But How Did We Get Here? (Part 2)

As of last post, I had begun working at LA Fitness in August of 2011.

After a couple months of working as many hours as they’d let me, picking up extra shifts and still hardly being able to pay rent, a person I knew through kickball helped me out a bit.

October 4th, 2011 – I began working at Printing Company A.  I was hired to be a customer service representative and also do data entry.  It wasn’t my dream job, and it wasn’t in athletics or in a collegiate setting, but it was a job that paid me okay enough to be able to pay my own portion of the rent.

November, 2011 – I start dating The Mayor.  This is an on and off situation which was mostly in the off setting.  I was enthralled.  I made him feel young and attractive.  We had a ton of fun together.  Then he said I looked at him in some certain way and he knew he had to end things before I got hurt because we were never going to work out in the end.  Casual dating was all we had in store.  This went on for the better part of two years.  Then I wrote a good-bye blog to him.

December, 2011 – Katy moved back to her hometown.  Amanda moved in with me and Gizmo.  I cried a lot.  We threw a housewarming party.  I stopped crying.

I still can’t believe all of this fit in my bedroom until we were ready to put it in the main apartment.

January 18th, 2012 – I make my maiden trip to New York.  Erin and I converge on New York City to do everything super touristy.  In spite of a horrible fear that I’d love it more than I love Chicago, I found that is not the case and had a lovely time seeing a show on Broadway, eating in Hell’s Kitchen, touching Anderson Cooper, and sitting a table away from Jerry Seinfeld.

March, 2012 – Went through a little something something.  All it did was make me re-evaluate some of my life choices and realize that sometimes you really do need a little help from your friends and your family – both financially and emotionally.  Grew up real fast and made some big life choices. [Editors note: this is mostly here to try to point out that sometimes things suck, but you come out on the other side of it smarter and better.]

July 9th, 2012 – After our lease ended, Amanda decided to move north to be closer to work.  This is an idea I was hell bent against (I wanted to stay South and maybe move East a bit), so we ended our living together stint.  I ended up living on a friends couch for 2 weeks (Thanks Favor!) while my belongings lived in a Dodge Sprinter I borrowed from work.  On the 9th, I officially moved into an apartment all by myself without roommates other than Gizmo.  Oh, and it was more north than where Amanda had moved…so much for staying “south.”

July 25th, 2012 – Decided I needed an artistic release beyond painting every once in a while and bought myself a high quality weighted keyboard for the apartment.  I set it under the big wall of windows, sometimes I’d leave them cracked a bit and go about my pounding of the “ivories” and belting of songs.

August 26th, 2012 – Geared up for my first hurricane… Isaac.  Which never hit us.  I did, however, have a hurricane party.  With 2 cases of beer, three pizzas, a stick-on mustache placed on the TV (you drink every time the mustache lines up with someones face,) and 4 friends.

Gizmo doesn’t like to go for walks in the rain…

November 24th, 2012 – After a long weekend that included Thanksgiving celebrations with my family and friends, Erin and I got ready together and met other friends in order to go to our High School reunion in Chicago.  One girl (who used to be a mean girl) apologized for being a wretched bitch.  Another girl tried to act like we were all the sudden going to be best friends.  A dude got livid pissed at me for not remembering who he was.  I navigated it all by pre-tipping the bartender $40 and asking that the double vodka tonics keep flowing anytime he saw me near the bar.  It all turned out lovely.  The pictures showing off my drunk face…well they did not turn out so lovely.

New Years 2012-2013 – Spent the New Year with Katy at her home up in the center of the state.  It was super cold.  I wore my jacket the whole weekend.  Yes, Florida can get cold.  We drank, cooked food, bonfired and hung out with her family and our doggies.  It was a lovely low key way to start the year.

February, 2013 – I played in my first ever kickball tournament as part of an availables team made up of people from Vegas, Atlanta, Virginia, Maine and Florida.  I also became immediate best friend with Karen when she came to stay with me for the weekend before even meeting me once.

But wait… there’s more!!!  After all, I still have 2.5 years to outline for you kids!