debt, wine, and curtains: an update.

Don't get close to what happened to the
drywall - you'll burn your eyes.

I realized the other day I haven't updated this blog in awhile. Egads! I'm sorry if you're a regular reader. Or even if you're an irregular reader (try laxatives).

Here's what's been happening with me:

1- Debt. Up to my eyeballs. I find something else to buy and just think: ah, screw it. What's one more $250 charge? I am a credit card company's wet dream.

2-Curtains. I drilled some big holes above my windows and so the curtain rod in that picture to the left is holding up curtains and doing a fairly good job, but not really. One strong gust of wind, and BLAM! I think there may be steel behind the windows is why. The kit gave me anchors to put in, but the anchors wouldn't go in, and a hammer just made the situation worse. Ten billion swear words and 2 gallons of sweat later, I created what you see in the picture then went for a strong drink.

The process taught me the following: I need a step ladder. And a dry wall expert when I move out. And longer curtains (I eventually bought longer curtains than the first pair I hung up, but they're still not long enough--my high concept was graceful curtains spilling into elegant pools of soft fabric on the floor...instead I got nerdy high water capris that mock me every time I look at them. I need a better tape measure. And math skills).

This area of the apartment is the part I'm calling my window Monet--looks great from afar but when you get up close, it's one big ol' mess.

3-Overflowing commode. Miss M decided to use half a roll of toilet paper before leaving for a week at her dad's, and I didn't find out until a loo run at 3 AM. I had to call the emergency line, and a really sweet man came over and unclogged my toilet. At 3 o' clock in the morning. He showed up with exactly one toilet fixin' tool: a big plunger. I offered him exactly 10,000 sincere apologies and thank yous for getting out of bed at 3 AM and sticking a plunger into my toilet, with a million promises I'd go to Home Depot for a stronger plunger immediately. (Which I did do. The plunger was like $5.99 but I walked out with $100 of other things.)

4-Thick skin. I've never had very thick skin, but lately it's been paper thin. I'm sorry if I've ever interacted with you on a paper-thin skin day.

5-Chromebook picture cropping. I know how to crop pictures, and I know how to crop pictures using a Chromebook, but I don't know how to see what size I've cropped them to. Please talk to me if you know how to do this. I'm serious. I'll come over and hang curtains for you, and after 60 minutes of dropping the F bomb in creative ways and sweating til our shirts stick to our bodies, we'll swear and say, "Screw THIS shit," and go have drinks. I'll buy. With my credit card.

6-Religious wine. I bought ten bottles of wine at Trader Joe's the other day, so I could fill up my wine rack. The sweet older gentleman at the cash register looked at me really hard as he rang up my wine. Just as I was about to say something nervous like, "Well, uh. You know: I'm having a big party. A party for some winos! Hahaha!", he asked, "Is that a Star of David necklace you're wearing?" And then I told him no, it's a starfish. And then he told me he was curious if I was Jewish because he's Jewish and there just aren't many Jews in this area (I'm so glad he didn't think I was Jewish because I bought so much wine). And then I joked about how I'm kind of the most Jewish Gentile he'll ever meet. And then he asked if I'd married a Jew, was that why, and so I told him about the show DIG, and how much Judaic research I'd done because of it, and then I convinced him to go look for it online and watch it. Also, my wine collection is AMAZING now.

Still drinking wine and talking about the show DIG and its religion theme, even after all this time. Comforting.

7-Writing. I wrote my first real article for a non-self-published website! You can go read it HERE.

It's got amazing Dave Morrissey in it, and information about how Jeffrey Dean Morgan is going to make me all gaga-eyed, every Wednesday night.

8-Back to Reality. In less than a month, I'll be back to teaching. I'm currently working on where to place that emotionally. But I'll welcome the distraction. And the lack of free time to shop. (Although there's online shopping, I suppose.) (Somebody please help me.)

If you can ignore the stray fingerprints on the TV,
the quote is there to remind you about what
matters. Unless the TV is on, and then you should focus
on what's on that. While continuing to ignore the fingerprints.