An Anniversary. Of sorts.

Today is the day that marks one full week of unemployment. Yay! String up the balloon, blow some party favors and buy me some motherfricken cake! It’s party time.

It feels like its been an unproductive, pointless few days. But I’ve done stuff! I really have.

Proof of point: a list.

• I signed up for unemployment.
• I mailed that thing that needed to be mailed.
• I wrote a check for my car payment and mailed that off too.
• I did laundry.
• I did the dishes.
• I baked cookies. They didn’t turn out too well, but they’re homemade dammit.
• I did a bit of an online job search. Not too extensive, but I started to look around.
• I went to the grocery store.
• And I searched the hell out of homes for sale. Like, a LOT of searching.

See? I did stuff! A whole list of stuff.

Most of my time I think was spent looking online for a new place to live. And reading up on stuff I need to know about buying our very first home. It’s kind of daunting how much I don’t know about this stuff. It’s been a bit overwhelming at times. But at least its been keeping my brain occupied!

Also, the sooner we move the sooner we’ll be saving money. No more crazy high rent payments! Woooo!

Oh, and I’ll finally get to have a washer and dryer INSIDE instead of walking to a communal laundry room. The HB’s one request is that there’s a big enough garage for him to have a ‘man cave’ to store all of his manly tools and stuff. It’s been twelve years since we’ve had either luxury. And now they’re within our grasp! Well, after we apply for a loan. And get a loan. And do a tour of the few places we’ve selected. And make an offer. And holy crap there’s still so much to do.

To add to the madness, I’ll be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. I haven’t done NaNo since I went back to school and I’ve been really looking forward to the hectic paced novel writing that will happen next month.

Job searching, house hunting, and writing a novel... November will certainly be an adventure.

Mamma's little baby loves clambake, clambake

Oh Dear Elvis... I showed up to work today with my shirt on inside out.

I know I headed off to work this morning wearing one navy blue sock with one black sock and black pants. That was done, however reluctantly, on purpose. I've been delaying the Inevitable Laundry Session that I know will come whether I want it to or not. No matter how much I ignore its existence, the emptiness of my underwear drawer will not magically reverse itself.

But if it could? Awesome squared!

I have enough undies to make it to the weekend, which is when I can do laundry at 7 or 8 in the morning before it gets all butt-ass melty hot outside. Bleagh. But my socks? They fare not so well. I've been down to mismatched socks since Tuesday. And now I'm down to socks that aren't even from the same species of sock-dom. Hello random halloween themed sock!

But the mismatched socks I could deal with. My feet are under a desk for most of the day, and hardly anyone, if any at all, would notice. But my shirt?!

Holy frack nuggets Batman!

Good thing I was bored during my morning meeting, and looking down, and checking out my chest (as a byproduct of being bored, mind you, I don't normally check out my chest. Well, that often anyway...) Anywho! I was wearing a v-neck shirt and as I was looking down I noticed the fabric sticking out where the two lines of the V meet.

And I thought to my self, 'well that looks weird... what the... oh. Crap.'

Sigh.

Thankfully nobody noticed. Because I refuse to believe otherwise.

In other news, I received a spammy email the other day that advertised a drug that could make me "wild and woozy." I thought that would be an interesting combination. "Woohoo! Let's go skinny dipping! Right after I sit down though because I'm a bit dizzy!" Sign me up.

A Bit Of Random

I opened up this word doc to write about one thing and ended up with something completely different. When the muse needs to vent, the muse needs to vent! I blame the heat.

Random #1

I've been finding about an ant a day crawling across my desk for the past week.

First ant? Poor fella. He must have gotten lost.

*squish*

Second ant? Hmmm... Interesting.

*squish*

Third ant? Okay, who hid the candy behind my desk?

*squish*

Fourth ant? I'm starting to think I should probably mention this to someone. I'm not sure I can take more karma hits from all that ant-icides I've performed this week.

*squish*

Random #2

My boss is pretty cool. He's offered to hook me up with friends or family to help out with X and Y and Z. But I'd still never befriend him on facebook, even if I knew he was there. And if for some reason he found me and befriended me, and I had a crazy moment and accepted, I'd like to think I'd be smart enough not to log in to facebook and complain what a wanker he is.

Random #3

This is Day Three of The Great Office Sauna Saga.

Three days that the air conditioner hasn't worked. Yesterday, when I finally escaped this hellhole, the thermostat said it was 87 degrees in here. Eighty Mutha Effin Seven Degrees. I'm surprised I got as much work done as I did. When I was in the middle of a project I focused in and lost track of time and forgot for a glorious yet brief moment that I was stewing in the office. But when I finished? And I had to think of what to do next? It was hard to get that focus back. I didn't want to do anything. I didn't want to move.

The best part was when someone came into the office, sat down, and a few moments later said, "Did you know that its 85 degrees in here?"

"Holy shit, really? I hadn't noticed!"

I swear, some people get so touchy when I answer their stupid question with sarcasm. Am I supposed to thank them for making me aware of my office's sauna status?

And yes, I'm still cranky about it. Because its frickin hot in here! Ugh.

I hear something on the roof right now. I hope its either the A/C people fixing things or Godzilla getting ready to attack and put me out of my misery.

F is for...

Frank! Freud! Francis! François!

Ford!

Uh...

Filbert!

Frankenstein!

Okay, I was stretching it with those last two.

"Last two?" says my inner heckler.

My mind is clogged and can't think of any more boy names that start with the letter F.

Fred!

There, just thought of another. Bitch and ye shall receive.

During lunch I played the Twist-The-Stem-Off-The-Apple game - the game where each twist is a letter of the alphabet, and the letter you say when the stem snaps off represents the first letter of a boy's name who... um...

... is thinking of you?

... secretly has a crush on you?

... luuuuuuuuuuuuuuuves you?

I don't remember the exact level of affection the magical stem foretells, but the twisting game is still a habit I fall into now and again.

Sorry boys, but if your first name is near the end of the alphabet you are so screwed. Poor William. Poor Zachary. They only get to like/crush/luuuuuve the girls that have mutant apples for lunch, mutant apples with stems that have the fortitude of a bungee cord.

Nowadays I just twist and say the alphabet and then amuse myself with whatever letter I come up with. (Fabio!) When I was much younger, however, if there was a letter I wanted the apple stem to "magically" break off at, I'd have to be careful. If I wanted to get to a letter near the middle of the alphabet I had to employ the tiniest of quarter twists.

"Jayyyyyy..."

"Kayyyyyyy..."

"Ell-"

*snap*

"Poop!"

Yes, I'm sure I said poop back then because I was young and innocent and didn't know "Shit!" or even "Crap!" was so much more satisfying to say. Now, of course, I am old and corrupted and savor a good curse like a Pillsbury crescent roll fresh out of the oven

Today's apple was delicious, much like a Pillsbury crescent roll would be but I don't have any so why did I have to go thinking about yummy crescent flakiness because now I'm hungry again and I didn't bring another apple... crap!

So yes, the apple was delicious, if not fulfilling, but who is this F fella and does this crush of his involve buying me candyPillsbury crescent rolls and sending me notes during first period?

Various Randomness

My grandpa passed away earlier this month. I was sad and mope-y for a couple days, then, apparently, back to fairly normal. But I got a "My Condolences" card yesterday in the mail from some wonderful people and I got all teary eyed again. I'd thought about sending them a card once when they lost loved ones, but I didn't, because I let insecurities drive me to the point of non-action. I hate that about myself sometimes. Because it wouldn't have mattered what I did, it would have been the thought that counted. So I ended up doing nothing. And here they are, sending me a card and making me feel happy and shameful at the same time. How lame is that? It put me in a weird depressive funk for the night.

On a more exciting, uplifting front: I got stuck in an elevator Tuesday!

Heh heh. Get it?

Lift.

Elevator.

Up.

Ha?

Ugh.

Yeah, not that exciting really. I thought it would be. I was hoping it would be. Yes! Something interesting is happening to me! This will give me ample writing fodder! Ehhh... not so much. But I do have enough for its own blog post later.

For now though, I'm typing and working and eating breakfast. It's quite yummy too. (The breakfast, not the work, though the typing is quite the contender.) It's a Special K snack bar. They had them on sale at the grocery store so I grabbed them, knowing I wouldn't have time to grab much else on these early pre-buttcrack-of-dawn Tuesdays and Thursdays. It's a granola bar with strawberry chunks and drizzled frosting. And its an absolute divine addition to my morning coffee meal.

Me: *chomp chomp mmmmmmm chomp*

Mr. Desk Neighbor: I'll take snacks that aren't shared for 200 Bill.

Me: Bill? What happened to Alex?

Mr. Desk Neighbor: You'd have to ask Bill.

Hmmm. Ominous.

I'm clocking out for my first break, then its back to work for me. I can't just break for 15 minutes at random any more. Actual clocking in and out is now required. Commie bastards!

If I get fired for not clocking in and out for breaks correctly (which will happen if I make 20 mistakes in... 6 months I think it is. So tune back in a couple months for my 'I just got fired post!) I'll have more time for school. Which wouldn't be too horrible. But eventually I'd have to find a job. The HB is excited about a new lotto pool him and some friends started up at work. Twenty bucks a month, tons of lotto numbers, dreams and hopes abound. But I doubt we'd win before I'd have to start looking for another job. The HB might be able sugar daddy me for a month or two, but I'd have to find another job eventually.

Now THAT is a frightening thought. What in the hell kind of job could I get???

It wouldn't be anything I liked doing. Writing and finger painting and making messes and eating French fries and pole dancing and watching TV just don't seem like viable options for bill paying.

I guess I'd better be a diligent time keeper then.

One last thought before I go. Side 2 of Darren Hayes new CD This Delicate Thing We've Made is so much better than side 1. I could listen to it for hours and hours on end. And I do. After hearing early samples on his myspace page I was hesitant to buy the cd. And eventually decided not to (partly because I just never buy CD's anymore).

But there I was, standing around in Best Buy, and the HB's exuberant multi-gift-card inspired shopping spree made me feel like buying something. Boy am I so freaking glad I did. The songs up now on the myspace page are much better, especially 'On The Verge of Something'. Too bad more Side 2 songs aren't up. They're awesome.

<3 Darren Hayes