We finally got our new washer. As predicted it�s only 'new' to us. It spews water with great force against the agitator and up out the open lid like a demented firehose, and sounds like a �76 Gremlin with a bad universal joint, but it does indeed wash a full load of clothes and spin them dry so I�m a happy little laundry-doing camper right now. Hell, with that water pressure my clothes are probably cleaner than they�ve ever been. I�ve just got to remember not to let it fill with the lid open, unless I want carpet soup.

The cats are delighted to have finally been sprung from captivity, and I have begun the process of reclaiming the bedroom as human turf once again. Yesterday I folded clothes, cleaned up the mess on the closet floor, changed the sheets and cleaned out half of a dresser drawer before I got sidetracked into cleaning up the kitchen. Well, I was putting dirty glasses from the bedroom into the sink full of day-old dishwater and assorted kitchenware when it finally occurred to me that day old dishwater shouldn�t be stinking THAT bad, and that�s when I discovered I had taters gone bad under the sink, and somehow in the process of cleaning that mess up I wound up cleaning out the entire under-sink area and now it�s all neat and tidy and smells much better, thank you very much. And I was just going to go ahead and put away the clean dishes and start a new load of dirties and head right back into the bedroom to clean, but it was late and I was getting kind of tired, and once I got into the bedroom I decided to lie down on the sheetless bed for �just a minute.� The next thing I knew it was 4 in the morning and I needed to pee like a fiend, and the next thing after that, it was 5 a.m. and I needed to pee like a fiend again (what�s up with that?) and the next thing after that, it was 9. I NEVER sleep until nine, and apparently for good reason because I woke up grouchy and shaky and light-headed and all kinds of out of sorts and didn�t get to feeling better until after lunch.

We were supposed to gonna screw this morning, but we ran out of time what with the Prince having to go to the bank and me having to sit here and do bills and both of us needing showers, so the screwing has been officially rescheduled for tomorrow morning. It�s not like it�s urgently needed or anything, because we�re both fully capable of blocking those sort of urges completely out of our consciousness when we�re stressed out... but being that we�re home alone together every day until 2:30 these days, I think that once we�re out of crisis mode and working again we�re going to be kicking ourselves hard that we didn�t take better advantage of our time off.

The budget actually worked out better than I expected. We�re getting an unusually hefty tax refund this year, and combined with unemployment and child support, we figured out that even if neither of us is able to find a job, we can pay our bills and rent and eat through the end of July, as long as we are extremely careful. We�re both hoping we find jobs soon, though, because there are a lot better things I can think of to do with a $7400 tax refund than eat and pay rent, you know? Like pay down half of our credit card debt, buy a new computer complete with all my coveted graphics software, and put some in savings to get a running start on the rainy-day savings we�ve now realized we really do need, seeing as how when the rainy day actually arrived we found ourselves a wee bit unprepared. But I�m not bitching, really... I�m HUGELY relieved that our laziness (in not having changed the Prince�s paycheck deductions last year) for once actually worked in our favor. Not that I�m advocating laziness as our new and improved survival strategy or anything...

So that makes me feel quite a bit better, because I�m pretty sure we should both be able to find something before the end of July... it may even buy us enough time to hold out for something decent.

Although if I�d have known things were going to be this slow job-search-wise and that we weren�t in imminent danger of complete financial collapse, I�d have stayed with my original school schedule. My new Photoshop class isn�t too bad, except that the teacher is some brand of Asian (Vietnamese, I�m guessing from his name and accent but I�m not sure) and he has a VERY heavy accent. It�s hard to understand him and he moves kind of fast through his demonstrations so it�s easy to get confused and fall behind, and if you get real confused and ask too many questions he gets a little pissy because "you wace evvybody tine." It hasn�t been too much of a problem for me, though, because luckily there are a couple of people in class who are even slower on the uptake than I am, so if I get confused all I have to do is wait for one of THEM to ask the dumb question and get yelled at, and then I reap the benefits. Hehehe.

My page layout teacher, though, is a serious nutcase. Supposedly all work in all the graphic arts classes is supposed to be done in class (as opposed to working on it at home or in the computer lab,) but I�ve never had a teacher try to enforce it before. This crazy paranoid bitch won�t let us turn the computers on at the beginning of class until she gives the word, and if she catches you with a zip disk in the drive during class time, she goes ballistic. (Because she doesn�t want us sneaking in files we�ve worked on outside of class, see.) Because I joined the class late, she �graciously� allowed me to come in early one day and use the classroom to finish up Project 1�which I needed to turn in to the previous teacher whose page layout class I was in, and THAT teacher had told me don�t worry about it, just turn it in whenever�but the psycho woman didn�t think it was fair that I should have extra time on it. So she let me come in early one day to work on it, but she made me SNEAK IN AND OUT THE BACK WAY, so none of the other students would know. As if it would be some big scandal for me to be given a little extra time to catch up, seeing as how I transferred in from a slightly slower-paced class.

Plus, you know how with some people you immediately have this amazing rapport, to where you just �get� each other and can practically finish each other�s sentences? Well, me and this lady, we have some kind of great �Anti-Rapport�... somehow we just don�t seem to be able to get each other�s point, and we�re continually having to back up and say, no no, I didn�t mean THAT, I meant THIS; and the conversation just never seems to flow well and it always just feels horribly awkward and unpleasant. To make matters worse she has a very oddly placed and prominent facial mole that I can�t seem to stop staring at. I mean, I TRY not to stare but I keep catching myself and then I try really hard to look her in the eye and not-stare at it, and I�m pretty sure she KNOWS that I�m either staring or determinedly not-staring, and I think it makes her uncomfortable and god knows it makes me DAMNED uncomfortable.

Thankfully, we�re beyond the hard part of Project 2�sketching out a color comprehensive of the project on paper sucked ass mightily�and we�re now into the "teacher shuts up and lets us work on the computer� portion, and I like that a whole lot better. I love working with Illustrator so much... I simply lose awareness of time and become one with the computer when I�m working with it. Very Zen. How cool would it be to have a job where eight hours seemed like minutes, instead of centuries? Hopefully I'll get the chance to experience that someday soon.

Speaking of centuries, that�s approximately how long I�ve been working on this entry, and I�ve really got other stuff I should be doing. Class again tonight, but for now I�m off to see what else I can check off my List for the day.

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Previous - Next
Last Five
Crappy job crap, weird neighbor, and someone whose baby I apparently want to have - 2006-05-08
Live from the dump - 2006-04-09
Kind of like a muzzle for your brain - 2006-03-29
...and then she fell ass-first into my cereal bowl - 2006-03-28
Playing catch-up - 2006-03-27

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