I don't really write much anymore. I go to work, I spend time with the new love of my life, we talk about all the things we need to do so she can move here. (Yes, I know I hate Texas, but it beats me moving there right now - jobs aren't that hard to come by here, and they are a little difficult in the North Bay area.)

I am planning on writing again - I just have to get things ready. I am coding a fairly powerful backend to a new journal site. Check back here, I'll let you know when it's done. I know I've said I will do one before, but I really am putting code to editor now. And graphics. (The graphics are mostly done, actually.) And databases. What I've shown, I've been told it's sweet.

Do you remember when I was seeing Connie?

That ended. It ended a bit badly, actually... well, more like fizzled out.

I got tired of being stuck on people, too. Colleen, Lisa... I let them go. Why hold on? Especially when I got engaged. (That's a story in and of itself. I'll probably tell it at the new site when I get it done.)

Do you remember when I hated Texas with a passion?

Well, like I said, the new love of my life and fiance�, Marilynn, is coming to live here. It's the only way for us to be together right now, since it's hard to find technical jobs where she's living (as I said, the North Bay area, about an hour north of San Francisco) and this flying back and forth every two weeks sucks and is expensive. Thus, she is moving here and we will save money to move back in a couple years or so.

Oddly enough, with the dot-com bust, the cost of moving away from the Bay Area has gone up. We're trying to find a way to low-ball the move here, because we are both strapped for cash (although I can save a fair bit). I bet we get hit by higher rates when we move back to California!

Remember when I was too depressed to be productive?

I still work the job that drives me nuts. I still look for jobs. I still haven't found the perfect position for me, but I still plug along. I am trying to come up with something that can make us a side income, too, or even become the primary income for our move so we can live somewhere nice. (I really did like Lake Tahoe, even if the companion I had there left a lot to be desired.)

The Restlessmobile died; transmission failure galore, even better, when I was going out of town. I got Restlessmobile II, a Grand Prix GT (not the one I mentioned in the last entry). I am in the process of paying off a lot of money for that Grand Prix, so moving would be costly, anyway. (Doesn't help that Marilynn's car died this year, too, so we're both paying off cars.)

So... I'm hanging in. I'm still a Texan. Marilynn will become a Texan for a while. We'll survive. I'm just learning to live with it.

Do you remember when I despised my family?

Yeah, well, I still do. What's odd is that since I am staying in Houston for the foreseeable future, I'm stuck with 'em.

What sucks is that Marilynn has a bad relationship with her family, too. She's basically disowned them, because they're genuinely bad to her. Thus, I think she's hoping to use my family as a surrogate family, and I'm not cool with that.

My family isn't as transparently cruel to me as they are to her. My family is manipulative. I don't want that influence in our life together, I just don't know how to tell her that.

I would really be upset if she got close to them, though. I was hoping we'd just start a new life, the two of us and our friends and our family.

Remember when I complained a lot?

I still do that. [grins]

I've learned a lot, though - I think I just need to feel like people care, at least a little. I was recently on-call and complained bitterly about one of the problems I faced. It wasn't because of the problem, actually (which was a dead printer in the emergency room of one of the system's hospitals), but it was because I was waiting for people to answer pages and find out where the spares were. It was a major waste of my time, especially since this was over Christmas and Christmas Eve.

Needless to say, I complained the next day at work. A lot. Once I'd complained to about six people, it was out of my system. Last night was my last on-call night, and everything is copacetic now. I even had to make a call last night, and I didn't care.

It's just the bullshit that bothers me.

So I guess things are passable with me. I just have to keep moving on, and things should turn out okay.

restlessmind