I’m going to address two things today, the first being occupation-related and the second being women related.
Of course.

I’ve been put to work, officially. I’m now sitting in my office (a converted conference room with a clear view of the front whole bit of the office) making quality assurance calls to existing customers. But I have my own computer, my own email address, my own phone with a direct line, and my own space. I’m quite pleased with it all.
I got gas station coffee on the way to work this morning. It’s been a constant reminder all day that perhaps the nightlife doesn’t mix as well as might be anticipated with the working life. That alarm is a harsh reminder of the real world.
My first few calls were a bit rough, but I was practicing on all of the people in the office. They were making up ridiculous problems and laughing as I verbally stumbled around them, but in the end, all has gone smoothly.

But on to real things, really.

Yesterday, I came across this article and thought it well worth commenting on.

 Women Really Want to Marry a Rich Man
Wow.
I had a discussion with a few people about it yesterday, but I’m under the impression personally that the reason many successful women might want to marry a rich man is because of the implications of intelligence and motivation, desirable qualities in a partner. If a woman sees herself as intelligent and successful, she will obviously want to find herself an intellectual equal. Generally, you have to smart to get rich. (This is not to say that there aren’t smart people who aren’t rich, it’s just that few people can maintain a successful career trajectory without some semblance of intelligence.)
I want to marry a rich man, that’s not a lie. I don’t want to struggle financially as we navigate our lives, but if he’s only rich in monetary value and not in character, then the marriage would never survive.
However, I see that there are possible advantages to having one person working in the house, be it the male or the female. Marriage often results in children, and if one parent’s salary seems to only cover external household labor expenses (childcare, cleaning, general upkeep, etc), then it might make sense that that parent would stay home to do those things rather than contracting them out to other people.
Conversely, I believe that if one parent is constantly at home doing family labor and the other is out in the corporate world (or some other type of business setting), the marriage might also suffer as a lack of commonality between the two. With less to talk about and less in common, the two people might begin to pursue other interests or activities separately rather than being able to maintain a working dialogue stemming from a single experience set.

I guess in the long run, what I really want is to marry a smart man.
Idiocy is such a dealbreaker.

This is my first blog from work!
(I don’t know if there will be many to come, but perhaps, so we’ll mark the occasion just in case.)

I’ve been getting settled in the past couple of days, and so while things are still new, I’ve got some time on my hands. It does remind me of African time, though.
My capacity as telemarketer will lead me into unknown territory but I do believe I shall manage. There are a bunch of trade shows coming up, so after those, I’ll be busy attempting to manage the prospective clients.
But for now, I am content to be employed.

Soon will come the apartment; the hunt has already started.
And after that will come the second job, to make all those loose ends meet.

One day, I’ll be salaried somewhere, reminiscing about those days post-college, when I was dirt poor and loving my life. I often wonder if that nostalgia will happen, although I certainly hope that my life only increases in wonder as I age.

But it begins slowly, without fear, and for that, I am also grateful. It will blend into a routine and soon enough, it will be the daily grind. The commute, the coffee, the dry-clean only clothing piling up somewhere. All of that, and hopefully a lot more.
I hope to learn a lot while I’m here about office structure, information systems, law software, and everything else I can take. It’s going to be a grand adventure.

Sometimes there’s just too much to say. 

Waking up with cat wrapped around my arms is really lovely.
I’ve figured out that his allegiance lies with whoever is feeding him – so of course, I gave him exactly what he wanted.  I think perhaps he’s figured out that I’m his adopted mother, although I’m not entirely sure. We’re working on it.

We were sitting in Starbucks, sipping coffee and catching when, out of nowhere, I shouted, “Oh my god! It’s Monday! We have to get a ham!”

I pushed back my seat, tossed my coffee cup in the trash, and barreled out the front door with a very confused Madeline trailing behind me.
We put the address into the GPS and somehow ended up at 29th and Havana, which is in the middle of the Stapleton development in Aurora.

“Turn left on Beeler,” the GPS announced.

“Is there a Beeler?” Maddie asked.

“Beeler?….Beeler?”

We found it and turned and ended up having to make a long drive back to Havana and Yale. It included a desperate phone call to the Honey Baked Ham people asking them their cross streets.

As it turns out, the GPS had decided to remove the “South” direction and instead had routed us north.
It turned out to be a delicious adventure indeed, with free smoked turkey samples and a ham sandwich along the way.

Grandma was quite pleased with the outcome, although I was sure she was worried that I’d entirely neglected my duties. (I hadn’t, obviously.)

However, this whole “hamventure” leads me to believe that I’m still not entirely confident in my re-adoption of my mental Denver map. I have been getting lost in dumb places for dumb reasons. The other night, I was trying to get on 6th heading west from Santa Fe, and for some reason, completely missed 8th and ended up having to do the Kalamath loop. It was a mess. I was a mess.
Those little things really throw me.

But alas, given enough time, the city will be mine again.

I love my family.

Today, we fought about Michael Vick (who should not be allowed to play professional sports), the Eagles, and the Giants (which Manning is the hot one – Eli, obviously). We ate chicken (which I made to Mike’s dismay yet which later became moderate approval. “It wasn’t so bad,” he said. “I thought it was going to kill me.”), Mike made a Starbucks run (sweetly bringing back a latte for Mom and I), and things were generally copacetic.

We are currently in the middle of a heated (yet hilarious) non-argument about our future housing.

The situation is thus:

It all comes back to that damned cat. Seriously, single mothers have it rough.

I’m desperate for my own place.
Having lived alone, having loved that apartment in Chicago so intensely, and having tasted the sweet freedom of “my apartment,” I’m loathe to linger here longer than I must.
However, the financial situation remains dire to say the least.
Complicating the whole situation is Cat/Carlos, who remains in the capable hands of my friend Jacob, yet who cannot live there forever.

My deadline is February 1.
The other day I found a too-good-to-be-true apartment downtown and emailed the guy out of curiosity only to find out that it was indeed too-good-to-be-true. Credit check prior to viewing? Ha, I think not, internet scam man.

I’m itching. I think it’s the cat. (That was a cute little allergy pun just for Mom.)
I love that Jacob loves Cat, but he’s mine, and I want him. I’m jealous that Jacob gets to live with him and I seriously think that five months of cat-care is long enough. Jacob wants his life back and I want my cat.

Mom is pestering us with questions about how we’ll sort out things like food and blah, blah, blah, and Mike is silent. We’ve lived together for years, we’ll sort it out.
He only pipes up whenever I say I wouldn’t mind sharing a bathroom with him. He complains of girly products and clothes, I complain equally of sweaty gym socks and eau-de-man.

And thus nothing is settled and as usual, I’m the only one remotely agitated (not seriously, but a smidgeon). Mom’s smirking that very pleased smirk while she crochets and Mike might be comatose on the couch.

And thus, the family dynamic remains strong: the evil matriarch, the quiet, reserved son, and the headstrong, stubborn, resilient (and might I add stunning) daughter.

It (which Mom has termed “our fireside chats”) goes a little something like this:

“On some issues, I stand as evil mother and it doesn’t bother me a bit. I notice that no one on the couch is agreeing with you…”

The couch stirs. “I’m staying out of it.”

“See, that means he agrees with me.”

“Mike, do you agree with her?”

“No. I don’t agree with anyone.”

It’s never boring here, but I have the sneaking suspicion that none of us would have it any other way.

When I’m looking through my blog posts, I find that I rarely have large gaps of time when I don’t have much to say, but even so, I can always tell when I’m simply writing to fill space and time, as if I feel obligated to write but have nothing to say.

This is one of those times.

I’m alone, I’m broke, I live at my mom’s house, and I’m currently ten pounds above what I normally weigh. But I’m absolutely content. I’m so alright with everything that’s going on at the moment. I’m positive, optimistic, radiant with promise.

It’s strange and yet not unwelcome.

I’ve got a job, sort of. I’ll be starting after the first of the year and I’ll be doing cold calling and quality control for a software company that does law software.
It’s $10 per hour and 40 hours per week, which is fine with me considering I’m currently making $0 per hour all hours of the week.

I’ve applied at Verizon.
I’ve applied at MSCD (UCD was going to be too much of a hassle – something about restrictions for non-degree students, etc.) to just take random math and business classes to see if that’s what I really want to do with my life.
I have a brand new (gorgeous) resume.

By the way, I adore you.
Just so you know.

Before I start: good luck to Uncle Mike, who is undergoing his first ever (and hopefully last ever) knee replacement surgery.
I hope that the healing process is swift, nearly painless, and positive for him and his family.

The last two weeks haven’t been the most productive, but they’ve certainly been interesting.
I think everything is going to be alright, but then again, there’s no other option, is there?

I went dancing on Friday night. Big deal, you’re thinking. And you’re right, except for one small thing. I danced entirely un-self-consciously. I danced and I was and I didn’t care who was looking. That was a beautiful thing for me.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank John Watterson for the flu-like symptoms I’m currently experiencing.
He’s at home sick today after being ambushed by fever yesterday afternoon at work.
I woke up with the stuffy nose and sore throat combo that is guaranteed to sideline me for the weekend.
However, there is a lot of living I’ve still got to do, so hopefully an afternoon spent curled up with soup and television will be able to get me ready for an evening of hipster bar hopping with Emily.

Cross those fingers, world.

It’s 6:30.
I’ve been awake since three forty.

It might be jet lag – I’ve been off since I got home – not hungry, not sleeping, always tired.

It might be everything.

I want to go to Chicago in January for a nice weekend away. I want to see everyone.

I need to stop writing little posts of nothing, I know that. But the other day, I was in the shower thinking (seriously that’s where the best thinking gets done) and I was wondering if I come across as too whiny or self-absorbed in my blogs.
Of course, self-absorption is a necessary blog-evil, but I wonder if I accurately portray my perceptions of things and my world views.
I feel the need to share things – it’s how I process. I don’t care if no one reads this, it’s therapeutic to type it out while I’m not consciously thinking about anything. Then I look down and everything is right in front of me.

But anyway, I’m restructuring my five year plan and trying to make everything fall into place. But I think the problem there is “make.” You can’t make anything fall into place. Everything falls in, you can nudge and push and rearrange, but at the end of the day, certain things are out of your hands.

Life is one of those funny things that will leave you behind if you just don’t go along with it sometimes.

So for now I’m nudging, trying to find my way in this new, permanent Denver. I’m looking forward to reading – it’s something I have really missed the last few years. I’m looking forward to a job and an apartment. I’m looking forward to settling into a routine.

I’m free floating now and I’m not entirely sure I like it but at the same time, I’m happy to be the free spirit that I am and I’m hoping to nurture that sense of independent adventure.

I want to hike and climb and go sandboarding and learn how to snowboard. I want to get back in the good graces of the Denver Public Library so that I can be allowed to sit downtown and spend an entire afternoon reading. I want to import wine from South Africa. I want to sit in dark bars and have long conversations. I want to work so that I can afford my own space and afford to leave it so I can travel the world. I want to see everything. But mostly I want to see beaches. All of them.

I’m excited. This free floating is tinged with fear but also glowing with promise. And that’s the best part. The free fall can’t last forever. It will have to end. And when it does, the solidity that emerges will be exact. Exactly what I’m looking for. (That’s the mythical happily ever after that would really be adorable. Adorable is the wrong word, but you know what I mean.)

But – to the two things I love more than anything (I told Mom that and she questioned my love for her – I reminded her that I said things and not mothers.)
Also, I saw Cat. He’s fat, furry, and absolutely happy, which makes me so happy. He’s friendly and even though I can’t tell if he remembers me, he’s letting me snuggle him and I’m alright with that.
I am back in Simon. Highways beware, I’m back. That’s beautiful freedom.