Countdown

With three days to go before I start my new job (or at least start the two weeks' worth of training for it), I've been trying to take care of what needs to be done around the house. This includes paying bills, keeping up with correspondences, printing/filling out paperwork for said job, etc. It feels like, no matter what I do, there's something I'm forgetting. This is nothing new, of course; I always feel like I'm forgetting something no matter when or how I take care of everything. I've made sure to pay the bills I have due; this is good, as I can forget those now that the vast majority of them are paid online with paperless statements. We only have two bills that I/we don't pay online -- one of them is my Citi card's bill, as their website won't let me in without some stupid pin number I set up for the account five years ago (which, of course, I cannot remember now) and the other is the water/trash bill. Everything else but the rent is paid through until well after I'll get my first paycheck, so we're good. Finally we'll be somewhat financially stable again. Daisy gets paid a week from today, and then two weeks after that we'll both be bringing in paychecks every two weeks, and our income will double from that point forward.

Both Daisy and I are paranoid about money; I think I tend to be much more paranoid about it than she does, as for many years I have lived a life of abject poverty. However, she is very smart with money, probably because she is very sensible about most things and, well, because she spent a few years working in a credit union. I have to be smart with money because I've spent many years of my life really poor and scraping by. Yeah, there's a reason why I drive an eighteen year old Monte Carlo with 233,000 miles on it, and only a small part of that reason is because it's fast. So, yeah, it's really nice that we'll be a dual-income household and really nice that said income will allow us some breathing space.

Aside from those chores and tasks, everything's been quiet all week. I'm getting used to the iPhone, I suppose, though I haven't really done much more on it than before. Apple did see fit to send me a really long email with this, though:

I mean, I like the phone, and it's really useful for some stuff already, but it's going to take a loooong time for me to actually use it like an Apple master or anything like that. I have a few apps, I have my numbers programmed into it that I need, and I tried out the GPS tonight by plotting in the address of the place I have to go on Monday morning for my processing/ID badge creation/etc. It's apparently three miles away, and will take me eight minutes to get there. That's useful info. But aside from run of the mill calling, texting, and reading the news? Yeah, so far I've not done much more than that with it and I don't know how much more I will do with it. I actually need to read the manual, which the phone doesn't come with -- it's all online, apparently. I don't even know how to turn the phone off and on, or how to turn the sounds off and on. Yeah. It's a complicated little device.

I did special order and put a rubber case on it, though, because I needed to do that. iPhones are really smooth and sleek, and I have the feeling that if I didn't put a case on it, eventually it would slip out of my hand and I'd drop/break it. I'd rather not do that, especially as the phone retails for more than I paid for my car.

Anyway.

I still follow the news for back in the Wichita/Newton area if only out of mild curiosity for the place in which I spent five years living. Apparently there was a shooting today in Newton, which is really rare for a town like that. The newspaper (which I worked for, as you may recall) was reporting on it like crazy, as was the Wichita news channels. Shootings in Omaha are nothing new -- several per week, gang violence in certain parts of the city, etc etc -- but down there it's a major event when something like that happens. I looked it up on the map and found that it was maybe a mile or so from my former house, out by the discount grocery store I went to often.

The university starts back up on Monday, same as WVU does back home. My mother informed me that today is "move in day" at WVU and she's glad she has the day off so that she doesn't have to navigate student traffic. My friends who remain in Wichita, the few who are still there finishing their degrees (read: less than ten grad students who I actually know and know well) aren't looking forward to the beginning of the semester. Well, Parker probably is, as I'm sure he's itching to get in front of a classroom full of students again. It will be the first fall semester in five years that I will not be teaching classes when Monday rolls around, but it is clear that the fates have a cruel sense of humor, as I will be reporting to work on Monday morning for the first time since the semester ended in May. That seems so long ago now; I wasn't even married yet when the semester ended. I was still living in Kansas when the semester ended. I had really long hair and a really full, thick beard when the semester ended. It's so weird to think of how much really can change in the span of a few short months.

"Are you nervous about starting your training?" Daisy asked me tonight over her lunch hour.

"No," I said. "Psh. I just don't want to do it."

That may be the most honest sentence I've uttered all summer. I don't want to do it. I've been enjoying sleeping on my schedule, eating on my schedule, being able to shower and shave and smoke and go to the bathroom when I've needed or wanted to instead of when I have time to. The concept of being trained to do a job where I will have to report to people above me and have little to no autonomy in said job whatsoever isn't so much nerve-wracking or dread-inducing as it is frustrating. For the past five years, I've been teaching -- and when you're a teacher, you are more or less in charge. When you lead a classroom and teach lessons, you tell students what to do and how to do it. Because I was damn good at what I did, I rarely had to report to anyone. Yes, there were superiors above me, and yes, I did consult them when necessary, but for the most part, I was in charge of what I did and how I did it. The same does not apply to this new job I'll have. I will have at least three direct supervisors to report to, and while Daisy isn't allowed to be in charge of me at this job (nepotism, etc etc), she is ranked above me...and everyone there I'll work with knows she's my wife. In fact, from what Daisy tells me, I am the most anticipated new employee joining the crew.

That's something that may be really hard to live up to, honestly. Truth be told, I've never done this sort of work before. I've never even done anything close to it. Now, you give me enough training and I can do damn near anything and do it well, but I'm also a fairly slow learner when it comes to stuff that I have absolutely no experience with.

"You're lucky," Daisy said. "Things are starting to slow down right now. This is the beginning of the slow part of the year."

Okay, well, yes. That's good. That will help.

There are many upsides to the job, of course; I'll get to work with my wife, I'll get to work (after the training period, anyway) a schedule that is, quite possibly, the best schedule I could've been assigned, and unlike being a professor my job will goddamned end when I clock out for the day. I can't tell you how freeing that will feel again. I haven't had a job that actually ended (aside from breaks between semesters) since 2009 -- as a professor, yes, you go home at the end of the day/night, but there's still always lesson planning that must be done, there's still stacks of papers that must be graded, grades that must be entered on Blackboard, quizzes and handouts to write and make, etc. It was a very rare occurrence that there was nothing I could be doing for my students in one capacity or another. The fact that I don't have to do that stuff anymore is both a blessing and a curse, depending on how one looks at it.

So, that's about all that's going on. I'm sure I'll update you again over the weekend, provided I have the time and energy to do so.

The iMan

So. I have an iPhone.

After doing lots of different research through different companies and different carriers/sites/et cetera, Daisy and I realized that none of the options were going to be any better than any other, and some of said options were incredibly expensive to even start out with a new contract. For example, one carrier I looked at charged $250 up front for the phone and the first month's service plan, and that was a plan with very limited data and talk/text limits as well.

"So what do you want to do?" Daisy asked.

"I suppose we just go to Sprint and see what they can do," I said. "Nothing else is remotely reasonable and/or won't require me to buy the phone off-the-shelf up front."

I don't know if any of you have ever purchased a cell phone off-the-shelf before, but let me tell you, it is not fucking cheap. Most current smartphones cost more than my desktop computer did. Some of them cost more than I paid for my car. If you buy a phone yourself outright before signing up for a plan, yes, you may save some money in the long run, but it's so little that it's negligible when spread out over the length of a cell phone contract.

And of course, there's the fact that we don't have $400-600 to just spend all at once on a phone before any sort of plan even comes into play.

My iPhone 5c (they were sold out of the 5s; apparently there's some sort of promotion going on right now where current customers can get a free upgrade) was, on paper, $549. That is more than I paid for my car. That is much more than I paid for this desktop computer. However, it's worked into my contract that I don't pay it all at once, but over the course of the two years I'm with Sprint.

When it was all settled and done, I had a white iPhone 5c 16GB running iOS 7.1-something, unlimited talk/text/data, and I'm paying somewhere around $80 a month. When it comes to cell phone carriers, the phone I have, and the plan I have, that's a really good deal, actually. We priced Verizon beforehand as well -- they charge over $200 a month for a very similar plan. We got the best deal we could for the money. The 5c was (obviously) cheaper than the 5s as well.

As for the phone itself? Eh, I'm happy with it. No, it's not the metal-and-glass 5s, but it's good. It's fine. I still don't really know how to use it that well yet. Mind you, I've never owned a smartphone, and the only experience I've had with one is the handful of times I've had to make a call on Daisy's phone, or when she handed me the phone while driving and told her to text Mama something. Beforehand, I consulted Parker, who is an Apple-phile and owns basically every new i-device, on the learning curve of an iPhone for someone who's not only never owned one before, but who has never used a smartphone before. He gave me some good tips on how to use it, what services to turn on/turn off, and then told me that it's going to take a week or so to get used to it. I can totally see and believe that.

I haven't done much with the phone yet; I installed the Facebook and Twitter apps, installed an app for one of my favorite podcasts, and put Instagram on the phone despite the fact that I do not yet have an Instagram account. I called my mother as well as my grandmother, since I can now actually talk to them without having to worry about dropping a call or running out of minutes, and gave them my new number. I migrated my number book from my old phone into the new one manually, one contact at a time, weeding out the numbers of people I've not called in years and/or no longer need. I texted a few close friends to let them know I have the new phone and a new number.

I also got my first wrong number phone call not half an hour after I got the phone. They were asking for someone named Charlene.

"That's a bad sign," Daisy said. Daisy herself has had the same number for years, and she still gets calls for some woman who apparently had her number before her and didn't bother to change it for certain things (like prescription refills and the like).

I haven't gotten any more wrong number calls yet, but it's not like anyone really ever calls me to talk to me, so it doesn't really matter. What's important is that I now have a reliable phone that actually gets signal around the city, and can finally let the other old one die -- not that it works here anyhow.

So that's done, at least. That was a major thing I needed to get taken care of since, well, basically since I moved up here. It's a new expense, yes, but it's one we just have to bite the bullet on and take -- it's not like I could go forever without having a phone, because that's just not feasible in today's world. I justify it to myself by saying that I've finally leapt into the 21st century by getting a GPS that updates itself, by getting a way of actually talking to people that I don't have to pay for per minute or per message, by having a device that fits in my pocket that lets me access the entirety of the internet anywhere, anytime.

It's not like I needed any of those things to survive, mind you, and I'm sure to many of you, this is nothing new -- many of my friends have had iPhones (or equivalent smartphones) since their inception almost ten years ago now. But to me, it's all new. I am so inexperienced with it that I have no clue where to start. I'm like a child given a new toy with all sorts of different ways to play with it. When I was a child, most of my toys were pretty basic. The newest game system was a NES. The most complicated toys were Transformers. Now, with children growing up in the world of fully electronic toys that I only wish I would've had as a kid, and playing Xboxes and Playstations that have games that look real, the iPhone is the last thing that I really have left in this world that I can actually marvel at as an adult -- as I've never experienced anything like that before. If I were to leap back in time to 20 years ago, 1994, and tell my younger self that in 2014 I would have a phone half the size of my hand that accessed the entirety of human knowledge and recreation and allowed me to take it anywhere and talk to anyone I wanted as long as I wanted in various ways? I'm not sure I would've believed my future self. So yeah, I'm stoked that I have a new piece of technology, and no, I wouldn't have changed waiting this long to get it for anything. Will I use it as much as the average smartphone users use their phones? Probably not, but the fact that I can is what's exciting about it.

El Bandito

I've been doing a lot of things, both mentally and physically, to prepare myself for my new job, which starts a week from tomorrow. Some of these things are small and needed to be done anyway (such as vacuuming the house), and others are larger and/or more far-reaching.

For example, tonight I shaved off my beard again. Well, most of it. I left my mustache and a rounded/flared-at-the-bottom strip on my chin. I think it makes me look either like a criminal from a spaghetti western, or Guy Fawkes. I'm not sure which. Daisy, who I was worried would hate it, actually loves it and says it makes me look sexy and/or sophisticated. I'll take that.

As you folks probably know, I shave off the beard several times per year -- usually about three or four times. Even when I do, it is very rare that I leave no facial hair whatsoever; the only time in the past, oh, two years or more that I've done that was after the wedding earlier this summer, and that was only because I wanted to be cooler over the summer months. I was surprised that the beard grew back much more quickly, and much more fully, than it normally does. Maybe, for some reason, getting married allowed me to grow a full, thick manly beard more quickly. Who knows, but it grew in fast.

Meanwhile, it's taking a lot longer than usual for my hair to get longer after I had it cut two months ago, so I suppose there's give and take.

Anyway, I shaved it because I want to look at least somewhat respectable (and not like a wild bushman) when I start my job next week. I get my ID photo taken on day one, almost immediately after arriving and going through processing. The ID is one of those magnetic strip cards that you need in order to get into the building and the like, so it's something you have to keep on your person at all times. Granted, I've not yet worked there, but I don't know if it has to be visible at all times for people or not; Daisy keeps hers in her cell phone case now (because she's now management, so it's not like she has to prove to people who she is and that she's in the right place anymore), but I remember her needing to wear her ID on a lanyard for a long time -- if only because she kept misplacing the lanyard. Oh, and I bought her the lanyard.

Eh. I don't know. My point is that I'd rather not look like a crazy bushman in my ID photo even though yes, I will be growing out the beard and my hair again as the fall and winter months arrive and I need to keep my head and face warm. My Nebraska driver's license photo doesn't look like me either; it was taken two days after my haircut and when I had a clean-shaven face. I look like a penis. Or, barring that, a mental patient. And one who is either drunk or stoned as well -- the DMV takes terribly unflattering pictures. I thought it was just me, but no, Daisy's new license picture (when she changed her name after the wedding) is just as bad as mine is.

As an aside, I've only had one ID picture taken of me that I actually liked, ever -- and it wasn't a license, but my Missouri non-driver ID before I got my license. It was a great picture of me. My Kansas license photo wasn't bad, but it also wasn't good -- it was taken in the middle of summer on a 100+ degree day after I'd spent almost an hour sweating in the DMV waiting room, which in the part of Kansas I lived in, was literally a trailer. Yes, a trailer.

Anyway, whatever works.

I mentioned before that I need to get a new phone. Daisy and I are having trouble with that. Daisy's phone is through Sprint, which basically runs Omaha when it comes to the cellphone business -- AT&T apparently doesn't have coverage here (Daisy looked it up), and Verizon is much more expensive. T-Mobile, as you know, is what my current phone is, and it only works in about 10% of the city even though they say Omaha is in its coverage area.

There are pages upon pages of complaints like that for T-Mobile in Omaha. I'm not kidding.

So, forced with little other choice that doesn't involve me/us spending four hundred fucking dollars on a phone that may or may not work and do what I need it to do when I need it to do it, Daisy and I basically have to stick to Sprint. Oh, we've looked at other options. None of them are any more affordable or easier to do. None of them are inexpensive. None of them are justifiably, in my eyes, worth their costs or hassles. And if they have the iPhone -- which is what I'm getting if I must have a smartphone -- it's neither cheap nor a usable model (read: more than 8GB).

To be fair here, Sprint has what I want: an iPhone 5s 16GB (I'd rather have the 32GB, but it's another $200) with unlimited talk/text/data. If I'm going to get a new phone with a plan, I'm not going to be unsatisfied with it, nor will I get a low-end phone that won't have enough space or will be outdated within a few months -- I'm going whole hog, so to speak, or I'm doing nothing. Nobody else here has that for a more reasonable price/plan than Sprint has. They just don't. It's what Daisy has and it's what she uses, though she has an Android phone, which I don't want -- for one, her phone is bigger than my hand, and it won't fit in the pocket of most of my pants or shirts, and for two, well, if I'm getting a smartphone I just want an iPhone.

We've looked at plans from all sorts of different places and avenues -- all of them may be cheaper per-month, but all of them also require you to shell out the $400 or more for the phone before you can use them. I'm not doing that. Frankly, I'm disgusted with how much cell service/phones cost, and can't fathom why or how people could or would pay that much per month for a phone. Mind you, I'm coming from a lifestyle of barely ever touching my phone, and my phone being a prepaid phone that, if I'm having a particularly talky year, I only spend $100 on total, for the entire year. And make no mistake, I love my prepaid flip phone and would be perfectly happy keeping/using it until the damned thing dies...if only it got any signal whatsoever. In 2014 it's simply appalling that I can't get signal in a major midwestern city on my cell phone, no matter the carrier. It's not like it's 1996, no, it's 2014. So, unless something else comes up, we're basically set on getting me on the same plan Daisy is on at Sprint, just with an iPhone 5s instead of some Android phone.

"I want what you want, babe," Daisy said.

Daisy and I are very different people when it comes to cell phones, which I'm sure by this point you have guessed. Despite our only six-year age difference, she and I are of almost completely different generations when it comes to technology in general, really. All of her formative years throughout high school and college she always had a cell phone. I did not; I didn't have a cell phone until 2006, after I moved out here to the midwest, and that was only because I desperately needed a phone of some sort if I wanted to be able to keep in contact with anyone (this was in my three or four month "transition period" when my computer was in storage and I had no internet). I didn't even have a laptop that actually did anything until 2010, the same year I bought this desktop computer. I had two different, very old-and-slow desktop computers until then. I was still using dial-up internet until mid-2007, and didn't get a Netflix account until three months ago. Suffice it to say that I don't keep up with technological trends and don't waste my money on anything I don't need. And until now, well, I've never needed a smartphone. At all. I barely use the phone anyhow -- nobody calls me (and I like it that way), and I haven't sent ten text messages total in the past year. When I need to call someone, I use Google Talk because it's free and integrated into my Gmail account. Either that or Skype, which I haven't used since upgrading this machine so I don't even know if it's still functional. The last person I Skype called was Rae...before the wedding. Yeah. It's been a while.

Anyway. We'll see what happens. I'd rather we not spend all of our money on getting me a new phone just because I don't have one and would use a few of the features on it (GPS, iMessage, etc) but the only other options are to continue to use/own a phone that I can only rarely get signal on, or to find a prepaid phone similar to my own but on a network where there's actual signal -- and choices for that sort of thing are pretty slim.

Getting Old

I haven't written here in over two weeks, and for that I apologize. There really hasn't been much going on, to be honest with you. When nothing happens in my life, I don't write anything. It's really as simple as that. I'd rather not become repetitive in writing about doing laundry again or cleaning the cat box again or anything else like that.

Daisy's headlights were fixed quickly; both bulbs had blown out at the same time, and she had a bad fuse somewhere that they replaced as well (free of charge, I might add). Both bulbs blowing out at once isn't unheard of, but it is uncommon. After a two-hour auto shop experience, we came home and everything's been running fine ever since. Daisy takes care of her car; the week before that she had an oil change and had all of her filters replaced at another shop here in town she likes to go to. I, however, am more of the "as long as the car's running and nothing's broken, fuck it" sort of person -- at least when it comes to the Monte Carlo, anyway. As long as the Monte Carlo starts up and gets me from point A to point B and back? Fuck it. It's too much money to get any of the comparably minor issues it has worked on or fixed.

I have taken my car out several times as of late, by the way, for short shopping trips -- at least twice down to the Walmart a few miles from the house, the other about five or six miles across town. Seems to be running as per the usual. Dad reminded me that it's good to do this so that the seals don't dry up and the like, which he's right about. I still haven't put gas in the car since the drive up here back in May because I don't use it enough to warrant letting a full tank of gas just sit there in it in the parking lot. I will have to fill it, however, sometime in the near future as I'll need gas to get to and from work once my job starts.

Speaking of that job, I have a little more than a week left of relative "vacation" before it starts. While that sounds like it's a long time, of course, it really isn't -- it will be gone very quickly. There are several things I'd like to do or get done before I have to start working five days a week, but I don't know if I'll be able to. For example, I'd like to watch as much of Mad Men as I can, because who knows when I'll have the chance to watch it once I start working, and I'm only at the beginning of the third season. There are about four movies either in theaters now or movies that will be in theaters between now and the day I start my job, and seeing as we haven't gone out to see a movie since before we were married (I believe the last one we saw was Mr. Peabody and Sherman), and they're movies I really want to see, I want to do that as well. I also have to figure out how to get to and from the main offices of said new job, as the training/orientation session I have to go to on the first day is in that place and not where I'll be working. According to Daisy, that's where they do all of the processing (it's where I went for my interview, but it's not like I can remember how to get there and back now), and the training itself will take place in the building I'll end up working in. This was confirmed to me a few days ago when I got an email containing my itinerary and schedule for that first day, as well as the employee rulebook, information on pay and the dress code, and forms I need to sign, print, and bring with me that morning.

There are other things, of course. We need to reorganize and clean the house, run our new steam cleaner over the spots that need to be cleaned, go through our clothing and other mixed belongings to sort out stuff to donate to charity, etc.

Mind you, I donated a ton of stuff to charity before I moved up here from Kansas, but upon moving in and unpacking things, I've found that there's simply not room for a whole lot of the stuff I did bring with me -- especially stuff I boxed up and packed well over a year before moving out. This is partially because there's not as much storage space here in our apartment, and partially because I'm living with another human again who has her own stuff as well (obviously). There's not even half the cupboard/pantry space here as there was in my house in Kansas, for example -- so a good chunk of my glassware and dishes, which we now have no room for, have to be donated. The same goes for a lot of the stuff Daisy brought over here from her old bedroom at the parents', and for a lot of our excess clothing that we now no longer have room for.

I did reorganize and clean the spare room (where this computer is) enough to allow the cats back into it without having to worry about them getting into anything, and in doing so was able to go through the rest of the wedding presents, make note of who got us what (if it wasn't written down before) and put said presents to use or put them away for Daisy to use later. The bridal shower gifts are (still) right where they've been for months in the dining room, and I (still) don't know what's in them.

As for the rest of things going on? There hasn't been much to report. For a few days last week, Daisy was sick; she's recovered now, but she doesn't know if it was the flu or otherwise. I've remained immune to whatever sickened her, so I'm not sure either. This tends to happen a lot, honestly -- no matter how sick Daisy has gotten (a handful of times since we've been together), even when I've been around her and in close quarters with her during visits and the like before the wedding, I've never gotten sick. Either I am immune to Daisy's illnesses or she isn't a "carrier," so to speak -- meaning she'll get sick herself, but won't transmit the illness to others. It's the first time she's been sick in a year or so. I had stomach issues a few days ago, but nothing else -- save for the low-grade off-and-on sinus infection that I'm sure has been caused by allergies this summer. Nebraska is a completely new environment for me and I'm sure it'll take me the better part of a year, maybe longer, before my allergies get used to it. In the meantime I've been taking decongestants and Zyrtec, and both seem to help.

One of the detriments of moving to Nebraska, however, is that I'm out of contact with a lot of people. More so than before, even. Now, mind you, even when I lived in Kansas I wasn't an especially social person -- during the summers (unless I was teaching) I became a super-hermit because I had no money, which meant I couldn't afford to go anywhere or do anything. During the semesters I was less of a hermit, yes, as I was teaching and/or taking classes, which required me to be on campus a lot and be social with a lot of friends and colleagues...but I've noticed that since I've gotten married it's almost like a switch has been flipped, and many close friends are no longer in contact with me at all. Part of that, I'm sure, can be chalked up to it being summer still and even more of it can be attributed to most of said friends graduating and going back to their homes to start their professional lives, but not all of it. I'd need both hands, or more, to count the number of friends I have who have almost (or completely) dropped off the radar since I got married and moved up here in May. I consider this unusual just because of the timing of it all -- some of them I was in contact with up to the wedding itself...and then they just disappeared. More disturbing is the fact that several of them RSVPed to the wedding and said they wouldn't miss it for the world, and then never showed up and never told me/us or talked to me/us at all afterwards. That is strange to me.

Look, I realize that people have their own lives and problems, of course, and sometimes people just go antisocial or under-the-radar for a long time. I do it myself on occasion, as you probably know. And, to their merit, I do have some friends who live far away now who made sure to send us a card or a gift for the wedding even though we're not in contact much anymore, and I appreciate them more than words can say. But this isn't about that, it's about my own isolation more than anything else.

As I've written here before, I am very isolated in Nebraska -- possibly more so than anywhere else I've lived. Yes, I have Daisy and her family, and a small handful of her friends who I've gotten to know over the course of the past two years or so, but the common running theme there is that they're her friends. Not mine. They know me through her, and many of them are very nice, but it's not like I could call any of them up and say "Hey, this is a cool city, let's go out and do something" one night while Daisy was at work without it being extremely awkward and/or a major social faux pas on my account. I don't have my own friends here. The closest thing I have to a friend of my own is Rae's boyfriend, who I've barely talked to and have only met twice. It would be extremely awkward for me to ask him to go do something. He'd probably wonder if I was hitting on him.

Truth be told, I know next to no one in this town. Obviously that will change eventually, but right now I feel more like a hermit than I have in years. Daisy goes out four days a week (because, ahem, she works) and I'm lucky if I leave the house once -- usually for a visit to the parents' and/or for shopping. I'd go out more if I knew my way around the town or had the motivation to do it solo, but I just don't. And what would I do anyway? I don't even like to go shopping without Daisy by my side unless I absolutely have to and it can't wait. I'm also a really boring, nerdy person -- going out to do something, especially alone, just seems like a colossal (and usually expensive) waste of time.

Daisy has told me that she wants us to go out and celebrate my getting the job before I start working, including a dinner at a place of my choice and a movie. The movie part we already covered -- we went to see Guardians of the Galaxy on Monday night. I'm not even sure I really want us to spend the money going out to dinner somewhere -- we have enough food in the house to eat, and she's continually exhausted now with her work schedule, which sometimes requires her to work several hours of overtime every morning, depending on how busy it is. She can do that, of course, and is basically required to do that when necessary, since she's now no longer an hourly employee after her official promotion. During my training, at least, I'll be working 8-5. My schedule changes after that. At least that's what I've been told, anyhow. Instead of going out I'd much rather just spend some quiet downtime with her here at home while we can still get it. Once I start my training, for those two weeks I will see her for approximately an hour per day and only one weekend day, Sunday.

In this next week, though, there are still errands that need to be run in the meantime; I have to get a new phone, for one, which is something I've been putting off ever since moving up here and finding that my T-Mobile phone has no service in 90% of the city. Not just "low bars," no. Zero service whatsoever. Like it's in a complete and total dead zone. She has Sprint, and I'll probably get a phone on her plan. I don't really even care what it is (though I'd like an iPhone), and I really don't care if I have to get a new number or not, because it's not like anyone calls me anyhow. I'd almost rather get a new number, actually.

I sprained or pulled my arm muscles somehow during the day today; how, of course, I have no idea. It feels similar to how I tore my muscle when I was moving a few months ago, but I haven't done anything particularly strenuous. It didn't really start bothering me until I vacuumed the house tonight -- back and forth motion pushing/pulling the vacuum doesn't really feel that great when you have, apparently, a pulled muscle. It's in the upper arm, front of the upper arm, and the front of my shoulder. So, basically, almost exactly the same as the other arm injury, just on the other arm.

I'm getting too old for normal movement, apparently. I've pulled muscles in my sleep before, as I'm sure many of you have, but I was fine when I got up this morning, so I have no clue why I suddenly have this muscle-pulled, aching arm. Daisy became worried about me when I told her about it, telling me "please don't die from a heart attack."

"Um...that would be pain in the left arm, neck, and jaw," I told her. "This is my right arm, and it's just a pulled muscle, babe."

Daisy is fiercely protective and always incredibly concerned for me when I mention that I don't feel well or that I'm in pain. While it is appreciated and very sweet of her, I mean, I have lived almost 32 years on this planet without dying yet from minor pains.

So...yeah. That's where things are right now. Life continues on as normal; I spend my days either sleeping or doing (quiet) household chores while Daisy sleeps, and spend my nights (when she's at work, at least) much the same way. I'm just trying to somewhat enjoy my last days of relative freedom before I am once more back to the grind of a daily job -- even if it's a daily job that's much different than anything I've done before. The fact that it's going to pay me a hell of a lot more than I've ever made before also helps lessen the dread of starting there -- or working again in general, really. You know me. I'm a lazy sloth of a person by nature, but when there's a job to do, I do it.