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| Sooo nothing much going on here, I suppose. Yesterday was blessedly quiet: John had the afternoon off so I was the only one in the office most of the day. I savored every minute of it, let me tell you, since I don't expect any such peace of mind again any time soon. I hate to keep obsessing over it, but despite my best efforts to keep it under wraps, my dismay and apprehension was poking out all over the place today. I mean, sure, maybe it won't be as bad as I'm making it out to be, right? Maybe I'll slip quietly back into a tolerable simmer and think that it's not so terrible after all - well, every other Friday, at least.
I spent today at the mall as a little treat, since I just paid off all my credit cards (huzzah) and am moderately solvent for the time being. I got a few basics I've had my eye out for, and a couple of nice tops that I didn't need in the least, but they were on sale and I like them. There's nothing more empowering than wearing a new outfit that you love and was 50% off. Well, it would be more empowering if I could wear heels, but that's a discussion for another day.
Emily and I have been looking at apartments lately. She's trying to decide where she wants to move after she graduates next year, and we had this strange and probably ludicrous idea that, primarily to save money, we'd get a place together. We're both fully aware that we'd absolutely slaughter each other within the first month over something trivial like the angle of an occasional chair or how long it takes for her to brush her teeth, but if nothing else it's fun to look and pretend that we'd get along like peas and carrots in a little fantasy world. Truth is, she wants to live in the city (whatever city that may be, although Boston has been our focus), and I hate the idea of living in the city. Any city, really.
We've found some gorgeous and really inexpensive places in Lowell, located in old millworks that have been renovated into trendy lofts and condos, and they're even not in a terrible part of town, but there's no getting past the fact that Lowell is...not the most attractive place to live. I mean, it's one of these old, small, New England cities that's trying hard to revitalize itself by doing stuff like renovating old mill buildings, but it's not quite there yet. I would much rather live in a small town, even in an apartment complex (sound familiar?) that offers some amenities, where I can look out my window and see trees and ponds and deer and roads with no lines on them. I get really itchy when I'm around throngs of people all the time. It's like you can never really completely switch off.
But her graduation is still a long way off, and it all depends on what kind of job she can land and where she'll have to be. And where I am, I guess, but that seems pretty fixed at the moment despite my best intentions. I'm still torn about the whole grad school thing, because it is a big investment, and as much as I crave the chance to do history again, I'm still not convinced it's an investment that will pay off in any immediate or measurable way. Sure, it'll make me happy in the short term, but let's face it: it's not going to help me get a job. And it looks like I'd be taking almost everything out as a loan. Which totally sucks. It's all so frustrating.
Anyway. I've had this discussion before, and I really just have to sit down and work out the numbers best I can, which is difficult because most of the aid out there is scholarships or work-study type jobs, and those are impossible to predict. Why couldn't I be interested in a discipline that other people think is worthwhile? I'd get so much more funding.
Tomorrow will be another exciting day of cleaning house and tidying up. I can't wait. I've been doing really well with keeping up with everything, but it's amazing how often some things need to get done. It just never ends.
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| I had to drive to Norwood today to help pick up one of the cars that was being serviced, since there wasn't anyone else who could take Stacey. It's about a half-hour drive, and since it wasn't raining it was fine with me to get out of the office, but in a typical example of my luck, there was a huge traffic jam on the way back that doubled the time it took to get home. I was out of the office for about three and a half hours all told. It wasn't a particularly stressful situation - it would have been if the family was here and probably demanding something of us - and was almost enjoyable, really, except for the fact that I didn't get to eat lunch until 3:30 in the afternoon. In fact, I should probably feel a lot more indignant about it than I do, but I'll count the fact that I don't really care as a win.
Stacey was more levelheaded today, too, which helped. I'm so easily influenced by other people's moods it's not even funny. I feel more cheerful because she was more cheerful, which is definitely going to help come next week. They don't want her working at the house anymore after her outburst the other day, but that's obviously going to change when they realize that they need someone at the house for their own convenience. It puts more of a burden on me and the other people still at the house, but I guess it can't be helped.
In other news. I'm so close to finishing my afghan. It's pretty exciting. I have two more rows to attach to the main part, then I've got to zip through the vertical seams, do a border, block it (steaming it with an iron to make it less crinkly), and that'll be that. It looks great right now, and I'm just a little bit proud of myself for doing such a good job. It's not absolutely perfect, although I think blocking it will smooth out a lot of the weird bits, but you have to look for the mistakes and the overall impression is of like, a real afghan. It makes me happy.
I don't know whether I should go to Sail Boston this weekend or not. On one hand, it's pretty neat to see all the ships and stuff (although I've actually seen a few of them already), but on the other hand, it's apparently super crowded and I always find it terribly awkward to go to those sorts of things by myself. There are some things I can do alone, but going to an event that's primarily for families and stuff, wandering around aimlessly with a camera held in a very defensive manner...it's not really all that fun. It seems a shame to miss it, but it's an aspect of my life (or lack thereof) that I don't really feel capable of facing at the moment. I guess that's even sadder than having no life at all. I think instead, after a whole month of hectic weekends, it'll behoove me to have a quiet few days, taking care of chores, doing some light shopping, and preparing myself not only for The Return, but also for my mom visiting next week. I always feel like I have to scrub up extra well for my mom.
I think it's definitely time that I go to bed. Crocheting is an exhausting pursuit, after all. No, I was tired when I woke up this morning, and surprisingly it hasn't gotten much better throughout the day. I've got to make some real progress on the task I'm working on this week, even though my software is broken and I can't seem to get it to work, because something's installed weirdly even though I reinstalled it all properly, and Java hates me, and weird error messages are berating me left and right. It's sort of a mess, but nice people in Illinois are doing their best to help me out of it. We'll see what happens tomorrow, I guess.
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| Today was something of a mixed bag, I guess. We had a vicious line of thunderstorms come through all afternoon, which was kind of fun, especially since it stopped raining and actually got sunny about five minutes before I left work. But I spent quite a bit of the afternoon listening to Stacey, who had come to the office to get something scanned (no, I don't know why there isn't a scanner at the house, but whatever) and ended up venting at me for a while.
I don't mind getting vented at, especially if the person venting has good reason, and she definitely does. I won't go into all of what she said to me, but suffice to say she's been having it rough with the family and is nearing her breaking point. She's dreading their return since not everything is exactly how they'll want it to be, and there has been some grossly inappropriate behavior on their part regarding a funeral she has to attend at the end of the week. Words were spoken, emails were sent, Scarlett O'Hara-type vows were made. All in all it's not a pretty picture, and I can clearly understand the need to tell someone who completely understands.
But...well, first of all, this is like only the second time I've spoken to her in the past three weeks they've been away, which is partly because I haven't been at the house at all during that time, but she's been at the office and only sometimes says hello. It's not really a give-and-take relationship. Yes, she has the more stressful job and I'm in a unique position of being a good listener and being part of the inner circle she has to deal with all the time, but I hardly get a word in edgewise. It's not an unusual situation for me to be in, since I tend to be pretty passive and don't open up to a lot of people without serious consideration beforehand, but it's just a little annoying.
And even more than that, it doesn't help that I have to deal with her upset and frustration when I can barely handle my own, does it? When it goes beyond amusing anecdotes and turns into really heavy-duty stuff? I already want to leave my job, we know this, but I was doing a really good job of amping myself up to deal with their return on Monday, and now I feel like all of that has just been blown to pieces. I was just skating by on that ever-thinning ice that separates me from a total meltdown as it was. How am I going to put on my happy face when there's this whole new dimension of really serious tension in an already tense house, and me privy to it all? I don't like how this is shaping up.
As usual, however, there's nothing I can do but make the best of it. If I could quit tomorrow I would, grad school recommendation be damned, but the bills have to be paid and the lights have to stay on. I think that at this point, the idea of staying on through grad school is just not plausible. I can't see myself working here full time for another year - though that's what I said last year, isn't it - and I'm not sure in any case that I could handle the stress of this environment as well as writing a thesis and going to class, especially since most of the programs I've looked at aren't very receptive to the idea of attending part time. That may mean that grad school is once again out of my reach financially right now, but I don't know what else to do. The whole thing is just one big noxious, toxic mess, and although I've used this job to achieve one big goal in my life - moving out on my own - I'm not sure I'm strong enough to hold out in order to use it for another.
We'll see how this all plays out, I guess. I can make all the impassioned assertions I want about my future, but that doesn't change anything. Annoying, isn't it.
One good thing that happened today, though, was a complete happy accident. My headphones broke this morning, so I went to Staples to get a new pair. Right next to Staples is a Pier 1. I love Pier 1, you guys. If I could spend 30 bucks on a throw pillow whenever I liked, you wouldn't be able to walk in my apartment anymore. You wouldn't even be able to find the kitchen where I'd keep all my sweet glassware and funky mugs. But since I didn't win the Megamillions lottery this past week (Em bought us some tickets), I was going to content myself to looking around wistfully.
They happened to be having a big sale, and as I was looking at a clump of furniture, something caught my eye. It was a mirrored wooden jewelry armoire, and it was cheap. Cheap! Comparatively. I've been looking for a real, sturdy jewelry box since I quadrupled my collection in June, and I haven't been able to find anything bigger than my current one and under the price of a small private island in the Pacific. So getting a 4-foot tall, seven-drawered, lift-top armoire with little French doors covered in hooks for long chains for 50% off its normal (not unreasonable) price was a real bargain. It was so cheap because it's missing a knob and it's a little bit banged up, but the knob is replaceable and the scratches are fixable. One of my very nice neighbors even helped me carry it to my door, because it's a heavy, substantial piece. Nothing lifts your spirits like getting something practical but beautiful that you've been searching for, plus exhibiting the heroic self-control not to have bought - or even really looked at - anything else on sale.
Plus I felt like a real techno-wizard when my phone was about to run out of battery and I remembered that I had my USB phone charger with me. I plugged it into my laptop to charge it so I could send a picture of the thing to my dad in order for him to tell me whether the hardware was fixable or not. I live for these little moments when preparedness pays off.
Anyway. I've been so busy this evening moping and/or organizing jewelry that I haven't watched any television whatsoever. A rare occurrence indeed. I finished edging all my granny squares last night for my blanket, which is why I'm not crocheting today. The only thing I have left to do is sew them all together and probably do some sort of border. I put about fifteen of them together already, just to see how it would turn out, and it looks pretty darn good. 96 squares means I have a while to go, though. I'll probably work on it some more over the weekend so I can rest my hands a bit. We'll see.
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| Oh, how lovely that the weather cooperated this weekend. A little cool on Friday, but perfect beyond perfect on Saturday. We even went swimming. On Friday we went to Rockport, where we perused the various shops, hung out by the water, and had a delicious lobster dinner. It's such a cute little town filled with gorgeous old houses and more t-shirt shops than you can shake a stick at.
Saturday we didn't really do anything until it was time for the fireworks. We had breakfast at a cafe in West Acton that I didn't know existed, where they served the most perfectly ripe and varied fruit salad I've had in a really long time. They're a little on the expensive side for real meals, but they're also a bakery and the coffee is very good. Normally we go to the cafe down by the little private airport, but they're closed until the 8th and we had to adjust our plans. Emily and I did some shopping in the afternoon while my dad hung out here, then we went to the pool before heading off to the park for the show.
I have to say, it was better last year. Whether there were cutbacks or maybe some sort of malfunction (they let off a whole bunch more as everyone was leaving), the finale was a little short, and then whole thing was only about ten minutes long. I seem to remember it was longer last year, and I definitely remember that last year there wasn't a loud, obnoxious woman talking to her child the entire time five feet behind us, telling him how much he should be loving the display. Em and I got some pretty cool pictures, which are up on Facebook, of course, using a long exposure. Well, not a super long exposure, since I don't have a lens with a narrow enough aperture to allow for more than a second or two at the max (our best results were with 1/30 anyway), but some of them are really neat.
Overall, a nice long weekend filled with fun activities. I like having my family come up and visit me, and I'm glad they like where I live, but I can't say I'm entirely sorry to have the place to myself again. My apartment is just a little too small to have so many people here for any length of time, really. I only have one weekend of solitude, though, since my mom's taking her turn to visit the weekend after next, and then it's time for Maine. I just scheduled the GRE retake on August 29, so I'll probably be on Long Island in the middle of August some time, unless I suddenly become hyper-dilligent and spend all that time studying. Haha.
Anyway, I think I'm going to turn in early. I really don't want to go to work tomorrow, but work I must. This is my last week before the family returns, which I'm seriously dreading. It's been so nice not working under a constant looming threat of unreasonable demands and mild emotional abuse. But I guess we all have our burdens to bear. Ah well. I keep looking for jobs and stuff, but it's still pretty deserted out there. I guess we'll wait and see.
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| This week has marked the return not only of existential musings, but also of crochet. The task I was doing at work this week required almost no typing at all, surprisingly, so it was a good chance to resume usual activities. I actually finished all the squares for my afghan, and I'm getting the yarn I need for the edging and joining tomorrow, so maybe in the next week or two I'll have a brand new, home made blanket that it's way too hot to use for another five months. But today I made an octopus, without a pattern, with cute little button eyes and multicolored legs, plus a little rectangular monster thingy to keep him company. The octopus took maybe four hours, since I was using single crochet, but it's totally worth it.
Tomorrow my dad and Emily are coming up for the holiday, but I'm afraid it'll get rained out. This morning I actually got off the parkway and headed back towards home the downpour was so torrential. I'm a pretty stoic bad weather driver, having driven down the coast or through the Berkshires in more snowstorms and nor'easters than I can count, but it had been raining since 6 in the morning and the roads just weren't draining. Route 2 is bad at the best of times with puddles and potholes, and I'm not quite as willing to drive through large bodies of water ever since I stupidly, stupidly charged ahead through about two and a half feet under an overpass in Natick with a little hatchback stalled in the left lane and the cops closing down the street soon after. How embarrassing would it have been to have gotten stuck? Stupid Massachusetts divided highways, though, there was literally no other place to go but forward. Tally ho.
But the rain eased up as soon as I got to the office, dripping and annoyed, and there's only supposed to be a 30% chance of isolated thunderstorms on Saturday. I was so excited about this summer, you guys. I wanted to go places and see things and enjoy the weather after the long winter we had. Things are not working out exactly the way I planned.
Aside from that, nothing much going on. I've started to email some grad schools about random questions. I know you're supposed to apply to like 10 schools, because it's self-selective to begin with and all, but I can't even find that many schools I'd be vaguely interested in. My top two are Tufts and Brandeis, partly because they're in the area, but also because there are professors there in the subject I'm interested in. William and Mary is another one, but it's just so far away. Trinity in Hartford has an interesting program that's geared towards evenings, and it's like half the cost per credit of any of the other schools. But there's no faculty match, which is a problem. Knowing exactly what I want to do my thesis on - and knowing it's fairly obscure - is making it difficult. I know there doesn't have to be a professor researching the exact same thing I want to, but having at least someone in the same region and more or less the same time period seems to be to be a requirement.
If you've never read or watched any of the myriad versions of Pride and Prejudice (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies doesn't count), you can skip this part, but I saw this skit the other day (the second one; starts around the 2:05 mark) and couldn't stop laughing. If that's not exactly what you want to say to Caroline Bingley the whole damn book, I don't know what is.
Anywho, time to sign off. I guess the "tomorrow" I referred to earlier is actually today now, but whatever. Same thing. Who cares. Good night.
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