The Not Happy Thread

Yesterday it was snowing and raining at the same time here, for many hours, and at times the sun was also shining. It's been ridiculously cold for 3 days now, after a good month of nice warm weather.

 

Tuesday, it was cloudy and snowed and rained all day. it sucked, because Tuesdays is my running group and they texted everyone with "Only thing we stop for is lightning and tornadoes!"
so I ran in the snow lol.
yesterday was super sunny and the snow that came down looked like the fluffy stuff that you blow off dandelions. i didnt know it was snow until it landed in my palm!

this weather is weird.

 

We've been getting that for a year or so around here. Gigantic clumps of snowlike substance, it doesn't seem to be actual snowflakes. Some of them are as big as quarters, or very nearly! I call it Megasnow. I might have a pic I extracted from a video somewhere, let me check...

Nope, not on this computer. The big Mac died and I can't connect to my external drives with this ancient little Dell, so never mind.

 

Better find an appropriate coffin and bury it then.

 

First day in quite a while where I had plenty of time to write but just got stuck. Not a single word (except some notes on previously-written stuff). Funny enough the scene I'm stuck on is a character needing to come up with a good story but having no idea where to start. Maybe a case of being too close to the subject material?

 

I've spent 48 hours fixing an error in the financial records of our business, which I did NOT create, on behalf of someone else, who DID create the error and is now asking for 'progress updates' and generally being a pain in the ass by giving me 'other quick jobs to do'... I am nowhere near fixing this thing, I'm still working past 11pm, I've spent hours on it already and I'm no closer to finishing, and they get to flounce around all day like they didn't create this mess in the first place. FFS.

I could literally just kill myself and leave them to it. It's strangely tempting. I'm seriously considering it.

 

I'm not even joking, I'm literally so angry I could die. Can you just rage-quit life or what?

 

Or you could just not do it and spend the time eating ice cream or something. The wisest of prophets taught us that cake is better than death.

 

BRB, going to cry into my cake.

The number on this sheet is supposed to be going down, down, down, but whenever I make the slightest change or correction, the damn thing goes up, up up.

 

Wow. Like the Illiad, only with pottery.

 

for real?

 

Have to see what's happening in Oz, that's where most of our beef comes from.

 

Doesn't Japan have a bunch of beef of its own?

 

The really expensive, $40/lb stuff. If you want a steak for a Tuesday though, it's coming from overseas.

 

Imposter Syndrome suck

 

We only eat game ourselves but we raise cattle. Tomorrow is branding day. Expensive beef would be good for us since we might have to sell due to loss of most of our grazing allotment sublease. It's all thanks to these damned rich famous people coming in and paying ridiculous prices for land because they want to talk about The Ranch in Wyoming.

 

you're great at what you do

 

Have spent the last 7 years, since high school, training my singing voice and last night, I managed to seriously improve (yet again). I've worked so hard to get to this point (I've practised mostly in secret, kept it quiet and respectful when people are working, I practise in short bursts so people don't get annoyed, etc,) and I'm good: I've been in bands, musicals, and I'm now a lead singer and still trying to improve because my standards are painfully high and I don't know why I do this to myself. Anyway. Was singing today, nailed it, and later my dad goes 'have you ever thought about singing professionally?'.

Now I thought, shit. He's been critical in the past, sure. But it was always to push me further, right? So I thought, damn. Here's where he tells me to go for it and that I've got a real talent or some shit. A real Movie Moment, you know? I was so pumped. Finally we had something to connect over.

But instead, Biggest Letdown Ever, he tells me to go sing someplace else because it's disturbing him. He doesn't even work. He's unemployed and spends all day watching Youtube. This is the guy who was having a go at me for 'not committing enough' (which I fUcKiNg was, he just wasn't around to see it). I'm really really trying to push multiple disciplines/areas of art forward, by myself, and this guy.... My other family, it's never been an issue with them - or our neighbours. He simultaneously wants me to work 48 hours a day on this stuff AND never work on it AND be so good that I surpass all of his, ironically, stratospherically high expectations - without needing to practise. WTF, dude.

Oh, and guess who is now singing loudly and badly in the bathroom?!! He fucking is!!

 

I phoned a provider last week to finally get hooked up to the www at my new place:

Me: Your website says afternoon appointments are 2 - 6. I don’t get home from work till five so can the engineer call after then?

Them: Yes, no problem. I’ll put a note on the booking for the engineers.

Engineer (today) calls me on my mobile at 08:15: Hi, just letting you know I’ll be with you within half an hour

Me: What? I don’t get home till five. There should be a note telling you this!

Engineer: Nah, mate. I finish at ten past four. You’ll have to reschedule.

 

So often when I'm doing mass grading (100+ essays with the identical topic and roughly similar skill level of student) I'll identify some repeating problems early on, create a text document off to the side, and type in some common corrections. That way instead of having to type the same phrases over and over into my critique I can copy/paste them. It sounds callous, but the same amount of critical analysis goes into making the decision to comment, I'm just saving myself time on the typing (and at 5-10 minutes per 200 word essay, that adds up).

This year's freshman self-intro paragraphs' winning phrases were:

And before you come at me, remember, 1st year university English Composition. Yes, there are more options, but we aren't going for gourmet here, we're looking to follow the directions on a Cup Noodle.

 

Spellcheck aside, this is literally all stuff I try to beat out of the kids I train to write marketing copy. They think they've finally learned how to write well and I'm like 'lol no this isn't an essay'. We should swap students.

 

In addition to state and federal income tax, I have a city income tax to pay based on where I live. My employer, for some reason, is only allowed to withhold for the city where I work- where the tax rate is about one half percent less. As a result, I will always end up owing on my city taxes; this year to tune of $400. On top of that, because I hadn’t paid 90% of my tax liability by January 31, I also get hit with a $100 penalty/fine.
I can have extra withheld to cover things like child support, alimony, garnishments, retirement contributions etc, but not to cover taxes. How stupid is that?