Yesterday was a No-Good Rotten Very Bad Day and I'm glad it's now behind me. As today is Friday the 13th I might have no better luck, but at least yesterday is gone.

I know it's terribly Freudian but the whole thing has to do with my mother and her apparent inability to recoginze that I, too, don't want to be wandering the streets of Atlanta homeless, broke and without a job. Yes, I am doing what I can to ensure that I will be able to get a decent job when I get to Atlanta, i.e. going back to school. I am well aware that the only further career movement my current job prepares me for is saying "You want fries with that?" Mom apparently is having hysterics because she expects me to act blonde. I'm far more worried that if the REC does go belly up that I'll have enough time to get through school before it does.

Also it seems like the consensus among the older set is that I should stay right here in Chattanooga... when I'm already working what is probably the highest-paying job I could get here. There is no opportunity here. I couldn't live for less than what I'm making now.

Aside from all that my mother apparently has this chiselled-in-stone law somewhere that you have to work at a job you hate. After all, she's done that for most of my life, why shouldn't I?

First of all, I've been doing that for the last ten years and second of all, I'M NOT YOU!

I can't live like that anymore. If I do that I'm going to be seventy years old someday and wondering why I allowed myself to spend most of my life miserable. I am not going to do that. I've been told all my life I have to take care of myself. That's what I'm doing. Writing makes me happy. I see no reason why I should have to spend my life miserable when I can use that talent to live.

As for why Atlanta, aside from the fact that there are no real jobs here in Chattanooga, I want a chance at a real social life. I've been alone for over 7 1/2 years. I don't mean just celibate, I have very few friends and they are far more concerned with their own lives. Most of them are married or permanently involved. There is no real Dungeons & Dragons community anymore since most people now play stuff like EverQuest. Even if there were I would have little chance of attending such as I work at night. I'm signed up on Meet Up for both science-fiction and fan fiction but there's no one else in Chattanooga. Ditto, I work at nights so I wouldn't be able to do it anyway. Aside from movies there's really nothing to do in Chattanooga. I want a day job. I want to be somewhere where I can get with other sci-fi people. I want friends. Despite my suspicions, I am a human being. I'm supposed to have friends.

No, I don't want to stay with the Post Awful. There's no future in it. In twenty years the only thing moving through the mail will be packages and as I said the hours suck.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, remember?

She'd better be glad I'm just going to Atlanta and not Seattle. I've heard you can't find grits in Seattle. Damn fool Yankees would eat them with sugar anyhow.

Aside from all this, it's my life.

She complains about me taking no risks and then when I do she has hysterics. Not exactly very encouraging, is it?

Oh, yeah, as for calling my attitude toward my life a "holy mission" -- Mom, the correct phrase is "damned fool idealistic crusade". Obi-Wan Kenobi said it, and yes, that's exactly what it is.

Kinda funny you would have used those words about me when you're the one who reads the Bible all the time and I'm the one everyone is convinced is going to Hell.