He said, she wished she'd said

Soo... let's set the scene a little bit. At around 2:00 pm, everyone stops working up front and either goes home or heads to the back to bake or do dishes or other useful things. It's my job to, then, stand behind the counter for the next two hours by myself. Therefore, if someone orders something it's my job to make it and take it to them and also to continue working at the counter.

I'm working this position today when a slightly post-middle-aged man comes in and orders a sandwich. I ring him up, take his money and go wash my hands and put on those God-awful plastic gloves from Lunch Lady Land. Halfway through making his sandwich he's back at the counter summoning me.

Guy: Miss? Miss? MISS. (I don't like being called "Miss" or "Ma'am" I'd much rather be referred to as, "'Scuse me.")
Me: [I turn around] I'm sorry, yes?
Guy: Do you have a local phone book?
Me: I'm sorry, I can't really hear you. [I walk closer]
Guy: Do you speak English? I said, "DO YOU HAVE A LOCAL PHONE-uh BOOOOOK-uh?"
Me: IIII'm sorry? I took your order, didn't I? We had a pretty decent conversation, didn't we? Do I HAVE an accent or dress like the native of some other country? You weren't a total a-hole 12 seconds ago! Sure, I'll get you one, but do you mind if I wait until I'm done making your sandwich so that I don't have to change my gloves?
Guy: *sigh* This really can't wait.
Me: Really? This can't wait for 90 whole seconds? Of course, I'll get that for you. [So I toss my lunch lady gloves into the garbage and grab a phone book from the back. I hand it to him and he takes it and goes back to his table.]
Three minutes later when I bring him his food, he's sitting there with the phone book open. He pulls out his cell phone and says, "What's the area code here?"
Me: So... Seeing the phone book couldn't wait for me to finish your food but making the phone call could? Really? It's 620, Sir. Have a great day.

I know this post doesn't demonstrate it well but it's important that you know that my attitude about/ during work has dramatically improved over the past week. I think it's that now that I'm working forty hours I know that my rent will be paid and I can overlook a lot knowing that I've got a roof over my head for the next thirty days. Also, I officially and legally have my very own space and that alone is absolutely liberating. This post just suits to be one of those must-get-it-out-of-my-system kind of things. Some people are, simply put, personal manifestations of nails on a chalkboard (or my personal aural nemesis--Styrofoam vs. Styrofoam).

Today, I love everything. Even that guy.

Perspective, perspective, perspective

Rarely will my boss ever say anything that strums a positive chord with me. Generally if she's speaking to me, I picture myself rolling my eyes (and pray to God I don't actually roll them) and try to stave off tears of frustration. But the other day during a particularly hairy lunch, she said, "Just remember, no matter what, there's always someone out there who's got it worse off than you." I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to sucker-punch her for pulling out the pep-talk but then she came back with, "and when you think about it--there's some poor schmuck out there who's got it worse off than any of us."
At first I was oddly touched by the use of the word "us", which indicated that she was also feeling overwhelmed and understaffed. It's a rare occasion when I feel like she knows what it feels like to be one of us. Measly, peasant employees.

Later, as I was slicing meats and cheeses for the next day's lunch, my mind wandered to that guy. That guy who's got it worse than all of us. I'm sure everyone would choose someone else to be That Guy based on his or her own standard of horribleness but in my world, there's a quadriplegic in Papua New Guinea. He has a gluten allergy and his hut is in danger of foreclosure. This morning, when his girlfriend was making his oatmeal, she turned and tripped and splattered all of the hot cereal all over his face and hands. She, then, started in with "it's not you it's me" and "let's just be friends". Now he's a burn victim without a girlfriend or health insurance.

"My mother always told me that, even when things seem bad, there's someone else who's having a worse day. Like being stung by a bee, or getting a splinter, or being chained to a wall in someone's sex dungeon." --Kenneth Purcell

When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Get Mavricky.

Before we moved to South Dakota, I bought a microwave. I felt like I'd been living off things that other roommates had for too long and it was high time that I contribute to our living situation. I saw a need, I went to Target, and I filled that need. And, I know it sounds a little ridiculous because it's a dumb kitchen appliance but I felt a strange little attachment to it. Anyone who knows me know that it's not out of the ordinary for me to feel camaraderie with inanimate objects.

Well, I abandoned SoDak long before my roommate did, so I just left the microwave with her and she'd get it back to me. It was cool and that's how it all happened.

Well here's what happened next. We met in a Chipotle parking lot and Mr. JD stuck this guy in my trunk and we were all on our happy way. Until a few days later when I was in a pretty serious car accident. The day after the accident, Alyssa took me to the junk yard to get the stuff out of the trunk. I wedged it open and saw boxes exploded and papers spilled but my dear and loving microwave was perfectly unharmed. We hoisted it out and bid adieu to Clarence the Cadillac. "It was nice knowing you, Bub."

That was all a few months ago. Since then, the microwave has been in a garage--kept safe for storage awaiting this weekend when I would plug him in and we would again be joined in kinship and frozen dinner gladness. The timer works. The light works. The door works. The heating thingamijob does not work. And he is deadish. And I am too broke to purchase another one and a little too disinterested to try and fix it.

So I, being a modern day woman and a go-getter of sorts, tell myself that it's not a problem--I'll just cook on the stove top. That's what I prefer anyhow! Except that I just went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of single-person microwavable food. Again, I'm too broke to just go purchase more food. So here's to creativity!

I have that microwave Chinese food that is delicious and comes in little take out boxes. That company makes the most delicious potstickers that you're just supposed to microwave into instant gladness. Well, I needed some potstickers in me. So I pulled out my one skillet and dumped a bunch of these frozen dumplings into it and thought, "Hhhhow is this going to work?" I put a little water in, covered it (with a lit that was much too small, but you work with what you've got) and then cooked it until all the water was evaporated and those little guys got brown and crispy. And you know what? They were much more freakin' delicious than they ever could have been in the microwave. When you nuke them, they don't get brown and crunchy. While I was cleaning up my mess I realized that there are stove top directions on the side of the box.

After doing some research (I Googled "how the hell am I supposed to cook without a microwave?") it turns out that there's a whole movement of sans-microwave living. It's the new green thing and you know how I like to be on top of environmental trends like that, I have recycled aluminum foil in my cupboard and Scott's brand natural toilet paper under the sink. I still don't know how I feel about that whole movement but I'm going to be completely honest with you, I like the package design and that's why I buy it. I'm that shallow. Once I decide my position on the Green Movement I'll let you know.*

So here I am with my stove and my oven and my vegetable steaming basket. I'll let you know how all of that goes for me. Hey, maybe I won't get cancer! Who knows?

Libby

*Sub-point: My friend, Ryan, was in a park in Colorado a few weeks ago and saw signs that read, "Do the Green thing! Clean up after your dogs!" We all thought that was a little ridiculous on account of the fact that leaving excrement in the woods is probably the "Greenest" thing a person could possibly do.

I am always where I need to be and I always thought I would end up with you eventually.

I'm right where I need to be. In bed (a real bed) with my computer (after a long day without any Facebook access) and a big hunk of Coconut Cream Pie. God--can life feel any more gracious than it does right now? Probably, but right now feels (physically) pretty damn good.

Emotionally, I'm a tad unsettled. I just signed a year-long lease and wrote a check for over seven hundred dollars. I'm not sure I've ever had that much money in the bank before (you know, as a result of good, old fashioned honest-day's work anyway) and now that I do I'm giving it over to this guy. This really nice guy who pays the majority of the utilities and takes very good care of his tenants. And on top of that, I'm telling him that I'll write him a dozen similar (though not so spendy) checks in the coming months.

Anyone who knows most things about me knows that I'm not really a commitment-phobe, I crave and beg for it, actually. Too often I've been on the heavy end of a lop-sided relationship, knowing good and well that I gave way more than what was expected/ wanted of me. There's something about committing to this place, though, that makes me feel a little in over my head. Before this, there had always been a clear plan about what the next step would be but right now I'm pretty sure I don't know where we're going after this. Which is fine, I have until Aug. 31, 2010 to figure that out.

There's one thing I know for sure, for the next six months I will be saying "I'm never moving again!!" That will be a lie, of course. But God, I really hate moving. Especially after coming off an incredibly tiring week at work (but, hey! I put in 39 hours and 54 minutes). But it's coming together swell. I know exactly where I want to hang my Monster Art. I will show you pictures as soon as I can. I want you to see what it says in the back of my freezer. I want to invite you over for a Woodchuck. You can tell me how to arrange my living room.

I need to put you to bed, though. I'm 3/4 of the way through The Lovely Bones and I've never been so hooked to a novel like I am to this one. The suspense is killing me--figuratively, of course. Obviously.

The Change I Want to See

Everyone came home from Nebraska. Safe and sound. I was a little surprised, if we're being totally honest. I think an itty bitty part of me expected them to get into an accident. Restitution for me being so thrilled to have alone time. I got restitution enough, after only a few hours I was bored out of my mind and missed the babies. I missed the babies every day. But I got used to it and now I'm primed and ready to have an apartment all to myself (on Friday).

I did a few fun things though. I drove to Lindsborg (little Sweden) and wandered around taking in Lingonberries wherever I could. Vegan baked goods--not good. I tried to give them a real honest shot. I tried to give them a more than honest shot. But alas. Gross. I watched the meteor shower. I walked in the rain to the movie theatre and watched Funny People. I had such a low-key week.

Aaaand I'm tired. I'm trying to decide if I really fucked up my knee or if I just am experiencing pain from standing for 9 hours today. After I got home, I sat on the couch and read to Genesis and when supper was ready I popped up to run to the kitchen with her but found my knee in such immense pain that I couldn't hold myself up anymore and crashed to the ground. I sat on the ground for a while moving my leg back and forth to get it going again and I was fine. Well, I haven't really been "fine" in a while. When I'm not at work I walk with a limp. I don't know where it came from and I can't really tell what it is exactly that hurts but it does.

So, then I called all of the places where I put in my resume--all of the places that remembered me and seemed excited about me, and they all said, "The position has been filled." Subsequently I told my boss that I wasn't going to be leaving and that I'd be happy to take over Alisha's hours when she leaves at the end of the week. The truth is that I'm not totally happy to take over Alisha's hours at all and I don't really want to keep working here. But if everything goes as planned (and, let's be honest, it rarely does), this is a temporary gig. I'm not anxious to start planning Phase Two (or what phase are we on? 136?) anytime soon but I am aware that this won't be forever. I'm also aware that I'm now considering myself a writer--that's what I want to do. Until I can make money doing that, I'll have to make money doing something else and this is a decent something else. Especially since more than ten percent of the current population doesn't have a fall back plan.

But more than anything else I decided that if I won't be changing my job, then I absolutely need to be changing my attitude. On Saturday I was in such a goofy mood. I got in to work and everyone was tired and weary and complainy. But I had been in such a weird little mood and I didn't feel like being irritated along with them. I had three cups of coffee and Weezer stuck in my head. I was throwing ice into glasses and wiping down tables and taking orders and doing the robot for my co-workers while singing, "You'll never do (slap the counter) the things you want (slap the counter) if you don't move (slap the counter) and get a job. Waste my days! Drown away! It's just the thouuught of yoouuu in love with someone else." And you know what happened? We all started doing the robot and laughing and no one else was being tortured by coming in to work. I started thinking, "What if I was that person that people looked forward to working with? What if I didn't feed the discontentment the way that everyone else did? What if I was the girl who did the robot when we were slow?" And that's my new mission. Might as well grow where you're planted, I suppose.

I would like to hold your hand as we're shifting through this twisted abandon. I would like to think that you'd know your way.

The other day at work, Alisha (someone you all would dig, very much) was training me (to do a job that I already know how to do. It irritated the both of us, but you do what the boss wants, do you not?) and just showing me the ways that she does stuff. Like, how she opens five-gallon buckets of pickles and how she goes about slicing meat--that sort of thing. She opened up a green pepper and, before discarding it, she holds up the bulb from the middle that is covered and patterned so specifically with seeds and she said, "Ah! I love this. I wish everyone had to do this, you know? Share all their weird idiosyncrasies with one another." It was a simple passing comment and I quickly turned that green pepper into perfectly sliced little rings and people ate them on their sandwiches.

But comments beget thoughts and thoughts beget blogs and this one is a list of my weirdnesses (It's a word. My spell check says it's a word.)

I've been writing 2006 on all of my checks ever since I opened this account. It could be that I'm dyslexic. It could be that I quite possibly haven't written a check since 2006. It's not really an idiosyncrasy--it's just something about me that's bugging me.

I have a tendency to speak in lists and bullet points. If we're speaking, you will most likely hear me say something in the format of, "And, you see, the reason I'll never drink a Sonic cream slush is twofold: A. I can't get down with the conflicting textures and B. I had a long swig of what I thought was an iced tea but turned out to be a four-hour old cream slush and it didn't end well." I do this for two reasons: 1. In high school I thought it was funny and by the time I realized it wasn't, it was a habit too ingrained to be removed. 2. I want you to know that both points hold equal weight when it comes to my reasoning.

I say I love the Beatles but I don't think I really do all that much. I like them, but I like it a lot more when someone covers the Beatles than when I really hear their original songs. I say I don't like Coldplay but when they show up in places I'm usually more soothed than I was before they came to play.

One of my most favorite... things? I hate to say the word "thing" but I can't pinpoint what it is, exactly. I'll start over. You know what I love to do? Cucumbers. Split them long-ways down the center and then drag a spoon through the guts to pull the seeds out. God it's a good feeling. The chopping is nice, too but it's the seeding that I savor.

Here's a good one you don't know. On long drives, specifically if I'm the one driving, my little brain will almost inevitably drift to sex. Everything about it. Every time. It usually doesn't stop, either, until I reach my destination or a gas-station where I buy a bag of Fun-Yuns and get distracted. If you and I have ever been in the car together for longer than an hour or so, I can almost guarantee that I stopped listening to anything you were saying or playing on your ipod and started thinking about effing--maybe even with you. Lucky you. (Eyebrows up, closed-mouth smirk, heavy nod)

I don't sing in the shower but that is where I practice my skat. I want to know how to skat so bad. It's just--it seems easy but it's not.

I love having the morning all to myself. I love waking up by myself and taking a shower with the door open and making my coffee in my underpants. I love preparing for my day before going out and giving it a go. But I hate spending my nights alone. Once the sun starts going down, I flip through my contacts list trying to find someone to call. I usually don't call, though, because I want to train myself to be okay at night by myself but so far (and I'm a few weeks from being twenty-six, by now) it hasn't really worked. I like to sleep with others. I like a warm body in bed next to me but I can't handle touching. I like the mornings to myself but I don't want to sleep in bed alone--you just can't have your cake and eat it, too. That's just the way it is, I suppose.

Don't be mad at me for not ever telling some of you this, but I love cigarettes. When I was in college, I got in the habit of smoking one cigarette per semester during finals week. Finals was always subliminally very insane, like a week-long full moon. I tried to take nothing personally during that week. I tried to extend vast amounts of patience and grace but I always needed one cigarette. That has spilled over into my non-scholastic life and I smoke once every six months. One at a time. I smoke when I miss my dad and I need to feel him in some physical way. So I sit on a porch and smoke from this pack of Basic Lights that I've had for about 3 years. I hold it in my lungs and let it settle into my hair and my clothes and collect in my throat and it smells just like him. I keep it at twice a year for a few reasons that I could list in bullet point fashion, but I'll spare you. For starters I don't want another addiction--I have enough and I couldn't really afford to be a smoker. For finishers, I need my dad. I need to be able to bring him to me when I'm at my lowest and I'm afraid that if I lit up anymore frequently than that, then I would lose the punch and the comfort. It happens so infrequently that I'm very bad at ashing. I can never flick it in a way to get the ashes to fall off nicely.

Well, that will do for now.
I told myself that I wasn't going to--but I am going to get some Chinese food. Egg rolls and almond chicken.

We would be warm below the storm in our little hideaway beneath the waves. Resting our head on the sea bed in an octopus's garden near a cave.

I am anxious to write a blog two times in as many days, but I'm going to do it anyway because I'm here and you're not. I sometimes feel sad when there is only zero or one comment waiting to be read but I also know that I don't know anyone who writes anything more than once every couple of weeks anyway so I know they're just not around. But, let's get real for just a second, I feel a little lonely and I think that's the only time I ever blog. But comments. No comments. It doesn't matter--I'm going to write something else anyway.

I had a cup of coffee about an hour ago. It's currently 11:05 pm. There was a time when I would be very intentional about my caffeine intake--times, amounts, types. There was also a time when I gave a damn about what I was like in the mornings. These days I've been known to go more than one day without a shower. And for that I sincerely apologize to my co-workers. But not enough to get into the shower. It's not as if I'm not up. I've usually been up for close to three hours before I go to work (on Thursday The Wizard of Oz played one and a half times before I left). It's the water pressure. It's the water pressure that makes me crazy and makes showering such an impossible chore that I would rather apply and re-apply deodorant than go to the trouble of taking off my clothes and running around under the fall of water that can, at best, be described as an insignificant dribble.

It's significantly later than when I started writing (I got distracted) but I'm sitting here at my laptop on the new sofa after everyone else has gone to bed and I'm in my zone. And someone knocks on the door. So, what do I do? I turn off the light in the living room. Is there a more obvious way to pretend to have not heard a knock at the door? I submit that there is not. And that I am a coward. My initial thought was that whoever was at the door had designs on murdering me. It wasn't until a few minutes later that I thought about the idea that that was one quite polite murderer--to leave after I "pretended" to be out. Damnit. It was probably Ryan. It sounded like a Ryan knock. Stupid me.

A few months ago I saw this guy on Oprah. Oh--wait--let's back up and I'll open this the way that everyone opens a story like this: "Now I don't normally watch Oprah... but I was flipping through the channels and..." I'm going to be honest with you, though, a few months ago I did watch Oprah with some regularity and with some excitement. Daytime television is the drug of choice for the underployed.

Okay, so a few months ago I saw this guy on Oprah. I didn't learn much about it because I was, I don't know, probably talking to Alyssa about being pregnant (What did we talk about before she got pregnant? Oh yeah, wedding planning. What did we talk about before that? God only knows. We probably paid attention to Oprah.) We saw this guy and I thought, "He's cute. Oh look. He has a baby. Oh look, his baby is dressed fabulously. He listens to Wilco. Cool dad." And today I somehow, magically happened upon his blog and I haven't stopped reading it except to write my own (insignificant in comparison) post and to read other strangers' blogs.

His name is Matt and he was friends with Liz back in '96. And he fell in love with Liz. And then he started dating Liz. And he dated Liz for 8 years and he loved her that whole time. And they got married. And he still loved her that whole time. And Liz got pregnant. And he loved her even more. And Liz had a baby and they both loved her. Her name is Maddie. And when Maddie was 27 hours old, a blood clot killed her mom. And Matt loves her still. And he still talks about her daily. I know because I've read his blog all day. And he's a single dad with a gorgeous girl and impeccable taste. In clothes. In music. In facial hair. In literature. Under different circumstances we would be friends. It's a pretty serious example of one-day-at-a-time living. It's a pretty serious example of taking advantage of friends and resources available to us. It's a pretty serious example of the sort of impossible shit that happens every day. And while it makes me scared--nay, terrified to love anything too hard again, it makes me want to be capable of such a broken heart.

I'm reading about how he has to plan road trips that coincide with his anniversary as means of distraction because he can't handle being in the house or by himself. I'm reading about how he's prompted to think of her by things that they didn't even have in common. I'm reading about how he has breakdowns and how leaves his daughter with her doting relatives and goes to bars with his friends. I want to be friends with Matt. I get the impression that so do most of the women in America, though, according to the comments on his blog. He's just got one of those qualities that I require in my most serious of friendships. Resilience and complexity that errs on the side of whimsical with an awareness of that ache that we've all got. I need these people around me. I need people who know that it all pretty much has an overwhelming sucky vibe but at least there is still ice cream and knock-knock jokes. And You. And you know I couldn't wake up tomorrow if you weren't in my corner--knowing that I was in yours, too.

What about taking this empty cup and filling it up with a little bit more of innocence.

After I got home from work yesterday, I took all of my clothes downstairs and put them in the washing machine. It's about 18 hours later and I just now remembered. Welcome the icky musty smell of old wet laundry.

I've been going to church very regularly. This is weird for me and, if we're getting down to bare-bones honesty, I think that most of my reason for going is so that I get a semblance of some alone time. I love Genesis and Amos and even Adam and Arryn. Of course I love them all so bad and I'm very grateful to have their couch to crash on--but I'm a woman who is used to having extensive amounts of time to herself. I relish the drive from here to church and then to be able to just sit there by myself for an hour. The only part I really hate is the 28 seconds of "meet and greet" time where people I don't know and will never know look at me with these glazed over smiles, reach out their hand to me and then make eye-contact with another person while they're still holding my hand. But that's 28 seconds out of a full hour and a half and I can concede to that.

But here's the best part. If I go to the early service, which starts at 8:00, then I get home right after Adam and Arryn and the kids have left for their church (which is, like, four hours long and very painful to sit through if you ask me) and I'm all alone until around 1:30. Sweet, sweet silence. Here's how I spend my time:
First things first. I reheat the coffee and pull up my Mr. A-Z Pandora station and dance with myself while listening to Van Morrison and Lili Allen streaming through the sound on the television. Nothing ups this girl's mood like "Brown Eyed Girl". And then I come check out who all has updated their blogs in the past week or so and the answer is usually, "No one. Not even Jon Brown." And after I email and facebook and do this business for a while then I find a book without pictures and veg out in my not-leaving-the-house-pants while drinking more coffee.

Usually when I express a need for some alone-ness, I'm greeted with a condescending reality check along the lines of "well this is what living with kids is like--it's constant, all the time and you have to give them all of you all the time." And that's true. But, I feel the need to remind them that they were the ones who got pregnant on purpose and had babies on purpose. I didn't ask for kids. I know it sounds horrendous. Most of the time when I say that I don't want children of my own, I'm greeted with gasps and looks like I'm a monster. As though the fact that I have a uterus--through no choice of my own mind you, admonishes me to use it and love doing it. I'm not eating babies, people. I'm just not going to have one. If a man doesn't want to have babies, it's not a big deal and more than acceptable. If a woman doesn't want to, everyone within earshot is suddenly the victim of a social crime.

I have all the respect in the word for people who choose to parent and who love their children the way that Adam and Arryn do. And I have all the love in my whole being for these kids. I didn't even know I was capable of love like this. I'm constantly surprised by my own selflessness on their behalf. I'm never angry when they wake me up at 6:00 am. I'm happy to open bananas for Genesis and I have no qualms with changing the most repulsive diapers or figuring out how to clean an itty-bitty uncircumcised penis. But I can't do it like Arryn can. Arryn seems to never tire of it. She's never cranky or loses her temper with them. She's always got her wits about her and responds in the best possible manner. She always knows the very root of a temper tantrum and gets to the quick of it without bothering with all the superficial screaming.

I sometimes wonder what kind of a mother I would turn out to be if it happened. I'm getting the tiniest taste of it right now and I think I'd be pretty good at basically keeping the kid alive. Which is half the battle but then you have to consider that this kid also has a psyche. I guess I'd just have to do my best to stay away from emotional terrorism and hope that the kid doesn't grow up and skin cats. That's the best we can hope for, I suppose. And that is why I'll be the cool aunt who gives the best birthday presents and takes you to get your first tattoo when you come to visit for the summer in exciting cities with artistic characters and writer-types.

But first, a cheerful comic:

I've been biting my fingernails more than I can ever remember doing it before. Today I have two bleeding cuticles and it hurts to hit the space bar. This makes me feel really disappointed and guilty. Why am I regressing? I hadn't bitten my nails in over a year and they were gorgeous and now I can't stop. I can not stop and I can't remember what ordered the cease and desist in the first place. They really were gorgeous. I don't remember what it was that motivated me to stop, but I remember that I replaced the biting with incessant filing and then once they were even, I just let them grow like crazy. It's time to go back to keeping a file in my back pocket. Now I'm just looking at my ugly, stumpy fingers thinking to myself, "what the hell did you do that for?!" I've relapsed a couple of times over the past year but this has been going on for weeks. I can't help feeling like it wasn't an accident. I think that as much as I've grown to love myself over the past few years, there's still a little bit of me that wants to sabotage all the good and make my cuticles bleed. I think it's the same bit that zooms in on pimples and tooth-gaps and slouching in pictures of myself that other people seem to really like. Why we must insist on keeping ourselves in the worst light imaginable, I'll never know.

I'll tell you what I do like, however. My haircut. I've been talking about getting it cut for weeks but knew I wouldn't really do it. Then, last weekend, I was hanging out with Alyssa and we were bored. I said, "we could get haircuts" in a yeah-right sort of way. Next thing I know, she's scheduled us 1:30's at Regency. We were the only people in the place and we had a great time. I told the girl that I had no idea how I wanted it cut, just long in the front and short in the back and lots and lots of short layers. And together we came up with this--the most grown-up haircut I think I've ever had. And I still have yet to get a photograph. I love it. I don't even mind that it's still two different colors.

I have started to hate my job--kind of a lot. I noticed that everyone there hates it and talk about how they should quit but they've all been there for almost two years. So I thought that I should fix things before I'm in the same position as them. And I started applying for jobs that I think I would be good at and that I would like. I applied at the hospital for an Admissions Clerk. That's my kind of jam. I called them today just to make sure that they got my stuff and the HR lady was so excited to talk to me. She said that they're not accustomed to getting resumes for non-certified positions and that they're very interested in me and she knew my name as soon as I introduced myself. I think that looks promising.

I don't know if this post shows it or not--but things are looking good from my perspective. I'm excited for the future. I sign my lease in a little under 3 weeks. If the hospital job pays enough (and it should) and, of course, if I get it--I will even be able to exist sans-roommate. I like the idea of having a guest room for my visitors. It'll give my little brother a place to crash when he's here on leave and it will give me an office where I can hopefully write. I can't wait to have a writing space. But, if the universe decides to land me with a roommate--it will be alright. I'll not worry about it, it could be a great situation. That's still weeks away.

Sugar and spice and everything nice,
Libby