thanks McDonald's

I have been really poor three times in my life. Once I moved to Orlando with my bestie and we lived off Ramen and 99¢ frozen dinners. Next, I moved to London and lived of lunches subsidized by my employer and frosted wheat.  It's 15 years since Orlando and ten since London. I'm an adult or should be, with no exceptions. But I'm writing this from a Honolulu McDonald's where I just counted out change, the last of my change, to get a burger and fries.  If that seems bad to you, remember that last night I had cheetos and the night before a mochi.

So why am I telling you this? At first I wanted to complain about eating at McDonald's but the truth is my jalapeño double cheese burger for $2 is pretty tasty.  Then I thought I would complain about the general suckiness of being poor when you are 34, single, and have a good job. But I realized that this is awesome. I'm chilling by myself (because in normal circumstances I would never eat here and I would do anything to not hang out with myself) writing this blog. I'm remembering the awesomeness of my thrifty adventures and the love I have for the people I shared them with. So thank you McDonald's for food, AC,  and Internet. And thank you universe for using a lack of funds  to help me appreciate all that I have.

what do you do when

you find out that the person you were dating for over a year was sleeping with four other women?  what do you do when you talk to them and realize that half of them were being told the exact same lies that you were? how do you adjust your reality from what you believed it to be to what it has now become?  it makes you feel like you are drowning.  or you are in a bad dream that you can't wake up from.  how do you deal with the gut wrenching feelings of loss, despair, loneliness, anger, rage, fear, betrayal, and even compassion that are consuming you?  how do you get better?  how do you walk away?  do you?  or is a confrontation necessary?  people keep saying time.  time for what? time until i only think about it once a day? time until the feelings aren't consuming but just a dull ache? yeah, like every break up it will fade.  but i will always want answers. why wasn't i enough?  what was wrong with me?  why couldn't i inspire him to be better?  why did he think it was ok to disrespect my love and my body?

facebook

facebook was making me crazy.  i was stalking my bf.  fighting with him over every comment, every girl, every picture he didn't post.  it was nuts.  i deactivated my account.  I AM STILL NUTS.  every day i pick up my phone to go on fb,  forgetting that i am off.  and twice now it has come up my bf's account.  do you know how much self control it takes to walk away?  a lot.  a heck of a lot.  so i gave it up a week ago but have still managed to look at it every day.  i am aiming for two weeks and IT STILL HASN'T started.  sigh.

trust

is it easy to give trust to people who have never hurt you?  how easy is it to give to people who have hurt you?  do you keep giving it?  does it have to be earned back? does that mean that if you maintain a relationship with some who has broken your trust that you have loaned them trust? how do they ever repay it?   should they have to? does it actually have nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with myself?  should i trust my emotions or my brain? should i expect less? or more? or nothing?

i miss you cressida!

when i started this blog, i wasn't on facebook.   i worked so hard every day to find something to share.   there was like a little blogger community.   cressida and tinapopo, and so many others.  but slowly they faded away and now we have facebook and i run out of things to say and more importantly people to say them too.   is it time to retire?

American Abroad

I moved to Germany in July. I love Germany. But learning to live "German style" takes some adjustment. My friend and his wife needed to get their car worked on so he calls the place and asks for an appointment. The car mechanic offers an opening in TWO WEEKS. My friend needs something sooner (duh, who has two weeks to wait for a minor car repair) and asks if there is anything else. The mechanic responds, "this is not America" and hangs up. They wait two weeks to have their car repaired. Another friend plans her wedding from Starbucks because she has been waiting for Internet for 4 MONTHS!! I am blogging from my minuscule iPhone keyboard because I have been waiting a month for Internet. Germany is amazing in so many ways, Internet and banking however, are decades behind. There is no online banking. To pay something or someone you must take down their banking details, physically go into your bank, and fill out the paperwork for essentially a wire transfer. I have to pay my rent this way, parking tickets this way, and any utility etc must be paid this way. Sometimes, like with Internet, they make you think the process is easier because the company you are paying takes your banking details and sets up am automatic transfer. What they don't tell you is that they take the payment whether or not they provide the service you are supposedly paying for. I moved into my apartment on 1 August. On 3 August I realized after some research that I would not be able to get phone, Internet, or cable service by simply calling or using the Internet to sign up. Nope. I had physically present myself and my banking details at the Internet kiosk a few kilometers from my house. So I take off work and walk there. The guy explains that I have a couple of Internet options. 1) A ridiculously slow speed comparable to Sandra Bullock using dimes for dial-up in the Proposal. 2) Something so fast that it's similar to Napster days when you felt lucky if you downloaded a song in less than an hour. I decided to skip the dimes. I give out my banking details and sign a two year contract for landline phone, cable TV, and Slowsky Internet service. The kiosk guy explains that he will pass my information to the call center who will talk to the installation guy who will give the call center the day he is available who will call me and tell me when the installation guy is coming. Yeah. Just go with it. I have to remind myself hourly that in the USA we hire fewer people and expect better results. In Germany they hire as many people as possible and care little for results. More people are employed that way. Anyway, I get a call on 11 August that the installation guy is coming 15 August. I take of work. Everyone tells me it's to good to be true. My Starbucks wedding planning friend just laughs and says "don't get your hopes up." I totally get my hopes up. I have been living from my iPhone and after three days of use I was pushed into "superuser" status which means the phone company thinks I use to much data so they downgraded my speed making it impossible to even load Facebook. But that is a tangent. So. Installation guy arrives. Looks at all my connections. Tells me that my apartment is not wired properly for Internet or cable. He can't wire it while he is here. He will go back to his office and tell the call center who will get in touch with all the installation guys who will give the call center a day and then the call center will reschedule me. That was 20 days ago. I called the customer service line, which costs €0.14 a minute, and they told me "oh yes. We will call soon," after I was on hold for 12 minutes. So I am starting month two by blogging from my iPhone. I guess the take away for me is "this is not America" and be thankful I am not planning a wedding from my iPhone.

Hot N Cold

My former partner and I shared just about everything including passionate and volatile reactions to each other on a fairly regular bases. Hot N Cold would definitely have been the theme of our relationship in a video montage. "We fight we break up we kiss we make up" was pretty much the tag line. Until one day we didn't make up. We just kept fighting. But I was still stuck in the same song, "You don't really want to stay no but you don't really want to go-o." Or so I thought as I told my partner of five years that I wanted to see other people. Somewhat predictably, this got us back on track to kiss and make up but it most certainly never helped me decide if I was in or if I was out. We were, as Katy Perry sings it, "Stuck on a roller coaster, Can't get off this ride." After a year of ups and downs and a great deal of pain my partner had had enough and he pulled the emergency break, I got a little bit of whip lash from the sudden jolt but the ride didn't stop. We just jumped to the kiddie track where things are less intense but still up and down. Ironically this track is scarier because the next time we stop it will be for good. My partner is preparing to get off the ride. But I am not ready. I want to stay. It took whip lash to make me realize but now I know I would rather be Hot N Cold with him than room temp without.