well THAT'S over. thank goodness. and i didn't even have to get smashed to make it through! although frankly, the brain cold i've had for the last week or so has really helped me feel like i'm drunk most of the time.

ANYWAY.

it was fine. the ex was really sweet and his new paramour was really nice and also knew enough to keep her distance, which i think was honestly for the best. i was a bit more zen about the whole experience today, which helped. and i made it through. and i'm not feeling angry anymore, which is also good. in a weird way, this whole thing has really made me feel more secure in my current relationship, which is awesome.

saying, TRULY saying, goodbye to your past? sometimes really really hard.

i'll try to be around here more. tell me what you want to hear about and i'll spill!

...in that a return would require me to be a bit more...thorough. but i've had a pseudo sinus infection for almost a week and am therefore not thinking clearly. then tonight i found out that my ex-boyfriend is coming to a friend's wedding celebration this weekend, one to which i am bringing my current girlfriend. oh, and i just found out that the ex-boyfriend? is bringing HIS current sorta-maybe-we're-dating-but-it's-"recent and ambiguous" friend who just happens to be someone with whom we both went to college. she and i were friends, a few years ago. oh, and HER former-maybe-current best friend? is my new neighbor and very good friend.

yeah. my brain is barely working at the moment. anyway, it's SNAFU 100% here at headquarters. the rest of my life is fine, for the most part. i finished my MPH, i have a job in finance because public health jobs in boston were hard to come by, i live with my girlfriend, sprout is still cute and a little stinky. oh, and the girlfriend found me TWO card catalogues! so that's pretty awesome.

clearly there's much more to say. but i'm weirdly reeling over the developments for this weekend and i just needed to talk to ... someone. and that someone is you! hello, folks. i've been reading, so i kinda never left.

talk to you soon.

i can never decide if i want to lock these or not.

pro:
- nobody i don't want reading it (which really means people who these are ABOUT aren't reading them, because who else would i be worried about, you know?)

con:
- new friends who stumble across my journal won't get to see how interesting i am! (the "look at me! look at me!" phenomenon)

i can easily refute both statements (i try to live honestly, so hopefully i'm not writing things that would surprise/offend anyone; and do i seriously think i write these entries to make new friends? not particularly. i don't have a huuuuge online friendbase, so no worries).


anyway. i think i'm not going to lock these for now, unless i feel like they're really sensitive.

the next post i will lock, mostly because it involves someone else's privacy, and i feel bound to protect that. but for the rest? we'll see.

so later or tomorrow...the relationship catch-up! i know that's what you've all been waiting for. :)

when i'm unemployed, i tend to:
- sleep late (we're talking a struggle to get up by 11)
- watch hours upon hours of television (and i don't even have cable)
- eat bizarre "meals," mostly random leftovers and bits of nothing, at all hours
- go to bed at 2AM on average
- do NOTHING all day
- enjoy a generalized anxiety while patently refusing to do anything to get myself out of the unemployment situation

i'm not sure if these habits make me really GOOD at being unemployed (as said habits manage to keep me unemployed for ridiculous amounts of time) or really BAD at being unemployed. depends on the definition of "good," i guess.

anyway. today i will talk about my recent job life and current unemployment, in the interest of Catching Everyone Up. and i'm not putting in LJ cuts, sorry. just not in the mood.

Past
last we spoke, i had more or less recently quit my job to go to school full-time. turns out i'm a crappy student. i mean, i should've REMEMBERED that, but i haven't tried in a while. but i *do* know that i need schedules, i need structure, and i don't do very well without either. as a result, the fall was more than a little painful. probably didn't help that i took four writing-intensive courses and no intro-level classes. live and learn. i did fine, grade-wise (not that it particularly matters), but it was incredibly draining. the debt was also pretty crushing; i basically took on $25K of debt for 4 months of schooling, which is INSANE.

so i decided i needed to go back to part-time and get another job. i managed to line something up in my department and dropped off the paperwork on my way to the airport for two weeks in ecuador and the galapagos (amazing trip with my parents for my dad's 60th; i'll put up pictures in a locked post sometime soon). returned and started work as a research assistant practically the next day.

the work was...fine. i did some awesome qualitative research analysis on data regarding adolescent drinking practices in italy, and i enjoyed working with my new boss quite a bit. unfortunately, there were some misunderstandings regarding how long i needed the job; my boss decided to only keep me on through mid-august, despite the fact that i repeatedly told her i probably wouldn't be able to find a job to replace that one before i got laid off. so august 16th i was officially gone and have been unemployed ever since.

Present
i suck at job searching. i haven't had to do it in a really long time, not in such a generalized way, and i've never been unemployed and on my own. so it's stressful, to say the least. money is okay this month but will be a serious problem next month if i don't get something together soon. i have two more days of work at my department, and will start temping ASAP. but that hinders my job search too, so...yeah.

wow. bored myself. point is: i am unemployed. it is not fun. unemployment doesn't cover my cost of living, not even close. so i need to get my shit together and quick. right now, i mostly feel like reading novels and pretending my unemployment doesn't exist. we'll see how that goes.


so expect lots of me procrastinating in the future, i guess is the point. and also, if you know anyone in public health in boston, feel free to drop me a line. i could use the help.

i am feeling more anxious and less...intoxicated this afternoon than i was last night, so no poetry from me today. just a very quick update for you.

- still with the lovely young lady i was dating when we last spoke. we live together now, paying too much for my old apartment without a third roommate. i love her and things in our relationship are generally good. she's been recently diagnosed with endometriosis and will be having surgery this fall, which has continued to cramp her style in terms of finishing up her last 3 credits of college, finding a job, etc. her dad still pays her bills. her inertia and continued unemployment are my only concerns.

- finished up my MPH a few weeks ago, huzzah! left my job at the school as well, and took two weeks of pure vacation at L's summer house in maine. it was great.

- now am unemployed and stressed about money. lalala.

i'm sure there's more to fill you in on, but i just can't think of anything else. job, school, relationship. check! tell me what you want to know more about and i'd be happy to share.

it has been probably about a year? right?

i drank exactly the wrong amount of wine tonight. or perhaps just drank the wrong beverage for a slow and lost kind of a day. either way, it's brought on introspection and melancholy instead of happy giddy, which is a shame. i'm not in the mood for introspection.

i think i have to recognize that, despite the fact that this COULD be a great jumping-off point for me and my life, the next 12 months are much more likely to be about Getting Through than they are to be profoundly life-changing and inspirational. i have this feeling. and i think i can make peace with that. but ...

well.

there is much, much more to say, as always. perhaps i'll start posting here again. won't mean much to any of you, but i've never stopped reading. i just stopped wanting to write about my life. maybe i'm ready to start again.

love to everyone.

dammit.

things that have gone wrong this morning:
- gay puerto rican neighbors woke me up at 7:00 having loud conversations on their deck, which it looks like they're going to do every morning. i went to bed at 2:00.
- spilled water all over my alarm clock; now it's permanaently 5:08 with some of the bars missing, and the radio just plays fizzle
- in a moment of clarity, i realized i'd probably been paying late fees on my credit card bill and just hadn't noticed. i finally opened one of my paper bills, and i was right. dammit, i'm a jerk. (how badly does it affect my credit rating that i've been late with a couple of payments, even if it was only a few days late and the bill was paid off in full?)

and now i have 1.5 hours to shower, get dressed, and pack for DC. and leave.

meh. today had better get better.

if my plane crashes, just know that i loved you all.

...

you know what i love about new england?
is that one day it's like, 60.

and then?

94, baby. and humid. woah with the humid.

but you know what?
i'm not gonna complain.
because i am so much happier sweating through a t-shirt than i am freezing my butt off.

...

tomorrow night, at the black cat in DC, ben's band the bonapartes play their very last show. it's gonna be huge, kids. and i'll be there. so if you're around, you should be there too!

polly is awake! and talking! the tubes are out of her throat! this is all very good news. i'm not sure what sort of rehab she's going to need, or what her brain function is like, but the fact that she's responsive, capable of speech, etc. are all just fucking amazing. i'm so thrilled. thanks for all your kind thoughts when things were so dark.

do you ever stop to think about how much guilt you carry? i carry so much
guilt. guilt for staying up too late, guilt for not waking up early enough.
guilt for not eating as well as i "should," guilt for not calling my brother
enough, guilt for not taking care of that one niggling bill from my hospital
stay 2 years ago. guilt for losing track of friends, guilt for not having an
exact direction, guilt for eating meat, guilt for spending money, guilt for
not using the gym on which i spend so much of that money.

that's a lot for one person to carry.

today i'm working on forgiving myself, on letting go of that guilt. i'll let
you know how it goes.