Rash would be so much more fulfilling

It's hard trying to be a grown-up. I'm sitting around biting my tongue waiting to hear about any of the gaggle of resumes I've sent out over the last few days. Typing that sentence made me realize that I have no idea where my cellphone is, the cellphone unto which I have directed all of my possible interview calls. Shit. This is so me. Odds on I can't find it and have a meltdown. You know of course that it's set on vibrate so I can't, you know, call it or anything and find it the easy way. Damn. We know I'll go insane buy a new one with money I don't have the minute before I walk out on my job only to find it the second I get home from the store. Guess I have a plan atleast. Freak out, spend money! gotta have a plan.

So, what's new? The readership here has grown an awful lot since I started, you know, posting things here. It's changed a lot, I know most of you are coming over from Athena and that's awesome. Sometimes I don't feel very well rounded over there (pun totally worthwhile!) and I do actually have interests above feeding my gob. With my whole five minutes of wealth I bought myself the latest PJ Harvey with a coupon. It's very good, very soothing really. I was going to buy rainbows next...but alas.

No new computer, no new cds...I'll trade my car in for one like the Flintstones had...it'll be alright. If there's one thing that getting out of debt taught me it's that things are just things and money is just money. Food, water, heat and I'm good. If I don't have a job I don't have to even shower! Think of all the soap I can save! This is where my months/years of coupon shopper hoarding has come in handy. Things we'll never run out of at my house include: Ivory soap (matt's favorite), Toilet paper, and tuna. You can live a long damn time with all that stuff. There's a hefty amount of shampoo too, even the fancy brillian brunette kind! If I watched a few more episodes of Macguver we'd really be set for life.

I expect the many ways my life will be changing will mean I'll be here a lot more. What with all the nothing to do. And there are a lot of emotions to digest. I can feel myself getting less and less angry as the days pass. I really want to stay mad, I want to be pissed and indignant and yeah I want to be mean too. None of those are smart, grown up ways to live. I do think it's important to stand up for myself, I just need to be smart about it. I had so many plans that are getting trashed by this turn of events. I have to remember that life isn't about plans coming to bear. It's everything else that happens while you're waiting around for the time to be right. A sucky plan, even if completed successfully, is still sucky and money is just money.

Get off her lawn!

Thursday is paper day here on MDI, which means it's also what nonsense have folks called the police over this week. I thought the best one would be the escaped chicken on the Crooked Road but I think the lady in Southwest who reported problem ducks in her yard is my new favorite. What did she expect the police to do, come over and shoot them? There's also an article complaining about hiring a second firefighter. The gall! Two whole firefighters! and more than one police officer on duty at a time! it's anarchy.

I thought I'd be happier

When I was at the height of my "oh my god I owe THAT MUCH" debt I thought I'd be automatically happier when I was free. Less stressed anyway, it seemed a sure bet. It seems that what I've done is trade one stress for another. I no longer worry about whether I can pay all my bills with my tiny ass paychecks, now I worry about whether I'll be able to retire on my tiny ass 401k allocations. Which is ridiculous because not so long ago it was a lucky thing that I had money to allocate at all, money that didn't have to be thrown at debt to keep all my payments up to date. I'm crossed between deserving a break from financial worry and believing that I don't deserve one after fucking up so badly.

I read a lot of debt blogs where the writers missed payments or had things go to collection and I have to remind myself that I'm lucky that I turned things around before that ever happened to me. Things could be a lot worse for me than only putting 6% to retirement. Two years it took me to slog my way out of debt, two years and a lot of lucky breaks. I feel like I have to make up for it somehow, make up for lost time. The financial anxiety just has moved around but hasn't left and that's really disappointing to me. And, you know, anxious making.

Financial security, in my head, is the image of someone sitting at a big old desk with a leather ledger and a tell-tale cock of the head. I suppose I do that with my spreadsheets but excel just isn't as comforting as you'd think. Mostly I look at it and think "MORE MORE MORE, HAVE TO SAVE MORE!". My next budget venture, the rest of my life budget, should be really awesome. Counting your deposits before they happen awesome, but I think I left myself enough room to enjoy things and save half my paychecks. Save half my paychecks, I can't believe I'm that person and I'm still not calm and happy and all the things that I wanted money to buy. God, how frustrating.