Tom got his license a few weeks ago, his parents got him a nice used car for his graduation gift. It turns out my riding my bike to work all the time had been worrying him MUCH more than he'd let on, so he hasn't let me ride to work since, he's driven me every day, which has been rather nice, between the heat and the rain. We've been able to get out and take a few little random trips out of town, to the mall or a real movie theater and things and it's been nice.

He *still* hadn't turned up anything job-wise, so last week he went back over to Express Personnel, where we went last year and had them help us job-hunt and sent us to the factory in the meantime. So they're looking for him, and in the meantime, lined up a job for him over at the Purina factory - which I made him forestall for a week to see if anything turned up, and it didn't, so now he's going in Tuesday for training and starts full-time the following day. I am not at ALL happy about this, and just keep praying that one of the banks or somewhere reasonable gets back to him this week, so he doesn't have to work at the factory long. He seems to think he'll be able to manage, and I truly do hope the environment's better at this one but.. I remember how bad the last one was, I literally didn't made it two days - and he only made it a day longer. Good money, yes, but it wasn't worth it. I'm going to be worried sick.

So last night, he picks me up from work, and halfway home he starts filling me in on the plan he's apparently been concocting for awhile without mentioning it to me. He tells me he'd like me to start looking for apartments in California - since he'll be working fulltime, and looking for a job in California already, that made sense to me, fine. Apparently he's done some preliminary looking, and has found that there's plenty of places with basically the same rent we have here, which's fantastic. He told me he'd like me to really watch what the security deposits are, since sometimes they're really high.. and then he tells me "because as soon as I save up enough money for the deposit, that month's rent, and the following month's rent [which he figures he can do in about three months factory work], we're moving."

I just sat there stunned for a minute.

...obviously, this is what we've been planning to do, but, I figured it would be another year yet before we left. Apparently he came to the - reasonable - conclusion that he'll be able to find the same random bill-paying job in California he'd probably land here, like I did, so we might as well head that way sooner rather than later. Which I understand, but...

HI I WOULD HAVE LIKED TO HAVE HAD A SAY!!!!!

So he springs all this on me and goes on a bit, and by the time we're home I'm very quiet, and he finally says, "so do you have anything to add to that? Really, anything?" And I told him flat-out, "Not yet I don't, I haven't had five minutes to think about it!"

He's really excited about it, he kept going on about it last night - less temperamental weather being a major draw, and "that's where everything happens!", where all the headquarters of the major technology players are, and everything else.

He finally started dozing off, and I started crying - he woke up and held me and-- This is going to be a REALLY hard move for me. He told me he doesn't get attached to places, just things (which I know isn't quite as true as he thinks, I know he misses Huntington at least a bit), but, I *do*. I *still* miss our house out in Perry, I miss the house on Iva Mae. I know I don't actually see my friends very often anyway, but at least I'm within a few hundred miles, same with my family. Neither Tom nor I have super-tight-knit families, but, still. This *is* something I want to do, it is, it's just going to be really hard. So I'm crying and Tom's telling me things like "they'll have TechTV there!", and then he got a little smarter and said there'll be lots of garden places and all sorts of tropical plants, which wasn't a whole lot more help, because what was upsetting me was leaving behind all the things I've known all my life - "I won't *know* any of the plants there!" And I'd just run into Katie O' at work the other night, she was up for a visit from Florida, and she was telling me that when she hadn't been able to stop taking photos - "there are *trees* here!", it's all palms where she is now, and she really misses the landscape here. I feel so comfortable just taking a stroll through random patches of woods and picking wildflowers and looking at the sun shining through the leaves overhead and playing with the vines twining around the trees..

Eventually my crying stuffed up my nose so much I couldn't breathe at all, so I had to stop, and getting up for a minute calmed me down a little. I fell asleep fairly soon, having tired myself out, but.. I'm still a little emotionally fragile this morning. Tom was being a bit of an ass, just his usual wry mocking humor but I couldn't take it for long today, he did stop when I asked. But as I was getting dressed, his mother called, and she's really upset about his decision to work at the factory too. "You have the car now! You don't have to get a job *there*, drive up to that big mall and get something there!" "I've thought about that..." And he barely answers her as she goes on, and she asks him why, and he says he's just finally come to terms with working at the factory. "Oh." She starts to go on again, and he hangs up on her.
---it's important to note that Tom and his parents have a ridiculously frank relationship, especially him and his mother. Anytime the two of them are together, I feel like they're fighting every other minute, when really that's just how they talk to each other. A complete 180 from my own relationship with my parents. Sometimes I admire it, other times I'm frightened by it. But today is one of the days I'm angry at him about it. She called again a minute later, and said she wants him to talk about it when she says something that bothers him, not just hang up. And he hangs up. Now I understand, and I'm sure she does too, that when Tom's upset, he wants space, and to be left alone 'til he sorts himself out and calms down. (This is as hard for me to honor as it seems to be for her.)

Personally, I'm just glad she said that, because I've been wanting to. I understand how hard it is to keep looking when you've gone this long without finding anything, it was only a year ago I was in the *exact* same spot, and out of the blue Paper Factory came through. I told Tom this a few days ago, and I've been trying to, every few days so as not to seem like I'm being pushy, make a few more suggestions. Campus, the newspapers, a few other places my coworkers (all locals) have suggested.. but it looks like he's resigned himself to working at the factory, and I understand because it's a surety which is something he really needs right now, but, I also remember how much life factory work sucked out of us. He's *not* going to have the energy to job-hunt once he starts working there.

So I don't know what I'm going to do. Unfortunately I'm barely making enough to make ends meet - the bit of money I try to set aside each month? is only like $20-$40. I can do a little more scraping than I have been, I've let myself buy a few books and cds, and we've been out to eat more often lately, but, it still wouldn't be enough to get us out of here anytime soon. I suppose I could look for a second job - work part-time at WalMart like one of my coworkers does, but I don't know if I could do it, as it is I have a hard time keeping up on housework and barely get any art or anything done. (A lot of this is because I haven't a regular schedule ever, but I'm sure some of it is my own personal ridiculousnesses, which I need to work on.)

I know both of our families would be willing to help us out a bit - but neither of us wants to ask, partly from pride and partly because we know our families really can't afford to help much. Mom took Mel and I out shopping last week and bought us both so much, it was really, really wonderful, and I appreciated it so much, I did need some new things but also just to be able to go out and pick out some new things and not have to stress over whether it was worth spending the money or if I should pass it up because I had groceries to buy. I don't mind having to watch prices on everything I buy, I really don't, but I hate this incessant worrying, checking my account balance before every check I write or every time I shop. I don't mind the scrimping, what I mind is the worry that comes with it. It wasn't so bad for awhile, I'm used to not having much to draw on, and I know I've always come through just fine, but now that Tom's savings are dwindling and he's flipping shit about not having a job, it's starting to infect me too.

So.. prayers are welcome, I suppose, we could use them. I know we'll pull through alright, my work hours have been picking up a bit again, and even if Tom doesn't last long at the factory, even a few days will earn him enough to stop worrying for a little while, until something else turns up. Which it's got to - I think that's the most frustrating thing about it, I *know* what a hard and great worker he'd be, at any place that hires him, it's just that they can't know it, applications are really no judge of that. (Which is why I've tried suggesting he do more follow-ups, and talk with people working there, so they get an impression of him besides his boy-handwriting.) He'd really be a far better hire than I was, and I know I'm one of the hardest workers at the store.

...I hear movement upstairs, he's probably on his way down. I know the storm will pass, I just...needed someone to talk to about it. Thanks for listening.