In which I do a do-over.

I had written an introspective, pensive post about my life as I know it… and then I opened the Iowa job search db in another tab and Firefox crashed, taking my whole damn post with it. The gist was that I actually had some guests out here last night, quite spontaneously and quite by accident, and once again I’m suffused with gratitude for my friends.

It went like this: Buzz dropped by on his way home from work, and then Rockstar and Gorgeous came out to walk BoSe’s dogs, and then Raybo stopped in on her way back from ScrOttumwa, and I had people over visiting me in my own home for several hours running! It was amazing, really, to have actual guests over, especially since I’d cleaned yesterday and was ready to have actual guests over. The dishes were done, and I’d washed the blanket that covers the couch and even dusted. (The bathroom continues to be an ongoing observational experiment in entropy, but at least the two main rooms were presentable.) I was even able to offer the guys beers because there are five or six kinds in the beer fridge left over from who knows when!

Gorgeous has listened to me bitch about cleaning this place for years. She told me my living room was ‘immaculate,’ but it was dusk so she couldn’t see the monster (formed of dog hair and sticks and toads and dust and spiders and moth wings) that was snaking its furry arm out from under the rocking chair toward her ankle. Luckily, she stepped away before it wrapped its tentacle around her flesh and sucked her into that scary, dark break in the concrete that I artfully keep concealed behind an old dresser. Whew.

After awhile it was just Raybo and me. She didn’t have to get up in the morning, so she stayed late and drank the last of my vodka with me, and we tried a lemondrop-with-rum experiement that wasn’t brilliant but was at least drinkable. She is so fantastically wonderful and awesome; I feel like we’ve been friends for years but it’s only been months. Every so often I squeeze her and squeal, “I’m so glad you moved here!” and she grins and squeals “Me too!” right back at me. A good friend is a precious thing.

Bread called me yesterday to report the latest sales figures (which are encouraging!) and to inform me that he and BoSe have rented a furnished apartment in Indy because it’s cheaper than any motel they could find.

Now I’m all for frugality, of course, but I have to admit the news made me strangely jealous. He’s living in a neat little furnished apartment in a metropolitan area — which is exactly what I want out of life! — and I’m here, in the country, in this clapped-out old farmhouse with the bills in the mailbox every day and the flea-infested dogs and the toads and spiders and the 26-mile commute! What the fuck!

Yes, I’m petty and ugly, but I’m woman enough to work through it. And I did. The truth is that I’d rather be here than in Indy selling roofs. All my stuff is here, my band is here, and all my friends are here. I don’t really like Indy all that much, and calling it a ‘metropolitan area’ is actually a compliment. The jealous pettiness was just a momentary blip but it threw me and I had a why-am-I-always-the-one-doing-the-responsible-thing? pity party for an hour. Seriously, though, I bet that if Bread had his druthers he’d be here handling the domestic shit while I was off in some city pulling down the big bucks. He’d love to be a farm husband even more than I’d love to be living in a tidy little furnished apartment in a city somewhere. The weirdo.

Too bad I have yet to realize, codify, and market whatever skill it is that I undoubtably possess that would enable me to be the one living in the furnished apartment in the metropolitan area and pulling down the big bucks. Maybe this Xactimate training thing will pan out. Maybe I’ll figure out how to become the systems streamlining expert like Snow suggested. Who knows. My problem is that I know a little about a lot of things, but I never specialized enough. Even in all my years at the ISP I never bothered to take any certification tests. Hell, I never finished any of my college degrees either. (Yes, I spent five years in college and never got a piece of paper.) (Oh shush, it’s not like a degree in voice or literature or history would do me any good.)

I’m over-qualifed for any and all office positions short of upper management, but I’m under-qualified for management because I’m not degreed in business. I’m woefully under-qualified for most geek positions, but over-qualified for geek entry level jobs like tech support. On the other hand, I’ve worked myself out of more than one job by streamlining it until I had nothing to do, and in every office position I’ve ever had I’ve ended up taking on more and more responsibility until I was doing a manager’s job with an assistant’s title and salary.

Suffice it to say, I haven’t gotten any calls for interviews yet.

I have band practice tonight, and afterward I’m not going to karaoke no matter what Gorgeous says. Tomorrow Stella gets the tube out of her ear.

In other news, I spent $70 on Frontline for all the animals yesterday, and put it on them as soon as I got home. I have observed no relief from the fleas in the past 24 hours. My conclusion is that Frontline no longer kills fleas. I’m going to try to contact the company that manufactures it and let them know. Maybe they’ll send me a fucking refund.