It's been a wild month
The month of December has flown by, and I have spent most of it on vacation from work, and I still got maybe only 2 days of purely relax time.
Halloween was very fun. I went to 2 parties. The first one I met KitKitt, who was dressed as a centuar. I convinced her to use the prize money she won at that costume contest towards the following night's contest, and picked her up that night. The major problem was that she is celiac, and had had some drinks the night before, so her spine was on fire all that day and night. Essentially, she sat in pain the whole night, got up onstage to win the contest, then promptly sat back down for the rest of the night. I took care of her off and on throughout the night, so she split her winnings with me. That got me $60 in Fantasy gift cards, which I later used to buy a neon electrostatic wand. So yeah, I had some fun, got some cool pictures, and got the night for free :). I still felt a bit used, but I got enjoyment out of the night anyway.
After Halloween, things became a bit of a blur. I was off work for the last three weeks of December, and it seemed I was working on cosplay and hanging out with Sablahn for most of it.
December 14th I went to the premier of the final Hobbit movie dressed as Smeagle, along with Travis, Brittany, Corissa, and Sablahn. We took some cool photos of us all dressed up. People really liked my Smeagle :). Best part was, it only took a day or so to put it all together. A nude leotard, a loincloth, and a bald cap with glued-on long strands of hair, and it was done! The hardest part was actually finding a fish to put in my mouth. I couldn't find a realistic rubber fish anywhere, so I ended up with a stuffed Nemo :P. I also found out that the three Hobbit movies were going to be played back-to-back, with hardly any break time. So I (always food-insecure and even more so now that I make sure Sablahn eats) brought an entire grocery bag of treats, which Sablahn snuck inside her "Thorin in a barrel" costume :). We totally looked like movie pros - all costumed up, and even had a table full of food.
December 20th was the dojo's holiday party. While there was less prep involved this year, it still took a lot of my focus to make sure belt testing was completed and the party went off without a hitch. I also made up a complete inventory list of all the equipment at the dojo, and looked up the new prices for each item so we'll have an idea of what to sell it for.
Shortly after that I found out that Sablahn's mom really needed help moving stuff from her house that she sold, because they were closing that weekend. So, I spent a couple days helping her move.
I went to see Sablahn the first night of the move because she was feeling really shitty because of cramps and not eating. I brought her some sushi, and stayed with her that night. In the morning, I got up, and found that some asshole broke my driver's side rear window to snatch my backpack that was full of dirty clothes. So, I had to wait 3 days to get a spot at the glass company to fix it. Right after that I went to get my oil changed, and asked them to vacuum up any remaining glass they found. I don't know if they pranked me or what, but after that my car smelled like rotten broccoli. I tried to take care of it myself using a car carpet foam cleaner, and it just made it worse. I didn't have time to take it in to have it professionally cleaned, because I wanted to have Groot done before NewCon.
I spent Christmas with Joel and Trissa and their families. We had a great time just sitting around doing nothing. Trissa asked what I wanted for Christmas, and I told her to get me chocolate. She was afraid I would feel left out while everyone was opening multiple gifts, so she individually wrapped like 5 different chocolate things lol. We ended the night by watching "The Interview". I could see why the North Koreans put up such a fuss to not get this movie shown. It was both funny and incredibly offensive :)
Somewhere in the month a debt collector called about the last student loan that we had to clear up after our bankruptcy. We owed $40,000, and were presented with 3 options:
1. $10,000 up front, and $300/month for 95 months,
2. $4,000 up front, and $500/month for 72 months,
3. $26,000 total payoff
Thankfully, I was able to get a 401k loan, so we paid it all off, and now we have to pay $500/month into my 401k loan. And that finishes off all our student loans! I only have one other small one that's like $50/month. Whew! With that out of the way, the road is clear to begin the divorce proceedings.
The New Year's party was incredibly powerful. I won't say "bad" because I know I needed to be in that situation to learn life lessons. I also won't go into it here, except to say that I felt incredibly unattractive, unwanted, and humiliated. It took me 2-3 days to get over the trauma of that experience, and to process it all. I definitely found out what friends will catch me when I fall.
This past week I've been going out to ecstatic dance every night, trying to get into the community. These really are my people - new age hippies, expressing fully and freely, with wild abandon during their dance. I've met a few new people, and re-connected with a couple people that I met over the summer. I don't make friends that easily, so it's a slow process for me. But I figure if I show up to enough dances, things will slowly fall into place.
Halloween was very fun. I went to 2 parties. The first one I met KitKitt, who was dressed as a centuar. I convinced her to use the prize money she won at that costume contest towards the following night's contest, and picked her up that night. The major problem was that she is celiac, and had had some drinks the night before, so her spine was on fire all that day and night. Essentially, she sat in pain the whole night, got up onstage to win the contest, then promptly sat back down for the rest of the night. I took care of her off and on throughout the night, so she split her winnings with me. That got me $60 in Fantasy gift cards, which I later used to buy a neon electrostatic wand. So yeah, I had some fun, got some cool pictures, and got the night for free :). I still felt a bit used, but I got enjoyment out of the night anyway.
After Halloween, things became a bit of a blur. I was off work for the last three weeks of December, and it seemed I was working on cosplay and hanging out with Sablahn for most of it.
December 14th I went to the premier of the final Hobbit movie dressed as Smeagle, along with Travis, Brittany, Corissa, and Sablahn. We took some cool photos of us all dressed up. People really liked my Smeagle :). Best part was, it only took a day or so to put it all together. A nude leotard, a loincloth, and a bald cap with glued-on long strands of hair, and it was done! The hardest part was actually finding a fish to put in my mouth. I couldn't find a realistic rubber fish anywhere, so I ended up with a stuffed Nemo :P. I also found out that the three Hobbit movies were going to be played back-to-back, with hardly any break time. So I (always food-insecure and even more so now that I make sure Sablahn eats) brought an entire grocery bag of treats, which Sablahn snuck inside her "Thorin in a barrel" costume :). We totally looked like movie pros - all costumed up, and even had a table full of food.
December 20th was the dojo's holiday party. While there was less prep involved this year, it still took a lot of my focus to make sure belt testing was completed and the party went off without a hitch. I also made up a complete inventory list of all the equipment at the dojo, and looked up the new prices for each item so we'll have an idea of what to sell it for.
Shortly after that I found out that Sablahn's mom really needed help moving stuff from her house that she sold, because they were closing that weekend. So, I spent a couple days helping her move.
I went to see Sablahn the first night of the move because she was feeling really shitty because of cramps and not eating. I brought her some sushi, and stayed with her that night. In the morning, I got up, and found that some asshole broke my driver's side rear window to snatch my backpack that was full of dirty clothes. So, I had to wait 3 days to get a spot at the glass company to fix it. Right after that I went to get my oil changed, and asked them to vacuum up any remaining glass they found. I don't know if they pranked me or what, but after that my car smelled like rotten broccoli. I tried to take care of it myself using a car carpet foam cleaner, and it just made it worse. I didn't have time to take it in to have it professionally cleaned, because I wanted to have Groot done before NewCon.
I spent Christmas with Joel and Trissa and their families. We had a great time just sitting around doing nothing. Trissa asked what I wanted for Christmas, and I told her to get me chocolate. She was afraid I would feel left out while everyone was opening multiple gifts, so she individually wrapped like 5 different chocolate things lol. We ended the night by watching "The Interview". I could see why the North Koreans put up such a fuss to not get this movie shown. It was both funny and incredibly offensive :)
Somewhere in the month a debt collector called about the last student loan that we had to clear up after our bankruptcy. We owed $40,000, and were presented with 3 options:
1. $10,000 up front, and $300/month for 95 months,
2. $4,000 up front, and $500/month for 72 months,
3. $26,000 total payoff
Thankfully, I was able to get a 401k loan, so we paid it all off, and now we have to pay $500/month into my 401k loan. And that finishes off all our student loans! I only have one other small one that's like $50/month. Whew! With that out of the way, the road is clear to begin the divorce proceedings.
The New Year's party was incredibly powerful. I won't say "bad" because I know I needed to be in that situation to learn life lessons. I also won't go into it here, except to say that I felt incredibly unattractive, unwanted, and humiliated. It took me 2-3 days to get over the trauma of that experience, and to process it all. I definitely found out what friends will catch me when I fall.
This past week I've been going out to ecstatic dance every night, trying to get into the community. These really are my people - new age hippies, expressing fully and freely, with wild abandon during their dance. I've met a few new people, and re-connected with a couple people that I met over the summer. I don't make friends that easily, so it's a slow process for me. But I figure if I show up to enough dances, things will slowly fall into place.