop anime). And I needed to purchase food for the rest of the week, even if too stressed and anxious to eat and hideously angry that I have to fucking cook if I want some goddamn thing to eat and can’t afford to eat out and don’t want to eat at a fucking restaurant all on my own a-fucking-gain.

Anyway, I go to Target. I go to Target because I’m looking for convenience and I can get the things I need. Four things. Four fucking EASY things, three of which are Coco Combating Technology.

One: Baby-proof door cupboard door locks, for those whose cupboards don’t have door handles.

Two: A smaller kitchen trash can that will fit in one of the cupboards so I don’t have to wake up in the morning to shit all over my floor.

Three: New headphones.

Four: New storage device, as I need to backup my stories especially if I’m WriMo-ing this year.

The item I thought would be the hardest to obtain was the easiest. The baby-proof thing was in with the baby stuff. It was RIGHT WHERE YOU’D EXPECT IT TO BE, with baby stuff, next to other baby hardware.

Done! Well, that was so successful, I figured trash cans would be a slice of cake. I mean, they’re going to be in the kitchen area, being that you know. You keep your trash can in the fucking kitchen.

Nope.

Okay, fine. Home Storage! There we are! It doesn't make as much sense as keeping the kitchen trash cans in with the kitchen stuff, but there are a ton of plastic bins here, maybe they figured on keeping all the plastic bins together.

Nope.

I paced up and down, up and down, growing more frustrated as there were bathroom trash bins in with the bathroom stuff and bedroom bins in with bedroom stuff and laundry bins in with the laundry stuff. Was it me? Was I blind?

Well, there’s the electronics department. May as well get my electronic stuff and come back for the trash can and if I still can’t find my shit, I’ll ask a red shirt for help.

Went to the electronics. Found the UBS drives. Found the one I wanted, went to pull it off the hook.

Could not remove it.

Pulled harder.

Found that it was locked in. Fuck. Fine I won’t buy your fucking UBS drives. I can buy them later, at a store that doesn’t treat me like a criminal. I go over to find the headphones. Find ones I like.

Can’t remove that either.

Well, I’m not going without headphones, that’s for fucking sure (goddamn fucking anime for two hours).  I go up to the electronics desk to get ‘help’. Around me are people who actually require assistance. They are old people who don’t know which camera to buy or have actual questions who REQUIRE an associate. I do not begrudge them and applaud the associates who take the time to help. What’s unfair is that they are forcing me, who does not require assistance to require assistance and I fucking hate it. But it doesn't take long for a girl to notice that I’m waiting. It only takes her five minutes to find a supervisor who has a key to unlock my items. I take them, put them in my cart, and maneuver to go back out to find a fucking trash can when the girl, who can tell I’m in NO MOOD FOR THIS BULLSHIT asks:

“Will you be continuing to shop?”

This is fucking TARGET. Of fucking course I’ll be doing more shopping, I have a goddamn trash can to find.

I say the worst possible thing. I should have fucking THOUGHT IT THROUGH:

“Yes.”

Knowing I’m not going to be happy with her answer, she tells me that she’ll have to hang on to my items at the back counter until I’m ready to check out.

I need to stop being so fucking honest. You know what honesty gets you? Nothing. Jack fucking squat. You get shit on, taken advantage of. You can’t even walk into a store, pick something up off the shelf and BUY IT.

Neil Gaimen is right. Lie. Lie. Lie. Work out what is it that you need to say to get what you want and say it. If I’d said, “Yes, I’ll be checking right out.” I could have taken my items, searched out a trash can and been on my way.

I threw them back at her, said, “of course you do,” and went looking for the trash cans.

You know where Target keeps their kitchen trash bins?

In Home Office. Because that’s where people keep their kitchen refuse. In their motherfucking Home Office.

So after wasting another 10 minutes to FINALLY obtain a goddamn trash can, I go back to the electronics department. Where other people are still being helped. Which is good! Which is fine! Except I shouldn’t have to waste my time waiting for a fucking person to come over and give me the shit I’ve already picked out. I waited two minutes, thought, “Fuck this shit” and left.

I was fuming by the time I was checking out. Fuming.

The kicker is, I know why they organize these things the way they do: they want you to talk to an associate. Talking to an associate prevents shoplifting and makes you less likely to change your mind about purchasing an item, especially an expensive item. I’ve worked retail. I know this. Which is why when I go shopping for essentials, I’m not looking for a social experience. I’m not looking to make friends. I don’t want to chat. I just want to go in, pick up the things I need and leave. I don’t want people to impose themselves on me, I don’t want to impose me on other people, especially when I’m in a foul mood as I was today.

So then I drove to Best Buy. They’d changed their layout so the headphones were no longer where they used to be. They’ve decided the best way to sell headphones it to place them in a variety of isles instead of all in one place. As such, there’s no sign overhead that says “headphones” to direct you to where they are. Foolish me thought they’d be in the mp3 and iPod accessories aisles, with a wall to themselves. Nope. They were scattered on the ends of the aisles on the other side (from where I happened to be walking). I wandered furiously for about 10 minutes before I worked out where they were and when I did, after looking through all the HIDEOUS colors these things come in (all aimed at men, except for the hideously hot pink pair that NO fashion contentious woman who'd like an ounce of respectability would every purchase) and the very second I put my hand on the one I want, a sales dude comes over to ask:

"How are you?"

"Fine," Fuck off, dickwad.

"Have you found what you need?" FUCK THE FUCK OFF.

You should all be proud of me for not punching him. Because the only reason he came over, I’m sure, is because I look 16, and 16-year-olds who wander the store for a long time before honing in on headphones MUST be out to steal them.

 

At least I know where everything is in the grocery store and I've shopped there enough no one treats me like a fucking thief and I can use the self-check out and NEVER SPEAK TO A SINGLE PERSON THE ENTIRE TIME.

Sorry to rage. I HATE being forced to waste my time like that, HATE being forced into interacting when I don’t want to. Because I work customer service, I HATE turning into the monstrous, raging asshole who is upset about things the big wig company owners determine and I, as a lowly, meaningless, powerless peon have NO control over. Usually, my compassion for the shit job they, we, have is enough for me to be pleasant, to not send my food back into the kitchen or accept this kind of crap, but today my cup was full and I could hold back no more.
 

Done

 
Yeah. Those headphones I just bought?

Took them out. Tried them out. They work great! Turned my back for five seconds while I fried up an egg for dinner and when I turn back, Coco's up on the table, gnawing on them.

Owned for no more than a few hours before Coco destroyed them.

I know, I know. It's my fault for leaving them out when I know this was how the last pair met their end. I know she's a cat and doesn't know any better. I know she's bored and just wants to DESTROY KILL DESTROY. Her prime directive is to seek out things to knock over, to shred, to chew, to ruin. She doesn't know the ordeal that I went through to buy those fucking things, doesn't understand that I have to pay cashy money, of which I have next to nil. Intellectually, I know she can't possibly be doing it on purpose, but it feels calculated.

But I am so on my last thread tonight. 

Am seriously thinking Coco has to be re-homed as much as I despise the thought. But I can't afford to buy a new pair of headphones every goddamn day. Or always buying trash bags. Or sanitary pads. Or the silk shirt she ruined because she wanted to climb the clothes hanging up in my closet. Or the cat toys she's constantly destroying. Or ensuring I'm not going to get back the deposit on the apartment by tearing holes in the carpet and somehow chipping off the bottom corner of one wall. It seems that every time I take away something for her to rip apart (trash bags), she escalates to tearing up the carpet or biting Ampersand. This is the THIRD time this evening I've had to put her in the other room and you know what? I think she'll be staying there. Not necessarily because she deserves it, but because I can't fucking take her bullshit.

Will call Pam tomorrow to seek behavioral advice, and if that doesn't work out, Coco can find a new home.

Sad. Miserable. Feel like a bad person for doing this to Coco, for putting Ampersand through this shit. But so fucking angry.