After six days of Dave playing Fallout and/or Fallout 2 constantly (you would not believe how obsessed he is with this game, or how delighted he is to find King Arthur, knights and bridgekeeper from Monty Python and the Holy Grail lurking around in Fallout 2), I finally got him off of the computer so I could check my e-mail. I don't like to check it when I have people over usually. I end up reading it for two hours and they're bored as hell.

This was pretty much the case this time, except he came over and read it along with me. I wasn't expecting that, since he'd managed to injure himself (er, no comment there...) and I'd thought he was going to spend some time lying around in bed moaning in an unpleasant manner. Most of the e-mail was off of the Harry Dresden mailing list (a book series about a beleagured wizard, which I recommend highly), and I'd gotten him hooked on said series too, so he wanted to read along. I did feel weird though when all my various notify lists for people's journals came in, and I had to explain to him "Um, those are journals of the chat people." I think he started wondering when the first one that came up in e-mail was for JayElias, which had "My Love" mentioned in the subject line for some reason (I think it was his 9/11 entry). "Who's Jay?" "Uh, a chat person. Think he lives in New York or something, I dunno."

I do think that whenever the hell we end up living in the same town, I am either going to have to come out about the journal and EXPECT him to want to read it all the time, or I'm going to have to ditch it and go to an e-mail only list or something if I want it to remain my own private space. I didn't know he'd be that interested in my e-mail. Heck, I'm not even that interested in it most of the time.

*sigh* Yes, I knew this was going to happen sooner or later. However, it does look like it's going to be later. So much for us having the idea that he could get a job here, then a place, etc. I feel really evil for saying it again, but dammit, his parents should NOT have gotten him a dog at the age of 17! You just can't have a large, high-maintenance pet during the rental years!

(Note: I know I'm going to sound like the biggest whiniest animal-hating bitch in the world here. I'm not really, and I do like the dog, she's sweet, but right now her very existence is becoming a big problem. I have specifically tried to avoid the renting-with-pets issue my entire time here, and am feeling really frustrated that now I have to deal with it, in about the most awkward manner possible, and can't think of a way to solve it.)

Yes, him having a dog is screwing the idea of him moving once again. He hasn't ever been able to live in a different town from his parents because of the damn dog, when he's lived apart from them he didn't have a place he could take her to and had to go over there every day to take care of the dog, he's spent six months living with grandma because he can't find a (not shithole) place that takes dogs... and now, guess what, he's not going to be able to move here at all until he can first afford and find a place that takes dogs.

Despite him only being gone for four days last week and then seeing her, as of yesterday the dog started pining for him. She won't eat, she mopes around the house, and when he talked to her on the phone she took off running for the door expecting to see him come in. Which she hasn't done before (okay, she's gone without eating before, but the pining is another story) and certainly wasn't expected. "She hasn't been apart from me for that long before," he said sadly. Goldens are apparently very needy and attach-y.

So now in addition to all the other complications going on with this, he's not going to even be able to leave his house for more than a few days without the doggy pining for him! How the heck would she manage if he ever even went on vacation (or dare I say it, a honeymoon) for a week without her? So much for job hunting here.

It's already a bitch to find a dog-taking place in this town when you're looking for an apartment for an entire year. How he's going to find someone looking for a roommate for not a full year, who has cheap enough rent, who can also take a dog... I HIGHLY doubt this would happen for him. Maybe if he gets a car and moves to Sacramento, but other than that... If he has to take her with him instead of giving her up to his parents ("she won't obey anyone else but me unless I tell her to"), given the unlikelihood of him finding a place around here

that's cheap enough and large-dog-friendly with a big yard, it's not likely to happen, is it?

He's going back home Friday, frustrated as hell that he's even more stuck there than he thought he was before, and will have to stay there a lot more than he was intending to just to keep the dog happy. I think he's pretty much stuck having to get a permanent job in his town again, and god only knows when he'll ever be able to move. He got really upset when I said that, since he loathes the town and all of his friends are going to move out of it in a year anyway, and has nothing else keeping him there besides, well... the dog.

Argh. I feel like such a bitch for whining about this, but... it's like for the possession of a dog, the kingdom was lost. Or something like that, anyway. And just when I was getting used to having him around for more than a few days at a time, too.

I may have mentioned earlier that we got two new co-workers. One of whom is quite ludicrous and jokey, while the other... she's a nice enough person and all, but my GAWD, we just had the most depressing conversation ever.

I'd been griping about having to go deal with J&N on the weekend, and she asked how that went, which led to this big discussion about how some people should just not have children. I get the feeling that while she likes her kid now, she rather wishes she hadn't done it. (She reiterates how long it took her to actually have the one often in conversation. Over a decade.) Agonizing labor, the child was way too

big, AND they did something or other to a nerve in her leg so she couldn't walk for weeks, and has done permanent damage to her. And the baby was the pickiest, cryingest child ever and WOULD NOT take anything other than 100% straight-from-the-breast milk. So she was stuck with the kid all the time, and it screwed with her marriage bad... Call it a hunch she was giving me the hint to Not Have Any.

Adding to the fun, she told me that your immune system is totally fucked for at least a year after pneumonia and you HAVE to get flu and pneumonia shots every year for the rest of your life after that, and you WILL catch every single cold that comes down the pike now. ("Your doctor didn't tell you that?") So much for me being rampantly healthy for the rest of my young life. I just want to CRY. They don't even

frigging give out shots anywhere any more if you're not old and/or infirm, it seems. Oh yeah, and a bunch of colds are going around the office right now and the guy who sits across from me went home sick with one today.

And I am having pneumonia-esque coughing bouts more often than I have been. Most of these have been just a real short cough type thing, but I ended up coughing so hard I threw up again when I was home tonight, as I was trying to go to sleep. I swear, it's like something's irritating my throat and it won't get out until you-know-what occurs. (And throwing up a philly cheese steak is just...ugh. I need to go back to eating Ramen or something if this is gonna keep up.) I'm getting scared.

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