Not the semester, not yet, but our website presentation is over and done with.
It went fine overall. The first group got TORN APART. They didn’t follow a lot of his nit-picky instructions, and it was very hard to read (red type on black background). We ended up going last, and so knew the corrections we had to make and addressed them. Another group’s site looked beautiful, but at least ours was clear and easy to read.
One particularly ridiculous rule: we have these site visit presentations, and two groups, including ours, uploaded them as PDFs, which look JUST LIKE PowerPoint presentations. ALSO, the professor always does his presentations as PDFs. But for some reason he wants them as PowerPoints! His reasoning? So we can make corrections to it. But if we’ve uploaded them to the site, then they’re done, right? Everyone was very put out. “That’s just ridiculous!” one woman said. I think we were all just fed up with his weird rules that don’t make the websites any better.
Anyway, so our group has just a few corrections to make before we hand in the final version on Tuesday. Of course the old bat who can barely turn on a computer had an incredibly difficult time understanding what needed to be done. I didn’t even try to keep my patience and was practically yelling at her. I feel bad, but I don’t know how much more simply I can explain things. I say it in the simplest terms, I base it on stuff I would presume she knows (via the work she’s done on her website), I even wrote it out on the board. But she has total brain freeze every time. Luckily I don’t have to deal with her for much longer.
Wow, I’m already starving. Time for lunch.
rant and/or rave
03
Dec 08
Yay, it’s over!
04
Nov 08
I totally voted
My wait: 30 minutes. Not bad considering the 6-hour waits elsewhere.
It seems so ridiculous. I mean, I guess they weren’t expecting such a high voter turnout, but the whole process could be so much more organized. Why do I have to go to a specific place? Why can’t I have some number assigned where I could go anywhere, punch it in, and then all my info would pop up? And why oh why isn’t Election Day a frigging holiday? I’m lucky in that it doesn’t matter if I’m a little late for work, or even if I need to take some time in the middle of the day, but other people just can’t.
So to see high voter turn out is even more awesome. It’s like, Fuck you, I’m still voting even if I have work that day, even if I have to wait six hours and camp out overnight.
I saw something on the news this morning about a case in Philadelphia, in which the chairwoman of the voting commission made ridiculous excuses about the long waits. Her quote:
Did you see people waiting for baseball tickets all night long outside? Did you see the line that they wanted a new iPod? They all waited overnight and waited in line. Do you go to the supermarket? You see people waiting in line? They complain, they grumble, some of them. Some of them just talk. So what is the difference?
Uh, yeah, cuz buying an iPhone is the same as my constitutional right as an American citizen.
Anyway, despite my short wait, the polling place seemed sort of chaotic. There was, for some reason, lots of yelling, and a lot of volunteers missing teeth. But I shouldn’t judge.
I had to do a paper ballot since I sent in my change of address card at the last minute, and as I was waiting to hand it in, this Chinese volunteer lady asked, “Did you sign it?” She was looking at the blank Spanish-language side. “Yes,” I said, but she still grabbed my envelope, and I had to literally wrestle it out of her hand to show her the other side with my signuature. Sheesh!
Now I’m exhausted, but it felt really good to cast my ballot.
22
Oct 08
Contact from the planet Robotron
This is why I don’t friend people on Facebook with whom I haven’t been in touch for a long time.
If someone contacts me, I am always super friendly, responding to their messages in turn. But this is the response I got from an old college friend to whom I had written, “Hey, it’s been so long! What have you been up to?” (Bracketed phrases are mine.)
I’m in [Some State], because I just married someone who works here. I left [Overseas Country] in 2003, as an internal transfer at [Boring Company] to their head office. I decided to leave [My Field] in 2006 and moved back to the states for a job at a [Finance-y Sumpin] in [Another City], where my husband [Robot-Guy] and I met. I’m looking for a job right now and not expecting to find anything in this economy. I’m applying to [Some Training Program], so I’ll have something intellectually stimulating to do and not drive my husband crazy by ranting about [Something Finance-y] all the time. ( I used to be a [Finance-y Sumpin] in [Another City].) [Robot-Guy’s] parents are taking us on a cruise next June, and we board the ship from [Yet Another City], so I’m going to try to see [Another Robot Girl from College Who Never Even Replied to My Facebook Message], who lives there now. [Robot-Guy] and I leave for [Hometown] on Saturday.
Yes I know, there’s nothing wrong with the message itself, but c’mon, can I buy a greeting? A “Hey! It’s great to hear from you!”? ONE question, or even just a “Hope all is well”? It reads like a form letter, the form letter she sends out whenever someone from the past contacts her.
I almost wish she didn’t even write a message and just friended me back. Because that’s what it’s all about you know, how many “friends” you have on Facebook.
08
Oct 08
Dehr
So you know what happens when your hands are full and you’re trying to lock the door, and you have a junk mail catalog you want to bring to recycling? You put it in your mouth without remembering that your lips are dry and the paper isn’t plain paper but that shiny, thin, slippery stuff that sticks like a mofo to dry lips, and when you finish locking the door, you take the catalog out of your mouth, basically ripping a layer of your lip off, which starts bleeding insanely.
I have two tiny tears on the inside of my lip, but it bled into my mouth and teeth so much that it looked like I had been punched. Just like the CEO of Lehamn Brothers.
07
Oct 08
Venting, and an update
I hate my information technologies class.
We have a group assignment due today, basically a group web page. It doesn’t have to be 100% complete but it does need to be in web format.
No problem – it took me less than an hour to do it. But that’s the problem: it took ME, by myself, less than an hour to do it.
I’m no martyr. I mean, I volunteered to be “webmaster,” mostly by default, but the way this class is being taught makes no sense whatsoever. Instead of practicing HTML in class, the professor lectures about it and we read about it, but we never actually do it.
That’s all well and good as an introduction, but our assignments, ie what we get GRADED on, are web pages! For me it’s no problem. Our page is really simple and I do simple HTML for my job. But for those who have never done it before, all they’ll do is take what I’ve created and change the text. So unless they work really hard on their own outside of class, they’ll probably never learn to do even simple HTML coding.
Then again, maybe they will. In addition to the group page, we all have individual pages that link to pages that house our assignments. I’ve created the basic templates and now they need to go in and replace the verbiage, which forces you to try to understand what’s going on with the code. I’m definitely not going to do it for other people. They need to do it themselves.
You know what else gets my goat? Last night we were supposed to meet as a group to tie up loose ends before today’s presentation of our page. Only 3, including me, out of 6 showed up. One I knew couldn’t make it, though she was totally lame with her last minute excuse of, “Oh, I thought I could get out of class but I can’t – I owe everyone ice cream!!!” Yeah cuz ice cream’s gonna get the work done. One had a legitimate excuse of being stuck in traffic and was very apologetic. One just “forgot.”
*Sigh.* I don’t know why professors think group assignements are a good idea, especially for those of us who have been working. I mean, hello, I’ve worked in a “team” for a good 15 years, I don’t need a refresher.
My other class is a little boring, but at least I feel like I’m learning. Who knew there was such a process around helping people with their research questions?
For my last two semesters, I’m taking all traditional library courses. No more of this tech bullshit that I can learn on the job or read out of a book, or that I already know just from playing around on the web.
~ ~ ~
This weekend we thought we didn’t have anything planned, aside from a Margaret Cho show with YP and some of his friends on Saturday, but it ended up busy anyway.
MB forgot one of his friends was in town so at the last minute on Saturday, we ended up having lunch with him and his girlfriend, then taking them around SoHo and the West Village. It was fun. Both friend and girlfriend were really nice with good senses of humor. (You’d think that’d be more common but it’s not.)
After that we had just about an hour before meeting YP and his friend for Korean dinner. On that very day there was the first ever Korean Day Parade and Festival, so it was madness in Koreatown. The restaurant YP’s friend, who’s Korean, originally picked had a super long wait. Luckily she was able to find another one with no wait at all.
The food was good. Though it’s hard to go wrong with bibimbap and spicy tofu soup.
Margaret Cho was performing for one night at Radio City so the sidewalk outside was craziness! But once we sat, we noticed lots of empty seats. Weird. As always, she was hilarious. Lots of sex talk with a dash of mother impressions. Plus this guy was a guest. You know I’d never heard of that “shoes” video till I went to another one of Margaret Cho’s shows last year.
It wasn’t even 10 by the time we got out, so MB and I had energy to see a midnight showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark. I haven’t seen that quite as many times as other movies that have played at that theater (eg, The Shining, Spirited Away) so it was really fun. The special effects seem so cheesy compared to now. And Harrison Ford was hot! I’d forgotten.
Sunday was a practicing music day for MB and a shopping day for me. I need pants! but didn’t have any luck. I did manage to buy some other stuff I needed, including a shower curtain. At home I took the opportunity of a temporarily shower free tub to clean the bathroom. Yay, clean bathroom!
That night I finally got my schoolwork organized and realized that I’ve fallen behind in my reading. But now I’m all caught up. This upcoming weekend will be all about homework. I have assignments due Tuesday and Thursday.
It’s getting chillier and chillier. Yesterday I bought some sweaters from Barami, buy one get one free. But the turtlenecks, which I didn’t try on at the store, threaten to choke me so I need to exchange them for regular sweaters. Since moving and getting rid of old stuff, I feel like I have practically no clothes.
02
Oct 08
10 good things about the economic crisis
I won’t say I understand too much about the economic crisis that’s going on in the US right now. All I know is seemingly monolithic investment banks are crumbling like dust, and monolithic regular banks are growing ever more monolithic, sorta like No Face from Spirited Away who kept eating and eating till he grew disgustingly huge and got normal only by ingesting a weird herb ball from the River God, and throwing everything up, and. . .well, I digress.
But I do understand enough to make a snarky top 10 list of all the good things about the depression that’s supposedly on its way.
10) As Gawker says, we renters are right by default. We meant to not save enough money to buy property! It was totally on purpose!
9) Now’s the best time to become a slum lord. Scoop up all that property that’s worth virtually nothing now, jack up the rent, and do no repairs. Then party like it’s 1979!
8) It will be easier to find an ATM. Now that most banks are ONE BIG BANK, ATMs for Your Bank, which is Everyone’s Bank, will be EVERYWHERE! With presumably no fees. Well, hopefully.
7) Severance packages! Oh wait. Never mind, unless you’re a CEO.
6) Since the government will be using my damned tax dollars to bail out these rich assholes who fucked up in pure arrogance and greed, maybe they will do what’s right and turn the former financial institutions into true government bodies, which means – socialized medicine for everyone! Yeah right. And maybe a black man will be president.
5) Now’s the best time to move to Paris, or Prague, or Amsterdam. That would be awesome.
4) Now’s the best time to go to music school or become a librarian. No one can say, “Hey, you should get a job that makes money,” because there will be none. And that’s totally a good thing. . .right?
3) Schadenfreude. Remember back in the early ’90s when everyone you knew – classmates, friends, the children of your parents’ friends – was going into finance? They were getting close-to-six-figure offers right out of college, mulling between multiple offers. Then they were getting their MBAs, buying BMWs, buying houses in the ‘burbs, making investments. And your parents kept asking you why don’t you want to do that too? Why are you making less than $20K in publishing, or trying to be a writer, or trying to make it in Hollywood?
And now what? Mwuah-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!
2) The financial worker douchebags who come down from Murray Hill to get stupid drunk in my neighborhood won’t be able to afford their $20 martinis anymore.
And last not but not least. . .
1) My parents will stop bugging me about buying a condo. WHOOPEE!!! Hooray for the corruption!
Now let’s go shopping.
29
Sep 08
Back from DC
And lounging with the morning off.
First off, I wasn’t home for more than an hour last night before I got two mosquito bites. Wtf? Where do they come from? Don’t the buggers realize it’s fall?
Last week I tried returning the too-small, too-funeral-y dress to the little boutique on Avenue B. I knew there was a chance they’d only do store credit, but that was fine by me. What I wasn’t expecting was that they only did exchanges, and I’d pretty much have to pick the new item right then and there.
Of course I wanted to get something of the same value, preferably two on sale items. But there was nothing I loved. The owner of the store was there and she helped me again with choices. I was trying on a couple of things when she called out, “How about that gray sweater dress on the mannequin?” I’ve never worn a sweater dress and was hesitant, but said sure why not.
It was totally adorable, very soft and warm. “It’s cashmere,” the owner said, and she the other girl there agreed that it looked cute on me (they were not vocal about the other things I had tried on).
I agreed. The only problem? It was another $100.
Who goes to return a $190 dress to come back with a $300 dress? Me, that’s who.
I didn’t feel any buyer’s remorse, funnily enough, I guess because I really love the dress and can picture myself wearing it often.
We left for DC Saturday afternoon, and it was pretty much a comedy of errors. We rushed out right before to go to the post office, and when we came back, I was dripping with sweat and changed my whole outfit. Okay, already exhausted. It was raining and disgusting out, but we managed to snag a cab, but as we were walking into the station, MB held up his hands and said, “Oh no!”
“What?” I said.
“My suit!” he cried. He had managed to remember all the musical stuff he wanted to practice – travel guitar, recorder, books – but forgot his suit for the wedding.
We went into Border’s to find me a place to wait with our stuff while he’d race back downtown. Unfortunately the cafe was full so I said let’s just go into the station, but as we were going back down on the escalator, I saw an empty bench.
“Let’s go back up,” MB said.
Now. In the movies and TV, people go back up going-down escalators all the time. They seem to do it with little trouble. Well, lemme tell you: it’s HARD. Of course as you’re walking up, the escalator is moving down at the same or faster pace, so you’re basically staying in one place. So genius me figures, “Oh I just need to go faster, even with this heavy backpack!” And what do you think happens when you try to race up a descending escalator with a heavy backpack? You trip and fall.
I thought I was fine, just banged my knee, but then my knee started bleeding through my pants. “I’m so sorry,” MB kept saying over and over. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
I didn’t know what I was thinking, convinced that I’d be able to go up a down escalator.
In the end it wasn’t a big deal. I was able to change my pants and slap on a bandage (luckily I was stocked up), and while we missed our train, we hopped on the next one for just $30 more each, and with MB’s suit in tow.
We got in around 7:30. Our hotel was very nice, but I didn’t pick such a good location. When I was first planning this trip, I thought we’d have time to tool around the city, and heard this hotel was good because it was nice and also near the metro. True on both counts, but we didn’t have time to do any sightseeing and so it was pointless to be at a place not close to either Union Station or the wedding site. Ah well. At least it was a reasonable price and there were tons of restaurants nearby.
We ate a good but overpriced Italian dinner, took a little walk, then were in for the evening. MB needed to practice and study, and I was just pooped and looking forward to lots of TV.
And also a nice cup of tea. (I know: I sound 80.) The hotel website said all the rooms had coffee makers. Ours did not. We looked and looked, and couldn’t find one. I went down to see if I could get tea to go from the bar, but they wouldn’t sell it to me. “We don’t want people walking around holding hot beverages,” the bartender told me, not unkindly.
So I mentioned the missing coffee maker to the concierge. He said it should be under the TV. Looked again. No coffee maker. I called housekeeping.
“It should be under the TV,” she said.
“I looked,” I said calmly. “It’s not.”
“I’ll send one right up.”
Tick tick tick. Forty five minutes. I called housekeeping again.
“It should be under the TV,” I was told once again.
“It’s not,” I said, through gritted teeth.
“I’ll send one right up.”
“Well, I called 45 minutes ago.”
“I just got here, ma’am.”
How is that my problem?
At this point, MB said screw it and ordered a tea tray plus fruit via room service, which actually turned out to be very nice. A whole slew of gourmet teas, beautiful fruit with tasty walnut cake. Luckily he did, because when they finally brought the damned coffee maker, that was all they brought.
Coffee maker. No coffee, no cups, no tea.
Am I crazy or don’t hotel rooms come with the whole shebang when there’s a coffee maker? Coffee filters, cups, cream and sugar, tea?
Lame asses.
Anyway, the wedding was very nice. The ceremony was in a lovely, simple chapel. You could tell that it was quite old. The reception was at a hotel/college campus nearby, and I realized we should have just stayed there. But someone I talked to said it was sort of noisy with rowdy college kids. We all had a great time dancing and SG’s son is just adorable. I kept wanting to squeeze his cheeks.
Afterwards we ended up back at Union Station hours before our train at 8:45. So we decided to hop on an earlier one, the 6:20. Waiting to get on the train, there seemed to be a million people, but once we were seated, it was pretty relaxing. I actually fell asleep.
Today I’m glad to have just half a day at work. Last week was insanely quiet. My boss just got promoted to a different position – I’m happy for him but sad to be losing him as a boss. He was really great. But it will be a few to several months before someone new comes in.
07
Aug 08
Mosquitoes and poseurs
The mosquitoes strike again.
We have no idea how they get in. We haven’t opened a window in weeks, and keep the bedroom icy with A/C. Also, the cracks and such are all sealed since our debacle with the brown recluse spider. And yet, a couple of times a week, we discover a mosquito in our apartment.
My bites lately haven’t been so bad (knock wood). Last night or the night before, I got one on my right forearm and right ankle, both of which were presumably outside the blanket. A couple of weeks ago I got one on my right index finger. That one woke me in the middle of the night, my whole hand itching like crazy. At first I couldn’t see where the bite so I was a little scared, not knowing what was wrong, especially since my finger was all red and hot and swollen. But I took an Allegra, and a few hours later, the swelling went down.
The next morning I was relieved to find the tiny bite at the tip of my finger.
Nights that I remember to put on repellant, I’m okay. Even the herbal stuff seems to work. Of course OFF! is better, but I’m nervous to use something with DEET regularly. I’ll save that for romps in the Park.
Okay, I just found another bite under my collarbone. Can’t forget to spray tonight.
I read somewhere that you’re more likely to attract mosquitoes after you’ve exercised. Build up of lactic acid or some such. I plan on working out soon. Maybe it’ll be the OFF! tonight.
MB is off to another conference, boohoo! This time in Las Vegas. He assures me though that after this he won’t be doing another conference for a while. Next week we’re off the Nashville. Hopefully we can do a day trip to Memphis, just in time for the 31st anniversary of Elvis’ death on August 16. I’m sure it will be completely insane, but that’s part of the fun.
Last night we went to this random party. It was an open house for this office space that programmers and “entrepreneuers” can rent by the month to do their work. It’s a cool idea, but some of the people we met were obnoxious. Like as soon as they found out I had nothing to do with computers, they didn’t bother talking to me, not even to say, “Nice to have met you” when we moved on. One pissant tried to tell MB about the programming world while MB has been in the biz for well over a decade.
We met one nice person who happened to have just graduated from my library science program. Plus her boyfriend is at the conference MB is on his way to now. Crazy!
This weekend I was going to go to the ‘rents’ in New Jersey, but thank goodness some plans with YP came up for Saturday. Not that going to my parents’ house is so bad, but they might get in their pity mode about me, like I can’t handle one weekend away from MB. I’m also going to try and clean the apartment, do some writing, and run some errands. Hopefully it’ll be a productive weekend.
I can’t believe I don’t have class tonight. I’m looking forward to my run and turning in early tonight. Woohoo, partay!
On a completely random and unrelated closing note, this story is amazing.
29
Jul 08
Couple of things
One, which I forgot from yesterday’s post.
I had another celebrity sighting over the weekend. Friday afternoon, since it was so beautiful out, MB and I decided to go up to Central Park. First we stopped in the Borders in the Time Warner Center, and who do I see but Lourdes and Rocco, Madonna’s kids. They were fooling around with the junk on the discount shelf.
MB thought it was weird that I even recognized them. Well, pictures of Lourdes in New York have been online regularly lately so that was why I recognized her. I wouldn’t have recognized Rocco if he were by himself.
Lourdes was teasing him: “You think she’s pretty?” she said, referring to some picture. “She looks like Jennifer Aniston!” as though the two were mutually exclusive. She noticed me overhear her and caught my eye, and sort of laughed, either embarrassed or in conspiracy against her annoyed and embarrassed brother. It was then that I recognized her.
They both looked like normal kids. The only thing about Lourdes was that she has beautiful hair.
The second thing is 1st Street is overrun with rats.
Last night we took a walk and on the way back cut down 1st Street, which we don’t usually do. First thing was this awful smell, kind of like horse manure but much worse. Then suddenly MB covered my eyes. “Don’t look, don’t look,” he said
“What? What?” I struggled as he walked me down the sidewalk, eyes still covered, a very weird feeling by the way.
“That yard is full of rats,” he said. He knows I get very freaked out by rats anywhere near me. Who wouldn’t, right? Still, I didn’t know which was worse, not being able to see as we walked or seeing the rats.
When we passed the yard, he released me, just in time for me to see a rat run across the sidewalk in front of us. I freaked out a little but not that much, mostly because I was expecting it. I mean, we were both freaked out over all, especially when we passed another fenced in grassy area and heard the rats leaping around and squeaking. Squeaking! That’s the first time I’ve actually heard them make noise.
As we hurried down the rest of 1st Street, we saw a cat trotting down the street. “Go get the rats, kitty!” we kept calling to it. But it slunk under a car like, “Are you kidding me? Some of those rats are bigger than me.”
Note to selves: do not eat on 1st Street.
13
Jun 08
A beautiful day
Too bad I’m at work! But so is almost everyone.
MB is back, yay! He flew in Wednesday afternoon, and his time has been all screwy. That day he was wracked with jet lag and allergies, so he went to bed “early” (before midnight). But last night he stayed up all night writing. Crazy guy.
My new – well, semi-new – job is going well. Right now my boss wants me to concentrate on building an internal team site using SharePoint. SharePoint’s not the greatest, but it’s fun all the same. He knows I’m learning as I’m going, so understands that it will take some time for me to make my way it through it, and that if any of his requirements are too complex, I can get training or tech support.
He actually took the time to do a great mock-up in PowerPoint of how he wants the site to be. I took his mock-ups and did a navigation map to keep everything straight in my head, as well as a project plan so that neither of us would forget any details, and to come up with some sort of timeline. I had estimated early to mid July for launch, but he is being more conservative and thinking August.
Wow, it’s great to have a boss who 1) has realistic expectations, 2) knows exactly what he wants, and 2) values my skills. At my old job, I loved working on our website, but my old boss didn’t think it was very important (yet expected it to somehow magically get done) and thought I should be doing “better” things.
My web design class is helping with this. Although we’re using different programs – Dreamweaver and Photoshop – practicing with those helps get my brain rewired to understand those kinds of tools better. Also, it’s good to have basic web design knowledge, from the front and back ends.
Still, the class is pretty boring. He mostly just walks us through examples, and occasionally tasks us with actually creating things. And tonight we have our makeup class for the first one he missed – on a Friday night! But at least we’re supposed to just use most of that time to work on our final projects. He can’t make next Wednesday either, so our makeup class is on Saturday. Ah well.
So I’ve had this dry cough for about three weeks now. Back in late May I caught a little cold, and today I’m still coughing, though far less then even a couple of days ago. Normally I’d just ignore it – I always have a long drawn-out cough after I’m sick – but MB was all concerned so I went to the doctor on Wednesday.
First off, she kept me waiting for an hour. My appointment was at 11:30 but she didn’t see me till 12:30. I didn’t make a stink. At about 12 I went up to the receptionist and said I was sorry but I’d have to reschedule since I had to get back to work. That seemed to hurry things up a little. Who knows how long I’d have waited if I hadn’t said anything.
My doctor’s diagnosis? That I have asthma induced by my cold. Some people, she said, only have asthma when they get sick, and take a long time to get well. It’s true my coughs usually last a really long time after I have a cold, but I don’t have any of the other symptoms for asthma. No wheezing, no shortness of breath, no constriction in my chest. I run with my no problem, even when I’m sick.
Or it may be allergies, she said. She gave me a bunch of allergy medicine, as well as an inhaler. I really don’t want to take either. I don’t feel like I have allergies, and I don’t think I have asthma. So what I’ve been doing is taking a vitamin C every day, as well as these Chinese licorice tables which have worked in the past. I *think* my cough is better.
I hate taking medicine when I don’t have to. A couple of months ago I went to see a dermatologist about the constant breakouts on my chin. And by “constant,” I really mean once a month or so. It’s not like I have acne. And yet she wanted to give me oral antibiotics.
Antibiotics for cosmetic reasons? I declined and went for the topical stuff instead, which has been working just fine.
I don’t get these doctors wanting to shove pills down my throat every two seconds. When I go, I want to hear, “It’s not a big deal, don’t worry about it.” I’m not looking for a pill to fix everything. But maybe I’m the exception.
Yesterday I had yet another annoying conversation with my mother. She’s obsessed with the idea of MB and my buying a condo or whatever, which we’re just not interested in right now. Our rent is so cheap between the two of us, and buying a condo in Manhattan would be ridiculously expensive and would tie us down. The last thing I want to be is tied down to a job or geography.
I’ve sung this song before, but I don’t want to go back to that part of my life before my divorce, bound by familial and financial obligations. Settled down. Tied down. I don’t want to worry about a mortgage right now.
I’ve explained that we may not always want to live in New York, and every time I say it, my mother acts like it’s news.
Drives me crazy.