Going to end the psychologist visits today. She's not helping me and I need that nearly $300 a month elsewhere. Am I resentful? Yes I'm resentful. Because I'm paying $70 / wk for answers and all she's doing is nodding like a bobblehead. So enough of that. I need that money for real solutions.

The postal service will be laying off between 120k and 200k people soon. We'll be insolvent by October. Due to not having any seniority, I'll probably be laid off soon. So yeah, looking at having to make a decision re the magazine project sometime soon. Do I go ahead with it, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead? Or do I scuttle it again in favor of survival? I'm sure my mother will go for option #2. And would find Kickstarter the devil incarnate.

Could use some people in my corner since I seem to have the backbone of a single-celled organism when it comes to standing up to my mother. Oh well.

Huntsville made the Top 5 list of Geekiest Cities. Maybe I could move there?

I have ConStellation coming up in September, less than a month away. Feel like Wile E. Coyote feebly waving a flag as he's falling off the cliff again.

I have to learn that my first reaction to fear should not be to pull away even further into my shell, but to keep trying to connect. Even if doing so ends up exactly as I fear it will. Correlation does not equal causation.

So yet again my guildmaster didn't stay gone, he came back, only days after I quit the guild. 3 of my 4 toons are now back in. And he made Ancasta a Co-guildmaster.

*sigh*

Ancasta is now 80th level.

Skyamaalu, my lowest-level toon, is now 41st.


It's Memorial Day. I went out and got a hamburger, stocked up on Diet Coke. Back to work tomorrow, after 2 days off.


Latest wild-hair wish: To get a piece of land somewhere, build a yurt, put in a few solar panels, dig a well and a septic tank, and live off what I can make making soap, growing herbs, and building junkbots out of old tape players.

Because I'm really, really coming to hate being around people. And I'm really, really coming to hate living by everyone else's rules and schedules, in a nature-less environment, at a job that I hate.

See www.coloradoyurt.com for details.

So I've been thinking lately about what things or conditions truly help me, calm me down, give me space to breathe, etc. What subjects feed my soul, what do I truly love that makes me feel like there's some reason to go on, what makes me forget the usual mantras. This line of thought started during the ice storm, when I ran out of Diet Coke and started drinking so much tea. The tea literally puts me in a meditative state -- provided I drink it mindfully. Or maybe that's the thing. I dunno. I just know when I take the time to make the tea properly, sit down in a quiet room or with some soothing non-frantic music playing, I feel better. At peace.

Maybe I'm getting old, I dunno. But I have to start digging myself out of this hole I'm in and not just mentally race around the same old crazy.

This kind of path can lead you to some uncomfortable truths. For one, Warcraft is a net negative effect. It's a stressor. It makes you forget, sure -- the same way TV does. It's not constructive, though when I started playing it was. For all that I'm an officer in one of the largest guilds on our server, I have a grand total of 2 people I talk with semi-regularly -- Kill and another Gnome mage named Morgianna (another older lady like myself, we have much the same experiences in WoW so we commiserate a lot). Otherwise, there are names I know because they are often troublemakers. But they're not friends. Also the frustrations of just playing the game get to me a lot, which just adds to it all. Zoning out on farming motes in Nagrand is not a healthy kind of forgetting. It's the kind that leads to "what the hell, it's 11 PM already, where did the time go?" and waking up the next morning feeling like the previous night wasn't restful at all.

Problem there is, I love Warcraft. But it ain't healthy for me.

Further along that line, the realization that spending every night and most of my days off in front of the computer is only exacerbating things. It's alienated me from a lot of things that used to be of interest to me, such as my mythology studies, my writing, my crystal collection, the podcasts I used to get into, the ambient music I used to get into. My hippy side. The psychospiritual side of me.

Playing Warcraft, mindlessly checking Fark or my RSS feeds and the fanfic sites, it's just escapism. It's not dealing with myself. It's worsening all my problems, not helping me to heal. It's not letting me think beyond a narrow set of parameters. It's not just Warcraft that's the drug, it's the whole shebang. Everything I do in my life.

As I said, uncomfortable truths.

But the tech is inescapable. It's woven into my life. The tech itself isn't bad. It's what I'm choosing to do with it that's screwed. And it's not going to be solved in a day. No more than heroin addiction is.


And aside from pulling myself out of this, there's the larger issue of my job and my life circumstances in general.

But we will see.

I'll be taking 6 days of vacation time here starting on the 16th. I was planning to blow some money and take a spa vacation thing back home (the Chattanoogan does the whole shebang) but checked the prices and nearly swallowed my tongue. So that went kablooey. Still, planned to take Mom to English Rose, but she thinks they may be closed. Can I pick'em or what? So I guess I'll end up going to see Mom and Muzz and that's about it. May spend some money to get Muzz some tea stuff, I figure she might like that.

Will spend some time here at home trying for the spa vacation thing at home and "renewing the source" as it were. Trying to do something to alleviate the emotional and spiritual exhaustion.

Well, so I've been sick for much of the winter. A cold around Thanksgiving, another cold middle of December, then week before last here I caught the flu. We had the snowstorm ("Snowpocalypse 2: Ice Road Boogaloo") and I was home for 2 days before my guilt and fear for my job got me out of the house. Work that day was all right, but then when I got home the ice on the pavement of the driveway made me fall 3 times. I dinged at least 1 rib, and was afraid I'd broken it. This happened right before I got the flu, so while I was coughing my head off with the flu my ribs were killing me. But I went to a walk-in clinic and got some Tamiflu, and I was off work for 5 days. But a couple days after I went back to work I felt healthy again.

Well, except for the downward spiraling. But I went back to listening to the brainwave entrainment as I fall asleep every night and it acts like an anti-depressant for me. It's weird. It's like I'm on Paxil again but without having to take any pills or risk the whirly-head and barfing when I go off it.

I'd been feeling pretty down. Being sick so much, then not being able to get away from the facts that I'm at a dead end. My job is a dead end, my life is a dead end. I was going to file a grievance but when my union rep at work would go off on a tangent whenever I asked if she'd filed it yet. Then after talking to our new postmaster (new new postmaster, 3rd one at Stockbridge since I've been there), I realized why: Because she can't file a grievance, there's nothing to file about. Yes, I really have been put into a dead end job. I can't get out. I can't advance because there's nowhere to advance to. I've hit the wall. My life, essentially, is over. I'm just waiting to die. So I quit asking about the grievance, and quit talking pretty much at work. There's no reason to. Just take out the garbage, clean the toilets, and wait out my meaningless, pointless life.

Think how it's going to look on my resume -- 16 years and counting at the same employer, and I've never advanced but have in fact been demoted. I was fired and then re-hired after six months. If I was an employer, I'd conclude that I was a troublemaker and / or had absolutely no ambition at all. Another employer isn't going to care nor even care to know that there was nowhere to go in all my jobs with the USPS -- they'll simply ask me why I didn't job-hop within the organization until I got into something where I could advance. So I'll never be able to get a job outside the USPS now. If the lack of education didn't damn me, this would.

And anyway, I'm a janitor. No one's going to hire a janitor for anything but being a janitor.

Part of me wishes I could sue the USPS Human resources department for putting me here and claiming there were no other jobs in the Atlanta district. For one thing they didn't give me even a quarter of the money I should have gotten for back-pay from when I was out of work. For another, they've put me in a situation that is hurting my career advancement. But no lawyer or union rep is going to take that case. I can't even blame anyone, or get back anything for this whole clusterfark.

The whole thing is crushing me. It's like a physical weight pressing down on me. I can't think of anything else sometimes. The brainwave entrainment is helping, but it doesn't do anything to solve the problem. I'm out of ideas and options.

I don't know what to do.

Time for an update.

With regards to WoW: This one's complicated. Okay, so back here a few weeks ago I'm hanging in Desolace being bored, because that's about all you do in Desolace. Desolace = Desolation. Anyway, fortunately I was at the Inn at that particular moment, when suddenly I get a notify that Kill is online. FRAGGING WHAT?! He LEFT! He wasn't coming back! He was quitting WoW! So yeah, kinda shocked. I ported back to Stormwind, ran out to Elwynn, there he is. Same old Rogue pimp he always was. Almost first thing he sez is "You left the Guild?" So I had to explain yes, left the Guild, they were being horses' patoots toward low levels, but I'm good, I'm leveling, see? Anca's much higher than when you left -- At which point he yells for the new Guild leader to meet us in Elwynn. By that time other old Guildies started showing up, there was a crowd, the now-leader of NO shows up, Kill starts giving him the what fer, Drama ensues, I'm wanting to sink into the ground.

I left of my own free will. I believe in voting with one's feet. You don't like a situation, leave. I'm not so dependent on a Guild that I can't hang on my own and be happy with it, though fending off the other Guilds trying to recruit me is a pain and a half. I didn't want to be a club to beat somebody with. Owl, Anca and Skya are just fine.

So. Anyway. Kill starts another guild. I joined. It's now as big as NO ever was. Though I must say the gbank is a bit better quality than NO's was.

Cataclysm is about to drop. I got a silly Gnome pimp that sometimes scares off annoying Taurens for me and tells me I'm amazing for no adequately explained reason. I am back to the situation of two posts ago.

Sometimes I log on to Skya just to escape the pressure of leveling. Just to play the game, not to feel like I've got to go clean out half of Tanaris.


Regarding the Day Job: Grievance has not been filed yet, researching what exactly they're in violation of. Got told again by the PM that I can't be put on the Maintenance register because we're an associate office and there's nowhere for me to advance to. In effect, I have no future in the PO and yes, I was handed a bill of goods with this dead end job.

Frag it, I was happy when I was unemployed. I played WoW ten hours a day and I was happy. I thought I'd never have to deal with the PO and all it's crap ever again. The future was dim, but it had possibility. I had a vast, empty road ahead of me and a world to explore.

Why am I doing this again?


This being the holiday season, there is the usual angst about how isolated I feel being me in a family of ultra-conservative racist homophobes. Honestly, I'd be much happier staying here at home for Christmas. Alone, in the quiet, playing WoW. Being me, without being afraid to do or say anything that would offend anyone or embarrass anyone or ... just not have to deal with anyone else's idea of who I am.

I'm fragging tired.

Welcome to the land of strange dilemmas.

Can hardly make myself type this.

In World of Warcraft, I'm in a guild called Natural Onslaught. Our leader is I think a teenager, or maybe early 20's, in real life. Here I am, frumpy dumpy 41 year old. We both play Gnomes. His toon is an 80th level Rogue. One of mine is a 27th level Mage. In the WoW fanfic I've been writing I've turned his toon's name as Kill Mechaswarm. I have no other phrase to describe it, we seem to be sweet on each other. We've sat watching the noobs duel each other in Goldshire, I've gotten Ancasta naked and danced with him. We chased off a Horde tonight and chased each other on our mechanostriders.

Just when I had gotten my head around losing count of the years alone, that it didn't matter anymore...

I don't know what to think. It's disturbing. And sad. That I can do this in a virtual world where I'm 2 feet tall, redheaded, and capable in ways I can never be in real life. I feel more myself as Ancasta. But she's a mask too. So is Owl. They let me be aspects of me I'm not here in real life, but they present images to the world that aren't me as well.

I like hanging out with Kill. I just don't want it to go too far. I don't want him to ask to meet me in real life. I'd rather have the sweet virtual puppy love than see some kid's eyes go dead the moment he sees me. I've seen it all before, I don't want to go through it again.

It makes me feel old. And like life has passed me by and that future I've always looked to now belongs to the kids behind me, and never me. All my chances are done with, and happily ever after has burst like a bubble.

I was talking to myself in WoW today. I got done with the monologue and heard clapping behind me.

That's embarrassing. Doing a depressing monologue to yourself while staring out over Lake Everstill, only to hear clapping at the end.

It would have been worse if it was a Murloc.

It was a Dwarf.

Meh.

I feel completely cut off from the rest of the human species.

Extraneous.

Well, I thought I had a job. And I did, for all of 5 days.

One week ago today, I got a call out of the blue from a local rep for Kelly Services. She asked if I'd be willing to take an assignment with a company in Dawsonville. Shipping and receiving. The Kelly rep thought it sounded much like what I'd done in the postal service. This was at 11 AM. I was in the Kelly office at 1 PM. I was told to go take a drug screening test then report to the job. Hours were 7:30 AM to 4:30 PM, Mon-Fri. Okay, fine. I did so, and off I went.

The job was physically demanding, but other than my feet feeling like hell from the brand new steel-toed boots (could hardly walk after 2 PM every day they hurt so much), I felt I could learn the job given a week or two. And by today (Friday) at the end of work I felt like I was getting the hang of it. It wasn't so bad. My immediate boss was something of a hard-ass, but not nearly so bad as the PM in Cornelia. I stayed out of her way. I'd been told at one point that if there was nothing to do, to sweep the floors, dust the shelves in the inventory, etc. The which I did, when I wasn't filling orders, packing them up, and preparing them for shipment.

So I was on my way home tonight when I got a call from a Kelly rep from Athens, subbing for the rep from Gainesville who is apparently sick at the moment, telling me that the company "doesn't need your services anymore".

When I took the job last week, the rep mentioned the last girl who worked for these people stayed there 2 years. The job was "indefinite" but I was under the impression that it was going to be long term.

Thank the Force I haven't ended the unemployment yet.

Anyway, I'll have to talk to the Kelly rep on Monday. If she can't find me a job in less than 2 weeks I'll have to end that and stay on the unemployment, because that at least is stable. At least for the next 3 months or so.

I'd like an explanation too but that's probably going to amount to "sorry, I was sure it was going to last, but you know how these things go" (with a nonchalant shrug of disclaimer thrown in).

Well, I can't rely on "sure things" that turn out not to be.


I'm vaguely angry. When I talk to the Kelly rep on Monday I'm going to ask if she knows the MBTI (she ought, since it's such a big part of career counseling and placement) and tell her to find me an INFJ job or a boss who can work with INFJ. Because I'm tired of getting bludgeoned by the whole damned world.

Anyway. Mom said to take it easy this weekend.

And honestly, I've missed reading fanfic on my phone in the middle of the night.

The thing with the DoL could go either way. I did my best. They'll send the decision in the mail.

The job training thing may actually be a legitimate job. They're sending me a check to buy a computer, a barcode printer, and 4-in-1, and a bunch of software. That's fragging scary, but it makes me think it's legit. So for the moment I'm tentatively hopeful.


My emotions are all over the place and I can't stop worrying. I wish I had someone to talk to, but there is no one. But that's why I've started doing this blog again. Because if I don't put it somewhere, it's just going to bounce around in my head like a super bouncy ball shot out of a rail gun into a raquetball court.

Maybe I'll finally open that "Mythos" DVD box tonight. I need something to make me think and get my mind off everything. Who better than my guru?


If it all goes to hell, maybe I'll go out west. I'd like to see the Milky Way from the desert before I die.

So last week I got a notification of a hearing from the Department of Labor. Apparently the post office is appealing the unemployment benefits.

Yes, apparently the employer can appeal the unemployment benefits. And if the DOL finds for them, not only do the benefits get cut off but I have to pay back everything I've already gotten. No, I can't pay it back since I've been living on it. Mom can't help me anymore.

So two of the three reasons should be easy enough to deal with -- I have no control or even influence over when the post office turned in the paperwork to the DOL. I have no idea why my benefits would be cut off for something I didn't do, but it's listed on the hearing notice. Also, I didn't accept a lay-off for lack of work nor did I quit, I was fired. I have a notice of removal to prove that. I didn't quit, I was fired. The third reason will take some doing, but I've got it covered. The exact wording is "discharge or suspension of the claimant was for failure to follow orders, rules or instruction or failure to perform the duties for which employed." I was fired for failing to qualify for the position of SSDA, not for failure to follow orders, rules or instructions or failure to perform the duties for which employed. I plan to explain how on my shift there was no way I could have done the 30 hrs. required Distribution for the job to be considered SSDA, and therefore I shouldn't have been required to learn the scheme. That basically I was fired for something that shouldn't even have been part of the job. Also planning to mention the grievances, and how the PM and the supervisor have had past grievances filed against them for harassment. And that I've got grievances pending for violations of the contract in several instances.

I wanted to get a lawyer to deal with all this but after talking to the state union steward she called one of the union lawyers and they said that it's frowned upon to call a lawyer for these things. That the DOL wants to hear from the claimant personally. Personally, I think if whether or not you're going to be rendered not only jobless but homeless is the kind of case where you should ALWAYS have a lawyer present your case, especially if you're nervous and having to confront a couple of psychos intent on destroying you.

They already fired me. I think appealing me getting unemployment pretty much clinches the "harrassment" issue.


I guess I've just got to have faith.

So do I want to go back to school or not? That is the question, and it must be answered within the next few days because I gotta get the paperwork done. Deadline is April 1st.

It's clear that I'm not going to be able to get a decent job without a degree of some sort.

The people at the WIA office said that if I can find 5 job openings for a particular job, I can use that as my intended job and go for the appropriate education. So I could do "social work assistant" and get the AA for Sociology or Psychology if I can find 5 job openings to prove it's an "in demand" occupation. All well and good.

Just that I don't feel any motivation to do it. Nor do anything else. Which isn't a good thing, I'm well aware. Depressed again, but really when have I not been depressed?

I look around at so many people chugging right along doing this that and the other thing, goal-oriented and going after it, and I just feel nothing. No desire to do anything. No draw to an area of expertise or pull to any particular profession. Not even writing, anymore. No goals. No plans. I know I should, I just don't.

It's not like Sociology or Psychology is a bad thing. It's just that's closest to the way I think normally. I'm not as likely to fail at it and it shouldn't take much work.

After that, I dunno.

I had a suspicion for a long time that I wouldn't live past 40. In the last few years I've stopped believing it, but now... I dunno. With my blood pressure I'm really just a tiny blood clot away from a stroke. Without my meds, it could happen at any moment.

Of course we could all die any moment. Asteroid impact, nearby gamma ray burst, massive coronal mass ejection, Yellowstone supervolcano eruption, the San Andreas fault giving way and dropping California into the ocean, fatal viral plague. Knowing the most statistically likely means of your own death is strangely steadying. Okay. This is how the world ends. No wondering anymore. Someday half my body will suddenly go numb, I'll fall down, it'll all fade to black and I won't wake up. Of if I do I won't be myself anymore and it won't be for long. Okay. That's how it will be. That's the ending point. Now I just have to get from here to there.

No word yet on the unemployment decision.

The depression is really kicking in.

I forget what day it is very easily now, even though it's right there on the taskbar.

Expecting the unemployment claim to be denied, and then I don't know what I'm going to do. But whatever I do, I'll have to do it quick. I'll only have a month to get out of the house.

Then -- I don't know. I've got nowhere to go. I have my car. But what about Fuzz?

I look at all the jobs on the job boards and I'm not qualified for anything. The few jobs I do find turn out to be scams. Not only are there few jobs, I'm not qualified for them.

I've been kicked out of the machine as a reject. A cog with several teeth missing.

I was sitting on the floor in my computer room at Radio Free Ross-a-Noodle today, staring at walls empty of the years of accumulated flotsam, at a floor no longer crunchy but clean, at corners free of the morass of electronic junk that had lived there for 7 years. I wrote 4 novels in that room. I'd recorded podcasts there, debated the layout of covers and written thousand-word e-mails and blog posts. I sat there for half an hour wondering why I felt nothing at all at an empty house where I'd lived for so long. Why don't I feel anything?

The last time I felt attached to a place was the Hobbit Hole. I had to conclude it was because I'd shared it with other people. Since then, I've lived completely alone and there's been no reason to remember places or get attached to them. They're just places.

It's other people that make places memorable, that make them stick in my mind. To make them matter.


Thus ends Migration 2009.

In one of those dizzying reversals the computer industry is known for, my new Dell Vostro A90 is due to arrive today. It was listed as "in production" until this past Saturday (5/9) and scheduled to be shipped on 5/19. Then boom, it suddenly changes to "shipped" without the least warning. So it's slated to arrive today. I imagine I'll play tag with FedEx for a couple of days, but still, a week and a half ahead of the date they gave me. O.o

Note this is NOT a complaint. The peanut gallery on Twitter is probably thoroughly disgusted by my going on and on about the "Shiny Shiny" like Golem over the Ring.

Job news: Have been asked to delay the relocation until sometime in June due to short-handedness. So I'll be living here for another month with only the bare essentials. And three computers. And a GPS. Given this, I may go ahead and buy a cheap microwave and some more cooking stuff and some storage things for my clothes. And possibly go ahead and get the dryer and get the washer hooked up. I just have this suspicion that I still won't be moved in by my birthday. *sigh*

Doctor appt. on Friday. Think my BP meds may not be as effective now that I'm moving around so much rather than sitting like a lump all day. As you may expect, this is troubling.

Still no word on what I want to be when I grow up. I may need to consult an outside paid opinion for this. Just that the term "life coach" makes me wince.

Project 2230 now has 3 posts. www.project2230.net

Had to wrestle with the mortgage co. yesterday because I'm a glutton for punishment. How many times can I say "no, I can't pay you people" before they get it through their thick barely English-literate heads? So am spending most of my time now at varying levels of depressed about that. Oddly, being at work provides a sort of escape from that since I can't think about much else at work but work.

Well. Must call Dr. Jones' office and see if they can send my records to the new doctor.

Y'know, you'd figure if there was a chance that your power would be shut off North GA Electric would send you the disconnection notice bill and not a regular bill with a regular due date. Wouldn't you?

So I am writing to you here from a table at Panera, where there is free wi-fi, because without power at Radio Free Ross-a-Noodle there is no DSL and no Meraki. And no heat, no light, and no stove with whistling tea kettle providing endless gallons of Irish Breakfast Tea goodness. The home fizzifying machine, however, works just fine. No power needed since it works on the gas pressure of the CO2. Yet another reason to love it madly. (Go to www.sodaclubusa.com now. Because your life is not complete until you have your own home fizzifying machine. Seriously.)

So after punting the diet YET AGAIN with a bagel with tomato basil cream cheese stuff AFTER my dinner of a roast beast sandwich at home (thinking the power had gone out over the whole street and that I needed to eat the roast beast before it went bad), I sat down to watch part of Iron Man on Copernicus to wait for the power to come back on. After 2 hours or so I called the NGEMC to ask when they estimated the power would be back on. That's when I learned that it was just me, that they'd disconnected me for a past due amount but for some reason had NOT sent me the Disconnection Eminent, Death Star Approaching bill but only a normal bill. So I figure this is a revenue grab, since they now get to charge me the reconnection fee that's almost $100. Which is kind of moot since the bill itself was nearly $400, with current and past due amounts. Did I mention they hadn't mentioned "DISCONNECTION" anywhere in that bill? No? Let me show you it.

So not happy right now. So not happy.

So I've paid up the bill, they should have the power turned back on TONIGHT. It had better be on by the time I get home. Or somebody dies.

I so want more Tony Stark snarking at unhelpful robots while being dangerously good looking with soldering iron, tank top and muscles. Because MIT geeks with muscles? Rank up there with black-haired elves. In the "mate with it NOW" category.

And this at the height (or is it depth?) of the monthly void into which my hormone levels fall. Although this is followed 2 to 3 days later by the dizzyingly abrupt resurgence of said hormones, which put the libido into overdrive for about half a day. Why? Because ovaries make testosterone, but it's not what they do best. So I value my testosterone, such as it is. Because I like getting the hots for geeks with muscles and black-haired elves, even if it only lasts for a few hours.

When I think about the fog of constant arousal I walked around in as a kid, I could just cry.

We have yet to find out any details re the REC closing.

I'm bumming out at the moment. I've got to dismantle the LLC and go close out the bank account. Put the remaining money back in my savings account. Because I might actually need that $390 in the near future.

My usual method these days of dealing with major depressive incidents is to go buy something fabulously expensive and electronic, and I know exactly what I want. I even have an excuse, getting my usual Christmas present for myself. With that $390 I could even get it handily, as it's about $320. But of course I can't do it. And that's aggravating me no end. Strangling people doesn't solve any problems. Neither does buying an EEE PC 901 with 1gb RAM, 16gb SSD, and Linux. (They use Xandros. I'd have to locate an external CD drive and burn a copy of Ubuntu Netbook Remix and install it before I could use the EEE without holding my nose. But that's a small consideration.)

Oh, and I looked up how much they're selling the Merakis for these days, and they've inexplicably trippled the price of their standard indoor model. So that was one instance where being an early adopter paid off in spades. So guard those $50 Merakis with your lives, cats and kittens. Worth their weight in platinum, at least. (smishes Meraki, you make my life complete and wireless all at the same time!)

JCF RoundTable tonight, and I have no idea what to talk about.

It also bums me out that I was only just acquiring a life and now I've got to up sticks and start over somewhere else. The JCF, the magazine... then somebody somewhere hit the reset button. This too makes me want to strangle people.

Oh well. Not much I can do about it, or even think about it until I have some answers. Like where I'm being posted, yadda yadda.

The REC is closing April 21st.

They told us Wednesday morning, the 19th. I still don't quite know what to make of it. There are people panicking, of course. But me? I'm not.

We still don't have details yet as to where us careers are going to end up, though it's almost certain it won't be here in Chattanooga. There's nowhere to put us here. So far, the only REC to offer to take careers is Salt Lake City. I wanted to go to Glendale, AZ. But hey, west is still west, just not as far west as I would have liked. It means I'll have to pack up the house, somehow get the house sold, and move across the country with an 11 year old cat who's never taken a car ride longer than 20 minutes. Get someplace to live out there. Move in. Get settled, somehow. All the million things that were overwhelming when I just moved across the city, nevermind across a country.

Mom, of course, thinks I'm throwing away my life. She was yelling so much that she didn't give me a chance to tell her this may be the only option I have to keep my job and all those great benefits in the midst of our failing economy. You'd think she'd be glad I still have a job instead of moving in with her and not working for a year or two.

Well. If she's going to act like that then I have no time or use for her anymore. I only have so much energy and patience and time, and I can't waste any of it on things that aren't helping me do what I have to do.

Until I have more details, I can't say anything for certain. That's all there is to it.