In which NLW spoils me rotten. Totally rotten. And I’ve got interviews next week!

When I got up this morning I checked my email; it’s totally my birthday. I’ve got interviews next week with two companies! Two!

NLW bought me a coffee at Revelations before taking me to Iowa City. The guys were there; BoSe waved and smiled but Bread of course didn’t turn around or acknowledge me in any way whatsoever, and I guess that’s fine. I “dumped” him, so he doesn’t want to see me. Okay. I need to get over it.

In Iowa City we went shopping at a consignment store where NLW spoiled me rotten. She bought me a floor length velvet coat! It’s like something you might wear to the opera: it’s tailored, split lapel, almost tails. It’s dark, dark, dark blue with a red silk liner. It fucking ROCKS, people. ROCKS. I love it.

She took me to lunch, then a movie, and then we came home. (Little Miss Sunshine, btw, is good, but not that good.) The woman’s been spoiling me rotten all month and I adore her for it.

AND I HAVE A FLOOR LENGTH VELVET FUCKING COAT!

Now I’m back on AmmZon’s living room floor; Truck and AmmZon are cuddled on the couch watching Arrested Development and Bindu’s got her chin on my thigh.

In which it is returned to me.

I found my wallet.

I tore the house apart. I tore my jeep apart. I called the bar twice, and stopped by once, and they told me three times it wasn’t there. But tonight I went in, and it was there.

The $20 was gone, of course, and the change that had been loose inside it too. But I got my credit cards, license, and library card back.

Sigh.

In other news, I’m this close –> <-- to becoming gainfully employed!

In which it’s up. Then down. Then up. (But not in the fun way you’re thinkin’ of, perverts.)

Last night I caught Jack loose on the street and walked him home. Then I hung out with his person, the Sexy Lab-rarian, until two in the morning, talking. (She works swing shift so she keeps weird hours.) It was awesome to see her and catch up; we haven’t hung out in years and I love that woman.

Had a phone interview today. I liked the guy; he said my favorite words about schedule/punctuality: “We’re fairly flexible about that.” There was laughing, too, which is always a great sign in my book. It appears I may even be qualified for the job I applied for. So I’d say it went well. They asked for references and everything.

I finally made it to that town-killing gash of a store we all love to hate and bought the contact lens solution and cheap conditioner I’ve been needing for days. Was thinking about the marriage as I was driving, about the somehow epic span of the thing juxtaposed with the brutal pedestrianism of the words I hear myself using to describe my experience (it’s all just so common; I feel like a Cosmo article), and I managed to work myself right into a panic attack in the HABA aisle. Gave myself a pep talk on the drive back to AmmZon’s house but I feel like an asshole and I can’t seem to shake it.

The truth is, I’ve already paid this fucking bill and I need to get over it.

I had a couple of wonderful IM sessions with an old friend today. I sat in front of Truck’s laptop and giggled like a fiend for hours; I love that motherfucker so much. It was really good for me. Then I got an email — with great grammar and spelling, and you know how I love that shit — this afternoon from a guy with the company I’d spoken with in the morning; he told me they thought I may just possibly be the person they’re looking for and that they wanna meet me next week. And with good grammar! Boo yah!

Up and down and up. Ah, the rollercoaster. Means you’re alive, yes?

In other news, you know what’s hot? I’ll tell you what’s hot. Wirelessness, that’s what. I’m sitting on the porch with Truck’s laptop in my lap. Can you dig it!

In which I’m totally excited and geeked out and giddy about hopefully getting a way cool job in the near future!

Yesterday, I applied for three jobs. (Specifically: one of these and also one of these.)

I’ve had two responses already! I AM SO EXCITED. I was beginning to fear that I’d lost my ability to find a job that I actually want to do and that I’d stupidly entrench myself in some soulless drudgery with zero opportunity to actually learn anything ever again. Which is, like, totally fucking scary, my babies. I love learning. I hate not learning. Being a secretary would kill me absolutely dead, dead, dead.

I remember my first several years at the ISP as being some of the happiest work experiences I’d ever had. I was learning new stuff all the time; I was reading articles on DNS and TCP/IP in my free time. I taught myself HTML and CSS while working there because HELLO! OC-motherfucking-3 PIPE! FAST FAST FAST!

I realize that I may get none of these jobs; personality conflicts, start dates, etc. There are always factors beyond merely being qualified. I’m mostly excited by the fact that I’m finding jobs like these to apply for — the last six jobs I applied for were awful: P/T secretary, phones, filing, $6-$9 an hour. *bangs head on desk* F/T secretary, phones, filing, $8 an hour. *bangs head on desk* I mean, at this point I’d take $8 an hour, but it would be soooo much better if I’d get to learn something while doing it!

In other news, my cell phone has been, ahem, “temporarily suspended due to a past due balance!” Which means the other two people on the contract also cannot afford to pay the bill. So I probably won’t be calling you any time soon, and I’ll need to drive somewhere tomorrow to borrow someone’s phone to do my phone interview. *sigh*

At least I’m back on the ‘net, that’s some small consolation.

In which you mark your calendars… or not.

My birthday is on Friday. I will turn thirty-eight, fer chrissakes. HOW HAS THIS HAPPENED TO ME?

I sent out three resumes today. For jobs I actually want. Go me. Let the employment commence!

In other news, I can’t find my fucking wallet. It has a bunch of non-functioning credit cards in it, my driver license, and a $20 bill (which is/was all the money I currently possess). *bangs head on desk*

Update: Matthew Perry just said “Drudge Report” on tonight’s Studio 60. For some reason, I find that to be unbearably hip.

In which I’m using technology and almost giddy with relief about it.

Truck returned from Indy yesterday. He and AmmZon have gone to an appointment, but before they split he set up his laptop and told me to use it all I want. So I’m sitting in the livingroom and I’m on the Internets. (So dumb that ‘net access can make me feel so happy. I love the Internet! The Internet is my boyfriend!)

Gorgeous and Rockstar introduced me to some friends of theirs Friday night. The husband runs a dot-com out of his house and is looking for 2nd tier tech support. He said things like, “Do you know Linux? Yeah? And DNS and Bind? You know cPanel? Because that’s the interface I use.” I practically got weak-kneed discussing the job with him, because the answers to all those questions is an emphatic YES. I got his email address and will be sending him a resume tout suite.

Good news out of the way, I’m now going to tell you all what a wicked fucking coward I am. Fortunately, many of you’ve been reading the ‘box long enough to realize this is par for the course and I won’t be melting any innocent neurons.

Friday night I met Bread at the Hideaway. After sitting in the bar, we went outside and stood awkwardly in the parking lot while Bindu snuffled around and we talked. I can’t trace the discussion with any fidelity, but he laid out his committment to making it work and reiterated his understanding of the things I’ve been telling him. He even agreed to settling on one of those shades of grey between the two points he’d been clinging to before and made an actual compromise. We ended the conversation with an agreement: the next day, I’d move into my own room at the farm. We hugged and parted.

I went and bought cigarettes, and then decided I wanted one more drink before calling it a night. I stopped in at the Dead Cock, and that’s where Gorgeous introduced me to dot-com. I drank one of those absurd concoctions you see people drinking in bars sometimes, a blue thing called a Normal. (They’re really good, if you like froofy drinks.) I chatted with the Corbinator for awhile, and later I talked with Leroy. I went to bed feeling excited about the possible employment prospect — not because I expect to get this particular job, but because it seems my ritam is working again and I may end up actually manifesting a job I want to do — but totally inert about the agreement I’d struck with Bread.

The next day I did this and that, nothing noteworthy really, besides lying in the room that AmmZon’s graciously letting me crash in with the door shut and letting my mind spin. I did not feel excited about going home. I did not feel relief. I did not feel dread. I felt nothing at all… until the time started to get closer. Then I started to freak out. (We’d agreed that I’d roll out there late Saturday afternoon, after I got some errands run and had packed up my shit.) I texted him and said it would be another couple hours. I thought some more. I started to feel freaked out, uncomfortable, lost and confused, and even more depressed.

I started having panic attacks. (Not full-blown ones, but the kind where I suffer hours of imbalanced physiology and fear and physical discomfort and a nagging suspicion that I’m about to suffer a lethal heart attack. It still astonishes me that I can walk around and interface with people and that they can’t tell that I’m about to die. It’s weird. Weird, weird, weird.) I finally let the knowledge surface: I did not really want to move back out to the farm. I really did not want to. I’d agreed out of a mix of exhaustion and a shameful egoistic desire to appear to be reasonable: I’d accused him of being unable to compromise, and when he offered me something that seemed like an olive branch I felt compelled, I guess, to accept it.

Truck and AmmZon invited me to watch Freaks and Geeks with them — Truck’s got the whole series on DVD. It was getting late. I’d said I’d call Bread, I should have called by then: I was in full-on flake mode and feeling the dread and shame of it. I was feeling awful with some evil form of nauseating quasi-stage fright, with a dose of adrenaline and some food poisoning mixed in for color.

So I did a mind-bogglingly lame thing: I texted him and said that I was sorry but I just couldn’t do it, I’m too whacked out, I wasn’t coming.

I texted him. I have now earned my place in the Crazy, Cruel, Mean Bitch from Hell hall of fame. (I saw a commercial the other day for an episode of Sex & the City where someone breaks up with Carrie via Post-It note. At least a Post-It note is handwritten.)

Between our last two talks he’d thought, and thought hard. He’d become resolute and strong instead of hurt and stubborn. He’d spoken eloquently about our similarities — specifically in the areas of our shared flaws, like selfishness and stubbornness — and reminded me of the length of road we’d already travelled together. He’d talked about the tools we possess, tools like love and intelligence, and how they could be combined with a willingness to work that mght quite possibly produce a resurrection. He’d let go of his innate desire to get his own way because he’d realized that he couldn’t just will me to be the happy woman he was once married to, and offered a compromise for both of us: I’d get my way because I’d have my own room and he’d not enter if I was there with the door closed, and he’d get his because at least I’d be in near enough proximity for us to have an ongoing dialogue toward salvaging the mess.

He was trying, and when he asked me if it would be an acceptible compromise I found myself saying yes, because all I want when I’m around him is to ease him.

He didn’t text back or call. I was in pain for about an hour, like my chest was being slowly shredded with a dully serrated pastry knife. It sucked. I feel like a piece of shit. A weak, cowardly piece of shit who couldn’t say no when she should have, and who couldn’t even call to tell the man she’d been with for seven years that she was a piece of shit.

I’m ashamed — it’s like a form of drunkard’s remorse, only deeper and more sore — but I just couldn’t go. He’s like a super-heavy object around which my emotional gravity gets distorted and dense; I’ve rewired myself over the years to crave his comfort, and in his profound discomfort his pain hurts me. Being around him so frequently in the past week has, to coin a phrase, fucked up my shit. I need more space, I require more time, I am just. Not. Ready. I’m empty now, I have nothing of value to offer anyone. I can barely take care of myself. I’m fucking shell shocked. I have nothing to offer, no matter how hard someone needs something from me. Even if I love him.

Truck and AmmZon are back, and there’s a discussion of food. AmmZon wants curry, which I’m teaching her to make sans recipe, so I’m off to the kitchen. After that, though, I have a computer at my disposal (!!) and a stack of want-ads with jobs in them, not to mention the dot-com guy, that, even though they don’t know it, are breathlessly awaiting the arrival of my resume via email.

In which I feel like I’m falling apart.

After band practice last night, I stopped for a drink. I sat and read Egan’s Axiomatic for awhile, and then I picked up my cocktail and the glass slipped because it was wet and I put the whole thing directly in my lap. Then I got another, drank that, and went to AmmZon’s and crashed.

I woke up from a bad dream around one o’clock. Didn’t remember the dream, only that it had been bad. Couldn’t get back to sleep until after four. I stared at the ceiling and thought about ways to feel better. Sleeping, drinking, partying, and chain smoking don’t seem to be working. Maybe I need to step it up and stick my head in a meat grinder, or just get it over with and fuck the grossest person I can find and then tell the whole town about it before abandoning my animals at a shelter and driving off into the sunset like a coward.

Bread woke my ass up this morning. He just let himself into AmmZon’s house and walked up the stairs and threw open the bedroom door and started talking to me. He was pissed because I’d blown him off last night, and he threw the mail at me: a $0.01 check from what I fear is my IRA company (which might mean that some creditor has siezed my IRA as well as my checking account), a notice from the sherriff’s department that they’d tried to serve papers, and two NSF notices from the bank. A couple of credit card bills. One piece of personal mail: an invitation to a party on my birthday.

I AM NOT A MORNING PERSON. PLEASE DO NOT WAKE ME UP WITH A BAD VIBE AND EVEN WORSE MAIL. I GENERALLY WAKE UP WITH LESS THAN A QUARTER OF MY NATIVE INTELLIGENCE AND IT SOMETIMES TAKES UP TO SEVERAL HOURS BEFORE I AM OPERATING ON ALL CYLINDERS.

Bread made the comment that it “must be nice to just sleep all day,” and that he had things to do.

*Ahem.*

We started to talk again. He wants an answer. Now. I told him that if he gave me an ultimatum, I’d choose not to try to salvage our relationship because I don’t appreciate being backed into a corner. He said he wasn’t giving me an ultimatum, but I need to either come home or get my stuff out of the house. I said the world is not quite that black and white and that there are a thousand shades of grey between totally severing all ties between us and me moving back out to the farm. He again offered me a choice: come home or get my shit out of the house immediately. We went around and around; I said I need more time and space. I’ll get a job, an apartment, we could date. Start over. Maybe try to find some common ground, some sweetness, some romance. He rejected the idea as “going backward, rather than forward.” He contends that we’re married and that not living together is the antithesis of marriage and therefore not something he’s willing to consider. Okay, well, I can see that point of view, but I’d already bitten the bullet and left, I’d already broken both of our hearts, I’d already done the hardest thing ever, and I’d already replied time after time after time that yes, leaving was the best choice I could make. He’s the one coming to me again, asking to try. I said I couldn’t come home yet; I still need space and time. I need my own schedule and my own life and my own goddamned bed. I am very fucked up lately — my marriage is a ruin, I’m broke, and I don’t have a job or a home — and I’ll be the first to tell you I ain’t got shit to give anyone right now. I don’t want to fight about sex or about crashing on the office futon so I can rock in my sleep without getting smacked in the shoulder or hip and woken up every time I do it. I have several years of shit to process here, and I can’t do it with him breathing down my neck. I left because we were fighting too much and because I just didn’t have anything nice to say to him; I was so angry… I can’t just move back into that house with his assurance that it’s all gonna be okay now just because he wants it to be.

He said some things to me today that were nearly impossible for me to parse. One, that he’ll do whatever it takes to make it work, but that he can’t give me any concrete examples of what those things might be. Two, that he’s astonished that I’m willing to give up our whole marriage over “stupid shit.” Three, that he’s not giving me an ultimatum but I have to either come home right away or get my shit out of his house. I, groggy and still in my morning fog, suggested that we were speaking at cross purposes. “We’re having two entirely different conversations,” I said.

It’s horrific. The whole thing. It’s awful. He honestly does not know what the fucking hell I’m talking about. He asked me if I was leaving him over money (no), or because of our miscarriages (no), or if it was just because sometimes he didn’t put his socks in the laundry basket. (Sometimes?!) I said, “The thing that shocked me the most was how shocked you were when I left. No one else who found out we were seperated even blinked; no one was surprized at all but you. Where the hell were you all those years?”

In which I really dislike being emotionally confused.

Tuesday afternoon I spent in the comfort of NLW’s space, building her a mailing list. The Universe wants me to learn my number row, because I keep getting these brief little data entry jobs on computers with no number pad.

After that I spoke with Bread on the phone; he wanted to talk but didn’t have gas to get to town just as I didn’t have gas to get to the country. I ate a quesadilla at AmmZon’s and went to band practice.

After band practice, I sat and talked with PJK for awhile. He’s awesome. And he’s male, and he’s been on earth a little longer than many of the males I know and seems to have accumulated some information in that time, so there’s some nice perspective from him to balance out all my other conversations. I talk to women a lot, and we are, as you know, all crazy.

Men are stupid and women are crazy. I never make blanket statements.

After I left practice, I had three texts on my phone. Gorgeous, Raybo, and Bread, all were at the Hideaway and wanted to see me. So I went there and people bought me drinks. I sang a song with Rockstar, who was doing a solo gig there. Bread didn’t acknowledge me or even turn around to listen to me sing. (That’s not an egocentric statement. Even the dudes playing pool stopped to listen to me sing. So the one dude with his back to me looked conspicuous. Just sayin’. That’s all.)

I let Bindu come in for a bit and used her as an ice-breaking prop to greet Bread.

Later he texted me to say he’d taken his truck back to BoSe’s house and wanted me to come pick him up. So I did. I picked him up and drove back to the Hideway. And then we sat in the jeep and had a big fat weepy talk, where I basically dumped more shit on him and he took it manfully. It breaks my fucking heart.

Finally I said we weren’t getting anywhere and my sinuses were all clogged up and we were out of cigarettes and we agreed that we needed to go back inside and bum drinks and smokes.

I completed getting drunk and sang another song, and then the bar closed. Bread and Raybo and Bindu and I walked up 2nd street at two o’clock in the morning, chatting amiably. We all went to see Raybo’s new house. (It’s lovely, and even has a sauna.) She fed us sake, and I was at that point in my drunkenness where I did not realize that I didn’t need any more booze, so I drank several shots of it. Bread followed me back to AmmZon’s at four in the morning, and we passed out and slept.

A portion of me liked the warmth and snuggling, but the next morning when he was twitching and making noise and in general really fucking up my I’M WAY THE FUCK HUNG OVER AND WANT TO REMAIN ASLEEP GOD DAMN IT flow all I wanted to do was throw his ass out. I’d mentioned I had a little money in the form of a check, and he was all gung ho to cash it and buy breakfast and cigarettes with it. I wanted to go back to sleep until I could wake up sober. I won, but only by virtue of explaining that he was welcome to either shut up or leave.

Around two I was ready to start my day. We went to the bank and I gave him a little money so he could buy some gas. I bought lunch for both of us; he didn’t buy his own. We ended up at AmmZon’s and talked some more.

The gist of it is that he wants me to come back. I asked him if he’d developed some sort of game plan, some angle of attack to address our problems. He said no, not really, but we could make it work. Now. He wants me home now. He hates being out there alone with all my shit, he says. Makes him sad. Either I come home and we work it out, or I have to get my shit out of there ’cause it’s breaking his heart.

I said if he gave me an ultimatum, I’d opt out. He said he understands that but that he can’t wait. I said I thought we should maybe date, talk some more, discuss the concrete steps we might take to getting back together. He reiterated his level of unhappiness and reminded us both rather eloquently that winter’s coming and that it sucks to be alone.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I knew I was tired and depressed and hungover and most importantly on the rag — which is slang for “too stupid to make any life-altering decisions — and I just wanted him to leave so I could take a damned nap. Finally he went off to another business meeting. I told him before he left that I would not be seeing him that night.

I said I’d see him tonight. Out at the farm. Gah.

So I’ve been thinking for the past 20 hours or so, and have discovered this: while I’m physically in his sphere of influence, it seems totally reasonable and right for me to quit my bitchin’ and move home. But when I’ve been away from him for a few hours, I realize that while he’s a fantastic listener, he has not offered me a single concrete solution he’s willing to attempt. He just wants a woman in his house; doesn’t want to be alone; doesn’t want to have a broken heart.

I think I’ve trained him over the years to sit and listen to me vent, and not think about what changes he needs to make. I think he’s learned that if he just patiently takes it, eventually I’ll have achieved my own catharsis and things will go back to normal until the next time. I’ve always required him, in our past conversations, to agree to do this behavior or that one before considering the discussion completed, but his compliance has been lame at best and I ‘let’ him get away with it. I think that on some level he’s thinking that if he just lets me get all my shit said, I’ll come home and it will be like it was before.

I can’t go home. I can’t go home just because he’s hurt. I mean, I hate that he’s hurt, I really fucking do, but going home won’t solve any of our problems. Honestly, I don’t know if they can be solved, even if he suddenly does at once all the things I’ve asked of him over the years… we still have the ‘nothing in common’ issues. We want different lives, period. It sucks, but there it is.

*bangs head on desk*

I’ve finished my data entry for the day and am going to AmmZon’s and then to band practice. After that I’ll probably go to sleep ’cause you ain’t go no problems when you’re sleepin’!

In which I miss my boyfriend the Internet SO MUCH.

I lost my job in mid-June and applied for unemployment. I quit filing for benefits a few weeks ago because I hadn’t gotten any money and it seemed like a waste of time.

Last Saturday, Bread brought me a check that had arrived in the mail at the farm, and we drove to the bank to cash it. (Yes, it only took three months to get that stunning $164 a week benefit processed.) The teller informed me that there was a garnishment on my account and that it was overdrawn to the tune of $2,600.

Because clearly, I wasn’t already feeling bad ENOUGH.

(I quit paying a credit card bill last year when we were too broke to pay everything and it went to collections. I’ve been paying on it — sporadically — but the collections company that bought the debt is incredibly aggressive and put this nasty garnishment on my account. I don’t even know how it can be legal. May they rot in fucking hell.)

The bank cashed the check anyway, bless them (let’s hear it for small towns where they actually know you) and I gave Bread some cash and kept the rest. The next day it all went to bills because we have to pay the property insurance to keep from breaking the contract on the farm. I have $5 to my name because NLW, for whom I’m doing some data entry today, gave it to me.

I still don’t have a job, and the WGI gig is over. I’m overqualified for everything I’ve applied for. I’m starting to dumb down my resume in hopes that it’ll get me hired, and sadly enough find myself wishing for an $8 an hour job.

To make me even more retarded, it’s That Time Of The Month again, which means my hormones have made me stupid. I know I need to sit down and make an action list for dealing with my considerable financial issues, and that I’ll feel better when I start checking items off, but because I’m hormonal and depressed I keep putting it off. Hopefully I’ll have my brain back within the next couple of days and will be able to get some proactivity going on. I need to make a lot of phone calls, and tell various creditors why I’m not paying them and that it looks like I will continue to not pay them for awhile to come.

My bank is actually paying my automatic withdrawals and the checks I had out, so at least I don’t have to do the walk of shame into a variety of businesses I’ve been writing checks to for the past 15 years. God, I hate bouncing checks. It’s so embarrassing.

To recap: I’m depressed, broke, jobless, and despondant. Soon I’ll no longer have a cell phone, because Bread and BoSe are also broke and can’t pay the bill so they’ve decided to cancel the phones the three of us got in Indy (one of two cell phone contracts in my name). I have no idea how I’m supposed to job hunt without a phone, but maybe something will come up. Maybe.

Thank you all for your comments. I miss you guys.

In which I’m kind of sad.

I did a bunch of moping while AmmZon was in Indy visiting Truck. I mean, I went out a few times, but I stayed in more and layed around feeling blue. The weather is changing and I’m feeling that annual malaise. Coupled with the rest of the shit, I was feeling really down. I’m going to turn 38 in a couple of weeks, and what have I got to show for my life thus far? Gack. I’m basically homeless, jobless, and facing the biggest debt I’ve ever had.

I was also thinking about the marriage. My feelings still stand, but sitting on AmmZon’s porch the other night in the dark and chill, listening to the sounds of the neighborhood snuggling itself in for the night made me feel lonely and sad. I thought about being alone all winter and it ached. Fuck, but this process sucks.

The good news is that soup season has started. I made broccoli-cheddar soup for AmmZon when she got back yesterday, and her dad ate the rest of it last night. Today for lunch I made them potato leek soup. I love soup. Mmm, soup.

The data entry gig at WGI seems to have dried up. I came in today at S’s request to see if he had anything for me to do and he didn’t. (I’m using their computer to blog and check my email, though.) He asked me to check in again tomorrow, but I don’t know if I will. I’m wondering if he’s basically done with me but doesn’t want to say? I mean, it’s okay — I understood this to be a temp thing. I’d like to stay here because I like the people and I can bring my dog in to sleep under my desk, but if there’s no job for me then there’s no job for me.

In other news, if you’ve asked me to call you and I haven’t it’s because my phone’s dead and I don’t have a charger for it. I guess I’ll drive out to the farm and charge it and get some other things taken care of while I’m out there.

Right now I have to go move the jeep before I get a parking ticket. Think I’ll drop back by Iowa workforce and see if my dream job has suddenly shown up in the database.