The Dangerous Existence of Madame Lee

(With apologies to e.e. cummings.)

This doesn't begin to approach one of rubyelf's nature walk posts, but I wanted to write about it anyway.

I didn't have time to drive to the Y this morning, so I headed out to the B-Line, whose trailhead isn't a mile off my apartment. It's been raining like nobody's business off and on, and some patches of yards were a little waterlogged, with the grass peeking up just centimeters above a puddle. I passed smallish, slightly run-down houses set back from the road, and it occurred to me that if you transplanted them a few hundred miles and a different cultural landscape, they wouldn't be out of place in an Appalachian holler. (Or maybe the landscape isn't so different; here in Indiana, we were settled from the South, and my own Grandma's ancestors came west from Maryland and Virginia and then north from Kentucky. Lolmom once said that of all the places we lived when I was growing up, she liked Maryland best because it reminded her of Indiana. Perhaps I like Bloomington because it reminds me of Maryland; Indiana was only half-remembered before I came back when I was seventeen.)

I passed a large, well-kept green swathe in back of one of the little houses. The near West side, where I live, was populated by working-class people in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the little houses, tidy on their small lawns, remind you of this. At first, I thought, "Huh, that's interesting, I didn't know their yard was so big," and then I looked up and saw the tombstones: oh, of course, this is probably part of White Oak. White Oak's two hundred years old, or almost, but it's still a working cemetery and you can still buy a plot there.

The B-Line isn't far from civilization, though you can pretend it is. I was alone, and went farther in than I ever have before; on both sides, in the wooded area, there was yarrow, and small thistles, and violets. There was honeysuckle growing around the fence that separates the trail from the train tracks, too; I almost felt as if I had stepped into someplace outside of time. The sky was grey, though it wasn't raining yet.

It was a nice walk. I might need to make a point of walking on the B-Line more often.

+ I've received a second debit card in the mail. Basically: I didn't know the bank would automatically renew mine (this varies from bank to bank), so was sure to order a new one just before the old one expired. Today, I ripped open a letter from the bank only to find a shiny new debit card therein. I don't need two, so I expect to waste my first break tomorrow morning getting this sorted.

+ My physical was yesterday. Results are not in yet, which is typical (it takes the lab longer to look at a Pap than it does to look at blood), but I will spaz left to my own devices. I'm actually more stressed about the Pap than I am about the bloodwork, despite having no reason to feel that way; I have no history of abnormal Pap in lo these many years of having them done. It's just that this year I'm planning to finally break my ladybits, and I want to make sure that there are no underlying ladybits issues that need to be addressed first. The waiting is always a wrench. They'll call the house, so I expect to waste my second break tomorrow afternoon getting this sorted.

+ I was going to go to Bloomington this weekend. I am going to go get my brakes fixed instead. (They're probably not broken, but it's been a couple of years and I'd like to get them looked at and taken care of before reaching the point where I can't stop. Silly of me, but we all have our little idiosyncrasies.) I may only be able to get one set fixed this weekend, depending on what needs to be done and how much it's going to run me.

+ Next week at work, we go to a new time tracking system, meaning that we'll all have to be at work by 7:55 to clock in so that, after the startup dialogue takes 20 years to do its thing, the system will register the first punch of the day at 8:03. EFFICIENCY!

+ SO MANY FEELINGS. WHY ARE FEELINGS ALL BAD. ALSO WHY DID I QUIT SMOKING. The main thing I am feeling is how much my shoulders hurt and I don't like this very much, so it's probably time to fire up the bag-o-rice and go to bed.

So at least I've had one good year, even if it all goes pear-shaped in 2012. (I don't know why we use "pear-shaped" to refer to things getting fucked up, anyway. I love pears.)

( Notable events of 2011 )

Now, on to Xtremely Srs Bsns that should be taken Vry Srsly: forgottensanity, your package came today! Thank you ♥ I hope we can hang out more on e-mail and LJ and the like too. It's been a long time since we've talked properly! Also did you make the chocolates yourself?

Life proceeds apace. Lolmom took some wing chairs of my grandmother's up to my aunt Paula in Lafayette (these wing chairs had been sitting around the house for a couple of weeks). There is some familial drama but I don't want to talk about that in a public post.

Those of you who have me friended at Dreamwidth will be seeing a lot of things twice from now on, I'm afraid.

And that's all, folks!

I just stupidly went on Realtor.com again and they knocked the price of my house down. I know it's better to wait until I've got my credit built back up again (not that it was lawsuit-bad or bankruptcy-bad, but I took a hit due to the recession, a brief period of unemployment, and a long period of underemployment) and have been at my job longer.

It's just incredibly hard to ignore the voice in my head saying BUY IT BUY IT BUY IT NOW NOW NOW NOW THIS COULD BE YOUR ONLY CHANCE, even though I know that's not true and there will likely be more houses in the future when I'm more financially ready to move.

aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

LOLMOM update: Lolmom had been going to take the money from the insurance company and repair the car herself. The body shop estimated that the repairs would run around $4300, with the caveat that they hadn't actually looked at some of the interior damage yet and it might be more or less. After they actually did take a look at the damage, it turned out to be about $6500, so lolmom decided to take the car to the salvage yard and buy a new car (she'd already talked to the bank and knew she could get a loan, which is not a surprise since her credit is really good). So she went out on Thursday and bought a Chevy Equinox.

LIFE IN GENERAL update: I have been learning to work the update folder at work (where loan officers and title companies send things like updates or ohai-can-you-change-the-loan-amount or ohai-can-you-change-the-effective-date or ohai-when-can-we-expect-this-commitment), and have found that this inexplicably has not caused me to die. The main reason I've been learning to work the update folder is because one of my co-workers who usually handles that is going to be on vacation next week, but hey, it's a new job skill.

Also: I am trying to get my life into some semblance of order. HURRAH. Today, I have accomplished absolutely nothing other than remembering to pick up my meds (which I called in last night), reading a bit, and doing the laundry. (Of course, it doesn't help that the goddamn POWER was out for four hours today. FUCK YOU VECTREN ENERGY DELIVERY. YOU FUCKING SUCK. WHEN I LIVED IN BLOOMINGTON, WHERE EVERYTHING IS BETTER, WE DIDN'T HAVE THIS PROBLEM because we had underground lines.)

Oh, and I wrote a page of The Piece I Kind Of Like Okay and hacked out a few lines on The Piece I Don't Like Why Am I Writing It. Basically, I have adopted this new agenda of making myself write for things I want. We'll see if it works out, but at the moment I at least got something written today, so hurrah.

Good things:

+ My performance was rly good last month, so I actually got to have incentive pay on this check :D I am forcing myself to put the extra money into savings, on top of what I usually put in there anyway, but hey. My boss says I've shown quite a bit of improvement (I was struggling with a few things earlier, so I'm glad my efforts are paying off, literally and figuratively).

+ My federal and state tax returns have been accepted (I e-filed). I don't know if this just means they went through okay, or if it's more along the lines of "okay you were poor in 2010, plz accept refund". If e-file is correct, I can expect a refund. I am torn between putting that in savings vs. putting it towards my MasterCard (it wouldn't knock out the ENTIRE balance, but it would leave me with a much smaller debt there, and I would really like to get this monkey off my back). I tend to be pretty conservative so it's probably going into savings.

+ We have delicious leftovers. I made asparagus-and-salmon spring rolls over the weekend, and last night lolmom was home early (she went to some job thing in Louisville) so we made chickpea-and-avocado tacos. Tomorrow night, I definitely see some reverse-engineered asparagus salad in our future. Also, the new Cooking Light came and there is a picture of shrimp Cobb salad on the cover and I need to eat that nau plz.

+ X-chan is coming to visit for Easter! She wants us to color and hide eggs for her. (This was one of her favorite things about Easter as a kid, and lolmom had to get more and more savvy as we aged.) The bitch of this is that we have to plan a real meal, though, for various reasons; Mom wants a cake, which I am all in favor of, but we kind of need to see what X-chan wants. Worst-case scenario? OH NOES, DELICIOUS FRUIT SALAD!

+ I don't think I remembered how much I love classics--I mean, I know I do, obviously, but sometimes it kind of gets pushed to the back--and I just finished the Iliad (again, I re-read it every year, IT NEVER GETS OLD U GAIZ) and I might be talking about Homer in here because Greek epic poetry makes me happy and so do Homer and the Trojan War. Oh my God you guys this is so vital to me, for fuckin' srs.

+ My package full of jewelry came. (This sounds really extravagant until you consider that it was more at costume jewelry, but hey.) Pictures to follow, eventually.

+ Hot guy is profile-stalking me on OKStupid. Possibly he's just laughing at my venomous harpyness, which is fine by me, but hey! Something pleasant to look at! (Unfortunately a lot of the women who profile-stalk me are looking for threesomes and I have a rather snippy note in there to the effect that Madame Lee don't play that. Tragically, no lesbian couples have ever approached me about their threesome fantasy. Also as a parenthetical aside I think I might be a happier person if I would just, you know, stop being so repressed about my queerness. And maybe say Hi to girls once in a while.)

+ Mmm. Talenti Gelato's pistachio ice cream, so good. (They also make the only chocolate ice cream I actually like.)

Minor-league annoyances:
( After the jump so you can ignore them, because seriously if these are my worst problems I'm doing pretty well )

All in all: l33 up, circumstances down. Peace.

+ I had lost 16 pounds by the beginning of August. Despite making the worst possible food choices and never exercising, I have managed to not gain any of it back. I'm trying to see if regular exercising and at least taking my meds will help me drop a couple more. (Okay, so I have a ways to go before we're going to see a significant difference, but hey.)

+ Lolmom and I went out to El Maguey for her birthday yesterday. X-chan had said she might come up, but was tired from the long drive between Arizona and Tennessee, where she's beginning her new job, so didn't. X-chan did, however, come today; I had to leave to be at work by 3, so I missed lolmom's second birthday dinner (they went to Los Bravos). I did get to hang out with her for about an hour, hour and a half, during which time the conversation took the following tangents:
I Want My Dinosaur Book Back You Bastard
Kenny Rogers (and men who look like Kenny Rogers; fuckin' thank you, X-chan, now I have "The Gambler" stuck in my head)
Hey, X, Remember That Time You Asked Me To Help You Get Silly Putty Off The Hotel Ceiling?

+ Amazing things accomplished today (or not): Didn't oversleep, took my meds, exercised, paid my therapy bill, e-mailed resumés and wrote cover letters for printing tomorrow, worked on That Shitty Writing Project I Hate, did laundry, and hacked through the thicket of hair on my legs. (Some of you may be wondering why you are unfamiliar with this shitty writing project. I won't let anybody see it. It's that bad, seriously.) Also, replenished our butter and sugar coffers, as lolmom's birthday cake, a pumpkin pound cake, pretty much knocked out what we had. Also also, lolmom and I tried and failed to replace the lightbulbs in the basement (the long, tube-shaped incandescent kind), and have come to the conclusion that we may have to start buying only one brand since they seem to be the kind that work.

+ I have been really AIM-avoidant lately and not for any good reason. This only affects like two people, but srry gaiz anyway.

+ I only have to work tomorrow and then I am going to Bl♥♥mingt♥n on Tuesday when I am off next. :DDDDD

1.) V is for Victoly and also for I am going to Bloomington next week. (I would do it tomorrow, but I'm really not feeling up to it as of right this instant and also there is no way I can possibly marathon the 9 or 10 books I couldn't be arsed to read in the past month in 24 hours or less. I hate me, you guys.)

2.) Dear body: PLEASE STOP MENSTRUATING. YOU HAVE PROVED YOUR POINT. WE ARE NOT HAVING ANY OF TOSHIRO MIFUNE'S SAMURAI BABIES THIS MONTH (not that we were going to anyway, but I digress). I GET IT. NO MORE BLOOD PLZ. There's still a couple of days for it to die down. Any longer than that and I'm going to kill myself. I forgot how much I hated this shit until I had to put up with it again because it was such a relief to have my body working properly again.

3.) Where the hack is my copy of The Chrysanthemum and the Sword? I hope to God this isn't one of those things where I Put It Away Somewhere and then Forgot Where I Put It. NOOOOOOO.

O hai thar Delilah. I'm back.

I don't know that I'm doing 100% better. The job situation still hasn't improved (though I've gotten two raises, one cost-of-living and one performance-based), and, consequently, neither has the financial situation (though I'm not doing as badly as I could be, given the circumstances). I'm still in therapy (big surprise, I obviously have some issues to work through). Mom still hasn't got a job, and that weighs on us. (She was up for a job, made it to the second-interview round, and was in the hiring company's top three candidates…and they picked someone else. Well, I wish them joy of their vastly inferior employee.)

On the other hand: I've lost some weight (part one in a bazillion-part series), am generally eating better most of the time (I really fell off the wagon this week, though), and am exercising more regularly. I'm less socially isolated than I had been. (I am so bad at meeting people in real life. SO BAD. Trufax.) I'm still getting interviews, so obviously I'm doing something right. And damn it, I miss my friends.

Events of the past two months behind the jump, if anybody cares. ( Shit no one cares about! )

In conclusion: back now. Hi.

THIS IS REALLY IMPORTANT SO YOU NEED TO READ IT. My domain registration and hosting have expired. The domain is an expensive toy, and unfortunately I do not have the wherewithal to maintain it for the time being. Consequently, XFN will no longer be accessible, and I will no longer be reachable at the XFN e-mail address. My other e-mail address, likely to be my permanent one, is theninthbeauty@gmail.com. (You can also use gyaszdal@graffiti.net, but it's harder to spell.) Plz update your records.

If you know my Yahoo! e-mail, be aware that it is now rarely checked and you should only e-mail me there if you're okay with my possibly taking months to look at your message. I have an "official" Yahoo! e-mail address which I use for job-hunt stuff, but as it contains my full real name in the address, I'm not giving it out here.

Also, here is a brief rundown of the past week or so:
( Unexciting nonadventures )

Also: I went to Bloomington today. Consequently, have had some very important things reaffirmed for me, so I'm sharing them here, openly.

1.) Fuck this Lol-Mart shit. I need to find a better place to work. Based on what it cost me to go to the doctor when I was sick a couple of weeks ago, have come to the conclusion that health insurance is not negotiable.
2.) Fuck this living in the Tri-State shit. I need to go back home, where I don't have to pay attention to the societal attitudes &c. that bother me, where I am happier even when things aren't going so well, and where there's stuff to do. (A lot of the stuff that entertains me is even free or low-cost, so being poor in Bloomington isn't the Death By Boredom that it is in Evansville.) But I cannot stay here. It is killing me, and I want to live. Right now, I'd even settle for moving north and east to be CLOSER to Bloomington.

Once more into the breach, I suppose.