Floridians, Visits, and Weddings

"Of 350 English teaching jobs available on higheredjobs.com," I told Daisy, "26 of them are in Florida."

"Go for it, baby," she said in response. "And wherever else you might desire. I trust you."

The question, however, that remains is...do I trust myself?

I don't really know what that means, actually.

26/350 is something like 7.4%. That's a huge percentage of English jobs available in one solitary location, especially for a site that puts up postings both nationally and internationally.

DAYTONAAAAAA....

Ahem.

I generally have a distaste for most Floridians I've met, to be honest with you. Mind you, I know many people who lived there for a time (including, well, Daisy and her whole family, and my friends April and Damon) and they turned out okay, but the people I've known who were born and raised there, and who lived there for their entire lives? Christ, they've been some damaged people. There may be an exception or two over the years, of course, but damn.

Mind you, I'm not slamming all Floridians here, just the ones I've known. I'm sure there are perfectly normal people living in Florida. Good luck finding them.

Anyway.

I've also written here in the past that there was a very real possibility that I could have relocated to Florida as a child; my mother interviewed for a job down there when I was six or seven, but didn't take it. Now it seems, twenty-four years later, that in order for me to be able to get a job someplace, I may have to start applying and interviewing for jobs down there as well.

Oy. Really?

I don't know. I'd rather exhaust my options in the Wichita/Omaha areas first.

I have done relatively little constructive work today; I vacuumed the house and ate cereal and waffles for dinner. No, seriously, that's what I did all day. Oh, and I took a shower, too. Woo. I meant for today to be a productive day of revamping resumes and applying for more positions in different places, but that didn't happen. I'm still in my "laze phase," which basically means I don't want to do anything I don't have to, and/or will procrastinate on everything for as long as I can. Couple this with a serious case of "I can't stay awake for more than twelve hours at a time" and I'm basically a sloth.

There are things I need to do outside of the house in the coming days; since Daisy is coming down next week, I need to go out and get some food and other groceries to be able to cook while she's here, and I need to get some things for around the house that I've been putting off, such as more stamps and some fuel system cleaner for the car. I should probably run the car through the car wash too, and get some gas in her. I'd like to take my car over to Hutchinson next week if we go over there while Daisy is here, especially since my car hasn't been driven much since before graduation and because Daisy's car gets enough of a workout when she drives down here. Hopefully that'll also knock some of the kinks out of her system as well, especially if she's still sputtering at me. Who knows, though; she's such a fickle landboat when she wants to be.

"If you want to go over to Hutch while you're here, we can," I said. "Do some shopping, spend some time together, or there's the movie theater here in Newton--"

"Or we can just lay in bed and you can cuddle me," Daisy replied.

"Or we can go out and do something because I desperately need to get out of this house," I countered.

This is true; aside from those two quick shopping trips last week, I have been outside of my home only to get the mail and to mow the grass ever since returning from Omaha. While I do like the solitude and peace that comes with not needing to go anywhere or do anything on a daily basis, as you know, too much of it has me crawling up the walls with a desperate need to get out and go do something just to be able to say I got out of the house for a little while.

"Well, you could come back up to Omaha with me," she said.

"And do what, babe? You have to go to work as soon as you get back. That would be four nights of me alone once again while you're off at work, in a quiet house, and I wouldn't even have cats to keep me company or the ability to smoke inside," I said.

This is true; Daisy's parents go to bed very early because they both get up really early for work; I am generally on the exact opposite of that sleeping schedule, especially in the summer. So, I'd be awake while they were asleep and while Daisy was at work, and vice versa. I'd have nothing to do there, and I wouldn't have my car or an ability to find something to do in the middle of the night. Usually, if I can't sleep in the middle of the night here, I start cleaning things or doing laundry, or I (ahem) spend hours writing here in my blog or playing a video game. I couldn't do any of that stuff there -- both of my laptops, old and new, are too slow to run any of my games, and I can't stand typing blog entries on my laptops' keyboards. So...yeah. I'd feel sort of trapped and listless. And I'd be worried about my cats to boot, since I always worry about them on some level when I'm away from home.

"Plus," I added, "that would cause you to make an extra, unnecessary trip back and forth to bring me home."

This is another reason why Daisy's work schedule sucks -- it eliminates any real possibilities of a social life. As much as I am a night owl myself, everyone else isn't. I learned the hard way working night shifts in a grocery store for three years back in Missouri that working full-time, at night, will very quickly ensure that you cannot really do anything but work. Ever. If you do, you'll screw up your sleep schedule on your days off and/or you'll end up losing valuable sleep on your working days that you'll need to be able to properly do your job. I can't tell you how many times me and my ex had to go do our grocery shopping at 6AM (after I got off work) or at 2AM (on a night I was off). There was simply no other time to do it when I worked night shifts.

Daisy can't stick around that long when she comes down this time, though -- which, I imagine, is why she floated the idea of me coming back with her again. She'll get into town sometime on Tuesday and will have to leave on Thursday morning/early afternoon, because I think she has something to do on Thursday night (I can't remember what she told me). Basically, this gives us about a day and a half together, some time of which we'll need to be sleeping, obviously. I told her that whatever she wants to do is fine; I don't want to make her spend a ton of gas money coming down here for a short trip if she can't afford it (which is why I always try to fill her gas tank for her at least once when she's here, and/or take my car to go out places, or both). I love driving Daisy's car to different places, but it gets a workout on every trip down here and back. I made sure, though, to tell her that if she can't afford to come down this week, or doesn't think we'll get enough time together if she does, it can wait; we've got the rest of our lives to spend together, and for the moment, my summer schedule is pretty damned open. She is, however, planning to come down, even if it's for a short time. I love her so.

Since I've gotten the PlayStation up and running again in the basement, I've been spending a lot more of my downtime down there. Today I also purchased two used older Star Wars games for it from Amazon. Because I do have a few dollars of disposable cash I can use, of course, and they were $3 each. The one game I once had for it and desperately want again, I can't find used for less than $30 or $40: Rival Schools. Oh well. I would imagine I'll be spending a fair amount of time cooling off in the basement if it gets really hot this summer again; at least I'll have something to do while I'm down there.

In other news, my wedding is less than a year away now, which should give you folks some idea of our unofficial "date." This is how Daisy has claimed she's prepping for the actual wedding itself, quoted verbatim from her about what she's going to be doing over the next year:

...prepping for my future life with my fiancé, which includes, but not limited to:

buying serving dishes -- a girl must be prepared to entertain.

figuring out finances so that we'll be a financially stable couple.

avoiding wedding planning, while toying with the idea of a courthouse quicky.

readying my body for future babies and mentally prepping for a parental role that my hubby-to-be is so giddy for.
God damn. Where's my hope chest?

I couldn't make this up. I also find it hilarious and endearing. 

The "avoiding wedding planning" thing is accurate; again, we've not yet made any plans whatsoever. I told her I'm basically fine with whatever she wants to do as long as we can afford it, and have left most of it up to her. She can invite whoever she wants, she can pick her bridal party and deal with the dresses and everything that entails -- I'll be inviting my close family and about ten close friends, and will be letting Parker dress me. That's basically the extent of my involvement thus far, aside from adding some stuff to the wedding registry. I don't even know what the hell getting a marriage license entails, really. I'm in the dark about this sort of stuff -- it's not like I've been married before, after all.

Wait, I've had friends who were married before. Perhaps I should ask them.

Oh, and the wedding ring I'd picked out for myself on Amazon is completely out of stock, so I either have to wait for it to come back in stock or I'll have to pick another one. No biggie.

A lot of the planning can't really be done until I find out where I/we will end up anyhow. While the wedding will more than likely take place in Omaha, we may not be living there when it occurs. Again, who knows where I'll be in six months, much less a year from now. All of this career stuff of mine is totally up in the air until I start getting responses for job postings I've applied for and the like. And yes, some of those applications may be in Florida.

I've not yet heard anything from my parents about a possible trip out to West Virginia this summer, and I've also not received anything else graduation-wise in the mail from anyone. The only thing I've gotten, actually, is some junk mail and the water bill, which I'll pay and mail out on Monday just to be done with it (another reason I need to get stamps soon). I don't like to have bills sitting around once I get them; I tend to pay them quickly and be done with them. I will also have my credit card bill coming soon, as well as my car insurance coming due at the end of this month -- as always, I have to take care of the bills first before anything else. I also tend to put the car insurance on my other credit card and pay it off slowly so that I don't have a $300 chunk coming out of my bank account all at once, but in increments. Whatever works, you know?

On that note, I'm heading to bed. It's very late, and it's 55 degrees outside now -- excellent sleeping weather, especially because it'll be very cool downstairs in the bedroom. I do have a number of other posts coming in the next few days -- remember how I said I made a list of things I learned while grading my students' final papers last month? I have that, and a few other things, to write about in the coming days and weeks. For now, though, it's time to sleep.

Fare thee well, friends.