Good evening, friends and family members. Or something. *chuckles*

It's been a long day already, and it's not even officially night time. *grins* I went to dinner with my Mom today. We went to the Chinese restaurant in town... Chen's. They have good food, but I irritate my Mother something aweful.

See... I eat slowly. I always do. I don't eat often, but when I do, I'm hyper sensitive about who's watching and how I comport myself. Most often, I sit up straight, with my left hand upon my thigh... usually holding my napkin... I eat with my right hand, politely. (using flatware... honest)

Table manners are important to me. Surprisingly so. *chuckles* I really don't like eating with slobs. I have friends who shovel, and I mean that in an almost literal sense... if they had a small shovel, I'm sure they'd use that as their only utensile.

===Currently listening to Iris from the Goo Goo Dolls===

Regardless... My Father is an imploribly foul eater when it comes to dinner... or any other meal, for that matter. I won't eat at the table with him anymore. When we have family dinners, I'll take my plate into the livingroom, or up to my room. I hate having to sit at the same table. *rolls her eyes*

For instance... Do NOT sit with him at a buffet type place. He will have a normal sized plate and mound it high with food stuffs. And I mean high. I don't mean that he'll take many trips, tho he does, but he will have food stuffs piled three and four, sometimes five, inches deep on a typical 8" plate.

He will take huge mouthfuls and will sometimes talk in-between. He will polish off everything on his plate and go back for more and be done before I've completed my first plate.

Now, when I go through a buffet, if it's for anything other than breakfast, there's usually a salad bar. I ALWAYS get salad first. A modest amount, about an inch high in the middle... atop that goes a sprinkling of cheese, or sprouts, or whatever little additions I feel are nummy at the moment. Most often, mushrooms, sprouts and a little bit of shredded cheese. Then comes a faint drizzling of either honey-mustard, or ranch/blue-cheese dressing.... honey-mustard is preferable. Atop that goes a sprinkling of sunflower seeds and a few croutons. Now, with everything upon that plate... Possibly a few slices a fruit on the edge... but with everything, there's never more than an inch and a half of depth to the salad... at the very center.

I hate looking like a pig. I really hate it. It's bad enough that I'm fat... I've heard the tittering and whispers of, "I bet there won't be anything left when she's through." *rolls her eyes* Some people just need to be slapped upside the head before they ever leave their houses. *smiles sweetly*

Regardless... I take my time with my salad. Why eat if you don't enjoy the thing you're eating? If you're shoveling cottage cheese, pickled beets, mashed potatoes, macaroni salad, potato salad and chunks of roast beef into your mouth in rappid succession... when do you get to taste the food????

Anyway... So, once the salad is done, pausing to actually chew the food instead of wolfing it down... wiping my mouth often so I don't have dressing dripping from my chin, dressing mixed with roast beef juice *wretches* Gah... just thinking about it I can picture my Father... his beard full of everything that didn't quite make it into his mouth.

Ya know? It's kind of like watching someone eating a living entity... as if the food had a life and it would crawl away... or better yet, fly... if he didn't eat it fast enough. I think Dad should do commercials for Hoover.

Regardless... The point I originally started with.... (Tangents are my life)

I was at dinner with my Mother. We were having a great time, talking and all that... She started asking me what I was going to do with my life. AS if I'd not heard this lecture a million and a half times already.... She was stating how her friends ask her about me, what I'm doing etc.

She was offering up things she could tell these people... scenarios a 30 year old female should be doing/accoplishing... such as...

Oh, she's four months pregnant and looking forward to the birth of her second child

or

Oh, she just completed backpacking across Western Europe

She just moved to Mexico with the Peace Corps where she's building new homes for flood victims

She's just completed her second Doctorate in abnormal psych and is moving on to teach at XYZ University

She's just opened the fourth coffee shop in the chain...

Things like that.

===Currently listening to Riveria Paradise from Stevie Ray Vaughan (I'd always thought is was Riviera and Vaughn... but if you wanna DL it from Napster, look for the first spelling... you'll find it then)===

Instead, what my Mother has to tell her friends is...

Oh, she's upstairs playing video games

*laughs softly*

I don't play video games, Mom.

Her next suggestion...

Oh, she's just graduated from the Drug Rehab program... we're so proud of her

*laughs quietly* I love my Mother... I really do... but doesn't she realize that I'm comfortable??? Doesn't she realize that I like taking this slowly? That I like to know exactly where I'm going to place my foot before I actually lift it from the ground?

*laughs* Yes, she does. *sighs* And she's right, Damn it. I'm 30 years old. Unemployed, fat, and I remain in my room about 80^ of the time. So, as of this weekend, you'll be seeing less of me. A lot less of me. I won't be online but a few hours a day anymore. I'm going to walk this town, up and down, until I get a job. And I'm going to work that job until I either have the job with the state, or have enough fundage to get the new truck I want.

Then, if I don't have/won't get the job with the state, then I'm moving my ass on down the line. Either I'll start a "road trip" and stop where ever my truck takes me, or I'll move to a specific place. Hell, I can live in the back of my truck. All the stuff I own, besides furniture, would take up about half a pick up bed. That works for me. Single mattress in the back of the truck... Workin for Temp agencies til I had the money to fund an apartment. Perhaps I'll become a nomad.

*smirks*

Okay, so all that's bullshit. But, I am gonna get a job. And I'll work that job til I have a better one or til I have my truck. Then, I'm movin on.

HEY, so it took me a while. Trust me... You love me anyway.

And, I'm more than willing to take donations to the cause. I still have about 2000 to pay to get my liscense reinstated. *chuckles*

As far as that goes... Dad's gonna help me with that. I won't eat with him... but he's really, really good when dealing with collection agencies. It's kinda like this... I didn't know I had the bill/ticket... the collection agency has two choices. They can continue to have me owe them the money, or they can accept the cost of the fine pluss one hundred dollars. That would reduce the ticket's total to about 600 bucks. Give or take 25.

Eh... I'll get Dad's advice for how to deal with them. He's good with things like this. Very good, in fact.

Just don't sit across the table from him.

*grins*

Love to you all, mine dahlinks.

Toodles

"Rise and fall, turn the wheel, cause all life is, is really just a circle"