Long time ago

in a land, far, far away; my last and only hope to stay in Vancouver was dashed.

A year ago I got the call that I would not get the job I'd been hoping for. They decided to go with the person they thought they would get along with better.

Yeah, I know. I think about that sentence at least once a day.

I regret not staying in Vancouver less and less. When I realize how little money we actually make, we'd have been homeless by now had we stayed.

***

This weather though.
Fuck this winter.

***

I spend a great deal of my time pretending to be someone I am not.

It's difficult.

Still, I haven't had a progression in my MS symptoms since I originally got sick in December 2008.

It just the same shit, every day, all day.

I'm trying my hand at self-employment.

I really hate it.

I really hate the people you have to deal with in order to both eat AND pay the bills. I hate the person I have to become in order to be perceived as competent and capable.

I'm depressed, but not as bad as I have been before.

I hate it here.

I need to start dating an extrovert with money, because I'm bored to fucking tears around here.

Home again, Home again, fiddle-dee-dee

Two weeks of travel, family obligations and a little bit of touristy activity has left me exhausted and in love with my own bed.

On my trip;

I went to a southern Baptist church for the first time.
Joe met two of my first cousins, my dad's older brother and his wife and my dad's first cousins and their parents for the first time. It was the first time I had seen any of them, except for one first cousin, since August of 2003. (Joe said his favourite part was the dinner and drinking "party" with my family. That made me happy.)
I ate half-runner beans for the first time.

I did not swear in front of my mother-in-law.
I went to the Neil Armstrong Air and Space Museum four days before he died. I got a pen and two post-cards.
I went to the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the National Museum of the United States Air Force. I got a "Rosie the Riveter" lunch box and Space Ice Cream. I saw a NASA Super Guppy land to deliver some stuff for the museum.
I watched almost a whole Major League Baseball game without falling asleep.
I went to the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and had a bonding moment with a middle aged black woman when we sang Soul II Soul's "Back to Life (However Do You Want Me)" together and she called me "sister". This happened when I was exchanging the t-shirt I bought the day before when it didn't fit right, 20 or so hours after I finished visiting the museum. We had this moment less than a day after I had been moved to teary-eyed silence over the endless ways humans have managed to create to do harm to each other. Visiting the Freedom Center made me want to be a better person.

I also got a new set of towels and two sets of sheets, the Martha Stewart Homekeeping Manual, a copy of A Modern Girl's Guide to Life, three white long sleeved tshirts and a new pair of yoga pants because I dropped a full bottle of Gem Crush nail polish on my old ones.

Again, I would like to thank everyone who knows where we live and knew we were going out of town for not breaking in whilst we were gone.

I am almost 100% certain that I have forgotten to mention a lot about our trip.