nine days of Saturdays

"Let's get out of here/past the atmosphere/squint your eyes and no one dies/or goes to jail" -Andrew Bird, Noble Beast

Today, I am officially on vacation. The sad fact that I almost cried tears of joy when I left work yesterday tells me I'm meant to do something else. Something more.

I've done a lot of things. I'd like to say they were all awesome things, but some of them were not. As for those things, and they run few and far between, I have to remind myself that they are not the only things I've done.

I had this roommate once. I had lived with her for about a year, and things were going along swell. Then I had to make a choice.

I quit my job because accounting decided I might be a hot ticket to bed, if accounting was a 47-year-old divorcee with a creepy smile and hands he didn't want to keep to himself. I was 22. I told one of my managers. And I chose the one that said, "I'll tell you what, I can lay you off."

I didn't apply for unemployment. I worked at a cleaning company for three hours a day, Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, dusting and vacuuming an office for a guy who thought I was stupid. Better? Probably.

I looked half-assedly for another job, but for some reason, I felt defeated. I did the dishes. 

And I didn't pay rent for five months. As for my roommate at the time, she didn't kick me out. It was 13 years ago, and I still feel badly about it, because I never got on my feet quite well enough to pay her back. There are times I think about doing it now, even though it's much too late. She called me just the other day, and I wonder if she still thinks about it. I do.

And yet, I'm still the girl that will give you her last $20 if you need it, or maybe cook you a meal if I find out you've been hungry and broke.

So, at one point in my life I've been a dead beat roommate. I've been so much more since. That I still hold the worst of me against me tells me I'm self-defeating. I've been a damn good roommate to a lot of people since, for better or for worse.

Today, I'm telling myself that one, I have to eat. Two, I need more sleep. To live. Lastly, I need to keep doing things that are better than the things I wish I didn't. 

By the way,karma is bullshit. At least in the way it's translated these days, which is that people can't rise above their poor behavior because karma's coming to push them down. And maybe if one does something good, something better's going to come and lift them up. That's not real life, man. Sometimes bad people get ahead, and good people suck pavement.

And sometimes, one's best intentions are flawed.