Fiscal hangover.

Ugh, I just vomited out about $1000 (i.e. ALL) of my precious tax refund in a tragic assortment of bills, bills and more bills. There was my Mold Mobile payment and my Mold Mobile insurance, then Cingular, then the utilities, then Comcast, and then, as if that wasn't enough to make me want to curl up into a broke little ball in the corner and rock myself into denial-laced sleep, MY STUDENT LOAN PAYMENTS HAVE JUST STARTED. Bah. Baaaaah, I say! What is more depressing: Seeing the amount of money you borrowed from the government in order to finance an education which, from examining your present state, clearly did not land you the six-figure income of which your lifestyle has grown accustomed to -- at least in the deluded fantasy world in which I live during every moment of my existence? Or looking at the loan terms and realizing that Dear God I'm going to be two thousand years old when I finish paying off my loans!!!

*sigh*

Could be worse, I guess. And, as much as I would have loved to spend that $1000 on roughly 400 cans of Blue Diamond Smokehouse almonds at Target (Mmm...delicious and nutricious smokehouse almonds. Mmm...Target), it was a wise choice for me to pay off all my bills instead. And vomiting out all my precious expendable income in such a depressing - albeit responsible and adult (gah!) - manner is, I've found, comparable to that of vomiting out the evil from your body after a night of too much refreshing beverage-consuming: Sometimes you really have to force yourself to do it, but once it's over, you feel much better.

Is 26 too young to resign to hermit-dom?orThe post that might get Ysabel in trouble with her co-workers...

So, with Scott being out of town this weekend again (damn you, drum corps!!!), I was fully prepared for a wonderful weekend of ultra-solitary gloriousness, complete with all the things I don't get to enjoy when the other half is around: catch up on "The Hills" and "Gilmore Girls," use the nail clippers (he HATES that sound with a blinding passion), clean the TiVo out of all the stupid Court TV and MSN Investigates shows taking up all the precious hard drive space that should be reserved for only the Food Network and Bravo (...and really bad chick television, as evidenced above), clean the apartment (and have it stay that way for longer than 2 hours -- I'm not kidding), etc. etc. etc. By lunchtime on Saturday, though, I was suddenly hit with this unusual feeling that I had not experienced in a long time: I wanted to go out. And hang. Socially. With other humans. And maybe have some refreshing beverages.

Unfortunately, it's at times like these that you find yourself taking a step back and realizing that you truly have no friends. Not where you reside, anyway. I mean, Scott and I got here in early August last year and spent a good several weeks exploring the greater Seattle area spending all our money on oysters and chowder and Boodles and Tonics. Then all of a sudden, he started school and I miraculously landed a job, both of which subsequently took over our respective lives and, before you know it, it's 6 months later and we haven't gotten around to building any sort of social network.

I mean, he's got colleagues at UW, but the only guy he really likes to hang out with much lives close to Tacoma. And I've made work friends, but, um, how do I put this delicately? They're weird. The one that I'm closest to is 5 years younger than me, and chose to tell me within about 20 minutes of the formation of our acquaintance-ship (is that a word? I'm currently watching "Beauty and the Geek" and the some of the stupid may be rubbing off...) that she has never done the hokey-pokey. The "hokey-pokey" that comes with quotation marks. This, of course, is highly admirable. Very. Just don't tell me about it when I've literally just met you. And then she confided in me again a few weeks later when she told me that she had just done the "hokey-pokey." With one of our co-workers. Yeesh. Plus, she's a vegan. Again, an admirable quality in a human being. It's just that, damn, I love a good hotdog! And I have to feel free to express my love for delicious cooked meats to all my friends.

Anyway, the next co-worker that I'm closest to is like 50 years old with kids my age. I like her because she's funny and bubbly, but whenever we talk about how much we don't want to be at work that day, she says to me, "Well, when Scott gets out of school and gets a job, then you can get married and stay at home while Scott supports you!" And she's not being sarcastic, people.

And don't let me get started on the one that doesn't believe in using microwaves. Damned hippies.

Anyway, the whole point of this story is that, since I wasn't necessarily in the mood to sit at a bar by myself drowning my loneliness in whiskey sours and gin and tonics, I found myself climbing into the Mold Mobile and attempting to do some shopping. I thought, surely I can find a way to pass the afternoon by being around other human beings while spending a good chunk of my tax refund (cha-ching!) at Target and the accompanying shopping mall. Wrong. I got there and promptly came to two realizations:

1. At some point in the last 2 years or so, I have developed a real distaste for shopping. I mean, it always sounds like a good idea at the time. But by the time the actual act of shopping is taking place, I'm all, *sigh* "What's the point, really? I don't really need any new clothes. And I really should just save my money anyway..." When the hell did this happen?? And why did nobody inform me that at some cruel point in my mid-twenties, I would lose the part of me that finds sheer rapture in spending my money in an irresponsible and wreckless fashion? I walked through the mall and walked away with nothing. Not even a pair of socks. Or nice comfy non-thongish underwears that Scott hates.

2. What in the hell's bells was I doing, thinking that going to a shopping mall would placate my desire for jovial companionship? I don't even like people. Specifically, large crowds of people who aren't my family and already-established friends. Even more specifically: large crowds of people packed into a cluster of stores, furiously shoving each other through the crowded walkways in order to needlessly empty their wallets of all the money they had just finished working so hard for during the past week. Yikes. No thanks.

So I got back into the Mold Mobile with the two items I purchased at Target (nasal spray and some moisturizer) and headed home where I promptly watched "The Hills" on MTV while I clipped my nails on the couch. So there you have it.

Anyway, I gots to leave for the airport in a few minutes to pick up Scott, so I better sign off and try to squeeze in some last-minute bad chick television before my wonderful other half comes back and messes up this apartment again. Ha.

Eardrum goes *poof*

Just now I blew my nose so hard that I nearly ruptured my eardrum. Well, maybe not, but it popped hard enough to make me yell out "ow!" as Bela ran away in confusion. I read online that it's not good to blow your nose too hard when you're having sinus problems because the popping noise indicates that some of the icky mucousness might have leaked into your ear canal, causing an ear infection (or something like that, anyway). The good news is that at least now my ears have popped enough that I feel like I can hear clearly for the first time in three days.

Oh, and since I am an expert in letting other people do work for me instead of doing it myself, check out my sister's blog for pictures of their visit to Seattle.

Hello again.

Before I even hear anything (metaphorically speaking) come out of your collective mouths, let me just state that I have been very busy these last couple of weeks battling the black plague - in its endless variety of transfigurations, all of them involving vast quantities of snot and phlegm - and, subsequently, successfully transferring the disease onto Scott, who unfortunately had to battle the black plague this past weekend while my sister and her family came and visited us.

Re: that last part -- HURRAY! WE HAD SO MUCH FUN! Happy 1st Birthday to Vanessa again! -- Because, in keeping with my I'm-Such-A-Bad-Aunt-I-Forget-To-Mention-My-Niece's-Birthday-In-This-Blog-Every-Year tradition as evidenced here and here, I totally forgot to wish my youngest niece a happy birthday last Thursday. Boo. My nieces are TOO CUTE. I mean, for realzies. It's a good thing they were only here for a couple of days. Otherwise, I would have perished from too. much. cuteness. I have pictures to prove it. Maybe I'll show them to you later. If Scott and I aren't too busy coughing and sneezing up obscene amounts of goo.

Also, last night I had this dream that I got into a crazy intense argument with a teacher at some school that I apparently was attending, and I remember actually thinking in my dream, "Oh wow, this is going to make such a good blog entry!" and then I woke up and realized that I couldn't actually write about it because it was all just made up in my head. And I was sad. ...And then I got over it.

Anyway, Happy Valentines Day in advance everyone. May it be pleasant, with only a slight tinge of bitterness and disappointment.