Sigh.

There have been times that I have had a doctor I liked and wanted to keep. Then I changed jobs….

Now, I have Kaiser. There is a huge Kaiser medical center in town, and each time I require something simple like a prescription I have to go there.

Today I went to the huge four story ultra-complex multiple building-named-after-a-tree center for the routine female tests. I was in and out in less than an hour. I find this amazing, after the three hour visits that were actually fifteen minute visits surrounded by long waits for the doctor/nurse practitioner to enter the room….

I have come to appreciate the conveyor belt approach to medicine. The days of the family doctor who knows you since you’re two months old are nostalgic history. Viva la HMO. I was back to work in no time.

The upstairs neighbor is busy tonight, trundling his furniture to and fro, apparently with very large people still sitting in it. (I am going solely by the sound of it all, mind you - there might be skiing elephants, or rolling rhinos, or perhaps he is stripping the flooring with a hand axe.)

That’s okay, however, as I am listening to MASH episodes at full volume to cover the noise.

Viva la neighborness.

Last Saturday I hiked 9 miles in 90F weather, on exposed ridges at ~7000 feet elevation.

Sunday I slept most of the day. I think that the four liters of water I drank on the hike did not offset the heat exhaustion. Not Good.

Still somewhat tired this week. Not wanting to get up for work in the mornings. Thinking I’m too old p’raps for pushing myself into the out of doors.

But! Tioga Pass opens tomorrow. I may yet go backpacking in Yosemite.

I have been organizing my books to sell them. To pay for backpacking gear.

Good grief. The next thing you know, day will be night, and we’ll start wearing hats on our feet. The incurable book-hoarding bookworm is selling books!

But the internet is powerful and I’ve just ordered more gear and GOOD GOD SOMEONE STAGE AN INTERVENTION.

I ordered a backpacking UMBRELLA.

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Well. Actually it makes more sense than it seems. The Chrome Dome is for keeping off the sun. I wore 50 SPF on an 8 mile hike yesterday and next thing you know, sunburn. Especially on my knuckles, of all places. I slathered it on at least three times over 5 hours.

So, a metallicized umbrella.

I went backpacking in Big Sur.

Things I did that were fun:
hiked through wildflowers and greenery
camped alongside the river
enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine and scenery

Things I did that were not fun:
taking a long detour due to road construction that resulted in being late to the trailhead and needing to cover 10 miles before nightfall.
run out of charge in the camera battery
nearly fall in the ice cold river while wading across with a 27 lb pack
burn my dinner in the pan
tip over my lit backpacking stove and catch the forest floor on fire
sleep part of the 34F night, but not all
nearly roll down a cliff trying to step over a fallen tree with 27 lbs of dead weight throwing me off balance
hike back out with blisters and sore hips from the hip belt of the new pack
go to ER to get a tick cut out of my leg when it became obvious I couldn’t ever do it myself
the uncertainty of whether I still had insurance or not - hate switching jobs and not knowing

At least I know what to do next time. Coat my clothes with permethrin.

Moving and new job are at the top of the list for life events most stressful. Moving back to a town where most of my friends live takes the edge off - I have some support and things to do from time to time. Also the folks at work are great and I am making a few potential friends, not just friendly-because-we’re-here acquaintances.

Still, I continue to be lonelier than hell. To offset this, I have been going on hikes with an active hiking group, and accumulating gear for actual backpacking trips. It keeps me occupied. I made myself a hiking quilt, sort of a sleeping bag minus the zipper and a couple other features that make mummy bags too claustrophobic for my liking. I joined hiking forums. I did a lot of research.

I’m still unpacking from the move and will likely share a booth at the swap meet with a friend to offload random items and the plethora of books I haven’t read in two years. My pets are doing okay, but I have lately wanted to kill them for waking me up too early - the time change is not our friend.

I am trying hard to move slowly, make no rash decisions, take deep breaths, move through the transitional period and let the situation settle before doing anything else like committing to another group or shifting my work schedule. The impulse is to get busy and stop feeling so lonely. It’s not that friends aren’t great - it’s just that I’ve gotten to the point that coming home to an empty apartment is getting harder and harder, and nearly half my life is behind me. One of my friends is widowed; she got to spend her younger active years with a husband she loved dearly. Others have had relationships, spouses, divorces, and have children and grandchildren to fill the space.

I’ve had relationships, a husband, and they’re all gone. In my less rational moments I have to wonder what I did wrong. It’s not like I don’t know how to be a good friend, or how to make connections. It’s just sort of what happened. And the older you get, the fewer options there seem to be. I haven’t met an unattached *person* in two years - everyone’s got someone. Forget meeting someone compatible; that seems like a pipe dream. The one compatible person I knew didn’t want me, apparently.

It all seems harder and harder to handle. So I write less, and blog less, and try harder to be active, because it’s pretty much all I can do.

And before you suggest dating sites.. been there, done that, not going back to it. All it taught me was that people either lie, or have distorted self awareness that leads to uncomfortable situations. I only ever met one person on them who was honest. That didn’t work either.

Did an 8 mile hike with a local hiking group yesterday; did another 8 miles today walking around my apartment putting/ throwing/ moving things around.

Legs minimally sore. I carried about 8 lbs of water - drank it all. (That’s about 3 liters.) Met some great people. I may go on the Morro Bay Easter weekend - don’t know if I’m brave enough to kayak, but the hiking I can manage, and the camping.

Got rid of more cardboard. Whee.

I have plenty.

Now comes the long unboxening - organizing all the STUFF into two closets and a set of drawers.

I have recycled/tossed approximately a metric ton of CRAP. I will recycle more before I am done….

It doesn’t feel quite real, and I’ve had a headache for two days straight. I had to get a few organizing things from Cost Plus that will fit in the closet better than the boxes I have. I keep distracting myself with teh interwebs and various projects. I signed up for a backpacking group. I am watching an ebay countdown on a backpack to replace the one I got that’s actually a size too big for me (silly online buyer, always measure twice then order).

The little kid upstairs ran laps around the apartment last night around one. Woke me out of a pretty sound sleep, and the headache was WOE and PAIN and I couldn’t get back to sleep. But a shower and some super-ultra-extra-strength pain reliever did surprisingly well at restoring my ability to function.

Now that I have sufficiently distracted myself, I shall return to… the boxes. Ugh.

1. moved
2. started new job
3. turned into a large comatose semi-erect robot

Am v. tired. Spending all off time sleeping, or assembling/organizing/unpacking in my sleep.

Back later.

ETA: last trip to old apartment completed. Now must get energy to unload car.

My pets and most of my things are in another town tonight, in my new apartment.

I’m surrounded by open carpet.

We finish the move this coming weekend.

Three days of the old job left. It will be difficult to be cordial to the supervisor. She’s been even colder since I gave notice, and it’s hard not to snicker when I walk by her open door….

Things to do in the next two week:
1. give stuff away
1.5. work
2. pack the rest
2.5. work some more
3. reserve: truck, phone/utilities, apartment
3.5. keep working; fill out forms
3.75. get: fingerprinted, drug tested, examined by m.d., forms to fill in
4. pack truck
5. collapse
6. drive truck
7. unload truck and turn it in
8. feed friend pizza and beer, eat pizza and beer, collapse
9. drive back to old job; work for three more days, cleaning old apartment in the evenings and camping on the floor
10. drive to new apartment; buy groceries
11. start new job

I hate moving with a passion, but I’ve had a lot of practice.

I’m busily cleaning out the apartment, as in, all the things I have not used in a year or more are going into a pile in the garage.

I considered selling some things, and I may yet throw a collection(s) of various games and software on ebay…. But I’m thinking many of these items served me for a while and retired to closets, and that we only ever pay for the use of them, and part of being responsible is to be conscious of when it’s time to let things go so someone else who needs them can use them. So many items are going to head for donation sites, to be exchanged for receipts.

My old PC/digital camera already have a home - a friend who still has Windows ME (!!!!!) will be adopting them once I reformat the hard drive and install fresh versions of the software.

Lots and lots of old craft stuff is heading out of the apartment, or being set aside for re-use in new projects. And I have dusted off the sewing machine - I just ordered a quilt kit to make a backpacking quilt. The mummy bag I have is not as warm as advertised, and the zipper getting stuck wigs me out in the morning - I’m somewhat claustrophobic, and add that to having to pee and not being able to get out of the bag? Panic city.

Yes, I’m still planning to move. I have another job interview on the twenty-second. I have quotes from moving companies, of the do-it-yourself and four-guys-with-tools sort of job. I lean toward four guys with tools dismantling the washer/dryer and wheeling out the refrigerator. Being able to load the pets and electronics in the car and let the guys lock the garage door when they’re done and ready to roll has a certain appeal.

Now I’m going over to visit the puppies, order pizza, and watch movies for the house sitting part of the day. I have half a crocheted vest to re-do.

This is called “keeping busy so the supervisor made of fail won’t drive me crazy.” Supervisor is currently vacationing out of the country. Must be nice. Of course, the few of us who are not in her “in” group did not receive advance notice of this, so any needs we have in the way of supervision get left for next week….

I am also planning a backpacking trip next week - a three day weekend coming up.

Me: QUIT LICKING THINGS!

Cat: licklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklicklick

Me: drives over to petsit puppies for friend

Puppies: barkyaplickbarklicklickbark peeeeeeeeeeeee barkbarkbarkbark

Me: ARG! I want to go camping now. Without things that lick!

The cat has progressed to licking everything within a two inch radius of her - my pants, her butt, a chair leg, whatever. The Pomeranian pups are sort of like bedroom slippers with springy legs for racing about and little teeth for nibbling. They might stay still for a two second petting session in between trying to get back at the orange tabby for being bigger than they are, and racing around like rabbits on speed.

So after examining all the options - packable presses, pots and so forth - I get an H20!jo and bring it home. Thinking, well, I have a 16 oz wide mouth Nalgene that would work spiffy with this. That would be plenty of coffee/tea to get me going in the morning when I’m backpacking, or on those mornings when running the coffee maker isn’t possible - throw in grounds, pour hot water, close the top and let it brew while I’m doing other things.

Like so many other things in my life lately, it didn’t work out - the mouth of the Nalgene isn’t wide enough to let even the bottom of the mesh basket through. So I get to go shopping again. Hopefully there are bottles with wider mouths that aren’t 32 ozs - I’d be vibrating up the trail with that much coffee in my veins.

I just bought new hiking shoes. I had to shop in the men’s section - the sizes in women’s shoes didn’t get up to double digits. I wear 9 - 9.5 in men’s shoes, so it made a good fit easier to find.

Also, those cheap Chinese imports that look like plastic must be made to fit some unrealistic foot shape that doesn’t exist in nature. I ended up with more expensive but ultra-comfy shoes in a brand I recognized. My feet will thank me, eventually.

The year, that is.

Here are all the things I haven’t posted about in any detail this year.
* another job search
* horrid supervisor
* massive horrendous icky no good PMS - I will no longer scoff if someone mentions ’suicidal’ and PMS in the same sentence. There have been not-good moments.
* massive heartbreak.

This year I got a raise and considerable backpay, and in addition to paying off some bills I am getting myself camping gear and I am making a resolution to use it next year, as well as getting back into yoga so I can be in some sort of shape to go backpacking in late summer/early fall.

I wish that I had never moved here, because when the pros and cons are weighed? My health has backslid, my allergies are unending, the migraines came back with a vengeance, and I literally have two friends in town. It’s an awful place to meet people. Everyone’s got their own social circle already and I’m not from here, so there’s no roots.

I am not rich but I am not broke, I have a new-ish car, and my intern hours are half done. I would like to now heave a great sigh and fall into bed, however, it is currently covered with clothing, as while I pack boxes and slowly make ready to move again, I am purging old crap I don’t use anymore. For I am tired and hoping I can take some time off over the holidays to regroup.

At the beginning of the week, I said, I will post something witty, intelligent or substantial to the blog! Maybe something about the idea for a novel that I stumbled across while reading up on a topic relevant to the Day Job.

Around Tuesday I would have settled for intelligible.

Around Thursday, I would have settled for a few words about the cat, with a snarky comment obliquely referring to the madness of the bureaucracy.

It’s Friday. I’m sipping wine. I have nothing to offer of any use.

BAH.

“Quit eating things that aren’t edible.” (to the cat - like she listens)
“Aren’t you a pretty bird?”
“Thank you for that de-motivational speech. see you next week?”
“That’s an interesting interpretation of a straightforward policy.”
“Since when are these meetings mandatory? they can’t figure out how else to keep the beatings going? I’ve noticed more people wearing track shoes lately.”
“A cut in pay, a boost in morale. These are the tradeoffs.”
“You don’t suppose they realize we’re all looking for real work?”
“There is not enough chocolate in the world for me to go there and do that.”

My life could not be more complicated.

Um. It could - but I’m already feeling overwhelmed, so, like, it can just stay the way it is and not get worse, okay?

Tuesday night, I got very little sleep. My neighbor with whom I share a single wall has an alarm clock that went off at about 3 AM or so, and stayed on for hours. WHEEP WHEEP WHEEP WHEEP WHEEP for five hours straight. (It was my day to go in an hour later than everyone else.) I noticed about ten minutes after I finally struggled out of bed that the alarm was now silent and they were watching the news on TV.

HOW DO YOU SLEEP THROUGH FIVE HOURS OF AN ALARM CLOCK GOING OFF! I couldn’t even tune it out when it was muffled by a wall!

AND THEN. On top of all the stuff I won’t mention here because it could lead to various personages tracking me down and wreaking havoc on my life, I got a call at work the other day that nearly traumatized me.

“Hi, this is (name) at (property management place handling my rent check each month). I’m just calling to see if you’ve moved out yet? We have the 19th as your move-out date.”

The back of my mind: GUH. AAAAAAHHHHHHH! NYARRRRRRGH!

My mouth: WHAT? AM I BEING EVICTED?

Voice over the phone, muffled: “She sounds shocked.”

Various crashing rustling crinkling noises.

New voice on phone: “HI THERE, this is (name of a lady I actually remember), um, I’m so sorry, we’ve managed to cross up your apartment with (other address that’s COMPLETELY DIFFERENT except for the unit number) AGAIN, heh, I’m sooooo sorry.”

Me: So I don’t need a Uhaul and a bunch of therapy to get over the trauma?

Lady: “Oh, no, *chuckle*, no no no, I’m so sorry.”

And then my phone went berserk for the rest of the day and would not let me get voicemail. You do not know how crazy it made me thinking people in crisis might have left me voicemail I could not get. And then, I would leave my office and come back wondering if the impassioned voicemail I left for the help desk had resulted in a return call that got sent to voicemail. Maybe there was a voicemail about how to get into my voicemail? So I send an email about my voicemail. It righted itself eventually and the only voicemail I got… was nothing more than someone confused about an appointment time, which I’d already settled with them. Whew.

That was just yesterday.

This morning, I stumbled into the kitchen to find the first roach I have seen since the Bug Guy sprayed around.

HIDING UNDER THE ROACH MOTEL.

Reader, I squished him.

DEAR UNIVERSE, PLEASE STOP TRAUMATIZING ME, KTHXBYE.

CYNICAL CAT WOULD LIKE TO BE LEFT ALONE NAOW.

Didn’t even know I was gone, did you?

I spent three days covering a lot of miles up and down the California coast. I went to Pismo, Avila Beach, San Luis Obispo, Cayucos, Morro Bay, San Simeon, Carmel and Monterey - this was not terribly difficult as the first six are all about 10 - 30 miles apart, and it really doesn’t take much time to go from one to the other as everyone on Route 1 (or 101 in some stretches) drives like a bat outta. Avila is where you take your motorhome to park, open the door, plant deck chairs just outside and sit there. It’s what everyone else was doing. I went to Sycamore Springs instead and sat in a hot tub for an hour. Then I went outlet shopping in Pismo, people watched at the beach, and buzzed up the coast again.

I saw two whales (spouting, not up close), a pod of dolphins leaping, lots of birds, seals and sea lions, lots of buzzards eating dead seals, but no exotics; the zebras at Hearst Castle must have been out in the vast acreage surrounding the castle rather than at the road this time. The castle itself is something to see, if you haven’t been.

Driving up highway 1 is an attraction in itself. I did it in the morning fog. I actually had to buy a sweater in Pismo. And now I am home in central Cali, and only want to drive back over there and stay - it’s so hot here! I could while away the hours sitting on a rock overlooking the Pacific if only I could find someone to bring me sandwiches and lotion (for wind burn). If only there were experiments being done on how long people could sit on a beach - I’m game.

The obligatory “SiCKO” review at Pandagon

I watched Sicko and got what I expected. Though I think Moore has, in this movie, finally hit on something that really strikes a chord - not all of us has guns, but who doesn’t weep over random medical bills that eat up the rent money? Because something as stupid-simple as a bad reaction to a vaccination or a bladder infection can chew up half a paycheck, if you’re not carrying enough insurance. And it’s getting harder and harder to do that.

I linked to a thread at Pandagon, not because of the post itself but because of the pyrotechnics in the comments - libertarians (self professed, anyway; like some conservatives, they seem conveniently blind to the real-life consequences of their theoretical ideal world in action) and liberals and those of unknown political leaning, duking it out with each other, and the odd Canadian or citizen of some other country putting in their two cents worth.

To me the one comment that mentions unhitching employment from healthcare hits a really big nail on the head. How many people are trapped in an endless cycle of “I want to work but I can’t get healthy enough?” I knew a nice lady of about 50 who looked older, who was flat broke; she was from Mexico, but a US citizen. Her husband had been violent and she divorced but it left her penniless. She worked for a while and was quite proud of it, but at some point diabetes and asthma came to visit and never left. When I met her she was living with a friend, getting a bit of help from the local gov’ment but not enough to do more than contribute to rent and buy groceries at the dollar store. She had applied for SSI to get MediCal and been turned down. They told her she could work. What job could she do, with failing eyesight, swollen legs, and difficulty breathing when the temps climbed? Her hands didn’t quite work right so she couldn’t type. She wasn’t the most brilliant or skilled, but you know, if she’d had access to decent treatment, she probably could have done something with the rest of her life, and she was more than willing to do that.

How many workers would there be in this country, starting businesses or taking jobs that are tough to fill consistently, if they had decent healthcare? Who knows?

There are other points made in the movie and the Pandagon thread, but having worked with folks of little or no means, I have to wonder what they would be doing with proper care. Schizophrenics on medications can function. Diabetics and people with conditions that could be resolved (or mostly so) with proper medication/treatment could function well enough to take jobs. The system we have does a poor job at getting these folks well - and it has no reason to really help them, either, as it relies on trapping these poor people to perpetuate itself. Well people would have jobs and private insurance. Then again, a major health crisis would end with unemployment and re-entry into the system, so….

I’m still pondering it all, with no real concrete opinion, and I wonder if Sicko will trigger some grassroots reaction, but I know the power of a very large system to perpetuate itself in homeostasis. So. We’ll see.

Word of the day at work yesterday: assiduous. Using this in group supervision meant giving a definition, which was followed by some rather surprised stares. I do use words in conversation that no one else knows, apparently.

I was quite sad. It’s lonely being a word geek.

Seriously. After months of no spam comments, Akismet traps the world’s longest linkspam about tummy tucks. I scrolled down a ways to get to the delete button and finally resorted to ctrl-down to hop to the end of the page - ridiculous.

Someone out there knows I gained weight? oy.

No links, no free press.

I have spent too much time this evening (when not making quiches, mmm, quiche lorraine) surfing around the links to kerfuffles regarding fanlib.com. This is the brainchild of people with Too Much Money and not enough savvy about fandom, not in the slightest, no way. The ads are ludricous and obviously aimed at what they think is their target audience - ergo, I find them WEIRD and ODD and somewhat EWWWW. The TOS is in no way satisfactory to anyone who wants to feel safe - they assume, apparently, that there are no people with knowledge of publishing in fandom (wrong! there are published authors in fandom) or maybe they are hoping the Barnum Principle is in their favor (there’s a fool born every minute). Or maybe they’ll just think they can bluff through all the flack - and there is lots of flack flying about. My favorite volley is in Lizbee’s livejournal.

They show no clue about the internet culture - spamming people with invites to join their community, and being all reassuring and cuddly without saying anything to satisfy anyone’s concerns about the TOS. Thinking they can get snippy in public, which is, anywhere Google can reach you. And it reaches. LJ is only the best rumor mill online.

It’s gone up at Making Light (blog by editors at TOR) as one of those funny sorts of things that happen on teh intarwebs for us to poke with a stick and laugh at. And indeed it is.

I’ll stay over here in the corner, thanks, guys. Have fun with your three million dollar website and the few thousand angry fen you’ve pissed off - hope you have a great firewall, some of those wacky fen have mighty geek-fu and less funded sites have been hacked for less reason.

… you came home and flushed a toilet, then discovered both bathrooms were an inch deep in water. Which resulted in a soaked carpet, a call to the management, and a plumber at the door at 10 pm.

… you fasted for 12 hours, had no breakfast or coffee(!), got four blood draws in two hours (within a hair’s breadth of the last puncture, no less), and an upset stomach due to the icky glucose they made you drink. Then went to work to deal with the most resistant clients EVAH.

… you got involved in a promising show that featured actors from Alias (Ron! Rifkin! and that Getty fella), Calista Flockhart (still anorexic after all these years), Tom Skerrit (always the dad), Six Feet Under, and Sally (You like me!) Field, and the climax of the very first episode hits, and … the cat wants ATTENTION NOW STUPID HUMAN PET MEEEEEEEE. And then she ignores you for the rest of the night.

… plumber’s still thumping around. ARG. Head hurts. BLEH.

And tomorrow, someone will be here to suck the water out of the carpet. And put shingles on the roof.

Can there be one more thing broken? I will then feel like one of those folks on This Old House. Only renting.

Drink two glasses of wine, before eating.

Pay bills online.

Discover a decimal placement error that will slap you in the poorhouse, several hours later.

Panic.

Panic again, with visions of eviction.

Figure out how to cancel payment and reissue.

Stop panicking.

Fall into bed in a dead stupor.

And to think tomorrow will be a twelve hour day, if I’m lucky.

Last October, I moved in. Unpacked. Began to clean out the filing cabinet to make room for Important Papers Related To Internship. This resulted in piles and piles of random paper, receipts and things I generally want kept private. So I began to shred, but the cheap shredder is only supposed to be used five minutes at a go, as continual use (according to the instructions) will end badly with a burnt-out shredder.

Me, six months ago: shredshredshredshredshred *ding* five minutes up. Same time tomorrow.
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.
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Me, nearly six months later: shredshredshredshred *looks at remaining piles of paper* hmmmm. I miss having a fireplace.

{visualize with me}
all the papers, piled in the fireplace
A dollop of lighter fluid
a match
*whoomp!*

Privacy maintained, no shredder needed.

I actually had burnt a whole bag of papers prior to moving. It could have been worse! I really need a better set of protocols regarding what to dispose of when.

Home in a Handbasket

I’ve written like, ten pages. On the wrong WIP - I’m within a few pages of DONE on Home in a Handbasket but the muse put on the brakes and demanded that I work on getting Voyager home instead. And that WIP is turning into a snarky roadshow, when it’s not recycling bits from the old draft of the same, and sort of has a life of its own — I’ve re-outlined the plot twice so far, and that since I abandoned the previous draft, and the twists just keep on coming.

Also am googling on parrots again. Now that I have income, I have been spoiling my lonesome senegal with toys and food, and am considering a new cage she might be able to stretch her wings more in, and then I found a set of two stacking cages and….

I miss having multiple parrots. I miss the multiplicity of personalities to play with. I’m considering a cockatiel, or a pionus of some kind (there are eight species). I had mused recently about an amazon parrot, but… really, the quietest amazon is still noisier than a pionus or a cockatiel, and I’m renting.

I also cleaned house, which is something I typically do in bits as I go along, but today was different. I got three of four rooms vacuumed and various pet-related cleanings done. Also a load of dishes, two loads of laundry, and the kitchen counters cleared and scrubbed. Coffee! Yay!

Some days I really want to have clients who are not 10-13 year old boys.

If it’s not the sitting gloomily indifferent with the one syllable answers, it’s the open zippers, the unconscious “adjustments,” the random fartage, or the goofiness that leads to endless nacho cheese-no-not-yo-cheese-haw-haw-haw-hee cycles. Because when you’ve spent two minutes talking about losing your temper in class and being tossed out, you have got to spend the next forty making up for it with that well-known defense mechanism known as “irrelevance.”

Someone send me a girl. A troubled, yet not farting and adjusting, girl. Who talks rather than throwing the Piglet puppet and stuffed monkey around the room. Or doesn’t talk. Whatev. Just so long as we’re able to manage the hour without busting out the air freshener.

Action: Gas company sends honkin’ huge gas bill.
Reaction: I run out to get a) a digital programmable thermostat and b) hot water heater blanket.

Action: Friend’s electronics stolen from his apartment, calls me.
Reaction: FREAK the heck OUT because it’s happened to me twice before, then spend the week obsessing over how to make my apartment more secure, even though I know full well that anyone who wanted to could simply break a window.

Action: Boss gets confused and unfocused about what I’m trying to say.
Reaction: I provide detail and proceed slowly and with enough context so that she can tell who I am discussing from moment to moment.
Reaction: Boss laughs and says she doesn’t need that much detail, even though she did just fifteen minutes ago.
Reaction: as I walk from her office and across the building… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!

Action: Friday at 5 pm comes, as expected.
Reaction: hit the door running and don’t look back!

Test driving more cars tomorrow. Yay. Arg.

Well, it still runs and has oomph. But it burns oil, has no air conditioning, the paint is fading, the clear coat peeling, the upholstery falling off the interior in little flakes, and there’s this sort of misfiring(?) hesitation that ends with the car either nearly dying in traffic or me throwing it in a lower gear and pushing the engine to nearly 4k RPM to “clear its throat.” It idles rough. It’s getting worse mileage. The motors in the rear passenger doors no longer move the windows up and down, and the one on the driver’s side will inch downward until you get out and shove it up by hand. It will cost upwards of $4000 to fix the things that ail it, and that’s a conservative estimate.

I was informed of a rough estimate to rebuild the engine over the phone - and I said … never mind what I said. It isn’t fit to repeat. Anyway, I’m thinking a Corolla. And I’m so not looking forward to a car payment, but oy, this cannot continue, this oil burning thing, and the windows are driving me crazy, and the vibration at stoplights is worrying me.

So as usual I am debating whether to post something about what’s going on. Wondering a) who really reads this anyway and b) whether they’re anyone I know in the flesh.

What’s going on? Stress. I should never go into such detail here that it’s recognizable, I’ve decided, so I’ll leave it at this: disagreements and condescension and manipulation and politics. I hate politics. I hate condescension. I try to be straight and fair, and honest with coworkers. I try to let petty things go. But this is not petty, and it’s unfair.

So, document and document and wait for things to settle down, or work themselves up to a sort of frenzied defend-myself level. I’ve seen this game before.

In other news, I’m swearing off many book purchases, limiting myself to one a month. Of course, I had to order 6 books for the one purchase. They’re mostly used, and less than 10 bucks a book, but still. I also requested ones I didn’t order from the library.

This weekend, for the first time in months, I am visiting the family. It’s not exactly going to be fun. I chose a two day weekend to limit the hours I had to spend gnawing mum’s iron grip off my ankle. She’s already complaining about that.

I had to sit in a training yesterday for most of the day. The dude couldn’t figure out powerpoint so I was yelling answers. Mum said I had to fix their new printer. I will never get away from computer geeking for others, I fear.

My crazy friends decided to knock a digit off my age, as all the preprinted stuff they could find was black. So I arrived at John’s Incredible Pizza suspecting there would be ’surprises’ and not being disappointed - Barbie princess table mat, tiara and wand, and pink and purple streamers. And a card that says happy 4th birthday.

One of them got me a drill so he could get his back from me. There’s a hint.

We played weird games for tickets and redeemed the tickets, and they gave me a glitter lamp. Or was it a lava lamp? I was hoping for the huge lips phone, but, not that many tickets.

I put the tiara on backwards. Someone said I looked like ‘that chick on Babylon 5′ which was, of course, the whole idea. After wandering about mumbling about The Three and the light and the darkness, it was decided I’d had too much soda and pizza and we went to our various homes.

And now, Monday begins.

Today I went to the local university library and signed up for a card. As it is part of the CSU system, I learned, I could sign up as an alumni for a free card. Alas, I am not a member of the alumni association. I swore I wouldn’t join because of lingering bitterness over various incidents in which I had to practically beat people up to get paperwork done. (Well, not really, otherwise I’d be blogging from jail, wouldn’t I?) So I wrote a check for a community membership. The other alternative is to continue ordering various books that cost about the same as a year membership at the library.

I figured out today the total amount of money I spent on the move. I then cried for a bit, did four loads of laundry, ate something fattening, and realized I had voicemail. Like its predecessor, my cell phone appears to ignore incoming calls. Also, I opened my credit card bill and cried a while longer. Oy.

Monday is right around the corner. I actually look forward to going to work these days. It’s interesting how doing something you actually want to do makes a huge difference, eh?

This was an eventful weekend. It was my first whole weekend in the new place - didn’t have to drive to the old home town. First time I ever successfully hung a door all by myself. (It ain’t pretty, but it closes okay.) And, I have ficced, and posted, albeit not in the One True Fandom, but in BSG.

Also fixed DSL. Also, got some paperwork done that needed doing. And laundry. Still no idea about a yoga class, but now that I have a phone book that will change.

But my car runs without steaming, leaking, or blinking red lights at me.

And now that it’s working, I did a costco run. Hopefully by next Tuesday (payday!) I will be able to function as a fully employed human adult, and get actual groceries instead of quick fix food. (You know, they say it’s cheaper to cook than to buy pre-made and so forth… but I’m having Issues. As in, I need some of those plastic storage containers, and staples, and some other things I left behind or just borrowed from Roommate.) By then I will have run all the previously stored dishes through the dishwasher and unpacked all the boxes, thereby creating an environment in which I will not discover some critical item is still “in a box.” I’ve been averaging a box a day, and slowly figuring out how to reconfigure my things into the available cupboards, nooks and crannies.

After I hit ‘publish,’ I mean.

I feel like I am trapped in a time warp. No internet access for a week? I lose all touch with chronology. Add the time change (what daylight are we saving again?) and days of trainings and talking to people I don’t know about things I don’t understand completely yet, and whee!

Serendipity, so generous with the free fridge (see previous posting made from Friend’s house), has left me in the lurch. I am only now recovering, and slowly. The power was turned on Monday after a whining phone call to Huge Corporate Utility Company, and my cat, after two days and nights in a cold empty apartment alone, was absolutely worshipful when I deigned to actually sleep in my bed. She purred for two hours straight - I am actually underestimating this, probably, as I wasn’t timing her and she was purring when I woke up the next morning too.

The phone company said my service was on, but alas, no dial tone - so they blamed inside wiring, which lets them off the hook. I just waited til today, when the dude was supposed to physically show up and get me DSL. Dude must have noticed no actual phone service and hooked me up, as I expected he would. But, still no DSL, which is why I’m on dialup trying to pay the bills online before my cell phone provider repos my phone and my credit card adds a late fee. I came home to an actual phone message on the machine that’s been plugged into the wall since Monday - the phone company, telling me there’s a problem with my cabling so DSL will have to wait a while longer. I’m already sweating the loss of Lost, which has re-engaged me only because of the plight of Desmond and the endless curiosity about what the frak will happen to Locke, who totally made me angry last season but has now become something of a tragic character to me - if only because he’s so in need of serious therapy. I hope DSL happens in time to catch BSG. Of course, I’ll be driving to Fresno tomorrow night, partially to pick up items such as my microwave, which conveniently got left in the apartment when we loaded the Uhaul…

…which precipitated a whole week of eating out for breakfast, lunch and dinner, because… my stove doesn’t work, which I didn’t know over the weekend because the power was off, and with no way to heat water for tea/coffee? reheat leftover chinese? boil pasta? Heh. My kitchen is where I go to be frustrated by all the dishes I’ve kept in storage and need washing.

Becaaaaaause, my dishwasher didn’t work, either.

And at this point I nearly blew a gasket and left a message on my property manager’s voicemail. Holes in window screens are to be expected. Not being able to shift dead spiders and white filmy gick out of my glasses in a single run of the dishwasher was just icing on the I-hate-moving cake.

I realized while typing all this just how much emotional turmoil I’ve been going through. It’s difficult to move from an environment where no one pays any attention to you to an office where the support staff knock on your open door, approach you with respect and snap to it when you ask them for something — just a few months ago, I was support staff. It’s difficult to be in a town where you don’t know how to drive or which lane to be in — that sounds trivial, but if you get in the wrong lane, you have miles of stop and go traffic just to find a u-turn opportunity, because it’s bumper to bumper here all day. And, my car is slowly coming to pieces. Neither of the back windows work - I have the feeling the motors are disconnected from the whatever-holds-them-up, and one of them slides downward while I’m driving. The coolant tank idiot light comes on all the time. It’s full, and the car’s fine, but it flashes like I’m running a disco on my dashboard. I took it to a mechanic who said it was a sensor and I’d have to have the reservoir replaced to fix it, which isn’t a big deal. Except, where it used to run with the needle right between C and H, now it gets really hot and the fan comes on every ten minutes, where it used to never come on at all.

And, no furniture. Nothing on the walls. Just me, the bird, the cat, and lots of books. On top of everything I miss my roommate.

The laundry’s piling up. My washer and dryer come on Sunday.

The good news? Well, I still like my job. I’m calling to set up appointments and finding some parents who will actually bring in their kids. I have another friend who’s interviewing for jobs in NewTown as well. My new apartment is quiet at night. My renter’s insurance actually dropped in price with the move. (My car insurance went up - go figure. Probably due to fender benders, which I’m betting happen all the time around here in stop-n-go city.) And I figured out the dishwasher didn’t work because the hot water was turned off under the sink. They’re bringing someone in to fix the stove soon, and I’ll have a microwave by Saturday night.

I feel like I’ve been gone somewhere forever and ever, and it’s only been five days since my last post. I think I need to start keeping an actual journal.

ETA: The salad stuff is frozen. The milk is frozen. My fridge is too efficient and again with the nothing to eat.

And, well, now I have to drive to Fresno, but there’s DSL.

Good news: I have an apartment.
Bad news: Can’t move in til a week from Saturday.
Good news: My friend is willing to let me stay with her.
Bad news: She won’t be home. She and her hubby are going to a con.

My life, for the next few weeks, will be strange. But at least it won’t involve pet rent.

I have a part of me that wants to drive around picking boxes out of the recycling dumpsters at Acre O’ Offices down the street — there are ALWAYS boxes just piled in them — and a bigger, lazier part of me just really doesn’t like that idea. Big n’ Lazy noticed a recent comment suggesting Costco boxes to be cheaper. BnL also likes the internet, so surfed off to the costco website.

They have moving kits that are roughly a third of the cost of the same thing you’d get at uhaul stores. (By the way? You don’t have to be a Costco member to shop at the website. You, too, can buy your moving supplies, pens, electronics or books, with a small markup over what a member would pay.) Yes, I could get those office storage boxes — but I’m thinking here of hauling hanging clothing for a couple hundred miles, plus loads of breakables and whatnot, and so a kit of wardrobe boxes plus a kit with various sizes and packing material and tape will do it — I don’t really need so many boxes, since so much of my stuff is still in boxes and the electronics will fit in their own boxes, which are currently jammed in nooks and crannies awaiting their call to duty. The kitchen is always the worst part of moving and I’ve got very little kitchen unpacked; Roommate’s stuff has been in use for the past couple of years.

I did a purge a while back, getting rid of roughly 200 pounds of dross (odd clothing, bits of office supplies/craft crap/cassettes I never listen to/shoes I don’t fit into any more) and also reorganizing things into more compact packaging. I have the feeling another purge is imminent, especially as I am in the throes of “OMG I will have money! Real money!” and the old work clothes are not looking so great. This urge is being pinned down and beaten soundly by the old Scottish auntie part of my brain that wants me to wash tinfoil for re-use and save empty butter tubs. I encourage the beating, as footing the rent myself, plus the utility and internet connection (I don’t call it a telephone line, I use my cell phone and let the answering machine talk to the telemarketing industry), plus the entirety of the food bill (Roommate let me mooch quite a lot because he has this habit of picking up more than he needs — it’s a single person’s lot to be consistently buying more of everything than we can possibly use before it grows its own civilization of bacteria), plus OMG I have no furniture! will add up to probably about the same amount of free cash I currently have, which is to say, six dollars and fifteen cents.

This is actually a true representation of my mental state. I am, in fact, thinking in run-on sentences. Also, I nearly forgot to show up for my Saturday gig, which involves me lecturing to a roomful of desparate parents who are totally angry with the family court system and bursting to prove it. I certainly won’t forget this week as I’m carrying the next session by myself, without the seasoned therapist who’s co-leading it. By then, I will have said farewell to the part time job(s) and begun to pack boxes with unessentials. God knows where I’ll store the boxes but I know better than to put off the packing til the truck shows up — oy, oy, oy. Most of it will be books. Some of it will be the contents of a chest of drawers I think I’ll ditch.

Add to that the sheer terror that I’ll pick an apartment next to the guy with the biggest stereo and the paranoid barking dog and nocturnal habits, who parties every day except Tuesday when he has his girlfriend over and they practically knock through the wall into my space, and we’re not looking at much of a joyride.

Hungry, no food in house.

Just drove another 200 mile round trip for a half hour interview, but this time, there was clickage. Part of being an intern therapist is getting a good supervisor - that takes luck and a lot of hunting. I feel quite good about this one, and when I left she was making a note to call my references.

I think I’ve done my time with County X Mental Health Dept. I have to call and let someone know I’m taking a pass - the third interview is for a department I don’t think I want to work in, and driving another 200 miles for an interview with them isn’t really worth it. If I don’t get the green with one of the two positions I’ve interviewed for, I’ll stick it out in the town I’m in.

In other news, I recieved my diploma today. It only took them five months. rolls eyes

There comes a time in every live-together relationship when you want nothing more than to break something over the head of the other party.

Roommate tends to get really short and snippy and hissy when he’s really focusing on something he’s doing on the computer. So I’ve pretty much stopped trying to talk to him then, instead saving things for tv time, as he’s generally watching something on dvd and those can be paused.

I, too, get snippy when focused on something on the computer. Especially when it’s bills, balancing the checkbook, or some iffy online application that has hideous inconsistent cooperation with my attempts to fill it in.

So what happens? He gets back from four days of incessant relaxation and computer gaming at his brother’s house, and I’m getting home. He’s all bubbly and talkative, and I’m focused on two things. Paying bills, and filling out an application that MUST be mailed tomorrow.

RM: *boing boing boing* sohowwasyourweekend!
Me: *updating financial software* grrrrr. fine.
RM: Did you (endless stream of things I didn’t hear)?
Me: *glare, opens application*
RM: I blah blah blah — You’re not listening, are you?
Me: *stares at pile of open bills, stares at open job application on screen, looks at RM* Do you actually listen when I talk to you while you’re doing this stuff?
RM: Oh. I’m ordering pizza for us. *zzzoooom*

Happily, we both have a license to grump at each other, without getting all wounded and whimpery about it.

Unfortunately, the neighbor’s kids started screaming when Roommate left the room, and I can’t growl at them.

The Big 40 Hour Training, which runs two eight hour days per week then one day the third week, is supposed to be all about domestic violence advocacy. Whether I’m interning at the local shelter or merely a volunteer, I intend to have something to do with it soon. It will help give my part-time-boring-job life meaning.

What I’m learning is a lot of stuff I already knew, plus a lot of stuff I didn’t, and not all of it has to do with domestic violence. For instance:

1. Alcohol is a poison, not a drug. Like so many other things we ingest, alcohol is in fact capable of killing us. It is not a drug because it does not affect the synapses. It affects the “soapy water” in the space between the dendrites in our nervous system, slowing the neurotransmitters and rendering the membranes between the different regions of the brain temporarily impermeable. Which is why our judgement suffers — the lobes of the brain that control things like reasoning, long term memory, and that little voice that says “I shouldn’t drive right now” are cut off from the “wooohooo!” lobe. Guess who wins. It’s possibly also why people black out. Stuff happens while under the control of your non-remembering brain. Stuff you will regret, probably. Coroners examining the membranes of the brain can tell a corpse belonged to a chronic alcoholic by noting the holes in said membranes — the brain is determined to function so punches holes in the constantly-impermeable stuff.

Drugs, on the other hand, affect either the transmitting or receiving ends of the dendrites, impacting the sensation of pain and pleasure and outside stimuli. Which is why I saw oozing purple blobs crawling on the wall when the doctor gave me vicodin. Suddenly, my nerve endings were getting all kinds of information that had nothing to do with reality.

Some heart medications aren’t drugs, but poisons with a side effect of altering the behavior of arteries and the heart tissue. Arsenic was a heart med until it was superceded by more effective treatments.

2. People have no clear grasp of relevance. I know I’m totally Ms. Tangent of the Year, myself, but I feel so much better after sitting in a room full of random access champs. Personal anecdotes flew, and neither proved or disproved or really had a lot to do with the point being made.

3. People have no grasp of word choice or meaning. One lady asked a question about masochists that had everyone sitting around with question marks floating overhead, until she elaborated a little and we realized she meant misogynists. I counted ten different uses of ‘loose’ for ‘lose’ in the powerpoint presentations.

4. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs has more merit than I gave it credit for.

5. Attachment issues are key.

As it turns out, it’s possible to burn half a spindle of DVD-R disks before discovering that the Powerbook just doesn’t like that brand. There’s nothing wrong with my laptop that buying different media won’t fix.

I’m about half done with the inventory at Geekfarm. I was pulling out hundreds of tools from a messy pile on a floor-level shelf when my phone rang - my friend, when told what I was doing, said ‘So you’re rearranging a closet?’ When I stopped laughing I told her it was more of a high-ceilinged room full of shelves and boxes from floor to ceiling, and that the boxes on top were actually blocking out the fluorescent lighting. I’ve had to be extra careful as the piles are so disorganized it’s possible to run across a hand saw without realizing it. As I demonstrated today. Luckily it had a sleeve on the blade.

Wednesday, I will be counting IDE ribbon cables. Also CPU fans and heat sinks, and bags and bags and boxes of zip ties and patch cables and BNC cables and connectors. Aren’t you jealous?

Tomorrow, I will be putting the finishing touches on my room - I rearranged the furniture, which was about the only way to get things clean. The back of my desk had an inch of cat hair clinging to it.

I have still not gotten my diploma, nor have I had one phone call to set up an interview. I am enduring lots of questions from well-meaning people - ‘how are you marketing yourself? how are you at interviews?’ I DON’T KNOW, I CAN’T TALK TO ANYONE - ALL I DO IS LEAVE VOICEMAIL. PLEASE STOP NAGGING ME ABOUT THINGS I CAN’T CONTROL. THX. BUH-BYE.

Sore subject, yes. ‘Marketing yourself’ at this point is essentially spamming the world with resumes and eager cover letters. No one has a budget for novice interns.

Today, I decided to migrate my site to some sort of content managing software, thinking it would simplify the whole process if I could a) cut and b) paste and c) click a button that would immediately post the Big Wad of Text to the internet without my having to match all the little code widgets with the little slash that turns ‘em off, miss a squillion, then have to comb through the pages looking for the missing thingie.

I should probably sound more technical than that when discussing my revamp of the Geekfarm’s website, shouldn’t I?

Anyway, when I came back from my reality check (me? revamp? BWA! that would be work!) I then decided to actually do some job searching. Which I do every day without fail, really, what with being underemployed and all. So I hit the major job search sites, signed up for yet another bot that will email me jobs that match my criteria, altered a bot I had set up at Huge HMO’s site so it would stop sending me nursing job ops, and twenty minutes later I’d sent another resume and moved on to a glass of tea and some serious reorganization of my iTunes folder.

And then I read some fic, and totally fell for the author’s site — wow. I could make my site that organized and wonderful and easy to use. So now I’m staring at instructions on how to do that. But I can guarantee that now that the LJ feed is fixed, I will look at the complexities involved and say, uh, Self, y’all’s crazy. And I might have a fic done soon at this rate.

If I can quit playing Civilization IV. Man. It’s great to be queen!

ADHD? Only since I got the internet. Seriously, every five minutes it’s something else. I used to be able to focus well enough to read WHOLE BOOKS in a sitting. I am so jealous of my younger self.

I keep hearing about rolling blackouts. When I got home, there was a blackout, all right - only it stayed for a good six hours. No traffic lights, no anything. The power had been out long enough before then for my laptop to get down to less than 2% of a charge. The temperature outside was 111F; inside it was 92F.

When Roommate got home, he found me sprawled out and reading in the dying daylight. We went out for Thai food — beyond the perimeter of the blackout, of course, it was only a couple of blocks wide — and stuffed ourselves on fresh naan bread, chicken curry, samosas and all sorts of other wonderful things. Then we bought bags of ice to take home to stuff in the refrigerator.

By 10:30, we had the windows open and were trying to get the inside temp to shave off a few degrees. It got to 95F and the fish tank was in danger of becoming a bowl of poached fish. The cats were doing great imitations of carpets. So was I. And then, in a gush of hot air followed by flowing currents of cold, and the flicker of clocks and aquarium light and several other lights, and the sudden hum of the refrigerator, the power came back. And from outside I heard people shouting ‘yaaaaaay!’ And pretty soon, we had everything back to normal. We fell asleep around 11:30.

And then the random fax machine that leaves beeping on our machine every so often woke me up at 3.

Grrrr. I have two obligations today, and my car is in dire need of attention, and there are other things I should do but probably won’t - I think I will be in need of a nap somewhere in there. I was already tired from working 8 hours and driving back and forth without AC.

All this, and PMS too. Yesterday was a bitch. I’d like to slap it.

My roommate is hitting the big 4-0 tomorrow.

I’ve been trying for a couple of months now to figure out what to do - it’s one of those landmark birthdays, after all. I wanted a surprise party. He’s hard to do that for, however, due to his completely wonky work schedule and complete lack of planning - which is contradictory, considering how terribly anal he is about things, but there it is. For weeks, casual interested questions into his activity for this week have been met with “I might go here” and “maybe I’ll be there” and “I think I’ll do x” and none of it has helped me pin down a likely time and place to pull something off. He’s been (so far as I can tell, it’s hard to know when he’s changed his story 80 times) in SF with relatives, in Sacramento with his dad for father’s day, and called this morning to say he’d be back here around three or so. The reason he called was to ask about what type of DVD player he should get to play divx videos (I think my burgeoning collection is too tempting for him) and that he’s thinking about stopping at Fries, which store we do not have here in Dust Bowl, Central Calif. After some name brand dithering, I informed him that the model he’s looking at in the Fries ad is twenty bucks cheaper at Costco right now, and it’s much easier to return the thing to Costco than drive back to SF to Fries, if it doesn’t work.

I don’t think he suspects anything is up — at least not tonight. Because today’s the day before his birthday, and also, I’ve been lobbing suggestions of a trip to the coast, to the aquarium, to walk around at Point Lobos where the temps are not 110F in the shade (I think I’m going to break some sort of world record for drinking ice tea any time now).

But, I just sweated for two hours in my AC-less car to buy balloons and a present and leave them at his favorite sushi restaurant, whose proprieter he knows, and I’ve made calls to pretty much everyone in the area he knows well enough to drink sake with, and somewhere around 5:45 I’m going to pry him out the door and head that direction, wailing that he never takes me for sushi any more and let’s do that tonight since we’ve nothing better to do.

I wonder how much sake it will take to get him to sing karaoke?

I finished out the books for Former Job, the startup company… which is now stopped. My last duty was cutting myself a check for the balance left in their checking account and posting the furniture on craigslist. To everything, there is a season, and some seasons end up being shorter than others. (Yes, I did quit the job a couple months back… but they needed it done and I needed rent money.)

Today I applied for another part time clerical via email, made followup calls on apps for therapist positions, and got my hair cut. Possibly the nicest looking hair cut ever, too. It’s not easy to cut my hair, and I’ve had the dippiest butch bowl-ish haircuts to prove it. Now all I need is a job interview to show it off before it grows out again.

I have this problem. I don’t know if ‘problem’ describes it, really, as it depends on your point of view on the matter.

I’ve been wandering for quite a long time, trying to jump-start the muse with limited success. I find myself in an odd state of transition - I have been for a few years now, in some respects, and the longer I am in it, the less access I seem to have to whatever process it was that generated fiction. Also, I seem to have lost all perspective on the work I do turn out; deleting things out of frustration or simply forgetting they exist until I stumble across them on the hard drive has been status quo. I keep posting unfinished things on my blog only because seeing it there reminds me….

Maybe it’s that I’m not only burnt out on school, I’m burnt out on life in general. Maybe it’s just been too much for too long. I keep trudging through anyway. It’s got to get better. Right?

I’m turning into a housewife. For the first time since I was… 19, I am unemployed. I had intended to get in some quality loafing before signing up for temp work. Today I took the stepcat to the vet, tomorrow I’ll probably end up taking Roommate’s car in to the dealer for a flat repair, and I’ll also likely be scheduling and implementing stepcat’s surgery. Poor woobie has a cyst that keeps ballooning on her lower lip. I’ve also been cleaning house and talking to the pest control guy, who stuck a glue trap in our water heater closet (yay, being kept up by squeaking stuck rodents!). I’m just waiting for my Official June Cleaver Club kit to arrive, thank you.

Yeah, no kids. But if you have to be a housewife, do it without the kids. Otherwise in addition to the boring to-do list above, there would be boring details about soccer practice and homework.

Anyway, the county is wrecking my launch into my new career. Turns out that every clinic and agency in town (all the ones I’ve called, anyway) relies on a county contract, and since the county has frozen their own hiring and essentially everything else related to mental health, any clinic/agency who isn’t the county also does nothing but collect resumes and apologize for the delay. I may have a relaxing summer.

Which I won’t really mind much. Wake me in July.