This is a question Daisy has asked me no less than three times in the past 24 hours. It is also a position that, mind you, she has applied for as well. My response, all three times, has been the same:
"...honey, it's been like three days since I applied," followed by "I will if they don't contact me in a few days."
Daisy, though she is able to keep her cool about a great many things (seriously; how that woman remains so calm in situations where I'd be freaking the hell out is beyond me), is beginning to show a bit of her own nervousness and panic about money and survival. Yesterday she found out what was wrong with her car -- the brakes needed to be completely replaced -- and she had to pay a large chunk of money to get that fixed. This put even more of a wrench in the plans of saving up for the wedding and being able to reserve a place to do it. Both of us have been dealing with many setbacks in that department, lately. It seems that if it's not one thing which requires money, it's another. And, of course, my hands are rather tied since I'm currently unemployed. Or mostly unemployed, I should say, since I did just write a story for the paper (it appears tomorrow).
While I was sleeping last night, however, she did send me links to three different jobs she'd found in her searching, jobs in the Omaha area which she thought would be good for me. One of them was a content writer job of some sort, and two were teaching positions at universities (why neither of them have popped up in my own daily job searches and emails is beyond me). One of the teaching positions was remedial adult education (read: GED) and ESL, neither of which I can do, but I applied for the other teaching job and the writing job. I doubt I'll get either one of them, but who knows. I won't get anything if I don't keep trying.
The teaching position is at another university that operates on the quarter system; apparently the first day on the job would be October 1st, from what I read in the application. That's exceedingly good; it means that if I get it, I have over two months to get everything packed, get out of here, and get a new place to live in Omaha. That would be wonderful.
As for the other position, it didn't have a date on it except that the posting would close on the 29th, which is Monday. Okay, fair enough.
Daisy is, if she can afford the gas to do so, planning to come down after her next set of days off, which would be Tuesday. Unless I get a job in Omaha soon, it will be the last time we get to spend any real time together for a while; if I do begin adjuncting for the university this fall, the first day of classes is August 19, and I'd have to be on/off campus a few days in advance, more than likely, to set up my office (whether I'd be in the same one or a different one) again, doing things like taking in my printer/laptop/books once more. If I'm not adjuncting, I don't have to worry about that, but I will have to worry about finding some other employment pretty quickly afterwards, obviously.
Again last night, some bad storms rolled through the area. Lots of heavy rain, a bit of wind, and a ton of thunder/lightning bad enough to reset my modem and router twice up here, but no hail or any damage. West and south of me got it pretty rough, though; there are close to 4,000 people without power in Wichita and Park City (just north of Wichita), and there was apparently some bad hail/wind damage to the west of me around the Hutchinson area. I just got the rain here and the power flickering a few times, but nothing else. By midnight it had moved through, and I went to Walmart to pick up a few things I needed. It's only supposed to reach 90 today, and by Friday the high is only supposed to be 81. We're getting the cool-down with rain that I'd so hoped for earlier this month, thankfully. And, I'll add, since the rain started and the temperatures stopped being 100-110 every day, I have neither seen nor killed any spiders in the house. At all. Not a one, not even new ones in the traps (though I haven't checked the traps in a few days).
The traps are working well, as an aside -- before I left for Omaha a few weeks ago, I put out three new ones in places where I've actually seen spiders in the house (around the furnace, in the cat room, in the dark corners of the bedroom behind the bed and dressers, etc) and they've been filling up with all sorts of leggy things for the better part of the month. The one under the furnace is filled with recluse, crickets, and other beetle-things, for example, and since I put the new traps out, the spider population in the house has virtually disappeared. Again, I'm not sure if it's the weather or the traps, but I'm not complaining either way. Let 'em all get trapped and die; it lets me actually get some peaceful sleep without worrying if I'm going to get bitten in bed (which, of course, to the best of my knowledge has never happened in the four years I've lived here).
It really is four years now that I've lived in this house; my now-ex and I signed the lease on July 22, 2009, and moved in the following week. Two years later when we ended our relationship, she signed sole ownership of the lease over to me when she moved out, and I've been living here alone since. It doesn't seem like two years just off-the-cuff, but it has been. And, over those past two years, I've lived a mostly peaceful, quiet life.
Two years from now, where will I be? Who knows. Probably living in yet another house in another state with my wife, Daisy, getting up in the middle of the night to take care of an infant (as I told her I'd do that when we have kids, no matter where we are or what job I'm doing). Whatever works, you know? It's always been hard for me to think about or plan for the future when 95% of my life is, and has always been, lived day-to-day, month-to-month.
A year ago at this time I had just started my relationship with Daisy in earnest, and had just finished teaching my summer sessions. Two years ago, I was just ending my relationship with my ex. Three years ago, I was getting ready to work my last few weeks at the paper before I would start graduate school. Four years ago, I was moving into this house.
Crazy.
I've been meaning to go over to the Dollar Tree and to the discount grocery store several days in a row now, but most of the time by the time they open in the morning, I'm either asleep or too tired to bother to get dressed, go downstairs to the car, drive over to the place, go shopping, bring the shit home, take it upstairs, and put it away. If I'm awake when the sun comes up, it's usually because I'm suffering from summer insomnia, which leaves me awake but basically too physically tired to go do anything. I was tired when I went over to Walmart in the overnight hours, and only actually went because I basically had to if I wanted the cats to be able to eat and shit comfortably over the course of the next few weeks. As such, I only bought the bare necessities and came home, figuring that anything else I can get more cheaply at the discount place or at the Dollar Tree...whenever I actually go over to either place, of course. I usually go to the Dollar Tree only when Daisy is with me these days, and if I have to I can wait until she comes to town next week, if she gets to.
I told her that for the sake of comfort and companionship, I do want her to come with me to campus when I go, so that we can take her car and have air conditioning and better fuel economy (I also told her I would fill her gas tank as well). To a certain extent, even though it shouldn't, that campus feels cold and alien to me now. Even though that feeling will undoubtedly pass if I end up teaching there again this fall, right now it's just strange. If she can't come down, yes, I'll go it alone, but it'll feel weird. Oh well. Gotta see what happens, I suppose.
In addition to my halfhearted Walmart trip, I paid the rent in the overnight hours as well, chopping another good chunk of money off my bank account balance. At least it's done. When I came back into the house from sticking it in the mail, the cats were staring at me funny.
"It's okay," I said, "I only went outside to put the rent in the mail, ensuring that you three little shits have somewhere to live for the next month worry-free."
Like any of them can understand me, of course.
Still, I probably speak more to the cats than I do to Daisy, as I am their God-figure, the food-giver. Right now, behind me on the floor, Maggie is rolling around on the scratch pad I keep in my room.
Yes, the same cat who decided to do this when I was on Skype yesterday morning with Daisy. I had to rub her chin so that she wouldn't move and would keep staring into the camera while I took the screenshot. she purred furiously and lovingly the entire time, the little shit.
Of course, I do have other things I need to do around the house -- as mentioned previously, I need to mow the grass again as it's become a goddamned jungle, but that's not exactly something I can do when the sky wants to open up and rain half an inch every 18 hours or so. The yard is basically grass-coated mud at this point and needs a full day or so to dry out without clogging up my mower. Sigh. It looks like it could start pouring again any second, too, though it's not really supposed to do anything today.
Why am I still up? Eh. Again, summer insomnia. Even when I have slept over the past several days, it's not been for long intervals of time. I either sleep for twelve hours or more, or less than six. There's really no middle ground anymore. I can't do a whole lot about it, and because of this I've frequently been awake for more than 24 hours straight many times over the course of the past week or so. Being tired but not tired enough to sleep is torturous. It feels like you're in purgatory. I try to completely mentally and physically exhaust myself to be able to sleep, and when I do, sometimes I can still barely rest. Don't ask me why; I don't have the answers. I'm not any more stressed or anxious than I usually am -- in fact, I'm somewhat relieved right now since I've applied for several more positions this week, have the rent/bills paid and have the majority of my shopping done, and it's (for once) not balls-sweatingly hot. My allergies aren't keeping me awake and neither are my cats or neighbors; the neighbors have been really quiet as of late, and the cats sleep with me. I've even been drinking less coffee than usual. I don't know what it is.
On that note, I'm going to actually try to get some sleep now. I don't know if I'll succeed, but at least I'm going to try.
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