Running in the Rain.

It was overcast and misty this morning when I left my apartment for work.  Those are the best mornings for me.  I don't mind sunlight but I generally prefer to start my mornings with the sky a little overcast.  I'm especially happy if it's misty.  It's a nice way to ease into my day.

I'm restless.

We've been in the North Bay for almost seven months and I'm just now getting to the point where I feel settled.  Not necessarily settled here.  Settled after having uprooted my life for three years to go back to school.  Seven months is how long it took for me to really feel like myself again.

The problem is that now that I'm settling back into myself I'm realizing I don't know if I want to live here forever.  Don't get me wrong, I love it here.  I just don't love how many other people love it here.  I don't love how much I have to fight with other vehicles to get anywhere, especially in rush hour to my work.  I don't love how expensive everything is, especially rental rates.  It's ridiculous what property owners/managers can get away with because the area is desirable.  It's not as bad as actually being in the city, but I can barely handle this.

I think if I lived in the city I would be less than an inch away from committing homicide.


More than anything I think my problem is that I have certain expectations; things I want in life sometime in the next year or so.  One of those things is that Yoshi and I both really want is to adopt a dog.

We have actually had a dog plan for over a year now.  He wants either a German Shepherd or Husky mix and I want a Great Dane.  But we also really want to adopt a shelter dog.  So our plan has been to adopt a shelter dog that's not a puppy but is trained and still young and healthy, then in a couple of years we want to get his dog, then a few years after that get mine (since the Great Dane will have the shortest life span it makes sense to get it last).  If we find ourselves in a situation where it works to get any of the dogs sooner, we will probably do that.

We love dogs.  Big dogs.

But right now we're having trouble even having one medium-sized dog because we already have two cats and it was hard enough to find somewhere in the North Bay that was in our budget and would allow us to have two pets.

Really, our best bet for having multiple pets while still renting is to rent a house or find a lenient property management company with a townhouse or duplex.  For what we're paying for our tiny apartment right now we should be in at least a one bedroom house.

So when I get frustrated about the fact that my sort of decent salary seems abysmal here, that's why.  It's because all of it seems to go to rent and bills, yet we have pretty much no space in our apartment so I get mad that I'm paying so much for it.  Like, every day I'm mad at my apartment for being more expensive than it's worth.

That's the area in which we live.

So, if we want to get a dog or, you know, breathe, we may have to move again.  As much as I hate moving, I don't hate this idea.  I just want to feel like I have space to take a breath, both literally and with my finances.

Also, I have this snippet of future fantasy that I'm desperate to live out.

The fantasy is this:  I want to jog with my dog on the beach in the misty rain.

That's all.  I want it to be overcast and wet, but not pouring.  I want it to be cold.  I want to be wearing my mint green fleece pullover.  I want to be in good enough shape that I can jog with the dog.  And I want the dog to be well-behaved enough that we can go out and if there aren't many people around he can be off-leash.

There are a bunch of other things that could go along with this fantasy, but for the immediate future this little snippet is all I want.

Now, what do I have to do to get there?

Down with the Sickness.

So, maybe one person has by this point noticed I've gone kind of a while since my last post (for me, at least).  I try to be really consistent and post at least every three days or less. 

This week I failed.

But I have a good reason!

I've felt like crap since Saturday. 

Like, fever crap.  And I've gone to work the last two days.  (I don't really deal with the general public, so coming to work with a fever and no other real symptoms of illness isn't exactly the end of the world for me.)

Fever dreams kind of blow.  My favorite part is when I'm sleeping and the Tylenol I took an hour ago finally kicks in.  Then I wake up drenched in sweat and panting.  Which is worse:  freezing because you have a fever or the sweat after having meds break your fever?

I spent pretty much my entire weekend on the couch watching Netflix.  And a mini-marathon of Indiana Jones on Sci-Fi.  Or Syfy.  Or whatever the hell they call it now.  I realized something super important during the time I spent watching this channel.  There is an obscene amount of commercials.  They happen at regularly spaced intervals, but they go on for, like, six minutes.  That seems excessive, especially when you're interrupting my time with Harrison Ford.

Last night?  Also spent on the couch. 

Bet you can guess what I'm doing tonight.  After my nap and between doses of Advil.

If you're interested, my two favorite movies from my illness-a-thon were this-a one and this-a one.  Both are kind of amazing in their own I-can't-bring-myself-to-look-away-from-the-screen kind of way.


I just re-read this post.  Illness makes me fucking retarded.



Oh, by the way, I have happy news.  I found out today that my roommates and I got the townhouse we wanted for when we move.  Yay!