Confessions of Fangirl

I told myself that I would write 5,000 words this work week. I didn’t say 1,000 words a day, but that’s basically the idea. It’s a bit of a stretch goal, but I really do want to make my writing goal for the month. I won’t be able to make my writing goal for the month if I don’t seriously step up my game and if I don’t make my goal for the month, I’m not going to make my goal for the year.

I told myself that I would not set a reading goal for this year, but in my head I do think I secretly wanted to beat out every other year I’ve tracked on Goodreads. I’ve done that for sure. In both page numbers and books read, I’ve beaten all the other years I’ve done on Goodreads. I am excited about that.

I did set a Goodreads goal for the year, only because I knew I’d have no trouble reaching. I set the goal to be a book a week for the year. Well, as I went along and reached that and then double that, and then tripled that, I started to wonder if maybe I could quadruple that.

The thing is, I know the reason that the idea of quadrupling my book count is a way to pour myself into reading (and avoid reality AND writing at the same time) and still feel like I’ve accomplished something amazing.

If I weren’t also watching Christmas movies and playing Pokemon Go, I would make it without question, but I am doing those things. And I love those things so I don’t want to give them up either.

I hate that I have to choose. I know life is full of tough choices and that you can’t have everything all the time, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting to whine about it.

Who knows what I’m really going to be able to pull off between now and New Year’s Eve. I sure don’t.

I got some of my medical bills today, and they’re worse than I thought they’d be. I’m trying not to stress about it too much. If I make some calls, I’m sure I can get on a payment plan and it’ll be okay. It just sucks because I was feeling really stressed about money already and now it’s feeling worse. It’s going to be fine. I just need to take the steps to get a payment plan set up for the medical stuff. I have to pay for my car tax and the inspection too, obviously. I have to pay two months of rent.

It’s going to be better once mom pays me what she owes me which is a pretty big chunk. Everything is still going to be tight. Especially with birthday and Christmas presents for my entire family. I mean that literally. Dad’s birthday was a week ago, but he was still in England and I had no idea what to get him. I’m still not sure. He says he thinks he wants to have his ear re-pierced and get a Manchester United earring. I told him--after talking with my sister--that if that’s what he really wants, one of us would pay to have his ear re-pierced and the other would get him a Manchester United earring.

I don’t know how I feel about dad having an earring again. I think the one earring thing is sort of ridiculous. I mean, if you’re going to pierce your ears, it kind of seems like you should do both of them. That’s just my opinion. I’ll grant you that it doesn’t matter what I think and I don’t intend to tell my father that I think it’s ridiculous. He had one back in the day when I was probably about 8 or so, but then he took it out and let it seal over because the earring thing wouldn’t work with the work he was doing at the time. I am surprised he’s thinking about getting it redone though. I wouldn’t have thought that was something he missed, but maybe he’s having a bit of a crisis now that he’s retired and not got anything but TV watching, dog walking, and sessions at the gym ahead of him for what might years to come.

But if that’s what he wants, that’s something easy and relatively affordable. It’s certainly something Chels and I could manage.

And, I found out yesterday afternoon that I got accepted to the grad school I’d chosen! I’m actually surprised at how quickly I heard back. I mean, I guess I had to have time to figure out all the financial aid stuff. But the deadline for applying for spring was November 1st and I just figured that it would take longer than that to hear back. I was checking my email on my days off even though I told myself I likely wouldn’t hear for a while longer. I’m still so shocked that I heard back so fast. Everything I read about grad school applications was that it would take weeks to hear back. I don’t think it’s been a full three weeks since I got all of my paperwork and information in. Actually, looking at the receipt for my transcripts from my college (which was the last thing I needed to get) I ordered them October 17th which was just barely over two weeks before I got accepted. I just… I mean, yeah, I think I’m right for the program and the program is right for me. I believe with my whole heart that I’m absolutely supposed to do this, to be a librarian. But it’s hard to think sometimes that other people will see that in me too.

I think my coworkers see it. I’m just so continuously insecure and it’s frustrating.

Regardless, I’m excited and honored that I got a response so quickly.

I’ve accepted and enrolled and filled out my FASFA paperwork. I’m not 1000% sure what my next steps are, but if it doesn’t become clear early next week, I do have a phone number to call. I suspect that I won’t have to call. It takes a little time to process enrollment and all that and since I technically did it on a Friday, I’m guessing it’ll be Monday or Tuesday before all the paperwork lands on the right desks.

School is another big expense and I don’t know exactly know what loans are going to be available to me and I really need to look into possible scholarship money as well. All within the next month or so.

I swear that every time I think that my life is going to “go back to a normal pace” something happens that makes me feel like it’s been upended again. I think the truth is that whatever pace I’m imagining that my life is going to be, just isn’t going to happen. It’s always going to be something. And now I’m going back to school. JFC I’m scared. I’m so nervous that I won't be able to keep up with the work or my work at work and I’m going to fail at all of it. I’m so freaked out. Everyone tells me not to be, but I don’t know how to turn that worry off.

Which swings me back around to my “I’m consuming all the comfort media I can cram at every possible turn.” My shoulders are a mess of tension, and I’ve gained like fifteen pounds.

I also realized I’m a little touch starved. I mean I knew that intellectually, but when my friend Jonathan gave me a hug the other day, it just really, really struck me how badly I needed that contact. I know a lot of it is because I’m used to living with my folks and they’ve been gone for weeks. I’m so not ready to have them around constantly again, but I definitely don’t have the money to move out right now and I am looking forward to getting regular hugs again. That is a thing I need in my life.

I’ll figure all this out. I have faith in myself and the world and God and my family and I know it’s all going to be okay somehow. I’m just stressed.

I just checked my HSA and I have… way more money in there than I realized. Holy shit. I think all my medical expenses so far this year are covered by it. Maybe I’ll still owe a little out of my other money, but holy shit. I thought I’d used all of it, but no.

See, self? Everything is going to be okay.

I got not one thing written last night which is very unfortunate and then I didn’t get anything written at lunch either. I desperately wanted to see how the book I was listening to turned out, which is ridiculous because a) it was going to have a happy ending, b) I have a book a need to read for Book Club on Thursday, c) I can listen to it on the way home, and d) I should’ve been writing.

On top of being stupid behind writing goal wise, I know that I’m not about to have much time to catch up. I’m headed out of town for the weekend on Friday evening, I have a book club meeting Thursday night, I’m checking in on my friend’s cat a few days this week, I have a follow up appointment with the Nurse Practioner at the gym on Wednesday and tomorrow night after work I’m now supposed to be catching up with a friend… or it might be a date? Or a hookup? God, I don’t know, but fuck if I’m not really fucking interested. I also need to do laundry. And, in theory, spend a little time with the folks and still get my workouts in. And in theory, I should get sleep at some point.

Reading so needs to be the last thing I do at any point in time aside from when I’m listening to a book in the car or working out. Maybe also while I hang laundry up to dry. That might be acceptable, maybe.

I have such a huge couple of projects to do at work too and I’m so fucking stressed about them. I know I don’t work every minute of every day, but I’m feeling so stretched thin right now and I have this big pre-performance review essay to write and I’m terrified because I don’t know what I’m doing or what to say I contributed. I’ll figure it out, I know I will, but for the moment I’m stressed as shit.

It was kind of a crazy day today and there was a lot going on. Part of it was really fun. Jonathan was back today and we had a good morning talking about our bracket wins for the Disney VS Pixar match up that’s floating around the internet which was a pretty amusing endeavor. Then we got into a discussion about Superhero and Villain matchups and then we got into a whole different discussion. One of the things I love about Jonathan is that he can disagree with me and we can talk about stuff and he doesn’t make me feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about when we talk about comics. Most guys like to lord over me that they know/understand more about comics than I do and it’s just infuriating. But not Jonathan. I love our friendship, I really do. I know it’s work buddies and I don’t know that’ll ever be an outside of work friendship, but I appreciate its existence in my life nonetheless.

We also had a meeting today for our department that was sort of interesting. Parts of it were frustrating, like any job, but I like our department for the most part. And because our meetings mostly get us out of work as opposed to being a lot of work or interfering with things we need to do get done, it’s actually kind of nice to go to one. We have one for the department each month and they’re looking at making branch meeting a monthly meeting too. They’ll actually do two of those, but where half the staff will go to one and half the staff will go to the other so that everyone gets a chance to go without messing up their schedules too much and we don’t have to have a bunch of people cover us from other branches or something like that.

I need to go get the wash out of the machine and I need to go to bed. I want to stay up and watch another episode of Shadowhunters and write some more, but I have a class I’m teaching to seniors down at the YMCA tomorrow and this isn’t something I’ve done before so it’s probably a good idea for me to get some decent sleep tonight. I need to unload the dishwasher as well, but I think that’s going to have to wait too.

There’s so much I still need to get done and I know my folks are going to wonder why I didn’t get more done, and I’m going to say I had a lot going on, but part of the reason is that I went to see “Love, Simon” yesterday and I can’t really tell them that. I could tell them I needed to go see “Black Panther” again, but I was supposed to see that with them if I saw it again and I don’t think I could convince them that it was just so urgent that I saw the movie again, this week, when I haven’t really shown any particular urgency about getting to see it again up to this point. And there’s nothing else out at the theater that I’ve already seen. Plus, I didn’t tell them I was going to see a movie yesterday and they wouldn’t understand why I didn’t tell them before. That’s two and half hours or so that I could’ve been working on projects around the house that I went to see that movie instead. I don’t regret it. I needed to see “Love, Simon” and I definitely hope to get to see it again soon. I’ve even started rereading a little of it. It just makes explaining why it is I’ve had so little time to work on anything harder. It probably won’t be a big deal. I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill. But these are the things you think about when you can’t live your whole life as if you’re straight, but you can’t tell your parents you’re queer. It’s a mess, basically. I long to be open with them about it, but I also don’t want to lose them yet either. I think that’s part of why I do spend so much time with them. I feel like there’s a day coming when I’ll be outed and everything will change and I won’t have them in my life loving me anymore and I can’t help but hold on as tightly as I can in the meantime.

Like I said, giant mess.

Well, wish me luck on all the things. There are so many things.