So I came to the conclusion

I've got a good post in the works. I saved it on another computer so it will be forthcoming. I feel like it contains some strokes of intellectual brilliance, LOL.



Anyway, still on the house hunt. I have an offer on a house right now that I have offered on twice before. The seller has a certain price in mind and in my mind, it's about $8,000 too much. So we'll see how that goes. I have two other places to look at tomorrow in case the other house doesn't work out. Gotta always keep looking. I think that's one of the reasons why it's so damned exhausting: it feels like a second full-time job.



Been working my ass off, too. I'm taking an actual, real vacation for the first time in years in October and that means I have to raise money. I feel like I have been living at work for the most part these last 2 or 3 weeks.



So I came to the conclusion last night that I am not a "party friend" anymore. Especially not when I'm mentally and physically exhausted and have been working OT all week. I was out late last night for E's birthday, which was great, but on the way home, I thought, "I have no business being out this late. I am not 21 years old anymore." The icing on the cake was at 3:30 in the morning when I had to go through a police roadblock. Talk about intimidation. It was like 5 cops came out of nowhere. One of them talked to me while the other four walked 360 degrees around my car. So I'm sitting there in a panic mode hoping that I don't have something as simple as a dim headlight and thinking about how messy my car is right now. Of course they grilled me on where I had been and what all I had done and why I was out so damn late. And I was sitting there thinking to myself, "No shit. Why *am* I out this late? I'd really rather be in bed . . ." But you know, when it's your friend's birthday, you feel obligated to do whatever it takes for them to have a good night. Unfortunately, I feel like I am not cut out for late nights in bars or clubs when I have worked all day. Experiencing the police roadblock and praising God when I made it through without incident reinforced that I don't want to be stringing the streets at 3am. Maybe that makes me sound like an old lady or a lame-ass but that's how I feel. I remember only a few years ago when my friends who were several years older than me would talk about how they were not into the bar and club scene anymore because it was the same old, same old every week. I didn't get it then, but I get it now. It's like: I already know before I walk in the door what I'm going to see and how tired I am going to feel the next morning so what is the point? Don't get me totally wrong-- it was worth it to me to go where E wanted to go because it was her birthday and her night. And I had the unique experience of meeting a man who called himself "the pimp from Henryetta" and that was hilarious. Also saw porno on the club screens by Chi Chi LaRue, when made E and I laugh hysterically. But the roadblock and the sheer exhaustion and the struggle to stay awake during the drive home took the wind out of my sails. I've lost my taste for greasy fast food meals at 2:30am and waking up at 1pm the next day feeling like boiled ass. It sucks.



I also don't like to sit and listen to other people's party stories. To me, if that's all you have to talk about, that shows how vacant the rest of your life must be. For the first time in a long time, I'm working but not going to school. When you're in school, you have a built-in conversation piece. You gripe about homework and ridiculous things you had to read or long papers you had to write. You laugh about weird things that happen in class. And yes, you party. But after school is over and you go out into the working world, you have to redefine what you do with your extra time. When I was in grad school, there was no extra time. There was working full time mixed with going to class at 3/4 time and shitwads of homework. Then there was the master's thesis, which felt like Mephisto and I were lovers and I would never be shed of him. I felt like Mephisto was attached at my hip and my every free thought had to center on how to commit my studies to paper. Once that was over with, I was left with this totally foreign concept of leisure time. WTF does a person do with leisure time? Holy shit. And it didn't take me long to realize that most people come home from work and plop themselves in front of a TV for five hours and that is their lives. Then you have the people keeping the party candle alive who want to tell you all about the wild things they did on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday night. I don't find that amusing. If you have the energy to go bar-hopping on a Thursday night, good for you, but I sure as shit don't and I don't want to have my time wasted by hearing about how awesome it was when someone threw up all over the bar table or two hillbillies got in a fight outside. I DON'T CARE. I'd rather hear about how your work week went or what interesting book or article you've read lately or what positive things are happening or how your family is doing than to hear about people humping in the bar bathroom or schmoozing the bartender into giving you free shots all night. *Sigh* I worry that certain people in my life will not like me coming to this conclusion and will not understand why. I don't know how to perfectly explain it but I guess the best way I know how to is to say that I feel like I'm at a point in life where I have made certain sacrifices and amassed a number of positive things and I don't want to do anything intentional that might fuck all of it up. I just don't. I want to live a long healthy life and I want to keep my job and I want to stay in the good graces of the law. The truth is that someone who is really and truly my friend for who I am will understand and accept this and someone who is not will fade out into the background. C'est la vie.



Ok. I'm ready to sign off and get on with the day. The post I wrote on the other computer is my review of Hannibal Rising and my Mephistopheles/Hannibal connection. I have a number of other things I need to review as I feel like I have been reading at warp speed. I can thank Ian Fleming's Bond books for that. Up-coming reviews include: Octopussy & The Living Daylights, The Godfather, and Dracula. It'll be good times, good times.

I'm going to see Rob Zombie's Halloween tonight and I hope it's good. I'm looking forward to it.