It's all part of my Master Plan

The Master Life Plan has kind of taken on a life of its own.  The interesting thing for the first time in my life, when I tell people of a plan I've dreamed up, they've not only listened quite intently and been supportive, they've even had helpful advice and suggestions!  That NEVER happens to me.  Usually the best I can hope for is bewildered silence, but I really get criticism and mocking.

Go me!

It probably also helps that the people I've told do not include my family.  Idiots.  I'm not telling them until it's too late to change.  Heck I may never tell them.  No, seriously, can you divorce your family?  

I already discussed the helpfulness of two Best Friends in a previous post, and then this past week I went out with the ex-husband (or current boyfriend, depending on which version of the story you like) and he was full of even more support and helpful suggestions!  I found out I was pretty wrong about the Kelly Staffing Services company.  I always envisioned them as just placing like data entry and receptionist type people.  Nope, they have an entire scientific division.  And turns out there's an office right here in the city of Hillbilly Hell.  He said they're often looking for people to do just the random lab-rat work... and they get frustrated because the potential employees want to get Nobel-prize-winner's pay for lab-rat work.  Well that's not a problem with me, I really don't need much more pay than to cover the cost of the commute... and potentially any kind of dog-sitting for Muppy.

Plus then if it turns out that the job sucks, it'll just be a temporary position!

 That has potential.  I have a fear of commitment.

I haven't just been thinking either, I've been taking steps.  The first one I did all on my own was this past week I test-drove the commute to the place that's top of my list of potential full-time employers.  That may not seem like much, but I absolutely hate city commutes, so deciding if this one was acceptable was a big deal.  I told Hitter if I have to make that 2-hour drive every day, he's going to have to get me a new car or keep a chiropractor on retainer, because Marvin the Paranoid Car is a bit rough-riding for these hillbilly hell roads.  Other than the bumpity-bumps though, it really wasn't bad.  Yeah it's an hour long, but it's all through the country and no rush-hour traffic.  And I've never been one to shy away from a little driving.

Also Hitter has said he will talk to a guy he works with who has connections at the afore-mentioned top-of-the-list company to see if anyone would be willing to have a little chat with me and share with me what goes on there and what jobs might be available in the future and all that kind of insider info.  And last night Hitter went out with his friend I talked about yesterday and the friend is going to get me hooked up with the... umm... career counselors?... that they use at the corporate nightmare where Hitter and friend work.

Progress is slowly being made.  I still am no closer to knowing what I really want to do, and I'm still struggling with whether or not I really want to give up my free time.  I mean I really like being able to float in my pool all summer long!  And pack up and go visit friends without having to ask for vacation time.  And all that other fun stuff.  Plus I'm really feeling like I'll be abandoning Muppy.  I realize I can't put my life on hold for a dog, but at the same time he's 10 years old and won't be around much longer and has had a pretty rough life so I would really like to be able to make his remaining time happy.  And I'm not sure what I should do with him anyway if I were to go to work full-time.  He's an inside dog, he'd have a heart attack if I tried to leave him outside.  And I'm not likely to get a job that would pay well enough to justify day care every day (seriously, that shit is expensive)

So... that's my story.

I don't know if I've mentioned this before or not, but I have also pondered why exactly I sometimes am just crap-happy being a pampered housewife and sometimes I go into this dear-god-I-will-never-be-happy-without-a-job crisis.  I think I've at least mostly figured it out.  It happens to varying degrees almost every year shortly before Christmas, when I am dreading having to spend somewhere between 9 and 12 days living out of a suitcase and start pondering ways to get out of it.  While faking my own kidnapping would be a lot of fun, the responsible approach would be to have something respectable like a job that would require me to stick around here.  I mean the biggest reason the in-laws say they can't come here is because mother-in-law has to be at her job on Christmas day (church organist) so it seems like a job would be a good answer.  And the other is actually kind of related to that.  I start having these feelings that Hitter isn't respecting me and no matter what I do around here, it doesn't get better.  And since he is a corporate-ladder-climbing, power-hungry, money-grubbing dickhead, I figure the best way to get any respect from him would be to also have a job.

Which is actually kind of a terrible reason to get a job.

*sigh*

I think I just babbled with absolutely no point.  In fact, I think I kind of talked myself out of what I am talking myself into.  WTF, me?

So to make a long story short (too late!) my options are, in no particular order:

• get a full-time job, most likely at the place that is top-of-my-list
• get a part-time job
• get a temporary job, either full or part time
• go back to school (I'm still having fantasies about having an apartment at the college across the state, and completely expecting Hitter to NOT go for that)
• be content with being a pampered housewife

and I have been taking steps towards figuring out what I want to do.  So that's good.  And now, I have a headache so I think I'll go curl up on the couch and doze through a movie.

Get out of my head! Leave my brain alone!

After the last post, I did some real soul searching

imagine my surprise when I found I do have a soul!

and I came up with a plan for my life.  A happy plan.  Am I ditching my idiot family?  No *sigh*  Am I running away to a far-away land?  Also no *double sigh*  Am I taking control of my life and figuring out a way to do something I enjoy?  

 I'm not going into the boring details right now, but the short version is that the plan includes getting a job or going to school or both.  Or something entirely different.  But regardless of how stupid this paragraph is, I do have a plan.

Big props to Best Friend - Mountain Time and Best Friend - Eastern Time for all their love and support through this struggle I've been dealing with!  MT has endured countless pout/whine/cry emails and has helped me sort through the jumble, and just this past weekend I was visiting ET and she also listened to the story (although I'd already mostly organized it by the time I saw her) and she helped me put a little polish on it.  You two are freaking awesome.  And you need better nicknames.  Kudos to Designated Hitter too, regardless of how he really feels about it he has been saying all the right things and appears to be genuinely supportive.  Even if he's lying and a big fight comes later, those who know him know that even pretending to want what's best for me is a big deal coming from him.  And who knows, he might even be truly supportive.  I kinda think he is but I'm afraid to get my hopes too high.

I headed for home yesterday, and even though I was in Marvin the Paranoid Car I was still flying high.  (To the authorities: I was high on life.  Not meth)  I was so happy I almost didn't mind that it took me around 1.5 hours to go 12 miles at one point.  I was feeling good about myself and my life plan.  Got to the hotel last night, caught up with Hitter for a while, and went to bed.

And then the "fun" started.

I had this horrid dream... I am not entirely sure of the setting, there were a lot of weird bits and pieces that I can't figure out, that's pretty normal for me.  But the part that caused me to wake up in a cold sweat was a scene where my parents were yelling at me because I want to go back to school and they don't want me to.  Okay I don't even know how they truly feel about it, because I haven't discussed this with them and I'm not going to until after the plan is not only decided upon but is already set in motion.  If I go back to school, I may not even tell them until after classes have started.  If I get a job, HR will have already filed my paperwork before they know anything about it.  But that apparently doesn't stop them from yelling at me in my dreams.  

Okay in case that isn't abundantly clear, it's my brain, Designated Drinker poking it with a cattle prod, and Bran Flake doing Riverdance on it.  

In my dream, they were telling me I was stupid for thinking about going back to school and that I'd always said I was just perfectly happy being the dumb lab rat so why do I think giving that up and going to grad school is a good idea.  And lots of other things.  I woke up so mad at them for never being supportive of me.  Everything I ever want to do, try to do, dream about doing... they tell me my ideas are stupid and I should do what they want me to do.  And then they take things I've said in the past and use them against me.  

Can you divorce your parents?  

Of course, once I got my bearings (including remembering I was in a hotel) I realized how illogical that was... first and foremost I'm not giving up being a lab rat because I'm currently not a lab rat!  (sidebar: I use the term "lab rat" to mean me as an employee who is conducting the experiments in question, not actually being the test subject)  And secondly, to hell with them.  They never understand anything I want to do, so why should I expect them to now?  Hence my plan to not even mention The Plan until after it is already in progress and there's nothing they can do about it. 

And before anyone says "maybe that was just your subconscious trying to make sure your big plan is realistic" well I actually think I've been fairly realistic about the pros and cons of The Plan.  In fact, I'm kind of a pessimist these days.  But that really is the way my parents have treated me in the past.  The best approach I can take to that dream is that maybe it was my subconscious trying to prepare me for the insanity and make sure I'm determined to not say anything to those idiots until it's too late for them to voice their opinion.

Of course, that won't stop them.  A couple years ago Hitter and I bought a new house.  It may not be the perfect place, but it's pretty close to my dream house.  The first time the parental unit came to visit (long after we'd already closed, signed the mortgage, moved in, etc) and Flake is all "well how are you going to feel if the neighbors tear down all their trees and build a bunch of houses back here?"  Umm... what possible point does this comment serve?!  

1. you are already fully aware that it would piss me off

2. there isn't anything anyone can do about it now because we've already bought the house

3. fuck off!

So I must be prepared for the negativity and the control-freakiness and all the other crap that will come from those idiots. 

And I ran, I ran so far away

Dear god I just quoted A Flock of Seagulls.  *hangs head in shame*

Yep I ran away from home last night.  I am thirty... almost-damned three... years old, and I ran away from home.

As for the reason, well, it's even dumber.  I was trying to clean up the house some, because we're having company today.  I was also trying to do laundry, because I didn't want to have wet clothes hanging all over the house to dry when company was here so I had to do it yesterday.  I guess I should explain.  Designated Hitter doesn't let me dry anything except socks and underwear.  Pants, shorts, shirts, even grubby working-in-the-yard t-shirts have to be hung to dry.  Seriously.  He has this one shirt he got from a small seed company.  If I had a nickel for every time he has bitched about what a bunch of assholes this seed company was, I could move out and support myself just on the interest alone.  He wears this shirt when he gets all sweaty and muddy and grassy... and then he throws it in the washer, and then that shirt is too valuable to throw in the dryer.  It must be carefully hung up to dry.  Yanno so it doesn't shrink.  That shirt could be the cause of our divorce.

Well, since we moved to the country and got ourselves a septic system, I can't use liquid fabric softener in the washer anymore cuz it fucks up the decomposition of the shit in the septic tank (seriously, did anyone want to know that?!  I didn't) so in order to make our clothes not all stiff and wrinkly and scratchy, I've been tossing them into the dryer for about 12 minutes with a dryer sheet and then taking them out and hanging them to finish drying.  They aren't in the dryer long enough to shrink, but they do soften up and de-wrinkle in that time.

So, I'm doing laundry yesterday.  And I'm cleaning house.  First load of laundry comes out of the washer and goes into the dryer.  Kitchen timer set for 12 minutes.  I go to vacuum.  I'm off in the bedroom vacuuming when the timer goes off, I don't hear it.  Apparently timer shuts itself off after a bit, because when I turn vacuum off the house is silent.  I didn't think a think of it, went on to do some other things, and like 45 minutes later went "oh shit!"  I ran into the laundry room and yep, there was the dryer still tumbling away with a load of dark clothes inside, fully dry.  I take everything out and hang it all up and mostly I'm not too terribly worried cuz Hitter was outside and I've dried a few shirts all the way before and he's never noticed, but then I pull out a pair of blue dress pants.  *sigh*  I flipped 'em upside down and hung them up like I'm supposed to, and then compared them to two pair of khaki colored pants that were already hanging there... and they were somewhat shorter.

I panicked.

I didn't have the courage to tell Hitter what I did.  I couldn't handle the coming lecture and/or look of disappointment.  Just didn't have it in me.  He was outside mowing lawn at the time and I saw him get in the truck and drive off (I suspect he was fulfilling Gas Fairy duties) so I wrote a note that explained the vacuuming and the timer and the short pants and I apologized like 5 times and twice swore it was an accident, and I loaded Muppy up in Marvin (ooooh I haven't explained Marvin yet... that's my car) and took off.  Didn't know where I was going, just left.  Unfortunately I met Hitter in the driveway, he pulled over (one-lane-driveway) and unrolled his window to talk to me, and I didn't even look him in the eyes, just raced past and took off.

He texted me and said he wasn't mad, please come back.  I drove for a while, and then eventually texted him back and said I couldn't handle the disappointment either.  He wrote me back and said something about accidents happen, just come back.  I drove for a while longer.  Then I realized I was lost.  Okay our roads around here do NOT go straight.  I'm not originally from this state, but my parents did go to college here and their best friends are from here too (not here as in this town, here as in this state) so Designated Drinker has a lot of first-hand knowledge of what goes on around here.  And he's always said the way our DOT makes new roads is to just find the nearest hillbilly and put him in a blacktopper machine with a case of beer and tell him to drive around for a while.  If there's a tree, go around it.

I was seriously lost.  Thank goodness the sun was still up because I knew I'd left home heading west so as long as I kept the sun behind me, I should eventually end up somewhere near home.  Or in a river.  Either way, I'd know where I was then.

I'm still a little twitchy, I cried over supper last night.  Hitter gets all "but I'm trying to get better and not fly off the handle" and I tell him that I've been hurt so bad so many times that I don't trust him anymore.  The whole episode with the root beer on vacation kind of put me over the edge.  Oh crap I didn't tell that story either.  Well, short version, I accidentally sprayed root beer on one cabinet and a bit on the floor of the kitchen in the cabin his sister rents for the week.  RENTS, not owns.  B.F.D.  I wiped it up, Sis was all "no big deal", Hitter comes unglued on me like I'd burned the place down and killed half his family in the process.  Over a little root beer on the floor.  Good lord.  Everything's a catastrophe with that man.  And I'm at the end of my rope.  *sigh*

Sorry this wasn't funny and didn't have any cute pictures.  I'm not feeling very funny or cute right now but I needed to vent this shit.