July Can't Come Soon Enough For Me

Because June? Continues to be a cesspool.

This morning I woke up bright and early. And as I was sitting in front of my computer, checking my blogroll, with "Between the Lions" on cable beside me...

...the power went out.

"Well shit," I said, and went to check the circuit breaker.

On the way to the basement I noticed that there was a man in our backyard, just under my window, right by the electric meter. And it was not a man I knew, which made me uneasy.

"Hello?" I said. "What's going on?"

"Disconnected for non-payment," he said.

"WHAT?" I said. "That cannot be right. I'm on the payment plan."

For a ComEd employee, he was a very nice man, and he went out to the car to confirm my story. Which he did confirm--I was on the payment plan, yes. And they had received my June payment...but not my May payment, apparently. The May payment was due on May 27th; they received it June 2nd, which (in their stupid, ridiculous, we're-a-monopoly-so-we-can-do-anything-we-want world) made it the June payment, which put me in default for the May payment, which in turn closed out the payment agreement. Which means I owed them $325, now, before I could get reconnected.

Needless to say, neither LJ nor I had $325. We came up with $150 between us. The rest--you guessed it: Mom.

And of course, it came with the responsibility lecture, which I felt entirely grateful for under the circumstances. Not that I'm NOT responsible--this is another bullshit utility power-play, and I will never concede that they were right to cut me off, particularly since I actually paid OVER on the May payment which they said was the June payment, so it was about $10 short of covering BOTH payments, if they actually handled payments like human beings instead of corporate fucksticks. But for the amount of money I just borrowed from Mom, she can give me any lecture she wants and I'll just say "Thank you very much."

Getting the money from Mom involved driving out to her house, following her to the bank, then driving home and paying the bill at a currency exchange. Then I had to run home, call ComEd to tell them they had their money, run back out the door, and go to my doctor's appointment. All of which I did, with the car windows open because the A/C on the Tahoe is like most other things about the Tahoe: iffy at best.

The result of this? The top surface of my left arm is absolutely TOMATO-red. Either I'm going to have to get LJ to drive me around as a passenger for four to six hours just to even things out, or I'm going to have the world's dumbest-looking farmers' tan for the rest of my natural days. I mean, this looks STOOPID. And also, it's very very warm.

The doctor's appointment went well, and then I ran some other errands, and then I went home. And even though the customer "service" line at ComEd had said it might take til the end of the day tomorrow to get my lights back, when I'd talked to the nice ComEd guy who cut us off in the first place, he'd assured me that if I made the payment immediately, they'd probably get me cut back on today. "We work til 7:00," he said. So I sat out on the porch for the rest of the afternoon, hoping against hope that ComEd would return.

At 6:55 I conceded, and went into the house, and got some pajamas and a few assorted items, and hopped the Pulaski bus to spend the night at Mom's. I can't sleep without the fan--it's just too hot in that room. And I'm pissed, because WITH the fan, this would be a PERFECT night for sleeping.

When I got to Mom's, it finally happened. The storm that's been brewing for weeks and weeks now, the elephant in the middle of the living room, the Thing We Don't Talk About.

The Haircut Argument.

Worse yet: this time, she won. I found myself in a kitchen chair with a fluffy blue towel around my neck, and the -snip snip snip- coming quick and fast. And my hair, which was formerly down to just below my shoulder blades, is now about 3/4 inch below my earlobes.

Mom says it's "cute". I am reserving judgement until I can get home and get some mousse into it and see if I can make it scrunchy. But right now? Oh....man. Think pageboy. Think RELUCTANT pageboy, because the ends want to flip UP instead of DOWN, and meanwhile my head feels WAY too light and I don't think I like this, people....

Maybe I'll get used to it. Maybe all it needs is a little product and some distance from Mom, who just wants me to look "professional" as opposed to my own personal leaning toward "punk".

Maybe we could glue the ends back on. Any ideas?

There are only ten more days in this month, and that's about nine-and-a-half too many for me. Unless something drastically changes before June 30th and I am showered with hundred-dollar bills, adorable fuzzy kittens, and hot monkey-lovin' from the Brit, I'm writing this month off completely.