Dysfunction Junction

As many of you know, I'm currently staying with family as I search for an apartment. People wonder why it takes so long to find one and why I'm not out of here just yet.

Well, the reality is that moving hinges upon many things...

First I have to find a place that will take pets...then I absolutely MUST have an apartment with central air as the summers here are muggy and the winters sometimes unbearably cold (though I'm doing everything I can to nudge global warming along ;) )...the place also needs to have a washer and dryer in suite as I don't do laundromats and can't stand a laundry room (have done both and both suck).

Oh, finally (and perhaps most importantly), I need to find a location that provides somewhat of a clear route to wherever it is I'm working so that I can successfully avoid the PA state bird...


The infamous orange cone...

So far I've looked online and found two...both kind of far from where I'm working now. Let's put it this way...I live less than 10 minutes from work and it often takes me 40 minutes to get there thanks to the high volume of bridge traffic. Imagine how long it would take me from the other locations...probably a good hour or so.

But I need to find something...and rather quickly...

My family's nuts.

I won't go into to much of it but suffice it to say that they fall just short of the richly described characters in an Augusten Burroughs novel.

This example only scratches the surface, but today I noticed that my TV column had almost (as of this writing) 9,000 hits...in monetary terms, that's about $90. Not bad for a short article about the death of Billy Mays.

So I happened to mention it to my mom...

Me: "Glad you told me about the breaking news on Mays. I wrote an article about it and it made me more than the amount I've made writing for that site so far!"

Her (flatly, unimpressed): "Oh."

I almost had to stifle a laugh because the first sarcastic impulse I had was to sing Kenny Rogers' "She Believes In Me".

Granted, no one in my family might be fully aware of what I do on the computer, but I've explained before that it's similar to writing for a newspaper--just on the computer.

But in reality, I know that they basically don't care...or they just don't see me as a writer...

So that begs the question...what do they really think of me?

And it's not that I care. I'm not seeking approval since I know I'll never get that.

I seek knowledge...and to understand how they think.

Some parents want better for their children.

"Better" for me would be to be happy in what I'm doing.

Until then, I'll keep filling this out...


I'm nearly at bingo ;)