Good Fortune

No, I haven't been the recipient of actual good fortune. But when I ate a fortune cookie today, this is the message I found inside it:

You should be able to make money and hold on to it.

Granted, it doesn't say I will be gloriously happy and satisfied and find love and make fat babies on a beach, but considering my present money woes I'll take it. I don't quite know what it means, but it sure sounds good. Will I get the library job? Maybe. Will I remain in retail hell for the year? Maybe. Will I sell the house and live among my conservative Baptist parents? Quite possibly. But it's all okay. Good fortune is on the way. I can feel it.

Whoever is out there, thank you for reading. It has helped me feel a little bit more solid than I would have otherwise. For the past 100 posts, this has been a helpful outlet. There have been some days when all I could do was cry out here in hopes that writing it all down could help a little. Hopefully you can stick by as I finally finish first and get out of Dodge!

My Aching Feet

Sorry it's been a while since I posted. I, as previously mentioned, have been putting in long days both at Starbucks and the video rental place. I worked about 18 hours between Saturday and Sunday and my feet are killing me. I soak them, rub them, ice them, and take ibuprofen, but being on them so often isn't allowing them time to feel any better for more than a couple of hours in mid-morning. I put off a trip to the grocery store until tomorrow because I couldn't imagine walking through the store itself. It feels as if I'm walking on bruises.

I'm training on the espresso bar this week. It's exciting. I can make all sorts of fancy-pants drinks. Also, I'm a tea master!

No word on the library job yet. I hope they call soon. I've been scheduled to interview for a job that I'd rather not have but would feel obligated to take if I don't get the library job. I'd much rather spend my first day off in 3.5 weeks next Tuesday relaxing instead of driving to Podunk Capitol City 2 hours away to interview a job I'm not sure I want. It would be much easier to say "sorry, I accepted another offer." What really gets me is that I would take this job in a second if it were in my city, or Chicago, or Kansas City, or even Nashville. But taking this job, especially before my house sells, would require me to support two households and keep a second job (I don't want to start training again....), live in PCC, require me to forgo teaching the two college courses I was offered in the spring, not have my family in town to help me with my dog on long days, and require me to move to PCC, then move again to Chicago next summer.

Five people came to see my house yesterday. Keep your fingers crossed that one of them is serious about making a real offer! As soon as the house sells I can sit back, enjoy Starbucks (which offers benefits at 20 hours a week), enjoy subbing and or teaching my classes next spring and STILL manage to save a ton of money. While polishing my resume up for Chicago next fall and purchase a few little items (like a digital camera) of course.

And because I want to share with you the joy of working retail, here's an interesting snippet from my experiences at the video rental place.

We sell lots of candy at the vrp. We also don't do a ton of business in the middle of the day during week days. Last week on Tuesday my first sale of the day walked in a little before noon, 2 hours after opening.

She didn't look very well put together. Her clothes matched, but they were a little dirty and a little small. Her skirt hung under her ample belly. She appeared to be in her early to mid twenties, but definitely the worse for wear. Her eye makeup was heavy and smeared.

She brought about 4 pounds of candy to the counter, and no movies. She started to strike up a conversation. "I heard you guys talking about your pets," she said. This much is true. Chris and I were having a conversation about our dogs and cats. What follows, however, is entirely fantastical.

"I have cats," she said, "I keep them clipped in cages like birds. So they won't fly away." I nodded and smiled. "I let them out every once in a while. I feed them the candy to make them use the litterbox. They're attracted to the bright colors."

Of course they are.

I learned a little later that this young woman was one of our regulars, a fairly notorious drug user and sometimes prostitute. That could explain the clipped cats story. She really appeared to believe it.

Now as much as I hate working at LRP, the neighborhood I work in is pretty neat. It's incredibly diverse. I usually hear at least 3 or 4 other languages than English each weekend shift I work. I get to practice my Spanish too. (Two Hondurans asked me out on Saturday after helping them find a movie.) In addition, we have a very healthy mix of toothless (and toothful) rednecks and gay men and women, since our store is nearby a fairly gay neighborhood. I seriously went from having a discussion about the show the L-word and Logo to detailing the finer points of our selection of straight to video horror movies. Since our neighborhood is fairly cheap we also have a number of young recent college graduates trying to save money whom I also enjoy talking with about our foreign film selection. I can not emphasize how much my night changes over the course of any given shift.

Still, I am looking forward to quitting LRP as soon as I can afford to. After the store closes 3 weeks from now I will be moved to a less interesting and possibly suburban neighborhood. Since I already dislike the job so much, losing that diversity of clientele will be the final nail in the coffin that ensures that there is not even one thing left that I like about the job.

Working for a Living

Due to a few circumstances I have been unable to update lately. First, I accidentally left my computer behind at my parents' house this weekend and haven't had time to get it back until today. Secondly, I have been working every day.

Seriously. The last day I had off was two weeks ago, and the next day I'm gonna have off is in the unforseen future, but it's at least another two weeks away. I'm totalling in the mid-fifties hourwise each week and still barely making ends meet. But at least they're meeting, right? And in the meantime, I'm not having enough downtime to think about the divorce much. In the long run I'm assuming that that is not a good thing, but for now I think it's an excellent coping mechanism. I think that I will be more ready and willing to end the denial phase (or the ignoring phase, take your pick- it's really a little bit of both) once something in my life is going all right.

Another positive aspect to this is that I'm too busy to eat food that's bad for me. I'm packing carrots and whole wheat wrap sandwiches and fruit for my lunch, making it easy to grab those, but not much else. I'm also scheduling in my runs and still making them for once because there are few nagging things left to complete at home (like homework), and I need them for the stress relief anyway. So I'm hopping to drop that eight pounds in the course of the month.

My feet hurt like crazy. I'm soaking them in cool water each night, but it's kinda painful to stand by the end of the day. I'm hoping that it will get easier as time goes on.

I do love Starbucks, however. The people are really fun and nice, and I'm still overwhelmed by all I have to learn, but it's a neat job. The time goes quickly. I could have lived all my life without knowing what a carmel mocha machiatto was, but I feel a little cooler now that I do know. Working there is also kinda like being Norm. Everyone says hi to me when I get there, and personally says goodbye when I go. It's a nice place to be.

There's a cute guy there too. Absolutely nothing will come of it, but it's another nifty little distraction technique to flirt and enjoy without really intending anything. Not that I'm a big flirt, or anything. It's pretty much the lighthearted joking I am participating in with the whole staff at the store I'm training in.

The house sale is not going well. No one is looking. I hope I can sell it before the end of the year.

Post 100 is quickly approaching.... So much has happened in 100 posts. Hopefully by 200 I will be able to look back in celebration. I truly am hopeful right now. I just know that there is a lot more that I will have to slog through before the dawn comes and I've never been one for patience.

I know there will still be a lot of days when I cry, when I wake up after dreaming of him like today, or when I will be working long hours to pay the house payment (or put up with the loss of privacy and independence when moving in with my parents). I don't know when these times will end- and I still may get depressed about things from time to time far into the future. Someday, though, my life will be mine again instead of the charred remnants of our life. I look forward to the day.

Endings

It seems that my life has been very much about endings lately, large and small. The end of my schooling at the University I've been at for the last four years. The end of my marriage. The end of my relationship with Darcy-dog. Today I experienced one more such ending. Today was the last day I worked on the campus library.

I started working there almost three years ago when we received a shockingly large personal property tax bill which would not be covered by our regular salaries. My coworkers were generally genial. I made one of my few friends there- a friend who, without her over the past few months, I don't know if I could have survived sanely.

This job kept the bills paid and the roof over my head for the last three years. When ex lost his job, I worked more hours there. When I didn't receive summer funding last year, this job kept the money coming in. When ex left me with no warning, this job allowed me to pay bills by myself that he would generally have helped to pay. I have worked there this summer while looking for other employment. My schedule has been moldable enough that I have been able to take days off to finish papers or other assignments, to skip out for job interviews, and to work more when I needed the money. I have spent most of my weekends there for about two years.

This job has been more stable than pretty much anything else in my life. While my teaching assistantships changed from semester to semester, as did my classes, and my husband increasingly withdrew from our lives, this job was there week after week, semester after semester. My boss knew the details of my life and might even have helped me land my next job- if the job I interviewed for this week goes through. A quietly kind and somewhat eccentric man, he always sent new library books my way if he thought they were of my interest, and did his best to get me hours when I needed them. Another co-worker helped me find a divorce attorney and proof-read my dissertation prospectus. They've been a kind of family.

Today as my last shift ended, I walked slowly to take everything in. As I pushed my cart into the book depository I reminded myself that it would be the last time I did that. As I felt the breeze caused by the environmental controls, as I wheeled my empty cart back to the front, as I replaced the card key with the others, I kept thinking, "this is going to be the last time."

I left the office, looking back at my completely cleaned desk- the desk where I discovered Spoon in launchcast, the desk where I distractedly paged through so many donated volumes and conducted so many conversations about the downsides of graduate life with my coworkers- I thought to myself that I am tired of partings.

The Day's Account

Here's the good: I got hired at Starbucks. I start Saturday. I would start tomorrow if I wasn't working my last day at the campus library tomorrow. And then at Blockbuster in the evening. Yay! Free frappacinos! Good benefits!

The bad: There is water damage in my ceiling under my bathroom without a visible cause. This is a scary prosepect in an old house, particularly an old house that is for sale.

The ugly: The stress of making ends meet is getting to me. My ezcema is revving up for a powerfully itchy and ugly attack. My elbows are raw, my legs are unshavable because of the smattering of little scabs. The respite I got in Chicago was lovely, but it upset the delicate balance. I've been consistently stressed for so long that my skin was on an even keel with an occaisionally itchy spot, but with the low stress brought on by vacation, even those itchy spots cleared up and my skin flipped out when coming back to the full stress that is my life. Mosquito bites due to the season don't do me much good either.

Miles to go before I sleep: I need to run four miles this evening, and am looking forward to getting on the treadmill this evening for a nice run after staying off my feet for a few more minutes. I'm watching the first season of Buffy again during my runs and anxious to move onto the second. Not to mention that I've been having a good couple of weeks with the running. My speed is picking up, my knees are not sore, and my endurance is increasing again. Life is easier to face when I can work it out on the treadmill.

Possibilities

Today was a busy day. First, I worked at the video rental place. It's nice to be able to go to work seven minutes away from home when I'm used to thirty. This afternoon I went to the public library to interview for a position working with children and teens. It's a nice job that I would like which pays poorly, though enough to live on. I won't hear back about it for about two weeks since they just started interviewing.

After that, I went for my interview with Starbucks. They don't pay as well as the video rental place, but the benefits sure are great! And after my recent trip to Chicago I have found myself addicted to java chip frappacinos, and working there would hook me up free of charge instead of subjecting me to the withdrawl due to my poverty.

I also found out that I may get to teach a class at one of the local colleges in the spring semester. This means that I may be able to teach two classes this spring, since another local college expressed interest in letting me teach a course as well. Each of them wants me to teach in one of my specific areas of interest, which would be really amazing, and the second college would have me teach a course never offered there before so I could create the course from whole cloth to suit my needs and interests. The schedule at the library would permit me to teach the courses, too, and the money would be helpful....

So it seems that there are more opportunities coming my way these last few days. I'm hopeful, but not too excited at this point since I have been this close to having a job before only before it was offered to someone else.

The Tale of the MRI

As a poor almost-graduated student working a variety of part-time jobs, when I heard about the subject studies list for the psychology department here at my university, I thought it was wise to sign right up. I've participated in one study already, and earned 20 dollars an hour for my efforts. A few weeks ago I received another phone call, this time for a study in which I would perform a few memory tasks while in an MRI machine. This one would be 3-4 hours and pay 25 dollars an hour. It sounded like a great solution to at least a few of my monetary worries.

As per the instructions, yesterday I forewent my daily caffeine, wore a wireless bra, and showed up to the MRI in comfortable clothing. After listening to and reading a variety of warnings and privacy information for about half an hour I signed that I was giving permission to be used in this study.

The building was freezing cold. I was greatful to have thought to bring a sweater, I thought, as I walked into the room with the MRI. The machine looked interesting, not very imposing. I was intellectually intrigued with the thought of participating in these two experiments, and also excited about having an MRI, since I had never had one before.

The two nice young men who were running the experiment asked me to lay down on the machine's table. I complied, shivering slightly. They began to position my body, asking me to move an inch to the left, an inch lower, and put a freezing bolster pillow under my naked legs.

"You did promise me a blanket?" I urgently reminded.

"Of course," they said, "Just a minute."

Because the MRI machine can be incredibly loud, they gave me a pair of earplugs, which they instructed me to put in my ears right away despite the fact that they would not leave me alone in the room and start the machine for another ten minutes. This produced a slightly disturbing effect in which they continued to give me warnings and directions as I was lying almost deaf on the MRI table. After the earplugs came a huge pair of 1970s looking headphones in which I was supposed to hear instructions for the experiments, and an attached mouthpiece that would allow me to communicate answers.

Once the headphones were in place, they put the blanket on my goose-pimpled legs, and began tucking it around my body. Soon they were bringing out other pieces of cloth, much like small towels, and packing them around my head. "I feel like I'm being packed for burial," I remarked. This feeling should have probably tipped me off that this was not a good perception to be having outside of the machine. A piece of tape was placed across my head to help me to remember to stay still for the MRI.

The piece de resistance was a plastic dome fitted with a mirror that they placed over my head. The mirror was angled so that I could see a screen inside the machine. So far, so good. I felt a little constrained, with all the packing and gear around my head, and with the dome which was surrounded my entire head and was not six inches away from my face, but I was okay. They told me to roll my shoulders in a little as the machine moved me inside. I was told that my entire body would not be in the machine, mostly my torso. They left the room as the table moved slowly into place.

Inside the machine I could hear each beat of my heart, and it was moving almost faster as I could count. Over the headphones they asked me, "Can you hear okay?"

"Umm, yes." I said. I took a deep breath. I can do this. I'm not claustrophobic. I've never been claustrophobic. I need this money. All I have to do is lay here. I'll be just fine.

"All right- take a minute to get into a comfortable position," one of the young men said. "You're going to be there for three hours."

I tried to take another deep breath. Three freaking hours? Three hours and I don't have enough room to sit up? I can't move, and I'm packed in handtowels with this plastic thing enveloping my head? "I don't think I can handle this," I said as calmly as I could.

"Are you sure?" They asked. "Do you want to come out now, or would you like to stay inside for a few minutes to see if you can do it?"

I couldn't even form coherent thoughts to answer the question. I could only continue to take rapid, shallow breaths as I heard my heart race. The only thing I wanted to do was to sit up.

"We're getting you out," the voice said.

They came in and let me out of the machine. I felt humiliated and poor. I needed the money. It was supposed to be easy money. I will have to work at blockbuster for almost 11 hours to make up for the same amount of money. All I had to do was lie still.

The young men tried to make me feel better. "This happens to about one in ten subjects," they said. "And this is a small machine. The one next door is bigger, and we've had people have four or five scans in it who haven't been able to handle a scan in here."

I smiled weakly. I went home.

Life Goal

My favorite kind of outfit has become something like a uniform. I have several twill skirts (and shorts as well, for those dress down days) my birk sandals (and now some mary jane skechers for those dress up days) thin cotton cardigans in 3 basic and 2 not so basic colors (brown, white, black, pink, powder blue) and a couple of choice t-shirts (my favorite at present states "I heart Jake Ryan" under a still from 16 candles, but the Fraggle Rock t-shirt is also sweet). The problem with this outfit is that at present the number of cool t-shirts I have right now is severely limited. In response, one of my recent goals has been to amass a kick-ass t-shirt collection.

I'd like something like this. Or this. A blast from the past like this would also be super-cool. I like my t-shirts to reference my childhood passions, or to reference my likes in a way that isn't entirely obvious. This is why I got the Jake Ryan t-shirt instead of one that just said 16 candles
on it, flanked by a cast photo. That's just too obvious. And frankly, I'm too much of a geek for that kind of obvious. Of course, there's one tee that may just take the cake during my recently minted divorce. How's this tee? Of course, I could also use this t-shirt to announce my newly-single self so that the men would understand what type of woman they were dealing with.

Have you run into any nifty tees that would be an awesome addition to my collection?

The Pain, the Anger, the Humiliation

I speak not of divorce, but of the joyous process of opening one's home to strangers and allowing them to go through it, commenting on your life and living style in order to sell the damn thing. My house has been open for a grand total of about three weeks. Only one person has seen it. There have been no offers.

Today my realtor had a realtor lunch to get other realtors to look at the house. I did not know what a realtor lunch was before today, but had assumed it was to generate a greater interest and knowledge in my house. I assumed wrong.

It seems that the purpose for this program was to get other realtors to look at my house and find new ways to insult me, and offer a variety of non-specific suggestions to help my house sell better.

For example, a "clean smell" would improve my house alot. I do not have central air, and the extreme heat coupled with the somewhat ineffective window units sometimes lend a certain scent to my (even clean) bathroom, but I am unsure really about how to give my house a clean smell otherwise. I have invested in three lovely plug in room scents, I've used pet fresh on the carpets in the last 48 hours, and I've also cleaned the bathroom and kitchen in the same time frame. Hell, I even got rid of my cat and sprayed and scrubbed down the basement with bleach twice. How else am I supposed to make my house smell "clean"?

On top of this, it was suggested that I do some "sprucing up" in my house. Perhaps none of them, or you, know this, but I have been sprucing this house up every spare moment I have had for the LAST NINE MONTHS!! Every room on the top floor and one of the ones on the first have had the plaster repaired and been repainted. The kitchen has been refloored. The toilet has been replaced. The basement has not only been bleached, but almost everything previously in the basement has been thrown out or packed up into neatly stacked boxes. A worn out and smelly carpet was removed from a bedroom, revealing a worn out wooden floor, which at least doesn't smell. I'm not sure how much more "sprucing" I have time to do, let alone if there is any I can afford, since I am borrowing from my fairly meager savings in order to eat and pay the mortgage.

The most annoying, and the most anger-inducing comment by far, I believe, is that my house is not "move-in" or "live in" ready. My house is not "live in" ready? Is this true? For god's sake, I have been living here for the past four years and it looks a good sight better than it ever has. What kind of a troglydite must I be to live in this filth? What right do they have to tell me that my home, which has all the new work on it that I previously mentioned, is not liveable? Granted, the bedrooms could use new carpet, and much of the wood in the house could benefit from a stripping and sanding, but all the systems work. All of the walls are painted, and none of them are sporting cracks.

The vagaries of real estate piss me off. A house across the street, in worse condition than this, sold for 30 grand more than I'm asking last summer.

Will you go blind if you're doing it for charity?

Here's a lovely example about charity bringing people together, while keeping them hygenically apart. Makes the walk-a-thons and math-a-thons sound less exciting, doesn't it?

No Shelter

In her mind's eye she could see that time.
The wildflowers he'd picked from his mother's garden.
The cold winter's day they stayed inside and tried to eat as much oatmeal as they could fit into the extra large mixing bowl.
The time they sat around the computer with architectural software and planned their dreamhouse.
The evening on the deck looking at the moon when she had gotten a handful of splinters.
The afternoon at the ice cream stand, she in her white gown and he in his suit. Everyone treated them like they were movie stars.

He was her reward at the end of the day. He would massage away her frustrations with his presence. There had been 1 dorm room, 3 apartments, and 3 houses but only one home, one shelter.

Divorce....

I am someone's ex-wife. If M had a miracle and changed back to the person he was before, we would have to go through another ceremony in order to be considered married. Not that that's an option, but those two ideas just shake me to my core. This is the person I pledged to be with until death. When I was younger, I used to hope I would die first because I would miss him too much if he did. When I got a little older, I started planning my career path around the possibility that ten years from now I might have to institutionalize him. I never dreamed that I'd be his ex-wife and miss the person he was so much and never want to see the person he is again. I never believed I'd get a divorce against my will, be a left and wronged spouse, and get screwed entirely in the process.

I've cried occaisionally in private and in front of friends, but I make quips about selling the stuff he left in my house, giving away his beer (I don't like alcohol) to friends, and talk about giving the packaged food he left that I don't eat to a food pantry. Overall this does not really relate to how I feel when I'm not distracted by the daily business of work and class and etc.

There's a knot in my chest, and my stomach feels nervous like I'm waiting to hear whether I or a close friend has a serious disease. Does anyone know when this feeling goes away?

On a slightly more positive yet harried note, I went to my last class yesterday. I am just a couple of final assignments (hence the harried part, since I will be working on them all weekend) away from degree number three. I won't fool myself, I'll go back to school as soon as I get an employer to pay my tuition. I love school. But this is the first time I've left school without having registered for classes for the next semester. I've never NOT been in school since kindergarten. Leaving that schedule behind will be strange.

I promise that someday these accounts will get brighter. Still, this blog was created as a place I could let off steam and ruminate about the sorry state of my life. I guess y'all were warned.

I want to move out of town so badly. I know that a new city won't magically solve my problems, but it would force me to create new routines in new places that won't continually remind me of my deep feeling of loss, pain, and anger. Because of his illness, I had resigned myself to living here for the rest of my life. Both of our families are in town and would have been helpful as he deteriorated. So at this time last year I would have never dreamed that I would be planning to live in Chicago or New York by this time next year, if not sooner.

So I'm hoping I can make a life somewhere else that will be my life, one that feels like more than what I would have had instead of somehow less than I should have had.

It's all still a little hard to believe.

Single Woman, Single Dog

I am divorced, and this sweet dog that I have raised will no longer be a part of my life. He escaped this unscathed and I continue to pay the price, as will she. It would be easier if I knew he would take good care of her.