We spent Friday night over at Demma's, which went surprisingly well. I did end up seeing the offensive costume. And now they want to take us to something called "Winterfeast" on Dave's birthday. Oh yeah, and the wedding has now been moved to the third Saturday in April, 2004. Which is Picnic Day here, so that date annoys me, but what are you going to do. Scott refused to put it on anybody's birthday, and the rest of the Saturdays in April are birthdays (mine included).

And speaking of wedding dates, I would really like to know what the hell happened in Dave's head over the last two weeks, when we'd finally agreed on Sept. 2003. Because right during this conversation he came out with "We've decided, sometime during spring or summer." Uh, WHAT? I seem to have missed this conversation. "Don't you remember? That conversation about wanting to do it between our parents' anniversaries?" (Uh... didn't we decide last time September was between then?) Grr. Argh.

We REALLY need to spill to my parents soon. Next weekend's the "have-to" date so Thanksgiving plans can be made and my parents are going on vacation the weekend after that anyway. And yet god knows I cannot get out a single word from my mouth on the topic to my mother. I get verklempt from fear. Dave had an idea of just getting me a showier ring and just waving it in Mom's face so I wouldn't have to talk.

Dad's still asking every goddamn time if Dave's ever going to leave my apartment, and Hill has pretty much had enough of him being in there all the time as well. I feel so stuck right now. I feel like such a shit doing this to her and I don't want to, but what the hell do I do? I can't really kick him out to go home because of the jobhunting issue, and yet I know damn well that he can't afford an apartment until he has income coming in for a week or two, not when you have to cough up essentially 3 months' worth of rent in advance when you move into anywhere here. ARGH. I don't. know. what. to. do. Hell, I would have had him stay there after this weekend, except he has to go check on more job stuff in the next few days. And in all honesty, him finding a job will just make sure he has to be here for at least a few more weeks until enough money comes in. And yet I *have* to kick him out now or get in trouble. Fuck.

Him having to buy a new phone over the weekend certainly didn't help much for the savings. (I fear he has little left at this point. You have no idea how much I freak inwardly every time he offers to pay for something, or just insists on doing so.) His old one is close to kaput after being dropped 50,000 times.

Of course, as usual, we can't really comment much on my own fiscal prudentness, because we were at the mall buying the phone, and you know what that means... For myself, I only bought a few fairly cheap pendants, one for myself and another to use to make a necklace for the 3WA Crafts Fair, but it was the giftbuying that did me in. I found a notebook with "cute but psycho, things even out" and a bunny in a straightjacket on it, which I got for Jackie. Her birthday's the day after I do lunch with her this week, and lord knows she REALLY goes all out on presents, so I will probably end up buying her a few more things in addition to that.

And well, even worse for the budget this week (a.k.a. "So much for not paying for anything else fun for the next two weeks so I can buy a Palm", which I did last week after all), I got Dave his birthday present a month early. He has wanted a CD burner for oh, ages now, and has been going off about how if I had one, we could make CD's for everyone, sell off all the old CD's and get some money, and have Christmas presents and wedding favors all taken care of.

When can I NOT have a chaotic existence for a change? Some time in my life where I don't feel like I'm constantly being pulled between people and scrambling to function?

And today is when the strikes are beginning on campus. I'm dearly hoping the lecturers on strike get some results from this, as lord knows the lecturers here tend to care more about the students than the big-shot professors that are "supposed" to be hired in their place tend to do. Everyone knows this is a plot to get rid of lecturers entirely and replace them with grad students, not professors. I doubt this will get much in the way of results because the dean in charge of this whole plot has shown zero interest in listening to anyone else's opinion on the matter, but there's still more hope for them than there is for the other union.

And I have to admit that I'm kind of cracking up after finding this about how to define whether or not a strike is illegal. I had no idea it could actually be "legal" to strike.

This is even more uh, interesting now that I actually work here and am kinda, sorta, in the other striking union. According to the school, since I am officially clerical I am in the clerical union and they take money out of my paycheck for it, but since I never paid even more money out of my paycheck to be a "voting" member, I don't really count as a union member. The fuh? I don't get it either. Anyway, the union people have been e-mailing everybody for months about how UCD has all this money stashed away and how us clericals are the lowest paid people in the entire area doing this job and why are they giving all this money to hire more vice deans (or whatever) instead of paying the people who do the actual work around here. I can't argue with the logic of the last statement, and can't say that I know for sure about the second (though it STILL pays more than the newspaper, where I had a much more responsible job), but as for the first one... Honestly, while in my heart I'm rooting for them and hope they succeed so I could get more money, I don't think they have a snowball's chance in hell of getting any out of the university whatsoever. Not during a recession, not during a major budget cut year. No fucking way. Big waste of their time and losing days of small pay. Why are they even bothering this year? We've gotten the same forward from the chancellor for days now saying essentially "We have no more money to give you, please don't strike." I believe him, and I can say that while they are making us pay for health care next year, they are giving really good price breaks to people based on their salary, so they are trying.

I am so disappointed. I am so tired of being in the middle between everyone and feeling pulled apart. I am really tired of everyone telling me their thoughts, feelings, and opinions on my life. No wonder my hair is falling out.

Now I REALLY do not want to tell my family I got engaged. Right now they think Dave's just a mooch feeding off me, and Mom sent me e-mail about how he should learn to stand on his own two feet, I'm not his mother, etc. You can just imagine her reaction to finding out this news, can't you? Two irresponsible flaky kids who can't even survive on their own too well getting married? Bad idea, and can't you wait on that? Or just not get married at all? How can you marry someone like that? Etc., etc., etc. And let's face it, they're probably right. We're a couple of young idiots who can't get our acts together and be responsible.

I told him this and he wants to tell them this weekend anyway. Of course, he probably should go home long before this weekend occurs anyway....

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