Halloween is Upon Us!

For your viewing pleasure, here is, “Me, as a Vampire Prom Queen.” Please enjoy.

Leaving Chicago

I am currently sitting in the Fox Sports Sky Box restaurant and bar at O’Hare airport.  My flight, which was supposed to leave thirty minutes ago has been delayed. It is currently expected to leave at 6:30.

This is the first snag I have had all weekend, though! I had a lovely weekend, and even managed to find a postage stamp-sized apartment in a lovely building, in an adorable neighborhood. The building was a mansion owned by the Roosevelt family. It was later converted into a Finishing School for girls and finally, into apartments. The Roosevelt connection makes it a landmark building, which means it is very well maintained.  It’s a small, but I think it will be perfect!  The biggest problem is the kitchen. It is the smallest kitchen I have ever seen! I will definitely have to do some work. There is a flat wall opposite the one counter, and I think if I add a second and maybe third row of shelves, I MIGHT be able to use the kitchen. There is also a small tiled kitchenette area where I took the picture from, and I think I can get a butcher block table to add counter space.

The rest of the apartment is more viable though. The bedroom is fairly large, there is a lot of closet space, and there are tons of windows (newly replaced, too!) The carpet is also new. Oh, and the bathroom is completely redone (a rarity amongst the places I looked at). Here are some more pictures. I am envisioning a red (wall or two and accents) and black (accents) theme. I found out I am allowed to paint the walls! I think it could be striking and funky. What do you think?

Bedroom

Living Room

Bathroom

One of two entrances

And in other news, I had my big interview today! Don’t want to talk about it JUST yet. Keep your fingers cross just a little while longer!

Stress Sucks

When I was younger, without fail, if I was extremely stressed about a project or test, one of two things would happen. My right eye would start twitching (it was imperceptible to everyone but me and it drove me crazy) or, I would get a cold as soon as the stressful event had concluded.

In the last 6 months, my body must have gotten tired of the same old, same old. I have, like all of the women on my mother’s side of the family (with the exclusion of only my mother) , started to get migraine headaches when I am stressed. They are just a blast. They run from my left temple, just behind my left eye, back through my head just over my left ear, down my neck and into my left shoulder blade. They make me irritable, and miserable.

I am currently sitting in my office with the lights off, and blinds closed, because it really does help. The only light I have is from my monitor (and I am considering turning down the brightness) and a bit of ambient light squeaking through the blinds. Problem is, the landscapers are also doing the lawn maintenance right outside the window. And that is not a pleasant sound. In fact, I sort of want to open the window and begin throttling office supplies at them to make them fear me and run away.

Oh, did I mention I took a prescription-grade Aleve about an hour ago? Yeah. That did diddly squat.

The one thing I know works without having to go to a doc for presciption migraine medicine is the Chiropractor. She and her massage therapist can work out the tension and I feel so much better. But I don’t have time to go today.

I am just going to sit here, completely still, in the dark for a while.

Because It Is Now Official

Because it is now official, I feel I can tell you, without jinxing too many things, I will be going to Chicago next week! I am being flown to Chicago by a company I have been interviewing with! I have had one phone interview and one in person interview, and they are now flying me to Chicago for an entire DAY of interviews! I should pass out as soon as my head hits the headrest on the plane ride home.

I am ridiculously excited because if all goes well, and they happen to make me an offer (no jinxing when you say HAPPEN to) and the offer HAPPENS to be halfway decent, I think this may be the perfect job.

Now because of the jinxing, I won’t be telling you the type of job, but I can say, it uses pretty much every skill I have virtually ever learned in life. It is a fabulous fit with my planning and commandant self.

Now everyone cross your fingers, toes, legs, and eyes!!

Just Do It

So temptation won out. I am doing it. I am moving, whether I have a job or not, the first or second week in November. My God, what have I done?? I woke up a few nights ago in a minor panic over how lonely it will be. Granted, I work with just my parents, so work interaction isn’t much even now, and I spend many nights of the week at home alone, but it dawned on me that even the little interaction I do have will be gone. At least temporarily. And at 3am, that’s a lot to swallow. Luckily–and this is proof that all of this is the right decision–I fell back asleep in about 10 minutes.

I am sort of in disbelief that I have decided to do this. It’s scary and exciting. Luckily, it’s far more exciting than scary. I am going to wind up blowing through my savings to make this happen, and virtually everything about my life will change. But the goal here, is that it will change for the better.

When I moved back to Dallas, I was still reeling from my father having had cancer (which took a solid year to hit me), and 9/11 maiming the city I was born in. A little over a year later, I broke up with my boyfriend on Valentine’s Day, and 4 months after that, I started this blog to cope with a life that wasn’t exactly as I had intended. It helped a lot. But recently, it dawned on me that that is why I started this blog. Because I wasn’t happy. Basically, I haven’t been happy since a few months after I moved back to Dallas. This city has almost brought me more bad than good. The only real shining spots were buying my house on my own at 25 and making a lot of friends. Some of whom are of the best kind. But mixed heavily with those good things were the bad. And there was a lot of bad.

It is time to do this. But, just when I start to feel the weight of it all shoving my feet into the ground, someone comes along out of the blue and tells me the are proud of me, or that they are in awe that I am doing this, or, and this is my favorite, “you have some really big balls” to do this. And quite honestly, he was right. I do have some big balls to think this will work. To sell a house in a down market, move without a job, and sell half of my furniture, just to try something new. Just to get a fresh start. And on top of that, to think it’s perfectly worth it to do everything I am doing.

I have no idea if this will work, and there is always the possibility that I will hate it, or that I won’t find a job, and I will be back here. But if I didn’t try this, I think I would regret it forever.

“Yes, Billy, your mommy once thought of moving to a new city and starting over all on her own, with nothing but some furniture and a couple of cats, but then she chickened out, Billy, and she stayed right here in the Big D and continued living a boring and uneventful life in a place she never really liked to begin with. But of course, it was all made worth while because I had you!” {soft gagging noises}

That will not be my life. That is for sure.*

So here is to new adventures, and in the paraphrased words of Ray Bradbury, jumping off a cliff and building my wings on the way down.

__________

*I do plan to have kids, but I won’t do it to the detriment of not having done some exciting and new things first.