Chaos Attraction

Vegas vs. Oregon: Deathmatch

2003-09-23, 5:34 p.m.

Well, the bathroom renovations started today and will be continuing through at least Saturday. A few more days than the four they originally told us, but apparently a few days have to be in there just for drying. Whee. Thank goodness I'm going away this weekend so I'll be able to shower again. And that they waited until the day after I went to the gyno (no repeat visit for another two years! go me!) to do it.

Today's results: the walls of the shower have been entirely ripped out. I had originally been told we'd get a new toilet the first day, but apparently this is not the case. The shower area looks very creepy. I somehow don't think I'll be taking a "tub bath" until this is over.

I'm also quite annoyed that the repair guy not only opened all of our screen doors, but LEFT THEM OPEN!(Fortunately, Heather put the cats in her room, or I'd be out chasing them down right now.) Hello, burglars and stuff like that, anyone? If you want to open them when you're in here, that's one thing, but just to leave them when no one is here? Grrr!


I saw a flier today for this study. Check the paycheck: $390. Okay, so uh, they say "up to $390", which most likely means that I won't actually get paid that total, sigh. But still, fat money, and they even want someone on hormonal birth control, and I'm the right age! Okay, so it involves 10 lab visits at 7 a.m. (grrr, argh), but for that paycheck I'll deal. Their flyer said "hormonal birth control" and then defined it as "Norplant or oral contraceptives," so I don't know if I count or not. I called and left a message, so we shall see.

Today has been rather rough riding.

After I went to bed last night, Dave was up talking to his ex Diana in Oregon. Who was apparently telling him how wonderfully cheap Oregon was, and how there were tons of jobs, and great health care for the uninsured, and how if we moved there, we could get a trailer on their land. So he gets all excited and writes me this big ol' e-mail to my work e-mail address saying "hey, what do you think about moving to Oregon?" Only it came out uh, a little more stressed than that intention, along the lines of "I want out of this state, it is too expensive for me to live here and it's killing me."

Imagine my reaction at 8 a.m., zonked off my gourd, walking into work and finding that oh, we're moving in with Diana! (Or at least that was kinda how I read it.)

I've been to Oregon. It's okay. Pretty, a bit too cool for my tastes in general (kinda like living in San Francisco), kinda dull except for my trips to Ashland. But I figured out years ago it wasn't exactly my kind of state. And living out in the boonies of Oregon, not near any towns? With someone who's bipolar and uh, therefore may very well be unpredictable?

I uh, am not too cool with this. And I knew that telling him that I wasn't so in favor of that wasn't going to go well. And it didn't.

I admit, I've been thinking about the possibility of moving for awhile now. In a few years, I'll probably be out of this job (if I don't get laid off earlier, I don't think there will be any more work for me to do on this project year-round by then), and likewise rent will probably be going up too high for me to handle in a few years. I'm incredibly glad I didn't move or else my rent would have been too bad already. And ever since I went to Vegas, I've been wondering about the possibility of moving there. It'd make GREAT writing material. Me, the little chaos magnet, in Surreal World? Hoo baby. I just wasn't sure if that would be financially manageable. The area sure seems to have jobs, the climate's (IMO) great, and there'd always be something interesting to do! I'm so tired of living in the suburbs with nothing to do other than "Shall we go to the movies, or go to the movies?" In Oregon, not only would it be movies, it'd be a long drive to the movies. And no DSL in the boonies.

So, uh, I was not speaking to him for awhile, and trying not to cry while at work. I hate fighting, but my reasons for not being hot for Oregon weren't exactly trumping his "GREAT MEDICAL COVERAGE! CHEAP!" cries.

Eventually, we did talk it out. He was leaning towards Oregon because he has relatives all over the state (we can uh, skip living with Diana) and "they can help us out and we can live with them until we're on our feet." I am not so comfortable about depending on others for where I live, and I really don't want to move somewhere without at least one of us having a job. And frankly, the reason why these places are so cheap is because nobody wants to live there and there's nothing to do, eh? If I have to move out of my beloved home state, I want the location to be an improvement.

I countered with Vegas. Which he was surprisingly for, even with the heat issue. Or perhaps Arizona (my leaning) or Washington (his).

So we asked Gillian, a former longtime resident of Vegas, about things, and things sound pretty good. If it's a land where a cocktail waitress can afford to buy her own house, then by god, that's good enough for us. Course, this is assuming we ever end up with moving money and get me to driving so I can live in any other town but this one, and all my savings money is going to go towards paying off the computer, so...

Who knows.


previous entry - next entry
archives - current entry
hosted by DiaryLand.com