Jaded Jennifer

I’m going to give the best advice that you will EVER get in your life. Ever. You got that? So I want you to listen to this advice closely and remember it:

Don’t EVER, EVER, EVER get addicted to anything.

See what great advice that was? If it weren’t for my caffeine and nicotine addictions, life wouldn’t be so terribly bad right now. It wouldn’t be great, of course, but it wouldn’t be bad. Today was one of those days where everything kind of closed in on me at once.

Sitting in my room all day by myself, with nobody to talk to, was getting to me. Then the whole not having a vehicle to even go anywhere, having my phone shut off last week and my cable and internet shut off this week, not having enough money to buy cigarettes, which I’m out of so I’m smoking Wren’s and those make me feel like absolute crap, and not even having the money to go buy a Mountain Dew…it was a bit overwhelming. Seriously, I can deal with not having a vehicle. That’s what buses are for, right? I can live without cable. I have DVD players and every season of Friends, plus Charmed, Medium, Roseanne and Law and Order: SVU. I can’t really live without internet but luckily I’m in an apartment complex and I have neighbors who haven’t figured out how to secure their network. And the phone? Well, yeah, that sucks but honestly, I don’t use it too much. It’s really just a text messenger to me. But I do kind of need it. Wren couldn’t even go look for a job this week like he had planned since he didn’t have a phone number to put down on applications. Check didn’t come today, even though it was sent last Friday. With any luck it will be here tomorrow and since I don’t have a vehicle or money for the bus, I will be walking the 2.34 miles to the bank, then to Cricket to get my cell phone back on because I simply can’t be without a phone. But, see, I could have dealt with all of this today if it weren’t for those damn addictions. To many people, cigarettes and Mountain Dew are just a luxury, one they think I could and should live without. Honestly, those are the people who AREN’T addicted to them, don’t have problems with addiction, and don’t understand how stressful addictions can actually be. And even though I had half a bottle of Mountain Dew left, the fact that my mini-fridge in my bedroom was devoid of little green bottles was starting to make me antsy.

J.R. is the only one in this house with a phone, but he was at his girlfriend’s house, where he went after school without even checking with us, and we needed his phone to call and see how much money Wren had left on his Visa so we could go get me some Mountain Dew. So, I jumped onto my computer, with the internet that I’m pirating from a neighbor that is getting a CRAPPY signal, and I went to mycricket.com to send J.R. a text message and tell him he needed to come home.

And here it is. Proof that everybody is out to get me, even the internet:

What the hell? Seriously? Do you see any triangles up there? It took me 3 times refreshing the damn page before the picture even showed up and then I get this crap. Come on, Cricket. How am I supposed to click on all of the triangles when there aren’t any there???

P.S. You’ll be happy to know that I got my Mountain Dew. Still smoking Wren’s cigarettes for now and I think they’re killing me much quicker than my normal menthol light 100s. His full flavor kings make me feel like I’ve got black lung or something.

P.P.S. I will be quitting smoking soon. Hopefully before summer. I’ve been smoking for over 20 years now, though, so it won’t be fun or pleasant, as I’m sure will be chronicled in this blog.

Life feels like a giant roller coaster to me sometimes. As great as the highs are, the lows absolutely suck. I’d really just love to find that middle ground.

This week has been one of those weeks. Waiting on a check so I can have a birthday party for my daughter, whose birthday was LAST week. The check should have been here on Tuesday, so I planned the party for Thursday giving me one day to run all over town getting everything for the party. Instead, the check came today. And because my mailman is retarded, I didn’t get it until 4:30pm. So much for a Thursday party. There’s no way I’m running around in rush hour traffic to get everything.

But things were going pretty good this week. I finished writing my book and I’m really happy with it. I’m working on editing it now and want to get that done before the weekend so I can get some friends of mine to be my “test audience” and tell me what they think and if I should change anything. Then I’m off to the fun agent search again, but even that I don’t mind this time because I think I can write a better query for this book.

Found out that I’m getting my financial aid back so I get to start school next Monday. But we still hadn’t heard if Wren gets his back. I sat here making plans to pay for him to go if they didn’t give it back to him, knowing it would mean we’d be strapped for cash this quarter, but also knowing if I did that he’d get his back in summer.

But then we found out, he’s getting his back and gets to start on Monday too! Yay!!!

And then the furnace quit working.

No idea WHY it quit working. We tried changing the filter in it but no luck. I’m not about to call my mother and tell her that her furnace isn’t working because I’m sure she’ll blame us and it’s not like she’ll get anybody here to fix it. I figured, warm weather is right around the corner and by the time it gets cold again, we’ll be moved out and my mom will be back here.

But here it is, April 1st, and it’s SNOWING outside. It’s so cold in this house that we’re all bundled up in thick socks and hoodies, cuddling with the cat and dog under blankets.

Wren made a fire in the fireplace, but he used the last of the wood and since my check wasn’t here yet, we couldn’t really go buy more. So we turned on the oven, opened the door and set up a fan in the kitchen. lol Really, can you GET more ghetto than that?

Even with the furnace not working, I’ve still been in a great mood. Everything was starting to go our way.

Except for the mailman who hates us and seems to be holding all of our GOOD mail as long as possible, but that’s for a different blog.

This afternoon I finally got my letter from the school saying how much I’ll be getting in financial aid. And for some reason, they’re not giving me ANY student loans. WTF? The amount of money I’m getting will barely pay for my classes and books, it sure as hell won’t pay the other bills so I can actually GO to school instead of having to work. Oh, I know a lot of people go to school and work at the same time. I bet they also don’t have 6 kids who go to 3 different schools clear across town so that they have to drive over and pick them all up at 3 different times each day. That, or they have REALLY good childcare.

Could you imagine the cost of childcare for 6 kids? I’d have to get a second job just to be able to pay it.

As anybody knows, though, when you’re on a really big high, you crash really hard. So this letter crashed both me and Wren, who realizes they probably won’t be giving him loans either because apparently we’re both in default and didn’t know it. Since when did they STOP sending out letters to tell you when a payment is due? I’ve never received a thing from them.

Or so I thought. I found some emails in my spam box from them, called their number and they’re doing some forebearance thing to get me out of default and then I have to print off this application for deferment and send it to them along with some papers and my first born or something. And THEN I have to contact the school and hope it’s not too late to get my loans back.

I swear, I had less problems getting into school than I’m having getting BACK into school. You’d think it would be easier since it hasn’t even been a year since I was there.

I’m trying to remain optimistic. Even though my fingers are so cold it’s actually becoming painful to type this, and my bed is covered in papers that I dug out of the filing cabinet to figure everything out, and my book is sitting here open in Word NOT getting edited, and Wren told me he doesn’t WANT to make anything for dinner tonight (I’m mourning the homecooked meal, let me tell ya), and there are rather large snowflakes falling outside my bedroom window, I’m trying to remain optimistic.

Plus side: My book, Unrequited, is finished! Yay!!! I’ll just focus on that thought for awhile.