"What stopped you? Write about a time when you tried to get home but couldn't."

So I need to write. I bookmarked this writing prompt generator a while back, and I figured I could stand to share it.

I don't have any times in the past that I couldn't get home, but this year's Christmas is looking more and more like I'll be spending it in Pensacola.

My mom is freaking out about it. I keep telling her I don't know what my schedule is going to be like right around Christmas. I might be working, I might not. I feel pretty wretched, significantly more so than usual, about the entire holiday season this year. I'm broke, and friends and family will be lucky if they get anything at all from me, and it's all made worse by the fact that everyone I know keeps asking me what I want. I'm not sure I can even afford to give them the same consideration.

I know I want to get a present for B and my mom and brother. Those three are not negotiable, but in addition to that, I'm expected to participate in dirty/secret Santa with B's family, so I have to get 2 gifts, each totaling $25. That's a car insurance or cell phone payment that I probably won't have when the time rolls around at the end of December.

And no, I can't just say no. It doesn't work like that. I can't tell anyone I can't afford it. I'm not looking for pity, which is very certainly what a statement like that will garner.

In other news, I could also be entirely wrong. On my second paycheck from the call center (my first one comes on the 7th), I'll earn my commission for the sales I've been getting in this past week, and I'll be sure to get more.

Speaking of that place, I still think it's evil, but I think I've calmed down enough to say that I can definitely hold out there as long as it takes to find something better. And who knows, maybe the retarded amounts of money thing is possible. To earn an additional $3 an hour, all I have to do is sell 9 Sunday papers in my total of 30 weekly work hours, and it's even more if I sell the daily edition (but I can't remember how much more because I don't have my paper). I've already earned my commission for the next paycheck, and stand to earn even more before the commission pay period ends.

The supervisor I wanted to barf on has ceased her condescension now that I'm actually performing.

Not, of course, to her rigorous standards. I'll work, sure, but I will not be evil.

This kind of traveled pretty far from not going home...

In other news, S quit the call center. Someone made her cry or something like that. She told me she just didn't want to do it. Now she's trying to get a job in a head shop. It'll probably suit her better.

In other other news, there is no other news. Good night.

Edit: One more thing I forgot. On Thanksgiving 2007, Pilgrim the betta officially celebrated his first birthday. Of course he wasn't born on Thanksgiving 2006, but that's the day I got him, so it was really a celebration of his managing to stay alive for that long. I gave him my 3-D glasses from Beowulf as a present. They sit on the rim of his bowl and make it look like Dan Akroyd. Here he is by His Highness' royal castle, as pictured from above:

Edit number 2: I set up our Christmas tree today. The lights were dead, so we got a new string. The star topper B picked out last year is still as hideously rustic as ever. I only let it stay up there because he just loves it. I really don't see why.