What's up with you?

[SharonDee]

Y'all, this is serious. Srsly.

So I went to the library, okay? I'd checked the online catalog and they had the books I wanted to read. So yayness! I scurried there after work--fighting nasty, nasty Nashville traffic all the way--and parked my car in the lot.

Luckily I thought to check my wallet before I actually entered the building because ... cheese 'n' crackers, MY LIBERRY CARD IS MISSING!!!!

I can't find my library card. It's not in the new POS that's serving as my wallet until The Great Purple arrives; it's not in the old wallet that I can't make myself ditch yet; it's nowhere in the backpack that I carry non-wallet things in.

No! No! NO-O-O-O-O!!

[Ymir's blood]

[Janet]

Can you not check out with your ID until you find it? Our patrons can.

[vremya]

I have to have a root canal (boo) but I'm going to have it done at the U of MN Dental School, so hopefully it won't break the bank. The U found the infection that the greedy overpriced "community" clinic missed on my x-rays, and they didn't charge me for an emergency appointment, so I'm feeling pretty good about them right now.

[Angakuk]

So, you are going to have the work done at the University Dental School where you will be worked on by a loser pre-med student who couldn't get into medical school and so settled for going to dental school instead. That should end well.

Oh, wait, that is also what happens when you go to a regular dentist.

Never mind. Carry on as you were.

[viscousmemories]

I'm flying to San Jose in the morning, coming back to Austin late Thursday night, flying to Detroit early Friday morning, taking a train from Ann Arbor to Chicago the following Tuesday, returning to Ann Arbor that Thursday and flying back to Austin on Sunday.

[Sock Puppet]

Heavily redacted version of an IM conversation I just had with the fellow in London who left Kafka Inc. to become the contracts manager at another company:

Sock: 'ello Mr. D___
D___: Hey Sock - how's it going?
Sock: Not bad, how is life after Kafka Inc. so far?
D___: bs free so far.....
D___: quite liberating...
Sock: Have you started over at Greener Pastures, CIE?
D___: Week #2!!
Sock: Yay!
Sock: Since you're the boss now, I guess others now have to put up with your BS ...
D___: I'm down at the pitface Sock - can you imagine a contracts manager that can actually write a contract???????what a CRAZY idea.....
Sock: Sounds like heresy
D___: If only you were over here I'd be offering you a job!
Sock: *sigh*
Sock: I'd head over there in a moment if it weren't for a wife and kid who would screech, "We're going WHERE?"

[LadyShea]

Oh man, London! And a competent boss!

Is your family just really happy and content where you are, or is it more a lack of adventurousness, or the admittedly overwhelming pain in the assiness of moving, or why would they necessarily react like that to the idea?

[LadyShea]

Hubby: They might offer me a promotion to move
Me: Where?
Hubby: New Orleans
Me: I love NOLA! What would it pay?
Hubby: Not enough to take Kiddo away from the support system we have here! Put your wanderlust away for another 5 years at least

He's right, of course, but yeah, my first reaction to new places is always "Yeah, why not?"

[Ensign Steve]

Had a conversation with my housemate/brother-in-law about wanderlust the other day. We were just exploring our different opinions about whether having a house and a mortgage is cool on accounta "stability" or whether it feels more like soul-crushing oppression that makes me want to burn the whole thing to the ground and change my name and move to another country. Guess which side I'm on. I couldn't even imagine adding a kid to that picture. More power to you and yours, my dear.

Oh! But the reason I came in here: I got a major award! I went to my department graduation reception yesterday and earned an "Outstanding Undergraduate Student" award. And since mom always asks (since she knows the difference between first place and a participation medal), three of twenty-five graduates received the award. I suspected I would get something, because several different people asked and made sure I was going to be there, but I didn't get my hopes up because I have been let down a lot on that front in the last decade or so. It feels nice to be back in an environment where they give you credit just for showing up and being smart. Almost as good as getting paid.

[LadyShea]

whether it feels more like soul-crushing oppression that makes me want to burn the whole thing to the ground and change my name and move to another country.

Real estate has always been a positive, easily liquidated asset for me, since I was 19 years old....until 2008. It feels like a trap right this second , and to be honest, I get kind of claustrophobic when I think too hard about it. In fact, it ramps my wanderlust up quite a bit. I could have been content for longer except I CANNOT LEAVE! We would take Kiddo wherever and we would work it out, but we cannot just sell the house and go where we want, for the first time in my life. It sucks.

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Real estate has always been a positive, easily liquidated asset for me, since I was 19 years old....until 2008. It feels like a trap right this second , and to be honest, I get kind of claustrophobic when I think too hard about it. In fact, it ramps my wanderlust up quite a bit. I could have been content for longer except I CANNOT LEAVE! We would take Kiddo wherever and we would work it out, but we cannot just sell the house and go where we want, for the first time in my life. It sucks.

You and the rest of the world felt like that until 2008. Man, it's hard to believe that it's been 4 years since I came up with the Greatest Topical/Pun Costume Ever That No One Got.

I dressed in a dark blue sportcoat, shirt, tie, mirrored aviator sunglasses and an "earpiece" so I looked like a security guard. Then I pinned a "mortage" to the coat. Get it? A "mortgage-backed security!"

No one got it. I thought it was the scariest thing I could think of in 2008, but hardly anyone knew what a MBS was, let alone figure out my horrible, horrible pun.

[Ensign Steve]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I could have been content for longer except I CANNOT LEAVE!

I know exactly what you mean. I was stressing out a lot until we figured out a way to leave without selling the house. Now that we've figured that out, I'm content to stay here begin a two-year degree path and feel quite comfy and stable and less crushed of soul. In fact, that was the actual thesis of our conversation, that I am feeling much better now.

[livius drusus]

The rental value of my house far exceeds its sale value right now.

[ShottleBop]

Originally Posted by specious_reasons

. . . You and the rest of the world felt like that until 2008. Man, it's hard to believe that it's been 4 years since I came up with the Greatest Topical/Pun Costume Ever That No One Got.

I dressed in a dark blue sportcoat, shirt, tie, mirrored aviator sunglasses and an "earpiece" so I looked like a security guard. Then I pinned a "mortage" to the coat. Get it? A "mortgage-backed security!"

No one got it. I thought it was the scariest thing I could think of in 2008, but hardly anyone knew what a MBS was, let alone figure out my horrible, horrible pun.

I would have known what it was. It was the collapse of that market that led to my current state of severe underemployment.

Real estate doesn't have to be an anchor. It was being able to sell the two-bedroom starter home we bought in 1975 for nearly $25,000 more than we paid for it that allowed me to enroll in law school in 1978 (moving with Mrs. ShottleBop and two kids under 4) and make it through working weekends at the Co-op in Berkeley.

Five years later, in 1983, we bought our second house, in Concord (CA), and within months my employer offered to send the entire family (4 kids at the time) to Hong Kong, where I worked for a couple of years. We leased out the house.

[ShottleBop]

Interview up in LA starts in a little over an hour!

[livius drusus]

Break a leg!

[LadyShea]

Good luck Shottlebop!

And maybe I made my point badly, but yeah, like you I found RE freeing previously. It financed every big important thing so far and everything sold in no time. Now, that freedom is gone, and won't be back anytime soon.

[ShottleBop]

Interview's over--now I wait to hear back. I got along well with the two folks I met with, but I have to see whether they think we can make this work for everyone. (Ideally, they'd have someone much more junior than I am, but there is currently a dearth of such folks with the right mix of experience.)

[Kyuss Apollo]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Real estate has always been a positive, easily liquidated asset for me, since I was 19 years old....until 2008. It feels like a trap right this second , and to be honest, I get kind of claustrophobic when I think too hard about it. In fact, it ramps my wanderlust up quite a bit. I could have been content for longer except I CANNOT LEAVE! We would take Kiddo wherever and we would work it out, but we cannot just sell the house and go where we want, for the first time in my life. It sucks.

x2.

[Sock Puppet]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Oh man, London! And a competent boss!

Is your family just really happy and content where you are, or is it more a lack of adventurousness, or the admittedly overwhelming pain in the assiness of moving, or why would they necessarily react like that to the idea?

Well, actually, I can't blame it all on them. A move to the UK would involve getting visas for the three of us, plus the overwhelming pain in the assiness of moving across the Atlantic Ocean (we have several metric fucktons of shit here, lots and lots and LOTS of furnishings, decorations, yadda yadda), a lot of currently unrecoverable investment of time and money in the house here since we moved (landscaping, remodeled front and back porches, trees removed and others planted, flooring), plus Li'l Puppet has tons of friends here. Our house is roughly worth what we paid for it 5 years ago, so we wouldn't necessarily lose money, but not a lot of relocation funds, either.

Plus the wife finally has her law practice taking off. A lawyer schooled and admitted to the Bar over here can't just start practicing law in another country, not even one as similar in approach as the UK. The best she could offer is the ability to demonstrate a specific set of skills (cue Liam Neeson speech), and that plus a fairy godmother could get her a job over there.

And finally, note how my friend worded that sentence: "If only you were over here I'd be offering you a job" -- IOW, he is not in the position to sponsor my move over there in any way. Without that I just don't have the resources to make such a move. Still, it's fun to dream about, hence

[LadyShea]

Yeah, I know, Sock. Of course all that is always the deciding factor, I just am so demented in this particular area, that the fun dream dominates my thinking for a few days at least, and I convince myself it's totally doable.

A few years ago, before Kiddo, hubby was asked if we would consider moving to Belize to run a hotel bar. Oh man that took a lot of rationality to talk me down from.

[SharonDee]

I have library card again.

When I stopped by to get a replacement I was told it wouldn't cost me anything because the card was 10 years old! That's right, bitches, I managed to hang onto a LIBRARY CARD long enough for its replacement to be free. (Okay, I suspect it was free because it was old-fashioned as well as old. They apparently updated the look during the past decade.)

But anyway ... I am a happy book-lover now!


Now I just need to decide what to read next. The choices, they are so many.

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

My knee is brokeded... or at least feels like it.

Yup, it's borked, probably kneeds surgical intervention. Torn menses, or something like that.

Originally Posted by Ymir's blood

What happened?

I stepped off a stone step in someone's front yard that was higher than I thought it was, borked it because I was busy jacking my jaw instead of paying attention to what I was doing.

[Demimonde]

I have a screaming meemie of a headache. I get pretty bad migraines but this sucker is different. The entire left hemisphere of my brain is all nervy and twangy and jangly, I have pressure behind my left eye and cheek, and the twinges are raining down the back of my head into my neck and shoulder.

Is this what people mean when they talk about sinus headaches? Because seriously, people who have to deal with this crap all season are motherfucking heroes. HEROES I SAY.

Now I am going to curl up in a ball with my bottle of ibuprofen and whimper until it stops.