Vey.
Car saga: Took the car to the shop this morning, dropped it off, permanent knot in my back from stress over the car and anger over the non-fixing of it.
Went to work at new client’s, driving rental car. Met friend for lunchtime computer fixing. Was unable to fix computer. Feel bad, but she needs to get it repaired anyway (the clock battery’s dead).
Returned to work at client’s. Remembered why I dislike working in an office. Felt very exposed all day. Twiddled thumbs for about thirty minutes at 4:00 until someone came to install software on my computer. Left at 4:30, knowing I was never going to make it home before the bad traffic started.
Spent half an hour getting lost near the new workplace. Finally got on the right road towards the car dealership. Car is not fixed. Diagnostics show absolutely nothing wrong. They do not charge me for the visit, nor for my rental for the day. Smart people.
I head home, and stop at Barnes & Noble on the way to kill time. And about $65. More books. Whee! Day is starting to pick up. It’s about 6:30 when I leave.
Get home at about 7:30 and meet John over at the neighbors, knocking back a few and shooting the breeze. We go home and stare at the kitchen for 20 minutes before making tacos. American Idol queues up on Tivo.
Tacos acquired, then we go watch Idol. McPhee continues to suck and blow at the same time. Idol much better with a brew.
It’s not 9:30 and John’s watching The Simpsons and I’m kicking back up here, on the computer, about to head back downstairs to watch TV with him.
The previous (Friends-locked) post doesn’t explicitly acknowledge one simple fact, which I *do* recognize:
Answers to an online poll are very abstract. If I ask “would you do/say this?” and you say “yes,” I understand that that’s your hypothetical answer. People do not always behave in ways that are consistent with what they *say* when they are actually confronted with a real situation or person.
I have never had someone express pity towards me for what I “felt” I “had” to do, even when the person is otherwise anti-cosmetic surgery. People tend to be more empathetic when they’re actually in a concrete situation.
I have lost my old ability to save money. It happened sometime around when I started having enough to spend instead of save. I used to save money really well. I had an envelope I kept in my lock-box. The envelope had “Fantasy fund” written on it, because the first thing I saved for was a harp. Every time I got some extra money (usually bribes “gifts” from my aunt), I would put it into the envelope. When I had about $150 saved up, I went to Muis Dreamsinger during the last weekend of RenFaire and asked if I could buy the harp I wanted ($250), and send the rest of the money later. He agreed, and I paid it all off by mid-January, using the money I got from Christmas (and, of course, the Thanksgiving bribe). I ended up buying my dulcimer the same way, as well as ’s dulcimer.
I still have the lock-box somewhere. The lock is kind of broken on it, but it served its purpose. What was important about it was that I could take out the money and tangibly touch it. Although I dislike carrying cash with me, for safety reasons, I do think there is a value to having cold, hard cash to touch and acknowledge and count. I know there’s a humorous image of the miser, counting his gold, and yet, there is a definite value to being able to physically count your money. When it’s all 0’s and 1’s, and your only tangible representation of it is a plastic card, it’s hard to look at that card and be able to say “I have $250 in there.”
I’m a materialistic person, in that I like things. I like having toys to play with, and I think a life without things would be rather dull (though not as dull as a life without other people!). I’m a gadget head, a gamer, a hobbyist of so many varieties, it makes my head spin. I don’t necessarily do these things because I have a passion for the activities, so much as I have a passion for playing with new things. I’m also an idea-oriented person, so I like learning new things, but I learn best, like most people, by touching and doing.
This thought brought to you by last week’s Toastmaster meeting, in which one of the Table Topics speeches was “how do you save money?”
I had a lot of dreams last night, but the one that stuck in my mind was this:
I was standing in an open field with snow everywhere. There were a few other people nearby (it was a birthday party for someone who had a couple of Italian greyhounds), and we were there to keep watch over a nearby mine. We were admiring a foursome of owls in a nearby tree (two Great Horned, two snow white) when we looked up into the beautiful blue sky, and saw what looked like clouds shifting in the air. It turned out the clouds were people with white flowing wings, falling to the ground.
There were four of them, I think. Two of them landed nearby. One of them became nearly frantic to get into the mine, where she wanted to drink some water from the mine. I offered to give her some from the nearby drinking fountain, but since it was filtered, she rejected it. She went so far as to offer sex to one of my fellow guards of the mine (male) if he would let her in. Obvioulsy, he agreed.
While they were arranging to get their freak on, the other angel who had landed nearby approached, also wanting to get into the mine. Then the ones who had landed elsewhere showed up for the mine as well. They all argued badly over who would get there *first*.
Dream analysis: This is either a dream about sex and virginity, or perhaps a dream about the way I feel like there are many demands being made on my time (the mine), and I’m not entirely comfortable with how those demands are being met. PS: The angels in the sky were really an amazing sight– their wings were…. indescribable.
I have to give a speech today at noon.
I have NO idea what to talk about. How weird is that?!?