Edumacation

I am throwing around the idea of attending school to become a paralegal.  An offer has been made to handle my tuition and, at this juncture in time, I am really sort of free-floating on the career front.  I have a career, I have skills, but apparently at this time, in this economic climate, I am not going to land anywhere that I want to land.  Jobs cleaning motel rooms and ringing up ding-dongs and gas purchases are not out of my reach, but anything that would contribute to long-term career goals is.

I’ve always been interested in the legal field, and have given the idea of paralegal training significant thought before.  It was only financial problems that held me back.

There is a reasonably-priced program at my local community college.  I would enjoy the training and, more importantly, I believe I would enjoy the work that follows the training.  Research is sort of my “thing.”  I write reasonably well, I am analytical, and goddammit, I am good at dealing with people.

So I am kind of excited about this.  I’m also considering a tax-preparer course so that I can work as a tax preparer starting in January.  It’s only seasonal, but it’s a super-affordable course that I already know I can pass, because I’ve already taken it.  I just didn’t finish last time.  Gah@me.

It feels nice to think, for the first time in nearly a year, that there are options… That I might have a future.

I Shot A Man In Reno Just To Watch Him Die

This morning my roommate asked why I don’t go freelance and start my own consulting firm.  Why couldn’t I do data independently?

My brain overflowed with reasons.  I don’t have a team.  I don’t have executives who know their stuff.  I don’t have clients.  I don’t have an advertising budget.  And of course, the one flaw that every man I’ve been in a relationship with (ie, both of them) has reminded me about incessantly: I don’t really know what I am doing.  I’m not old enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not polished enough.  I’m not really enough of anything.

For as long as I’ve been having ideas, people have been shitting on them.  I give people way too much power.  Everyone needs dreams, see.

It’s hugely liberating and a little sad to see that I’ve allowed myself to become nothing and no one.  I used to be someone… maybe not someone spectacular, but at least someone real.

I can’t pinpoint the moment my dreams died, but I do know that many of the things I liked about myself died with them.  I guess there wasn’t a moment.  It was just a slow, gradual fade to black… at which point, my life actually started to revolve around what the man was feeling at any given moment, what girl he was ogling, what insult he was directing at me.

I am more than this.

Destiny

I went to bed early last night because I was in that state of mind where everything just pissed me off.  No particular reason.  You’d think I was premenstrual or something, but I’m not.  I’m just a bitch.

Now I’m downstairs on the internet because, you guessed it, everything is pissing me off.  This time, the living room is dark and empty, so it’s my place of choice.

I applied for a bunch of jobs today.  It was an exercise in soul-sucking.  I really don’t know what I was meant to do in life, but this is NOT IT.  Or maybe it is, and I am *also* meant to be heavily medicated.

Looks Like Another Trip To The Bookstore Is In The Works

When I am home alone, which is rare, I like to watch Secret Diary of a Call Girl and Real Time with Bill Maher.  These shows are universally booed by the people I live with.  This makes sense because they are all men, which means they are really 12-year-old boys, which means I live in a home rife with Star Wars and Ren & Stimpy references.  That’s cool… but it’s nice to hang out by myself, too.

I don’t like Star Wars or Ren & Stimpy.  With the sole exception of The Venture Brothers, I loathe everything on Adult Swim.  We won’t even go into the subject of football.  I am a GIRL and I guess I need to make some friends.

I am a little tired, at this juncture in time, of well-meaning people making recommendations on what I should do with my life.  I won’t go into specifics on that one, and it’s not some kind of passive-aggressive statement directed at anyone who reads this blog.  I guess you could just call it a blanket statement.  Everyone seems to know exactly what’s best for me, except they aren’t taking into account any of the details that make their suggestions ludicrous.  Argh.

I’m mildly angsty, I guess.

Settling In

On my Google homepage, I have a widget that displays the weather for both Dallas and southwest Missouri.  This morning I glanced at it and was elated to see high temperatures below 70.  Upon further inspection, though, I realized that those were the Missouri temperatures.  We are still expecting highs in the 80’s.  I don’t like being disappointed this early in the morning.

Last night we actually slept in the bed for the first time in a long time.  Like… a month.  It’s been sitting in the garage since we got here, and beds were provided in the last place we stayed.  I must say that getting a full night’s sleep on a real bed works wonders for the phantom aches and pains that develop when you sleep on the floor, on a couch, etc.  Though I do not own a Sleep Number bed, I think there may well be something to the studies they tout, which show that an optimal sleeping environment makes you happier, better-rested, and generally healthier.

On today’s agenda:

–Launder all bedding, including pillows, because *something* in our room smells like cat pee and there isn’t much else in the room
–Unload the dishwasher
–Scoop cat poop, sweep around boxes
–Sweep & mop non-carpeted areas
–Tidy up in general
–Coerce man & roommate into dragging loveseat, desk & computer upstairs
–Drag more crap upstairs
–Make dinner

My dinner tonight is totally cheating.  During my spectacular trip to Albertsons yesterday, I got a 2-lb package of pre-cooked popcorn chicken for $2.49.  It was regularly $6.99, on sale for $5.49, with a $3.00 “close to expiration” meat coupon attached.  I am normally wary of prepared meat products, but they are all from breast meat and I figure it’s worth a try.  With that, I am going to make a box of Pasta-Roni that I got for fifty cents and a bag of Steamfresh vegetables that was also fifty cents.

That is an incredible deal on the Steamfresh vegetables.  I know this because just last week, I paid $1.79 for a bag of Steamfresh mixed vegetables.  Gah!!!  If I had freezer space and even a little bit of money, I would totally go there and buy like thirty bags or something ridiculous.

I would like to comment on freezer space.  Basically, we are going to have to find a way to get a freezer for the garage.  We have a small refrigerator and it has a small freezer and very nearly all the space in it is taken up by one roommate’s stuff.  He even freezes empty food containers and such, because he doesn’t want to leave them sitting until trash day, where they could attract ants.  While I admire his steadfast commitment to pest control, that small freezer is just not going to work out.

There’s one on Craigslist right now for $125 that would be a perfect fit.  Though I can’t afford to drop the money on it right now, I am going to keep my eye out for something in that price range in the future.  This will actually be the easiest part of the kitchen overhaul that awaits me.  See, I’ve been living for two years in a house with a big kitchen.  Now I live in a duplex with a small kitchen and two roommates (not counting the man), one of whom is accustomed to having the entire kitchen to himself.  I have tons of “kitchen stuff” in the garage and in addition to dividing up the space more fairly, I am going to have to find some creative storage techniques.

This weekend I am getting a coffee maker.  For obvious reasons, I need caffeine.  A lot of caffeine.  My get up and go done got up and went.

Football, Schmootball

For enquiring minds who want to know, this is the coupon-organizing method I use. It’s far easier for me to clip as I need coupons rather than have a gigantic, multi-newspaper clipfest every Sunday. It once took me an entire day to organize my coupons, and while I enjoy my addiction, I just don’t have that kind of time. Or, well, I didn’t back then, anyway.

I haven’t been doing much (read: any) bargain shopping lately because, though it seems counter-intuitive, I am too poor. I am also not in control of any of the money. However, we have been living for six months on toiletries I amassed back when I could rock the sales, and I hope to be able to do so again soon.

I am bored as shit today.  It’s “football day” (aka sausagefest) in my house.  How the bright, engaging people who just last night told jokes and played the piano can today be glued to the television watching stinking football, I will never understand.  I am going to do some housework, screw around on the internet, complete my substitute teacher job applications, and possibly take myself to the bookstore.  Go, me.

Thinking Ahead To The Holidays

I went into a Dollar General store the other day with the intention of buying laundry soap. It cost me $4 for a 51-load bottle of Purex, which turns out to be a good price. A 110-load bottle of Costco’s store brand soap is over $13. I should say here that 1) I won’t actually get 51 loads out of it because I use too much soap, and 2) I really prefer to use Gain, but we do what we must.

In the store I noticed, much to my delight, that they had dragged out all the Christmas merchandise. I LOVE CHRISTMAS. Seriously now. It’s the greatest holiday ever. It bothered me more than a little to pass by the cookie tins (plastic actually) and not buy one. But I am excited because the man has his child for Christmas this year, which means I get a green light to actually “do” Christmas.

Last year, we pretty much skipped the holiday. I had gone to Missouri for 1.5 days to see my family, and drove back on Christmas Eve. We didn’t get a tree, and the extent of our holiday decor was that someone had thrown a Santa hat on our fake ficus. We had a late-night dinner at IHOP and slept through Christmas day.

I guess that some people would find that ideal, but I never, ever want to do it again. I like the hoopla of the holiday. I like baking up a storm, mailing out cards, and decorating the tree. I seriously enjoy the Black Friday sales (though I’m sure my opinion would be different if I worked in retail).

I won’t get to go home this year, at least not on the holiday itself. If I’m substituting, I may have a fair bit of time off, but I don’t know that I’ll have the money to travel. We’ll see, I guess. But even if I don’t get to see my family, at least I will be having a *real* holiday here. With a tree and fudge and presents.

And Halloween? Eh. One of my roommates enjoys Halloween and has decorated our home accordingly. I am immune to Halloween. If we do anything, it will involve scary movies and popcorn. Though frankly, allowing Halloween to pass without acknowledgment has never bothered me.

Unless we get together with friends, Thanksgiving will probably happen in a restaurant. I am still more than a little flummoxed by the idea of throwing tradition out the window and letting someone else do the work, but I went to great lengths to do Thanksgiving up right last year… all by myself. And it made me feel like I was a servant. So I probably won’t do that again.

It’s A Little Bit Funny, This Feeling Inside

I was on the fence about living with musicians, but one of them plays Elton John songs on the keyboard and it makes me smile.

It’s refreshing to be around people who have dreams. Mine have been dead for a while.

I want something to live for, again.

Maudlin

My predictions are dead-on, just as the best of Swiss clockwork.  Sometimes I wonder if they are nothing more than self-fulfilling prophecies.

After weeks and weeks of having a life in flux, I finally took one day to do very little.  Not nothing, mind you… Just very little.  I pulled some laundry in from our piles of crap in the garage and washed it.  I dragged the computer inside and set it up.  And, naturally, that wasn’t enough. 

We get along well enough when I spend my entire day doing “stuff.”  The one day I take a break, it’s determined that I am not doing enough, and I am subject to snitty little remarks about laziness.  Publicly.

Of course, we can’t have big blowout fights with the new living arrangements.  So I just went to bed early.  The difference between the two of us is that if I go to bed pissed off, there is a 100% chance that I will wake up pissed off.  I can pretend not to be pissed off, but I can’t actually stop BEING pissed off.  I don’t know how.

Perhaps the problem is that we are both mentally ill.  Like, he obviously is.  And I am too, though I am more prone to self-blame and self-loathing than taking my issues out on other people.  I read an interesting article today on the subject of living with a bipolar mate.  It wasn’t a scientific piece, just an anecdotal bit, and ultimately the couple divorces.  Great. (Also see: the movie Waitress)

So I am down today.  I have to unpack and organize a bunch of crap that I honestly stopped caring about weeks ago.  I need to get started on finding myself a job in this area, though figuring out how to do that with one vehicle between the two of us is… well, it’s the suck.

Things to be happy about… 1) I have somewhere to live; 2) My roommates, though a little neurotic, are cool; 3) I don’t have to turn tricks in a truck stop to buy my dinner.

A Moment Of Peace

It’s been a long and exhausting week. We are moved into the new house and that’s going pretty well. For the most part, we are all compatible in the ways that matter when living together. Nobody smokes, nobody throws parties, and we are all pretty chill.

I had underestimated the value of having “outsiders” present in our daily life. Pretending to be a normal couple that likes each other is… going well.

I’ve spent the last week driving back and forth to Dallas to get truckloads of our stuff from the old house. In this time, I have learned that I am more capable than I had previously realized. I can disassemble furniture and load it up. I can survive a blowout on an interstate highway with no shoulder.

Now I am just incredibly tired. There is the business of settling in to attend to — the overwhelming majority of our stuff is sitting in the garage, waiting to be brought inside, put in storage, or disposed of. But I am taking today to savor the fact that I am DONE driving all over the goddamned countryside, done packing stuff, done hauling furniture, and done being in flux. We have landed in a place where we feel comfortable… and where our cats are happy.