Montaigne’s Heiress

I like the customization options available in WordPress. Since I’m an incredibly lazy bugger, it’s very exciting to be able to throw together a header image in a little under an hour and a half (Photoshop CS3 is nothing like Ye Olde Photoshop Of Yore, and I had a bit of a trial figuring out what to do with it after I’d installed it, and the first idea I had turned out to be a clunker) and have it stuck immediately in place on Ye Newe Blogge. So unfortunately I didn’t get to use the painting of M and Mme Lavoisier, but that’s ok. The pic as it is is probably more relevant anyhow.

So, a number of things have been happening recently. I had emailed Bob on Tuesday after getting a voicemail from Fidaije asking for my address to send a W2. I used this as an excuse, of course, to email Bob! I had wanted to get in contact for a while, but every pretext I could think of wasn’t very good. Anyway, he wrote me a very nice and very cheerful note back, saying he was glad things were going so well for me, and inviting me to keep in touch. He also mentioned he’d say hi to all the boys for me – Mike, James, and Jeff. I didn’t ask about anyone else. The number of directors listed on the company website has dwindled greatly since I left, and I was hoping that Bob had stayed on. Well, I needn’t have worried. Bob is great. I couldn’t ask for a better (now ex-) boss.

Brunch tomorrow with at least two and possibly three gentlemen from FDR. I enjoyed dinner with one of them on Wednesday, and look forward to seeing him again, and to meeting the other one or two. I wish I could have gone to Miami next week for the seminar, but alas. It’s odd for me – wanting to go anywhere that I know there will be a crowd. But oddly enough, the thought of this one didn’t intimidate me. I don’t know whether that’s because I knew right off the bat that there was no way I could attend, or whether it was because I was sure of the quality of the people, and of the warmth of my reception. Probably a little of both.

I had a job today. Well, I worked for 3 hours at the music department, and then had an actual computer job. Just a Treo -> Blackberry migration. I don’t particularly like the woman, and of course she hadn’t thought to keep the Treo, and of course she didn’t have any of her email passwords or anything, so it took 2.5 hours instead of 1. I can’t complain, because of course it’s more money, but yeah… it was more stressful than it needed to be. So I made $102 off that, and $36 + lunch off of the music dept, so it’s not been a bad day. Got paid from the music dept today too and deposited that check. Now I can pay the electric bill when that clears. Yay. I now have slightly less than 3 weeks in which to make the $725 necessary to pay my rent. Considering ~$400 from the music dept, $100 from previous jobs, $100 from today, and then whatever work I get in the next 3 weeks, I should be alright. I really need to apply for a tutoring job as well and make money that way, and start actively trying to solicit my own clients again. Meh. I’d rather sub-contract the computer stuff, and I am NOT looking forward to tutoring, but what canst thou do?

FreshDirect came tonight. I bought a flank steak, thinking it would pretty much last me the week. It will. What a mighty beast must once have borne that huge hunk of muscle. Like any good ex-Texan I soused it liberally with lime, liquid smoke, and chili spice blend. Will cook it up for tomorrow dinner and see how it is.

Mother must have gotten my “I don’t want to speak with you any more” letter by now. I am – to put it bluntly – bowled over by the fact that she seems to be respecting my wishes. Probably just trying to wait me out, but hey. I feel like such a douche, because I was actually sort of looking forward to the barrage of phone calls in order to justify my lack of… (lack of what… lack of… liking? regard? It’s not active hatred… but I’ve got so much self-mythology wrapped around her that it’s hard to figure it out) [insert word here] for her. Or rather, to justify my bad opinion of her. Or to justify the fact that I’ve cut her off. As if everything that happened to she did to me/I witnessed especially during the ages of 12-16, but generally throughout my childhood and adolescence can’t justify that bad opinion! I don’t know why I need the holy fire of present disgust to get up more steam, as it were. I wanted her to go – or thought I did – and now that I’ve unceremoniously chucked her out the door, there’s a large gravity well of unprocessed angst where she used to be that would normally have made me want to shove her back in that hole so that I didn’t have to deal with it. Well, time to get up (or get down, baby!) and deal with it.

Oh, Rebecca emailed me on Monday. One of the things I’d used as a very thin line to tether me to mother was that she still has the majority of my stuff. Now, I’m going to go off to Europe for some years and I won’t be able to take said stuff with me anyway, so that was a stupid thing to tie me up to her. But now, since mother is moving in with Elaine to save money, they’re going to have a garage sale. I told B to tell mother to sell off everything except my books and fabric. (Oh… and I need to email her to save the dress that Maura made me. Damn.) All of my housewares and my bedding and everything else is going to be sold off. B said they would send me a check for the proceeds, but I doubt I’ll ever see that. So… away with my stuff.

Long entry. They usually are. But now I shall leave you with the comedic stylings of YouTube atheist Pat Condell: