And this morning, my boss inadvertently gave me another reminder of that. I am so grateful for that. I know I’ve talked about it 1000 times in this space (but it’s my space, and I’ll repeat myself if I want to) but I still don’t know that I will be able to properly convey how much this job has truly been among the things that saved my life since I came back to Jersey in shame two years ago. July 17, 2008, actually. That was the date I knew I was coming back, and that I was coming back for awhile.  Six weeks later I was very lucky to start this job. This job made me feel capable of something again, even when it was just putting together a bunch of meeting materials. My boss’s awesomeness is why March 18, 2009 and everything after were not nearly as horrible as they could have been. This job saved my life.

Joe’s been in California, apartment hunting, so I haven’t been harassing him with my usual rounds of cover letters and questions. He emailed last night to agree to feed my cat next week (even though the cat is a racist) and I can’t wait to tell him about My Plan. I would not even be capable of thinking about making this plan if it were not for Joe being my sounding board and support system. He said recently, that he never would have imagined the weird friendship we’ve developed, where we hang out and talk endlessly about careers and existential crises (mostly mine) and dating. I’m sure there’s a sector of the population who would call it fate that I ran into him one morning at the bus stop in O-town, almost three years ago now. That, and several other bus rides, is how he came to be the person who drove me to work the week I was stuck and who reads constant drafts of my schizo cover letters. Joe has saved my life.

Joe is also the reason that Brent and I talk now, constantly exchange emails. We’ll never be the same as we used to, but we shouldn’t. He was still there at my one year in March, because he understood why it was such a big deal. They all did. My old friends have saved my life.

I had actual work to do this morning; a change of pace, as summer here has been dead. Last summer, I exchanged countless emails and was distracted by dozens of gchats with people from Message-Board-of-Note. David, I hardly think of as being from there anymore, such a good friend he was to me when I really needed it. I still have the text message he sent me after that awful, awful seven days that started with the ride to Chicago and ended with my in the hospital: “You have yourself to get better for you jackass. What else would you need?” David has saved my life.

The rest, some who I’ve met, some who I haven’t, made me feel as if I was part of something other than just my head. From these internet strangers, I’ve gotten career advice, CDs in the mail, and, with Ellie, countless hours of ridiculous conversation about Hugh Laurie, kittens, and petty-judgmental-thoughts. They made me laugh, they agreed that O-L-B was a jerk, they looked after me via text message, and once, at thirteen days, when I fretted how little time that was, Timothy replied “No, do you know how many HOURS that is? Right now, 13 days is awesome.”  The Message-Board-of-Note saved my life.

And then there’s me, who bemoaned the fact that 2010 is half over, and that I’ve gotten nowhere. That, on a Friday afternoon, I am sitting barefooted and cross-legged in front of my computer at the same job that saved my life, unmotivated to finished the three job applications that are 3/4^th done, and also, already ready to give up on dating because it isn’t that much fun, and the distraction it provides isn’t worth the opportunity cost. I am twenty seven years old, very much single, and still answering phones, among my many other responsibilities. (“Would you stop that. You’re not,” my boss insisted this morning when I referred to myself as “one of the little people” ((because it’s always “the little people” that bring down big companies)))

But I am 190 or so days into 2010, whereas two years ago, I didn’t even know 190 hours. I’m pretty pragmatic (some days, pessimistic), still filled with regrets for the could haves, would haves, and should haves, and still could afford to lose at least another five pounds.

But there are days that I hope. There are days that I am able imagine that I will one day have a life that is not this. I still can’t picture myself with someone else, and I can’t imagine a successful career, and really, there’s nothing tangible in my vision of My Plan. But there’s just this vague sense that I can do something else, and that one day, I will have a life again, that things will get better, because they already are. I am quite far away from the depths of Depression and darkness and utter stupidity that made my life a living hell for most of 2007 and 2008.

And I got myself here. I proved my worth and I got myself this job. And then, after many false starts, I rallied the troops and I finally got myself the help I needed, that came in ways I never expected it could. And that’s why, on an ordinary Friday afternoon, I’m sitting here writing this sappy, over the top, melodramatic entry, because I didn’t really realize what happened.

Because somehow, when I wasn’t paying attention, I managed something I didn’t know I was attempting.

I saved my life.  

I am going to actually LEAVE THE OFFICE during my lunch break, because I don’t know, fresh air, or some such nonsense. But it never fails: I go out (and while this is, in sum, likely healthier than sitting in front of the computer for that hour) and am so disappointed to return to an empty inbox.

(I really need to get a life) ((I KNOW THAT! THAT IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO)) (I am talking to myself via parentheticals. Clearly progress is stalled)

Fact: I will never get a new job or a boyfriend.

And yes, I know that is entirely too fatalistic, and that if I were the type of blogger who had many readers, I would likely get a dozen comments about how that is not true. However, I will never, nor to I aspire to, be the type of blogger with a lot of readers (probaby because I have a bad attitude) and so when I make this statement, I am not fishing for comments but merely admitting to myself that that is what I feel (and fear). Putting it in words means that it is real, so I am loathe to do so, but there is it.

I am not supposed to fear; in fact, fear is supposed to be the enemy, the underlying source of all misery (that is what I have been told, over and over again). But it is there. I haven’t had one in person interview (other than the Libertarian fellowship) and in the past 6 months I’ve generally managed to be waiting on one possibility at almost all times. (It helped that one company took two months of interviewing to reject me). Now I am not waiting on any possibilities, I just have applications out that will not get responses. I am out of places to look. My network is quiet. I am back down to no leads, no prospects, and no hope.

As for boys, I haven’t been on a date in more than two years, if you can even call O-L-B a date, which is likely even more pathetic.

I’m going to go for a drive now, and try to resurrect the decent mood I was clinging on to this morning. Self pity is not a pretty color on me.

And then there’s my wretched inability to focus, and the fact that I’m stretching for something to write about today, which is a bad sign, given that it’s only Day 4. And the corollary to my lack of focus is that items on my overly ambitious to do list remain uncrossed. (To-do lists are another thing I cannot do with complete sincerity. I don’t know what my problem is, except Charlotte probably knows what I mean, because she is my blogging soul mate, and David would probably know too)

And let’s not even get into my vague melancholy about the five year college reunion that I have no desire to attend, but it’s only because I have no reason to attend, and part of me wishes I had a reason to attend, and that sentence makes no sense.

I am inclined to complain today…but

I couldn’t figure out what to write today (a bad sign, since it’s only Day 4) and so I resorted to trolling through my archives. Amongst the daydream of a dual-degree program and the amusing things my friends say, there was this, what I called a “State of the Rachel”  entry.

I feel like I don’t need one of those now, I’ve been writing often enough that I don’t need to update myself on the fact that I’m frustrated with being marooned in Jersey, that I’m bored, that I’m unfocused. But in that entry, I wondered how the hell I was going to do “this” for another six months.

The “this” that I was referring to ended.

So while I am inclined to complain today…

I must say to myself (grudgingly) that this too shall pass. Even my next post, at this time last year, believed just that. And although the Promised Land Keith speaks of is still far away (and, in fact, may never be, in that iteration, for reasons unrelated to me), this is not the same place that I was last June.

Last June I didn’t have the option to leave work at 3PM on a Friday, let alone apply for a job. (Last June, I was also daydreaming of dual degree programs. A JD + an MA in international relations, because I enjoy collecting advanced degrees. It’s a good thing that as a woman, I reserve the right to change my mind, because there’s two issues with that daydream now. I don’t want to go to law school. And I don’t want to be a lawyer. You can see how this would be a problem) Last June, it was all about getting through the day, and also surviving to November.

And while I am inclined to complain today…

(Because my job sometimes depresses me, and weekends can get lonely, and I miss the city)

I have to force myself (again, grudgingly. I am incapable of doing this with complete sincerity) to acknowledge the good things. Like I came home yesterday to find a box from Starbucks containing bags of my favorite coffee, a gift from my bosses. Because really, I have the best bosses ever. And there’s another job somewhere that I might actually want to work, and so if there’s a posting, and I can get an application together, than at least there’s a chance, however slim the possibility may be. (Although I’m still not sure if it’s even a good idea to think positively of the existence of slim possibilities). And in the midst of depressing days, Message Board of Note can still, on occasion, make me laugh.

And maybe, if I keep telling myself all this, I will start to believe it.

I should get this in before the WordPress backend crashes on me again.

The day started off poorly (forgetting my travel mug full of freshly brewed coffee on the counter) and while it would be too much to call the morning a slow and steady decline, the plateau is not very pleasant. Actually, if you want to start my day by the clock then my after midnight check of my work email, the neurotic replies I composed in my head, and the junk food I ate can definitely be added to the column of “reasons why this is not going to be a banner day.”

I am currently attempting to compose a cover letter because “what else is new.”  What I really need is a means to concentrate on something for more than 30 seconds at a time.  Same old story; the situation is suitably bleak enough to sap your motivation, which is self defeating, because not doing anything is certainly not going to get you anywhere. David and I are currently having our usual conversation about bleakness and other career related woes that are too depressing to go into. David and I are both intelligent, talented people with (I think) a lot to offer, yet we both find ourselves unhireable.

We should go into business together, although doing what, I have no idea. We are the people that pull off the impossible and the incredible at zero hour, but we do it in situations and circumstances where there is no opportunity for recognition or reward. And yes, we have both tried the avenue of being your own advocate. Working for dying offices is not a place to nuture talent.

I get asked to do all sorts of crazy things, develop new skills on the fly, and I always pull it off admirably, with no time and no budget. You’d think that’d be something that’s valued.

Instead, I’m hiding out in my boss’s office, because my cube is in a high traffic area, and they’re loud today. Instead, I waste my mid-now-late 20s endlessly tweaking a resume that’s getting me nowhere. I know that this is the only subject I write about; that it’s boring, it’s endless, and that you all wish I would quit my whining.

I wish that too. But what I really wish is that I could find a place where I could be productive, where I could actually do something.  I just want to be found valuable.

I’m sure my therapist would have a field day with that one.

And then I pull back, and there is STILL this reluctance to complain, because it’s not as bad as The-Job-That-Wasn’t. I was sort of relating this to a co-worker last week, that no matter how upset I get about things at work, it was so bad at The-Job-That-Wasn’t, that I really can’t let myself get too bereft. She likened it to an abusive relationship; (“at least this job doesn’t hit me!”) which is overstating the case a bit, but accurate in a black-humor way.

It’s not just the job that’s getting to me. My undergrad is having a 5 year reunion in June, and there’s a facebook group for it, and I stupidly looked through pictures people are posting and got depressed. I knew maybe one person in any of the pictures, but they’re all having typical collegiate fun and reminiscing and blah blah blah I-Had-A-Lousy-College-Experience. Some people are traumatized by their high school experiences and you just want to tell them to get over it. Some days, I’m still not over the fact that I missed out on the college experience. I don’t have friends from college, I don’t have pictures from college, I don’t have memories from college. It was 3.5 years I got through as quickly as I could. Most of the time I am over this, and have made my peace with it.

Occasionally, the resentment and anger at myself creeps up and then I just start thinking about how I wish I could have done it all differently, and how different my life could be right now (different how, I’m not sure) and really, it’s just messy self-pity that really shouldn’t be indulged.

Also, “Welcome to Whereever You Are” came up on iPod shuffle on my way to work and it made me teary. (“You’re caught between just who you are/and who you want to be”) Clearly the stress is getting to me.

And then also; May is going to suck. So much is going on at work. I’ll make some money from overtime, but I also haven’t applied to one job this week and the whole month of May is looking to be the same type of frentic pace. And also; it’s already May.

Last night, in one of my half written drafts, I started to think about a May, a ten years ago May, a May that was dreaded and referred to only in hushed tones, but that, when it arrived, my utter impatience had already forced the issues and dealt with the fallout, which softened the blow once May actually arrived. I think of six years ago May, which was eerily the same, in which I viewed more sunrises than in the rest of my life combined and drank black coffee at 2 in the morning. Four years ago May was about silence and quiet regrouping and the beginning of the best of times. Two years ago May was bold faced lies to myself and everyone around me as I pretended to get well.

While one year ago May was just about survival, this May was supposed to be about another beginning. I warned Keithers that I might not have a job by May, that the job market was tough, but really, I’m pretty sure that a part of me was sure I’d have a job in DC by now. In February, May always seems far away and like a time where things will be different.

This May is about false hopes and real, but vague longing and trying not to get depressed about my 27th birthday. May reminds me of New York and makes me desperately miss lunch breaks in Midtown and the way the city shimmers at 9PM on a Thursday and it makes me ask “DC who?” This May is weekends at work, for overtime pay to stash away for a financially secure exit to who the hell knows where, and brings the reminder that I’m not going anywhere this summer except back and forth on the oh-so-familiar curves of Route 287.

April is allegedly the cruelest month, but I can’t find a one word way to sum up May. I just want to get through these thirty-one days. Starting the countdown from today.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/04/30/thirty-two-days/feed/ 1 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/04/16/friday-hodgepodge/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/04/16/friday-hodgepodge/#comments Fri, 16 Apr 2010 14:24:53 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6709 I have a few not-even-half written posts sitting in my draft folder. It’s been a weird week. After the latest rejection, I combated my wallowing with my version of Damage Control. This translated into my first fledgling attempts at networking and a revised (again) resume. Joe did say that the new one is “impressive,” so I guess something good has come from the rejection. However, the thought that immediately follows is along the lines of “So what? It isn’t doing me any good NOW.”

I am impatient, etc, etc. I’ve expressed that here a thousand times. Nothing new to see here. Intellectually I know that, theoretically, this super-improved resume could make a difference, but the job post pickings have been slim all of April.  I’m so sick of thinking about this.

And I also don’t have anything else to write about. It’s like I can’t wrap my brain around any other subject. The only activities I’ve been doing are reading YA/kids books (I can’t concentrate on anything ‘real’) and online window shopping. I find myself keeping the TV on in the background but not actually watching it, so low is my concentration level.

Things keeping me sane, or at least keeping me from being too insane: Joe, various random e-mail conversations, the fact that I’ve been managing to keep my room in order, and that in some outfits, it certainly seems as if I’ve lost weight. I don’t weighmyself, so I don’t really know if that’s accurate, but my clothes have been fitting slightly differently.

Things making me insane: Impending office move (and the need to pack/archive/sort through literally thousands of files, the lack of job postings, and online application systems – I hate them.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/04/16/friday-hodgepodge/feed/ 1 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/04/12/blatant-wallowing/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/04/12/blatant-wallowing/#comments Tue, 13 Apr 2010 02:49:52 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6704 I had another post about how my weekend was (gym 2 times!) and the waiting, but then I got an answer on one of my jobs that I was waiting on and I didn’t feel like writing anymore.

I applied for and got a phone interview for another Libertarian Job and got the email today that I was not accepted for another round of interviews.

For all the frustrations, even going back to the Libertarian Fellowship, this rejection is the one that has set me off.

I am so unbelievably angry and frustrated and upset. I am to the point where I am personalizing the rejection, even though I know that is absolutely irrational. I am in this head space where I am MAD at these organizations, who are made up of all these people who were probably outcasts in high school and are now reveling in being totally exclusive. In fact, I even wrote a few years ago about how libertarians don’t really want to spread the movement. We [They] like being tiny and exclusive; there’s a sense of pride about it. And so basically, I am NEVER going to break in. I’d have had a greater chance of being asked to sit at the popular girls table in middle school.

I know this sounds terribly petty and sour grapes and whatever of me. It’s not coming from a rational place; it’s a strictly emotional reaction, compounded by the fact that there’s nothing to apply for this week.

I would be good at these positions I’m applying for. And more than anything, I want to be part of the libertarian scene in DC. When I write it out like that, it looks pitiful. I never aspired to sit at the popular girls table in middle school; I didn’t like them, and I didn’t get why anyone would. And truth be told, if I did get what I want, I’m sure I still wouldn’t feel like I fit in; I’d undoubtably struggle. I know this about myself by now.

I listened to Bon Jovi’s “This Ain’t A Love Song” about 50 times today. It’s not lyrically relevant, but for whatever reason, it adequetely captured my mood.

And I’m going to spend a lot shopping with Michael. If you want a coupon for 30% off at Old Navy, Gap, or Banana Republic for Thursday-Sunday leave me a comment. I have about 20 invites left. I am buying a proper suit because eventually I will have an interview to rock and I am not going to be scrambling this time.

I’m considering this all a one year anniversary present to myself.

Speaking of the impending anniversary, I thought I would have more to say. That’s usually the case though; if I think something is going to cause me to be reflective, it usually isn’t reflected (literary choice most definitely intended) in my writing. It’s definitely on my mind. I think about it in the car on the way to work, in the music I choose. I think about it while I’m sitting here with no shoes, at job that I’ve complained about a lot as of late, but which has saved my life in two major ways. I think about it, but my ability to write something about what it all means seems to be lacking.

Because there are other things at the forefront of my mind. Like mild worry over a funds transfer I messed up (personal, not work) and how I need to check all my accounts to make sure they are correct, but one of them is at my local bank that is stuck in the Dark Ages and doesn’t do things online.  And the annoyingness of getting home on Sunday. And I really don’t know what else, but something is causing minor anxiety, so I’m spilling it out on paper that inside I’m having a tiny bit of a nutty.

But also, I’m going to finish this entry in a minute and then I’m going to get some mundane things done. And I’m pretty sure that I’m NOT going to be obsessing over the balances of bank accounts righting themselves, because I’m going to be engaged in another task or in the middle of writing an email.

And perhaps, that speaks the most about what this year means.

The past 360 days don’t erase the approximately 1,095 that came before it. There are still things (many things) that make me cringe. I don’t dwell, and I don’t even obsess, but the thoughts do come up. I suppose the fact that I can deal with it when the thoughts enter my head is proof of progress. At least I hope it is.

I don’t exactly know how to talk about what this year has been like. Are things better? Yes. Absolutely. But am I really that different? Am I better person? I don’t really know. My father said to me, maybe 355 or so days ago, that he knew the real Rachel had to still be there, somewhere. And if that’s true, and this is the real Rachel, then do my parents like her any better? Sometimes I think my mother expected a personality transformation; that I would suddenly embrace my “family” (we have never been at all close to my blood relatives. I have no feelings for them one way or another. There are close friends of the family who I spent far more time with growing up who I consider family before the people related to me by blood) or I don’t know. And then, it frustrates me that she doesn’t see the ways I’ve changed. My anxiety level has dropped. I deal with things like disappointment better than I have in probably my entire life.

You can’t control what other people think of you, but my parent’s opinion still matters to me. I know they love me and they put up with an awful lot of nonsense from me in the 9 months leading up to 360 days ago, but I don’t really know if they’re proud of me, or if that think that I’m better than I was a year ago, or if they will always, in the back of their minds, think I’m hopeless.

I didn’t expect to go into this here; I guess I didn’t realize that it’s on my mind so deeply. Because I’m not sad today; maybe resigned would be a better way to put it? Although that seems too fatalistic. I mean, I feel pretty GOOD today. Yeah, I’m annoyed that I lost one of my favorite earrings somewhere between the convenience store and my car and home (maybe I”ll get lucky and it will turn up in my car), and it’s a little weird at home because my dad has a bad cold and my mom is annoyed at him for acting like a total baby for being sick, but it’s not a BAD day. I don’t feel depressed when I think about all these things that my parents may or may not be thinking/feeling about me.

(I’m sure this raises an obvious question; why don’t you just ask them?” The answer is that because truthfully this does not cross my mind very often, I believe that I cannot control what they think; I know that I’m doing the right thing and at the end of the day that will have to be enough)

Perhaps the fact that, even with this ambiguity, I am able to go about my day, and still feel pretty good about a lot of things (my boys, without whom, this year would mean nothing. my internet-stranger-friend-boys who also were a network I needed. the six months of expenses sitting in my bank account. the pair of jeans I have on, a size smaller than a year ago) is what really speaks for making progress.

At least, I hope so.

Even when I’m having these thoughts, I know that by the light of day I can attack them on several fronts. But that doesn’t stop the feelings of regret that bubble up at 1 AM. And then it’s 9:30 in the morning and I’m sitting at work texting with Michael, thinking that maybe I should go get another Master’s degree, to make up for the way I screwed myself out of opportunities with the first one. But as my aforementioned thinking of the college experience shows, in order to feel that I was truly rectifying past mistakes, I’d have to do college over.

See what I mean about this type of thinking being entirely unhelpful?

I know this, and yet sometimes it is still there, and denying that it’s still there dosen’t seem to be particularly helpful either.

I have always been the type to want to take back the past. Even when I was young, as far back as 4th or 5th grade, the things I wished for most vehemently were do-overs.  I used to be far more myopic, part of me convinced that the only way to avenge the old me would be to invent a time machine. Now there’s a part of me which manages to see that the best “revenge” is to live a good life.

But it’s still possible to get tangled up in the possibilites for a good life, or a better life that could have been, had I not done X, or if I had only chosen Y.

It’s too early in the week to be this much of a downer. I have no energy or motivation on the job application front. The enthusiasm with which I attacked Federal Job applications last month seems to have waned. Perhaps it’s another sign that I should not be frentically applying for jobs that I’m not thrilled with the prospect of, but for some of them, all I see is dollar signs, and really, there are worse reasons to do things. But I’m staring at pages of “multiple choice and explain your answer” questions on my experience communicating and scheduling and administrating and while I do have all the requisite experience and can give the clear examples they’re looking for, my motivation to write those perfectly worded explanations of my ability to be a glorified secretary is just not there.

I’d say the only thing I need is a break from the job applications, but I barely did anything last week and this week is going to be equally busy and I can’t get a job if I don’t apply and it’s already a week into March and I’m not closer than I was at the beginning of January.

And then I get this notice about bills that are overdue (at work. Not my own personal bills) from this vendor that keeps screwing up and it just sets off the annoyance.

I know I need patience and gratitude, among other things, but it’s 9:45 on a Monday morning and it’s not happening right now.

I’m getting punchy. Maybe I would also feel better if I cleaned my desk, but instead I am choosing to whine unattractively.

It’s not that I hate the person I am now. I’m ok with her, the girl who has developed an unhealthy West Wing (or more accurately Josh/Donna) obsession, the girl who reloads her email every 90 seconds, the girl who eats far too many of these delicious crispy pretzel-cracker things. She is better off than the person I was a year ago, even if I have to refer to her in third person. But sometimes, I am just so sick of her, and she is so sick of her surroundings, and we are so impatient for it not to be this way.

I know of all the suggestons and solutions , the if you don’t like where you are or what you’re doing then it is up to you to change that. I’m working on that, I am – the Libertarian fellowship was certainly a huge part of that. But it’s a slow process and it feels like a lot of hurry up and wait and go nowhere fast, and so for now I’m just stuck being the girl I am now, who has nowhere to wear all her pretty new one-size smaller clothes.

In April, I will have been in suburbia for two years, when it was supposed to be for a few months. In May, I will be 27, and before I know it, another summer will speed by. Time is going to fast and I’m not keeping up with it, and while I’m doing as much as I can to find a way to get to a place where I want to be, there are only so many avenues and outlets. There’s a recession, there’s reality, and there’s logistics.

I didn’t mean for this to turn into such an existential angst fest, but my whining should be recorded. For posterity’s sake.

In 2007 and 2008 I did a number of things that I wish I could forget, culminating with the stupidest of them in March of 2009. If it weren’t for the change to alleged chance to start over everyday, I don’t know how many times I would have made it out of bed.

I have indulged in a great deal of self-sabotage. I kept setting myself back. That is why, for the past year plus my only plan was to not have a plan. Given my obsessing over the Libertarian Fellowship, I may have finally felt it’s safe to start planning again. Without getting too far ahead of myself, even if I don’t get the Libertarian Fellowship, there are other things I plan to go for. Of course, that is easy for me to say right now – I will be devastated if I don’t get it.

But anyway.

I am grateful for all the obvious things – my parents who didn’t kick my sorry, stupid self to the curb and my friends for not judging and being supportive even when I was not someone who deserved it.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/11/26/stating-the-obvious/feed/ 0 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/09/16/cant-get-out-of-it/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2009/09/16/cant-get-out-of-it/#comments Wed, 16 Sep 2009 17:55:41 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6053 This morning, while waiting for my ride (who was late again. Apparently, the fact that school is now in session and thus there is TRAFFIC has not sunk in, or she doesn’t understand the concept of  ‘leave earlier in anticipation of the traffic you will hit’) I had a moment of “God damnit, I can’t DO this anymore!”

It’s very frustrating. I am not patient. I do not like to be late. I do not like things to be out of my control or to have to depend on others.

The reality is that I have no choice but to do this for at least 10 more weeks (here is willing the bureaucracy to function in spite of the furlough days). I have to get to work. I am very, very lucky to have found this solution to morning rides via Craigslist. Very lucky. I really have no right to complain.

I really wish I could post a “Grace in Small Things” list or something similar, and be sincere about it, but to write something like that now would just be a way to try and hide that fact that I am wallowing a bit. I know I have a lot to be grateful for, I know it could be worse, I know there are worse things in life…

But right now, I’m just really sick of being stuck. Literally and figuratively of course, but right now it’s the literal that’s bringing me down.

I was home last night and I wanted to do some tooling around with my blog, since my endless task of neurotically tagging years worth of entries is still on going. So I go to log in, and I get the message about server dropping the connection, it might be busy, blah blah blah. Now, my tiny presence on 20-something bloggers has not caused my popularity to explode over night, so I knew there had to be something wrong.

Because I can’t just, you know, wait for the problem to fix itself as internet problems are wont to do. No, I’m not only impatient, I’m compulsive. I have to go googling around the internet for a solution and futz around with things on my hosting account.

Around 9, I was talking to my friend (who is also neurotic) about being compulsive, and how being compulsive is a curse, because I can’t relax and be anxiety free like a sane person, and that while compulsivness is sometimes useful, my particular brand of compulsiveness has rarely been channeled towardz anything positive. For example, I was never compulsive about doing my homework.

I’m not sure if it was my actions or if it was automatic, but I got my website up and running again aroud 10:00. While it is more likely the latter (and I am glad it decided to work, because my compulsions would not let me rest until I Found A Solution) I like to think that one of the tweeks I made was what did it.

A girl can dream. Or at least, she can blog. Now that her website is working.