Twisted Spinster

Uh-oh… no sooner do I decide to move to St. Louis, MO, then I find out that some local governmental official types who are totally in the bag for Osama have decided to jump the gun a little and start threatening those who don’t think the O-man is the One, the Way, and the Light. Hey, people, wait until he’s elected God President, okay? Sheesh, some people just have to peek under the Christmas wrappings early.

Seriously, I’m not too worried. After all, everyone knows that McCain is going to win, and then people like St. Louis County Circuit Attorney Bob McCulloch and St. Louis City Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce will be too busy pissing their pants in thwarted rage to worry about people who don’t like their beloved one. Okay, really seriously this time: I might as well introduce myself seeing as how in a few months I plan to relocate to their state: Hi. I refuse to vote for Obama for the following reasons: he’s a socialist, a liar, a product of the notoriously-corrupt Chicago political machine, is too inexperienced and thin-skinned to be chief dog-catcher much less president of a country where he can expect at least someone somewhere to call him a fascist baby-killer, and he is running a racially-divided campaign even though he’s 1) half white, and 2) his African father shares nothing, not even tribal ancestry, with the African-American descendants of slaves in this country upon the back of whose experience he is attempting to ride into the presidency. And that’s just the reasons I can think of off the top of my head.

I think Florida is trying to tell me something…

I opened my sliding glass door to take advantage of the slightly cooler (70s), lower-humidity weather we’ve been having here. I took a deep breath of the delightful midmorning air, scented by my pot of fast-growing herbs and tomato plants… what the hell is that smell???

A dead squirrel is currently bloating up right outside my patio screens, under the shrubs. Even my cats seem disgusted. I know who the culprit is… my next-door neighbors have two cats also, but they let them run around outside. I think the male cat is trying to make friends with Xena, my younger cat. Unfortunately she hates all other cats and goes into danger-murder wail mode whenever she sees him. Ah, romance.

Update: maintenance has been called, and they will remove the odoriferous ex-beastie. See, that’s why I rent.

Hi kids! Well, yesterday was the last day at my job. Monday I get to start the wonderful fun of looking for another job, or temp assignment, or something. Yays. I sure do hope I can stick it out around here until April. Well, the fact that I don’t have enough money to get up and move right now does help.

Just to review: I am moving out of Florida, ideally as soon as my lease is up, which is at the end of April. Goal: St. Louis, MO. Somehow I am going to have to pry the costs out of that out of the cost of living. Any contribution you can make will help. LInks to Paypal etc. are to the left…

If I had thought about changing my mind about moving out of Florida, this would have got me re-enthused. Alcee Hastings is one of those corrupt Florida politicians that just won’t go away, and now he reveals that he’s another crazy, PDS-inflicted loser. And no one but us bitter, gun-clinging (guess now that means I have to buy a gun), Bible-pounding right-wing warmonglers will call him out on it. Because we’re RACIST.

In personal news, I went to bed early last night because I had a stomach ache. I have no idea… I’m hoping it was just one of those things. And I do feel better already; in fact, I finally got around to doing the rest of my laundry. I have to go put everything in the dryer now. And I’ve already started sorting through my clothes; I plan to get rid of all but a small set of outfits. I always end up wearing just the same five things over and over again anyway (yes, I wash them between wearing!), and I have all these “oh, that’s cute and on sale” items that I never wear anymore. They probably wouldn’t fit my fat rump anyway.

Off to the laundry room.

You know, I’m starting to wonder if I shouldn’t just cut my losses and move out of Florida now instead of waiting until April (when my apartment lease ends). See, I am not sure I want to be in Florida when the rest of this economic shit hits the fan. This state has taken a big hit already, and I have personally been affected considering I lost my job at a major home builder last year because of it. Also, my credit already sucks, so how easy will I find it to find housing in a new city next year? No, I’m not planning to buy a house (I’m not that stupid — I could see this coming a long time ago when I saw how the real estate market was frantically trying to sell to everyone no matter what, and I had no intention of joining the foreclosure statistics). But I know how these things affect all housing markets including rentals. Hmmm…

Before, when I wanted a trip tik from AAA, I used to have to 1) belong to them (as in, pay for membership), and 2) physically go to their office and stand in line at a counter. Now I can just go to their website and get one for free. I did one for Orlando to St. Louis — it’s only about a 15 hour drive, which means I can make it in a couple of days, or one if I decide not to stop. Now I just have to figure out how to enclose the back seat so I can keep the cats back there for the duration. (I’d leave them in their cages, but what if they want to pee? I’ve had the pee-filled cage cleaning adventure before and want no repeats. Update: and where will I put the litter box? Hm, driving a thousand miles with a car smelling like cat pee… well, it won’t smell any worse than it does now. Let’s just say it’s been raining a lot and the car has leaks.)

Plans plans makin’ plans…

No, not that change (and not this one either!)… A few posts down I had mentioned I was thinking of moving out of Florida, possibly to St. Louis. Well, that idea has crystallized into a decision. I am definitely getting out of Florida, and St. Louis is the goal. Why St. Louis? Well, I don’t rightly know. It has a lot of history, it’s on the Mississippi (rivers fascinate me), and it’s in a part of the country I’ve never been in. It’s not far from Chicago, a place I’ve always wanted to visit but not live in. It gets four seasons. Today Central Florida’s feeble imitation of autumn starts (it’s extra breezy, we’re supposed to get nightly temps in the 60s — oh, bring out my furs! — and humidity is supposed to go down to something less than “under the swamp”). It’s not enough. Also, I want snow.

My problem is a lack of funds, no job… but this week my assignment at the cabinet company ends, and I’ve had no new offers so far. I’m on the verge of tossing my cats and some underwear in the car and heading off, but my stupid sense of responsibility is telling me to try to stick it out until the end of my lease. That’s April. I may stab myself in the head before then… or worse, lose my momentum. Then again, if I can’t find a job, what’s the point in staying here? I’m sick of Florida.

Anyway, I already started to go through my books to pull out those I absolutely can’t live without. I don’t have any rare editions, or anything that isn’t still in print (or isn’t available free on the internet), so I’m hoping to get those down to no more than one box. (And not a giant box either. I’m going to move with very little stuff, and I need room in the car — which is a Toyota Tercel, not a van — for the cats and their carriers.) Eventually I’ll sell whatever I have that’s sellable. If I can’t afford furniture right away when I move, so what? I can sleep on the floor. I’ve done it before.

One thing I am going to do is sell my computer and trade it in for a new laptop. It’s a great computer — it’s still pretty new — but I need to be more portable. I don’t need all the stuff this one came with, like media hookups to turn the thing into part of your in-home theater, and other stuff that I don’t even know what it is. It has Vista Home Premium on it, but I’ve had hardly a speck of trouble with this install. Maybe I lucked out. It has 2 GB of RAM which can be upped to 4, a giant hard drive, the monitor (which I bought separately) is a 17 inch LCD. It’s not junk. I can get a decent new laptop for around $500.00. My old laptop is trashed, or I’d just switch back to that. (Maybe I will in the interim. In fact, I’m going to see if I can get it working.)

Anyway, this feels like the right plan for my life. I feel good about it. I’m going to log on to Careerbuilder and so on to put some feelers out for jobs (clerical and administrative assistant stuff is my “specialty”). The job market up there can’t be any worse than Florida’s in any industry but tourism (and that’s down since the price of gas doubled). I’m going to put an “escape from Florida” announcement above my Paypal links too. Like I said, I’d like to stay until April — well, not “like,” but should — in order to not break my lease, but if I can’t get a job down here I won’t be able to pay any rent anyway.

Stay tuned for updates.

Update the first: I tested the old laptop last night and it seems to be working fine, so maybe I’ll put off buying a new one and just save the money from the sale of the desktop for the move. Hmm, save money, what a concept!