Sorry, wrong room.

my dad is planning a surprise birthday dinner for my mom.   it's stupid cute and wonderful.

when i think i can't get any more frustrated, my parents reveal the sides of themselves that are fun, charming, warm and good-spirited and generous.  and while i never completely lose sight of that being there, the timing always is a bit jarring.

ugh.  so yes.  life goes on.  even on a rollercoaster

and he is actually discussing treatment with me.  not really committed to the idea... i'm still unsure that he will follow through, but he's playing along.  and for now, that is the best i can hope for.  and something we haven't seen before.  so who knows? maybe he will surprise me.  i'm trying to not get my hopes up just yet, but be positive anyhow.

So I woke up with a splitting headache.  This is never good.  I generally feel that nice refreshed morning thing when I don't have to wake up with an alarm.  I got enough sleep.  I woke up at my own time.  Bam. Headache.  No fair!

I wanted to write more, but it will need to wait for my headache to get under control.

OK. So I have this new blog.  And I want to syndicate my new blog and integrate that with this blog so that it will show up on my friends page and my LJ people won't have to visit the other blog.  Can this be done?  And if so, how?

I have a JOB!!!

Its part-time, but its a great schedule for me.  I'm working in the circulation office at a newspaper in a nearby small town (in walking distance to the bookstore where Darcy works, which makes sharing the car very easy).  Its not the best pay in the world, but its fine for now.  And if I need more, then as soon as we get another car, than I can start looking for another part-time. 

I also got paid for writing!   Just a little business writing piece for a friend of a friend's company, but it was paid.   As in "I can write as part of making a living."  Which is a very important thing to me that I am working on believing as a practical application in my life!

I had a great interview with a YMCA in a great little artsy urban area of RI (just north of Providence) and may be teaching art classes.  Again, nothing too grand money-wise, it would only be a couple of classes a week.  But it would be me -teaching art- and also getting involved in a community that has a LOT of great artist happenings.  The opportunities to be involved with things happening there would make me really happy.  So I'm crossing my fingers for that as well. 

 And in a strange "life coming full circle" moment, my mom told me that it would be at the YMCA where my grandfather was a program director throughout the late 60's/early 70's, where she went to summer camp as a kid every summer.  Same building, it hasn't changed all that much.  I knew it was the same little mill city where my grandparents families were from (and where I grew up visiting my great-grandmother on that side most of my childhood), but I didn't realize that he also worked there. 

How bizarre is that?  I could end up teaching in a classroom that used to be right next to his office or something.   The feeling that someone closely related to you walked down a hallway where you were just standing around 40 years ago is really really eerie and kind of wonderful.

I love being back in RI.

For a while now, I have wanted an emo-blog (here) for general and personal use and another blog for commentary and essays and whatever...  that other blog has now been launched:

http://listofnow.wordpress.com/

there should be a special name for those demons.... the ones that  are specifically reserved to say  " are you kidding... you are no good at ______________, don't do that anymore and certainly don't let other people see you trying to _____________ because they are laughing at you right now."

(insert name of skill, trade, hobby or activity that you feel most compelled to do with your time, for a living, for your own sanity)

for me that is writing.  and the demons win... pretty much all the time. because I'm not doing it.  I'm not doing it enough or successfully in any sense of the word. because partially, I believe I can't.  I believe i'm a hack.  and I don't know how to justify spending all my time trying to do something that I'm just bad at.

diablo cody.

hot

Mark came to visit the last couple of weekends.  And together, the three of us basically finished the house.  We rock.  This is just a little sampling of some before and after goodness.  I promise better pictures to come later. 

I love visitors. I want more.  Who wants to come visit?

http://xkcd.com/149/

I just reread this.  I subscribe to this comic and I didn't get it the first time around even though I remember reading it.   I don't know when or how I picked up the meaning of "sudo", but I get it now!  HiLARious.  

Reading this webcomic makes me smarter learn a lot more random stuff... at times out of context ... and other times, way way way later on once I read more and figure it out.   Because I'm not a computer geek.  I just wish I was.

Because thats what I need.  More random knowledge.

ATTENTION WHEDON FANS!!!!!!

1.  I didn't know about this.  How did I not know about this!!!!  Did you know about this?
If you don't want to click, here is the important part:

Whedon's new Fox series, called Dollhouse, stars Miss Eliza Dushku, best known as Faith to you Buffy the Vampire Slayer fans. And this show isn't just a pilot. It's already been given a seven-episode commitment by Fox. Woo!

2.  If so, why did you not tell me?  So-called friends.  Hmph. 

(its ok, I forgive you... I'm just so happy.)

my update on life:

I am now engaged in a spritely game of "employment roulette" in which my applications and resumes from the past two months are now reaping phone calls and interviews and so this week has been the spin and now I wait.  more calls, more interviews come into focus and I go through them and I wait.   I don't know if I will get offers, or in what order or what I will choose if I have to choose and if I will have the luxury of timing or needing to hedge my bets and make a safe choice, instead of waiting for the next phone call. 

I have a part-time gig type thing probably starting next week.  so ...  I will have some income.  go me.

mostly, everyday lately, I have been going to sleep thinking "today was a great day" for some reason.  and that - despite all the stress and worry lately - is a very good thing. 

Katie Couric just said "Mick Huckabee has sucked off - siphoned off votes from McCain..."

Super Tuesday indeed.

I'm not sleeping. I haven't slept. I have been slapped by the brick wall of full-on insomnia. So, best to stay up until later now.

I don't want to sleep all day. I'm trying to curb my nocturnal impulses in preparation for attaining some kind of reasonable work schedule, should I find a job. (why oh why am I not getting called... blah!)

I will soon. I know that, I just hate this in between time.

We have a very exciting day planned which involves going to Home Depot for the third time in as many days. We just keep needing more stuff from Home Depot. Of course, Home Depot in all its glorious cathedral-like metal-shelved glory does not help. So much fun.

We are going to West's Bakery first. Grilled blueberry muffins because its Thursday. The Bakery is only open from Th-Sun. We wait all week for grilled blueberry muffins and then Thursday arrives and on the other days we need to remind ourselves that we are jobless and poor and so we have to wait it out.

Then we are finishing our kitchen floor and staining the wainscoting and touching up the paint in the bathroom on the cabinets. If I don't collapse first, I want to start painting the bathroom. We are crafty. We are on a constant mission to complete the long and growing list of home renovations. We are so obsessed with this, that we realized we have like two topics of conversation:

1. What to do next.
2. How awesome we are for completing whatever it is we are working on currently.

This is so much the focus of my life that I forget I'm supposed to be working and getting paid for it. So then I sleep, eat and glue myself to my computer for a few hours a day too, searching and writing and applying and attaching and sending.... and checking, hoping for response. When I feel like a loser since the peoples are not breaking down my door to give me a job, then I go back to the house. The house does not let me down.

This is my life.
Strangely, I'm happy. Except for money. Oh yeah, that.

In a couple weeks or so, if nothing seems to be working in the "office job" front, I'm going to retail or telemarketing or grocery store cashier... at this point, I'm trying to avoid temping. Because honestly, I HATE temping. Temping sucks... literally sucks all my energy and time away, when I need that time and energy to be finding some kind of stable job.  Temping is that situation when I am putting my control into someone else's hands and I really really hate that.  I hate saying "here's my time and skills and best possible image, now please find me something to do in exchange for money" because if the money is good enough, I have to do it.   Now I know that really, that can be true of any job, but somehow when its temping it feels worse.  Because I'm not one of those people who say "I have no choice... I have to do ____ to get by."  Because its crap.

 Yes you have to make choices to get by, but bad choices are still choices. There are always better or worse options, whether you know it or consider them, or not.  Lots of people choose not to get by or get out of bed.  Lots of people give up or grab a fucking bottle.  Lots of people sell their soul to a factory or to a corporation or cheat or steal.  And then there are people who really begin to lose their choices and it becomes a choice between staying out of jail or having a warm place to sleep.  The people who can't just "get a job" because they smell bad and don't have ID becaue it was stolen or lost and they have no shoes.  etc.  So they spange.  or sit on a sidewalk with a sign.  Try to weigh saving for something better or hopeful or eating that day.  There are no real choices there.  THEN its about survival... me... with a moderate amount of privilege and the good fortune of several people in my life who have cared for me over the years... have never had to do anything just to get by... not really.  I've always worked... sometimes two or more jobs at once.  As a teen.  All through school. Forever.  But it was the choice to make my life. I own it.  I take accountability that I chose to walk through the door of whatever was employing me at the time... for better and worse.  I didn't HAVE to do anything, I just had to do something and thats what I chose.

Anyway, I've digressed... but its because my distaste for temping is about accountability and choice for me.  Temping always made me feel like I was just "ending up" in situations, because I had to.  And that feels cheap to me. 

Temping shouldn't be my last resort, but it kind of is, because it puts me in situations that make my choice just a harder choice for me to live with.  On my own, if I'm desperate enough to apply for a shitty job, than I figure out how I can live with it if I have to take it, when offered.  With temping, its someone else's job to hand me choices, very often EARLY in the morning, when I've not had my coffee yet and therefore am not sane enough to turn them down.  This has resulted in my ending up at a marathon taping of the Judge Mathis Show, where I got paid minimum wage for sitting in the audience but not being allowed to really have food, drink or long breaks for about 12 hours.  (True Story - and it taped in the same studio as Jerry Springer... I left the room to go to the bathroom on a 5 minute break and could hear the crowd chanting "Jerry! Jerry!"... it was creepy).  Another time it resulted in me wearing ill-fitted pretend fancy professional clothes while I took an El and two buses out to an office building out by O'Hare airport where I nervously sat in a room with nearly 50 temps trying to get the same position... it was a tryout and I didn't get it.  I wasted all day out there.  In both instances, I thought "I could have better luck getting a REAL job, going door to door in the Loop."    But then again, one great long-term temp assignment led to a great job.  Was it worth the 6 months of crappy and unsteady temping and all the hours and hours of testing my typing and computer skills with multiple agencies, maybe not.  I think I could have found a job sooner really and save a LOT of trouble.  But who knows.

Wow.  I didn't intend on writing that rant.  I didn't realize I felt so strongly about this.  Ok.  back to Plan A. 
I have been sending out lots of resumes for jobs I am perfectly qualified for.  I found more yesterday to apply for and will send those out today.

Something will come through.  Always does.

read this.

Its the best article (actually excerpted from a book) that I've read regarding fat issues in a long long time.  And the title, to me is inaccurate or misleading... its not about self-acceptance at all... its about how our society doesn't LET you accept yourself.  In fact, society doesn't let us off the hook for two seconds, it interferes at every subtle hint of me not feeling as ashamed or embarrassed as I "should".  That's what the article is about, truly, and its brilliantly expressed.  I'm wondering if the magazine gave it that title or an editor or something, because it doesn't seem to go with what the author is truly saying.  regardless, go read it.  It speaks my 15 some-odd years of angst more eloquently than I am ever able to.

Also, I recently read a quote by the brilliant Beth Ditto, and I can't find it now, nor can I remember it exactly.  But I will paraphrase as best I can - when discussing her reaction when people comment on her weight "problem", she said "I'm not thinking oh.. why am I so fat?... I'm thinking... oh... why are you SO BORING?"

get it? its old.fucking.news... I don't need to be reminded that I have a weight "problem", and I HATE being reminded that people care so fucking much. 

I've shirked responsibilities and went to the beach too many times in weather far too temperate for January.

We've unpacked most of our kitchen, but can't seem to locate the box (es) with our dinner plates and/or bag o' silverware.

We somehow lost our dvd/vhs player.  Even though its most likely not in a box, due to its abnormal length and someone must have placed it somewhere to be safe.  I hope. 

We arranged for a really affordable DirectTV package instead of giving in to the overpriced evil empire of Cox Cable.  (Us:1 , Cox:0) and then upon being visited by a VERY attractive DirectTV installer, learned that we have too many trees in our yard obstructing the satellite path and so, no DirectTV for us.  (Us: 0, DirectTV: 0, Trees: 1 ... luckily we like trees)  and yes, he was hot enough to deserve mention.  Both of us, in fact, both lesbians of the house felt the need to discuss his attractiveness as soon as the van pulled out of the driveway.  And then bring him up again every time we told the story of why we did not have DirectTV to anyone we knew.  That hot.  He had a way about him.  Some people just defy normal limitations of sexuality.  Johnny Depp.  Unnamed DirectTV guy.  It happens. 

Anyway, so then I look into cable options and the evil empire is ALL WE CAN GET OUT HERE.  no joke.  they have a monopoly and they know it.  fuckers.   So I go on the website and do about 38 different kinds of budgeting math and nothing is adding up to worth it.  To get an equivalent package to what we would have gotten from DirectTV we would need to pay double the base cost, plus taxes and fees.  Its complete and utter bullshit.  So we sign up for basic extended cable and it costs the same and has only 100ish channels and does not have BBC america (fuckers, I want my Torchwood!) but that is that.  Otherwise, we would have no TV reception at all and thats not acceptable. 

Darcy discovers secret super ability to find the most ridiculous television programming possible at any given point.   Example:  Earlier tonight she somehow managed to stumble upon a television program called "Parking Wars".  Its basically COPS... except without cops or excitement.  It follows the people who give parking tickets and boot cars and films the occasional scuffle they run into when someone who is booted freaks out and can't get into their car.  Or the people crying as their car is being towed.  I'm NOT kidding.  that ridiculous. 

We have made lots of progress on the house that feels marginal in comparison to how much left to do.  We painted the living room red and we love it.  We painted the kitchen cabinets a dark teal and we love it.  We hate the floors of the kitchen and bathroom and don't have any idea of when we will be able to afford to change them or get a lot of other things (molding, window trim, hallway, basement) finished.  We have not unpacked the majority of our belongings and don't have heaters in two of the rooms.  bah.

We taught Joe to play our favorite childish card game, Guillotine.

We had brunch with my extended family on my mom's side, on New Year's Day and it was lovely.  Its been a long long time since I've seen many of those people. 

I am actually getting along fairly well with my parents.  My dad is turning into an old man and its weird for us, but mostly weird for him.  He has big ambitions for working on the house and very little is getting done because he fell down the stairs of his basement and hurt his back and won't admit to anyone, even himself, how bad it was and how long it might take to feel better.  Its fine that its taking a while, but he's sometimes a little spacey and difficult to communicate with about things like a priority list.  He spent 4 hours last week cleaning old gross insulation out of our basement... which had to be done and it was great that he did it.  But not before two of our rooms got HEAT.  Or while his back still hurt and it could get worse. (sigh).  He is being very very nice and generous and helpful, but its difficult for me to work with him.  I'm trying to just go with it.

I miss my brothers.  We had both helping us move and Dan around for a few days when we first moved in and then Jonathan was up here all of last week.  When I lived in NY, Jon was really one of my best friends and certainly kind of a staple person for geeky movies and board games and whatever.   There were entire months where he was at our apartment once a week and there was rarely any time when I went more than a few weeks without hanging out with him.  Its going to be weird not having him around.

In fact, its taking time to sink in, with all that is going on, but I am starting to really miss my network.  I will need to have this house full of people again sometime soon for a chill game night or movie night or something.  Even just a few people.  I will miss the potlucks.  Luckily, we have Joe here and that is amazing since I haven't had him around in years.   I know all of this will sort out.  It always does.  I missed it when I moved from Chicago to NY and then everything worked out and we ended up with a great group of artsy and geeky people around us.  Some old friends, some new.  It always happens that way.  I just feel strange now that its our second move in 3 years.  We have great people still in Chicago. And in NY.  And some that have moved elsewhere.  All spread out.  I always thought that I would move on from places and those friendships would die out or fade and of course, some have.  But especially with the magic of the internet, staying in touch is so super easy and I've found that there are amazing people, some close friends, some good acquaintances, all over the country and abroad even that I miss and think of often and probably don't speak with or see nearly enough.  I guess I didn't know that at this age and time in my life, I would have "collected" so many interesting and fabulous people to care about.  I didn't know I would have so many people to miss.  I'm incredibly lucky, but its also kind of humbling and odd.  And now we are here in RI, starting over again, with only a few special people around. 

I'm rambling, I think I probably should sleep now.

I feel happy. and good being right where I am.  but its really overwhelming too, both externally with stresses and internally with memories and emotional stuff to deal with.

oh and I had a job interview and I believe it went well.  I will hear Monday about second round interview.  fingers crossed.

try this.  go to google search for images.  make sure you deselected "safe search" (no image censoring/filtering) and type in scrabble. 

now look at the first image that comes up. (NSFW)

wtf?

We are in.  The truck is unloaded.  Our entire life is in piles of boxes scattered everywhere.

But it feels really really good to be here.

pictures and more thoughts on all of this later.

Lately, whenever we have been in Rhode Island I have felt good. I have felt on the edge of all those shifting "somethings" that are important.  And I have been productive and planning and felt as if it will all fall into place.  How could it not?  It all feels so right.

and then I get back to NY and I'm literally haunted by what-if's. 

What if I don't find a job for months and months and have to sponge off of Darcy and hide my poverty and failure from my parents?
What if I can't find an adequate place to go and see a doctor and get refilled prescriptions and I run out of blood sugar medication and get violently ill because I don't have insurance?
What if the car we are borrowing breaks down and we don't have enough money to fix it or get another used car, which we need anyway?
What if we can't get out of our current apartment in time?
What if I never manage to get my christmas cards mailed out, or christmas shopping done?

Its ridiculous I know.  Its ridiculous and yet I am consumed with trying to organize everything and feeling like I've managed to get nothing done.  It sucks and I hate it.

It will all work out.  (deep breaths)