My idealism has once again been grossly betrayed.
For a couple of months now, I have been lovingly preparing homemade, wholesome raw food for the three cats under my protection. This involves dealing with lots of ground meat, nasty-smelling supplements, and assorted Really Yucky Stuff. It's not difficult, but it's not the most pleasant thing I've ever done either. But I love my kitties, and everything I've read says the homemade food is healthier for them than the stuff that comes out of a bag. And they seemed to like their raw food; sometimes they needed a little fish-oil sprinkled over the food to entice them to taste it, but they get three meals a day and they've been fine with that.
Or so I thought.
Tonight, while watching TV, I heard a familiar sound. It's not a sound I've heard much with these cats, but I remember it well from one of my dear departed kitties, who was a very smart and dexterous little girl-cat. It sounded like bang....bang....bang... and after a moment, I recognized it as the sound of a cabinet door repeatedly being worked by a very persistent paw.
But I was watching something, and it's hot, and I didn't feel like getting up, so I let the bang....bang...bang... continue. Eventually it stopped.
About five minutes later, I realized two things simultaneously. One: the banging noise had been replaced by a very quiet rustling and crackling; and two: none of the three cats were anywhere to be seen. Clearly it was time to investigate.
When I got to the kitchen, I found an open cabinet--the bottom cabinet next to the stove, the cabinet where we keep the "emergency" sack of Cat Chow. (We kept a half-bag around when we switched to raw food, in case the cats decided they just WEREN'T going to go along with the new program. Thankfully, we haven't had to resort to that.) I was met with two guilty pairs of eyes--Cassidy and Snickers--and one pair of white hindquarters and a black tail, which was all I could see of BadCat. BadCat was three-quarters of the way into the cabinet, with his head and front paws in the sack of Cat Chow, totally oblivious to my presence and enthusiastically making "nom nom nom" sounds. Cassidy and Snickers were--I'm not kidding here--LINED UP behind him, each waiting patiently for his turn--til Cat-Mom came in and spoiled the fun.
I would understand this dietary transgression better if they were snacking an hour BEFORE dinner time; but no. In fact, they were noshing on Cat Chow while the remnants of dinner still sat in their individual bowls! With the exception of Cassidy, who leaves no bite of food uneaten, they'd eaten about half their meal before heading for the snack-food aisle.
I'm trying to keep my head up about this; as I type this, Snickers is finishing off the remnants of dinner (albeit it's BadCat's dinner he's finishing; these guys are weird about food bowls. It doesn't seem to matter who eats from which bowl, as long as each cat has one.)
I guess it's like feeding kids; you can give them all the healthy food in the world, and every so often you'll still find them up to their shoulders in a sack of Fritos. It's rough, being a cat-parent.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Saturday, June 23, 2007
It's Quiet. A Little...TOO Quiet.
Okay, actually the only way in which it's too quiet is on the job front; on my second/third interview (on Thursday) at Place Which Has Interviewed Me So Many Times That They Might As Well Get Some Work Out Of Me, I was told a decision would be made "Friday, or Monday at the latest." Why is it ALWAYS "the latest"? But I shouldn't complain; this one looks good.
And today, that's about the only part of the outside world which does. I slept most of the day; now that I've looked at the news, I can see why I did.
First story: they found Jessie Davis, the 9-months'-pregnant mom from Ohio. Of course she was murdered, and of course the boyfriend did it. The old story. Don't these guys THINK? Does each of them, before they murder their pregnant wife/girlfriend/whatever, think "It'll be the perfect murder, and nobody will suspect ME, the devoted husband/boyfriend/whatever"?? And of course, the cherry on the sundae: it's an interracial relationship. Because god forbid that one of THOSE can be portrayed on the national stage in a positive way--after all, we already have so many good examples of healthy, faithful, loving interracial relationships out there. Urgh.
Second story: they arrested Christopher Vaughn, the husband and father in the story where the wife and three kids were found shot to death in an SUV on an access road. He claimed his wife was the shooter, and pointed to a shot in his own leg as the evidence...c'mon, dude. Seriously. Putting the blame on the victim--that's just low. And those poor kids--they were so beautiful, and apparently all three of them were very gifted, as well. How on earth does someone kill their own flesh and blood? Three individual human beings, who share your DNA, who probably look like you a little bit at least, who have personalities and quirks and stories all their own?? I don't get it, not at all.
(Of course, I don't understand killing in general. I talked to the neighbors some more, to find out if they knew who the possum-burners were; consensus is that they're two of the guys from the block (I've got names now, street-names at least) and that they absolutely were NOT trying to burn my house down/scare me/whatever. This last comes from Len from next-door, who went across the street, to the house the rodent-warriors hang out at, and point-blank asked what their intention was. Apparently, this possum had been pursued for quite a few minutes before he ended up in my stairwell--he was on the porch two-doors-down, where they threw boots and bottles at it til the man who lives there chased them away; then they made a detour into Len and Phoebe's front yard, til Junior saw them from across the street and chased them away from THERE; and then it ducked through the fence into my front yard, and though Junior tried to chase them out of there as well, they didn't listen, and they followed it down the gangway to the backyard, where it met its fate. And I STILL don't understand the reasoning--although in talking to people, I did learn something: every single male I discussed this with expressed that he either had in the past, or would, given the opportunity, do the same thing to a possum, rodent, or other unwanted animal. Junior, in fact, admitted that he and his friends had done something equally heinous to an animal once, "...but I won't tell you what kind of animal it was, though," he said, cementing my suspicion that he was talking about a cat. And these are mostly NICE guys!! Even Tim said HE'd kill a possum, given the chance...)
Oh, and THEN...
This afternoon, I was awakened from my nap by Debbi, with whom I'd gone to dinner last night; she and Cowgirl and I had finally gotten together for my birthday, after last week's event was cancelled due to possum-immolation. Debbi has this guy, who is also a Wiccan, with whom she's been discussing entering the first stage of Wiccan marriage--a marriage for "a year and a day", during which they can decide whether or not they want to stay together permanently. Makes good sense, to me...I mean, the CONCEPT does, not Debbi and this guy. As you will see.
Anyway, she had called her guy this morning, apparently, and was talking to him about some problems he'd been having at his job--you know, typical girlfriend-ly commisseration--when in the background, she heard a cough.
A FEMININE cough.
Turns out that while she was on the phone with this guy who supposedly wants to marry her? He was in bed, with his former fiancee--the one who stalked him, and on whom he has taken out a restraining order, and because of whom he's changed his phone number x times and changed residences at least once. (Um, dude? Here's a hint, since you seem to need one: Those precautions? Are a LOT LESS EFFECTIVE when you then bring the stalker HOME and SLEEP with her!!!!)
Needless to say, Debbi was extremely peeved, slightly drunk, and in need of someone to kvetch to. I have no problem with taking that role; heaven knows the poor girl has listened to enough of MY problems, in the course of our 32-year friendship.
I'm really starting to think that my choice to stay away from men and relationships for a while is a very, very smart idea. Too many pitfalls, too many philanderers, too many possum-killers. I'm discovering that, other than the absence of JP, I'm quite happy on my own.
Or at least I would be, if these doggone employer-people would just CALL!!!!
And today, that's about the only part of the outside world which does. I slept most of the day; now that I've looked at the news, I can see why I did.
First story: they found Jessie Davis, the 9-months'-pregnant mom from Ohio. Of course she was murdered, and of course the boyfriend did it. The old story. Don't these guys THINK? Does each of them, before they murder their pregnant wife/girlfriend/whatever, think "It'll be the perfect murder, and nobody will suspect ME, the devoted husband/boyfriend/whatever"?? And of course, the cherry on the sundae: it's an interracial relationship. Because god forbid that one of THOSE can be portrayed on the national stage in a positive way--after all, we already have so many good examples of healthy, faithful, loving interracial relationships out there. Urgh.
Second story: they arrested Christopher Vaughn, the husband and father in the story where the wife and three kids were found shot to death in an SUV on an access road. He claimed his wife was the shooter, and pointed to a shot in his own leg as the evidence...c'mon, dude. Seriously. Putting the blame on the victim--that's just low. And those poor kids--they were so beautiful, and apparently all three of them were very gifted, as well. How on earth does someone kill their own flesh and blood? Three individual human beings, who share your DNA, who probably look like you a little bit at least, who have personalities and quirks and stories all their own?? I don't get it, not at all.
(Of course, I don't understand killing in general. I talked to the neighbors some more, to find out if they knew who the possum-burners were; consensus is that they're two of the guys from the block (I've got names now, street-names at least) and that they absolutely were NOT trying to burn my house down/scare me/whatever. This last comes from Len from next-door, who went across the street, to the house the rodent-warriors hang out at, and point-blank asked what their intention was. Apparently, this possum had been pursued for quite a few minutes before he ended up in my stairwell--he was on the porch two-doors-down, where they threw boots and bottles at it til the man who lives there chased them away; then they made a detour into Len and Phoebe's front yard, til Junior saw them from across the street and chased them away from THERE; and then it ducked through the fence into my front yard, and though Junior tried to chase them out of there as well, they didn't listen, and they followed it down the gangway to the backyard, where it met its fate. And I STILL don't understand the reasoning--although in talking to people, I did learn something: every single male I discussed this with expressed that he either had in the past, or would, given the opportunity, do the same thing to a possum, rodent, or other unwanted animal. Junior, in fact, admitted that he and his friends had done something equally heinous to an animal once, "...but I won't tell you what kind of animal it was, though," he said, cementing my suspicion that he was talking about a cat. And these are mostly NICE guys!! Even Tim said HE'd kill a possum, given the chance...)
Oh, and THEN...
This afternoon, I was awakened from my nap by Debbi, with whom I'd gone to dinner last night; she and Cowgirl and I had finally gotten together for my birthday, after last week's event was cancelled due to possum-immolation. Debbi has this guy, who is also a Wiccan, with whom she's been discussing entering the first stage of Wiccan marriage--a marriage for "a year and a day", during which they can decide whether or not they want to stay together permanently. Makes good sense, to me...I mean, the CONCEPT does, not Debbi and this guy. As you will see.
Anyway, she had called her guy this morning, apparently, and was talking to him about some problems he'd been having at his job--you know, typical girlfriend-ly commisseration--when in the background, she heard a cough.
A FEMININE cough.
Turns out that while she was on the phone with this guy who supposedly wants to marry her? He was in bed, with his former fiancee--the one who stalked him, and on whom he has taken out a restraining order, and because of whom he's changed his phone number x times and changed residences at least once. (Um, dude? Here's a hint, since you seem to need one: Those precautions? Are a LOT LESS EFFECTIVE when you then bring the stalker HOME and SLEEP with her!!!!)
Needless to say, Debbi was extremely peeved, slightly drunk, and in need of someone to kvetch to. I have no problem with taking that role; heaven knows the poor girl has listened to enough of MY problems, in the course of our 32-year friendship.
I'm really starting to think that my choice to stay away from men and relationships for a while is a very, very smart idea. Too many pitfalls, too many philanderers, too many possum-killers. I'm discovering that, other than the absence of JP, I'm quite happy on my own.
Or at least I would be, if these doggone employer-people would just CALL!!!!
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Afterward
The dust has settled; the incinerated possum, which I made a point of NOT looking at, was removed by Streets and San yesterday afternoon while Tim and I drove Nicolette back home. I'm not scared anymore; everyone I've talked to in the neighborhood seems to think there was no way it was actually directed at us. Junior, from next door, even says he knows who it was, or at least that's what his father told me. I would love to know what goes through someone's mind that would cause them to set a live animal on fire, you know? That's sick, sick, sick.
But I've calmed down, anyhow. Even Tim admitted that he was drunk and overreacting through the whole thing, which: duh. I did give him some advice regarding the people he hangs out with, though, because a big piece of the mayhem was set off the night before, when one of his friends not only took Tim into a neighborhood he didn't want to go into--even against his protests--but then that same friend ALSO hit on Nicolette. This is AFTER a DIFFERENT "friend" of Tim's, who was with him at Nicolette's apartment after the three of them were out one night, stole her phone while no one was looking. Tim found out later and gave him hell for it, so the "friend" apologized and gave the phone back...and it was only a couple days later that Nicki found the picture files were now full of amateur-porn pictures of the thief. Nicki and Tim had only known each other for about two weeks at that point, so it's to her credit that she didn't just say "screw THIS, I'm outta here". I like her a lot, actually; she's funny and down-to-earth, and Tim seems to be happy with her. And she's really considerate, too: I'd known her less than a week when she called me three times on my birthday, leaving messages until she managed to get a hold of me in person. I thought that was really cool. I think she's a good person for Tim to have in his life; I expressed my opinion of the OTHERS, however, when we stopped for dinner last night. "Can I offer a word of advice?" I asked him. His "yeah" was begrudging; I think he thought I was gonna give him hell after the previous 24 hours of drunken craziness, but I went ahead anyway. "It occurs to me," I told him, "that if you were to get all of the aggravating people out of your life, you'd be much, MUCH happier."
That wasn't what he had expected to hear, it was obvious. He thought about it for a minute and then said "You're right about that!" So maybe I've given him something to think about, I don't know. At any rate, I'm not mad at him; even if I was, I don't think I could possibly be as mad at him as he probably is at himself.
Of course, it's very difficult to hold onto ANY emotion when you're quietly steaming in your skin like a microwaved baked potato...it is hot, hot, HOT here in Chicago, and tomorrow's going to be just as bad. I've been putting off installing the air-conditioner in my window; I've got one of those double fans there now, and I don't want to lose the ability to sleep with the window open--but a couple more days of this ninety-degree stuff, and I'm going to change my mind. Yesterday, after the first of two interviews, I actually had to come home to hang up my outfit so I could let my shirt dry before interview #2.
Re: the interviews: both of them went pretty well, especially the first one, which unbeknownst to me was effectively a SECOND interview for a job I'd applied for back in March or so. It's not exactly the same position, but it's very very similar, and apparently they liked me enough on my first trip through that they thought of me when this new spot opened up. So I'm optimistic on that one. The second one I'm not so sure about; it's in a school, and it seems like I'd be working a little bit with kids as well as teachers. I don't mind that--in fact, I sorta like it--but that's 100% contingent on how much responsibility I'd be expected to take for disciplinary matters. If I'm just going to be trying to keep order in a madhouse, forGET it. I wasn't completely clear on the scope of the job even after the interview, but since it was only a first round, I'm not worried.
Actually, I'm not worried at all. Whatever happens in the job situation is going to decide what happens with the house; what happens with the house is going to decide my future living situation; and my future living situation is going to influence my search for a job. It's all going to work out; the best thing I can do is just keep doing what I've been doing.
And now that we've got that settled: What happened to all my commentors??? I know I've been lax with the postings, but even when I post about burning possums, I gots no comments, peepulz!!! Are you all on vacation???
(Yes, I know: I am a pathetic blog-hoochie, begging for validation in the form of comments from my readers. Fine; so be it. Love me, please!! Everybody love meeee!!!)
But I've calmed down, anyhow. Even Tim admitted that he was drunk and overreacting through the whole thing, which: duh. I did give him some advice regarding the people he hangs out with, though, because a big piece of the mayhem was set off the night before, when one of his friends not only took Tim into a neighborhood he didn't want to go into--even against his protests--but then that same friend ALSO hit on Nicolette. This is AFTER a DIFFERENT "friend" of Tim's, who was with him at Nicolette's apartment after the three of them were out one night, stole her phone while no one was looking. Tim found out later and gave him hell for it, so the "friend" apologized and gave the phone back...and it was only a couple days later that Nicki found the picture files were now full of amateur-porn pictures of the thief. Nicki and Tim had only known each other for about two weeks at that point, so it's to her credit that she didn't just say "screw THIS, I'm outta here". I like her a lot, actually; she's funny and down-to-earth, and Tim seems to be happy with her. And she's really considerate, too: I'd known her less than a week when she called me three times on my birthday, leaving messages until she managed to get a hold of me in person. I thought that was really cool. I think she's a good person for Tim to have in his life; I expressed my opinion of the OTHERS, however, when we stopped for dinner last night. "Can I offer a word of advice?" I asked him. His "yeah" was begrudging; I think he thought I was gonna give him hell after the previous 24 hours of drunken craziness, but I went ahead anyway. "It occurs to me," I told him, "that if you were to get all of the aggravating people out of your life, you'd be much, MUCH happier."
That wasn't what he had expected to hear, it was obvious. He thought about it for a minute and then said "You're right about that!" So maybe I've given him something to think about, I don't know. At any rate, I'm not mad at him; even if I was, I don't think I could possibly be as mad at him as he probably is at himself.
Of course, it's very difficult to hold onto ANY emotion when you're quietly steaming in your skin like a microwaved baked potato...it is hot, hot, HOT here in Chicago, and tomorrow's going to be just as bad. I've been putting off installing the air-conditioner in my window; I've got one of those double fans there now, and I don't want to lose the ability to sleep with the window open--but a couple more days of this ninety-degree stuff, and I'm going to change my mind. Yesterday, after the first of two interviews, I actually had to come home to hang up my outfit so I could let my shirt dry before interview #2.
Re: the interviews: both of them went pretty well, especially the first one, which unbeknownst to me was effectively a SECOND interview for a job I'd applied for back in March or so. It's not exactly the same position, but it's very very similar, and apparently they liked me enough on my first trip through that they thought of me when this new spot opened up. So I'm optimistic on that one. The second one I'm not so sure about; it's in a school, and it seems like I'd be working a little bit with kids as well as teachers. I don't mind that--in fact, I sorta like it--but that's 100% contingent on how much responsibility I'd be expected to take for disciplinary matters. If I'm just going to be trying to keep order in a madhouse, forGET it. I wasn't completely clear on the scope of the job even after the interview, but since it was only a first round, I'm not worried.
Actually, I'm not worried at all. Whatever happens in the job situation is going to decide what happens with the house; what happens with the house is going to decide my future living situation; and my future living situation is going to influence my search for a job. It's all going to work out; the best thing I can do is just keep doing what I've been doing.
And now that we've got that settled: What happened to all my commentors??? I know I've been lax with the postings, but even when I post about burning possums, I gots no comments, peepulz!!! Are you all on vacation???
(Yes, I know: I am a pathetic blog-hoochie, begging for validation in the form of comments from my readers. Fine; so be it. Love me, please!! Everybody love meeee!!!)
Friday, June 15, 2007
No Cats Were Harmed In the Making of This Story. Really.
Last night, Tim and his new girl, Nicolette, came home. Tim was drunk, which he'd apparently been for a couple of days, and belligerent as hell because....
I should back up for a minute here, I guess.
When Tim was on the streets, he fell in with a lot of gang members. He'd had some affiliations of that sort in his youth, but when he was homeless it was more of a matter of survival. I never gave him shit about it; I understood that people do what they need to do to survive in extreme situations.
Well, apparently, while he had been out over the past two days, he had had drunken run-ins with several opposition gang members--real or imagined!--on the North Side, on the bus, and--in an instance of total idiocy--with one of the guys across the street. He and his girl were walking, someone said something to him, and instead of handling it like an adult, he got all dramatic and gangsta and whatever. I don't even know entirely what it was about, other than Stupid Drunken Shit.
He and his girl came in, anyway, and for about four hours she and I were treated to the paranoid rantings of a pissed-off drunk guy, about all the "opposition", punctuated with enough gang signs and hand-gestures to fill a 50 Cent movie. We TRIED to get him to shut up, but it wasn't happening. While all this was going on, the three of us were drinking beer--so Tim wasn't getting any LESS drunk, and both the females in the house were getting a little buzzed too. (I'd had about 4 beers, when all this went down, just for the record. In hindsight, my judgement and emotional stability were probably not at their sharpest, and it almost certainly made me react more strongly than I otherwise would have.)
Finally, at about 10:30, the two of them went into Tim's room, much to my great relief. A few minutes later, while I'm sitting at the computer, Tim comes charging out and tells me that he hears someone in the yard. I'm assuming they're in the next-door yard, but when I go to the window over the back stairwell, there's a guy there. And he's lighting newspaper and throwing burning paper into the stairwell, and there's this....noise...down there.
I yelled to get the guy's attention, but he just lit more paper and threw it into the stairwell. It was blazing pretty well, too, and I could smell lighter-fluid.
Then Tim's girl says: There's a CAT on fire down there. (I will pause here and tell all you animal-lovers, and people who know how I feel about my cats, that it a) was not a cat, and b) was not one of my cats. So please put your hearts back out of your throats for a minute.)
By this time, I'm on the phone with the fire department. Meanwhile, the guy is telling me some line about "it tried to bite me" and "I just saw the fire from the alley" and a bunch of other contradictory crap, like nobody had just seen him throw burning papers into my stairwell. Whatever. I hear the sirens in the distance, and this....whatever-it-is....is burning in my stairwell, and the guy has taken off, and Tim is ranting about how this is retaliation for the stuff that happened earlier, which I'm totally prepared to believe because I've been listening to his paranoia all night. So I'm freaking out, to say the least, and not least of all because the story I'm hearing is STILL that the dying animal outside is a CAT. Now, everyone in this neighborhood knows how I am about cats, so if they were trying to intimidate me, burning a cat in my yard would definitely accomplish that aim.
The firefighters arrive. Tim (drunk) goes out to talk to them. I, meanwhile, am on the phone with LJ, telling him to get his ass back to the house. He's the enforcer around here, I figured, let him handle this mess if it needs handling.
The fire is put out, and then the cops show up. I'm still in the house, trying not to have a heart-attack; Tim comes in and tells me "They want to talk to you." Okay, fine. I go outside and there are three cops: a young African-American female, an older white man, and a younger white man. I answer all their questions: how many people did you see, what did he look like, have you had any problems like this before, blah blah blah. And I tell them: I have been in this house for 3 1/2 years, and I have never had any trouble til now. (I deliberately, for reasons you might guess, don't mention the garage break-in of a few months back--no need to complicate matters, but I silently curse LJ for allowing that to happen in the first place.)
The cops tell me: We don't think you were targeted. I say: I think we were. And here's why. I explain the Tim situation. The older cop asks pointed questions about Tim, which I answer as neutrally as possible, knowing they've already run his name through the computer and have his record.
At this point, I'm thinking about how fast I can get a moving van hired, my stuff packed, and the utilities turned off. Tim is in the house, ranting and raving to LJ (who arrived while I was on the porch answering questions) and not making my state of mind any better. Tim's girl is like What have I got myself into here???
The younger cop comes back. "It's a possum," he tells us. I ask him, six ways to Sunday: "You're SURE it's not a cat??" He's sure. "Not with that pointy nose and those big claws..." Len and Phoebe's older son, who was across the street while all this was going on, comes over and talks to the cops--which made me feel much better, because one of the evidences that Tim used to support his "personal attack" theory was that Junior had been sitting across the street, had supposedly seen the guy come through our front gate, and had just let it happen. Junior tells the cops that he'd seen two guys from the block chase a possum into my yard, and they just happened to corner it in my stairwell--that the possum had apparently tried to bite one of them. I pause a moment to feel bad for the possum--what kind of sick fuck BURNS AN ANIMAL??? That's some pathological shit right there. Meanwhile, I have a dead possum in my stairwell, three cops asking me all sorts of questions about the living situation here at Chez Gladys, and every single porch on the block covered with inquisitive neighbors who want to know what the hell is going on.
The cops pretty much promise me that this was NOT an attempt to intimidate us or burn us out--"If they wanted to scare you or burn your house, believe me, they'd have thrown a molotov cocktail in your window--they wouldn't have bothered burning a possum." Police Bomb and Arson takes pictures of the scene for the records, and corroborate this view. Eventually, the authorities leave and I go in the house. LJ has a quiet chuckle at the expense of jumpy white females under the influence of Corona; Tim gets some very pointed questions from me as to WHY, exactly, he felt the need to start up on that testosterone-laced bullshit (I found out later EXACTLY why--he was with Nicolette, his girl, and the guy on the corner made some remark about her--you know, the usual crotch-grabbing machismo practiced on street-corners since time immemorial. Well, you don't talk like that about Tim's lady when he's sober; you DAMN sure don't do it when he's NOT. I'm really beginning to wonder about the judgement of my penis-bearing friends--no offense, my male readers, but you must admit I've got some doozies here in the gratuitous-pissing-contest department. And when a woman is involved, the chaos increases tenfold.) Eventually, everyone wound down enough to go to their various rooms for the night.
But just because I was in my room didn't mean I could sleep--an exceptionally bad thing when you consider I had two interviews scheduled for today and there was not much likelihood of sleeping past 8. I sat down at my desk and started making a list of all the rooms in my house, and the contents of each room, divided into three lists: move, store, and toss. And this morning, when I talked to my mother, I asked her point-blank: If I wanted to move home and take over your basement, could I do that? And she said yes.
I'm not sure it's going to happen; at least, I'm not as sure as I was this morning. General consensus on the block is that it really was just some dumbasses with a hate-on against this possum; it wasn't, Len from next-door told me, directed at us. He would know; his older son is the one who talked to the cops, who saw the whole thing happen. I even think I know where the possum came from--they're clearing out a lot down the street which has been a fenced-in wreck full of junked truck parts and semi-trailers since before I moved in. I'm thinking the possum got rousted from his long-time home, ran afoul of these jackasses, and paid the price. I'm not a fan of possums, but I hate to hear of an animal suffering. (I am, however, disproportionately glad that it wasn't a cat or a dog. That would have been it for me; attack or no attack, I'd have been packing my stuff by now.)
I don't want to give up my house. I love this house, and I would like to stay here and realize the profit eventually. It's close to everything, and except for the odd piece of possum-burning human riffraff, the neighbors have been good to me. (Though Tim coming through on some gangsta bullshit could change that...he explained it to me, repeatedly, last night, but to the real question--"why would you start on that shit HERE, though?"--I'm still the only one answering: "testosterone and beer in equal quantities, shaken and stirred.") I don't want to move home to Mom's, or even to an apartment elsewhere in the city. I picked this house for myself, and I resent that circumstances I didn't create can make me consider giving it up.
But the drama is only part of the picture; the rest, of course, is the foreclosure, still crawling through the maze of due process. I know the other shoe will fall shortly. So I've decided: if I get a job by the time they set a sale-date for the house, then I'll fight to keep it. If not, I'll accept that as a sign, and go about the task of selling it and moving back to Mom's for a while. I have bills to pay, some of which have been waiting since before I lost my job in October. If I moved home to Mom's, I could get a job, pay those off in a couple of months and then start saving--or, heaven forbid, maybe even buy some luxuries I've gone without...a decent stereo, maybe, or an HDTV...Just the thought of having money in the bank, though, makes it tempting.
See, I realized something as I lay awake last night, trying to will myself not to panic about the "attack": As much as I love this house, it IS just a house. There are other houses in this world, other chances; maybe even better and more timely ones than this. Maybe I just overreached, trying to bring this one around. Maybe my energy and money could be better spent if I didn't have And anyway the things I value will come with me; all the things I love can be packed and moved when I move. Maybe it's time to think about what I'm fighting for, exactly...and, more importantly, WHY.
I feel peaceful, now--like whatever might be about to happen, it's something I will be able to handle. For the first time in a long time, I can actually BELIEVE that everything is going to be all right--no matter what happens.
I should back up for a minute here, I guess.
When Tim was on the streets, he fell in with a lot of gang members. He'd had some affiliations of that sort in his youth, but when he was homeless it was more of a matter of survival. I never gave him shit about it; I understood that people do what they need to do to survive in extreme situations.
Well, apparently, while he had been out over the past two days, he had had drunken run-ins with several opposition gang members--real or imagined!--on the North Side, on the bus, and--in an instance of total idiocy--with one of the guys across the street. He and his girl were walking, someone said something to him, and instead of handling it like an adult, he got all dramatic and gangsta and whatever. I don't even know entirely what it was about, other than Stupid Drunken Shit.
He and his girl came in, anyway, and for about four hours she and I were treated to the paranoid rantings of a pissed-off drunk guy, about all the "opposition", punctuated with enough gang signs and hand-gestures to fill a 50 Cent movie. We TRIED to get him to shut up, but it wasn't happening. While all this was going on, the three of us were drinking beer--so Tim wasn't getting any LESS drunk, and both the females in the house were getting a little buzzed too. (I'd had about 4 beers, when all this went down, just for the record. In hindsight, my judgement and emotional stability were probably not at their sharpest, and it almost certainly made me react more strongly than I otherwise would have.)
Finally, at about 10:30, the two of them went into Tim's room, much to my great relief. A few minutes later, while I'm sitting at the computer, Tim comes charging out and tells me that he hears someone in the yard. I'm assuming they're in the next-door yard, but when I go to the window over the back stairwell, there's a guy there. And he's lighting newspaper and throwing burning paper into the stairwell, and there's this....noise...down there.
I yelled to get the guy's attention, but he just lit more paper and threw it into the stairwell. It was blazing pretty well, too, and I could smell lighter-fluid.
Then Tim's girl says: There's a CAT on fire down there. (I will pause here and tell all you animal-lovers, and people who know how I feel about my cats, that it a) was not a cat, and b) was not one of my cats. So please put your hearts back out of your throats for a minute.)
By this time, I'm on the phone with the fire department. Meanwhile, the guy is telling me some line about "it tried to bite me" and "I just saw the fire from the alley" and a bunch of other contradictory crap, like nobody had just seen him throw burning papers into my stairwell. Whatever. I hear the sirens in the distance, and this....whatever-it-is....is burning in my stairwell, and the guy has taken off, and Tim is ranting about how this is retaliation for the stuff that happened earlier, which I'm totally prepared to believe because I've been listening to his paranoia all night. So I'm freaking out, to say the least, and not least of all because the story I'm hearing is STILL that the dying animal outside is a CAT. Now, everyone in this neighborhood knows how I am about cats, so if they were trying to intimidate me, burning a cat in my yard would definitely accomplish that aim.
The firefighters arrive. Tim (drunk) goes out to talk to them. I, meanwhile, am on the phone with LJ, telling him to get his ass back to the house. He's the enforcer around here, I figured, let him handle this mess if it needs handling.
The fire is put out, and then the cops show up. I'm still in the house, trying not to have a heart-attack; Tim comes in and tells me "They want to talk to you." Okay, fine. I go outside and there are three cops: a young African-American female, an older white man, and a younger white man. I answer all their questions: how many people did you see, what did he look like, have you had any problems like this before, blah blah blah. And I tell them: I have been in this house for 3 1/2 years, and I have never had any trouble til now. (I deliberately, for reasons you might guess, don't mention the garage break-in of a few months back--no need to complicate matters, but I silently curse LJ for allowing that to happen in the first place.)
The cops tell me: We don't think you were targeted. I say: I think we were. And here's why. I explain the Tim situation. The older cop asks pointed questions about Tim, which I answer as neutrally as possible, knowing they've already run his name through the computer and have his record.
At this point, I'm thinking about how fast I can get a moving van hired, my stuff packed, and the utilities turned off. Tim is in the house, ranting and raving to LJ (who arrived while I was on the porch answering questions) and not making my state of mind any better. Tim's girl is like What have I got myself into here???
The younger cop comes back. "It's a possum," he tells us. I ask him, six ways to Sunday: "You're SURE it's not a cat??" He's sure. "Not with that pointy nose and those big claws..." Len and Phoebe's older son, who was across the street while all this was going on, comes over and talks to the cops--which made me feel much better, because one of the evidences that Tim used to support his "personal attack" theory was that Junior had been sitting across the street, had supposedly seen the guy come through our front gate, and had just let it happen. Junior tells the cops that he'd seen two guys from the block chase a possum into my yard, and they just happened to corner it in my stairwell--that the possum had apparently tried to bite one of them. I pause a moment to feel bad for the possum--what kind of sick fuck BURNS AN ANIMAL??? That's some pathological shit right there. Meanwhile, I have a dead possum in my stairwell, three cops asking me all sorts of questions about the living situation here at Chez Gladys, and every single porch on the block covered with inquisitive neighbors who want to know what the hell is going on.
The cops pretty much promise me that this was NOT an attempt to intimidate us or burn us out--"If they wanted to scare you or burn your house, believe me, they'd have thrown a molotov cocktail in your window--they wouldn't have bothered burning a possum." Police Bomb and Arson takes pictures of the scene for the records, and corroborate this view. Eventually, the authorities leave and I go in the house. LJ has a quiet chuckle at the expense of jumpy white females under the influence of Corona; Tim gets some very pointed questions from me as to WHY, exactly, he felt the need to start up on that testosterone-laced bullshit (I found out later EXACTLY why--he was with Nicolette, his girl, and the guy on the corner made some remark about her--you know, the usual crotch-grabbing machismo practiced on street-corners since time immemorial. Well, you don't talk like that about Tim's lady when he's sober; you DAMN sure don't do it when he's NOT. I'm really beginning to wonder about the judgement of my penis-bearing friends--no offense, my male readers, but you must admit I've got some doozies here in the gratuitous-pissing-contest department. And when a woman is involved, the chaos increases tenfold.) Eventually, everyone wound down enough to go to their various rooms for the night.
But just because I was in my room didn't mean I could sleep--an exceptionally bad thing when you consider I had two interviews scheduled for today and there was not much likelihood of sleeping past 8. I sat down at my desk and started making a list of all the rooms in my house, and the contents of each room, divided into three lists: move, store, and toss. And this morning, when I talked to my mother, I asked her point-blank: If I wanted to move home and take over your basement, could I do that? And she said yes.
I'm not sure it's going to happen; at least, I'm not as sure as I was this morning. General consensus on the block is that it really was just some dumbasses with a hate-on against this possum; it wasn't, Len from next-door told me, directed at us. He would know; his older son is the one who talked to the cops, who saw the whole thing happen. I even think I know where the possum came from--they're clearing out a lot down the street which has been a fenced-in wreck full of junked truck parts and semi-trailers since before I moved in. I'm thinking the possum got rousted from his long-time home, ran afoul of these jackasses, and paid the price. I'm not a fan of possums, but I hate to hear of an animal suffering. (I am, however, disproportionately glad that it wasn't a cat or a dog. That would have been it for me; attack or no attack, I'd have been packing my stuff by now.)
I don't want to give up my house. I love this house, and I would like to stay here and realize the profit eventually. It's close to everything, and except for the odd piece of possum-burning human riffraff, the neighbors have been good to me. (Though Tim coming through on some gangsta bullshit could change that...he explained it to me, repeatedly, last night, but to the real question--"why would you start on that shit HERE, though?"--I'm still the only one answering: "testosterone and beer in equal quantities, shaken and stirred.") I don't want to move home to Mom's, or even to an apartment elsewhere in the city. I picked this house for myself, and I resent that circumstances I didn't create can make me consider giving it up.
But the drama is only part of the picture; the rest, of course, is the foreclosure, still crawling through the maze of due process. I know the other shoe will fall shortly. So I've decided: if I get a job by the time they set a sale-date for the house, then I'll fight to keep it. If not, I'll accept that as a sign, and go about the task of selling it and moving back to Mom's for a while. I have bills to pay, some of which have been waiting since before I lost my job in October. If I moved home to Mom's, I could get a job, pay those off in a couple of months and then start saving--or, heaven forbid, maybe even buy some luxuries I've gone without...a decent stereo, maybe, or an HDTV...Just the thought of having money in the bank, though, makes it tempting.
See, I realized something as I lay awake last night, trying to will myself not to panic about the "attack": As much as I love this house, it IS just a house. There are other houses in this world, other chances; maybe even better and more timely ones than this. Maybe I just overreached, trying to bring this one around. Maybe my energy and money could be better spent if I didn't have And anyway the things I value will come with me; all the things I love can be packed and moved when I move. Maybe it's time to think about what I'm fighting for, exactly...and, more importantly, WHY.
I feel peaceful, now--like whatever might be about to happen, it's something I will be able to handle. For the first time in a long time, I can actually BELIEVE that everything is going to be all right--no matter what happens.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Happy Birfday To Me
So yeah...I'm 37 now. Can't quite figure out how in the hell THAT happened, but there you go; one minute you can't drink legally, and the next, you're officially in your LATE 30's.
I'm decently well-adjusted about the "getting older" thing, though; I've spent the last few nights with a notebook, trying to figure out why I'm all balled-up inside, and strangely I feel like I've made progress. Of course, having 2 new job interviews scheduled for Friday doesn't hurt my mood any, either...I just feel peaceful, mostly.
Mostly.
Because... (NASCAR geek approaching...)
AUUUUGGGGHHH! Now do I keep hating DaleJr and transfer my hatred to Hendrick Motorsports as a whole, or do I keep hating DaleJr but continue to love the rest of the Hendrick team despite his presence, or do I just throw in the towel completely and become part of Junior Nation??? (I can tell you this: if NASCAR.com continues to refer to this development as the "New World Order", it's gonna make my decision much, MUCH easier. I mean, at LEAST be ORIGINAL!!)
I suppose I'm just going to have to give in and moderate my hatred somewhat--although strictly speaking, it's not Junior himself I despise, but his FANS--but this is going to be a big change in my worldview and it may take time.
And did he have to announce it on my BIRTHDAY, for pete's sake??
I'm decently well-adjusted about the "getting older" thing, though; I've spent the last few nights with a notebook, trying to figure out why I'm all balled-up inside, and strangely I feel like I've made progress. Of course, having 2 new job interviews scheduled for Friday doesn't hurt my mood any, either...I just feel peaceful, mostly.
Mostly.
Because... (NASCAR geek approaching...)
AUUUUGGGGHHH! Now do I keep hating DaleJr and transfer my hatred to Hendrick Motorsports as a whole, or do I keep hating DaleJr but continue to love the rest of the Hendrick team despite his presence, or do I just throw in the towel completely and become part of Junior Nation??? (I can tell you this: if NASCAR.com continues to refer to this development as the "New World Order", it's gonna make my decision much, MUCH easier. I mean, at LEAST be ORIGINAL!!)
I suppose I'm just going to have to give in and moderate my hatred somewhat--although strictly speaking, it's not Junior himself I despise, but his FANS--but this is going to be a big change in my worldview and it may take time.
And did he have to announce it on my BIRTHDAY, for pete's sake??
Sunday, June 10, 2007
I Has Teh Tired.
(Whoops--too many lolcats again.)
Something had better give, and soon. I am not in a happy place these days; I am more in the "sleeping all day, and screw ya if you don't like it" place. This led, last night, to a beer-fueled debate with Tim regarding my emotional state. I'd put down some quotes, but I'm not trying to make anyone think badly of Tim, and taken out of context I'm sure they'd seem very cruel. Which, come to think of it, they also seemed taken IN context, except I knew why he was saying what he was saying, and how he meant it to be taken. It's difficult, though, living with someone who seems to know how you should solve all your problems, but who doesn't seem to have too much proficiency in the way of solving his own.
The gist of the argument was this:
Tim: "You need to get over JP. I know it was horrible and everything, but you can't just throw away your whole life about it."
Me: "You're right. Now, how do I do that?"
Tim: "I can't tell you. YOU have to do it."
Me: "How can I do it if I don't know how?"
Tim: "Just do whatever you feel."
Me: "I have been. What I feel involves sleeping a lot and not being terribly social."
Tim: "But that's not the answer."
Me: "Okay then--but what IS the answer?"
Tim: "I can't tell you."
This is the same debate I've gotten into with almost everyone who has ever undertaken to discuss the topic with me. Inevitably I end up wanting to take the person and shake them--okay, I KNOW what I need to do, but I have no idea how to do it!! People bat around all these terms like "closure" and "getting past it" and the rest--and THEY seem to know what they're talking about, but without exception they can't explain it to me. Which no doubt pisses THEM off just as much as me, but it's tiring enough worrying about all the legitimate things I have to worry about, without throwing in "does my emotional state make people around me angry?"
"You're not stupid!" yells Tim, and of course he's right; I'm not. But I'm profoundly bewildered. "Just express whatever emotions you feel about it," say the books and the websites and the psychologists...Okay. I'll do that, and in the meantime here's a tip: Buy stock in Kleenex products. Seriously. You'll be glad you did. And what the hell does all that "expressing" accomplish, besides giving me a profound headache, a pile of snotty tissue, and messed-up contact lenses?? Because I've done my fair share of "expressing", let me tell you, and those are the only three things that have ever come of it. I certainly don't feel any better afterwards...
I asked Dr. J about maybe changing my medication, since I don't think the Prozac has done too much for me. She suggested that I go through the process of weaning off of it and see if I feel any worse after that, and if I DO get more depressed then it's possible we should try something else. First of all: yikes. It can get WORSE? Second: I don't think I have the option of exploring any areas downhill of this one--I have a job to find, you know. I think I'll stick with the devil I know, for the moment. "Or," she said, "It may just be that the problems that are causing your depression are reality-based, and what's manifesting as depression are actually just....your feelings. In which case, no medication is going to solve it." Greeeeat. They didn't mention THAT in the patient-information pamphlet, you know: "Warning: If you actually have something to be depressed about, this medication will not help. In case of real, factual problems...well, um, sorry about that. Hope it all works out for you..."
So for the moment, here's what I've got: actual verifiable problems with no immediate solutions; a lot of people who see me as being self-indulgent; and not much of a prospect for anything that will help. This is not a bright picture I'm seeing here.
And in other news, the next person who connects ANY of my problems, real or imagined, to my weight, will get a sock in the jaw for their troubles. (I should explain here, because I don't want to be seen as being in denial about anything: I am overweight, but I am in no way incapacitated. I can still do everything that's required of me--lifting, carrying, walking, all that good stuff. I don't LOOK good--I'm not going to deny that--but it's not like I'm one of the people profiled on the Discovery Channel, the ones who have to be bodily removed from their houses by a piano-moving mechanism. I am moderately FAT. Big effin deal.) I am sick of people implying, for example, that my joblessness is connected to my weight. If that IS the case, I'd like an ACLU lawyer sent to my home immediately. And if that's NOT the case--which in at least 99% of the jobs I haven't gotten, I can say for sure--then for the sweet sake of everything, people need to STFU about it. Do these people think they're doing me any favors by pointing out that I have a weight problem? Do they think I don't have a mirror in my house? Do they think I run around through a day in a state of delusion, believing that I'm gorgeous?? I KNOW how I look. I KNOW I should do something about it. Why, when I have something I SHOULD do something about, do I have to hear about it in EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION--and don't THEY have things they're not doing, anyway?? Why am I the only one who needs to be nagged?? And how many times, I wonder, have I told these same people a flat-out truth I know about myself from long experience: The more I am nagged, the less-likely it is that I will do the thing I'm being nagged to do. When people just leave me alone, I generally take care of things on my own. I can't count the number of times I've said this to people, and yet they persist. "Oh, but they're only saying this because they care..." That may be true--but from the time I was a PERFECTLY NORMAL CHILD, I've heard about my weight. If, perhaps, anyone around me had had a sense of proportion and normality when I was younger, maybe I might have had the bodily intelligence to recognize when I actually WAS gaining weight, instead of just assuming "oh, I'm fat anyway, so what's another few pounds?" Maybe this could have been stopped before it became a problem, hm?
I realize this has turned into a tirade about my weight, which probably indicates that I feel worse about it than I actually do. What I want is simple: for all these well-intentioned people to worry, just for a change, about the things that are REALLY bothering me, instead of adding even WORSE self-esteem to the pile. JP didn't die because I was fat. I didn't get fired for being fat. I'm not in danger of losing the house because I eat too much. The only thing that MAY be correct is that possibly I've accepted bad relationships because of my weight--but you know what? I've accepted bad relationships because I FELT BAD about my weight--except I'm not the one who harped on it to the point that it became an issue! When you hear something from many different sources, it becomes a fact--doesn't anyone recognize that? If you tell a kid "you're overweight, you're too heavy, you're fat" from the time they're THREE YEARS OLD--what do you think the kid is going to grow up thinking of herself? What kind of value do you think that child is going to have for her own judgements about her appearance? "I think I look fine, but everyone around me says I don't. I must be wrong."
And so now they've got evidence: they're right. Bully for them. Hurray for the power of suggestion. THIS is why I don't want to have kids--because supposedly well-intentioned words and actions can lead to shit like THIS.
My weight is not THE problem. My weight is A problem; the larger problem is how the people around me focus on THAT, instead of much larger problems that need much more attention. Is it any wonder I'm tired of people???
Something had better give, and soon. I am not in a happy place these days; I am more in the "sleeping all day, and screw ya if you don't like it" place. This led, last night, to a beer-fueled debate with Tim regarding my emotional state. I'd put down some quotes, but I'm not trying to make anyone think badly of Tim, and taken out of context I'm sure they'd seem very cruel. Which, come to think of it, they also seemed taken IN context, except I knew why he was saying what he was saying, and how he meant it to be taken. It's difficult, though, living with someone who seems to know how you should solve all your problems, but who doesn't seem to have too much proficiency in the way of solving his own.
The gist of the argument was this:
Tim: "You need to get over JP. I know it was horrible and everything, but you can't just throw away your whole life about it."
Me: "You're right. Now, how do I do that?"
Tim: "I can't tell you. YOU have to do it."
Me: "How can I do it if I don't know how?"
Tim: "Just do whatever you feel."
Me: "I have been. What I feel involves sleeping a lot and not being terribly social."
Tim: "But that's not the answer."
Me: "Okay then--but what IS the answer?"
Tim: "I can't tell you."
This is the same debate I've gotten into with almost everyone who has ever undertaken to discuss the topic with me. Inevitably I end up wanting to take the person and shake them--okay, I KNOW what I need to do, but I have no idea how to do it!! People bat around all these terms like "closure" and "getting past it" and the rest--and THEY seem to know what they're talking about, but without exception they can't explain it to me. Which no doubt pisses THEM off just as much as me, but it's tiring enough worrying about all the legitimate things I have to worry about, without throwing in "does my emotional state make people around me angry?"
"You're not stupid!" yells Tim, and of course he's right; I'm not. But I'm profoundly bewildered. "Just express whatever emotions you feel about it," say the books and the websites and the psychologists...Okay. I'll do that, and in the meantime here's a tip: Buy stock in Kleenex products. Seriously. You'll be glad you did. And what the hell does all that "expressing" accomplish, besides giving me a profound headache, a pile of snotty tissue, and messed-up contact lenses?? Because I've done my fair share of "expressing", let me tell you, and those are the only three things that have ever come of it. I certainly don't feel any better afterwards...
I asked Dr. J about maybe changing my medication, since I don't think the Prozac has done too much for me. She suggested that I go through the process of weaning off of it and see if I feel any worse after that, and if I DO get more depressed then it's possible we should try something else. First of all: yikes. It can get WORSE? Second: I don't think I have the option of exploring any areas downhill of this one--I have a job to find, you know. I think I'll stick with the devil I know, for the moment. "Or," she said, "It may just be that the problems that are causing your depression are reality-based, and what's manifesting as depression are actually just....your feelings. In which case, no medication is going to solve it." Greeeeat. They didn't mention THAT in the patient-information pamphlet, you know: "Warning: If you actually have something to be depressed about, this medication will not help. In case of real, factual problems...well, um, sorry about that. Hope it all works out for you..."
So for the moment, here's what I've got: actual verifiable problems with no immediate solutions; a lot of people who see me as being self-indulgent; and not much of a prospect for anything that will help. This is not a bright picture I'm seeing here.
And in other news, the next person who connects ANY of my problems, real or imagined, to my weight, will get a sock in the jaw for their troubles. (I should explain here, because I don't want to be seen as being in denial about anything: I am overweight, but I am in no way incapacitated. I can still do everything that's required of me--lifting, carrying, walking, all that good stuff. I don't LOOK good--I'm not going to deny that--but it's not like I'm one of the people profiled on the Discovery Channel, the ones who have to be bodily removed from their houses by a piano-moving mechanism. I am moderately FAT. Big effin deal.) I am sick of people implying, for example, that my joblessness is connected to my weight. If that IS the case, I'd like an ACLU lawyer sent to my home immediately. And if that's NOT the case--which in at least 99% of the jobs I haven't gotten, I can say for sure--then for the sweet sake of everything, people need to STFU about it. Do these people think they're doing me any favors by pointing out that I have a weight problem? Do they think I don't have a mirror in my house? Do they think I run around through a day in a state of delusion, believing that I'm gorgeous?? I KNOW how I look. I KNOW I should do something about it. Why, when I have something I SHOULD do something about, do I have to hear about it in EVERY SINGLE CONVERSATION--and don't THEY have things they're not doing, anyway?? Why am I the only one who needs to be nagged?? And how many times, I wonder, have I told these same people a flat-out truth I know about myself from long experience: The more I am nagged, the less-likely it is that I will do the thing I'm being nagged to do. When people just leave me alone, I generally take care of things on my own. I can't count the number of times I've said this to people, and yet they persist. "Oh, but they're only saying this because they care..." That may be true--but from the time I was a PERFECTLY NORMAL CHILD, I've heard about my weight. If, perhaps, anyone around me had had a sense of proportion and normality when I was younger, maybe I might have had the bodily intelligence to recognize when I actually WAS gaining weight, instead of just assuming "oh, I'm fat anyway, so what's another few pounds?" Maybe this could have been stopped before it became a problem, hm?
I realize this has turned into a tirade about my weight, which probably indicates that I feel worse about it than I actually do. What I want is simple: for all these well-intentioned people to worry, just for a change, about the things that are REALLY bothering me, instead of adding even WORSE self-esteem to the pile. JP didn't die because I was fat. I didn't get fired for being fat. I'm not in danger of losing the house because I eat too much. The only thing that MAY be correct is that possibly I've accepted bad relationships because of my weight--but you know what? I've accepted bad relationships because I FELT BAD about my weight--except I'm not the one who harped on it to the point that it became an issue! When you hear something from many different sources, it becomes a fact--doesn't anyone recognize that? If you tell a kid "you're overweight, you're too heavy, you're fat" from the time they're THREE YEARS OLD--what do you think the kid is going to grow up thinking of herself? What kind of value do you think that child is going to have for her own judgements about her appearance? "I think I look fine, but everyone around me says I don't. I must be wrong."
And so now they've got evidence: they're right. Bully for them. Hurray for the power of suggestion. THIS is why I don't want to have kids--because supposedly well-intentioned words and actions can lead to shit like THIS.
My weight is not THE problem. My weight is A problem; the larger problem is how the people around me focus on THAT, instead of much larger problems that need much more attention. Is it any wonder I'm tired of people???
Thursday, June 7, 2007
It's Oh So Quiet....
...It's also EXTREEEMELY hot and windy here, and if I suddenly disappear from the face of the earth within the next 24 hours, you may safely assume I've been blown away by the 50-mph(yeah, really!) winds that have taken over Chicago. Someone needs to let the weather know: it's not called "the Windy City" because of actual, meteorological WIND. (Well, okay, MAYBE it is. History is an inexact science, you know.)
But! It's so nice and LONELY here in Gladystopia today...I woke up late and came downstairs and the house was, except for cats and probably more millipedes than I care to contemplate, empty of all living creatures. Aside from the sound of cats going NOM NOM NOM over their midday meal, it's silent here.
See, after all that fuss related in the last post: Tim's got a girlfriend. He met her at work, they went for drinks afterward, and then the day before yesterday I came downstairs, Tim's door opened, and a half-clad female poked her nose out. She was WAY more shocked than I was.
She's a couple years older than me (Wow, it's sad when 40 is "a couple years older"...) and she seems really nice. I have a feeling, though, that Tim may be in over his head; despite all his proclamations of "I don't want an exclusive relationship," it seemed to me, just in spending a few hours with them, that she might very well have other ideas.
Am I jealous? Not even a little. I've spent the last few days thinking about relationships, and I've come to the conclusion that I am totally not ready for one, no matter how casual or non-exclusive or no-strings-attached or whatever you want to call it. My sense of trust has been so completely damaged--by CR, by LJ, by listening to what men think of women--that there's just no way I would feel comfortable letting anyone get that close--physically, emotionally, any way at all. I don't trust anyone with the "real" me. And yes, I know: I'm setting myself up for a long and lonely life if I'm not willing to take the risk of getting hurt anymore. True enough, but it's not an irrevocable decision. If someone came along who I could truly trust, I'd gladly--gladly!!--change my mind. But there's no one like that in my life right now--not even Tim, who I trust as much as I trust any of my female friends. I told him that yesterday; we'd given his new girlfriend a ride downtown, and then made a run out to Oak Park for pizza and beers, so we had a good hour to talk in the car on the way. He seemed to understand; I'm sure his mind is elsewhere, anyhow.
So Tim is out with his new girl, and I am left with the cats and the Catastrophe, which to me is a fairly-ideal way of spending an afternoon.
I had an interview yesterday which went fairly well--not so much for the position itself, which unfortunately needs a skill I am completely lacking (although they said I'm not out of the running, because my technical background is better than the other candidates)--but because the guys I interviewed with tipped me off that another position will be opening up soon, something much more attuned to my interests. As you might imagine, if I don't get this job I will avidly pursue this other lead! Slightly more frustrating, though: I haven't heard from last week's interview, which I'd thought went really well. I'm learning that my judgement on these things is less-than-adequate.
I feel good, though. The quiet agrees with me.
But! It's so nice and LONELY here in Gladystopia today...I woke up late and came downstairs and the house was, except for cats and probably more millipedes than I care to contemplate, empty of all living creatures. Aside from the sound of cats going NOM NOM NOM over their midday meal, it's silent here.
See, after all that fuss related in the last post: Tim's got a girlfriend. He met her at work, they went for drinks afterward, and then the day before yesterday I came downstairs, Tim's door opened, and a half-clad female poked her nose out. She was WAY more shocked than I was.
She's a couple years older than me (Wow, it's sad when 40 is "a couple years older"...) and she seems really nice. I have a feeling, though, that Tim may be in over his head; despite all his proclamations of "I don't want an exclusive relationship," it seemed to me, just in spending a few hours with them, that she might very well have other ideas.
Am I jealous? Not even a little. I've spent the last few days thinking about relationships, and I've come to the conclusion that I am totally not ready for one, no matter how casual or non-exclusive or no-strings-attached or whatever you want to call it. My sense of trust has been so completely damaged--by CR, by LJ, by listening to what men think of women--that there's just no way I would feel comfortable letting anyone get that close--physically, emotionally, any way at all. I don't trust anyone with the "real" me. And yes, I know: I'm setting myself up for a long and lonely life if I'm not willing to take the risk of getting hurt anymore. True enough, but it's not an irrevocable decision. If someone came along who I could truly trust, I'd gladly--gladly!!--change my mind. But there's no one like that in my life right now--not even Tim, who I trust as much as I trust any of my female friends. I told him that yesterday; we'd given his new girlfriend a ride downtown, and then made a run out to Oak Park for pizza and beers, so we had a good hour to talk in the car on the way. He seemed to understand; I'm sure his mind is elsewhere, anyhow.
So Tim is out with his new girl, and I am left with the cats and the Catastrophe, which to me is a fairly-ideal way of spending an afternoon.
I had an interview yesterday which went fairly well--not so much for the position itself, which unfortunately needs a skill I am completely lacking (although they said I'm not out of the running, because my technical background is better than the other candidates)--but because the guys I interviewed with tipped me off that another position will be opening up soon, something much more attuned to my interests. As you might imagine, if I don't get this job I will avidly pursue this other lead! Slightly more frustrating, though: I haven't heard from last week's interview, which I'd thought went really well. I'm learning that my judgement on these things is less-than-adequate.
I feel good, though. The quiet agrees with me.
Monday, June 4, 2007
You Thought It Was Boring?
It's a measure of how preoccupied I've been since getting fired that I didn't even mention the latest little dramas among the residents here in Gladystopia.
First of all, and least-consequential: I'm pretty sure LJ's got a girlfriend. He's been spending an awful lot of time out of state--"on business" he claims--but every time he goes anywhere, he asks me to print out directions for him, from Yahoo Maps. And because he's incapable of remembering anything, he doesn't actually KNOW the addresses he's trying to go to; so instead he just opens up whatever text message contains the address, then plops his phone down in front of me so I can get the info. And you can say what you want, but it's very odd, isn't it, for someone who's allegedly his "cousin's girl" to address LJ, in a series of text messages, as "baby"??? And that's to say nothing about the conversation I overheard while I was in the bathroom one night--the walls here at the Catastrophe are very thin indeed, and all I can say about THAT is, he was never all lovey-dovey with ME like that! I'm not jealous--I'm amused. Poor girl, whoever she is; I could tell her volumes about what she's got to look forward to. He's out of town again, this time for "a couple of weeks". The longer, the better, as far as I'm concerned...when he comes back, I'm going to have to confront Big Issue #1.
(You know it can't be good when we have to assign numbers to the Big Issues.)
LJ called me a couple of days ago, see. It's generally not a good thing, a call from an out-of-town LJ; either he wants something, or he wants something, or...Usually he wants something. This time, though, he called to tell me what he DOESN'T want...
He doesn't want the truck anymore.
First of all, and least-consequential: I'm pretty sure LJ's got a girlfriend. He's been spending an awful lot of time out of state--"on business" he claims--but every time he goes anywhere, he asks me to print out directions for him, from Yahoo Maps. And because he's incapable of remembering anything, he doesn't actually KNOW the addresses he's trying to go to; so instead he just opens up whatever text message contains the address, then plops his phone down in front of me so I can get the info. And you can say what you want, but it's very odd, isn't it, for someone who's allegedly his "cousin's girl" to address LJ, in a series of text messages, as "baby"??? And that's to say nothing about the conversation I overheard while I was in the bathroom one night--the walls here at the Catastrophe are very thin indeed, and all I can say about THAT is, he was never all lovey-dovey with ME like that! I'm not jealous--I'm amused. Poor girl, whoever she is; I could tell her volumes about what she's got to look forward to. He's out of town again, this time for "a couple of weeks". The longer, the better, as far as I'm concerned...when he comes back, I'm going to have to confront Big Issue #1.
(You know it can't be good when we have to assign numbers to the Big Issues.)
LJ called me a couple of days ago, see. It's generally not a good thing, a call from an out-of-town LJ; either he wants something, or he wants something, or...Usually he wants something. This time, though, he called to tell me what he DOESN'T want...
He doesn't want the truck anymore.
This--for those of you who are new to my little world here--is a Very Bad Thing. See, back in the summer of 2004, a few months after we moved in together and before things had gone sour, LJ decided that he really, really wanted a truck. Unfortunately, his credit was fuxxored--even more so, at the time, than mine--and so he wanted ME to buy the truck. (His truck, my credit. When do I learn??) We ended up paying entirely too godawful much, at an interest rate of approximately OH MY GOD, for a truck with a whole boatload of problems. Not a small boatload, either...this was at least a cruise-ship-sized boatload. Like, $HOLYCRAP thousand dollars worth of repairs within the first six months, et cetera. The agreement we made was that he would pay for the truck, even though my name was on it. Actually, the initial agreement was that he would pay for the truck AND INSURANCE, but that fell by the wayside early on. I would say, of the 34 months we've had the truck thus far, he's paid maybe half of them--MAYBE half. I'm being generous. But I figured, I was driving it to work; he was driving it the rest of the time, but that didn't bother me; and anyway, if you can't help your boyfriend, who can you help?
When he moved back a few months ago, after he'd moved out for what I thought was for good, I wasn't really happy about it--I no longer had the "boyfriend" incentive, for one. I'd been happier, all things considered, while LJ was gone. But Tim talked sense; he said "You know you don't want to get stuck paying for the truck, especially since he still wants it--why not have his rent be the car payment??" Which made sense, at the time, especially since I was jobless by then and needed the money.
The first inklings of trouble came a few weeks ago; apparently Tim and LJ had talked, man-to-man, one night after I'd gone to sleep, and LJ had mentioned to Tim that he wanted to get a different truck. Tim told me, on the condition that I keep the info to myself, which I did. I already knew that there was something going on with LJ anyway; between overhearing his lovey-dovey phone conversations with some out-of-state girl, and being shown various text messages in which he was addressed as "baby", I figured he had a girl somewhere else. That didn't bother me. My emotional attachment to LJ ended quite some time ago; a few months, at least, before my relapse, and it was only the financial connection of the truck which kept me from telling him to screw off and go elsewhere for his free ride. Really, it was only Tim's intervention which kept me from telling LJ not to bother moving his stuff back into that room when he came back to town.
But now that LJ has disavowed his previous plan to pay off the truck and then take it off my hands, I find myself stuck with a $440 monthly payment on a vehicle which threatens at every mile to do something untoward, which also guzzles $4-per-gallon gas at a truly repulsive rate, and which has, now, upwards of 160,000 miles on it. Gee, thanks, LJ. 'Preciate that.
Not only that, but I'm ALSO now faced with the daunting task of kicking LJ out of my casa, at last. I mean, he can't live here for free. (Yes, yes, I know: Tim lives here for free. Tim's a different case entirely, though...for one, I've known him for ten years; for another, he doesn't WANT to be living here for free; and for a third thing....well, you'll see.) LJ contributes exactly nothing to the common welfare, and in some cases has....What's the opposite of "contributed"? "Anti-contributed" is the best I can come up with right now, and so I'm sticking with that--in some cases, he's anti-contributed to an alarming extent. Also, he's NASTY. I should not, at the advanced age of nearly-37, have to have a sign over my toilet that says "Please Flush--Yellow Water Is Not OK". I just....freakin'....shouldn't. And that's barely scratching the surface of the nastiness. Just EWWW, you know? To lapse for a moment into the vernacular: Dude gotsta go.
And that would be easy, had I the slightest notion of how to carry it out. I don't--again, this will be news only to those of you who haven't been reading me for, oh, say, more than a week--I don't do well with conflicts. The means of evicting someone, in my world, is roughly as incomprehensible as brain surgery, rocket-science, or the thought process that would lead someone to voluntarily vote for Bush. (I've been told that all of the above can be explained very simply; they just can't be explained simply to ME.) I realize what must be done; I'm merely incapable of actually DOING it.
Thank heavens, then, for Tim. Tim has stepped into the role of Man of the House, which...I'm willing to concede the point despite his continued lack of steady income, only because I know his past track-record. In fact, I am inclined to grant him a larger stake in the welfare of this establishment than he has earned, again based largely on his track record. He's an EXTREMELY slow starter in the job front, but once he gets his feet under him, he can be depended upon as completely as the tides. I've asked his advice re: the LJ/truck/housing situation, and I'm sure he'll give me some good ideas.* That's one of the things I like about Tim; he really does try, and he really does mean to do right.
When he moved back a few months ago, after he'd moved out for what I thought was for good, I wasn't really happy about it--I no longer had the "boyfriend" incentive, for one. I'd been happier, all things considered, while LJ was gone. But Tim talked sense; he said "You know you don't want to get stuck paying for the truck, especially since he still wants it--why not have his rent be the car payment??" Which made sense, at the time, especially since I was jobless by then and needed the money.
The first inklings of trouble came a few weeks ago; apparently Tim and LJ had talked, man-to-man, one night after I'd gone to sleep, and LJ had mentioned to Tim that he wanted to get a different truck. Tim told me, on the condition that I keep the info to myself, which I did. I already knew that there was something going on with LJ anyway; between overhearing his lovey-dovey phone conversations with some out-of-state girl, and being shown various text messages in which he was addressed as "baby", I figured he had a girl somewhere else. That didn't bother me. My emotional attachment to LJ ended quite some time ago; a few months, at least, before my relapse, and it was only the financial connection of the truck which kept me from telling him to screw off and go elsewhere for his free ride. Really, it was only Tim's intervention which kept me from telling LJ not to bother moving his stuff back into that room when he came back to town.
But now that LJ has disavowed his previous plan to pay off the truck and then take it off my hands, I find myself stuck with a $440 monthly payment on a vehicle which threatens at every mile to do something untoward, which also guzzles $4-per-gallon gas at a truly repulsive rate, and which has, now, upwards of 160,000 miles on it. Gee, thanks, LJ. 'Preciate that.
Not only that, but I'm ALSO now faced with the daunting task of kicking LJ out of my casa, at last. I mean, he can't live here for free. (Yes, yes, I know: Tim lives here for free. Tim's a different case entirely, though...for one, I've known him for ten years; for another, he doesn't WANT to be living here for free; and for a third thing....well, you'll see.) LJ contributes exactly nothing to the common welfare, and in some cases has....What's the opposite of "contributed"? "Anti-contributed" is the best I can come up with right now, and so I'm sticking with that--in some cases, he's anti-contributed to an alarming extent. Also, he's NASTY. I should not, at the advanced age of nearly-37, have to have a sign over my toilet that says "Please Flush--Yellow Water Is Not OK". I just....freakin'....shouldn't. And that's barely scratching the surface of the nastiness. Just EWWW, you know? To lapse for a moment into the vernacular: Dude gotsta go.
And that would be easy, had I the slightest notion of how to carry it out. I don't--again, this will be news only to those of you who haven't been reading me for, oh, say, more than a week--I don't do well with conflicts. The means of evicting someone, in my world, is roughly as incomprehensible as brain surgery, rocket-science, or the thought process that would lead someone to voluntarily vote for Bush. (I've been told that all of the above can be explained very simply; they just can't be explained simply to ME.) I realize what must be done; I'm merely incapable of actually DOING it.
Thank heavens, then, for Tim. Tim has stepped into the role of Man of the House, which...I'm willing to concede the point despite his continued lack of steady income, only because I know his past track-record. In fact, I am inclined to grant him a larger stake in the welfare of this establishment than he has earned, again based largely on his track record. He's an EXTREMELY slow starter in the job front, but once he gets his feet under him, he can be depended upon as completely as the tides. I've asked his advice re: the LJ/truck/housing situation, and I'm sure he'll give me some good ideas.* That's one of the things I like about Tim; he really does try, and he really does mean to do right.
Which brings me--Tim's Man-of-the-House status does--to Big Issue #2, which seems destined to complicate everything, everywhere, for a good long time to come. Or not, maybe; with things like this you never can tell.
See, a couple of weeks ago--I think it was during the weekend after I got fired--Tim and I had spent the weekend celebrating the Joy of Beer. And as we often do late at night, with or without alcohol, we got to hashing over past events--most particularly, the year that Tim and CR and I shared an apartment. It was a year of misunderstandings, a year of cowardice and bullshit and things unsaid, and even though we've talked it over and over, there are still a few sore spots left in that discussion. Generally, if we're talking late at night, or if there's alcohol involved, we tend to poke at those sore spots a little more than we ought to. We both understand why the other one was mad/hurt/apathetic/insensitive/whatever--we just each understand our OWN pain a little better than the other one's, is all.
Well, apparently there's been more to this situation than I thought, for a long time. Because around the time we got to the bottom of the case of Coronas, the truth came out: Tim says he loves me. And not, apparently, in the platonic sense. And apparently? This has been going on for, like...years.
It's a testament to exactly how knocked-for-a-loop I was by this job thing, that Tim's confession utterly failed to knock me for the appropriate-size loop. My loop was borked, basically. I couldn't do any more shock and awe for one weekend. I was more like "okay...well." That was pretty much all I could manage.
I mean, it's not like I haven't considered it before. Most of my Tim-related blogging has been complaints and bitching, but that's not entirely representative of our friendship. (After he told me how he felt, I actually read back in this blog to see if I'd been missing something; mostly, I found, I was missing a sense of compassion and proportion. There were times I got really bitchy about Tim, and some times he didn't deserve it. Once or twice I was justified, but not all the time.) Mostly, we've been there for each other. I didn't realize exactly how much he'd tried to be there for me until, at one point in the conversation, he enumerated all the times he's offered to help me in some way and I've turned him down--choosing the house, choosing a car, making repairs...apparently he offered his assistance in all these situations, and I didn't take him up on it. I only half-remember the offers, and apparently accepting his help was just not something I was able to do--probably on account of some sense of unearned superiority, or some belief that I knew better than he did. Who knows?
And along with the other things I don't remember...He claims that there was an abortive encounter between us, back in the days where we were sharing a studio apartment and I was still using. He says he was drunk and I was high, and between those two altered states there was very little chance for anything to actually take place...but I would feel better about it if I had even the least recollection of it. I pride myself on remembering things like that--on remembering EVERYTHING, really, despite years of people trying to make me believe things happened when they didn't, or vice versa. The fact that I have no recollection of this leads me to believe either one of two things: either a) it didn't happen, or b) it did. Which pretty much covers everything, now that I think about it.... It doesn't matter, exactly, whether it happened or it didn't; it's more that I'd like to remember if it did. Heroin, man. Wicked stuff.
The other major revelation that's come from this whole new era of honesty took place during a long car-ride, and it went something like this:
Tim (after 30 minutes of hemming and hawing and avoiding the issue): "...So it's like...I wanted to tell you before, but...okay, here it is:" ::::braces himself::: "I'm bisexual." :::flinches for my reaction::::
Me: :::long pause; I mean, the poor guy's got himself all wrought up thinking this is a huge deal and I don't want to disappoint him by blowing it off....:::: "Okay, so what? So am I."
Tim: ::: makes exceedingly comical faces indicating the following: "OMGWTFBBQ?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!"::::
Now, CR had told me long ago that Tim was bi, but according to Tim, CR had absolutely no clue what he was talking about at the time; apparently, Tim has only just figured this out for himself over the past year or so, long after we'd both exiled CR from our lives. It matters to me precisely not at all...
...Okay, that's a lie, actually. Because, you see, Tim's declaration of love for me was tied to an important "but"... he does not want a monogamous relationship, he says. Which, for me, is a bit of a deal-killer...IF it's a woman he's being non-monogamous with. If--hypothetically--Tim and I were to get involved, and he was non-monogamous with a woman, that would not be something I could live with. But if it was a man, I would have MUCH less of a problem with it. What that says about me, I don't know; I'm not really sure I WANT to know what that says about me, honestly. I do know this, though: the next person I fall in love with, it's going to have to be one of those situations where I'm the only one, where I'm not sharing them with anyone else. I realize that's a totally unrealistic scenario, and anti-feminist into the bargain, but here's the thing: I'm not going to settle anymore. I had EXACTLY the relationship I wanted when I was with JP; I've tried to compromise but it just doesn't work for me. I know I'm setting myself up for 50 years of solitude and a lonely death, but this is one of the very few issues on which I can respect my own feelings. I've thought about it; I accept it, and I accept whatever may come of it. I told Tim the same thing; if he and I ever get involved, it will because either he's changed his mind about monogamy, or I have.
In the meantime, though, we are still good friends; we still plan to grow old together in the same house, like a bickery old married couple, and get on each others' nerves at least twice a week. It's good to have a plan, really. We get along, no matter what happens or doesn't; we live together pretty efficiently, all things considered.
And at least HE flushes when he's done using the bathroom.
...Okay, that's a lie, actually. Because, you see, Tim's declaration of love for me was tied to an important "but"... he does not want a monogamous relationship, he says. Which, for me, is a bit of a deal-killer...IF it's a woman he's being non-monogamous with. If--hypothetically--Tim and I were to get involved, and he was non-monogamous with a woman, that would not be something I could live with. But if it was a man, I would have MUCH less of a problem with it. What that says about me, I don't know; I'm not really sure I WANT to know what that says about me, honestly. I do know this, though: the next person I fall in love with, it's going to have to be one of those situations where I'm the only one, where I'm not sharing them with anyone else. I realize that's a totally unrealistic scenario, and anti-feminist into the bargain, but here's the thing: I'm not going to settle anymore. I had EXACTLY the relationship I wanted when I was with JP; I've tried to compromise but it just doesn't work for me. I know I'm setting myself up for 50 years of solitude and a lonely death, but this is one of the very few issues on which I can respect my own feelings. I've thought about it; I accept it, and I accept whatever may come of it. I told Tim the same thing; if he and I ever get involved, it will because either he's changed his mind about monogamy, or I have.
In the meantime, though, we are still good friends; we still plan to grow old together in the same house, like a bickery old married couple, and get on each others' nerves at least twice a week. It's good to have a plan, really. We get along, no matter what happens or doesn't; we live together pretty efficiently, all things considered.
And at least HE flushes when he's done using the bathroom.
_________________________________________________________
*Although--good advice aside, there is one thing for which I will never ask Tim's advice again: his NASCAR picks. He singlehandedly borked my entire fantasy season with this week's assurance that Kyle Busch was "due for a win". Well, Kyle continues to be "due", and my fantasy league lies panting in the shadow of those who chose Ryan Newman or Denny Hamlin. Dagnabbit. I'd have been better off picking Kasey, and it's small consolation at best that I highly doubt anyone picked the actual winner.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
A Moment of (Now-Deleted) Bitching
(It's probably not a good thing when you think about a blog post afterwards and wonder "Was that really necessary?" So in the interest of fairness to my roomie--who, granted! was being a bit of a butthead for the past couple of days--I have removed the meat of a long bitchy post about his various quirks and lack of manners in some regard. He pisses me off sometimes, but: a) he's not a bad guy, really; b) he's TRYING to do right; and c) everyone gets excused for the occasional episode of ferocious buttheadedness. So the bitchfulness has been edited and consigned forever to "draft" status, and the non-bitchful portion of the post has been reproduced below, since it contains some relevant info.
However, since I am not inclined to let an entire post go by without crabbing about SOMETHING, let me oblige myself by saying: Is HOT. Is REALLY, REALLY hot. I feel...spongy. ::end bitching::)
... (paragraphs of needless crabbiness deleted)...
...In other, actually-important news: I had an interview Wednesday and another one next week, both for jobs that look really good. So we shall see... I'm hoping the first job calls me back for a second interview...I'm thinking that kinda might not happen, though, since they said they were going to decide who to call back by Monday at the latest, and here it is Friday and I've heard nuthin'. Still, the very fact that I got two calls right away makes me feel much more optimistic about the whole job-hunt process.
I do, though, hate the trepidation with which I now view the concept of "work". I feel like I will be walking on eggshells forever, because now I know firsthand what it's like to be out of work for a long time and to lose a job without warning--and I know once I get another job, I'm going to want to avoid that at any cost. I know it's going to keep me from speaking my mind sometimes, and keep me from taking any kind of risks--even if it's a good thing--just for fear of losing my security. And that sucks.
Still, if it means I've got a job, I'll settle for the sense of trepidation, no questions asked!
However, since I am not inclined to let an entire post go by without crabbing about SOMETHING, let me oblige myself by saying: Is HOT. Is REALLY, REALLY hot. I feel...spongy. ::end bitching::)
... (paragraphs of needless crabbiness deleted)...
...In other, actually-important news: I had an interview Wednesday and another one next week, both for jobs that look really good. So we shall see... I'm hoping the first job calls me back for a second interview...I'm thinking that kinda might not happen, though, since they said they were going to decide who to call back by Monday at the latest, and here it is Friday and I've heard nuthin'. Still, the very fact that I got two calls right away makes me feel much more optimistic about the whole job-hunt process.
I do, though, hate the trepidation with which I now view the concept of "work". I feel like I will be walking on eggshells forever, because now I know firsthand what it's like to be out of work for a long time and to lose a job without warning--and I know once I get another job, I'm going to want to avoid that at any cost. I know it's going to keep me from speaking my mind sometimes, and keep me from taking any kind of risks--even if it's a good thing--just for fear of losing my security. And that sucks.
Still, if it means I've got a job, I'll settle for the sense of trepidation, no questions asked!
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