Friday, June 10, 2005

Money

In the past six days I have done nothing but work -- 9 to 6 being the efficient and effervescent marketing princess (the job that offers a check in the bank every two weeks, like clockwork) and 7 to 12 doing the stuff that is SUPPOSED to make me some money. Eventually.

The only thing that would make sense about doing the money stuff right now is if someone would actually GIVE me some money each time I finished some sub-task that leads to the actual-task. I am talking about money in my hand. Here's a hundred bucks for washing the walls in the master bedroom. And here's another $50 for taping the trim.

Then, once I finish the actual-task (this is in the future, people, because I haven't finished one single thing), I get an annuity. A framed certificate, "Painted Master Bedroom," worth THOUSANDS.

I did get the hot tub in complete working order. But I cheated and paid people to come and fix it and clean it. THOSE people get money in their hand, but me? I get the tantalizing dream of vacation renters who will eventually give me money. And since I spent all day Sunday figuring out a detailed budget using my Quicken software, I know that I need more money or else this Tahoe house is going on the auction block.

I have to say that there is only one thing that is making it all possible over here in Tahoe. And that is the parting gift that K gave me when we broke up in March. Here's how it went down (condensed version): we got in a huge fight and on a Sunday night, after a stand-off where we didn't speak all weekend, I went to his place and he broke up with me. He grabbed a manila envelope that could be used to ship a refrigerator from under his desk and walked around his apartment, picking up things I had left over the past year and putting them in the envelope.

I sat quietly while he packed me into an envelope and he walked into the room, licked and sealed the massive thing, and handed it to me. Then he walked me to the door and said "you'll be ok."

When I got home and unpacked I found a 1/2 oz. of the green stuff in there and I was shocked. I haven't seen that much in one place since I was a sophomore in college and sold joints from my Days Inn motel room in Daytona Beach to pay for spring break. So I called him. Turned out his parting gift was payback for a plane ticket I bought him in October, something I had completely forgotten about. Apparently K wanted his accounts up to date. And he had a gift from a friend in Humboldt that would do the trick.

So now, in Tahoe, I have the high motivation. Most people say that they melt into their couch when they smoke the stuff, but me? I have always said if I smoke enough, I'll clean the oven. It doesn't even have to be MY oven. I just get antsy and it's the perfect remedy for being 200 miles away from all my friends in a house that has about a million little projects that need to be addressed before the rich vacationers can move in for a weekend.

HA! This is the house that pot built.

Sunday, June 05, 2005

Yo Tahoe

I made it to Tahoe last night around 9 and happily the house was not wrecked by the evil Russian ski group pariah, Peter. Driving over here I had visions of furniture slashed and spilling its stuffing, spray paint on the walls, windows broken, and the heat turned up to 90 for the last month, but happily the worst thing I faced was all the moldy food left in the refrigerator.

It has only taken a couple of hours this morning for me to fully appreciate the beauty of all the piney goodness here. Chuck and I took a long walk near the river and chatted with a neighbor for a while. God I feel lucky. Except I have a grocery bag full of mail to weed through and bills, bills, bills to pay. No sense in putting it off any more than I already have. Ha-cha!

Saturday, June 04, 2005

Organize This!

This morning I had planned to drive over to my house in Lake Tahoe, since most of the long list of "goals" has to do with getting that place ready as a vacation rental. However, my plans were re-routed by a sudden intense desire to organize my laundry room.

The laundry room, like most rooms in this ramshackle apartment, is falling apart. When I moved in I had some shelves installed by an inept handyman and they are now bowed like the rails on a rocking chair and falling off the walls. Their utter precarious-ness caused some boxes that were filled with clutter I haven't looked at in years to fall down and scatter across all the washed and unwashed laundry piled in the room. This happened like a month ago.

So this morning I not only picked up all of that mess, I went through all my clothes and am donating 2/3 of what I own. I am most proud of the fact that I threw away all of the, ahem, old underwear and holey socks that would shock my dead mother if she saw them.

Now I am sweeping up the mountains of dog hair that carpets my apartment and I've got the Murphy's Oil Soap ready to go. This way when I come home from Tahoe next week I will walk into a clean apartment and sing the light fantastic.

I am taking the garbage bag full of mail to Tahoe with me. There are limits to my ability to organize in one sitting.

Friday, June 03, 2005

Baby I'm Back

What a difference a day makes. I came back from that writing retreat with a quiet mind. All that relaxation made me realize that life is freaking short! and so I picked up the phone and called my old boyfriend.

I know, I hear you. Calling old boyfriends is dangerous. It was a dangerous move, but I was watching Dogtown and Z-Boys and thinking hard about K and I was in a fuck-it mood. I called him. What! Lay off me.

The thing was, talking to him after a couple of months was just like talking to him when we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Easy. Fun. Then he asked me to go to a show. That night. What to do? How about exactly what I wanted to do, which was to GO. SEE. HIM. I did, we saw a fun show, went back to his place to talk, figured out we missed each other and should not have broken up, and then we (X-RATED). Today I am once again K's girlfriend and I couldn't be happier.

I'm not kidding myself. My best friend says he gives it a 25% chance of succeeding. I think he is short-changing us a little bit (I give it a 30% chance), but people, it's just stupid to sit around wishing for something and not taking the chance. You heard it here. People write books about it. It's called fearless love.

If I am crying my heart out in a couple of weeks, will someone please remind me of my steadfast commitment to NOTHING VENTURED, NOTHING GAINED? No guts, no glory.

Amen.
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