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.

And then there was the time George W. Bush tried to talk to me at the carwash...

So Scott needed to borrow my car the other day to pick up one of the guest clinicians* and his wife from the airport for this band festival that the University is hosting this week, so I decided it would be decent of me to wash my car (while attempting to avoid the moonroof area, mind you, so as to not further aggravate the infamous leak situation...) as well as suck the living life out of the carpets with their super high-powered carwash vacuums (again, the infamous mold situation), so as to not send any elderly wind conducting legends to an early death via mold poisoning. That last ultra-run-on sentence contained the word "so" four times. I'm awesome. Anyway, no sooner had I popped the quarters into the car wash machine when I heard a man's voice from behind say to me, "Tennessee plates, huh? Well, you sure are a long way from home!" Then I turned around and saw this face speaking to me:

I swear to you. Obviously, the real "president" wasn't actually speaking to me at a random carwash in the outskirts of Seattle on a Saturday afternoon. But it sure as hell looked just like him. Except shorter. I hear the real Dubya is fairly tall. Anyway, it was bizarre. The whole time while the Bizarro Bush was making small talk with me, the only thing going through my mind was, "This is so going in my blog."

* For you band nerds, it's this guy.

There's a first time for everything, I guess.

So I received a music order from a "correctional facility" (or The Slammer as I prefer to call it, because I'm hardcore like that) in a neighboring town today. At first I thought maybe it was just an officer or something ordering it from his workplace. But then I looked more closely at the return address, and it listed an actual cell number. This is what the gentleman ordered:

• "The Classic Country Book" for easy guitar
• "The Love Songs Book" for easy guitar
• "Rock Chords for Guitar"

Ha! Can't you totally picture it? At least he's doing something productive with his rehabilitation period, you know what I'm saying? Crooning some down-home country song about being down on his luck, followed by a soft ballad for his sweet love muffin who's waiting for him back home and then taking out some of his angst and aggression with some good old-fashioned hard rock power chords. Anyway, things clearly are getting more exciting around here...but not really.

In other news: Thank God it's Friday. Five days of eating nothing but cookies, donuts, coffee and diet Coke until 6:30 in the evening when you finally let yourself have your first real meal of the day can be fairly harmful to one's body. I'm assuming. But then again, I do have a stomach of steel, so I wouldn't know the difference really. I guess I'll find out in a couple of weeks when I notice a giant donut shaped tumor protruding from my ass.

Also, I have this nagging feeling that today is somebody's birthday. ...January 26th. Yeah, that sounds right. Who is it??!! Anyway, if it's your birthday, then Happy Birthday. And don't be mad at me for forgetting because my subconscious remembered, and that should be good enough.

Oh, and speaking of donuts and coffee ... really?!

My kingdom for a sandwich!

Oog. I left my wallet at home today and had only enough change in my pocket to buy myself a can of diet Coke. Luckily I was able to fill some of the void with a few cups of coffee and a few (okay okay, massive amounts of) chocolate chip cookies from the break room upstairs. Anyway, the whole moral of this story is that it is 4:30 in the afternoon and I have nothing in my stomach except for some carbonated high fructose corn syrup, a pleasant amount of caffeine, chocolate chips and other such wholly unhealthy food byproducts. Meaning: I have lost all desire and will to do anything productive for the rest of the day, and have resigned myself to waiting out the clock by updating this blog (okay, let's all say it together: "It's about goddamn time!") and checking out the Best & Worst Dressed of the Golden Globes on msn.com while periodically getting up and leafing through some of the sheet music shelves whilst mumbling to myself softly-but-still-audible-to-any-nearby-coworker such telling phrases as "Hmmm...interesting." and "Huh. Interesting." and "Oooh! Interesting!" and then marching back to my desk and typing this! and this too! on my computer with a very determined and slightly scowl-ish look upon my face so as to convey a sense of extreme concentration.

Anyway, I'm sure many exciting things have happened in my life since I last updated this blog. But since I have been too busy/tired/lazy/apathetic to write about it here, you will never know what those things are. Ha! Just kidding. Here's the gist of my life lately:

• As if the leaking of the rain water and the consequent growing of the mold wasn't enough, Lucky, my former beloved baby boy (i.e. my 2000 VW Golf) continues to supply me with endless amounts of grief and heartache anger. Case in point: As I was driving to work on Monday morning, I found that the windows had been frozen shut and would not roll down. No big deal, yes? Except that I left work at 6pm that evening and walked to my car in the parking lot only to find that the driver's side window had, at some point during the day, rolled itself down...and would no longer roll back up. This in itself would not have been too upsetting if it weren't for the fact that a) I had to drive home from work with the window rolled completely down in below freezing temperature, and b) it was forecast to snow that night and I do not have covered parking. And I was almost sure I would not be able to get it to a mechanic in time -- at least one that I could research ahead of time so as to not be completely taken in and overcharged for the service. As I drove home with my frozen fingers turning various shades of blue, I fantasized over the prospect of some unknowing sad sack noticing my open window and stealing Lucky, thereby freeing me of the moldy nightmare. *sigh* My poor Lucky. You used to be such a good boy! Anyway, things actually worked out later that night, as all things inevitably do. I called the Volkswagen dealership, which happens to be about a mile away from our apartment and they told me that they had an open service appointment first thing the next morning (excellent!) and that if I could get the car in before 7pm that night they could just keep it overnight in their garage (hurray!) AND that particular mechanical issue was still covered in my extended warranty and would be free of charge (huzzah!!) aaand I was able to skip work yesterday (whee!!!) morning so I could get the damn faulty window fixed. The flip side: As I was talking to the mechanic on the phone, I told him of my other more disgusting problem and he said that something of that nature would probably end up costing me upwards of $550 (as in, five hundred and fifty un-warranty-covered dollars) to fix. Zounds. I swear, by the time I can afford to get the leak fixed, there'll be mushrooms growing underneath the driver's seat. Hm.
• Seriously, at what age does it become unacceptable for a person's ass to smell like poo? I mean, literally. Like poopy doopies. I don't know, but I'm fairly certain that 27 is way beyond the cut-off age. I can't expound on this too much, for risk of incriminating somebody and consequently having them confront me, but I just had to put it out there. And no, I haven't been going around sniffing people's asses. But, just to be clear, when your hygeine has deteriorated to such a state that I can smell the dingleberries from your anus whenever you walk by me...dude. Something needs to be done. Please.

And on that note...my sister and her family are coming to visit me and Scott for the weekend in a couple of weeks! Wheee! Our (Scott and I) only goal for the trip - besides having massive amounts of fun, of course - is to convince Kristina and Greg that raw oysters are pure heaven. Because they are. They may not agree now, but with enough persuasion (i.e. holding their arms and legs down while shoving delicious oysters topped with lemon juice and tabasco sauce down their throats), I think they will be convinced. Oh my god, my stomach is now eating itself after writing this last paragraph. Time to go home and eat some leftover Indian curry! Mmmm...leftover Indian curry.