Go Squirt It On Your Macaroni, 2007

Happy Effing New Year.  It’s only January 3rd, and already I think I might be tired of 2007.  It started off Monday evening with a ferocious bought of anxiety, brought on by the fact that my 12 day vacation of happiness and freedom would be over in a mere 14 hours.  I was going to have to go back to work.  And people, it’s not like I’m a coal miner, or Paris Hilton’s personal assistant, or a Barnes & Noble bookseller or anything.  My job?  It’s not so very bad.  Not so very good, but not so very bad.   

I got to work on Tuesday, the 2nd day of poopiness, and of course everything was pretty much fine.  I only wanted to gouge my eyes out about four times, and that is pretty much par for the course.  Today is much the same.

But I feel depressed. Or something.  And it’s bleeding into all areas of my life.  I’m worried about money.  I’m feeling painfully single.  (I hate to even mention this, because sweet jesus, do I really have to be that girl, the one who complains about being single?  Because it’s just so original.  But there it is people.  I feel single at the moment, painfully so.) So where was I? I’m feeling poor, and alone, and…wait, maybe that’s it.  I feel poor and alone.  Somebody call the newspapers!  Twenty-six Year Old Graduate of Liberal Arts Shcool Has Neither Money Nor Boyfriend! 

I’m pretty sure this feeling will go away.  It usually does.  But right now, not even my old standby pick-me-up is working.  Usually I can be consoled or at least distracted by the mere thought of Africa, and how in a little while I will LIVE THERE.  The last three days though, my reaction has been something along the lines of ‘Africa-Schmafrica.  They better have beer there’.  You can just imagine the positive effect I’m going to have on the AIDS crisis.  Don’t be surprised if the rename the Nobel after me.  

So anyway, I’ve been trying to make lists of things I need to budget for, to make me feel better about my relative poorness, and pretty much just ignoring the other problem because as everyone in a relationship will gladly tell you, the second you stop looking?  That’s when you’ll find the love of your life!  Isn’t that convenient?  I’ll just stop looking!  Done and done.

As for the budget, the top three items causing worry are as follows:

1. Cutting off my cats balls.  (The word neuter is just so technical I can’t be bothered.)  I won’t be doing this myself, of course, unless items number two and three on the budget end up being more expensive than I’d planned.   
2. Buying a new battery for my car.  Because January?  The month after Christmas?  That’s exactly when you want to spend extra money on a 96 Ford Taurus you only sort of like. 
3. Getting a crown.  The kind that goes inside your mouth.  I’m shivering with anticipation. 

 Aside from the above woes, I think that I have to admit I’m suffering form the residual effects of yet another spectacular decision made while drinking. (Hello Peace Corps!) On New Year’s Eve I hit on a 41 year old lawyer out of sheer drunken spite.  (Just so you know–he didn’t look 41.  I don’t usually go after men who look much older than me.  Unless they also look very rich.)  Now, even though I have basically no interest in actually seeing this person again, I feel offended by the fact that he hasn’t called.  Apparently calling someone an asshole to their face for choosing not to dance and then asking in an interrogating manner why they’ve never been married isn’t quite as charming as one would think.  At the time it seemed like exactly the right thing to say.  But then, I felt the same way when I wished that one guy good luck with his shrinkage.  I had just sold him a 100% cotton shirt, but still.  What the hell is wrong with me?  Some lessons just have to be learned through experience, I guess.  So, to any 41 one year old lawyers out there who may have been accosted by a well meaning but seemingly rude girl in really cute earrings this weekend, I apologize.  And I wish you good luck with your shrinkage. 

As for you, 2007, until I start to feel a respite from this incessant worry, I’m afraid I can’t offer you the same.  I’ll give you another week or so to figure your shit out, but if I still feel like this after the weekend, I’m going to have to skip you altogether, and refer to you from now on as 1999.  That was a year that knew how to treat a lady.