Where'd you go? Feels like it's been forever

Yeah, more morose blogging. Skip to the bottom if you don't want to see me being morose.

And no, I'm not sitting around clutching my phone, desperately wanting to call the rat bastard. I'm not that far gone. But I still miss him. Can't help that. He's an ass, it's not like I've gone nuts or anything. But it doesn't change the fact that it hurts, and he's gone, and *that* hurts. And there are days that I wish I could forget what he did, and things could be the way they were, and I could *not* hurt, ya know?

And no, I don't want sympathy, and I don't want to cry on anyone's shoulder, and I don't want to be comforted. I simply want to not have this empty feeling in the pit of my stomach anymore. I want it to go away, so that things go back to normal, and I've come to the conclusion that there may never be "normal" anymore for me.

In November, when Trinette goes with Steven, might actually be the beginning of "normal" for me, where I actually start to put together something that will be "normal". I don't know what that will be. But it will be something. I'll figure it out. But it'll be something.

In the meantime, I have to go to the fucking post office in the morning, and figure out what happened to my mail. Apparently, I think I've figured out part of the culprit. Mona checked the box for "family" to forward her and Cora and it caused everyone at this address to bounce. And since Trinette was a new tenant, hers got straightened out and hers is now being delivered, but mine's just being rejected and returned to sender, as it has nowhere to forward *to*. Danny and Mona's is going to them, and mine is just going nowhere. Unfortunately, it means SS and the stuff from the doctor and everything else like my bills are all being bounced back. It's a royal pain in the ass. And I need to go get it straightened pronto, because I already notified SS that I'm working, and if they get a bounce back that I don't live here, god only knows what will happen. Like they'll stop giving me my paychecks possibly? It could be *very* bad. So I will go and untangle that tomorrow. And I hope it's a very simple untangle.

I talked to work today, I hit what I needed to hit to get paid, albeit it not being a very big check because it's a pro-rate. But I *did* hit it. So all is well there. I had a manager pull the numbers, so I know I hit what needed to be hit before the end of month tally. Next month will be better, but it was the first month of testing that I was worried about. Next month will be a full run, and I'll be shooting for much higher numbers, and I will have a better idea of when I need to be tied to the keyboard, and how and what I'm doing than I did now, but I needed to hit that pro-rated amount to get paid at all, and to maintain the job. And I did. I'm very happy and pleased with that.

I'm doing alright, I suppose. I'm working, I'm doing all the things I need to be doing. I'm pretty tired lately, because my sleep schedule is all messed up. And while I'm getting *enough* sleep, my body just doesn't know what to think of what I'm up to. And I'm not used to working at all, so perhaps that's why I'm so tired. The stress of knowing I *have* to work. Perhaps that's it? I don't know.

And I know that starting next Saturday, I will be sitting in front of my machine four hours a day, minimum, because I want to pulling down 450 messages a day, every day, to be hitting what I want to be hitting. Whether I like it or not, that's what I need to do. And it isn't an option anymore. I need to be treating it like the full-time job it is, and until I hit those 450 messages, I can't be going out and hanging out, and fucking around. It was okay this month, because I didn't have to hit the higher number that I'm going to need to be hitting next month. But next month I *have* to hit that number. And so it's sitting in front of the computer until I hit that goal. It isn't like transcription, where I had little tapes, and I worked until the work was done, and then I was finished. I have to be logged in until I hit that goal. And then I'm free to play. But I have to stop screwing off. (mental discussion with myself here, nobody else needs to harass me)

In other news, massive thanks to Brandon for fixing my cell phone charger and saving my ass. Esbat freaking ate it. I would've had to go buy a new one, but Brandon repaired it, and saved me money I didn't have to spend, which I am massively grateful to him for. And I'm grateful in advance to him for the moving of my little mini-fridge that he'll be helping me to move tomorrow. Thank you Brandon! I appreciate it more than I can say. Yay for the Ramsey family!

Secret word of the day

I don't even know where to begin this evening. The current household score rests thus: Ezzie: 4 - Headphones: 0. I'd have to say Ezzie is winning. Danny's promised me a shiney new pair tomorrow, since he left the latest pair hanging from the treadmill, and the cat chewed through yet another cord. I have that stupid song "and the cat came back, the very next day, the cat came back he just couldn't stay away" in my head in reference to those headphones. At least he has good enough manners to only eat the headphone cords. Given the amount of other household cords that are within that stupid cat's reach, I should be grateful the only cords he likes are the cords to my headphones, which are the cheapie headphones I prefer. I can only imagine the pain in the ass it would be if he decided he liked the taste of, say, the Mac power supply cord, or something along *those* lines.

The wasp issue in the bathroom appears to be under control. Maintenance was in here earlier today patching over the hole in the wall, and there aren't any more wasps, as far as I know. Not entirely certain of it, because I wasn't here, but I'm told he saw none, and the problem has been taken care of. I hope so, anyhow. Bugs are bad. Yup. Bad.

I feel all scatterbrained, in a weird way (zing! word of the day!) and I'm not altogether sure why. It's as though I'm standing outside of myself, watching everything just sort of putter on around me. I'm watching everyone else doing their normal everyday routines, and I'm doing my normal routine, and everything is as it should be but something is off center. Only I can't explain what that something is. It's very peculiar. Nothing is wrong, per se. There aren't any large black looming clouds on the horizon. The world has not stopped revolving. The sun rises in the east, sets in the west. My stupid cat still jumps on my head every morning. But something is just...weird.

I have watched "Friends" many times, in reruns, over the years. It is playing as background in my apartment while I blog right now, and I can't even *hear* it, because I have in earplugs, and it has captions. And yet, even though I know what's going on, and I'm barely watching it, I still find myself sucked into this inane show. It's ridiculous. I have no idea why it's so fascinating. It's crazy. Why is this show so appealing? Thoughts? Anyone?

MacBooks and PowerBooks and iBooks oh my!

Oh *hell* yeah! This would be me, blogging from my BRAND SPANKING NEW MacBook. Danny has indeed inherited my Powerbook G4, and our nice little household is rounded out with a spiffy little iBook owned by my older brother. Danny got me my MacBook for an Easter present instead of a basket, and I love it. It is absolutely the bomb.

I could sit and wax poetic, but I'm sure all of you get the idea.

We'll be doing massive laundry tomorrow, because it needs to be done and Danny has the day off. We were thinking about heading out to Pismo, but we can't find the travel voucher thing for the free rental, so we're not. I'm sure we'll find it eventually and then head out.

There is spicy spaghetti simmering on the stove, and the kids are actually playing nicely together. Danny's reformatting his Mac, with my brother's help, and I'm sitting here nerding out and typing to practice on the new keyboard. It has a slightly different feel than the Powerbook keyboard, the keys are a little spaced, but a much more comfortable *feel* itself for me. I'll get used to it fast I'm sure. It isn't hindering my typing speed very much. I gather I'll get faster yet as I get in more practice, but since I've had use of this for a whopping half an hour, it's all good.

Kat is loving her new laptop, and I'm seriously happy for her, since she's been trying to get one for a good long while. Stewie appears to be working on writing out some stuff, since he has been influenced in a good way by Kat, who is writing a story about her experiences this last year. I'm hoping that Tony and Courtney are doing well, although I only ask occasionally, because it seems somehow inappropriate for me to ask often, given everything that happened. I can see myself getting much closer to both Kat and Mona, as I enjoy the time spent with them, and enjoy our conversations and whatnot. And 'Chelle and I are finally getting back into our groove, which I also missed during the last six or eight months when I was so wrapped up in other things.

Danny and I have been going out and doing things with our friends recently. We've had dinner with Mona, who seriously makes a *fabulous* cheesy goodness filled lasagna. We've had lunch and hung out with Kat and Brandon, which gave Danny a chance to get to know a couple more of my friends. We even spent some time at 'Chelles, hanging out and ripping music I've been itching to get my hands on for a couple of years, but James didn't want the CDs leaving the house, since he's been burned several times by people not returning them. I get that, but I still am thrilled to have the music.

'Chelle and I are doing the gym thing again, regularly. It kicked our asses the first few days, but we're into the groove again now, and it feels damned good to be back. I got a smoothie making machine today that I ordered a few days ago. It's this spiffy little mini-blender, essentially, that makes a 16 oz smoothie to go. It has a little lid to attach, so I'll be able to slam a smoothie out in the morning, before I head out to do the morning run, which will save a lot of money for me, because I won't end up starving and going to grab breakfast/lunch at a restauarant five days a week anymore.

We're actually going to conscientiously start saving money now. Although it's taken us fully a month and a half to try and get out of the hole that the wedding cost us. We're almost even now, and within the next couple of weeks should be completely out of that hole. Once we're out, we're switching to being a cash-family. No more credit cards, no more charging dinner or whatever out. We'll allocate ourselves x amount of money, and that's the money we have for the two weeks between pay periods. Once it's gone, it's gone and we are teh screwed.

But it should result in saving some. I think we'll probably start a savings account shortly, even if it has a crappy interest rate, so I can't see the funds in the checking account. I don't spend what isn't there, so I figure it's in my best interest to get this rolling into an account. Maybe even a Roth IRA instead of a regular savings account. We'll see. Need to check that out a little more.

We even started making menus (and I'm open to ideas from *ANYONE* by the way), so I have a stack of index cards I sort out, and those are what I make grocery lists from. It saved us about 500 dollars on our last grocery run, following the list. And having been cooking, I can see that the lists/menu thing is going to work out well for us. I'm by no means giving up the Schwans (ask if you want to know what that means) delivery stuff, but I've incorporated it into regular actual meals, not on the fly "what's for dinner" sessions.

I think that's enough of a blog for right now, because dinner's almost ready and I want to watch a movie. I'll think of more to write later. Perhaps individual blogs dedicated to my friends. :)

Kat is an amazing human being

Danny and I have been working on getting Kat a laptop from Craigslist. And it's been an adventure, but not in a good way. We found two, actually. One guy wanted to trade for a PC desktop, but he has a whole group of people he's weeding through to decide who he wants to trade with in the end. And the second guy had what he claimed to be a flawless IBM thinkpad, but it had no Windows, so he was selling it at a steal of a price, which is great. But when we got it home, *after* Kat paid for it, I might add, the hard drive is corrupt, and we can't put Windows onto it. Which means that she won't get it tonight, even though we promised. And I fucking hate that. So, me being me, my solution was to simply give her my Macbook. She won't let me, even though she'd be well within her rights to, but she knows I love my Mac, so she won't let me. Which makes her pretty much an awesome understanding person. Which I'm grateful for. So, much love to Kat for being so compassionate.