What's with me?

I've left this blog to sit for too long. Here's the low down on what's been going on.

You didn't ask, but you will get it anyway. Since I don't write in a paper diary anymore, I have to mark the passing of time somehow!

It's mostly personal, but not that personal. Not good enough to get me fired if I was working outside of my house.

I wish I could explain the gaps on my resume this well!

January to March

School. I took one class winter quarter, freaking out every time I got stuck on my homework. I found I was making a big deal out of things way too often, and I didn't like being that way. I can use JQuery now, but it doesn't seem like the worry was worth it.

I was sort of crafting in the meantime, but not much. I did some crochet that is sitting in a hamper in the closet somewhere, because I made it out of wool, and it got warm around the time I finished it. I finished up some other things that were sitting around, also crochet. One knit tank top. I wasn't feeling crafty.

I finally bought a standard bed knitting machine, practically new, but haven't used it much. It weighs a ton, but having pattern punchcards is the greatest. No permanent place to set it up, unfortunately.

April to present

I had my quarter break from school, and wanted to look for another school to attend. The community college I'm going to is mostly okay. It's cheap, another bonus. The bad part is some of the teachers act like they don't want to be there. I've had two stinkers so far, that wouldn't answer questions, and acted like I was supposed to know the material before the term started. I'm not sure how they justify this, but it's enough to piss me off. I came there to learn, and I'm not a kid that is willing to put up with a lot of bullshit from a teacher that's having a bad day.

Dropping the second teacher's class last July caused me to go into financial aid trouble, which the school didn't bother to tell me about. The State sent a letter a month or so ago, late fee and all. That's the second reason I want to switch schools. I don't want to waste money on a school that I can't learn from, and that doesn't know how to handle their paperwork. I graduated from OSU, which is way bigger, and they seemed to handle their shit better than Columbus State does. Yeah, I said the name.

The third reason is that the car I drive is starting to behave erratically. As in, shutting down suddenly while driving. I spent the whole day at a mechanic that couldn't figure it out, so I'm stuck to my side of town, driving very short distances, since I'm afraid the thing will stop, and not start again. This makes it harder to get to school, since a lot of my classes now require at least a couple of live sessions.

While all this fun was going on, mom suddenly got the idea to sell the house and move back home, meaning North Carolina. The taxes went up, the real estate value is going down, yet the mortgage increased, mom tells me eventually. There are a few For Rent and For Sale signs scattered through the neighborhood. It's time to go, she says. When my mom gets an idea in her head, she pursues with extreme focus and doesn't take it easy.

The whole idea was making me sick with worry. I got pretty depressed over it. There were some big, scary fights, and I wasn't feeling good. I told her the idea upset me, but it didn't matter.

Not that Columbus is that great. It's not. It's sort of awful, actually. Isolating at times. Hard to meet new people. A great example of urban sprawl. A city that isn't sure what it wants to become, and it's stuck somewhere between hick town and mid-sized city. I haven't had luck finding a decent job. It's not that I don't want to get out of here before I die. I really do.

I just wanted to leave it on my own terms, not be in a position where I had no choice. I feel like I lost some imaginary fight, and I have to slink off in defeat. I know that's in my head, but I feel like I should be succeeding a little bit more than I am.

It sucks to be codependent on a city you can't stand. But I'm so glass half empty, I don't see the place I might be headed to as being much better. My parents are from NC; most of my relatives are in NC; I spent most of the summers of my childhood at my grandparents' farm.

The prospect of having family that close frightens me. Mostly because I don't have much to show for myself right now. At least living far away gave me some space from relatives asking me what I'm doing constantly.

Then there's the worries about not fitting in or finding new friends. I worry that it would be the same shit, but different scenery. Again, I don't have much of a choice. At this point in my life, I don't think I'd be happy anywhere. My perception is really, really skewed from the past couple of years. Grayer.

Currently, most of my stuff is packed up, and the for sale sign was finally put up this week. I'm still hating it, because the realtors in this town are shady (that's the nicest term I could think of), and the last time my parents tried to sell this place pre-recession wasn't pleasant. I'm still harboring that old resentment.

So far, I've been justified: The day the pictures were taken, mom got an appointment request about an hour after the photographers left. She was so gung ho she accepted, and my "Why are you getting requests and the listing isn't even posted yet?" questions were pushed aside.

That day, I split for an hour or two, came home and mom was pissed. First, the heavy box they hold the keys in for the agents messed up the door (they broke the lock on the front door last time), and the people that came in were some site-seeing neighbors living in a foreclosed house down the street. This is going to be soo damn fun.

I have to make the place I'm still living in look unlived in, because people are too thick to see the house for all the stuff inisde of it,  but I still have to go about day to day living. It's a pain in the ass, to put it lightly.

The majority of my knitting books are packed up in the basement (let's see if I ever find them again!), and the yarn is vaccuum sealed into space bags. Somehow, a handful of magazines remain free, but I've been too tired to start up much.

So, part of me wants to beat this place down and make it my bitch, even if that means quitting school and getting a job, and part of me wants to run like the place is full of zombies (if you saw Zombieland, you will understand this reference).

It's not the most exciting explanation, but it's true.