So That's How You Become A Grownup

While I firmly believe that certain milestones smack you into "adult" status (buying a house, reproducing, taking care of or weathering an ill parent), there are other markers as well, and despite my own maturity, I've had... trouble with them over the years.

This comes as a shock to no one.

Many of them have to do with either authority or finances, and I've been in the past, a mess with both.

I'm struggling to do better, for many reasons, my own sanity top amongst them.

So, I want high praise and accolades for the fact that in the past few months I have done the following:

1) Signed up for my company's 401K. I don't want any grief about not doing this sooner, all I want is praise for finally having done it.

2) Paid my parking ticket.... wait for it... on time. (Mostly. And I paid it online. But I frigging paid it before it turned into a $150 ticket that I had to pay to register my car and that, folks, is a milestone).

3) Honestly looked at my bank balance, calculated what I needed to save, paid off some outstanding bills that I didn't realize were outstanding, and just got some of that in order.

I'm going to leave work early tonight to do laundry, so if the apocalypse comes, blame me.

Been Along Time Coming

Sorry for the absence! Real life got in the way, and stayed in the way!

Yesterday was a whirlwind of activity:

- Breakfast date (boy from the internet. 1.5 stars. Nice, sweet, bought breakfast. Not my type at all. He went to mass before breakfast for Palm Sunday, was in the Navy. Works in IT. Not compatible, nice nonetheless.)

- Worked (client), worked some more (student), worked again (book editing with 83 year old).

- Went to local production of "The Sound of Music". Did not know until I got there that it was an all children cast (5-12 year olds). Demanded much booze of the person who brought me.

- Ate oysters as reward for all children musical.

- Met up with T. to gather data points. He bought the drinks.

-Collapsed into bed at 1:30 a.m.


This has been a weekend of acknowledging my own complicity in my unhappiness. I realized two things:

One:
I am unhappy about the no longer dating boy, and not contacting him only sounds less complicit than answering when he e-mails. It's the same. It's making me sad, and I'm buying into it because I like him and don't want to not hear from him. It's not... helping though. I need to stop. He is continuing because I don't tell him to stop, because I give him tacit permission. Therefore, I am complicit. But it will hurt, and it will mean giving up the illusions/hopes I have pretended I don't have, so it will also be embarrassing. That doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.

Two:

I am complicit in M's growing alcoholism because I have not said, "You have a problem. This will only end a few ways, and none of them are good." The argument that M. is not my responsibility is a false construct. There isn't anyone else to say this to him, and his behavior is escalating (two instances of losing his car, one of which also involved losing his jacket and keys and sleeping in a pile of leaves in our front yard for four hours because he couldn't get into the house and I didn't have my phone in my room and didn't hear him knock.)

Neither conversation is one I want to have. One makes me uncomfortable and embarrassed and sad. The other makes me nervous, and equally sad.

I feel that both mean some sort of surgical removal of men that I love in various ways. I kind of hate that, but one is better for me, and the other is better for both M. and I. Most days, I hate being a grown up.

In other news, I've got a music review up: http://www.popnography.com/2008/03/spending-the-ni.html
We went to see The Magnetic Fields a few weeks ago - amazing, amazing show. So go read about it!