Unemployment Diaries: The Depression Edition (Part 1)

Oh hey look at that it's been several days since I updated. So even though Civil War happened, and a trip home where I got to see Lauryn in Seussical, and nothing particularly bad occurred, but depression doesn't always WAIT for something bad to occur. Sometimes it just sneaks up on you.
This is a long one, so I'm splitting it in two. But you should still strap in.

Thursday
I typed up my unemployment diary from Wednesday. I probably watched some Agents of SHIELD (Read: definitely did that.), might have applied for a job or two (I honestly can't remember) and then rolled around on the couch, considering how my life got to this point. Likely, I ate something that wasn't good for me. When the boys came home from work, I might have made them watch Veronica Mars, or I might have sat around thinking about cats. I honestly have no idea.
*edit* I'm a moron, this was Civil War night and I also found out I had a chiropractor appointment an hour before it was scheduled, while I was wandering around Petco getting cat attract for my jerkface cat who poops on the floor without it. So the evening went:
4:00 Petco and Walmart, for lettuce (bunny) and candy (civil war)
5:00 get sandwich at Wawa. It has horseradish on it which I think I can handle. I'm wrong.
5:15 leave for Chiro appt. Get to office, read fanfiction while laying on the back massage table thing.
7:00 arrive home, hungry due to horseradish interrupting my dinner. Boys get home, we decide to watch Veronica Mars together (I knew she was in there somewhere) until it's time to leave.
10:00 movie theatre. Sam has leftover birthday rewards on his Regal card. SCORE.
10:30 previews
11:00 lights down, movie starts, I hold my breath for 2.5 hours.
1:30 chatter about Civil War. Official Review: 10/10 still on team cap. Never enough butts. 10/10 would like to be Bucky's motorcycle. 10/10 #freebucky2k16 10/10 so proud to own a beetle. Recommended for: everyone with a heart? Brain? Functioning lungs? Do you need oxygen? Then you should watch this film. Only flaw: distinct lack of Stamford, CT--which features heavily in the books. 1/10 for accuracy (books take place on earth. so does movie).




Friday
6:30 wake up for 7:30 psychiatry appointment--a vestige of my days when I had somewhere to be by 8:25. Went to my appointment, got my prescriptions refilled, then went on over to Starbucks where I definitely DID apply for at least one job while listening to the episode of Agents of SHIELD that had premiered Tuesday night.
10:00 My favorite used bookstore opened, I found a couple first edition Harry Potters for Sam (his birthday present is a complete set.) and bought myself a weird copy of Little Women/Little Men which is bound together back to back????

I now have this image saved to my computer #noregrets

11:00 I had plans to meet with Lee for lunch and then take him to his own Doctor's appointment, so I headed out for DC and did those things. On my way up to Lee's apartment I saw a baby bird that had fallen out of its nest and gotten flattened into the sidewalk. My inner monologue at that point was screaming and full of guilt about this bird that I definitely had nothing to do with. Instead of examining that weird response, I just tweeted about it like an adult.
12:00 Panera Mac and Cheese for lunch.
2:30 Fell asleep in waiting room while Lee got checked out.
4:00 Went back to Lee's place. Noticed bird was gone from sidewalk. Our afternoon plans involved watching shit Lee had saved on his DVR, then napping and ordering pizza.
8:00? 10:00? Who knows. Headed home. Convinced Jeremy to leave for Jersey that night instead of the next morning. He agreed so long as I drove. I agreed so long as he'd stay awake and chat with me.

Saturday 

This is Theo. He's okay.

So I woke up Saturday morning and headed home to Connecticut, where I had a ticket to see my baby sister in the last musical of her high school career. This is great news because it means I can stop watching high school productions of musicals I only mildly like--->hate, and also because it means I can stop going back to my old high school, which I hated--->deeply loathed.
Anyways I headed out, got some Wawa, rocked out to music that lifts my spirits, and hit the usual traffic two exits away from my house. Typical. I got home and no one was there, so I layed around with the dog my Dad adopted after he and my mom split and she took the Real Family Dog. Theo is okay, but I spent three years trying not to love Buster while that adorable asshole wore me down, so the readjustment period is not easy. I miss Buster. I hate Connecticut, and going home to a house I grew up in but barely recognize now. Weird people live in my Grammy's apartment, and I need a visitor's permit to park on the street. I played Kingdom Hearts instead of thinking about these things until it was time to meet my mom and her new husband for dinner.

This is Buster. He's magnificent.

I drove up to the Parkway Diner where I spent a medium amount of time in high school. It's across from a Trader Joe's that used to be a Borders, and a Jennifer's Convertibles that used to be Tower Records. Burger King is still Burger King though. Dinner with my Mom and Ed was the usual. She asked about the job search, I asked about their recent trip. My French Toast was soggy, but passable.
Lauryn was in Seussical again, but this time she was the Sour Kangaroo. Last time she was a Who with funky hair. The show starred a bunch of props we helped build eight years ago when WE did Seussical on that same stage. The kids were very good,don't get me wrong, but there was a narcissistic kind of thrill when the suitcase I labored over to make sure the black and white stripes were perfectly straight returned to that shitty stage in another performance of The Musical that Won Me Over (circa 2004). My sister knocked it out of the park. She's a frikkin star, man.
Watching that show next to one of my best friends from high school was fuckin trippy. When we put on that show, Sara and I were in one of the biggest fights of our lives. She was the Sour Kangaroo both on and off stage and while she has forgotten plenty of our fights let me tell you I remember what assholes we both were to each other. It was the beginning of my disdain for actors with attitudes and the beginning of me learning how to manage difficult people--mostly because I did it so poorly during that show that I vowed NEVER TO DO IT AGAIN.
Anyway I really hope I never have to watch Seussical again but with my luck I'll get a job at a theater that performs it exclusively all year round. With maybe a Christmas treat of Shrek.
After Seuss, my Dad had agreed to take me out for dessert and he agreed to let Sara join us and that was cool because it felt like a weird high school flashback (I guess I hadn't had enough of that for one day). We went to the Bull's Head Diner where my dad told the same story he always tells about he and his friends going there after shows when HE was in high school. I ordered baklava and it was terrible. Why do I keep eating at diners in Stamford?

I am the incredibly white one. We did not know this boy was
in the picture until after I got it developed.

Sara brought me back to the school parking lot where I'd left my car, and there were other cars sitting around in the dark. This also reminded me of unpleasant and super cliche high school memories, but for some reason this made me laugh instead of making me sour. I don't know--hindsight or maybe just the high of knowing I could leave this all behind and Go Home? Knowing it's all memories and that I don't ever have to go through high school again? Knowing that if I had the power of time travel, I'd probably just go back and tell high school me that it's going to work out and that life has its highs and lows but even when we're down we're not out?????? (god high school makes me full of platitudes I guess)
Also I'd tell her about my cats, and Jeremy, and working on RENT, and that silly suitcase being on stage again, and she'd be able to hang in there for all that shit.
Whatever the reason, I drove home feeling really happy and hopeful.

Tune in later for Part 2!
-Jen