Still Pretty Happy, but Holy Shit...

So, ah, yeah...I managed to blow through $600 right quick. I'm sort of appalled, but at the same time, I don't really care because I didn't blow it on frivolity (entirely) and I love to buy people presents, so I can't feel bad about that. I was somewhat responsible and paid bills too, but things are still going to be the same kind of tight they would have been if I hadn't gotten the extra dough and didn't pay bills. Oh well.

In different kind of "holy shit" news; things are not going well in a friends' household. Her dirtbag husband needs to be dragged behind a semi for a couple miles. I hope his dick rots off.

It's The Little (and slightly bigger) Things

December is normally a pretty good month for me. I've always been a sucker for Christmas (minus all the crappy Christmas music), it's my birthday, it's finally getting that chill in the air (I like the first frost but that's about it)...all good stuff. This December is shaping up pretty darn good so far.

1) I got that gov't stimulus check that I was supposed to get last year. $600 in my pocket! Presents for everyone! Which leads me to...

2) I came up with (after some help from jr) some pretty good gift ideas this year.

3) Money again. I get my leftover sick time paid out next paycheck. As I have 4 sick days, that's a reasonable
chunk o' change.

4) Sephora send me a $20 gift card so I finally got the vanilla grapefruit perfume I have been salivating over for the last year. Plus I get samples and a birthday gift. I chose their Vanilla Cupcake shower gel - it smell scrumptious. Try it.

5) This is only potentially good; but I applied for a new position at work. If I get it, I will be in a different department and no longer under Stoneface's thumb. There's a (probably) small pay increase, but I'm so desperate to be off the call floor that I'd probably take the job without more money.

6) I have a yummy dinner tonight with my dad and one of my friends. Then after, I get another kind of treat from a different friend.

7) Might not seem like a big deal to most, but I finally made an ob/gyn appointment. It's a good thing.

8) Sent out my holiday card to a random soldier stuck in Afghanistan. Maybe a new penpal!

Anyway, that is the stuff that's making me happy right now. It may not last, but I'm going to enjoy it while I have it.

Vocab Quiz

Jeff was born on a moonless night in 1996. Thirteen years later, he learned that he would need to go on a long and difficult journey to save all of mankind from a horrible future of enslavement by aliens. On this journey he encountered his newly discovered arch-nemesis and they fought. Jeff was bruised and bloody but never broken. His arch-nemesis tried many crafty tactics to bring about Jeff's downfall, but Jeff always prevailed. There were times when Jeff wanted to give up. He met a girl; she died. He made a friend; the friend betrayed Jeff. Jeff met another girl; she became his stalwart companion. Jeff thwarted the aliens bent on enslavement and was elevated to godhood status by the grateful masses. He didn't want to rule, and so retired to a quiet life in the country with his wife.

That, my friends, is a quick and dirty example of bildungsroman (or try here). I am fed up to my eyebrows with that word. Far too many of the reviewers in the NY Times Book Review are in love with bildungsroman. I didn't realize that "coming-of-age" was so passé. Instead, let's resurrect an obscure German word that most people don't know. I do appreciate that the reviewers aren't talking (writing?) down to me, but don't use a word just because it makes you seem erudite. Heh, see what I did there?

What I really want to know is: why now? How is it that bildungsroman became the word du jour? Was there a meeting of the book review community? Did they say "OK folks, we're becoming too mainstream. Let's reach into our collective asses and find a word we can abuse. Bonus points if 50% of our readers have to look the word up."