Just a bit of venting.

I don’t have anything really special planned for july 4th. I have one beer left from the other night, and I bought two tall cans of mikes hard lemonade, and I plan on enjoying these and sitting on the front steps lighting some sparklers, but I’m not starting any of this until it starts getting dark out. So I wanted to vent a little first.

Roommate #1 was going to get married last week, but they called it off. But I just learned today that she and he actually went to the courthouse and are now officially married.

I just think it’s a bit strange that a week after you call off the big wedding shindig, now you’re married? She was just here a few days ago saying she wouldn’t take him back.

I love her, and I don’t know her man that well so I am in no position to judge them. I just wish I knew what her plans are.

Because last I knew, she, me, and roommate #2 were going to look for a bigger house, since we would all be moving in together.

I don’t know what her plans are. I would think she wouldn’t be moving in here, since she is actually married now, but idk.

If she’s not going to be moving back in here, I would hope that she could get some more of her stuff out (including the huge armchair in what is now roommate #2’s room) so roommate #2 and I have more room.

Also, idk how to bring this up with her, but if she’s not going to be moving back in, I can’t take care of her cats anymore. As it stands, there are four cats in this house. Only one of them is mine. They’re still here because roommate #1’s man is allergic to cats. At first, I was glad to take care of the cats as long as roommate #1 continued to pay for food and litter, but it’s just too much work. I love her cats, but 4 cats in a tiny 2 bedroom house is just too much. I have to scoop out the litter box almost every single day, and there is literally cat hair all over everything. I can’t even dry off my hands after I wash them, because there will be cat hair all over the towel.

I haven’t felt like I could bring this up with roommate #1, especially since I don’t know what her plans are, and because she has helped me out with rent when I didn’t have enough.

It’s just very confusing, because all the bills, the utility, internet, etc, they’re all in her name. And she’s the one who takes the rent to the landlord every month.

I love her to death, but I have a feeling that a large part of my anxiety of late has been because of all this confusing bullshit.

I know roommate #1 has been under a lot of stress lately too, but I feel like I’ve been teetering on the edge of a nervous breakdown because she doesn’t really keep roommate #2 and I in the loop about these things. And idk, maybe there’s some stuff roommate #1 herself doesn’t know, but I just can’t live like this forever.

So it’s like, are you not moving in again after all? Do we need to switch the bills to be in either my or roommate #2’s name? Will her mom that lives a street away be willing to take two of her cats? There’s just a lot of unknowns and shit.

Especially with the cats. I wouldn’t have the heart to take them to the humane society, but I just can’t keep being the sole caretaker of 3 cats that aren’t mine.

I was mega stressing about it earlier, but my episode of anxiety is waning, which is nice. Because I was not about to drink three hugeass cans of beer in an emotional state like that.

Anyway, I figured if I vented about it here, instead of to the four cats in the house, I would feel better. And it kind of worked. So I’m going to go off and waste a couple hours until it’s dark, and I can start having fun. As much fun as it is to drink by yourself and light sparklers on your front stairs, but whatever.

I work at 10. Ugh.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be working a shift that ends at 3:30 rather than one that starts at 3:30, but I’ve still just got a “meh” feeling about it.

I know I need this job and I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I were to somehow lose it, but at the same time, it’s retail.

I was vastly unhappy in my previous job, and even though this one is loads better than that one, I’m still unhappy.

I’m right back in that rut where I wake up on days I work just dreading the entire thing. And I know lots of people have to work jobs they hate, and lots of people have it worse than me, but my mental health wasn’t all that great before, what’s it going to be like now?

I mean, this week I’ve gotten every other day off, but it’s just so weird. I both want more hours and want more days off, but I’m sure everyone is like that.

In all reality, I need to work as many days as I can get. I had to dip into my meager savings for my Halloween trip to get groceries, and then had to dip into it again when I ordered pizza online and realized I had no physical money to tip the delivery boy with other than 2 bucks in change.

My plan for that is to wait until Thursday, when my paycheck goes on my paycard, and then to go ahead and buy the bus ticket to CA.

I was hoping I’d still be able to get unemployment, at least a little bit, but the money was supposed to have gone on the card yesterday, but my balance is still at like 7 cents. I was kind of counting on that money to help pay my part of the rent this month. Speaking of which, I still haven’t gotten my tax return, and have gotten no notices as to it being seized because of unpaid debts, but I’ve given up on it.  I get paid again before the rent is due so I’ll just hope to god they scheduled me for a ton of hours in the coming couple weeks.

I know it is irresponsible of me to be (planning on) buying a 109 dollar greyhound bus ticket to freaking Santa Ana when I can barely afford rent and everything else, but to even be able to afford this Halloween trip, I have to buy the tickets early.

Right now, underneath either advance purchase, or web fare only, the tickets are less than half of what they would be if I waited until closer to October to buy them. I don’t want to wait until I have enough money for a round trip ticket.I’d rather make sure I have the bus ticket to get there, and then I can wait to save up for the return ticket. I might have to pay just a little more, but I can handle that.

I just feel like it’s better for me to get the ticket there paid for, rather than wait until I’ve got enough for the round trip ticket. I’d rather take my chances with the return ticket. On that note I feel like I should add that since I’m buying the greyhound ticket online, through advance purchase or web fare only, I have to print off the ticket. Since we don’t have a printer at home, that much I’ll have to do at the library.

Work switches to a new clock in system in 3 days, so I have to wait until then to put in my request for the time off. With all due respect to my new job, I’m going on this trip whether they approve the time off or not. The actual time I’ll be requesting off is October 28th-November 2nd. It’ll take about 2 days via greyhound for me to get to Santa Ana. If the bus back to Iowa doesn’t leave until later on November 1st, I’m just planning on calling in at work.

Honestly though, I’d be putting in for the time off 113 days early. At this job, you only have to put in for dates off 14 days in advance. I honestly feel like, if you put in for dates off 3 months in advance, there is no excuse not to have them approved.

Which reminds me. I haven’t told my parents about any of my plans for this trip because I know their reaction probably wouldn’t be good. For now, it’s fine that they don’t know, but my dad’s birthday is on November 1st. When it gets closer to the date and they start making plans, I’ll have a fun time trying to figure out how to explain to them that I won’t be around.

Honestly, the plan right now is to not tell them at all until I absolutely have to, until far closer to the actual date. I might consider telling them in a month or two when my major expenses for the trip are paid for.

I’ll need the bus ticket there and the bus ticket back home, obviously. Then, I’ll need amtrak tickets. The town the show is actually in is about 30 minutes away in a car, and my friend that I’m meeting there informed me that amtrak tickets would be way cheaper than calling a cab. Honestly though I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it, my first priority is the bus ticket there, and the bus ticket back, and I’ll not worry about amtrak tickets until both of those have been paid for.

Because honestly, other than the bus tickets there and back, all my other expenses can be saved up for pretty much until the 28th when I leave. For all the other stuff, I can just put away a little money every paycheck. And honestly, with the bus tickets out of the way, I won’t need that much money otherwise. I mean, I’m only going to actually be in CA for one full day.

I know for certain that I want to get a CA postcard for my bulletin board, and possibly a coffee mug for my dad.

If I think I can swing it, I would also like a coffee mug for myself, and also a tee shirt at the show. That’s literally it. I’m not planning on spending very much money there at all, other than the minimum charge for food/drinks at the bar the show is at.  That’s literally it.

Now, if I work enough hours between now and the 28th, there will obviously be more money for little things like sodas on the road.

Still, as much as I’m freaking out about how I really shouldn’t be doing this at all, it’s going to be one hell of an adventure. Not counting the band trip my sophomore year of high school, this will be the farthest I’ve ever gone on a bus. I’m going to bring a notebook for my trip journal and actually use it. I’ll want to minimize the liveblogging I do on my phone to conserve power. I do want to see if I can get one of those like remote charge things that you plug into your computer to charge up, and then you can use them to charge your phone when you can’t get to an outlet. But I’ll still want most of my journal to actually be in the notebook. I’ll also probably bring my legit digital camera, so I can take pictures of interesting things while still being able to keep my phone off.

Honestly, I’m having one of those high stress days where I really just don’t want to do anything, but it’s too important for me to work every single day I possibly can from now on.

Like I said, this job is way better than my previous one,but at this job, time drags on and on and on, even when you’re busy and have a huge line of customers.

At the same time that I hope it isn’t too crazy for technically being my first holiday working there, I hope that tons of people come in to keep me so busy I don’t have time to stand there and look at the clock every 2 minutes wondering how the fuck I’m ever going to get to leave.

Speaking of which, I work in half an hour, and even though I’ve got my makeup on and hair done, I should probably get all the way ready and just fucking leave