If, for any reason during this you stopped reading, post a comment telling me so. At least I’ll know that you didn’t care enough to give me a chance and I can dismiss how you feel about me outright.
Now, I don’t know how pissed off you are. You could be so angry and upset that you only care to hear what you want to hear or read what you want to read about me. And that’s fine if you don’t care to read what I have to say. I mean, you mentioning the email thing means that you’ve been pretty much speaking to Jody about this, so all I can say is that a majority of your points are based on insufficient informaion. Personally, I feel as though you’ve judged me, which is kind of unfair since you never asked me for an explanation before doing so; you never once gave me the benefit of the doubt and all I have to say is that I would have never done that to you if our positions were reversed. And when you cut and paste this to Jody, because I know you will, I always tried my best to understand hiim, as well, even when he did stuff that made his own family wonder what the fuck was going on with him. The reason is because I never considered any one of you my friends. You are like family to me, and you always will be. Todd and I have been through so much together, and I’ve tried my best to be there for him in the past as he’s been there for me. I don’t catalogue all the shit we’ve done for each other like we’re keeping tabs of who owes who because it never mattered to me much and according to Todd, it didn’t matter much to him, either.
I fell in love and I’m getting married. My moving out was an inevitability and Todd knew this the moment I told him the day that I knew. Todd had many opportunities to voice his displeasure and I even asked him pointedly over it. He said he was happy for me, and we did talk about the liviing situation. As far as the rent goes, Todd’s actually been paying for it since May of this year, months before I moved out. The reasons for that are none of your business and are between Todd and I and no one else. All I can say is that it sucked to live there knowing I couldn’t afford it. I know, at the time, Todd told me he owed me for the time when he was unemployed for five months anyway, but I never held that against him because I offered to cover the rent without being asked, and I even encouraged him to get the fuck out of Software Etc at Oakridge because he was coming home all stressed out and pissed all the time and not sleeping well, and I was geniunely worried about his health and that mattered more to me than whether he could pay the rent or not.
In April of this year, while we were at SakuraCon, I got kind of a shock and I ended up borrowing money from Mel, Todd, and my mother to get us home. I ran into a problem with my taxes and they began attaching my wages directly. It was so bad that we nearly didn’t have enough even to pay the hotel bill, which Shon then partially reimbursed me for but I was in the red with my bank so that’s where the money went. They were taking so much out of my paycheck that I wasn’t going to be able to make rent for May and I talked to Todd about it. I’m not trying to offer excuses, I’m just telling you what happened. I know the tax issue was my fault for ignoring it, and I knew then that I was putting Todd at a disadvantage by having him pay for a majority of the rent instead of vice versa. He was trying to save for his own place and I fucked that up for him, and I know it and I’ll own up to it. So, every day that I was living there, I felt like I really had no right to under those circumstances. He told me that he owed me, and I was never ever going to collect any kind of payment, no matter how much he brought it up. But, you know what? He reassured me as much as he could that I shouldn’t feel that way, and I offered to move out then and go live with my mom and my grandmother until I could get back on my feet. He told me no. So I stayed, but I still felt like an asshole.
So I met Julia in June, and we started hanging out, and then the next month we got engaged. I was still working for Wal-Mart, and you know it was up there near San Francisco. Jon, my boss, was working me double-shifts a majority of the time because I was still the floating analyst, and there were times when I was too tired to drive and I’d end up sleeping in the parking lot so I wouldn’t crash my car on the way home. Julia was kind enough to let me sleep at her place while she was at work during the day, and I accepted… because a bed is much nicer than a car seat for sleeping. Anyway, because I could get to work in 10 minutes from her place than 45 minutes from mine, it made sense to just stay there while I was working and then go home during my days off, which I did for a while. Eventually, because were were having fun and our days off often landed on the same day, I would just stay there the whole week (especially since I was on-call and Jon kept calling me in on the days I was supposed to have off, which would piss Julia off when we had plans). I was working a good 50-60 hours a week, and there was one week in there where I hit 80. Oh, and I didn’t get any overtime pay for it. At that time, I was limiting my visits back to the apartment to weekends and of course, eventually that stopped all together shortly after. It wasn’t a decision made right then, and there… it was a series of events that led to the current status quo. I did quit my job in October, but that was because I had (at the time) what I thought was a sure job to jump to, and then they strung me along and dropped me. Ever since, I’ve been sending applications by the half-dozen every week and going on any interviews that get thrown my way. Yeah, the email thing put a kink in my plans because all the resumes I had out there had my other email on it, so that meant if they tried to get a hold of me I was sunk. I know how recruiters work: they try the one time and if they can’t find you, they move on. So I changed my email to my gmail one, but that was only going to affect the people I hadn’t spoken to, yet, not the ones I was speaking to currently. So I know the interviews I went on were pretty much history at that point because I couldn’t afford my cell phone anymore.
I know Jody’s pissed off at me, he’s never told me that. He never confronts me about anything anyway, and tends to keep it all inside and then sits there playing EQ with contempt when I walk in the room, but neither you nor him were ever subject to being judged by me. And when I am pissed at him or you, beleive me when I say I’ll tell you straight up and geti it out in the open. I don’t fake hug someone, or show them my new artwork (both of which you did last time I saw you). I tell them that I’m upset and I have a conversation about it. If you weren’t manipulated, then you were being a hypocrite and I don’t suffer hypocrisy. If you don’t like me or you’re pissed with me, you look me in the eyes and you tell me.
For the record, I’m not upset or pissed with either of you. I just hoped that you guys would hear me out before deciding to condemn me. I guess I was wrong about thinking you guys care.
2 comments
truth be told i haven’t really talked to Jody much about it. the only thing was the email. and really, considering you made this post just for me, i wasn’t planning to show it to anyone. =/ i guess the thing that made me so angry was how Todd was saving up for his own place and trying to pay off all of his past debt, but yeah…and in your more recent journals i don’t recall you mentioning looking for jobs, it’s just about writing, so i was under the impression that’s all you were doing. it also seemed you didn’t really care about the home situation or leaving. i do care, and that’s why i got so upset. and i figured it had been established several years ago that Jody doesn’t care for more than a few people anyway… i was so upset with the information(or lack of) that i had been given i didn’t know how to approach you about it. i was finally able to get my thoughts straightened out enough to post that comment, and it came off a bit more attacking than i would have liked. now that i was able to get it out, i feel better, and i’m glad we are able to (somewhat) talk it out. i’m a little disappointed that you think someone has manipulated me. the only people who are capable of something like that are Dad and Matt with their guilt-tripping about me not visiting enough. and in the ways of Forrest Gump, that’s all i have to say about that.
Well, I think you and I can both agree that coming to a conclusion without considering all the facts is a poor decision to make in the first place. And speaking as a fellow writer, I never write about a subject I don’t properly research, and neither should you.
As for how to approach me? C’mon, Teri… since when have you ever been shy about contacting me on AIM? Even if I have an away message up, you know if I’m there I’ll talk to you. Mostly because I do worry about how you’re doing and I figure if you’re looking for me, it’s important.
I don’t like posting about my job situation because I think that bragging about it jinx’s me on getting the job. And I am sort of in competition right now for the National Novel Writing Month, so yeah, I’ve been a little preoccupied, but I’ve been applying to as many jobs as I can every week. On a related topic, I’ve also applied to the City of San Francisco’s emergency operations center (911 dispatcher)… and it doesn’t pay great, but there’s room for advancement in a city job, which is more than I can say for any other tech job I could get… but at least it’s work.
I’m not trying to abandon people, but all I was asking for was a little bit of empathy from you before you decided I was a jerk. If after all this you still think so, then I can respect that; at least you gave me the opportunity to state my case.