I don't think you know

I got the job at the bookstore, and I'm ecstatically happy about it.
I have magnetic poetry on my door (it's a steel door), and sometimes I like to put messages up where I hope certain people will find them. Last night, I stuck the message up "my ma thinks I'm a failure" today she came up and talked to me about going to Okoboji (I won't be going this year because of jobs), money (typical) though she wasn't yelling about me about the porch floor (thank God), surprisingly. Anyways, after she left my dad came up wanting me to look at some things with him, so after locking my door to go downstairs, I notice my mom changed the message to "u must expect from yourself! failure never" What the hell does she know about what I expect? I expect stuff from myself and I meet those expectations, but I guess since I don't expect the same things that she does, I don't expect anything from myself. What the hell does she even know about me? It's not like she takes the time to learn about me, and when I do share things, it always seems she's got some way to knock those things down, or put me down.
Now, I'm pretty sure she doesn't think I'm a failure, but if she would act toward me that she doesn't that would be really nice. Following my brother, who got out of college in 4 years (I took 4.5) knew exactly what he wanted when he went in (I was accepted into the Design College, switched to the Business College before starting, and ended up getting a Bachelor of Science in Criminology and Sociology from the Liberal Arts and Sciences College), got himself a great paying job when he got done (I still haven't), is living on the 19th floor of an apartment building in Chicago with a view of the lake (I'm renting from my parents), making nice money (I'm barely making enough to pay my bills), and knows what he wants to do with his life if he doesn't he's sure putting up a nice facade (me I have no idea and I show it every day). I'd love for my parents to harp on him about not having a girlfriend, and praise me for having a boyfriend (and someone I would love to spend the rest of my life with, they don't know that part though). But I never hear anything bad about him, all the disappointment is about my life and my lack of a job and my lack of money.
If I went their direction, and stayed in business and somehow made the grades to graduate and get a good job, I guarantee I would be very miserable, I wouldn't have met Kevin (I know that for sure), and he is a huge part of why I'm happy with my life.
I love telling people that I don't care what my mom thinks, but it still hurts when I let her down (if I didn't truly care, it wouldn't make a difference). I think somewhere deep down I really do want to please my mom, actually I know I do, as much as I love to say I don't. I wish someday she could tell me she's proud of me, but those words are few and very far between, I don't think I've heard it since I graduated college, and before that I don't know. And that hurts.
I've been listening to Hate Me by Blue October a lot lately (partly cause I bought the download on Amazon not so long ago), and I realize some of it explains how I feel about my mom. Bolded parts are what i relate to

Hate Me
by Blue October

I have to block out thoughts of you so I don’t lose my head
They crawl in like a cockroach leaving babies in my bed
Dropping little reels of tape to remind me that I’m alone
Playing movies in my head that make a porno feel like home
There's a burning in my pride, a nervous bleeding in my brain
An ounce of peace is all I want for you. Will you never call again?
And will you never say that you love me just to put it in my face?
And will you never try to reach me?
It is I that wanted space

Hate me today
Hate me tomorrow
Hate me for all the things I didn't do for you
Hate me in ways
Yeah ways hard to swallow
Hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you

I’m sober now for 3 whole months it’s one accomplishment that you helped me with
The one thing that always tore us apart is the one thing I won’t touch again
In a sick way I want to thank you for holding my head up late at night
While I was busy waging wars on myself, you were trying to stop the fight
You never doubted my warped opinions on things like suicidal hate
You made me compliment myself when it was way too hard to take
So I’ll drive so fucking far away that I never cross your mind
And do whatever it takes in your heart to leave me behind

Hate me today
Hate me tomorrow
Hate me for all the things I didn’t do for you
Hate me in ways
Yeah ways hard to swallow
Hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you

And with a sad heart I say bye to you and wave
Kicking shadows on the street for every mistake that I had made
And like a baby boy I never was a man
Until I saw your blue eyes cry and I held your face in my hand
And then I fell down yelling “Make it go away!”
Just make a smile come back and shine just like it used to be
And then she whispered “How can you do this to me?”

Hate me today
Hate me tomorrow
Hate me for all the things I didn’t do for you
Hate me in ways
Yeah ways hard to swallow
Hate me so you can finally see what’s good for you
For you
For you
For you

in ways hard to swallow

I was watching Dr. Phil the other day, and something he said so applies to my mother. The show was focusing on spouses that abuse their larger spouse. And they were all calling the other one degrading names because they were fat, and they kept saying they were encouring them to lose weight. Dr. Phil said that if what they were doing wasn't encouring the spouse, maybe they needed to change their tactics. That applies to my mother, I think she thinks she's encouraging me to find a job by whining at me about jobs and money, and maybe she needs to realize that she should back up and let me deal with it. She also has me doing random things around the house, and she has the tendency to check my work at the end of the day (or at random times), and then she goes back and do more at it. Like right now, I'm scraping and painting the porch. Well last week, she kept checking every day and scraping (on the most weathered piece of wood on the porch that's going to continue to peel until the end of time) and then she went and painted part of it, and whined at me cause I actually had other things to do. Now today when I get home from the library she's out there scraping away on it (on the other very weathered pieces of wood). DAMN!! I wish I had money.

I hate my mother. Plain and simple. It's 9:00AM and I'm seriously thinking about going and getting drunk because she pissed me off so much this morning.
I'm very glad I got this job because now I won't get to go on the family vacation and listen to her whine to me about money and shove it in my face how much I could buy and what they are buying for me because I don't have money.
Thank you mother for making my life hell right now, when I have enough things to deal with. I shouldn't have to worry about you on my ass all the time. I know I need to find a job and start making money, I know you don't need what you're proposing to me. I know you're just being the bitch you always are and are doing your best to upset me, because that's what you do.

My mother's driving me nuts. Nothing new there, right?
Anyways, I'm scraping and painting the porch for her (she keeps saying I'm staining it, but I agree with Kevin, if I have to scrape it off, I'm painting it), and every day she comes out and rubs her finger on the wood, and if even a miniscule sliver of paint comes off, she decides I haven't scraped it enough. It's a porch, it sits out in the annoyingly hot weather (god awful humid lately) it's been rained on lately, and just normal wear and tear makes it so it keeps flaking. SO IT'S GONNA FLAKE ESPECIALLY IF YOU RUB ON THE PARTICULARLY WEATHERED SPOTS.
I just looked at the weather and it might rain. Crossing my fingers that it will, beause then the porch will be too wet to paint.

If I could walk on water

I hate my life.
My phone rang this morning, I'm in the living room, it's in the bedroom, but I knew the only person that would be calling me would be my mother, and she'd be pissed cause I ignored the 2 calls from my father yesterday. I didn't see the point of going in to see what the message was about, so I'm expecting my mom to come pounding up the stairs and yell at me. When I did go to check my message, she was saying how she had a window for me to get started work on, and that she wanted to deal with my light bulbs in the kitchen (they're those big long flourescents and they went out a couple weeks ago, my mom thinks its the light bulbs, Kevin says its the ballasts, I'm more apt to believe Kevin, I'd love for my mom to buy new light bulbs and then have them not work), I don't know why she's so bothered by the fact they don't work, she's not living up here, she doesn't use them, hell I don't even use them.
I hate not having money. I spent all the money my parents gave me for my birthday on bills and I'm pretty much back where I was before I deposited it, and I have more bills coming up on the 15th. I'm guessing I'll be walking down to Target today and applying there. I just wish every job that I applied for hired me. I may not really want the jobs, but I don't show that when I go in to the interviews. I hate this, I know it's part of the job process, but this is the first time (ok 2nd) that I've applied for jobs, gone through the interview process and not been guaranteed the job. Honestly I have no idea how I've lasted this long without a constant income.
I wish I could just leave and never come back here. If I didn't have Kevin, I'd seriously look into leaving here. I know I've loved living here, and it works great for me, but pair the tension of my parents and not having a job, it's really getting to me.

I wish you good luck in whatever you do

So, I have some of my ATC's at the Ankeny Art Center (that link on that page takes you to a photo contest, I sure hope they're gonna fix that), and I told my mom I'd help her out with an ATC sewing workshop tomorrow. She calls me up last night and asks what I'm doing tomorrow night (tonight), and I said making ATC's for the swap (they're also doing a swap with the artists tomorrow), and then she complains that she needs me to help her organize for this workshop cause it's the last minute, and I said that I didn't know what she was doing. She said well you never took an interest in it. I told her I'd help out with this workshop a few weeks ago, and she never brought it up again, and somehow it's my fault???? So, now I'm seriously debating whether I really want to go along with her tomorrow (I believe I will end up doing it, because I did tell her I'd help, but being in the car for 30+ minutes there and back with a grumpy mom is not so fun).
And in this same phone call, she asks how far I'm on this 2nd set of windows (see earlier post), and I told her I hadn't been home all day, and then she proceeds to complain, saying I had to have time in there. If I didn't have to do them, I wouldn't, but I don't really have a choice.