In which it came from here.
Allegedly, these are the words most commonly found on goblinbox.com:
The inclusion of the words “bed,” “sucks,” and “shit” is so amusing! I don’t think it scanned my archives, though, because all of these words can be found on the index page. But still, pretty funny. I totally want their Capulet vs. Montague t-shirt. (Thanks for the link, Vuboq!)
In other news, 
is the coolest web site EVAR.
In which I’m down and out.
Last night after upgrading my web site, I made soup. It was really garlicky and delicious.
Then I went over to my friends’ house and knitted and chatted and watched TV. Then I came home for awhile.
Then, at midnight, I went out for smokes and a cocktail. (Why not? I was awake, and it’s not like I have a job or anything.) There was only one other patron in the bar, and he sat right next to me. I said, “Dude, please don’t take this personally, but I’m going to smoke this cigarette, drink this beverage, and read this book, and I won’t be paying any attention to you at all.”
He said, “That’s cool, I’m not lookin’ to get laid, I just wanna chat.”
I said, “You’re not listening. I’m going to READ. THIS. BOOK.”
He looked at me for a heartbeat, then said, “You’re joking.”
I said, “No. I’m completely serious.”
“You’re gonna sit in a bar and read a book?”
“Yes.”
“What? Why?!”
“It’s what I do. All the time. Ask the bartender.”
He looked at me as if I were a talking slug who had suddenly begun doing the macarena for no good reason. “Oh my God,” he finally manged, “that’s totally fuckin’ weird.”
So there you have it: one of my favorite activities? Totally weird. (No, people, as a matter of fact, I don’t have feelings.)
Additionally, I heard through the grapevine that I have a snowball’s chance in hell of being re-hired by my old employer because apparently I’m a bitch and no one in that department likes me. Combine that juicy little tidbit with the facts that I have had no interviews whatsoever from the applications I’ve submitted this year, I’ve been let go twice in the past six months, and that Bread just informed me that I have no insurance on my jeep, and you’ve got yourself a girl who really feels like shit today.
Oh, and to add insult to injury, for some reason we don’t have any water in the house today so I can’t even take a shower or do laundry or dishes.
All I want to do is get a job, go there, and work. I don’t care what it is any more; I just want a little job I can do well and leave at work when I go home. I need to get all these bills paid, and I need to get my shit out of Brett’s house, and I need to feel like less of a loser.
I’ve already applied for two jobs this week, but I’m going to apply for another right now just to be thorough. And then? And then, I think, I might just get drunk this afternoon — really drunk — and go to bed early. I’m serious. I feel that fuckin’ bad today.
Update: The water’s back on; I guess they broke a main and it’s been fixed. Also, Public Property is playing the Old Armory tonight, and instead of getting shitfaced I might go to that instead.
In which it worked this time!
Sorry for the brief outage.
I just upgraded to the latest version of WordPress, because mine was three versions old and, you know, security updates and such.
Now I’m off to see if all my plugins still work…
In which there’s some good news… for once.
We don’t have to move! AmmZon’s mother has offered to sell her the house, and at a remarkably reasonable price. AmmZon is considering it, and in the meanwhile: we’re not evicted! Yay! I can stay here until I get a job and an apartment!
My previous employer — the one that laid me off last June — is hiring again. I sent in my resume today. Maybe they’ll hire me back. (I think I’ll go in tomorrow and sit on the HR person’s desk… for like an hour. Or three. Maybe she’ll hire me just to get me to leave her the hell alone.)
On the knitting front, I finished my first gray gauntlet and have started the second one. The fabric is much firmer made of the superwash wool sock yarn I used, and I really like the way this one fits and feels. The one I made out of the bamboo yarn has in barely twenty minutes of wear lost its shape and is beginning to pill up, so clearly that particular yarn is too delicate for a hard-wearing application like gloves. (I’ll probably make the second bamboo one anyway, and give them away, and use the remaining bamboo yarn for something low-impact, like a scarf.)
In other news, I’m downloading Bee Gees dance remixes from Limewire, because, um — well, for no good reason at all, really — and one thing that drives me utterly, incoherently apeshit is mislabeled tracks! Who are these fucking idiots who can’t tell the Bee Gees from Chicago? Or Rick James from Hot Chocolate? Or Hall & Oates from Player? Or Barry White from Marvin Gaye?! WHAT THE FLYING FUCK, people!
In which there’s a super groovy snow sculpture in the neighborhood!
(Click to enlarge images.)
When I went out to extract my jeep from the snow drift I’d parked it in, Raybo hollered at me from her yard up the street: “Mush! Come down here and see what we made!”
So I started up my engine, swept off the windshield, and leaving the defrost running full-tilt, I walked right over there. I gushed all over their excellent Siberian tiger snow sculpture and immediately pulled out my cell phone to snap a few images. Isn’t it just the very most awesome snow tiger ever?!
Perhaps the dingo ate your baby, but that vicious snow kitty ate your loser Frosty the Snowman!
In which it’s not you, it’s me. I mean, it has to be, because the one constant in all my relationships has been — well — me.
I’ve been observing the relationships around me closely since I left my husband. I’ve been wondering what makes some relationships work, and others fail. I’ve been comparing my experience with what I see around me.
And I’ve been wondering if I’m deeply flawed, or too judgmental, or too distant, or if my expectations are wholly and utterly unreasonable.
You see, I’ve been accused of being chilly, dispassionate, distant, or standoffish more times than I can count; every relationship I’ve ever been in has failed; and I find that being around couples lately can drive me bat shit.
It all drives a girl to introspection.
Continue reading »
In which I keep busy indoors because it’s too fuckin’ cold to go outside!
I started another pair of gauntlets/wristwarmers. I decided that, as much as I love knitting the bamboo yarn ’cause it’s so freakin’ gorgeous, the colorway doesn’t actually match my clothes. I might finish them and give them away.
I’ve found three jobs at iowajobs.org that I’m about to apply for. Two of them are part-time, and one I think I may have already applied for. It’s a pain because I have to call the job center to get the company contact info. I hate calling.
Truck and Bread are watching Jackass in the living room, and they’re giggling like schoolgirls.
Do you realize that people who earn $7 an hour are earning only $280 a week? Who the fuck can live on $280 a week? I mean, I can’t afford to take a job that pays less than $10 an hour — it would be better to remain jobless and go on public assistance. Jesus.
I registered at Manpower (and tried to register at Supreme Staffing) today, but neither site lists temp jobs within a 40-mile radius of Fairfield. *sigh* I applied for a month-long temp gig in Cedar Rapids through Kelly Services; if they hire me I’ll have to find someone in Iowa City to crash with.
In which I have neither, and it’s bummin’ me out.
January is half-over. The spectre of that 1st of February deadline looms ever-nearer, and I still don’t have a job or a place to live lined up.
I have not received any response whatsoever from the last eight resumes I sent out. I do not understand why it has gone out of vogue to REPLY TO AN APPLICANT and let her know what the fuck she can expect in the way of a time frame. I don’t know if these places actually received my applications; I do not know if they have a close date; I do not know if they’ve filled the position. Feels like I’m dropping my resumes into a black hole.
Today I applied online for a job… at a gas station. (Yes, that’s what I’m looking at: trying to work swing shift in a convenience store.) The online application contained a six-minute IQ test; knowing these things to be geared at idiots I took the test slowly, and it timed out on the final question. This made me suspect that I’m an idiot.
I would have applied at Hy-Vee and EconoFoods, too, but they’re not hiring.
As for housing, my current roommates and three other friends have invited me to crash with them for a bit but I can’t decide where to stay.
I had decided not to move with AmmZon and Truck because I will (hopefully) be moving into my own apartment in the near future, and I didn’t want them to rent a place depending on me for my financial input. Also, I’m in a phase of life wherein I hate all couples: I hate listening to them bitch at each other, and I hate listening to them get along. (All couples drive me nuts lately. It’s not them, it’s me. I just hate couplehood these days.) Another couple offered me a room in their place for the few weeks I’ll need… and a few nights later they had a huge fight while I was there and I started to think, “What if they do this even more frequently than my current roommates do? Will I go totally batshit?” (In defense of my current roommates, they claim they don’t fight and that they get along great. This may mean that I’m currently incapable of properly parsing male-female interaction.)
The other places I’ve been offered are rooms in the homes of single males. I could resort to one of these options to avoid the couplehood issues, but to be utterly honest I’m not enamored of the idea of using a man’s bathroom. Even if only for a month.
The bottom line is that it seems like I really need to get my own place — like I’m finally ready to get my own place — but I don’t have that elusive job… and I wonder if I can even get utilities in my own name, considering the difficulty AmmZon’s having and my own utterly fucked up credit rating.
Please, Universe, I need a job!
In which it’s arrived. Winter. It’s totally here.
The weather’s turned, and the town’s slick with ice and snow. It’s doing a half snow/half rain thing right now, no wind, the flakes falling straight down and hitting the ground with an eerie and surrounding shhhrrrr sound.
I went to the grocery store with AmmZon earlier, and it took a long time to de-ice her car. The parking lot at the grocery store was slushy and slippery when we walked across it.
I’ve got the jeep running right now. It’ll probably take ten minutes or more before it’s de-iced enough for me to drive up to the bar so I can have a few smokes inside, where it’s warm. I’ll take a book, of course, and drunk people will give me shit about it, saying clever things like, “What’re ya doin’?!” and “I can’t believe you can read in here!”
I think I should get props for not replying, “It’s called reading, you imbecile,” or “It would be much easier if you’d shut the fuck up and leave me alone.”
Sometimes drunk people want me to tell them what the book I’m reading is about. Once in awhile, I actually do, and because I tend to read hard sci-fi I launch immediately into descriptions of particle physics and watch their eyes glaze over. That teaches ’em. Heh.
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4 random books from my Library!
