Gratitude not of the INSTANT GRATIFICATION NAOW variety
Dear Flisties,
I love you all. You are awesome, fabulous, humorous, and really rather sexee individuals and I am so pleased to call you friends. Even in that weird, internet virtual life kind of way. Your well wishes have meant the world to me, and your effusive congratulations yesterday made my little soul sing even louder than the Crazy Birdie which wakes me up at 5am with his weird chattery sing-song right outside my bedroom window EVERY SINGLE MORNING.
*ahem*
I love reading about your lives on your journals, even when you're going through some poop and I find myself inarticulate and unable to do anything other than write "THAT IS POOP AND SUCKS BUT I LOVES YOU" and hope that you're not weirded out by that. (SRSLY, Flisties, I am sorry for my over-friendliness if it has spooged itself on you. I am like that IRL and if we meet one day I will probably squee and force myself on you in a total display of shameless socially awkward hugging).
In short, you've made my good news even better, and that's just unbelievably superb.
With lots of love and HUGS and fluffy bunnies,
Wiggle
XXX
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Today I received an absolutely beautiful little bouquet of flowers from a friend in Christchurch. She is one of those incredibly sweet, sweet little people who are just... kind right through to the core and make you wish you weren't such a jerk. (She did once swear, very loudly, at an annoying young man we both used to work with, and I STILL LAUGH ABOUT THAT because it was so uncharacteristic of her. Yet makes her a more believable, well-rounded individual, in my evil person's opinion).
I have only ever received a delivery of flowers once before in my life - my mum sent me a bouquet when I finished my exams way back in High School. I was very confused when the doorbell rang this afternoon, and was wondering who the damn flowers were for that the pretty Maori girl at my door was expecting me to take in for them because they weren't HOME, grumble grumble grumble, and then stammered like a damn EEJIT when she told me they were for me.
And then I burst into tears.
Mercifully she was long gone back to her florist's van, but... yeah. I take this as an indicator of two things:
- This whole not-having-a-job thing was just incredibly stressful and I've been more On The Edge than I really realised
- My weird, presumably age-related EMO-NESS is getting fucking WORSE, OMFG.
I never used to cry at anything. Well... weirdly, even though I was TERRIFIED of the aliens in War Of The Worlds (1953 version), I cried at the end when (SPOILER ALERT! Like anyone hasn't already seen this!) they all died of the cold. My father, ever the asshat, laughed at me for my "misplaced" compassion. As a 5-year-old I also scared the shit out of a cinema audience when I responded to Bambi's father's immortal line "Your mother can't be with you anymore" by screaming "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" until I was forcibly silenced by my mortified older sister.
But now? Dudes, EVERYTHING sets me off. ADVERTS. Goddamned bloody ADVERTS with soft focus and heartstring-plucking music about SENDING LETTERS or bloody BUYING JEWELLERY or something, FFS. News stories, particularly if they are about BRAVE PUPPIES or something equally life-changing. Godawful made-for-TV movie specials where somebody learns something or is reconciled with someone to swelling violins and suddenly I am BAWLING MY EYES OUT. It is SO embarassing and does my reputation as an Evil Megavillainess NO FAVOURS AT ALL.
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I received my contract and job offer letter via email from Company S today. The terms and conditions are all pretty standard, nothing of any kind of concern at all. The salary is... better than I expected. I am INCREDIBLY happy - even though I lose SO MUCH OF IT due to tax, grumble grumble grumble, my budget calculations show us being able to pay back everyone we owe money to, fix our car (which is on it's last fucking legs, oh PLEASE just last another couple of months before we can fix you, PLEASE!), and to treat ourselves to Our Own Private Christmas from my first pay. (We're not able to do Actual Christmas because we are currently too poor. We decided to give $12 to charity by following the Cakewrecks traditional 12 Days Of Charidee thingie in lieu of buying presents for each other. It sucks ass to be unable to give each other anything nice, but... I figure is Very Good Karma and doesn't do us any harm at all to delay gratification for ourselves. We just need to HARDEN UP.)
I called my mother and told her about it, and there was a wee moment of weirdness when we both realised that I was officially making TWICE her salary. She currently only makes half of what her "normal" salary used to be, because she moved out of a high-stress job and took an entry-level Civil Service position.
I guess it's a natural point you come to at some point anyway, surpassing your parent in your career development and earning potential as you peak and they trough... which sounds really RUDE, but I hope you all know what I mean. It's weird, though - it reminds us of all of our mortality, and particularly for my mother and myself its coming at our most morbid and introspective time of year (Christmas time is our anniversay of losing her husband/my stepdad).
I remember my mum being the age I am now - as in actively remember looking up to her while feeling like I was seperate from her and growing up. And knowing that she has an Important Job and seeing her payslip and realising that she MADE A FORTUNE, OMG, and promising myself that one day I was going to earn that much of a fortune and EVERYTHING WOULD BE AMAZING AND I WOULD RIDE A PEGASUS TO WORK BECAUSE I WAS RICH.
wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I've been a little concerned about the wherabouts of Hoggle, our resident hedgehog. I hadn't seen him (or her) for a few days, nor had I heard any tell-tale rustling from the bushes. In fact, I HAD seen the neighbours cat re-appear in our garden, and the cat had been absent since the first time we saw Hoggle ambling around the lawn.
The other day I made burgers for tea, and I didn't eat all of my burger. I put the leftover burger (a delicious blend of beef and pork made by my own fair hand) out on the lawn in the hopes that Hoggle may still be out there - and he was! In fact... when I went to spy on him THERE WERE TWO HEDGEHOGS OUT THERE, battling over the bits of burger! I managed to resist the urge to SQUEE out loud, and watched them sparring for burger bits while humming under my breath. (Dun dun duuun duuun duuun duuun, duun dun-dun-dun... Dun dun duuun duuun duuuun duuuun DUUN DUN-DUN-DUN! Brrrrrrrrrrrrra! Brrrra!*)
I've heard the second hedgehog rustling around it's territory of the left hand side of the house yesterday, and Hoggle is currently out there on the right hand side, nomming on some chicken skin I put out for him after preparing today's dinner of paella.
I'm still waiting for that Pegasus, but otherwise shit is pretty awesome right now.
*name that immortal fight scene/choon, geeklings!