okay-dokey artichoke-y

sometimes you just have to buck up and put on some eyeliner and pretend things are going to be okay. that's my new strategy; things are going to be okay because i say so. because they have to be, and because i'm through feeling bad about this and wallowing around the house feeling sickly and retarded. it's one thing to be embarrassed and ashamed about dating and living with ed, but that can't be all i do.

i'm going to have to throw more money at these problems until they go away, and that's also okay. i have plenty of ramen and groceries and gas in my car, i can make it a week then next friday i get paid again. i've got my bike for running errands and my friends to listen to me, and books to read and socks to knit and family who love me.

i'm serious. things are going to be fine because i say so and that is final.

grey hairs

i think ed is trying to make me crazy. i think all of this is a pretty calculated effort to make my last month in anacortes a protracted, painful experience. guess who stopped by this morning? the electric company. guess which bill didn't get paid? i just called and talked to them on the phone, and they were beyond nice and wonderful, but there goes another $200 that i did not have to spend. for a few minutes i tried to figure out how i could live without electricity, but then i came to my senses.

never never never again am i shacking up without a ring and a background check. especially the background check.

ick

i've been bitching about being sick but not doing anything about it, meaning i haven't gotten any better. i slept in this morning because i had the day off, got up for a few hours and watched a movie, at two mini bagels, then went back to bed and now it's seven at night. i kind of want to take a shower, but i kind of don't care. if you're grody and you know it, clap your hands. *clap, clap* i did some knitting this afternoon, and read part of a book, but that's about as productive as i've been. maybe i will take a shower and put on some clean pj's and do the dishes. the shower might help loosen up yet more mucus. aren't you glad i made sure to mention that?

it's official!

checking my curds, originally uploaded by pinprick.

i finished my final training for the cheese specialist program at work, learned how to stretch curds to make fresh mozzarella, and spent a lovely night at a hotel. can you believe i completed over 100 hours of cheese training? that's a lot of hours. i'm tired from the last few days, and ready to take a nap. i have lots of photos up over at flickr, and i'll have more stories tomorrow. goodnight!

overshare

i have been emailing ed to try to find out where the money is, and whether or not he actually sent it. i doubt he did, but he insists that he did and he has the number of the money order, blah blah blah. of course our emails are shitty, although i am trying to be civil. he isn't, and sends me nothing but one sentence answers that don't actually answer anything, and are sarcastic in nature. consider the following:

Me: "what storage unit?"
him: "the storage unit i put my stuff in?"

okay. if over $600 weren't involved in this, i would just give up.

fuck it, i'm going to anyhow. yes, it will leave me broke and miserable, but whatever. i'd rather be broke and freaked out on my own than deal with his asshole shenanigans anymore. this is getting me all riled up.

early day

i came home sick from work. being in a deli with a hacking cough is one good way to get customers to glare at you, and i'd had enough. i was coughing so much i made myself dizzy and was pretty sure i was going to knock my brain loose. after i got home i slept for a good long time, and now i'm going to make some dinner and go back to bed.

good news! i snagged a library thing early review book! it's my first, and i'm super excited.

sickly

ugh. i have a little cold. it's nothing serious, just enough to be annoying. a hacking cough, medium snot production, sleepy head. i took a nap this afternoon instead of a bike ride, and tonight i'm going to take some nyquil so i can sleep through the coughing. that's the most irritating part of this; it's a dry and hurty cough, an insistent tickle that won't quit.

i have my cheese training graduation this week, which means four whole days out of the store. i have a dinner one night, a long day of final tests and a curd stretching class (we're making mozzarella!), and the cherry part is i get to spend the night in a hotel. spending four days out of the store, even though two of them are work-related, and like an awesome little vacation. getting ready to be gone that long is a task, but worth it. do you know how much cheese i have to order? a lot. at any given point in time, i carry $20,000 dollars worth of cheese on a table six feet long by three feet wide and three feet tall. i go through about $3 to $4 thousand of that stock weekly and have to keep my holes filled. there are over 200 varieties, all of which i've tasted and can tell you at least something about. truth be told, i'm fairly nerdy about it and can tell you more than a little, although i am the first admit i don't know it all. i like being the ruler of my cheese island, now if only i can get that raise! they are saying after the graduation and i'm certified* they'll talk with me seriously. cross your fingers.

*there is no real cheese training school; to be a cheese maker you have to make cheese, and everything else is sort of nebulous and vague. we aren't like sommeliers or butchers or bakers, we don't have schools we can go, and we have no fancy name. a professional who works in cheese can be trained by a company like i was, but aside from putting in time and learning as much as you can on your own it's not like i'll be able to go to any grocery store and get a job like this. this way of working with cheese in standard grocery stores is a really new concept and only three or four other chains in america have a program like this. it's part of the reason they're getting me for such a low, low price. i imagine at some point in the not-too-distant future getting a job like this will be a lot more complicated, and there won't be a lot of on the job training. our wine specialist doesn't have to go through all this because they're expected to have either spent time in culinary school, in restaurants, or in distribution or production. what i'm doing now is either going to pay off big time, and allow me to run my own little section of this store or some other store, or the cheese trend as we know it won't last. i think there's longevity here, after all, the american artisan cheese movement started in the 70's and is still growing. in the pacific northwest alone, oregon and washington, there are dozens of small creameries and dairies producing cheeses. cheese itself has been around for thousands of years! it's not like i'm hitching my wagon to low-rider jeans or investments in atari.

i think the nyquil kicked in and that's why i got all rambly. the point is, i know that this job choice seems weird and counter-productive, and that it makes my mother crazy. she's always saying, "you went to college! now you sell cheese." in a way i think this might be the perfect job for me, though. i loved teaching, i love cheese, i love food and cooking and as much as it pains me to say it, i like having customers, and this lets me do all of the above. the schedule is flexible, and while i'm still in my dues-paying mode and not making scratch, if i do stick with this the payoffs will be good. i have medical and dental insurance, access to chicken wings that have gone past the two-hour mark, and a slew of ridiculous characters to watch and interact with. things could be worse. my job, like all jobs, has its shit moments, but it still makes me smile to tell some onethat yes, all i do is work with cheese all day. plus, getting to say, "i can't help you, i have to cut the cheese" never fails to crack me up.

bike weirdness

i tried to embed a map of my ride so you can see where i go; i do get to spend a lot of time by the ocean and cross an awesome bridge (where you can see seals!), but now that's in there i can't edit the html. it messed something up. i'm confused. i don't want to delete the post, but the map is too big and weird. um, maybe no more embedding from mapmyride.com.

bike madness

on today's ride i saw two seals, one heron, a pair of ducks, and many, many wild bunnies.

i'm going to take those all as a good sign.

p.s. mapmyride says i went 8 miles! whew. what i also saw on my ride, but am going to dismiss in the face of all those good things, was a group of douchebags walking their six dogs side by side, taking up the whole trail. then they had the gall to get fussy with me for not warning them i was coming sooner. like i would ever try to scare their delicate doggies!

more stuff i won't miss

• random cans of malt liquor hanging around. some in the fridge, some open cans in the bathroom, wherever. i'm trying to choke one down due to a long and lousy day at work, but 211 steel reserve is shitty. i've been sort of craving mickey's lately and thought, "well, this is here" but i think even mickey's is better than this crap. shudder.
  
• chew bottles! oh dear sweet baby jesus there is nothing grosser than finding a bottle full of chew spit. he'd try to hide them out of the way so i wouldn't find them, but i always did. the fact is, a bottle filled with spit is pretty fucking gross, and because i have such an aversion to them i was naturally drawn to them. it's like heisenberg's principle* or something.
  
• anyone taking my car without first asking to borrow it. that should be a given right? but it wasn't. in fact, every time i made a point to tell him how much it bothered me he treated me like an over-protective spaz and asshole, but i think it's just polite. i never borrowed anything without asking, and a car is like a big thing. it's not like i would have ever said no, except you know when he wanted to drive a block away and i was low on gas (then i would have, and i don't think that's too shitty a thing to do!).
• ed saying something or other was "extreme." dude, that saying is so 1995. i should know.
  

i'm still sort of uncertain about what is going to happen next month. so far my landlord has been pretty understanding, but i don't think i can afford next month's rent. unless he gives me the deposit; in which case i might be able to finagle it. i owe him another $330, i got paid today so he gets it tomorrow. i hunted down ed through email; he says he sent the rent in and it must be a mistake, i say i'll believe him when he shows me some proof, like a receipt for the money order he claims to have gotten. it's a shitty situation, but it could be worse so right now i'm trying to just focus on the good stuff; a nice, summery crush, a good dinner, a little extra summer sun. it's easy to feel bad for myself and do the whole "woe is me" but that's not going to help. i'm just going to have to tighten my belt buckle and do some serious budgeting, rely on the kindness of friends, family, strangers and acquaintances and roll with the punches. what else can i do? i'd love to spend a few days in bed crying and drinking and watching sad movies, but i have bills to pay and who needs the headache?

*like i know anything about that. i don't even know what it's about, but i like the name of it!

ps. this post over at barrett's blog made me happy. i am totally not a creep and am indeed myself. maybe i'm okay after all.

it's like a white-trash soap opera

full windsor, originally uploaded by pinprick.

i'm not sure what's going to happen next. i called ed's last boss and found that he is indeed in king salmon, running a boat for the summer. i told him what he did, just so he would know what kind of asshole he's dealing with, and thinking maybe there is a slight chance he'll feel like a dick and help me out. then i kept thinking and wondered, did he have this planned all along? did he start that last fight expecting me to act the way i did to set all this in action? part of me thinks that this was all done very deliberately; after all, he cashed my rent check weeks before he left. another part of me thinks he isn't that smart or clever, then i realize he was totally smart enough to fool for me for quite a while so maybe he is.

i'm glad he's gone. my father is less furious at me than i expected, which is a bit of a surprise. he's not thrilled with me, and is disappointed i picked someone so wrong on so many levels, but he and mom both say they're just happy i didn't get married or knocked up. they feel like i got off easy, aside from the money issues. i'm upset about that because ed knew how hard i was working for that little bit of savings, how much it meant to me, and then he left me in a lurch and now it's all gone. it's all gone and my rent isn't even paid. what little i had set aside is gone and he's probably laughing his ass off about it.

if i think too hard about this i cry, because not only did i get royally fucked over, but i'm lucky that i did and ashamed that it came down to this. that's the part that is so hard to convey; how worthless and awful i feel. take ugly and multiply but a thousand, give it a wicked hangover and break out a front tooth and that's how feel. emotionally sucker-punched. by him in a bad way, and by my family in a good way. they don't have to stand by me, they have every right to want to tell me to grow up and take care of this on my own, but all i get are hugs and glasses of wine and kisses and soothing noises. i really am the luckiest girl on earth, even if i do feel shitty.

good riddance to bad garbage, right?

guess what?

ed took my rent money for this month and then never paid it. my landlord just came by to let me know. i foolishly gave him check that he took and cashed but never sent to the landlord. i'm a genius! and he's a fucking asshole. i'm going to go cry some more.

ooh i hate you

hello mascara, originally uploaded by pinprick.

because i want to go out tonight, but none of you live here! i don't have a lot of friends in anacortes, making it hard to get together an impromptu go-out. my friends all live in close towns, but none closer than twenty minutes by car. what i want is to ride my little bike downtown, do some people-watching, have a beer then come home. is that so much to ask for?

i feel like i need an "i have lot of internet friends" tshirt some days.

endless possibilities

i know i've talked about it a lot lately, but i really do love my bike. tonight i took what mapmyride says was a 7 mile ride, but i think it might have been shorter. six miles is what it felt like, anyhow. it was a beautiful evening, sunny and warm and by the time the sun set i was hot and welcomed the cool air. it feels weird that i ride a bike sometimes; a few months ago i would have never thought "oh yeah, i'm going to go home and take a five mile bike ride." five miles seemed like a lot in the beginning, especially considering i am not in the best of shape. what makes riding my bike different from other "exercise" is that it's fun. you get to see all sort of neat stuff, you can go slow or fast, it's hard without being ridiculously hard. i guess a better way to put it is that it's hard but with awesome perks. the more i ride, the easier it gets, too. in a short amount of time i think i've gotten stronger and better at riding, which is saying something because i am a lazy girl and i ride a one-speed bike. being outside by myself is also cool.

a few perks from today's ride:

• seeing random kittens down by the waterfront. i bet they are boatyard mousers!
• lots of cute dogs being walked.
  
• big black cows hanging out.
  
• many, many wild bunnies.
• i'm pretty sure i saw a heron, which i feel like is my lucky bird. i know that's weird, but i always feel a lot luckier after i see one. i'm sure it's just some weird superstition, a little magical thinking on my part, but herons tend to show up when i feel lousy and they make me feel better.
  
• i cannot tell you how much i love the smell of salt air. campfires are a close second, with campfires on the beach being basically the best smell on earth. the holy trifecta adds cooking meat or marshmallows. that's a scent that should be bottled and then applied liberally.
  

my parent's got home from their vacation tonight. baby was insane with glee. you could hear her popping up all over, yelling "grammy! pop pop!" and giggling like crazy. she crawled up on mom while i was talking to her and i hear her say, "maggie love grammy." it nearly killed me. i mean, maggie loves me, i know, but she doesn't love anyone the way she loves her grammy. i think i'm third or fourth on her list, which is still top five and fine by me! it was awesome to talk to my folks, their vacation plans this time were very "we'll see what happens" so i never knew where they were or when they were coming back. fun for them, annoying for the rest of us. i think they had fun, i'll find out for sure next week.

my next boyfriend:

• is going to be taller. he doesn't have to be a giant, but he won't be shorter than me either.
  
• will read books on occasion. it doesn't have to be anything earth-shattering or serious, he can be into all tom clancy, all the time, and i will be happy. tucker max is not that funny, not after the first essay or two. to claim he's your favorite writer makes you a douchebag. why didn't i see that sooner?!
  
• will have dark hair. no more redheads!
  
• won't listen to kid rock, limp bizkit or staind. no nü-metal crapola for this girl anymore!
  
• will brush his teeth every morning and every night. no kidding. it's one thing to sort of slack on the oral hygiene when you live on a boat and work 24+ hours at a time; there is no excuse for it on land. do you know how many times i asked him to brush his teeth? i tried nicely, i tried subtle, i tried downright bitchy and nothing worked.
  
• let's add "use deodorant and soap" to the last point. i'm not going to explain it, you're already grossed out.
• won't stash bottles of liquor around the house for later use.
  
• won't honestly believe that the book of revelation is a true story and that the end of times is near so why worry about global warming?
  
• won't be such a loser. promise.
  
• won't, won't, won't have dumbass shamrock tattoos.
  

the list could go on and on. i feel so impossibly retarded for having fallen for such a retard. in my own defense i'd like to blame alaska, and being a fish out of water. in some ways, being there on the boat was the closest i came to doing actual fieldwork. it was a wild ride, i'll give you that, but it probably went on too long. on the other hand, i did not know he was such a drunk out there; an absence of liquor stores floating on the bering sea helped conceal that pretty well. in retrospect i should have taken his family issues more seriously as well. i didn't want to judge him based on them, but it became fairly evident that he thought they were normal and that screaming matches and having the cops called when you have an argument is par for course. he never saw anything wrong with getting belligerent drunk and humiliating me, he would always just shrug and say, "i was drunk." in our final fight he actually said, "what? that's happened two or three times since i've been here?" um, that's about three times too many, don't you think?

i promise not to talk about this much longer. it's weird having him gone, and i am spending a lot of time thinking of how it all went so wrong, what i did wrong, what i'll do next time, wondering if i even want a next time, all that shit. i feel both down about it and totally exhilarated. it's like that moment right before you draw a picture or write a story; there's that sheet of blank paper and it's gorgeous and lovely and clean and you want to use it but not mess it up.

i went to work!

i could have taken today off, since it was on the schedule and my boss was all "take all the time you need," but i didn't want to lose out on my overtime. if i didn't go in today i would have made enough on my next paycheck to cover stuff, but only because i worked the overtime. this way i will actually have extra on my next paycheck, and who doesn't love that? plus it's hard to wallow in sad when i'm stocking cheese and goofing off with my co-workers. i had a million things i had to to today as well, since i'll be out tomorrow at a class. i got a lot done, i'm pretty sure i figured out my living situation, and i got to nibble on spinach dip. good times.

staying in anacortes would be ideal, we all know i love this town, but economically speaking it's not real feasible. i know of one person who's looking for a place in this area as well, but he's got a dog and i've got a crush on him*, so no go. i'm moving in with a cute couple i work with, which might be totally disastrous, at the same time i think it will be okay. we might work together a lot, but i'll have my own room and now i even have my own tv, which means i'm not too worried. the best thing about their house is that they pay month to month anyhow, so we're not locked into some big lease.

while ed taking the big clock isn't that big a deal (ha ha! punny!), i find myself looking over to where it used to be all the time. ooh, he screwed me. i'm going to paint a little picture of a clock and hang it up there, because then at least i'll laugh when i see the blank spot. when i think about him i make a list of the things i won't miss about him and add songs to my break-up mix. on the whole, though, aside from the not knowing how i'll pay my rent next month i feel super relieved. i'm also loving the alone time. damn i missed having a few hours alone.

*this boy, he is showing up everywhere. i need to tell him to stop being cute and funny! he even cut all his hair off and he looks sort of angry and mean, but still hot. ooh, i hate him. and by "hate," i mean, "want to rip his clothes off."

first things first:

the spackling job ed did on the hole he made in the wall is super shitty. i mean, maggie could have done a better job with some play-dough and spit. also, remember that big clock he bought me for christmas? he took it and hung up my "bite me" embroidery in its place. i know that's supposed to be a great big "fuck you" but dude, what the hell is he going to do with the big clock? that fucker is three feet tall. is he taking it with him to alaska? did he just throw it away? i'm confused. why not just leave me a literal "fuck you" note? whatever. what he didn't leave was any money for rent next month, or his key, so tomorrow i call the landlord and explain what happened. there's a chance they can take the rent out of his deposit and give me a months reprieve, or i can just scramble for the cash or give my notice now and pay for maybe half of next month. he left the tv and his ps2, though, and i'll probably sell those if i need the money. the ps2 for sure is going, i don't play video games and a cheap dvd player is, well, cheaper. i bought my last one for under $30. not to mention i actually one of those in storage.

i was nervous driving home today. i got a message this morning on my cell phone from his employers in alaska wanting to talk to him about his ticket back, which evidently leaves tomorrow. but i don't believe anything anymore so i was waiting to make sure he really wasn't (isn't) here. the thought of him still being here freaked me out, but i had to see. as much as i would like, i can't hide out on the island forever.

who knows what's going to happen next. i'm broke from paying bills and getting caught up on ridiculous shit (like my storage unit fees!) and wanting to save what little i do have left. so i guess i'm not broke so much as right now i am in a hyper-saving mode, and trying to make every little penny work in my favor. this is requiring some math skills i didn't know i possessed. i need to find a new home, obviously, and it really would be good to find a new job that pays me more and you know, maybe uses the education i'm pissing away. it's hard not to just want to curl up and feel sorry for myself, honestly. i'd like to do some serious drinking and steal some of pop's pain pills and take a little mental vacation, but i'm not going to. if this is the worst-case scenario, it's actually pretty okay. i mean, i still have family who will help out, i still have friends who are nice to me and love me, and for at least a few weeks i have the place all to myself. i might cry a little and feel lousy, but i'll also go to work and figure shit out.

big bed

big bed, originally uploaded by pinprick.

fuckity fuck fuck, with a side of shit sandwich

impostor, originally uploaded by pinprick.

the scene last night was right out of cops, with the fisherman screaming and yelling and calling me everything but a white girl before he punched a hole in the wall. i didn't really think you could actually do that, i thought it was a figure of speech. i was wrong. dude, i was wrong about a lot shit. let's just add that to the list, shall we?

needless to say, even though it was painfully late at night i left the apartment and came to my folk's. where else could i go that time of night? who else wouldn't freak out at my sulking in at two a.m.? i might bitch and moan and complain about my sister sometimes, but i really am glad my parents had her. she fed me carrot cake for breakfast this morning, and cups of coffee and took the phone call of me sobbing and freaking out late last night. when i need her she's there, when i need any of my people they're there. the fisherman? not so much, if ever. which is why i ended this, why i decided that regardless of our history and the good times and my feelings that he wasn't going to be a good addition to my family. he's never going to get that, he's just not right for me or us.

things aren't good, but they aren't as bad as i feared they would be. he said he's going to leave some money for the last month of our lease, but i'll wait to see it before i believe it. he's supposed to be gone tonight, and after this i honestly have no plans to ever see or talk to him again. in the midst of all the screaming and yelling and telling me what i loser i am, how he thought i was a "bigger person" than this (?), i pointed out to him quietly that where i come from we don't get belligerent drunk and freak out in a loud way. if any of our neighbors had been home, they would have called the cops, and who could blame them? besides the screaming and yelling he was busy breaking glasses and throwing shit around, which made us sound like hillibillies on our honeymoon. it was yet another humiliating episode in the "amanda takes a fisherman" show, and at the end of it all i realized that's the reason i want out. that this isn't the first time he's done this, it won't be the last, and where i come from people who love each other don't get violent and crazy and stupefyingly drunk before they talk about their feelings.

i know i was fine before he came along, and i'll be fine afterward, but right now i just feel foolish and ashamed and nervous. i'm going to look for a new place to live and a new job and make a plan. the life i was waiting for is here and i have to do something about it.

yay for baby!

man, i missed my niece a lot while she was on vacation with her pop. she came into the store yesterday and did a full-on run and hug when she saw me, which just thrilled me to the bone. she was all huggy and kissy and sweet and i gave her a few balloons and we took a walk through the store together. she likes to point at stuff and tell you what color it is, and count stuff, and she does this new little hop or skip thing, it's all stiff-legged and retarded looking but damn it makes her laugh. then she runs and yells "maggie running!" she talks about herself a lot in the third person, which is common for two year olds, right? i vaguely remember tiernan talking about him about that way, although he used to say "din-iin," which i loved. i sort of miss him as a little boy, but he's a lot of fun to talk to now, so this is not me complaining.

a list of things i want to do in my next apartment:

• get a loft bed. i miss the bunk on the boat, i miss living on the boat actually a lot, but having my own bunk will be nice.
• hang up my pictures. i haven't done that at all here because a) we were waiting for furniture and b) the fisherman doesn't like any of them.
  
• set up a desk and do some little paintings again. someone on flickr found an old one of mine and was all "awesome!" and i thought, "i haven't done that in forever." it used to make me happy.
• never shack up again!

i have used my little zen stone a bit, and i love it as much as i thought i would. it's a lot like a shuffle in that you can't see what's playing or what's next, but i kind of dig that. it's like every song is a surprise, except for the fact that i put it on there. i put very few whole albums on there, either. just a lot of songs that have sort of the same feel with a few random bits to perk it up. i've been listening to transatlantacism a LOT lately, which isn't my favorite death cab album but is the saddest, which i don't think is doing much for my outlook. it's time maybe for some liz phair, exile always me feel invincible.

new love

aah, a new mp3 player. could anything be better? meet my new friend, who was on sale at target for only $40. i wasn't going to buy anything for myself with my tax stimulus check but i could not resist. i loved my other zen player, pierre (who was a zen micro), and i know that a lot of folks love ipods, but i am a creative girl now. that mp3 player lasted over five years, many moves and trips, and the only thing that's wrong with it now is that the headset jack is messed up. it connects to the computer, but you can't really hear on it anymore. it all sounds tinny. it's even something that could be fixed but it would cost more than buying this new pretty. she's cute, isn't she? she's also still charging, so i don't have a full review but i am happy so far. she's so sleek and tiny and soft. i think her name might be fifi. or poodle. or maybe mitzi. we'll see!

oh my goodness

so that tax benefit refund thing actually came through. i wasn't counting on it, but i checked my bank account this morning and there it was! it's more than my actual refund, which is sad, but happy too because DAMN i could use that money. i need to pay my car insurance, set up payments on my student loans again, save up for moving, pay off my storage unit before they sell all my shit, blah blah blah. the list i have of things that need to get paid is much longer than i want to admit, and i know i can't do it all, but i have a plan. a meager one, but a plan nonetheless.

i think i pissed off the fisherman last night by insisting he leave me alone and let me sleep by myself. he's just always here, sitting and doing nothing, and i resent that he has the house to himself all day and i have it never. this past weekend he spent all his time getting drunk and mad and me and wanting to talk about what's going on with "us." um, there is no "us" so nothing. he wants to move to montana? okay! he wants to join the circus as a fire breather? rock on! all i care is that he goes somewhere and does something other than lie in the bedroom with the lights off telling me i make him feel bad about himself. fuck.

good news; baby was with her dad this week since my folks are on vacation and my sister had to work, and i got to talk to her yesterday about her trip. she's only 2 1/2, and not quite as verbal as say, tiernan, was at that age, but damn she had a lot to say. it was awesome. i hadn't talked to her in over a week, and i missed that little kid so much. she told me all about the beach and park and doggies, and i asked if she missed us and she said, "yep!" whew. i don't want her other aunties moving up to try to take my place:-) that's my baby, yo.

on motion and moving

i could go on and on about all the reasons why living here with the fisherman has gotten unbearable, but no one needs to hear it. not even me. i will say, however, that i would give just about anything for a day ALONE and a room of my own. this fucking sucks in a way that is giving me an ulcer. he is always here, he has no job, no friends, no life and insists on just sitting around all day.

the bright spot about this weekend, besides not working, was my bike. yay for bikes! also, yay for map my ride; it lets me map out where i've gone, how many calories i burned, how far i went, that sort of thing. plus you can save your rides and compare and contrast and all that jazz. i love it. being out and about on the bike is awesome, but i am always curious about how far i've gone.

my pants feel looser. not loose enough to go down a size, but totally needing a belt. i don't feel like i'm riding that much, or changing that much about my diet, but i think the biking on it's own is helping out.

i also applied for low-income housing today. i figure if i'm going to get paid shit, why am i struggling to make rent? i have what feels like an insurmountable amount of debt and not paying through the nose for rent would help me out. it will take a while, and i hope i can find a place to stay in the meantime when this lease is up and while i wait, but we'll see. i doubt it will come through in time and i have a feeling i'll end up in mount vernon or burlington instead of my beloved anacortes. i really, seriously, honestly love this town. i feel at home here. leaving it will be sad but a girl's got to do what she's got to do. i think next week, after i get my tax benefit check and my paycheck and pay all my bills i might take thirty of that and spend the night out at a campground in a yurt just for some space. i need a vacation from all this.

let's here it for this girl

another impossibly long day at work. one girl who called in sick yesterday called in quit today, and the other one got fired because since she's starting working for us she's called in sick at least once a week (sometimes twice! and it's only been two months!). i am a team player, dude. plus, this means i have accrued over five hours of overtime and that amounts to almost an extra $80. that is money in the bank, kids. yes, i am tired. yes, my feet are killing me (i need a new pair of work shoes, mine are shot), and yes i am feeling a little frazzled but on the whole i'm pretty cheerful about the whole thing. the extra money is awesome, i really need it right now, and it's not like my home life is anything i'm missing out on. i've been trying real hard not to have to get a second job, but i think if it was part time and i had a couple long days a week i might be okay. i've done it before, and know it's easy to get burnt out, but at this point i don't have much to lose so whatever. i might as well get a side gig.

and don't anyone get too excited about this, but today someone i work with mentioned that another co-worker of ours has been coming over to the deli more often now that i'm single. i have a huge crush on this boy, but am fairly certain i am not his type (97.5% sure), but i do like the idea. it was a nice thing for them to say, anyway. nothing will ever come of our little flirtation, but he is foxy and it's nice to be reminded that i am single and could totally make-out with new foxy boys.

no way

i thought i had to be at work at ten this morning, but then in the shower i realized i don't have to be anywhere until eleven. meaning i got up an hour earlier than i had to, and was already soaking wet so no going back to bed for me. i am a genius. since i have all this free time, i'm going to leave you with some short work stories that you might find funny and i have been too lazy to tell you.

1. the other day a girl i have a very cursory relationship with told me way too much about her piercings. eating lunch together does not mean that i ever want to hear about your hood piercing, your double nipple piercings (two in each boob), and how much it hurts when they pierce your labia. TOO MUCH INFORMATION. plus, now when i see her all i can think about are her privates, and to be perfectly frank, this is not pleasant for me. i am never eating lunch with her again.
2. a whole bunch of guys at work are busy growing mustaches. why? who knows. what's funnier is that they all just started doing it, no one talked about it, it isn't some big funny joke on the rest of us, they just all up and decided that mustaches are the thing to do. sometimes in solidarity i draw a finger 'stache and flash it at them.
3. i thought i had another story, but i can't remember it. whoops. i guess that means i should pack it up and head into work. today is my friday! whoo!
   

so. tired.

i just pulled a twelve hour shift at work tonight. whoo! i won't say i wasn't annoyed at first, because DUH i dislike working for 7.5 hours and 12 is considerably longer, then i realized i would be making not just sunday pay (which is time and a third) but overtime sunday pay. that amounts to 40-50 extra dollars for three extra hours of work. i perked up a bit when i figured that out. plus, my boss bought me lunch for bailing her out. i don't always like that woman, but i sure did this afternoon while eating free chinese food.

also, i am so sad that song was a lynrd skynrd song. did i even spell that right? i dislike them. i thought that was a blue oyster cult song. i know i spelled that wrong. how on earth do you do an umlaut? who cares. i need a big glass of vodka and to go to bed.

ooh, that smell

tommy thompson trail, originally uploaded by pinprick.

(i know that's from a song, and i can hum that part of the tune, but what smell are they talking about? drugs? sex? something else?)

i am, of course, referring to that delicious smell of spring. i wish i could bottle it up and save some for winter, but i bet it wouldn't smell as good. i swear when i'm outside right now i sniff all over, like a retarded dog. last night i got home from work, checked my email, then got on my bike and took a ride. i was tired from work, and wanted to just crash out but the sky had cleared up and i knew i had at least an hour of rain-free early evening so i got the hell out of the house. i'm glad i did. i'm always i glad when i actually get on my bike and get out. i took the tommy thompson trail which is my new favorite thing about anacortes. you get to see boats in storage along the way, bunnies and birdies and if you are lucky a heron, there's the ocean and at the end of the trail is a pretty bridge. it's not a crazy long ride, about 2.7 miles one way, pretty much flat the whole time too, but it's a nice ride and by the time i get out to the end of the bridge i could use a sit. my legs today are a bit sore, which makes me feel good. hooray for bikes! and spring! and a break in rain!

whew

causland 3, originally uploaded by pinprick.

so it was just a broken valve stem, easily fixed and only $10 (which i still had to borrow). it made for a stressful morning and a ride to work that was all clenched stomach and grinding teeth. i had that moment i've been having a lot lately, the "what the fuck am i doing?" moment, wherein i realize i have no savings, no backup plan, a job that costs me more than i make, and the knowledge that i have to just suck it up and wait one more month and then maybe my real life (whatever that means) will begin. being here is frustrating, both in a physical and an emotional way. i'm looking for a new job but nothing seems any better than what i'm doing. i'm looking for a new apartment but they are all so expensive. i'm going to go down to hud and apply for low-income housing, i'm going to go to a credit counselor and try to get all that shit worked out (know of anyone good?), and i'm going to try really hard to stop angst-ing and acting like every setback is the end of the world.

i have become a very un-fun fat girl. dude, that sucks.

@$#%!!!

my right front tire is totally, 100% flat. as in, broke as a joke. i am also brokey-broke, rent and car insurance payments are due, and i might be just the teensiest big FUCKED. shit! shit! shit!