The Gods of Creation and Destruction, Part II

Fall semester: day twenty-six

It's hard to believe that barely a month of this never-ending semester has passed, for it seems like much more of it should have gone by at this point.

As I told Andrea earlier tonight, it's gotten to that point already where I'm like BLAAAAAAAHHHH FUCK IT and just want to curl up under a rock and hide, and occasionally have a girl to come by to nail every few days.

"I am a horrible person," I added.

Mind you, this isn't actually my mindset, but when I get as fatigued as I am now, my reptile brain takes over.

I spent eight hours today reading Midnight's Children, and most of it came back to me as I read through it. Still, I'm only 200 pages into it again, and it's a 530-ish page book. It's long. I'm also pretty sure that Crime and Punishment is next up in my Grad Studies in Fiction class as well (though I could be wrong), but if so it means I'll be reading two huge books back to back at the same time I should be writing papers and/or grading my students' own papers. This means I will have no sleep, no free time, no blogging time, and most importantly, no actual relaxation time for the better part of the next month, if not longer. Can't really do much about it; things must be done.

And then, of course, there's the car.

My friend Shanna asked me last night how the car was doing. I replied that I hadn't driven it since I got home from class on Thursday night (which I haven't; remember when I said I never leave the house unless I have to? I wasn't lying). In the morning I have to leave the house early, as I didn't get gas over the weekend, and I sort of need that if I'm going to get to Wichita and back tomorrow.

Tomorrow's a bit longer for me than I originally anticipated; not only am I working the EGSA book sale after class until 1PM, I also have to stop at Walmart on the way home (again) to pick up food for our Poetry Workshop class, lest I forget to do so. It's my turn to bring in something, and as of yet I have no clue what that something will be. I may pick up a few boxes of cookies/crackers and just call it done, or get a veggie tray or something. Who knows. It depends on how creative I am tomorrow afternoon, and how much money of my (rapidly dwindling) bank account I can justify spending.

Of course, I also have to get home and continue reading Midnight's Children, otherwise I'll never finish the book. Yes, I realize I have another ten days to finish reading it, but there are many, many more things I have to do in those ten days.

As for getting the car looked at and/or worked on, I don't know when that will happen, so I just have to hope my luck holds out. My colleague and her husband had a death in the family over the weekend, so that is obviously much more important than worrying about something as trivial as my car. Hopefully we can set something up soon, but like I said -- as long as it's running and driving as per the usual, I just have to hope it'll keep doing so, even if that means I have to dump coolant into it every 200 miles or so. Yes, I'm paranoid that there will come a time that it'll just stop running, but I can't obsess over it; I depend on it, and I have way too many other things to worry about and take care of on a daily basis.

Payday is coming on Friday. I paid the rent and mailed it out over the weekend, meaning I'll be short on cash until I get paid, and even then it won't make up for the rent check I just sent out. Adding insult to injury is the fact that on the same day I mailed out the rent, I received the electric bill in the mail, for another $76 I'll have to pay. Mind you, this is half of what it was over each of the summer months, but I'm on a bit more of a budget now that I'm single. However, I should be receiving my first royalty check for my book sales at some point soon (not much, but something) and I should also be receiving another check eventually for the sales I've made from my other online businesses, which I've never promoted here. These will help some, but not a whole lot. Until I can save the vast majority of my paychecks for a month or two, my bank account will slowly dwindle down again unless I take another student loan, which is something that I really, really don't want to do unless there is really no other option whatsoever.

As I mentioned before, I don't have a safety net, folks; I'm out there on my own, and there's nobody to save me but myself anymore. I have to do what I can to survive. It's not like I have any "emergency money" or anything like that. While I can live comfortably enough on what I do have and do get from my paychecks, I'm back to living much like I did in those five years when I was not in school -- paycheck to paycheck, taking care of what I can when I can. Except now, the paychecks are much smaller and no longer weekly. As a result, I may have to start selling a lot of stuff on sites like eBay and Amazon. After all, I have a ton of books I'll never read, and a ton of DVDs I'll never watch again.

On that note, I must go to bed. I'll be getting up at 5AM all three days this week, as I have a lot to get done.