RhymePhile's Rat Race

Wanna know how I learned that New York requires you to put a registration sticker on your windshield (which Jersey does not) the hard way? That would be the two tickets I got, totaling $203 EFFIN DOLLARS. My GF warned me, but I didn't know there was a sticker in all the DMV paperwork. GAH.

I haven't been using my car because it's damn hard to find parking around here, and the spot I'm in currently is off the street and I don't have to move it every Tuesday and Friday for bullshit street cleaning. Thus, the ticket I got in the beginning of October went unheeded, and the ticket I got Friday would have been ignored too if my beautiful, wonderful super Juan didn't call me and tell me.

Also? My car is DEAD, so I can't actually move it. The battery has given up the ghost. This morning I took it out of the car, and my GF and I will take it over to Sears to replace it. THEN I need to get it inspected for New York, since my Jersey inspection is up this month.

ANXIETY! My GF drives me around everywhere because she has a garage spot and it's easier. I miss my car and the freedom it brings, but it's just sitting there and will die/get vandalized if I don't do something.

I'll probably have to sell it, which makes me want to cry a little. At least I can get it inspected and then drive it down to my parents' house. It's a 2002 Honda Civic with custom rims, tinting, a full mask and auto start, and it only has 34,000 miles on it. It is called Spike's Coat Car and I love him, but I don't drive him.

I would feel helpless without a car to some extent, but if I needed to go the 70 miles back home I have train and bus options. Still. MY CAR, WOE.

Y'know, I have been reading the Gawker family of sites for some time now...years, actually. I started with Defamer, because the writing on there was beyond superb. Then they buggered things up and I migrated over to Lifehacker, which I love. I sampled the other Gawker blogs, and have enjoyed Consumerist, Jezebel, Kotaku, io9, and Gizmodo.

So of course I was busy doing shit yesterday and pop on today only to discover that they buggered things up yet again. I think they have changed things around like 5 different times in about a year, from the way the articles are listed to the commenting. It's SO ANNOYING that it makes me not want to read there anymore.

The notable exception is Consumerist, which was sold during the Economic Crash of '08 to Consumer Reports. It's not listed in the Gawker family anymore, but they are the only one that still use the old posting and commenting system, and it's so much easier to use.

I'm pissed because I got a lot of news and celebrity crap from Gawker. I miss the old Defamer, and they have been hiring such shitty writers on Gawker lately that it's painful to read posts.

I need new blogs to read!

That's my brain, trying to come up with a beginning for my Dean/Cas AU story I signed up for. As it's an AU, I want something that will draw people in and not pass it by, because OMG IT'S A WESTERN and like, ewwwwwww, Westerns!

Specifically, Dean is a Texas Ranger in Fort Griffin Flat, Texas (a real place), in 1874. I have been doing MAD research for like almost two weeks, and now that's done I HAVE YET TO WRITE A SINGLE WORD, WOE. I have more fun researching than writing, I think.

I even ordered a book ("Strapped for Cash: A History of American Hustler Culture") for this story. What is wrong with me? The requester wanted to see Dean as a cowboy and Cas as a prostitute, and then my mind went all Lonesome Dove-y and dusty and gunfightery and Colt pistols and Winchester lever-action repeating carbines and the Plains and Native warriors and cowboy hats and horses and my love of the Wild West kicked in and now I have -- *looks* -- 27 Firefox bookmarks for sites related to this story which is due November 2. All this and I'm sure the requester just wanted some dirty sex which I don't want to write and thus won't.

Also? Who in the hell is going to want to read a Western AU? I have a feeling it's going to be passed over and all this research will be for nothing. *sigh*

Sorry for the venting! If I could get an idea for the first sentence everything else should fall into place, and maybe I might be able to think up a goddamned plot.

This weekend my girlfriend and I made the 2-hour trip into Center City Philadelphia to see the Star Trek exhibit at the Franklin Institute. I was planning to take my car and finally switched the NJ plates to the NY ones, but apparently I have left Spike's Coat Car alone too long and he wouldn't start. Spike is dead! Cue much cursing. Now I need to find a portable battery jumper, since I'm parked head-on in the space and there is NO WHERE to park in order to fix him. I might have to seriously think about giving my baby up.

Anyway, the exhibit was smaller than I had envisioned, although still cool. I took like 4 sneaky photos because photographs weren't allowed, and WTF, I paid over $23 to get in to the damn museum and I can't even take photos? Bullshit. I admit I was expecting more, and when we got to the final room/area I was like, "This is it?"

Then we stood on line for over 20 minutes waiting for our photos of us on the Enterprise bridge because two stupid foreign tourists spent forever picking out their damn shots and laughing at each other in annoying foreign-ese or wherever the fuck they were from. Ugh. When we got the photos taken, there were a bunch of be-costumed nerds hanging around, and we told them to beat it so they wouldn't ruin the photo. One lady was in an unfortunate cut-off top that she should *not* have been wearing. Good Lord.

My GF sat in Picard's chair and I stood in Mr. Worf's security station and no you're not going to see the photo because hello, stereotypical sci-fi fan here, which = fat, duh. I couldn't get over the teeny tiny uniforms that were on display, both in width and height. I was taller than everyone (based on seeing the uniforms), including almost all of the actors in the new film! Ha, short Hollywood. Leonard Nimoy was the only actor who had some height on him.

I didn't watch the Emmys last night because I was cooking dinner and then we had to watch Ghost Hunters and Destination Truth from last Wednesday. I watched a few Emmy clips on YouTube and that was enough. Despite my TV-related job, I don't really care.

Back to the long, boring work week. *huge sigh*

Ugh, so this lovely long weekend is over, and I'm chained back up at work. You think I feel like focusing at all today? That would be a resounding no. I can barely concentrate at all after getting to sleep late for three says in a row. Heaven, but it throws my body out of whack.

On Saturday I visited the New York Botanical Garden along with my girlfriend, my wide-brimmed cowboy hat, and the SPF 85 sunscreen, and took lots of photos. Of course I couldn't be arsed to upload them yet, but I will. The rose garden was beautiful.

I love the LJ friends filter. When I need a break I throw on a filter. I wish I could do that with real life.

Man, I need a vacation. My years go from April to April because of when I was hired, and this past April I spent my 10 measly days on moving. Since I saved them, that means I didn't take any days the whole work year from 2008 into the beginning of 2009. I feel grumpy and surly, especially when my boss has taken *two* trips this year already (one of them a 2-week excursion to effin' Paris), and everyone else has been jetting off here and there. Bitches. I'm also the only one in this entire department that only gets 2 weeks vacation. Everyone else gets 3 or more.

I also wish I had money to actually take a vacation, but there you go.

Shit, I'm cranky.

(LOL, Dean's face in my mood icon is so apropos!)

I don't feel like working today. The boss is on vacation, I have all the shit he dropped in my lap to take care of, but I don't feel like it. This day is turning into a complete wash.

Mom's birthday turned out really lovely. Everyone had a great time. I tried to get photos of my 21-month-old nephew, but the kid barely keeps still. He's entered the Terrible Twos a bit early -- he's reached the point where if he gets frustrated or impatient, he SCREAMS at the top of his lungs. ZOMG my ears. I'm looking forward to the quiet of my apartment.

In other mom-related news, how is it that they always find ways of making you feel completely horrible about yourself, your life, and the direction you chose with just a few words? My mother loves me to death, but I know she will always be disappointed I didn't follow my brother's path: marriage, home, children. This, despite being the only person in the family to get a college degree, never borrow money from anyone, own my own car, rent my own apartment, and basically do everything for myself, ALWAYS. Fuck, I can even change my own oil.

It makes me feel like shit. She also has the annoying habit of ignoring the fact that I have been in a committed relationship for 2 and a half years because, yes, it's to a woman. To her, the most important person in my life doesn't exist. She constantly reminds me of the story of one of her friends, whose daughter "never met anyone, and then suddenly when she was 41, she met a guy and got married and had a baby!" *sigh*

But mom is of the generation where (and she tells me this all the time STILL) "guys want to have a woman on their arm they can show off." She also feels bad that I "don't have any friends to talk to." Yes, well. I have a hard time of that. I'm insecure and self-conscious and have been in many a situation in my youth when people have been cruel, and frankly, I don't want to deal with it anymore now that I'm an adult. Fuck all that social anxiety of trying to measure up to the skinnier, prettier, better-dressed people. I can't do it anymore. I don't give a shit.

In summation, the ride back in the car from my brother's house was mostly filled with awkward silence and me trying not to cry. I've tried to explain in the past why I'm perfectly content having a girlfriend, but now I just go silent and let mom wish I were someone else.

If you live in New York and work in Manhattan, you are at the mercy of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, or MTA, to get where you need to go. Of course, you could always drive (if you could afford to park your car) and deal with traffic day in and day out.

The subway is a mostly dirty, smelly, crowded way to start anyone's morning. Right now the fare is $2, and come May 31st, the MTA has decided to increase the fare to $2.50. That's $100 a month just for the subway. A subway that's dirty, smelly, and crowded. I swear to God, the 1, 2, and 3 downtown platform at Times Square smells like piss Every. Single. Morning. I hold my nose and breathe through my mouth waiting for the train.

And I also found out this morning that the Metro-North railroad fares are going up...by almost $50 fucking dollars. I paid $165.62 this month. In June it's going to be $211.68!!!

So add up rent and travel, that's a little more than half of my monthly take-home paycheck. I'm not even kidding. GAH. And that's before I pay bills.

At least I have a job, and I'm thankful to Whoever Is Looking Down On Me. I don't have to dig ditches, or be in the hot sun all day, or work on a line (I could never, ever do that type of job). But sometimes when I think about where I am in life, after a college education and everything, and wonder if this is how it will always be. I have to be mindful of everything and it grinds on you.

Now I also have to deal with getting that goddamn air conditioner for the summer. *sigh*

I have off tomorrow. I need to set up my home computer!