Tom had originally planned to sell the TV on Craigslist if necessary, but then he was like, wait a minute. We’ve got a $1000 TV and two $1200 Macs. All it would take is one Mac and the TV to pay the rent, so while he still thinks some job will come through for him before we have to do that, that’s what we’re going to do if need be. He could always pull out one of the old monitors from the shed if he had to till he could buy them back. It’s a bit humiliating to have to be reduced to playing “pawn it” yet again, but at the same time, I thank God for pawn shops!

We’re not completely out of the woods yet (yes, I know that sounds funny since we live in the woods), but things aren’t looking as hopeless as they were.

Unfortunately, no one called today, but Tom said that Fridays are always iffy for interviews. Meanwhile, the unemployment should kick in soon, and while he still thinks the temp agency will come through first, he’s excited about Best Buy and Sears, which he applied for online because they would have excellent benefits. He’s also going to the local job hunt center on Monday and will be within good signal range should he get a call to go in for an interview. He feels that because he’s older and a Vet they’ll really push to get him a job.

Part of what was stressing me out so badly was this huge misunderstanding I had about his past online efforts at getting a job. A few months ago Tom put in job applications and not one of them responded. I was freaking out wondering how the hell he could possibly get a job in a few days or even a few weeks if no one would give him a job for months. That’s when he explained to me about a certain boo-boo he made at the online job search company he used. He wasn’t aware of it for a while and thought the lack of calls was due to the economy. Anyway, he said he wouldn’t work for less than 40K a year! And I guess this company doesn’t let you fix things like this and so now he couldn’t use this service for 6 months to a year. I had to admit it was funny and it felt good to laugh after being so stressed out. So he was asking for 40K at jobs that said they paid $9 an hour! LOL, I just hope this wasn’t a case of divine guidance in a bad kind of way, though, designed to hold us back.

Of course I also had to freak out a bit at the thought of being denied unemployment, but Tom says that’s not possible. He quit his job in Oregon, but here he was laid off. There’s a difference, so we’ve learned. When it comes to jobs and taxes and things like that Oregon and California are like two different countries!

As much as I hate a zillion things in life, I’d still prefer to live. Even if that means having to deal with the renter’s shit like we did today. They fired 3 shots. Tom said he couldn’t tell where it was coming from since gunshots are so loud (it was loud alright), saying that it could’ve come from up at the summit. Sure sounded like it was down in the canyon to me. On the flip side, though, the dogs were quiet all day. It was nearly 80º today, so that was part of it. I swear I wish it would either be hot all the time or rain 24/7! The Klammers are going down to 27º tonight while we still haven’t even come close to freezing. The rain we had sure greened things up a bit around here.

With the pawnshop giving me a bit more hope of rescuing us, I reentered the land of the living a little more today. I didn’t work on my story, but I entered sweeps, did laundry and even cleaned most of the place. I ran too, and went back on my homemade timer diet, ready to kill the 13th pound.

Jasmine says her idea of reincarnation makes it so that if you commit suicide to get out of something, you will have to face that same pain again in your next life. She believes that life is a challenge for every person and that by the end of it, our souls get wiser because we have learned what it is we came into the world to learn in the first place. She doesn’t think the lesson is exactly the same for each person. So when she has thought of suicide as a way out, she didn’t do it because she strongly feels that whatever she’s running from now will definitely find her again and she would have to deal with it anyway. So her argument for “preparing to die” would be that no one is preparing to die but rather everyone is preparing for the next step, the next lesson, the next challenge(s). We’re all working to become better beings and you can’t become something better in just one life so that’s why she believes in reincarnation.

I still don’t believe in reincarnation myself.