Stand Down Red Alert

Ok, things are now under control, more or less. For those of you who were in on last week's crisis, thank you for your support. For those of you who weren't--believe me, you do NOT want to know. It was the most fucked up awful week I have had in recent memory (I can think of only 2 other times that compare even slightly in my life) and in the middle of it I had The Big Job Interview, followed by The Interview With The Person Who Was Out of Town During the Big Job Interview But Was Still Important. The fact that I managed to remain coherant and relatively poised during both of those Importances still amazes me. I had a big fall-apart on Wednesday night, but have been picking the pieces up and sticking them together since then and I think things are going to be OK. I hope. At any rate, it's out of my hands.

And the capper on the story, of course, is that I did get the job. Which makes me very happy, and of course also apprehensive--not that I will do it well, I'm actually pretty confident of my abilities. More just the nervousness of adjusting to a new situation after years of being my own boss, more or less. And it's going to be a big mental adjustment as well from a financial standpoint; after years of living pretty much right on the edge of insolvency, and before that having been comfortable but not having a huge disposable income, I am about to have a huge disposable income for the first time in my life. Not just from this job (which does pay well) but my parents are insisting on continuing to give me my "dole" payment that I've been living on in recent years--their argument being I'll get it eventually anyway, and this way I don't have to pay taxes on it. I am not an extravagant person, and I'm pretty good at managing my finances; I have a few things I want to spend money on, when I have it. But I've never even really thought about things like travel..... or investments. Or major home improvements instead of frantic emergency minor ones. Suddenly all this stuff is lurching into my head, and while I'm not going to fly off the handle and just start buying a ton of random shit and taking trips to Timbuktoo, the sudden opening of possibilties is a little mentally overwhelming. A month ago, getting carpet in the downstairs room was a source of extreme financial anxiety. It's going to take a while to not have a panic reaction to the thought of spending dough on something I don't desperately need. I know, poor old me! I'm not complaining, I'm just being my usual nervous self. The squirrels in my head are talking to me again. :)