Things I Did Today

Today while Mark went to vote inside a parish office I sat in front of a Catholic Church in the shade trying to remember anything about what goes on during Mass and how it feels in a confessional booth. Then an old lady walked into the empty church (way too modern looking for me with southwest-looking tiles and giant green tinted windows, give me some dark wood and stained glass), looked around, came back out and asked me if I knew what time they were distributing ashes tomorrow. I wanted to say "Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday?" but instead I said "I'm sorry, I have no idea." After she went away I started to feel totally terrible and guilty that I didn't even know it was Ash Wednesday tomorrow. Not that I've done anything remotely religious in ages. Not that I would've gone to Mass, but still. I'm truly becoming a lapsed catholic. I can't even remember what certain Holy Days mean anymore. At my eighth grade graduation I won an expensive looking plaque that was the Religion Award. Basically I averaged 100% almost the entire year. Not that I was super religious ever, I'm more just a nerd and religion was a graded class.

We finally filled out a rental application for this apartment in Carrboro, North Carolina. It sounded like a sweet set up, with a good location, really good rent, and just the glimmer of getting out of dodge was enough to make me happy. We faxed it there with a super polite cover letter only to be called, like, three minutes later to be told that without a job already set up in NC we would be unable to be considered for anything. Instead of going "oh-well!" I went away to wallow in self-pity and worry and doubt. I decided that I should get something about my life in order so I returned to the computer and asked Mark if I could look up a phone number. He was busy working on his future so he was going to look it up for me. Since I was wallowing in self-pity and worry and doubt this annoyed me and we proceeded to bite each other's heads off for like 10 minutes. Joy. Did I mention that I have a savings account and Mark has excellent credit and we would never not be able to pay rent but we don't qualify for an apartment meanwhile there is a registered sex offender living in the very building we want to move into? How annoying is that!

Eventually I got the number I was looking for. I wanted to set up an IRA because I've been sitting on my 401(k) paperwork for like 4 months now. Because any minute I'm going to be getting a buttload of letters telling me I have fines and the government is going to ruin my life and I no longer have a retirement future. So I called and got a guy named Josh who kinda answered the phone in an obnoxious way. I told him that I wanted to set up an IRA and he told me to go online and do it. I said "Oh, thanks." and he said "No problem. Do you have any other questions?" and I wanted to say "If I just have to go online to do it then what the F do you get paid to answer the phone and do nothing all day?" but all the fight was out of me.

After Mark and I decided to be nice to each other (maybe realizing if we can't get along we're totally f'ing screwed) we went out so that he could run and I could walk. It was nice. I didn't listen to music. I needed to clear my head because I'm totally freaking out and wallowing in self-pity and worry and doubt. At the end of the walk when Mark had met up with me a blond man in a wheel chair appeared at one of the entryways to the path. He was a number of yards away waiting for someone behind him and I noticed he was in a peculiar wheelchair. My head full of useless information suddenly snapped to and I realized that the guy in the wheelchair was one of the guys in Murderball, the movie about the US Olympic Wheelchair Rugby team. I thought it was pretty neat as he wizzed by me with his crazy rugby chair grinding along the asphalt.

Today I finished the book The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle. I Loved It.