I renewed my lease last Friday. The rent went up to $940/month for one-year contract for my fordham glen apartment. I inquired about the 4 open garages near my apartment and they want $120 for a single car garage and $220 for a two car garage for the lease term. They expect people to back up the money truck. Hell no. I'd move the hell out of there but it doesn;t make sense to move somewhere else and pay more for less and then move out. All that costs money in transition. I wonder how my friend Becky is doing in Miami. I think she was paying the same amount for a studio in a gated community.

I tell myself that by this time next year I don't care if I relocate to New York state or Indianapolis, I'm going to be the hell out of this apartment and probably the hell out of this state and in some kind of living space that has at least an attached garage and more space. I'm tired of not relalizing my home ownership dreams.I'm tired of seeing everyone else have things that I don't have like houses and six figure incomes. I'd be able to afford a 70's/80's 2 bed townhome in warrenville if I made 75k. Otherwise, forget it.

Today I had chinese for lunch because I forgot to bring my lunch to work. Someone in particular caught my attention, I'm not blaming you, but I was distracted! I spent about a good 10 minutes making my lunch, but iIll bring it tomorrow.
Anyways, I grabbed lunch for my busy coworkers too and got a fortune cookie with an ominious message, at least I think it is. The fortune cookie said "This year your first priority will be your family". I'm superstituous when it comes to things. I have had ominous things appear/happen to give signals of personal/spirtual tradegy in the past.

I think someone up somewhere is watching out for me lovingly and guiding me with things. I feel very comfortable and am thankful for being in decent health, nto sick, and not in pain. It is when I am sick or in pain do I truely feel alone and helpless. Not being married and estranged to my dad, it is hard to depend on anybody but myself and to look forward to my future. Yes it is hard to look forward to my future. The only thing that I had to look forward to was the house that I decided I couldn't afford to buy.

Another day another dollar another opprtunity to reduce debt, but not produce wealth. The only wealth that i am really producing for myself is in the form of retirement benefits (good) and company stock (small amount that I bought!)
I came out of college with the standard 20k in debt and it's been close to about 4 1/2 yrs and I think I am down to a little over 10k remaining in student loans. I have about another $12k to pay off on my car too. I'm hoping that by this time next year I will be able to have enough saved up to move, and if some miracle in my job situation, I could move into a house, but odd are I will be moving into another apartment that is better in a different state.

I need to take some business/entrepenur classes. I am studying to take my professional engineer license which will open up a lot more career and salary opportunities for me. I've been getting a lot of contact from recruiters. Some are laughable, some are serious, and some are contract jobs. I am reading that contracts can be like $50-125$ an hour. These don't offer benefits but if you're making $90/hr I think you can afford your own health care premium of like $300 month and to contribute to your own retirement account and still make out like a bandit. The whole concept of contract work seems risky and full of legalse. I'm doing some research on dice.com and in the forums I'm learning a lot about recruiter and staffer companies that don't pay up and how other problems. Say I was offered a 3 month contract in indianapolis for $100/hr. Well there is the expenses occured of breaking my lease, premiumumns on the 3-month lease living arrangements, transportation of my stuff, risks inherent in getting the payments, breach of contract, and potential loss of income. If it were a 6 month contract, that is better, but a 1 yr would probably be better. I'd rather do my research and hopefully land a position in a company that pays great salary (not exorbinant like contractors get is expected) but affordable to meet the general living costs in the area. I'll be looking at the cost of living, cost of houses, crime rates, city data, and other characteristics when looking for a possible new area to move to. I honestly like where I am now but the costs of living and housing are just too high for me right now. I don't want to commute over an hour one-way a day to make it to my job like many people do.

So today is the anniversary of my mom's death.. well technically yesterday was (september 4th). Got to remember that. I can not belivee I forgot the year. It was one week exactly before september 11th and I thought that was 2002, when it was 2001. I think my mind has problems...

Wow, this was a beautiful picture of my mother
Geraldine Williams

In Loving Memory Of Geraldine Williams 9-4-01 Thinking of You with love on your 5th Anniversary in Heaven. Ed and Lupe
Published in The Times on 9/4/2006.

Her brother and sister-in-law posted the memorial. Neither my dad nor I ever did this. That was sure nice of them...

I hate myself. I'm such a terrible person to not memorialize her as I should. These past few days I've been hurting inside, feeling depressed. I smelled ciguarette in my car and thought she might be visiting. She probably is visiting me. I'm tired and have a headache on all this.

Dad is in the hospital and I don't ever remember him ever being in one.

I'm just about done with my Exam that I need to turn in this Thursday.

Tomorrow they will be doing exams on his heart and lungs, etc.

I'm sort of tied and worried and aloft.

My dad's close cousin, a doctor, tried to explain to me, but I got confused in all the medical garble that he said. He said my dad didn't have a heart attack but chest pains and blah.. blah... but they don't know that for sure yet...
so how do you know he didn't have a heart attack?

They will be running a lot of tests tomorrow on him....

and they will be keeping me updated.

I'm hoping that he will not be scheduled for anything major like surgery and be released. I'd like to drive up to Indiana this Saturday evening and spent the night and Sunday there.

Had another one of those evenings where I mopped around in bed and laid around, cried, and felt terrible and about past, present, and future, when I should have no reason too. I need to be working my second exam, and I have no excuse.. I played my Sims2 game for an hour, ate dinner, briefly talked with Joe, and about his financial situation- a terrible topic, and then took a nap for an hour. I am in peaceful slumber and that mental state half-way of being awake and in dreams.. where you know you can lay in bed without any cares in the world.

But my heart kept racing and my thoughts kept racing through my head, mostly about a lot os stupid stuff, like the tv episodes I watched Sunday night, or the anxieties I have about my body, my exam, my career, my future. The beatles woke me up.. but I woke up about 10 seconds before the song starts...

Then as I walk out of the bedroom the white fat cat prince runs to the kitchen in anticipation and cries multiple times when he doesn't see any fancy feast wet food lying in his dish when he's got plenty all he can eat dry food. The grey cat follows me into the bathroom to whine and rub against me, and incessant meowing for his fancy feast. I imagine my kids will be somewhat similar.. but I hope they will have another parent to whine half the time.

A lot of it revolves around my current relationship, my living situation, and my hopes for the future. Funny , life it is something else.

Took a look at my legs in the bathroom and thought I looked beastly and couldn't remember the last time I looked down there and shaved, oh yes, it had to have been like half a month ago, and my legs looked like they hadn't been shaved all winter. Hairy!! I must be slowly becoming a man :)

I laid on the couch for half an hour. The plaid couch that I paid about $900 about 4 years ago. It has a sofa sleeper, but I'm afraid my last guest must have bent the steel frame out of wake, because it now doesn't come out and I cannot bend back the steel to get it to unfold. When I move, if I can move, I will definately buy new furntiture that is better and won't attract cat hair.

As I laid on the couch I could not get myself to get up and do anything, anything at all. It's sad. I kept looking at my bachelor's degree hanging up above my fireplace and the empty diploma frame for my master's. This has been a lot to accomplish in life, but what did I give up and not pursue that is going to affect my future and happiness in life? Why did I let myself go and not glue my friendships and relationships together stronger?

I want the American dream, just like everybody else. Well I feel that I worked hard to get educated in order to achieve it. Well where is it? I want to be able to afford my own place and have some money left over to enjoy it. I want to be married to a man who can contribute more than his fair share and provide for me if I should decide to be a stay-at-home or part-time mom. I want kids and and family and friends. My family relations are almost nonexistent.

At Easter we got together to eat and that was all. Family is not a dinner every major holiday, but it seems that way for me.

I guess it is what is is, and fantasize about marrying into a decent sized and close family.

What made me even more depressed is I think Joe does not have the motivation to provide these things for me. Love is Love, but Life takes more than love alone. My logical side has gotten me where I am today, and I'm going to count on it for the future.