bad metaphor

Because it just seems so much more overwhelming to write a full length entry:*

1. I’ve signed up to take the LSAT. This will be happening June 8th. Trying to study for it when I can – those logic puzzles are a doozy, but actually kind of fun to solve, in a perverse sort of way. I anticipate eating these words later.

2. My roommate Andy bought a house in North Lawrence, which is quickly becoming the Williamsburg of Lawrence – where hipsters and townies have fled, since townies-in-training are taking over East Lawrence. We go with the flow.

3. He closes on June 10th, which – from what we’ve been told – is record speed for a house closing, within three weeks of the original offer. Still – this is problematic because of the next item on the list…

4. …which is that Eli and I leave for a three-week Japan / Korea / Vietnam tripstravaganza on June 11th, in the wee hours of the morning, to catch our 6 a.m. flight!

5. We bought these tickets right before the swine flu outbreak. Americans, though easily excitable and prone to absorbing media frenzy, have the attention spans of fleas and are busy obsessing over Jon & Kate (seriously who cares?!) instead of swine flu these days. Our contact in Japan, however, has notified us that the panic has just started catching fire over there, and that we definitely cannot visit her school (she’s teaching there). We might need to wear masks when we’re out and about in her town. Good thing I’ve made a bunch!

6. We’ll be gone when the end of the fiscal year happens here at work. For those of you who have never had to deal with budget bureaucracies – this is when we have to make sure to use or encumber the funds we have been allocated, because the insane rule is this: use it or lose it. Because if you don’t use all your funds, clearly you don’t need this much, so you don’t need to have this amount allocated in future years, right? This year, it’s a bit different because of the economic crisis and the fact that we are looking at 2, 4, 5% cuts – and darker rumors I’m hearing bump that figure up to 9 or even 10%. So we definitely need to spend our money wisely now and anticipate major purchases that are needed, as opposed to just stock up on a ton of office supplies to use up the funds.

7. Unfortunately, the things that we really need require copious hoop-jumping to get. For instance: if your current copier happens to suck royally, and you have the funds to pay for a replacement – it’s not as simple as just purchasing the new one. You have to submit records of service calls, have someone to come out and assess the condition of the copier, and if it’s not broken, per se – then you’re stuck with it.

8. Though I have vastly improved my budgeting and accounting abilities since when I first started here, I still have this constant nagging fear: I’m going to screw up something, not be able to fix it because I’ll be trapped in some hellish Japanese swine-flu quarantine, I’ll put my department thousands of dollars in the hole for an unapproved or unencumbered purchase, and get fired.

9. Unbelievably stupid Facebook-related quasi-drama: I got ridiculously upset when E didn’t tell me about this birthday party that he was planning on going to this weekend. This girl Vicky is more his friend, but we’re both friends with her on Facebook. I saw him posting on Vicky’s wall (social networking sites make it so easy to snoop, but it was inadvertent, I swear!) about it, but he didn’t mention anything to me about it so I just assumed it was a “their circle of friends” type thing. Then another girl sent me a message, about some unrelated thing, and at the end mentioned: “see you at Vicky’s?” I haven’t a clue what is going on at Vicky’s, when, or where. I asked E about it, and got a super vague response: “I’m not sure, I think it’s Friday through Sunday? I think they’ll presume you’re coming along too.”

Presume? What?! No, that’s not actually an invitation. I didn’t get an invite to the event on Facebook, which is private, and Vicky didn’t message me. It might be the case that she just figured E would fill me in, but…he hasn’t. So maybe she just exclusively wanted their circle of friends to be there and no outsiders, which is fine – but I want to know! I feel overwhelmed already, I can’t just block out Friday through Sunday for a mystery event of some sort, to which I may or may not be welcome! I keep grilling E about details but he’s still vague, and I don’t know if it’s because he doesn’t want me tagging along.

10. I am not the type of person who is okay with crashing events, uninvited. Some people are social butterflies and can pull shit like that off, but I can’t and I do not want a repeat of this awkward situation. AAARRRRGH. I’m not sure if I’m right to be as upset about this as I am. Maybe it’s mainly due to numbers 1 through 8 weighing on my mind. Or…am I mentally regressing, and am now thirteen years old again? I hated being thirteen! I don’t wanna go back to that time in my life, especially not now! Bah! That means I’d have to unearth all my old Nirvana cds and baggy T-shirts with “edgy” sayings and mope, at home, alone.

*NOTE: god, this did turn out to be a big long mental vomit post. Whoops.