My response:

Whereas I feel like I’m going through life as an endless repetition of what happened to me just now when I went to go get coffee: I showed up at the coffee station, then realized someone had dumped water all over the floor, so before I got my coffee, I got a pile of paper towels and mopped up the giant puddle so no one slipped and fell, and meanwhile, someone I don’t even know came up and laughed at me for making a mess.

Happy Monday.

One class is just so bad I don’t even want to talk about it because it’ll wind up devolving to the point where I’m writing in all capital letters using far, far too many exclamation points. I will say, however, that since about week 3, my notes from class have all been about what I am going to write on the end-of-term feedback form. It’s unfortunate, because I really thought the class was going to be helpful and I was going to take away a lot from it; sadly, what I am going to take away from it is that I just spent about $1800 for no damn reason.

The other class… man, I dunno. I thought it was going to be sweet. I emailed the prof for the syllabus months before the quarter, so I could see if I wanted to take it. I had planned to take another class to address the credits this one does, but I thought this class sounded better and so I went for it. The first problem was when it turned out to be a hybrid — half online, half in person — course. I took one of those previously, and I didn’t like it at all. It felt really distant, and there was no feedback, and although I did like that other course well enough despite the hybrid impediment, I decided that I wouldn’t take any more hybrids. I swear this class was not listed on the timetable as a hybrid when I signed up for it. But the first week, we got an amended syllabus and the professor announced it was a hybrid. My heart sank a little bit, but I decided to stick with it rather than drop it and find another class at that late date. This was possibly a strategic error on my part.

But I still thought the class was going to be pretty cool, I really loved the topic (writing about Chicago! I can write! I love Chicago! I bet I would love to write about Chicago!). I did all right for the first two weeks, though I wasn’t entirely happy with the first assignment. I rocked the second one, and read it out loud in class — the class was structured to have four essays with one to be read aloud in either week 5 or 9, student’s choice, so I chose week 5 to get it over with early, which was a really brilliant move because… well.

The third assignment absolutely broke my head. It was to write about a liminal or sacred place (though it was set out as “liminal/sacred” space, so I thought that meant both), and since I would say I don’t actually have any particular “sacred” places (or even “reasonably special” space), I tried focusing on liminal, but the explanation really cut me off at the knees. In class, liminality was explained as a “border” or invisible place, or “a place where heaven and earth meet.” I’m sorry, I tried, but that means literally nothing to me. Heaven does not exist, ergo heaven never meets earth. That sounds like something that I would find on a Hallmark greeting card. There’s a reason I don’t buy greeting cards and I just hand-write notes to people: I hate cornball, nonsense greeting card sentiments.

So I tried to be a good student. I said to myself, ok, so go do some research, read about it, it’ll clarify it. This was a mistake. Reading about liminality just confused me more. For example, according to Wikipedia:

Liminality is…a psychological, neurological, or metaphysical subjective, conscious state of being on the “threshold” of or between two different existential planes[.] … The liminal state is characterized by ambiguity, openness, and indeterminacy. One’s sense of identity dissolves to some extent, bringing about disorientation. Liminality is a period of transition where normal limits to thought, self-understanding, and behavior are relaxed – a situation which can lead to new perspectives.”

What? Are you kidding me? And I gotta go find some place in Chicago that embodies this and write an essay about it? Oh, hell no. But I tried. One of the parts of the hybrid course is that we have to post our ideas for the places we tour to Blackboard, and so I brainstormed and came up with three ideas — three ideas that I thought were really stupid, but they were all I had, so I posted them. But it’s not like you get to have a real discussion about the ideas, so that was basically that. I still hated the ideas, didn’t see how they worked, and now I had less than a week to pick one, tour it, write it up, and then write an essay on it. Grrrrreeeeeat.

In the end, I punted. I tried to flip over to the “sacred” angle, so I thought more about places where something special happened. Other folks were doing ideas like writing up why their car was a sacred space to them, or why fishing is sacred, and honestly I don’t get that at all. But hey, at least they had something, which was better than me. I spent way more time on this than it deserved, and wound up thinking back to when I was living in the dorms at UIC, and me and my friend R. would sometimes go to the lakefront, behind the Adler Planetarium, to watch the sunrise over the lake. I thought, okay, that’s sort of a special, transient time and place. So I looked up sunrise times, set my alarm, and biked to the lakefront to watch the sun come up on a warm, clear morning. I wrote an essay, which I immediately hated, and which I couldn’t actually relate to the assignment because I didn’t frigging understand what the hell I was supposed to be doing. Hated it, hated it, oh, hated it so very much. It gutted me, too, because I was so frustrated by this abstract concept that made no sense to me, and I am really unaccustomed to things not making sense to me. I actually was so pissed at one point I was sitting there going, “This is stupid!” like a five year old throwing a tantrum because math is hard. I very nearly threw my laptop, which is saying something because I really like my laptop, and I don’t actually wish to smash it into bits. I just wanted to smash that godforsaken assignment.

Class came around, and I dragged myself there though it was the last thing I wanted to do. And then we were talking about it, and someone mentioned the ideas I’d posted and was curious which one I’d gone with, and I said something like, “Actually, I didn’t go with any of them…,” and then the floodgates opened, and out poured all this frustration and “I DON’T GET IT” and “I HATED THIS ASSIGNMENT” and “NO YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, I DON’T GET IT” and “I ALMOST THREW MY LAPTOP” and raaaaaaar and splah and I kind of think I really surprised the professor with the amount of frustration towards what she probably thought was an easy project, which I feel moderately bad about. But sadly, I still just don’t fucking get what the hell we were supposed to write about. And then class was over, for two more weeks.

This week’s assignment I thought would be a fun one — it was to pick a place and then write a short story set there. I knew immediately where I wanted to set my story. I thought about what the plot was, and first it was going to be a heist movie sort of story, and then it was going to be sort of noir, and then it settled into a tale of crime. And I worked out the basic plot and whodunit and all that, and as I was merrily writing along, I realized I don’t actually have the stomach to kill little old ladies, even in a short story, and that shifted it into a sort of gag thing. I dunno if it really worked, and it was much longer than I’d intended — something like 3300 words — but I was at least OK with handing it in, which made it light-years ahead of where I’d felt about assignment 3. Except…

The last assignment for the class is to turn in a portfolio of your collected essays from the class, with one seriously revised and lengthened. No problem. Except…you have to submit it to a publisher. Like, not, you have to prep it as though you were going to submit it to be published, but you have to actually go out and find someone who accepts submissions for pieces like yours, write them a cover letter or email or whatever, and submit it, and in your portfolio, you have to turn in proof that you have done this. And here we reach another oh hell no moment: while I really don’t have much problem blathering happily away in most any other situation, and while I would have no problem at all writing up a whitepaper for a conference and submitting it, or writing something for a technical magazine, what have you, … the idea of turning one of these things in to some anonymous capital-letter Publisher just makes me feel this really unspeakable dread. I’m really not kidding, it’s visceral, and it makes me physically cringe – my shoulders curl inward, my arms cross, I hunch over. I dunno why this is, it’s not like some literary editor is going to come pluck all the limbs from my body and then light me on fire if she rejects my submission, it logically should not be a big deal, but. Just take it as writ: I do not want to do that. Full stop.

And so in tonight’s class, the last class, after we get done with other people’s readings and we’re talking about the project, and the professor is talking about all kinds of places we can submit to, and I’m just getting wound up tighter and tighter and I can feel myself tensing up, and I’m fiddling with my pen like I’m singlehandedly generating electrical power to the entire city of Chicago each time I flip it over. And frankly, it’s really unpleasant to be there feeling like this. And the professor says something about how blogging is really scary and personal, but submitting to publishers is nothing, and so I finally spoke up. I said something like, “No, I don’t get that, it’s exactly the opposite. I can blog about whatever, no problem, doing it for years, but the idea of submitting to a publisher fills me with so much horror that I’m pretty much at the point of deciding it’s OK to blow off that part of the assignment rather than do it.” And I think I totally shocked her, again. It’s like there’s some sort of bubble she is in, and maybe the other people in my class, where writing is easy and impersonal and artistic, whatever, share it with the masses, life is good, no fuss no muss, just submit to a publisher, no big. And I am standing on the outside of that bubble, looking in, confused, going, “Why is this so hard? What is my problem? I know I’m a good writer, what the hell is going on? And why do I suck so bad at this?” The problem is that talking logic to yourself doesn’t really work — saying “they’re not going to light me on fire, chill the hell out” — doesn’t actually do anything at all to relieve illogical anxiety, it basically just makes you feel like an even bigger failure because now not only are you feeling helpless for damn near having a panic attack about something lame, but now you’ve just called yourself a moron for doing it.

And I really feel let down. Because I thought this class was going to be awesome, just a chance to explore places that I love and write up about how fantastic they are. And there are really so many places I love, I feel like I could have written some good stories. But it didn’t turn out that way at all for me, and I’m at a loss to explain why. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad if my other class hadn’t been such a soul-sucking disaster (ironically, I expect to pull an A in that class, no problem!), and I’d had something enjoyable… but it was, and I didn’t, and it’s really disappointing because all my other DePaul classes have been virtuous if not enjoyable, and mostly they were enjoyable, so this summer has been just terrible on the school front. I kind of hope it’s just the frigging curse of my doomed 2010 continuing, because that means it’s got an expiration date and I can go back to liking school soon. I liked school for a while there, I was really getting into it, and it’s really bumming me out that this summer quarter has been so bad to me. Anyways. Screw you, 2010! Man, when 2011 gets here, we are going to completely rock this place out and you’ll be all wishing you’d been good to me back when you had the chance!

So, anyway. I dunno. The professor did give us an out, and allowed that we could publish our pieces on our blogs if we have one. So maybe in the next few days you guys will get to read one of my little essays, and nobody will comment because after reading this you’re probably worried I’m going to completely wig out if you point out I dropped a comma or something, but that’s okay. (I probably won’t wig out. I may respond in a lecturing fashion as to why I chose to leave that comma out as a stylistic choice, but if you’re throwing down for grammatical/syntactical pedantry with me, you should see that coming.)

Or maybe I’ll just post some other inane bullshit, and trick you into thinking that you’re reading my homework – ha, ha!

I write like
Chuck Palahniuk

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Unfortunately, the only one of his novels I’ve read was Diary, and, entertainingly slash embarrassingly, I only grabbed it because I got him mixed up with Chuck Klosterman, so imagine the dissociative shock when I actually started reading it.

(That said, of course I finished reading it. It’s a good book. Maybe I’ll go re-read it now and figure out what it is about his style that I also share that should make random interwebs strangers point out similarity. Does he also abuse parentheses ruthlessly like I do? (I’m seriously trying to quit it, at least in my academic writing. You don’t know how hard a habit it is to break, dudes. I don’t even realize I’m doing it until I look at a printout of the first draft and go “what the shit is this?”))

I need to go write something right now, as a matter of fact. Having completed my walking tour of Union Station and writing up my notes about that, I have a homework assignment to write 1500-2000 words on it in a historical context. The instructions for this class’s assignments are pretty freeform, so paradoxically, that paralyzes me: in the absence of actual instructions, I throw my hands up in the air and stare at a blank Microsoft Word document page while a blinking cursor whispers, “j’accuse!”

Specifically, the direction for today’s assignment is: “Historical places: A discussion of significant venues and how they characterize a city and its people.” So. Yeah. How does Union Station characterize Chicago? Well, all the people in the food court getting bad takeout after 3PM are in a big fucking hurry, and god help you if you’re between them and the escalator. Does that say something about us? What would Carl Sandburg or Nelson Algren have to say about that? Or maybe it’s just a lesson for me; I can ramble on quite happily and (relatively, if you forgive the parenthetical asides) coherently for a couple thousand words on any random bullshit that strikes my fancy, but give me a vague topic and I’m a helpless fourth grader struggling with a book report for Where The Red Fern Grows. Bit sad, honestly, for someone who likes to yap so incessantly. Also, I’d like to introduce it with a line of verse about trains or something, but all I can think of is “Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation,” and that feels a little dirty, like cheating due to complete obviousness.

Worse yet, though, than the prospect of turning in another shitty essay — I turned in my first essay with the comment that “this is stream-of-consciousness crap, and I’ll happily revise it if you give me some feedback on what you want” — is the fact that I have to get up and read it in front of the class tomorrow night. I don’t mind public speaking, and I think I’m even halfway decent at it, but when I’m going out in front of people like that, I prefer to say things that are not crap. So if this essay is crap as well, then, well, bummer. My mad spelling skillz are great in print and have served me well in my academic doings thus far, especially contrasted with others’ pieces that didn’t benefit from use of spellcheck, but I’ll lose that slim advantage in speech. Unless I can create some sort of imaginative piece (what? Comparison essay? Short story? Dry historical recounting of the building? Continued ranting about the food court?) I’m going to be stuck out there talking about the fact that the lamp standards in the Great Hall are really neat, and leaving people wondering what the hell a balustrade is.

Of course the reading in front of the class is only step two. For our final project we’re supposed to prepare one of our homework pieces and send it off for publication somewhere. So, no pressure, then. I’ve got two more assignments that will have possibilities to use for that: the “liminal and sacred spaces” assignment, wherein we’re supposed to write about a place “where heaven and earth meet,” and the “a place for art” piece, where we’re supposed to either watch a place-related film or visit a distinctive location and write a short story set there. You know, I read the syllabus before I even registered for this class, and I said, “Yes! This is the class for me! I love Chicago, and I am a decent writer. I can totally take a class that is all about writing about Chicago, for it will rule.” But now that I’m actually in the class? Everything seems like this crazy difficult undertaking. It’s not the length requirements; they’re not even that much. (Hey, this blog post is about half the required length of the essay so far, and I’m not even trying.) It’s, like, wanting a perfect execution of what is assigned, to get that delicious, delicious A grade — only, without specific instructions I’m sort of hacking away at a guess and hoping for the best, and I hate that.

It is entirely possible that I am just blathering on here as a way to avoid actually writing the stupid essay. I should probably stop doing that. But first, I need to just polish this post a bit before clicking “publish”… .

Oh, I have to go do that thing today because it has to be done tomorrow. Let me just make the coffee first.
It’s 9AM. I should start, because I don’t want to do this all frigging day, I want to chill with the TV and some knitting this evening.
Oh, I have to go to PetSmart and Staples and should probably hit Jewel. But I don’t want to do that yet, I need to get this thing done first.
Let me just put the crockpot on.
I have to check my RSS reader.
I’m going to put on some nice mellow music and chill out, so I can think straight.
It’s almost noon. That means I have, like, 7 hours left of practical work time. Okay, I’ll start at noon.
I’m going to get the kitchen timer because that trick always works.
I need to finish this first. Let me just finish this first.
If I write this down, I can stop thinking about it and go on to do my work.
Okay, I’m going to put on music with words in another language so I can’t think along with them.
You are fucking driving me up a fucking wall.
The kitchen’s a mess, I should do the dishes.
I think I’ll make tea. Tea has less caffeine, I’ll be less stupid.
I wonder if I should do laundry or if the short work-week means I can get away with the clean clothes I have now.
I’m cold. I should put on a sweater.
I liked that speed-reading class yesterday, even if I do already read really quickly. That 3×5 card trick was cool, I’m going to have to use that. Do I have any 3×5 cards?
Wait, do I have any rice to make to go along with these red beans in the crock pot? Am I seriously going to have to go to Jewel after all? I fucking hate Jewel on Sundays.
It’s after one. I cannot think straight.
Christ on a pogo stick. Why can’t you just sit down and concentrate? It’s like only two fucking hours of work and you’ve fucked off all day.
I wonder if I really should hit Jewel today. It’ll be stupid-busy the rest of this week because of Thanksgiving. I can go to PetSmart tomorrow. I’ll have to hit Walgreen’s or something on the way to work tomorrow though to get those divider thingies.
Is it sugar? Did I eat too much sugar today or something? No more goddamn Smarties, ever.
I should plan what I need to do around the house. I will write that down so I don’t forget it.
I wonder if I had a glass of something alcoholic to drink if that would cancel out the sugar. No, that’s a bad idea, isn’t it. Does just thinking about that mean I have a problem? Is this a crutch? But is having a crutch really so bad if it’s a, like, once every few months thing? This is deeply stupid, forget I said anything.
I’m not listening to this Mahler. I can practically sing along to it. No, that’s out, and that. Why don’t I have more music in my collection that I don’t know how it goes? I could put on WFMT, but they’ll probably have a pledge drive or more German opera again like last time I really needed them to play something, and that clearly won’t work.
You know what would go really go well with red beans and rice would be if I made some cornbread. Am I out of cornmeal? Do I need to go to Jewel?
I am losing my fucking mind here, can you just be quiet for ten fucking seconds? Will someone for the love of God remind me why I went off the anti-anxiety meds.
Seriously, what ancient god did I piss off that I’m pushing 32 and still can’t have clear skin? It’s just deeply unfair to have to worry about the impact of benzoyl peroxide on crowsfeet.
I’m just going to check — no, no new mail. Nobody’s ever going to buy this frigging Louet, I’ll never get to buy that Lendrum.
I wonder if I could take a nap, and if I could, if it would help. Too bad I don’t nap.
OH HAI, now it’s after two and I’m still out of my fucking lunatic head.
I could go clean the house, sweep and, like, pick out DVDs I never watch to put in the to-donate pile. Maybe that would help.
Oooh, Amazon has that box set on sale. I shouldn’t, but … oh, let me just read the reviews.
I should really return those boots I can’t wear to Zappos, I’m sick of looking at the box.
Fuck it, I’m getting a glass of brandy. Brandy has less alcohol than Scotch, right? So it’s not really cheating if it’s not, like, something I love. Anyways, it’s afternoon now, so fuck it.
I wonder, if I were to take up smoking weed, would that fix bullshit like this? Ah, your natural-born pollyannaness bites you in the ass again. If I were a stoner, I wouldn’t get much done, but then again, I’d probably be happier about it. Oh well. It smells funky anyways. Probably explains all the people wearing patchouli, like that chick yesterday, their noses must be acclimated to ugh.
I’m hot. Why’d I put on this sweater?
Fucking sit down and shut up and quit being distracted by all the blinky shiny jesus christ what the fuck with my fucking head???
I have to go update that thing on Ravelry before I forget.
This is why you never did well in school, you know. Dumbass.
I have to reschedule with L. after she bailed yesterday. Tuesday?
I wanted to go ice skating today, too. Dang.

Of course the punchline is:
Maybe if I go write a blog entry about this, I’ll get it out of my head for a little while.

And the post scriptum:
Forgot to close that <em> tag… and oh hey, two of those are out of order, that doesn’t make sense in context, gotta fix…

Personal to our FBI, CIA, DEA, alphabet soup, ATT-circuit-snooping corporate overlords: I am not now nor have I ever been a stoner. So quit with the plotting to strip-search me at the airport next time I fly, jerkwads, and don’t think I don’t know you were thinking about it.

So that’s been my Sunday. Hope yours has been more productive.

First to get stuck in my head: Bouef bourguignon. Yummm. Toss the beef chunks — not too large, not too small — in seasoned flour, sear in a pan to optimize deliciousness, throw in crockpot with a bottle of Burgundy and other accessories… 8 hours later, you pretty much just want to dive into the crockpot and never leave.

Mashed potatoes. ‘Nuff said.

Chili. Beef round, cubed, tomatoes, onions, kidney beans — fie on you drama queens who react with stunned dismay about the beans; you are completely and tragically wrong — more tomatoes, spice… top with shredded sharp cheddar… This is everything that is great about crockpot cooking in one bowl.

Divert briefly to breakfast. Omelettes with molten cheese, scallions, fresh mushrooms … hash browns made from just-shredded potatoes and fried until crispy … biscuits and sausage gravy. Forget donuts, (middle) America runs on this.

Beef stew. Beef chunks (you seeing a pattern?), more wine, this morning’s leftover coffee, bay leaves, carrots, onions, potatoes… whatever looks good and is on hand… serve with baguette slices.

And let’s not neglect our feathered friends. Chicken chunks in broth, onions, round carrot slices, and freshly-made dough dropped into boiling broth for chicken and dumplings.

Meatloaf, cut with bread crumbs or oatmeal, topped with no damn ketchup you insane lunatic freaks, baked and served hot … leftovers for sandwiches the next day, on thickly-sliced fresh bread.

Red beans and rice… soak beans overnight, rinse and put back in crockpot with fresh water, bay leaves, spices, a bit of salt pork to spite the vegetarians if you’re feeling cantankerous, tabasco… let it slow cook all day. Make some fresh rice when you get home, mix it all up, add even more tabasco…

These are the things that make winter worth cooking in.

…

What a goddamn crying shame I can’t eat any of it at the moment!

last i heard, we were not projected to get access back until mid-july…after the balconies were barricaded last OCTOBER. (nine months != six months! argh!! but i digress.) so, imagine my SQUEEEEE when i came home late last night and realized I HAD BALCONY RAILINGS AGAIN!

then i looked a little bit more closely at the bubble wrap and noticed something else.

yes. those are bolt holes. with no bolts through them. on a balcony thirty stories up.

i guess we should hope it doesn’t get windy out, yeah?

oh, no, hey, wait! it’s all good!

no, i’m wrong, i’m totally wrong… there is a bolt.

singular.

…

AWESOME.

and then there’s this. (bad photo because the angle is terrible, but…)

yes. the mounts closest to the building are actually up off the concrete. so it’s, like, front-heavy, which is probably predictable… BUT IS NOT REASSURING AT ALL, GUYS, SERIOUSLY.

i mean, i never studied physics or engineering or, you know, even watched Bob the Builder or anything, but it does seem to me that if you’re going to haul a railing up thirty stories to put it on a balcony you could probably fit more than one bolt in your pocket… and if you’re only going to install one or two bolts, maybe you should put it in the back, so that if it leans anywhere it leans away from toppling off the edge? you know? because the whole reason we’re repairing the balconies in the first place is because there were things falling off that weren’t supposed to fall off?

meep.

but at least i guess this means i actually am going to get my balcony back someday, so that’s good!

today:

hmf.

but this weekend i have stuff to do. i was going to go out and do some ice skating practice at open skate this afternoon; i still want to work on my crossovers, which (frankly) suck. and, among other errands, i have to take my car to the mechanic’s, which is the only time sensitive item on there, as they are only open from 9 until 2, and the guy recommended i get there earlier rather than later.

so that is why i was very dismayed to shower, get my “goin’ to the mechanic’s” self-entertainment kit prepared (two books, knitting), remember to bring my checkbook even, and then walk down the hallway to discover that all the call buttons on all the elevators, passenger and freight, are not responding.

i live on the thirtieth floor.

i have a bad knee from that ugly skating fall i took, what, 3 months ago now, which is still healing up from a probable bone bruise, and my doctor explicitly forbade me to take more than three flights of stairs at a time. pretty much, i am allowed to climb out of the subway. down is better than up, but it will still hurt. plus, if i walk down, and the elevators continue not being fixed, that means i will have to walk back up, which will completely suck for my knee. (but it’ll have to be done because, although i could certainly crash on a friend’s couch, my cat will need his insulin shot this evening and tomorrow morning. so it’s not actually about me.)

so that’s an order of magnitude difference, there. and while i wait to see when the buttons will start working, the clock ticks away the time that my poor car should be getting some TLC. tick, tick, tick… but i don’t have a lot of choice.

at least, i hope this teaches someone a valuable lesson about single points of failure and redundant systems when it comes to elevator control systems. the least you can do is put the freight car on a different system from the passenger cars.

i liked it better when i was staying in my house because i didn’t want to leave.

i don’t know what i’d want to do. i want to travel somewhere. i thought about going up to ontario or quebec. trains feature heavily in all my plans, and i thought about taking VIArail across canada from toronto to vancouver, then amtrak back. i thought about going way up to northern manitoba to see the northern lights. i thought about getting an amtrak pass and just riding around the country for a little while. i’ve thought about getting a eurail pass and just riding around europe for a little while. i’ve thought about renting a cottage in some village in scotland somewhere, and buying some local wool and borrowing a spinning wheel from someone and spending a week just sort of holed up blowing off the world and making yarn at the source. really, any of these things i am good with doing. there’s just one problem.

my cats.

i cannot figure out what to do with the furballs. i can’t ask a friend to catsit for two weeks, coming over twice daily to inject tiger with insulin. if i boarded them at my regular vet, that’s $35/night per cat — almost a grand for two weeks, before i even get on an airplane. a friend of mine has a vet he boards his cats at when he travels, which is ten bucks a night per cat (though that’s not necessarily their same price for a cat that needs medication), which is “only” like $300 for two weeks, but i hate the idea of leaving them trapped in tiny cages for two full weeks — they would feel so abandoned. a catsitter to come to my place? i don’t know that i could find someone — craigslist is full of dog-walkers, but that’s a little less skilled than cat medicators (especially since i would want someone to watch tiger for any signs of sluggishness or other symptoms).

but i can’t just take time off work and stay at home; i’m going completely fucking nuts for want of a change of scenery. it’s seriously been like 4 years since i’ve had vacation that was longer than a couple days and/or did not involve a dear family member’s death. i know i’ll need at least a week to unwind, and then i want at least a few days to really be on vacation, before i have to return to the slog. i just can’t figure out what to do about the cats. :(

(a) keep plugging away, because someday your car is going to need repairs and boy are you going to be pissed if you have to put it on your discover card;
(b) say ‘fuck it, this is pointless,’ and blow a scad of cash on a fun vacation you’ve been wanting to go on for years, because hey, at least your worthless money can buy you an experience?

currently leaning towards (b). i mean really. i am being a good little responsible citizen here, and this is my reward for not buying a half million dollar condo and wall to wall plasma televisions with money from a bank that’s underwater and drowning fast — to have what i do have made worthless? disheartening.