Well, let me tell you what’s been happening here. I am stuck in my job, uncomfortably stuck. I don’t make enough money, the boss is jerking me around, etc. Public school teachers make more than me, and I have a damn Master’s degree. So, I thought, Hmm., public school teacher. I could do that. Summers off, Fall break, Christmas break, health insurance, retirement: sounds good. I don’t want to teach high schoolers, because it’s dangerous and I don’t want to teach junior high kids because, you know, they’re starting to experiment with sex and drugs and relationships and they’re all moody and…I don’t need the hassle. I will try to find a job in pre-k through 4th grade. Little guys.

So I signed up to start training for teacher certification. There are many classes and many things to do for it, and this Fall I will have to take many night classes (a freaking waste of time if you ask me). I gave them a copy of my transcript from OSU and they said that they don’t know if my classes at OSU taught me the same things their dinky little 6-hour class will teach me. Shit. So the classes shouldn’t be too much of a challenge, but I still have to be there in person and pay attention.

The problem is, the competition for teachers is fierce. I have had 3 job interviews, no job. I don’t know what to do, because financially I can’t afford to not teach full time in the day this fall while taking classes at night. It just can’t be done. I want to buy a house, I have a little furry kitty family here that I have to help support. I spent about 4-5 hours per school district on their stupid applications, and none of them have called me back.

And I am lonely. I work weird hours, have been for more than a year now. I’ll have like 3 classes in the morning, one in the afternoon, and then one in the evening. Nothing in the middle. I can’t drive back home between because it takes me an hour to drive back home. So I sit in my car, or go to a book store or something. It’s so hot here right now, the days average 90+ degrees, and next week is expected to hit the 100s, and I am in my car all day driving driving driving. It was a new car, but the sides have been keyed and there are door dings in the sides now from where assholes in the million parking lots I have to park in have hit the side of my car with their door.

So I have no time to make friends. I don’t like most of the girls who are Tony’s friends’ wives. They all seem to have something against me a lot of the time, and I don’t know why. So I sit outside with their husbands and drink and talk and smoke. Of course my husband is there, too, and none of those men are anything I want anything to do with outside of friendship, so the wives can’t be jealous. Can they? One of the girls at the last BBQ said I have a dick, in front of everyone, said that’s why I sit outside with the guys. It was such a shock to hear that kind of shit in front of everyone, and no one stood up for me. So I had to stand up for myself, but it sounded weak and she knew she hurt my feelings. Yeah, like I want to be her friend after that. That really hurt.

So I thought to myself, It’s OK, I have real friends. Like Adeline and Zaya. They understand me. They don’t hate me. But…they’re gone now. I’m so lonely and frustrated. I feel like there’s no one to support me outside of Tony and my mother. I’m a social person, believe it or not, and I have no pack here, no tribe. Zaya went and moved back to Mon-fucking-golia without telling me, and Ads is still in Korea, maybe soon in Thailand, after that in Malaysia. Maybe. So far away. When Zaya was in the US, at least there was a hope of maybe seeing him, maybe if I went to Alabama (though why, I don’t know) I could see him. Now, nothing. I can’t just drop by Mongolia for the weekend.

This sucks.