I need more Crystal Light

Is this blog about sex, or is it about anything but? Sometimes I wonder.

Then again, all of that "anything but" decidedly impacts the sex. God, sometimes it's just great to be a woman.

As of right now, I am the only gainfully employed resident of the house. That's absolutely stunning, and it makes me glad that we're only one week into October. V has an interview tomorrow, and is temping steadily for the next two weeks anyway, so I'm not worried about him.

J, now, J I am slightly worried about. You see, J lost his job today, which should have been obvious in the last paragraph. Mostly, I'm pretty happy about that, and no, it's just just my bad case of schadenfreude that makes me say that. It's also my "Queen of Tough Love" persona, who has been waiting for something to come along and kick J's ass like this for about three years now. I had to figure, if he didn't learn to get up like a responsible human being, and show up for work/class/rehearsal/meeting/whatever just by my prompting or other intervention methods, he needed to get kicked in the ass. To use a trite phrase, sometimes you have to hit the bottom before you can reach for the top, or something like that.

Naturally, when his supervisor called him today and told him not to bother showing up tomorrow, J went right into his usual depressive state, curling up on the couch underneath a fleece, eating some ice cream, and watching tv, neglecting to talk to anyone else. He's very good at avoiding things through these and other methods. Granted, I can't imagine I'd be too happy if I were fired, but at least if I were in his shoes, I'd have been expecting it. I'm kind of aware of the fact that repeatedly no-showing at work isn't acceptable behavior. Neither is showing up late three to five days a week, or "calling off" the rest - and by calling off, I mean the supervisor called me to see where I was, and someone shoved the phone in my face so I'd actually answer it for once.

I already know that tomorrow, he won't even be awake by the time I leave for work at 12:30, and that despite saying he will, he won't have even looked for, much less applied for, a new job. And what does it say about me that I'm not even willing to help him look? Besides that I don't even know how someone would go about getting a new job after getting fired, because it's not an experience I've ever had.

V and I are seriously discussing the finacial feasability of kicking J out, and each of us paying $900/month for this apartment. It's doable, although we'd have considerably less around for saving and spending. It would also mean, at this point, that J would go back to his parents', which I don't like as an option. I largely blame them for the state he's in right now - I highly disagree with most, if not all, of their parenting methods.

And that's another thing. J, as recently as yesterday, says that he still wants to marry me. But do I really want to marry him out of anything other than complacency? Do I really want to marry into a family where I would pretty much outright hate my parents-in-law? And do I really deserve to hitch myself to someone who, honestly, for all of the years I've been with him, is going in nearly the exact opposite direction of me?

Fweee!

The benefit to overtime, as I've mentioned, is that I get lots of extra money in the paycheck. That means that I have money left over after I pay rent.

Better yet, I also got a $500 bonus from work this week, so I have tons of money left after paying rent.

That means it was time to go shopping.

I've wanted to refinish my table for a long time. I got it for free from a close friend of mine, who absolutely did not have room for it in her apartment. It's pine - the top and seats of the chairs were shellacked, and the legs and chair backs were painted Wedgwood blue. Now, I like blue, but Wedgwood? I'm not so much in to that. And neither is the Mission furniture I have in my living room.

So, I've been planning to refinish it, well, since I got it. It also needs a little work; some of the legs are coming loose on the chairs. So finally I was able to buy the supplies I needed for it. Vinnie and I went to Home Depot, where he stood with the cart in confusion as I first picked out stains, then grabbed all of the supplies.

I'm planning on keeping the same style - stain and color - but it's going to be all stains, no paint. The original shellacked parts are going to be a light red oak, and the colored parts are going to be a navy water-based stain. It fits a lot better both with the decor and me - I don't so much do anything pastel-ish.

So tonight of course after I cooked dinner for the menfolk, I put down the dropcloths, took down the glasses from their racks, and started stripping the table. Honestly, I'd forgotten how much of a fucking pain in the ass this shit is. I'm trying to remind myself that after I'm done, I'll have a beautiful table. But I got most of the table top finished, and barely one of the legs, and I'm fucking tired. Admittedly, it's the end of the day, and really, I only worked for about an hour, but JEE-zus.
Scraping old finish and stripper off really works up a sweat, and I can think of many things I'd rather do to work up a sweat.

Perhaps I'll have to engage in some of them tonight. Sex raises endorphins, right? Maybe that'll help my sore back.