March 2, 2000 -- 7:40 PM EST

Today I have decided these things:

• I will buy a laptop ASAP
• I am glad I have good credit

I spent allllll day at the car dealership waiting for my car to be repaired. Every so often the guy would come into the waiting area to tell me more bad news and finally I was like, "Look, do what you have to do, here's the upper limit of what I can afford, try not to go over it, just get it FIXED!"

Yup. First Paul's car. Now my car. Everything does wear out at the same fucking time.

Paul also had one of his teeth out today. So. This morning I deposited his paycheck. Then I paid the house payment, the Home Owner's Association, the phone, his teeth at the dentist, his drugs for pain for the teeth at the drugstore, his allowance, and because I wanted to have money to live on til the next paycheck... I slapped my car repairs on my card. Bam. A grand.

Catch me, I am going to faint.

And I still haven't gotten the bill and paid for the power.

While waiting in the customer lounge I was thinking "If I had a laptop I could be working in here and making the money to pay off this damn bill right now this second. Instead I was doomed to watching bad daytime TV when I don't even have the flu.

Shut the hell up, Oprah. I don't want to hear you talk about home makeovers.

Sigh.

The guy gave me a voucher for a free oil change for keeping me waiting all day and I laughed.

Guy, if you wanted to give me a break for making me wait all day, you could have knocked a couple hundred off the bill!

He tried, he was nice, so I am not really bitching. Just wringing my hands because in the back of my head I am thinking, "Rebudget! Rebudget! Now you have a monster credit card thingie going! Aaaaaah! Interest!"

There is good news:

Paul is one more tooth closer to being mouth happy. He has another appointment for the end of the month. He also is in less pain and he said even though it was a real drag for me to be dealing with the car and to manage to show up anyway at his afternoon appointment -- he said it really made him feel a lot better to have me in the lobby. I know it was comforting for him. He's dentist paranoid, which is why he has bad teeth to begin with, but hey, one tooth at a time.

I feel better knowing Paul is driving my car and not having strange brake things happening. My car has new wheel cylinders, they are no longer leaking whatever it is they leak onto the braking system and making the brakes retarded, and I have four new tires, new oil, oil filter, braking fluid, steering fluid and other misc. car goodies. There! Now I want this car to run happily and I don't want to hear a peep out of it until three months from now when I use that voucher for another routine oil change. The Talon is still in pieces, but hey, one car at a time.

Now I have to go figure out what soft thing to make for dinner that Paul can eat and not anger the hole in his head and make sure he takes his painkiller again in a few hours.

This is one of those days where you kind of want to do tae yoga. All the venting and punching and kicking of a fast, intense tae bo / kickboxing kind of workout, only you are soooo tired you want the the slow soothing destressing that comes out of a yoga workout.

I guess this is where I lay down on the floor and just imagine kicking and punching?

~Astrophe