Auld Lang Syne

I am debt free! Yesyesyes!

I've paid it all off ... my balances are zero.
Nothing stands against me.

*contented sigh

Oh, and guess what, Internets -

I got a 3.3 in my Statistics class and a 3.5 in Career Planning.
Overall I got a 3.6. That's a winning semester in my book.

:D

Debt, school ... these failures were corporeal manifestations of my worst (and most destructive) personal demons ...

I came, I saw, I conquered.

Yearend Update

It's been a LOOONG time.

The news:

I ended my employment with Michaels about three weeks into my first semester of school.
I had had another job with Yakima Valley School for months by that time - so maybe the decision was overdue.

I was employed with two companies AND I was a full-time student ... my life had gotten absurd.

My budget took a hit - but no worries, I'm still on track to be debt-free before January 1st, 2009.
In fact, I've already paid off $5,000 - I'm so excited! This will be quite an accomplishment!

The lease-break "Escape from St Louis" fee has already been paid.
They're going to send me a letter as proof that I've met their demands ... I'll be having that letter framed (maybe professionally lit).

My first semester back at school went rather well.
I made a few mistakes those first few weeks (Michaels, maybe?).
I never quite made up for that ... so here's the run-down of the grades I think I've earned:

Economics (5 credits) 4.0!!!
Statistics (5 credits) 2.9 (oh well ...)
Career Planning (3 credits) 3.0

I was pretty bummed about that 2.9 ...
Until I realized that I've probably added a whole half-point to my cumulative GPA - even with the C.

After all, I failed these classes the first time around.
Replacing a 0 with a 4.0 will have a tremendous impact.
Even replacing a 0 with a 2.9 will make for a positive change. :)

I pushed myself hard this semester.
I did ace every test ... I only missed a little homework. I'll be a better student next semester for the experience.

Speaking of - here's a list of my classes for Winter semester:
(You'll notice that I've reduced the workload somewhat - the gym class won't exactly require homework.)

Linear Algebra
(this is a post-calculus math class that I'll be taking on campus, 5 to 7 PM)

US History II

Fitness Center
(33+ hours of exercise at the CBC gym for a 4.0)

Change

"The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be."

- Marcel Pagnol

My best friend had a little girl last week!

His life will never, ever be the same.

Just think about what he had to face!
Adam had to open his soul - all the way - for that little arrival.

I needed to make a few changes myself -

[Hm ... it feels a little strange, writing about this baby's effect on my life.
And to write about it here, especially ... in a forum that maybe only Adam himself really reads ...
Yeah, strange.
But she had an effect.
Nearly no effect at all, when compared to the impact she's had on her parents -
But she did change me - and I want to express that. :)]

I, too, needed to open my soul (if only a crack).

And I needed to remember how to be a friend to a kid. :D

But her biggest impact on me?
I needed to let go of my friendship ... with Adam.

Oh, he's still my best friend.
And I like to think that I'm still his.

But I'm no longer a priority, you see.
An absentee best friend to a father is really more of an accessory. :S

You know, I was REALLY close to my middle school friends.
I've heard it said that a family is a circle of love.
If that's true, then that's what we were. A family.
[Ours was a brotherly, rough-housing kind of love.]

But we had to graduate. We had to seperate.
We had to move on.

And we all grew for it!

I found another group of friends. I found for myself ANOTHER family. I got lucky.
But again, another graduation ...

That's what Serah's birth was for me, really.
Adam was "going off to college".

Yeah. I'll still see him. Heck, maybe I'll even see MORE of him -
But our relationship will be weaker, won't it?
Stronger as brothers, maybe - for the sharing of the love of a child.

But weaker as friends.

This is NOT self-pity.
I'm happy for him.

Curiously, I'm happy for myself:

I don't think I need Adam's shoulder for support any longer -
My legs have healed.
I can walk, and soon I'll run -

I'm ready to look for my fourth (and final?) family.

If you love it so much why don't you just marry it?

I've read one too many attacks on Alanis Morisette's "Ironic".

People were using the word in that context years and years before her single.

'Coincidental' does not fit well ... even if you're a nihilist.

So - an analogy in language you might understand:

Irony is to synchronicity as
irony's denotation is to its connotation.

Ya lousy dictionary-lovin' freak.

...

Alanis, I love you. Why haven't you replied to my letters?

:P

To the place I belong.

I've made a decision.

I'll be moving to Selah in January, rather than to the Tri-Cities. After all, this job in Selah has offered me something that I really need: a healthier start in Seattle.

And Seattle is where I want to be!

I feel I can commit to living in Seattle indefinitely - without sacrificing self-image. And so Seattle is where I'll be ready for love. Seattle ... is where I can get my forever job. Buy my forever home.

It's true, I miss the Tri-Cities now - and the people there. But going back ... would be going back in more than the one way.

I see that now.

Following that frame of thought -
Living in Selah and using a small part of my savings to do a thing or two I've always dreamed of doing -
That's moving forward, isn't it?

One Day More

The musical Les Miserables has ever been a part of me.
I was only a boy when I first heard the passionate swells ... and even then I understood.

I've always tried to live with Jean Valjean's strength.

I've tried to accept change in the way that Javert never could.

Whenever I've known heartache - I've thought of Eponine. Of her dejection, of her life ... and of its end.

Now I see a new connection:

At one point ... the day before a great battle ...

An old man gathers his daughter with the intention to run -
And so his daughter must leave her first and only true love.

The retched make a plan to steal from the dead and become rich -
As the rich make a plan to fight, and become free.

And an enemy makes a plan to lead the free - to their deaths.


All of these voices sound out in a cry! In a day's time life will never be the same!

...

Adam, my best friend, is going to be a dad soon. He can't know what to expect, but he's trying.

I can't be sure I'll recognize him.

My sister is moving into an apartment soon. She's never faced this kind of responsibility.

How will she cope?

My mother and father are going to be alone again soon.
My sister and I are moving - we'll be taking our pets, our stuff and our noise with us.

Can dad re-embrace the serenity he's apparently forgotten?

What will mom do with her time? Where will she find her meaning?

And what of me? Soon ...

-----

So I have a decision to make. A decision that carries more weight than I've ever known:

Do I live in Selah and save for a future?

Or do I live in the Tri-Cities? Do I enjoy the time I have? With the people I love?

*sigh

I've never been good at making friends. I wonder if I'll ever again make a friend quite like Adam ...

And I've been alone in a big city before.

I didn't cope with that well. I'm still spinning, still lonely. Six months in the Tri-Cities ... could be just the cathartic adventure I need.

But why can't I buy happiness? In Selah ...

I could save AND ... learn to ride a horse at the local academy! I could sky dive! Buy a Wii.

I could see Seattle whenever the mood strikes. For that matter, I could visit the Tri-Cities!

...

So here I am, confused. Some months ago, my life was stagnant. I was going nowhere.

I was stuck.

And now ... suddenly I have two options. Two ways to enrich my life.

Should I make the financially sound decision?
Or do I try to be around the people I love - with whatever time I can afford and they will allow?

Here there be humans.

Not much to update about.

I'm on track with my budget.

The whole two-jobs thing is taking its toll - but I'm still honored to have a future again.

I've paid my tuition and I'm ready for class. :D

Now if only some unseen body would just lay down a solution to the rubix cube that is my love life ...

And then offer up a woman like some sort of sacrifice ...

*walks away mumbling about dragons, knights and maidens fair

The Park Middle School posse.

Wow! What an excellent weekend!

Gavin and his awesome wife were in the Tri-Cities. And on the very weekend I'd already chosen to visit! What are the odds?

There were parties:

Party One was the much-anticipated Barnes & Noble release for the fifth book by Stephenie Meyers. I love the Twilight series. :D

But this party ... :S

I think Adam and I were the only older guys around. And none of the women were clearly over 18.

So we felt we had to leave ASAP.

We had to avoid what seemed like an inevitable accusation.

(Don't worry, I still got to buy New Dawn.)

Party Two was a family-friendly get together with a lot of Adam's friends.

They're a good group.

And there was food.

What else can you ask for? :)

This party was where we met up with Gavin and Deidre (the above-mentioned awesome).

Reunions are usually sort of terrible for me. It's always such a pain to explain my situation ... it's heart-breaking. Embarrassing.

But not this time! I'm finally back on track, after all.

It feels SO good to finally say "I have a plan".

"My next check pays tuition costs for Fall quarter!"

I'm telling everybody.

:D

I'll miss Gavin (until he gets back for Thanksgiving this November). His wife too.

Which, frankly, I find to be rather bizarre! I've spent, what, 6 or 7 hours with Gavin since middle school?

What right do I have to miss his company?

Gavin is a very lucky guy:

He's renting a 3-bedroom home. He's working at a job that uses his college degree. It pays well.

He didn't need to go and marry a pretty girl with a soul. That's just a slap in the face. :P

If wishes were fishes ... I would be your koi.

I'm having a really bad week.

It'd be difficult to explain ... and maybe it's better if I don't ... Suffice it to say:

An important piece of my past came calling.

I didn't answer.

And I don't know if I hurt someone.

I don't know if I wanted that.

I can't ... I need ...

*sigh

Life can be difficult sometimes.

Learning hurts.

Trained to swill. That's oldspeak for 'hit the bottle'.

So I was at a 'New Employee Orientation' all week this week.

It was ... boring. Very, very boring. Basically, I sat and doodled on my fingers for 32 hours.

But at least today's 8 were more enjoyable!

Today was all about self-defense - defense against a developmentally-disabled client in a state of crisis. We learned about how to deal with being bitten, with having our hair pulled, how to deflect punches ...

Keep in mind that you aren't ever allowed to hurt - or use a hold on - a client to 'make them behave'.

So, the stuff I've learned couldn't have much application in a bar-room brawl.

Anyways, I hardly ever make contact with DD clients as an accountant. There's a nice kid in our office once or twice a week, but that's about it. I seriously doubt that I'll ever witness a 'behavioral event'. (Not that I'd want to.)

Still ... a very fun day, all in all.

But one out of five is terrible. This week was a wash.

Reading for pleasure puts creases in your thoughts. It's just good laundry.

So I've been reading a series about the romance between a vampire and a human girl. The Twilight series? Ever heard of it?

It's very good. I'm not 100% sure what it is about the book I love the most.

The characters are enticing. The language is delicious. And the stories are intriguing. :D

But, you know ...

I think my favorite thing about the books is probably the very same thing that I find so embarrassing about them: the drama (the tons and tons of teenage-style drama).

This drama ... it speaks to me! It speaks to my personal romantic history (or lack-thereof).

Yes, world, I am Jacob.

I am the Phantom of the Opera.

...

Anyways, very good stuff. I recommend it.

(Just do yourself a favor and push through those first 80 pages. It gets retroactively awesome, trust me.

And yeah ... the symbolism is usually pretty obvious ...

But that doesn't negate the awesome of an understood allusion.! :))

My credit history. My work history. But not my browser history.

So here I am, feeling one hundred percent better now that I've been paid.

I'm a little embarrassed ... but maybe all I really needed was a reward for the 3 and a half weeks. Here I had myself worked up into a major existential quandary, and I mean one for the record books. But all I needed? Deep down?

A little cash for my trouble.

It's actually pretty hilarious, come to think about it.

So, anyways ...

I paid off a credit card! All of it. And guess what?

Somehow I managed to maintain a decent payment history! I'd have sworn differently just two days ago. :)

That means drinks are on me!

...

Well ... uh, not really.

I'm thinking maybe I pay for gas with it and then pay off that total at the end of the month? To build some ... I dunno, self-restraint? Decent-ish credit? I guess I don't really don't really know how that stuff works.

Anyways, I've spent the last few days locked in my room with nothing but Excel, a notebook and a couple-three of my favorite free credit reports.

I've been hammering away at a little financial plannery:

I can be debt-free by the end of October.

Holding my breath for a better life has got me blue.

My latest misadventures have been especially painful. I've lost everything I liked about myself:

I am now 100% dependent on my mother for lodging.

I am deep in debt and farther from school than I've ever been.

I am miles from the people I love to be around.

Bleh ...

I have a job now that can bail me out of all that ... but I'm having a hard time accepting the possibility. :( I'm not sure on why that is.

I haven't been over-the-top excited.

All of my plans lately are closer to dreams than to maps.

And I think I'm just waiting for that proverbial 'other shoe' to fall. Am I really worried about ending up worse than I am somehow? There isn't a good reason to expect that - is there?

:S

Thinking about it now ... I'm a pretty environmental person. I soak up the people I'm with like a sponge - and slowly mutate my point of view to match theirs.

And this place! This place is oppressive. It's a clear reminder of my less-than-happy childhood.

But mostly it's just that there are times it feels like nothing's changed.

Maybe all I need then is a new outlook and a new environment ... except that this job can really only bail me out on schedule if I stay where I am.

Anyone up for a vacation?

How about matricide?

Oh bananas.

This is a new experience for me:

I'm actually so good at this job that I just might lose it ahead of schedule. :S

One of the tremendous projects my new boss had planned for my temporary butt only took a tenth of the time that she thought it would.

That'd be great ... except that I was hired because the department is way, way behind.

If my mad ten-key skills get things caught up ... what, I won't be needed?

I don't know. It's silly; my boss LOVES that I'm computer-savvy. But...

Who knows what her boss thinks? ... She had to ask nice to hire me, you know.

(And everyone is joking about how I'm faster at their work than they are
- there are politics in this office -
how long before I make somebody nervous?)

The other half of Adam's conversation.

Visiting the Tri-Cities melts away more than just stress from this lazy body.

What's in the Tri-Cities, you ask?

Adam and his wife live there - and you see, Adam is damned good friend.

Mulling over our lives and our respective philosophies has turned into something of a tradition on these visits. And for no small reason, really.

It seems like we always come away from those chats with a different outlook - our paradigms get shifted. And that's a rush in addition to being useful. :)

This latest weekend I mentioned a string of dreams featuring an old crush of mine. These dreams would usually fly under the radar for me - I don't usually think of myself as all that romantic. But ... when I wake up, I feel my heart break. I get torn up and I can't manage a smile for hours. :S

I told him what I thought they meant, too. My life up until now has been a rather cold pursuit of the very specific things I want from life.

By cold I mean that I'm frequently distracted from this course - by complacency more than anything else. And that cold terrifies me. It means I may find myself stuck without what I'm looking for - and I can't stand the idea.

A month or so ago, I got another chance at college, you see. I grabbed it up and it's working - I start in the Fall.

I'm ecstatic, but ... suddenly I feel I have to put the axe to my already lackluster love life. I've had only one girlfriend, and that was something of an accident - and that was years ago. I broke up with her for the same reason I've avoided further romance:

Women are scary! Lol ... well, maybe that's one of the reasons, a little bit. But no, the chief reason is this: I believe that the presence or absence of true love can be masked by a temporary high that accompanies new love.

It's for this reason I worry about "accidental" marriage. :S

So here was my supposition to Adam: I'm dreaming of this woman (this woman that I believe has come to symbolize women in general for me) simply because I don't know if I can commit to another 4, 5 years (or whatever) of living a lonely, solitary life. But I feel I have to.

Adam was quick to voice his extrapolation of my romantic future:

I see you meeting a woman and falling madly in love with her, building on her dreams AND your own. You've talked about living in Japan f0r a couple years - the two of you can do that in your 40s, building a solid financial plan for that sort of lifestyle now, and embracing all the adventure you can in the mean time.

Well, something like that, anyways. I've played with the idea of finding a lover with similar dreams of travel before: but never in the distant future.

It's always been difficult for me to imagine a woman that would willingly abandon her life - and for one of my silly dreams.

But couples that have been married for years travel all the time! In fact, it seems like it would be fun to wait with someone I care about.

This may not seem like it changes much, but it takes away one of my biggest worries when it comes to this stuff. I means that once I've transferred to a city I can see myself living in for an indefinite number of years - I can LOVE. With abandon.

I trust myself to be fascinated only by those women I meet that dream the way I do:

Big.

My Fourth Post

So I had a great 4th of July weekend.

I have two black lab mixes, and I gave them a good walk - and then made my way to the Tri-Cities to meet with some friends.

We ate BBQ and went for a swim. We really made some waves! Er ... nevermind.

We picked up a randomly related child once it was dark (Pam's nephew?) and went out to Clover Island to watch the fireworks from way too far away. That was OK though, it was pretty comfy.

The dogs were tranq'ed against fireworks, but there was some sort of dosage problem, and one of them was up and about for almost 6 hours before she hit the floor! And wow, she hit it hard. I'm really glad I was able to leave them with my parents. They'd have freaked out ... and no, I'm not the guy that worries more about his furniture than his pets.

The next day was just as good for me. We ate lunch at IHOP - got some pizza for dinner - and managed to hit the pool again.

We also saw Jumper - good movie. Excellent number of Marvel Comics references. Plus Samuel L Jackson is a kick-ass kind of guy.

Strained Beginnings

Thought I'd try my hand at blogging again.

This isn't really a public sort of thing - I'm not trying to spread a message here. I'm not looking for random feedback from complete strangers. :)

My friends have blogs, but they also have a pregnancy to update about.

Nothing nearly so interesting to blog about here. :S Unless I fake something.

I might fake something.