Thanksgiving

Poor decision for the Thanksgiving holiday season.

Many of you may know already that my family no longer celebrates Thanksgiving, but, for those of you unaware, starting when I was 14 years old, people started dying over the Thanksgiving holiday. People like my grandmother, my great-grandmother, my 2nd or 3rd cousin, my mother's best friend's mother...it was disturbing. At some point my mother decided that our Thanksgiving was killing people and we should stop doing it.
Oddly enough, this worked.
Weird, right?
But two or three years ago, my mother decided it was safe and that we should have a big dinner on Thanksgiving, but without turkey, just in case. Here is where we get to the heart of the story. Poor decision #1 is obviously having Thanksgiving in the first place. Poor decision #2 was that my mother decided she was going to cook. She was going to bake a green bean casserole like her grandmother used to make for Thanksgivings. You may be familiar with this particular recipe as it is on the back of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup. You basically pour canned green beans and canned soup in a casserole dish, dump boxed/canned fried onion bits on the top and bake it. It's actually pretty good although my mother and I are the only people in the family who will eat it so I really don't know why she got this into her head. But starting in September of that year, it was in her head and wouldn't leave. "This year we will have Thanksgiving. And I will make GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE." "I will not eat green bean casserole," said my father. "I will not eat it on a boat I will not eat it with a goat, I will not eat it with a mouse in a house, I do not like it Sam-I-Am!"
Maybe I am getting this story confused with another.
Anyway, maybe once a week between September and November my mother would announce "I will be making green bean casserole! And it will be like my grandmother's! And I will make it! All by myself!"
Obviously I was terrified. This was clearly going to end as terribly as any green bean casserole could. So, sometime around mid October, I went to the grocery store and bought a frozen green bean casserole and hid it in the back of the freezer.
As Thanksgiving came nearer and nearer, my mother's announcements became more frequent. We were GETTING this green bean casserole, guys. And it was going to BE AMAZING. My mother went out and bought cans of Campbell's cream of mushroom soup in the most ceremonious way possible and lined them all up in the pantry at eye level so we could see them whenever we opened it. The onion ring bits were bought and stored in the same way.
Thanksgiving was approaching. We were all growing increasingly concerned about this green bean casserole. But I had my back up frozen casserole in the freezer, so I sat tight.
The morning of Thanksgiving, my father ran around cooking all kinds of fancy complicated things. My mother waited happily until early afternoon to put her casserole in the oven so it would be hot. I was upstairs in my room when I heard a cry.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGG"
That is approximately how it was spelled.
I ran down the stairs to see who had burned their face on the oven and found my mother crying against the kitchen table with my father looking on, lost and sad.
The moment I saw the scene, I knew what had happened.
"You forgot to buy the green beans, didn't you?"

May your mother never look at you with as much sadness and despair as mine did that day.

We looked at the clock. It was about 10 minutes past the time every grocery store in the United States closes on Thanksgiving day. I said, "Not to worry!" and pulled out my frozen green bean casserole. There was a moment of silence as both my parents looked at me. Then, simultaneously, my father began to laugh and my mother began to yell. "YOU HAVE NO FAITH IN ME! HOW DARE YOU BUY THAT! I WAS GOING TO MAKE IT!" and I said, "All right, well, make it." So my mother quieted down. My father did not.
The day continued on. Soon guests arrived. Shortly after the rest of the food was laid out I remembered the casserole and stuck it in the microwave for 10 minutes.
After maybe 7 minutes, I began to be violently ill. Repeatedly. I left everyone downstairs and then spent the next two days vomiting and crying and sure I was going to die.
Thank God we didn't serve the turkey. You all realize I would be dead, right?
After two days of this I felt well enough to go down the stairs and into the kitchen to heat up some soup. I opened the microwave.
"AFTER ALL THAT YOU GUYS JUST LEFT MY GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE IN THE MICROWAVE????"

Let's make this interactive. Please comment with your favorite Thanksgiving story.

Quyen Guest Posts Again!

The following is not exactly a poor decision, because no conscious decision was made. It is a story of one unfortunate misaction that placed us precariously between utter disaster and return to blissful normalcy. Fiance and I were visiting the Inner Harbor in Baltimore on one fall Saturday evening. We love to save on parking (please refer to shoe story), therefore we parked on a creepy side street that was deserted and dark (EDITOR'S NOTE: THIS SOUNDS EXACTLY LIKE A POOR DECISION TO ME). Such is how most unfortunate events are born. On this crisp fall night, the Harbor was pleasantly crowded, happy, and vibrant. We walked along boats, restaurants, food shops. We danced on benches and filled the air with laughter. It was a perfect date. Fiance even bought me delicious ice cream before the stand closed. Several cell phone pictures later, we were ready to head back to the car. Back at the car, Fiance let out a gasp.

"I don't have my keys."

Wide eyes. Shock. Repeat the question? How do you not have your keys? We drove here using them didn't we? Heading home safely became an extinct concept. Nearby, a homeless man vomited into a trash can. There was only one logical thing to do: trace our steps. Well, the keys weren't under the driver's side of the car, nor was it on the street, along the harbor, under our benches, in the ice cream stand. Neither ice cream vendor nor policemen on bikes had a clue as to the whereabouts of our keys. But the policemen did suggest enlisting the services of a locksmith or a tow truck.

Eventually, we waded through the happy Inner Harbor guests, restaurants, and food stands and headed back to our creepy side street. The homeless man was now slumped down on the side of a building. We sat on the hood of the car, which, at that time, was just as good as sitting in the car. Except it wasn't going to take us home that way. My mind traveled back to Pittsburgh, to our apartment building, to Fiance's bedroom, in which was a dresser whose first drawer housed an envelope containing THE SPARE KEY! I imagined a scenario where we had our friend Sarah would be let into our building by the landlord where she will pick up the key and mail it to us....overnight? Well that wasn't going to whisk us from our plight that night.

I also considered scenarios of our poor car left on the side street, come daylight accumulating parking tickets and boots. And us skipping the next several days of school, spending hundreds of dollars to tow the car and have a new spare key made or...ask our friend Sarah to be let in to our apartment by the landlord...you know how it goes. The options were endless; but they were all terrible.

Fiance was now calling towing companies. I was pacing in the 10 foot segment of the sidewalk that contained our car. I saw a man pop out of a door down the street taking a smoke break. The door was a side door of the hotel on the corner and the man was a valet guy. I walked towards him, my steps picking up as I wildly considered the possibility that he may have seen our keys. But when I asked him he didn't know. He said, "Check with the receptionist."

I think that for most receptionists, "Did someone drop off a set of car keys that they found on the street?" is a rare question. But on that night, it was a perfectly valid question because "of course, the keys are right here, we didn't know whether to expect anyone to come get them."

And that is how we got home safely as though nothing had happened.

-----Quyen

How Are My Former Decisions Going?

Well, I have a job! A real one! In an office! So the whole coming to DC with nothing hoping to make a life...decision that is beginning to work out and explains why I no longer have much free time in which to write.
Internet dating...not the worst decision, not the best. Couldn't really get into it, it is not for me. I do, however, have great fun reading through everyone's profile and grading their grammar. Most people fail.
Craigslist babysitting...no idea what happened, they never called again.
Cricket internet...not too bad actually. It works most of the time. Which is more than I ever hoped was possible.
In another two weeks though I am going back to Pittsburgh to see Rachael...I'm sure plenty of terrible decisions will be made. None of them will be my fault.

Love? Money? Love of money?

I have a feeling I'm about to make a poor decision but I'm not sure yet. One way or another though, tomorrow I will have a job.

Online Dating

I don't feel I actually need to write anything more. I have decided to try it, as it is really just one more adventure most people have that I have not and I do hate being left out. But I can't see this ending well.

Addendum:

I lied, I'm going to write more. I have thus far been opposed to online dating for several reasons, but my family ganged up on me and my grandmother, convinced my destiny lies in internet dating, handed me a pile of cash to sign up for JDate. I think they're not all that pleased with the long line of Aryans I have gotten involved with.
My biggest issue with online dating is that it seems like such an ineffective way of finding a good match. It's like making a shopping list and then going out and instead of finding the man/woman of your dreams, it's finding the man/woman of your list. I feel like I've probably dated a large number of people though few of them for very long, but they've all been quite varied. I certainly can't fit them into a type, which I feel is what I is happening when I am shopping for men on a website--looking for ones who fit the type I think I want. But the one relationship/love I've had thus far in my life didn't have ANY of the qualities on my Everything I Want In a Boyfriend list and probably had half the ones on my list of Everything I Never Ever Want in a Boyfriend. We shared nearly no common interests, didn't like the same food or the same places or the same people or the same activities. If I had just seen a profile on the internet, we definitely would never have even met, and I would have missed out.
On the other hand awhile ago I dated a guy who had almost everything on the Everything I Want list. Theoretically, with so many qualities on my little list, the perfect man. An internet profile on this guy would have sold me. But in person I felt pretty much nothing for him, even though I wanted to.
So how can this system possibly work? Especially when what you think you want and what you actually want are so rarely in sync. Or maybe that's just with me.

Cricket

First of all, I would like to say that if not for the Craigslist babysitting business, I would never have found myself in this Cricket mess. So it all comes back to lay the blame at Craigslist's feet. Clearly.

Remember, yesterday morning I'd had that terrible business with ending up in the middle of nowhere and having to reschedule at the woman's house. That went fairly well, it was a little odd, but then, I suppose that was to be expected. The only terrible disaster in that was that they had a small dog, and the small dog LICKED me.

I may never recover.

Important background information: I had been given one of those little internet USB keys from Cricket that lets you have internet service anywhere as long as you pay the monthly data fee or whatever and the key is in your computer. We know all about these, because of the time Victoria got one in France from SFR and ended up being charged with something like $2500 in penalties and fees over a three month period. I decided it was a great idea to try and get this Cricket key activated and have internet at home so I could do things like apply to jobs and actually know when someone has responded and wants to know when to interview me. Also to look at Facebook.

This was obviously a terrible idea. First of all, we have the precedent of Victoria. Second of all, the internet and Google maps or whatever told me that there were in fact no Cricket stores anywhere nearby for me to go and talk to someone to find out what activating it entailed. The closest one as far as I could tell was in Silver Spring, MD, which is down the beltway a bit and EVER going on the Beltway is a terrible idea.

I hung on to this key for two weeks before the business with the babysitting. As it turned out, the woman and her kid were in Silver Spring, MD. What luck! I could go meet with her and then head right over to the Cricket place and sort this internet thing out. I would even make it out to Rockville in time for dinner with Ellen and her friends. Amazing.

Google maps told me the Cricket was only 10 minutes away from this woman's house, and in the correct direction too, so I wrote down the directions and headed out on my happy way.

To be totally fair, which I feel I must be, Cricket really was probably only ten minutes away. But I had to get on the beltway again and then I had to turn around in this loop and then I had to go up some street and then down another but I couldn't turn where I wanted to so the directions said make a U-turn on a certain street that as far as I can tell does not in fact exist and so I turned around twice and then got disoriented and eventually I found a nice little parking space and headed into the store.

Turns out Cricket is in WEST Silver Spring, which apparently means that everything is in Spanish. As it turns out I have not forgotten all of my Spanish, which is good, because I needed it when I walked in the door. But this is all only tangentially relevant.

I didn't completely know where I was. I didn't really know how to get back from where I was. I didn't even know if I really wanted to be wherever it was that I was. But I waited 45 minutes to speak with someone about my little key. When I finally did, the conversation went something like this:

Me: I have this key, and I want the most basic internet plan you have which appears to be $40/month. Is there anything basic-er?
Girl: No, that is the very cheapest plan we have to offer.
Me: Are there any fees involved, whatsoever, outside of this $40?
Girl: No, there are no fees at all. You pay $40, that is all.
Me: What about activation fees?
Girl: No, no fees.
Me: What about CANCELLATION fees?
Girl: No, like I said before, there are no fees.
Me: What about fees for if I go over the allotted data? What about THEN?
Girl: Seriously. There. Are. No. Fees.
Me: Okay but see this one time Victoria had an internet key and she got charged like $2000.
Girl: ...excuse me?
Me: So one more time, just because I like hearing you say it, are you sure, absolutely positive, that there is NO WAY that I will ever, under any circumstances that I cannot yet imagine, have to pay FEES of ANY KIND?
Girl: Don't even give us a credit card. Hand me $40 in cash and you will have internet. If you don't pay next month, we just cancel it. No fees.
Me: But Victoria...SFR...
Girl: Yes, you are confusing me with that, I have no idea what you are talking about but why don't you just give me $40.
Me: Okay fine I will. But more questions first!
Girl: ...
Me: What happens when it doesn't work? Who do I call?
Girl: What do you mean "when it doesn't work?" It will work.
Me: No it won't. So give me the number I call for when it doesn't work.
Girl: Okay, I'll write the number here. But...it works. I mean, there's no reason it shouldn't work.
Me: You don't understand. I touched it.
Girl: True. I don't understand...
Me: Okay, so when the software doesn't install correctly, can I get my money back?
Girl: Seriously, it IS GOING TO WORK. No money back, but bring your whole laptop and everything into the store and we will make it work. I swear. But that won't happen. Because it will work.

I took the key, the receipt, the tech support number, and left. Only to remember I didn't know where I was. Ellen kindly used her phone to send me directions and I arrived, disoriented and exhausted at dinner only 45 minutes late.

That night, I plugged the key into my laptop. The software installed, the internet connected, IT WORKED. IT ACTUALLY WORKED. I was completely and utterly dumbfounded. I barely slept all night just thinking about the fact that I had paid for this technology, and it had worked.

The next morning I leapt from my bed all excited to plug in my working internet.

It did not work. I tried again. It did not work. Again...not working. Again and again and again and again.

I pulled out the number I'd made the girl write down and called it. The automated system ran through my choices. I did everything I was supposed to, chose broadband questions, entered my number...and the system said politely, "I'm sorry, I cannot process your request at this time. Goodbye." And hung up on me. I did this three more times. The fifth time I called I punched all the numbers at once and got a real live person who explained to me that all their computers with broadband support were down and they just could not help me.

I left the house in a rage.

That night, the internet worked for no reason. I was joyful. The next morning, the internet did not work. Rage. That night, the internet worked. The next morning, RAGE. Apparently Cricket broadband only worked AT NIGHT.

Now though, we seem to be running more consistently. It had better stay that way.

Craigslist

In my job search, I have spent a lot of time on Craigslist, which isn't always the most reputable or safe place to go around looking for jobs. I've found some interesting stuff on there.

For example, I found my job with the Uniformed Services University there. I applied for an Assistant position that had only a small description, received a call from a man asking me to come in for an interview, things you might expect. Except that we must remember that he was a total stranger from the internet, and he informed me that since I did not have military clearance I would not be able to get onto the facility grounds on my own and I needed to MEET HIM IN A PARKING LOT somewhere.

Warning bells, anyone? I admit, I thought about it. But I wanted mooooneey. So I said, "Sure! I will meet you in a parking lot somewhere whenever you want." He told me he drove a gray Scion.

I got directions, and on the appointed day and time I showed up in the parking lot and pulled in behind a gray Scion. I could not see the driver from my angle, he was just large and shadowy. He made a gesture/signal out the window, and pulled away. I followed. We went through security and down many winding paths (place is larger than you might think) and into a parking garage. Down, down, down, all of the floors until my cell phone lost reception and we were alone in the very bottom, under ground, with absolutely no one else around as it was a weekend.

This is not a super situation for young females to get themselves into, and yet...there I was.

As we know, I was not violently murdered, I was given a pretty sweet job, so it all turned out rather well. Still, though, not one of my more brilliant moves.

A few days ago I applied for a job I found on Craigslist as a babysitter. The mother decided she wanted to meet me. Before replying to her, I had a sudden moment of lucidity. I talked to my father. "Father, do you feel the odds of me being violently murdered, chopped in pieces, and having my extremities hidden in a freezer and dropped in the Chesapeake are high or low if I go to this internet stranger's house?"
My father said, "I just watched that movie about the Craigslist killer. But you should do whatever you think is right. I have to go make chocolate chip ice cream now. Goodbye."

I wrote to the woman and told her I would prefer we met somewhere public. She suggested some gym/rec center she takes her kid to and sent me the link to their web page. I copied the address off the bottom and put it in mapquest. It was quite far away, but I figured whatever I can do it.

So this morning I set off, on the Beltway (going on the Beltway for any reason is ALWAYS A TERRIBLE IDEA) going EAST. Long story short, I drove a million miles, got off in the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, found the address listed after about eighty million u-turns and circling and shouting, and discovered that the address did not belong to anything remotely like a rec center or gym. I called the woman, who informed she had absolutely no idea where I was but it was certainly not even remotely near where SHE was, which was up I95 somewhere.

NOT HAVING A GPS, I of course had no way of figuring out how to get to her, so we had to reschedule. "Can you at least get home?" she asked. "Oh yes, of course," said I. We hung up.

I had come on the Beltway EAST so I figured all I had to do was look for the Beltway going WEST.

There WAS NO BELTWAY GOING WEST. There were only North and South. So more u-turns and circles and shouting ensued and eventually I decided the most logical course of action was to take the South and hope life eventually worked itself out. Except then there was construction and I got confused and nearly missed it and had to switch lanes suddenly and NO ONE WOULD LET ME because they're all BASTARDS and so I ended up shouting obscenities out the window and getting honked out and then shouting some more but I made it onto the Beltway and then cried a lot and only eventually made it home.

And this evening I get to go to this woman's house to try again.

I hope she doesn't murder me.

Skiing

I was inadvertently reminded by a friend about a skiing experience of mine. I should point out that he reminded me by telling me a skiing story of his own, wherein his wife ends up being carted down the mountain by the ski patrol and ends up needing surgery. Which proves the point I am about to make, which is that skiing is a Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Decision.

I was a Girl Scout when I was younger. This is a poor decision that probably deserves it's own entry, but maybe I'll get around to that later. For now, it's relevant only because the my troop leaders decided it would be a good idea to take us on a ski trip. We were a bunch of twelve year old girls, and we were usually excited to do just about anything. I was particularly excited because it was such a European and fashionable sounding thing to do, and one more thing that everyone else seemed to have done that I hadn't.

"Going skiing is a terrible horrible no good very bad decision," said my mother, who tends to say that about a lot of things. So I ignored her.
"Going skiing is a terrible horrible no good very bad decision," said my father, which should have set off the warning bells, because my father doesn't usually know when things are a terrible horrible no good very bad decision, or usually care, so long as they're not fatal.

But I ignored him too, and signed up for the ski trip. My mother signed up as a chaperon, because she and her best friend (who was notorious for terrible decisions which were a result of a complete lack of attention to reality) decided not to miss an opportunity to sit around in a ski lodge next to a fire, drinking hot chocolate, and mocking the idiots foolish enough to go skiing.

I'm going to tell you right now. There was no ski lodge. But this is not a story about my mother's poor decision, or the psychological trauma she suffered as a result.

I honestly don't remember too much of the day. I know that I was immediately cold. I know that at least two of the girls were crying for at least part of the day, and I think it was more related to girl drama than ski incidents. I remember whining a lot and being unable to get up the hill and having my mother and her friend pull me and my friend up the bunny hill by our ski poles. I remember taking a few short workshops on the way up the hill. How to stand. How to turn left and right. How to get up if you fall.

For this one, the instructor asked for a volunteer to demonstrate. No one volunteered. He picked me. He had me get down on the ground, and proceeded to twist up my legs and my skis so I was tangled. Then he said, "Okay, use the skills we just discussed to stand up!"

Eventually he and my mother came forward and spent five minutes getting me out of the snow.

Then it was time for my first solo run down the bunny hill! I stood at the top, ran over stance and left and right in my head, decided I was ready, and pushed off.

Has anyone else noticed that none of my lessons included learning to stop? Because it was not until approximately ten seconds after pushing off that I noticed. When I did notice, I panicked. I tried "left" and "right" and "screaming," none of with succeeded at stopping me. What WAS successful was the little group of people milling about at the bottom of the hill who had not taken flight at my initial scream. These people were very effective at stopping me, abruptly, although they were not exactly "happy." Lucky for everyone I am quite a small person, it was quite a small hill, and no one suffered any permanent physical damage.

I, however, suffered all kinds of emotional damage that has stayed with me for many years. I don't think I went up the hill again that day. I believe I went to sit with the crying girls. Possibly I started to cry as well. I never skied again, and I have zero interest. Why go through all that work with the cold and the snow and the tramping and the lifts and the ropes when your reward is to fall on your ass somewhere on a mountain/hill and possibly end up in surgery? Or sitting in a building with crying 12 year olds and NO FIRE AND NO HOT CHOCOLATE?

Stupid.

I have never been snow boarding, but I can't imagine it's any better. I have to agree with my friend who told me, "If God meant for us to fly down the side of a snow-capped mountain with our legs bound at the ankles, he would have made us that way to begin with.

Yes. I believe that too.

GPS

I am one of those individuals who does not own a smart phone. I am also one of those individuals who cannot read a map. Once I tried to read a map in 2008 and I was informed that it was upside down. That was the last time I bothered trying to read a map. Other times involving me trying to read a map generally ended in bad areas, unknown areas, or at least areas we were not at all trying to get to. I am somewhat convinced my sense of direction comes from my father, while my father would rather consider the possibility that I am in fact an alien rather than the possibility that this a shared trait.
In any case, I am the perfect candidate for a GPS, being unable to make use of a phone or a map or my limited brain power. I've managed to get by all right though, mostly due to the fact that I was mostly driving around Pittsburgh, where I'd lived for ten years. Rachael will be the first to tell you that despite my ten years of experience, I had a few misadventures, but for the most part I felt pretty confident.
Now, however, I am in the D.C. area, which includes the city, Maryland, and Virginia which include treacherous paths like the Beltway and lots of roads with numbers like 355 and 187 and 185 and 495 and I am beginning to lose track of what goes where. Those are just the big ones. In my neighborhood alone we have at least a million one-way streets, and four million streets that have signs that say things like, "DO NOT ENTER! but only on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7-9 in the morning and 4-6 in the evening and sometimes on Saturdays when it's raining but only when you can see the moon in the sky during the day and the neighbor is playing the accordion on the porch with his dog."
And if that's not enough to drive a person insane, half the streets are shut down for construction, so even though I finally managed to pick out a few safe routes they've all been shut down by large machines and men and sometimes it takes me an hour to get down the street.
I spend half of my time driving backwards and forwards and making possibly illegal u-turns, some of which have been near-misses that almost resulted in accidents that would have made the evening news.

I think it may be time to join the ranks of functioning driving Americans and buy a damn gadget, before one of my poor driving decisions ends in total destruction.

Taxes

Tax season is upon us, so I thought we should have a theme-fitting story.

Due to the fact that I am an individual with a degree in English Literature, until last year I had never had to file taxes, not having had a big-girl job in the United States. It is possible I should have had to file taxes for my overseas job, but if you think I was going to figure that mess out and read any kind of paperwork, you are mistaken. Also I'm pretty sure my year's income was well under what a person needs to have in order to be required to file taxes anyway.
In any case, as we have stated, I have a B.A. in Literature and if you think I was about to do all the mathematics required to file taxes on my own, you are mistaken AGAIN.

I went to my father for help, which he was glad enough to do since he has learned over these many years that I am not to be trusted with ANYTHING, from helping my grandmother pick out a Gadget, to choosing an insurance plan, to opening a new box of Cheerios without accidentally exploding the bag and causing Cheerios to rain down from the heavens (Dear Father, you may still be finding Cheerios around the kitchen since I moved, and you may be confused as to why this is. Sister did it. She says she's in Chicago at school, but I think she comes back in secret sometimes and just goes around making messes).

Because my father didn't want any tax related disasters, he felt it prudent to acquiesce to my pleading for help. But he wanted me to LEARN, so I had to be doing it with his supervision.

I started off almost excited, because my father informed me that I was probably eligible for some kind of big tax refund that may or may not have had something to do with Obama. I don't follow politics at all, to a criminal degree, possibly because my mother has several degrees in the subject. Only extensive psychological research will tell us for sure.

Taxes are a painful process. And I didn't even have much in the way of what we who are knowledgeable in the way of the taxes call "assets." We got through the whole terrible process with occasional question and answer sessions that went like this:

Father: Well how much were you paying in insurance when you started the plan?
Me: Damned if I know.
Father: Well get out your checkbook and see what amount you sent them that month.
Me: I don't write those kinds of things down in my checkbook.
Father: How do you balance your checkbook?
Me: ...What now?
Father: You make it very difficult to help you, Danielle.

and

Father: What were your total earnings from the newspaper from X month to X month?
Me: How am I supposed to remember that??
Father: They sent you a 1099. Go get it.
Me: You mean that piece of paper that had a lot of numbers on it that came in that important looking envelope marked "Important Tax Information?"
Father: Yes, exactly!
Me: Yeah, I think I threw that away.
Father: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We did eventually get through the process with only a few tears (mostly my father's), and finally we came to the very end when all I had to do was write the checks to the federal and state governments. We did it!

My father, emotionally exhausted, said, "All you have to do is copy this amount and this amount on to checks and make them out to these people and these people. I know you can at least handle that much. I need a break."

I let him go, and sat down to finish this business. I carefully made out one envelope to the feds and one to the state. Then I carefully wrote in the proper amounts of money. Then I carefully wrote both checks out to the Federal government and mailed them.

Yes, both checks. To the Federal government. Without realizing it, which is why when a few weeks later when I received an angry letter from the state government declaring I was in danger of being charged with tax evasion I was Very Surprised.

I didn't know what to do, so I showed my father. My father made some Phone Calls. He came back and explained. "All you had to do was write. The. Checks. That was it. That was all you had to do. Copy it down." Though really, he couldn't have been particularly surprised.

I fixed things by writing a new check to the state, which my father supervised. I never did get my money back from the federal government, who kindly cashed BOTH of my checks. This is more due to my own laziness than anything else. I made a few phone calls but I can't handle all that being on hold and getting bounced from one completely unhelpful person to the next so after only five days I gave up.

This year, my father has decided that it is in everyone's best interest if he just does my taxes himself. In my defense, this year I didn't throw away any important documents. Although I also still don't have any kind of documentation system for my checkbook.

Auto-erotic Asphyxiation

Sometimes our Poor Decisions have Consequences. Sometimes our Poor Decisions get us Fired.

This morning I had an interview (yay!) for a pretty neat job (sadly, only part-time, but still!) and my interviewer was of course looking over my resume and asking me questions. Eventually he came to a job I had almost forgotten.
"I see you wrote for The (Insert Name of DC Newspaper Here). Why did your employment there end?"
I had a bit of a moment while I scrambled for words. "Well, originally it was my uncle's column, and when he passed away, I took it over for a bit and...we...the editor...I...well I was living in Pittsburgh and the column was about D.C., and it just became difficult after a time."
Which is ALL TRUE.
And we moved on.
However, it is also true that the final issue that led to my termination at The Paper was something more specific.
The column had to do with numbers. A typical daily article looked like this:

Approximate number of movies filmed in Washington, D.C.: 185
Movies filmed in D.C. between 1900 and 2000 that won Academy Awards: 12
Domestic films released in 2008: 610
Movie screens in the U.S: 40,000
Amount the TV/film industry contributes to the American economy annually: $80 billion

After many months, it was becoming more and more difficult for me to find original ideas every day for this paper, especially since it was D.C. oriented and I was living in Pittsburgh.
One day, while going over website after website searching for interesting facts and figures, I came across this one:
1/3 of all self-inflicted deaths in males ages 12 to 24, are caused by auto-erotic asphyxiation.
I found this totally fascinating. Apparently I am pretty much the only one.
In any case, I included that fact in the little article I sent at the end of the week to the editor.
I very soon received an email that was almost entirely composed of:

??!!!???!?!??!??!???!???!!!???!????!!??!?!?!!!

I wrote back something along the lines of, "So...I should take that one out?"

I took it out and looked for another equally interesting fact. I was very excited when I found this one:

Number of children who drown, annually, in buckets: 30

Does anyone else find this incredible? Who is watching their children so poorly that they manage to drown themselves in BUCKETS? I felt it was my duty to get the word out there, to make people aware that they need to be watching their children better.

Only minutes after I sent this one in, I received a phone call from the editor, who informed me that it was time to end our partnership.

In hindsight, it should have been obvious that maybe not everyone would find these facts as completely fascinating as I did. Although I still believe that people should be educated on the dangers facing our adolescent males and our particularly stupid children.

But my decision to take it upon myself to educate the masses did end up getting me...let go. So probably a Poor Decision in the end.

After

Mornings

Anyone who has ever lived with me for any length of time (or not lived with, just been around any given morning when I have woken up) knows that I am not a Morning Person. At times I am filled with anger, but most of the time I am just extremely confused. This leads to all kinds of interesting scenarios, most of which I don't even remember by one in the afternoon.
Point is, I should really not be doing anything in the morning. Anything whatsoever.
Today I decided to cook myself eggs.

Cooking + Morning = Very Poor Decision Indeed

I took two eggs out of the refrigerator. So far so good. I then cracked the egg on the side of a pan, broke the egg over the sink, dumped the inside down the disposal and put the two broken shell halves in the pan.

Then I looked at it and said out loud, "Something is not right."

After a minute, I figured it out, and then I ate some Cheerios.

Eurotrip

This story is about decisions made for the Wrong Reasons, whether or not that decision is good or bad. This story is one of Rachael's favorites, even though she was not actually anywhere around during the events about to be described. Many of you have actually probably heard this story already, but I was thinking about it recently for some reason so now I'm going to share it again.

**Names have been changed to protect the Totally Insane.

As we all know, I spent a lot of time living in Europe during what many may call my longest lapse of judgment to date. One of the nice things about living in Europe though was all the vacation France gives you combined with the fact that Europe is like the size of Pennsylvania which makes it easy to take awesome vacations. As I mentioned months ago, one of these vacations was in Iceland. I know I promised to tell that story eventually and I never have, but this is STILL not the story about vacation in Iceland.

This is a story about my friend **Mariana** and how her complete insanity led her to learn English. Also some California surfers.

**Mariana** one of my dearest, most beloved, most completely craziest friends is from a Latin American country and lived with me in our little boarding house in Moissac. Her native language is Spanish, mine is English. My Spanish isn't fluent, and she spoke absolutely no English, so our language together has always been French.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION is that **Mariana** explained to me on the very first day we met how she hated the United States. She called us the Imperialist Capitalist Materialist Enemy Nation of Evil, and told me how she would never, EVER learn English, the hateful language of the Imperialist Capitalist Materialist Enemy.

We went on several trips together during our time there, but this one was easily the most...action packed. Between Christmas and New Year's we went from Moissac to Toulouse to Paris to Barcelona to Madrid to Lisbon to Madrid to Paris and back home.
Many, many things happened on this trip, many crazy adventures were had, many trains and planes were nearly missed and I did in fact actually fall asleep inside my own suitcase between 6 and 6:30 in the morning on New Year's Day. Many stories were made in this one week.

But THIS story, this story is only about one particular night in Lisbon, and the rest is just backdrop. We are somewhat after Christmas but still just before New Year's Eve. It is our first day in Lisbon and we are SO TIRED.


It was Saturday night and our hostel was just blocks away from Barrio Alto, THE party district in Lisbon, possibly Portugal, possibly the world as far as I'm concerned. I've certainly never been anywhere that comes close to matching it. But we made a joint decision that we were going to wash up, find a nice dinner, and go straight to bed at 9:00 p.m. Otherwise we could very well die. When we arrived at the hostel and found our 6 person room, **Mariana** growled from the doorway.
"BOY clothes, Danielle. There are BOYS here. I hate BOYS. Boys are LOUD and STUPID and...and...and why do there have to be BOYS."
"It'll be okay, maybe they won't even come back tonight, it's Saturday. I'm sure they'll be out in Barrio Alto and we'll never even notice them. I'm going to use the bathroom, I'll be right back and we'll go get dinner."
"grumblegrumblegrumble," collapse on bed, "grumblegrumblegrumble."
I swear, I was in the bathroom for no more than five or six minutes. No way it was more. But when I came back to the room to get **Mariana**, she was unrecognizable. She was sitting on the bed cross-legged, staring blankly towards the doorway with a smile. When I walked into the room, she emitted a siiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh and said, "Danielle, we are absolutely going out tonight."
Needless to say, I was VERY confused. "What? Out? Is that a joke? What for?"
Instead of a straight answer, all I got was another sigh and the words, "For that..."
I turned to see where she was staring and nearly smacked into one of the most well built, attractive boys I had seen in person.

I know exactly how well muscled he was because he was wearing nothing but a towel around his waist.

"Uuuuuh...hi...hello..." I said. I had no idea where he was from or what language he spoke.
"Hey! I hear you girls are coming out with us tonight," he said in American English.
"Oh...did you? How did you hear that?"
"Your friend and I were talking."
I cannot explain this part to you, I cannot at all explain how this boy and **Mariana** talked at all since he spoke no Spanish and she spoke no English. It is a lesson to us all, my friends, and the lesson is this: forget love, it is Lust that Conquers All.
We chatted for another moment or two, and then I asked, "Are you by yourself or with friends?"
"I'm here with two friends, we're on a surfing trip."
It was like we were in a movie and they were cued. Two more equally shaped boys wearing towels stepped into the doorway.
There was an audible strangled sigh from the bed behind me. I can't imagine the boys didn't hear it, but they must have chosen to politely ignore it.
Long story short, I talked with them briefly about going out plans and told them we'd meet them back in our room after we were done with dinner. I had to drag **Mariana** from the room.
"No! Danielle! I don't need dinner! We can't leave them alone! What if they disappear? What if they leave without us? How can you eat at a time like this?"
Our compromise was that we went into the first restaurant she saw, not far from the hostel, which meant that on our one night out in Portugal we had some kind of Asian food.
The things we do for overpowering lust.
While we waited for our food, the little anti-Imperialist Capitalist Materialist who swore she would never learn the terrible language of the Enemy said to me, "QUICK TEACH ME ENGLISH! ALL OF IT! RIGHT NOW!"
She did eventually concede that it was not feasible for me to teach her the entire English language over dinner and still not spend more than 20 minutes away from our surfers. In Madrid, over the course of another ridiculous story, she had already picked up "I am so hot for you, baby," and "I love you man." She spent a few minutes picking the perfect third sentence to learn in English.

Which was this: "I would like to take a picture of you, but without the t-shirt."

"What are you going to say when this poor guy asks WHY you are asking to take a picture of him half naked?"

Her answer was simple, and we learned the very short sentence, "Because it is necessary."

We ate dinner quickly, headed back, and much to **Mariana**'s happiness, the Americans had waited for us. We did actually have an awesome night out, and I've never been anywhere quite like Barrio Alto ever again. Much of the night was spent with **Mariana** spouting French and saying, "Translate that Danielle!" and smiling flirtatiously at the American of her choice.
The downside of partying with Americans is that while we were used to the European system of start the party at 2 a.m. and finish sometime after dawn, these little American boys were done with the party by 3, just when we were getting started. We all ended up going back to the hostel, where I went straight to my suitcase to get my pajamas and GO TO BED, when all of a sudden I heard a heavily accented, sultry voice behind me say, "Can I take a picture of you without t-shirt?"
In the time it took for her to finish the sentence, and before I had even turned around, the surfer this was directed at had ALREADY ripped off his shirt. **Mariana** tossed me her camera as he picked her up. I have NEVER BEEN FORGIVEN for messing around with the camera, unsure of how to turn it on, and only getting a picture with his head cut off, completely tilted, of her falling out of his arms.
But his abs are nicely centered in the picture, and this is the only reason I was not murdered in Lisbon in December of 2007.

We slept, we left the hostel the next morning, and continued on with our vacation and then with our lives. **Mariana** began punching me repeatedly in the arm any time we were anywhere and heard American accents ("THEY COULD BE FROM CALIFORNIA DANIELLE"). She started talking about visiting the Capitalist Imperialist Materialist Enemy nation of America ("Do you live near California, Danielle? Why not? Would you consider moving?")
The following year **Mariana** began classes at the University and made the decision to study English. No more was it ever again called the language of the enemy. It was now the language of seducing unsuspecting young men from California.

Fin

That entire story is true. Un-exaggerated, un-embellished. Some people, however, on hearing the end of the story will say to me, "Danielle, there's no way that's the whole story. Three guys like that and you let **Mariana** have all the fun? There's more to this." Sometimes I'll deny it.

Of course, when I do, I'm lying.

Temping

The very first thing Allie and I did to prepare for our new lives in D.C. was to sign on with a temp agency. This felt very much like a Great Decision. We went through the interview process, passed all the computer literacy tests, signed official looking documents, and were sent away with the promise of numerous opportunities that were soon to rain down on us.
The reason I left Pittsburgh at the moment I did was because I had been told there was a temp job for me that I needed to be ready to start on the 15th of February. I told my boss no, there was no way I could stay an extra week at my job because I had this new and exciting opportunity waiting for me in D.C. I hadn't been given all the details on the job, like what time I was needed in the morning, or what building or what company I was going to be working in. So every day for four days before the start date I called the temp agency repeatedly leaving more and more messages asking for any of the necessary information.
I never received a single response, Tuesday came and went. Finally, Wednesday, someone answered my phone call and told me haha, oops! That fell through. We'll find you something else.
Needless to say, I was Very Annoyed.
I called the temp agency every day for two weeks, rarely getting through to anyone, often leaving messages, never getting called back. I despaired.
One fine Tuesday, I was asleep in my bed, the first day since moving I did not set an alarm. At 9:40 a.m., I was awakened by my phone. I managed to answer it, only knocking everything around it off the shelf first.
The woman on the other end was from, miracle of miracles, the temp agency.
"We want you to be downtown at their office at 10:30 this morning. You'll be working there the rest of the week, answering phones, sitting at the front desk, getting coffee, whatever needs done. You need to be professionally dressed, so a suit is all right. Okay? The building is a few blocks from Dupont Circle, call us if you get lost!"
I got off the phone at 9:45. I had FORTY FIVE MINUTES to get up, showered, dressed, fed, to the metro, and from the metro to wherever this building was without using a car and going from the suburbs in Maryland to the middle of the District.
Impossible, you say.
That is what a sane person would say, but I wanted MONEY. Luckily, one block from my house there is a bus that comes to take people like me to the metro stop at Friendship Heights. And I had a handydandy schedule pamphlet on the floor next to bed. Next bus, 10:03.
Now, I do not own a suit. But, I was dressed reasonably professionally if not at all awake and up at the bus stop by 9:59.
I am amazing.
Took the bus, ran into the metro, ran out of the metro, immediately got lost, talked to several helpful strangers, and was up on floor 6 of the office building at 10:36, which is late, but come on guys. That is pretty awesome.
I spent the next three hours learning about getting people coffee ("Be VERY attentive when you take coffee orders, they are VERY particular, you must not mess this up"), washing dishes (their dishwasher was broken and for some reason people in this office were incapable of washing their own cups during this difficult time?), getting the lunch order from down the street (Apparently their meals were supposed to come with chips. Never having ordered from this place before, I did not know. People get really cranky without their chips, but seriously, you don't need all those terribly unhealthy things anyway get over it), and falling madly in love with the guy showing me around the office.
It was a very busy time.
After rushing around and trying to learn things and keep things straight and quickly realizing that the last thing I ever want to do in my life is ever have to work in a corporate office again, I was asked by the woman who had ordered the temp to step into her office.
"So, we don't need you after all, as it turns out. Ha! Oops! What an oversight. Just go home."
"...go home for the day? Or go home and not come back at all this week even though I'm supposed to be working here all week?"
"Not sure...maybe, maybe not, we'll see, we'll call you, you know, if we feel like it."
And with that I was kicked out. After three hours of employment.
I spent almost as much on the bus and the metro and lunch in the city as I made.
No temp jobs since then, no one responded to my calls or messages at the agency that day, the next day, or the day after.
I have no faith in this system.

Health Insurance

The entire Health Insurance field in the United States is one giant Poor Decision as far as I am concerned. In France, I wasn't even a citizen, and yet any time I felt like it I could wander into any doctor in the country for $25, and they would see and treat me. Medications cost 80% less than in the U.S. Everything was simple and easy and wonderful. What is the United States DOING?

When I came back from France, I began paying, out of pocket, for my own individual health insurance plan. I started at the fabulous price of $213.35. Why that number? Who knows. Maybe not even the insurance company. I'm beginning to feel that they know precious little. Of course, the fact that I needed to buy my own insurance policy in the first place suggests that I did not have a full time job which would have covered my insurance. Not having a full time job, logically I did not have the money to pay for my health coverage. But America does not care! So I scraped it together, I managed, I bought fewer cookies and wore my shoes until they literally came apart in the streets. Now, I needed the insurance in the first place because I have a thyroid condition and need to get blood tests done, take pills, occasionally check in with a doctor. The beauty of the American health system, however, meant that despite sending checks for everything I had in my bank account monthly to Blue Cross Blue Shield I STILL COULD NOT TAKE CARE OF MY HEALTH ISSUES because of that beautiful phrase, "pre-existing conditions."
I waited. I waited 10 months, and finally, FINALLY I was allowed to go keep myself from wasting away. It all barely seemed worth it. THEN, when I was finally just managing to save a tiny bit of money for other things, like gas, car insurance, food, the co-pays for actually SEEING the doctor, Blue Cross Blue Shield sent me a letter courteously explaining how they had raised my monthly payments to $350, and nahnahnahnah THERE WAS NOTHING THAT COULD BE DONE ABOUT IT!
WHAT?
There was nothing for it, I NEED health insurance, blood work is expensive, and my parents kept explaining to me how if my appendix burst or a bus hit me, I'd better hope it killed me outright because I'd spend the rest of my life and my children's lives paying off my debts from the homeless shelter. I wrote checks every month, subtly stained with tears.
Then I decided to make this move to D.C. Among ten million other things that need to be done, of course I needed to change my health insurance plan, because IT ONLY WORKS IN WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA.
????
What kind of country do we LIVE in? This is madness. Alas, a madness I cannot change. So I did the adult, reasonable thing to do, and called my provider and asked if I could transfer my coverage to Maryland's CareFirst. After spending the better part of an afternoon standing int he hallway at the library on hold, a nice employee answered the phone and told me she had no idea, the only people who could tell me if such a transfer was possible was Maryland's CareFirst. She gave me the number. I called. I spent the better part of the evening on hold until a nice employee answered and told me no one at CareFirst could tell me this, I needed to talk to my current provider and ask them.
I went to sleep.
In the morning I called my provider and told them what CareFirst had said. The nice employee who answered told me that they were wrong, and I needed to call Maryland again and demand an answer.
SO I CALLED CAREFIRST AGAIN.
They told me THEY COULD NOT TELL ME ANYTHING so I did the adult, reasonable thing to do, which was to cry and make wild accusatory statements. This nice employee immediately transferred me to their sales department where someone explained to me the plans available to me if I were to simply cancel my current plan and get a new one. These were cheaper! Slightly. Yay! They sounded awesome! She emailed me further information and I was all set to just choose one just based on the few facts she'd told me without actually reading anything. Luckily my father is still on top of these things, since he knows I am rarely either adult or reasonable, and informed me that basically both of these plans covered NOTHING beyond situations called things like Danielle Gets Hit By A Meteor.
I decided to take a few days of rest from the process and in the meantime developed what I fear is strep throat. I decided to employ the plan I usually employ, which is Ignore It And It Will Go Away Like Magic. This plan has been employed at least 14,000 times by me during my lifetime, for all kinds of things, and has never, not once, ever, never ever, worked. Still, it was the course of action I decided to take about a week ago. My throat feels like tiny parasites are sharpening knives on it, but I can still wander around and function mostly, so ignoring seemed like the best plan. A week gone by though, and my paranoia is kicking in, because instead of any better at all, it is growing steadily worse, and the internet tells me I can get things like Scarlet Fever and Death unless I get myself some antibiotics. My friend Dr. Quyen, Medicine Woman though tells me this is unlikely, which is more than a little comforting. Still, pain. Not good.
Today I began looking for a Med Express type place, and decided on Righttime Medical Center, conveniently located up Rockville Pike. I called and asked if they took my insurance, even if it's Out of State.
"Of course! No problem!"
"Are you SURE?"
"Oh yes, quite sure, Blue Cross Blue Shield? Yes, yes, come right on in."
"Well...that is good. Sweet, awesome, I'll make an appointment."
"Great! Just make sure that you have a PPO instead of an HMO."
"What now?"
"PPO. We won't take your insurance if it's not a PPO."
"...but you said you'd take out of state Blue Cross Blue Shield."
"Of course! We do! But only if it's PPO."
"How do I tell THAT?"
"It's written on your card." It was not written anywhere on my card. "Then you need to call them and ask."
I called Blue Cross Blue Shield Keystone Health Plan West. I spent 20 minutes on hold. Within one minute the girl at Blue Cross Blue Shield said, "HMO."

Well, now what America? Your poor voting decisions over the past 200 years have made it so it may in fact be cheaper for me to fly to France to get a strep test done than drive five minutes up Rockville Pike.

Gadgets

My grandmother does not have the internet. She does not have a computer. She does not use a cell phone. She has a cell phone, but it's never been on and the one time she had it on by accident and it rang, she didn't know how to answer it. She calls all modern technology "gadgets." Laptop, phone, Blackberry, iPad...all gadgets. So when my grandmother came to me and said, "Danielle, I'm thinking of getting one of those gadgets," I wasn't completely sure what she meant.
"A computer?"
"No."
"A camera?"
"No."
"A new television?"
"No! A gadget, you know of those..." She started stabbing the air with her finger.
"A...light saber?"
"No no no no no no! They have buttons, you look things up..."
"A Blackberry?"
"Yes, like that, but not a Blackberry. I want an Android."
I could not for the life of me figure out what my grandmother, who refuses to use things like computers and cell phones, could possibly want with a Droid. As it turns out, what she wants is to have the internet with her at all times so that when she is at lunch or book club meetings with her friends and gets into an argument, she can PROVE HERSELF CORRECT with the power of the internet.

I let her choose a day on which we could go together to "the gadget store," and off we went. I expected to end up at a Verizon store, but instead we ended up at more or less the equivalent of RadioShack. I began to say to my grandmother, "Perhaps Verizon would be more..." to which I only got, "Quiet, Danielle."
Once in the gadget store, the employees informed my grandmother that they did not carry Androids or Blackberries or any of those things. The closest thing they had to what my grandmother wanted was an iPad but it was "TOO BIG!" to fit in her purse. The gadget store employees were all declared wildly incompetent, and we headed off to Verizon.
At Verizon, we ran into a new problem.
"What do you MEAN the Android is a phone? I don't want a phone. I want an internet."
Eventually the salesperson and I were able to convince my grandmother that there was nothing the salesperson could personally do about making the Android not a phone anymore, and after a lot of back and forth and general insanity we settled on a Galaxy Tablet which is actually quite neat.
Then the salesperson, instead of GETTING OUT QUICKLY, asked the terrible question, "Tell me about the service you use for your landline. How much are you paying? What? That much? Let me tell you about how you can save a lot of money!"
You all know about me and my penchant for buying absolutely anything and everything salespeople suggest I buy. Well guys, turns out I got it through genetics. My grandmother and I together in that store were the most pathetic victims the world has ever seen. We walked out of that store an hour and a half later with a Galaxy Tablet, a flashy new box to plug into the landline to make all the phones run through some wireless system, and a new plan for my grandmother's barely touched cell phone.
Before heading out, the salesperson asked for my grandmother's email address.
"I am NOT giving you my email address! That's how I get all of these emails about Viagra! And girls in Russia! And PENIS englargements. Do I look like I need a penis enlargement? I do not have a PENIS!"
The salesperson actually literally did a headdesk and needed to take a moment to himself before he stopped laughing to hard to ring her up.
The next day, every phone in my grandmother's house was knocked out. She called in Verizon to fix it. The following day, every phone in my grandmother's house plus her WebTV was knocked out.
My grandmother's phones and WebTV have been out for four days now, she's run over the minutes on her new cell phone plan, and she's angsty over not checking her email for a week.

On the bright side, she now knows how to answer her cell phone when it rings.

Starting Over

What makes a person quit their job, pack their things, and leave the life they've built behind?

Her name is Allie. She is rather small, but she is very persuasive.

I went to Israel because I was feeling restless and stuck and I thought traveling for ten days in far parts of the world would help make the feelings go away. While the trip was great, it definitely backfired because I came home feeling more restless and upset than I did before I left.
Allie and I met in Israel, and discussed how we both wanted to move to D.C. I didn't take her seriously though, because most people I meet are total flakes and don't mean most of what they say. Somehow though, things went from our hypothetical jobs and apartment and life in D.C. and the fun artwork we would hang on our theoretical walls to driving out to interview with a temp agency to leaving our respective houses and moving in with my grandmother.

We have a wonderful little domestic situation going on. She gets up early for work at her internship and I get up to turn off the alarm and lock the door behind her before going to make breakfast and starting my day like an unemployed little housewife. My very first day I immediately went to the library for the internet (no internet at Grandma's...) and began a lengthy conversation with the library Manager. She wants me to help out around the library! There is a hiring freeze, so she cannot hire me :( but in the meantime she wants my help as a volunteer on their newest project, making the library more appealing to young people and finding grant money. Also facilitating book discussions for children and teens! I am quite excited over it.

Each day I go to the library and apply to at least two jobs, eat a sandwich, and then meet Allie for Adventures Downtown. So far we have had a Trivia Night, a Networking Night, a Shabbat Dinner, a Night Out in Adams Morgan, and watched part of a fabulous movie about Alyssa Milano's imaginary friend. We may be losing hope of ever finding employment ever, but there's not too much time to spend lamenting over it.

It's all very exciting.

Life Changing Decisions

I think it's time I re-took control of this blog. I don't know what Rachael is going to be doing, perhaps she will find the strength to post at the some point. But in the meantime, we will no longer wait for her.
I got far behind in posts myself because for awhile there, my life was working out okay. I had a job I adored, I was making new friends, developing new hobbies, traveling, even finding time to go out with new wonderful gentlemen callers. I was making Good Decisions. Yes, it was all coming together.

And then on Wednesday of last week I went in to work, told my boss I was quitting my job and leaving the city. I packed everything in four suitcases and drove away a few days later. Any of my friends not on Facebook don't even know that I've moved away. I should probably call them.

Yeah. That happened.

Bad decision? Time will tell. It was certainly rash, poorly thought out, and probably somewhat stupid.

In any case, I am going to begin to use this blog to track this decision, write about the life of the lonely, the unemployed, and the impoverished. At least for a little while. And time will tell whether or not this decision was a Poor one.