Schreiber

OK, indirectly pursuant to the last point of the previous post:

Roommate #1 wandered into the common area of the apartment this evening while I was having dinner, to tell roommate #2 (his SO, who was playing Skyrim) that Ja Rule has apparently (and perhaps inadvertently) swindled a whole bunch o' rich people out of a whole bunch of money.

Now what floored me was not that people threw down big chunks of cash on what was supposed to be luxury accommodation but in fact more closely resembled a refugee camp. No, what had me goggling was the sheer size of the amounts concerned. The figure roommate #1 quoted was $25 thousand, and in fact, we eventually realized that some of the tickets were a great deal more than that, but let's stick with 25k.

25k, although I didn't want to admit it in front of my roommates, is more than I currently make in a year.

And so we got to talking about all the things you could theoretically do with 25k, even assuming you want to spend a weekend filled with drugs and naked people, which I don't.* 25 thousand! I mean...with 25 thousand I could do pretty much ANYTHING I wanted,** not merely for a weekend, but for like six months. Heck, with 25 HUNDRED I could check into an AMC hut for like two weeks, WITH two weeks worth of good-quality alcohol,*** and go hiking every day and drink a bunch every night, or at least as much as wouldn't interfere with the hiking; which is my idea of a good time.****

I gibbered a lot.


But what brought my last post to mind:
"Yeah," said roommate #2, while trying not to get her character incinerated, "but if I got $25 thousand, I STILL wouldn't have paid off my college loans."

Holy shit. I... I mean, they have a presumably much more fulfilling job, and (I assume, at least) graphic designers make a good deal more than I currently do.

But apparently, they--and I guess a good deal of the rest of the population--have so much student debt that, even if I'd had to pay all my student loans MYSELF, I'd still be less in debt than they are.

* On reflection, I guess this isn't TECHNICALLY true, since I would love to spend a weekend with, like, ONE attractive person who was naked a bunch of the time, and some booze and probably also coffee or tea, which are technically drugs... but I want a relationship, rather than Girls Gone Wild, and let's skip the cocaine (and even the weed).
** OK, excluding anything involving buying real estate.
*** On reflection, I seem to recall that the AMC doesn't let you bring alcohol, but we're in fantasyland here anyway.
**** Yes, I did reflect - repeatedly - that my idea of a good time MIGHT be a little skewed from that of the rest of the population. To which I say: ok, that just means all y'all's notion of a good time is FUCKED UP.

End of a lot of eras

Wow. I...have been really bad at keeping this updated. A lot's happened: I will try to work out how to update the roughly three of you who read this thing, without going TOO tl:dr. So:

On Saturday I drove up to New Hampshire for what I've been explaining to people as my grandmother's wake. Which wasn't a completely accurate description, but as noted earlier* she dies in December; Christian Scientists apparently don't believe in funerals; and my mother and her siblings had decided that since Grandpa had always really liked taking people out to dinner, this would be a good way to remember both of them.

So that was a bittersweet occasion in a lot of ways, but I'm not going to focus on that, other than to say: thus ends the story of my grandparents. Because this also overlaps with/results in the ends of a few other eras.

No, unfortunately the "working in the mailroom" era is not among them.

First-off: my aunt has FINALLY ( sold the cabin )

( Secondly... )

( Conversation over the hors d'oevres )

Finally--and, for a lot of reasons, I feel weird about posting this here, but it's somewhat important.( The good news. )

* Interestingly, I apparently was ringing at Old North the morning after she died, and was there again on Saturday morning, which meant that I rushed home afterwards, threw myself through the shower, and got in the car. (Well, once I manoevred it out from behind my housemate's car.)
The other difference is that this time I managed to NOT fuck up Plain Hunt! Booyeah!

** No, not the Henry-Jamesian one. Her sister. Well, one of them. The relatively normal one.

*** Ironically, what I'd really been hoping to inherit from the cottage was the cast iron skillet. The paintings, as far as I was concerned, might as well have stayed with the new owners if they wanted 'em, just like the stuffed dear head (c. 1940). Oh well.

Last week was frenetically busy, and Peter was up here for the weekend, so that was too. But on Monday I proctored my final exam. and then drove him home,* and so now I'm DONE.

And at a bit of a loss, too.

Partly, it's the classic feeling of being at a loose end when you no longer have to do something stressful; but there's also the practical aspects. What with end-of-term stress, I have made no plans for the summer; and this is a problem when my paychecks from MECA are about to dry up, and leave me paying child support directly into the bargain.
I suppose I ought to look for a job for the summer, but that's going to be problematic:
1) First, I am no good at job searches.
2) Second, getting any sort of summer-job-thing is going to be complicated by the fact that I am also going to be hosting Peter for a couple of week-long stints over the summer, and possibly also going to England to see my Mom. Employers tend to be less than supportive of this in potential employees.
3) Finally, what I should *really* be doing is finding a permanent, full-time job; or at least something more closely resembling one. Which gets us back to the problem of figuring out what THAT would be.

What I may do - what I am frankly INCLINED to do - is just take the summer off. Well, ok, not OFF: I'll be working for the book company (albeit probably not for many hours, much less enough to pay the bills), and I'll do some temping (for one thing, it's almost certain they'll want people to re-erect that concert stage) and maybe some online editing work. And I'd try to figure out what I want to do with my life, and apply for some of the resulting possibilities (plus maybe another Fulbright); and maybe write an e-textbook, because every World History textbook I've ever met is (a) vastly overpriced, and (b) deficient in one aspect or another.
And I'd actually be able to go to England, and to go see some of you.

Of course, I have no way to pay for this. Yes, I have sunk low enough that I am considering asking my Mom for a loan.**

* I originally wanted to write something about that, and Spring, and the fleetingness of Spring in New England, and the colors of the trees when the red maples are in blossom, and the interesting fact that you drive right by the key col separating Mt. Shaw from the Sandwich Range, though the key col is in fact a swamp, which as I drove home was alive with the song of frogs lookin' for looove. But my words fell a bit flat.

** Failing that, I may ask the BANK for a loan. Heck, I may go all-out and see whether they'd lend me a few thousand to go buy Berkshire Hathaway stock...