All Write, Already!

Climate Change News: General Motors Announces Plans to Ramp Up Electric...: First we had Ford announcing the formation of its new Team Edison unit to focus on electric cars.  Now we have Mark Reuss, vice president...



Watch, as industries tied to pollution, mining waste, accidents, widespread toxic dissemination and government kickbacks rush to associate their sales figures with greenwashed technology before it's too late to save their profit margins.

Write an (unsent) letter to someone you don't like.

I do not have.....

Describe the best day you've ever had.

Describe the last really good dream you had.

Describe your happy place.

Make a list of everything you are excited about right now.

     Grandma Frances was a product of her depression era upbringing.  She often preferred meals of beans flavored with ham then steaks or seafood.  The idea that colds were caused by a virus was completely unacceptable to her.  Wet hair on a cold winter day was her logic.       

Write a word portrait of your grandmother.

Write the tombstone inscription for a fictional character of  your own creation.

This is what 'my boot camp' would teach.

For summer vacation this year, I plan to...

I would give up my left arm for....

My vision of a dark future.

I would do anything for love but I can't do....

"Like good little children..."

The system is collapsing.

Today's topic (long time no see, guys)
SOMEDAY WE'LL BE TOGETHER...

They say that some chemicals in my brain are not "balanced" corrected.  But how can they know what the correct balance is for me.  They don't poke a needle past my eye and take a sample to determine what the mix is like.  Wouldn't it make sense to draw samples over the course of a few days or even weeks to get a really good sample set?  Rate the mood and relate it to the samples? 

But science doesn't work that way, it seems.  So how do we know what the real balance point is?  Is it when I'm compliant, being a good consumer?  Is it when I am happy all the time, regardless of how I feel?  Is it when I don't make a ruckus anymore?  Is it when I just sit and watch the world go by, not saying or thinking anything about it? 

Or is when i learn to live with the imbalance....

Time for another pill.

    

...more time to enjoy it.  The rush at work.  The busy hobbies and the need for down time seems overwhelming me and take away my interest in developing any interest in the holidays.  Why most it be so?

     I want to be full of joy.  I want to be merry!  Maybe these things are meant for those with lots of spare time or the wealth to not worry about paying the bills.

    First world problems, I guess.

Topic: Christmas would be so much nicer with...

     There is a stabbing pain between my eyes.  Like an ice pick pressed into the spot with the bridge of my nose meets my forehead.  It hurts so badly I just want to close my eyes.  The darkness seems to help.
     That pain is caused by my stress levels.  I have too much to do for the time frames I have to work in. 

That pain is cause by....

Please feel free to write based on any of the previous few unused topics, or on this one:

This is how I'm broken

That's our new topic. Derr...

Armageddon was yesterday, today we have a serious problem...

Am I the only one who aches to have the power to hurl a red shell at the car in front of me on a daily basis?

Didn't think so.

Shell Game

It was a little after 2 am. I was walking in Dundee, looking forward to getting home to enjoy my late night sandwich from Amsterdam Falafel & Kabob, and feeling good from a night of successfully funny improvisational comedy and equally enjoyable camaraderie with friends.

I crossed Underwood on the way toward my parked car. I was hoping that no one had opted to take advantage of the open driver's side window to steal any of the myriad items strewn and piled in the back seat. I did not want to be responsible for saddling anyone else with the responsibility of owning an item from that collection of odds and ends that had been growing like a landfill for the last year. The window was only left open because it is easier to reach in through it and open the driver's side door that way than it is to crawl across the passenger side, and no longer at all possible to do it using the external handle.

Some of the items in the back seat might be worth a thief's effort, like the game of Carcassonne: Hunters and Gatherers that's somewhere in there, or the three or four pair of shoes I assume must be there in their entirety because I can usually see one representative of each set poking out in random places.

Some items I almost wish would be stolen because only theft can save a hoarder from herself. I haven't been able to bring myself to throw away the Tastefully Simple gift box I bought several years ago and I don't have anyone in my life for whom I feel the exact mix of veiled contempt such that I would gift expensive and expired foods to them. The obvious answer is to continue carrying it around in my vehicle and to move it from one vehicle to the next when the first one breaks beyond repair. Only a theft or a fire can break that cycle.

There is also a set of purple butterfly wings that I wore a few months ago to a theme party. Having been left in the pile, they are getting tattered. I admit I am tickled at the thought of pinning a note to them that says "Take these broken wings."

I was halfway across Underwood and most of the way through this reverie when I heard a voice yelling, "What's wrong with you, dick?"

Curious to find out who was being berated loudly at 2 in the morning on a deserted street and why, I turned around and found an off-duty cab driver yelling at me. Apparently, I was the dick.

Seeing that I had acknowledged him, he yelled again "I almost fucking hit you! Watch where the fuck you're going!"

Confused, I looked down to confirm that I was using the crosswalk, and looked up to confirm I was crossing with the light. Both seemed true. The years spent softening the sharp edges of my Brooklyn girl attitude melted away as I shouted right back at him, "I have the fucking light, you ass!"

Now this is the part that truly flummoxes me. He countered with, "It's a fucking STOP sign!"

I had no comeback for this because I was well and truly thrown. Was I wrong when I checked the light? Was it doing that thing that lights do at some intersections late at night and flashing a different set of instructions than the daytime programming? Was the light showing instructions for me to go while it flashed red to him? In the time it took me to survey all of this and determine that I still believed I had the right of way, he had already turned right and driven Dodgeward.

He was gone and with him he took the opportunity for me to determine what he had based his belief that he had a stop sign on, and why that would give him the right of way when there was a pedestrian in the crosswalk. He had interrupted my train of thought, introduced a ridiculous premise, and left without allowing me the satisfaction of telling him off. He had removed the ability to observe the full extent of his insanity. He had even planted a seed of uncertainty, such that even now I am itching to go back and examine the area to try to figure out what the hell he was talking about.

I resumed crossing the empty street, deflated and annoyed. I reached through my window and opened my door, and got in the car. The smell of the food from Amsterdam was pleasant, and mostly replaced the smell of whatever is living beneath the back seat stuff. I plugged my phone charger in and connected the audio, mostly from force of habit. I didn't think I'd be in the mood to listen to my audiobook on the way home, and expected that it would take arrival at my apartment and consumption of lamb meat and spicy sauce to restore my previous level of happiness.

The knock on my window startled me. I looked up to see if it was Cabbie McFuckerson, but it wasn't. (For the record, I doubt that was actually his name anyway. The cab driver neither looked nor sounded Scottish.)

The person at the passenger side window might have been someone I knew. I know a lot of people in this town. To prevent the risk of snubbing someone whom I should greet, I pressed the button to allow the window to open enough to hear what he had to say. He asked, "Can you give me a ride home?"

Given that I was still in Brooklyn mode, I didn't even consider this for a second. Midwestern Jess might hesitate and weigh the probability of risk to her safety against the benefit of doing a good deed for a person. Brooklyn Jess immediately thought, "Fuck no."

Midwestern Jess would eventually have caught up with Brooklyn Jess on the next sentence, however. He finished with "It's just two blocks." The calculations came without effort:

1. If he could walk his own happy ass to Beer and Loathing to drink copious amounts of alcohol loudly with his bros, he could wobble back under his own steam too.
2. If it was some sort of come-on, that meant he thought he was going to be able to break the ice within two blocks and it would be something on the order of "You're really nice, want to come inside? I have some PBR in the dorm fridge I keep in my bedroom and my roommates can sleep through anything." The night was surreal enough already.
3. That left murdering rapist as the last remaining option. Even if he were off duty and I were not an intended victim, I do not give aid and succor to murdering rapists. It's the principle of the thing.

MidBrooklyrn Jess flashed a very brief smile with the manufactured appearance of regret and said, "Sorry. Good luck!" and pressed the button to close the window.

I drove home from the Twilight Zone.

With permission, I present:


Missing The Point



It's both a topic, AND an entry!

If there is a Heaven, the primary form of sustenance is Snickers ice cream bars.

For the delightful caramel and peanuts.

Peanuts

Today's Topic is

Love, the Villain

    As problems pop up in the office, I am assigned to handle them leaving others to be able to focus on more mundane tasks.  I call myself the fireman cause that is what I do, I put out fires.  Not real flames, mind you.  I don't really have an issue with this idea but there are times when I simply cannot retain all of the data I need handle all of these issues.  My brain simply cannot maintain all the data for the seven or eight different tasks, each with their own unique sets of policies and procedures, that I deal with in less then a half an hour.  There are times when I can do it and I'm quite proud of myself when I do it but it happens far to rarely.   
     My brain tuns to mush.  I have evenings in which I don't even want to speak to another living soul. 
     Luckily, the drive home helps me a lot.  To paraphrase Douglas Copeland, "Driving is enforced meditation."     

For today, we'll go with...

Idea Overload

     Is it possible that thought is contagious?  An idea spreads just like a disease?
     Ever been in that situation when someone at the office comes up with a simple, yet effective way to handle a problem and they tell someone about it.  Soon almost everyone in the office is using that method, except for a couple of standouts.  Think about the path something like that takes.  First to a new person, then to each of those people share it with someone and so on.  Doesn't the vector follow the same kind of distribution as a cold or the flu? 
     And it can also work with bad thought.  Things are not going well and someone mentions a idea and it spreads.  Rumors and misinformation also follow the same path.

Today's Topic is...

Highly Infectious Contagion

They turn into cats
And I don't much care for cats
So I hate kittens

The problem with adopting a cat that's been forced to live feral for even a fairly short period of time is that, unlike purely domestic cats, they pick up habits that can't really be trained out of them.  Biting, for one.  No matter what you do, it's just stuck with them.... just have to put up with it.

At least she's only a nipper instead of a major chomper, though.

For a late topic today, we shall go with:


Kittens.

Papa used to tell me about his father all the time. That's PA (as in "pass")-paw (as in a dog's "paw"). Well, he told me about every single detail that ever happened to him, right down to how he once stole condoms from the corner store and then sold them for a quarter a piece to seamen on shore leave. (Very lucrative business in those days.)

But I think the stories he told me about his father were the ones that stuck with me above the others. My favorite was how he said his aunt had told him and his sisters that they needed to calm down and not be so rowdy or Santa Claus wouldn't bring them any presents this year. He said his father quite dramatically slapped her and said, "Don't you lie to my kids about no Santa Claus. If you want to lie to them, lie to them about good things like God and Jesus. Don't lie about no Santa Claus." I had a habit as a child of exaggerating the stories I heard, so that may not be quite how he told it, but it's how I've always remembered it.

My grandfather is alive and well today. I speak in the past tense only because a few years ago, an event occurred that changed my grandfather forever. The house he loved and cherished and inhabited for 60 some-odd years caught fire.

As the walls were burning all around him, so were the walls of his mind. The life he had built and perfectly maintained for so many years was warping and turning to ash in front of his eyes. The fire fighters arrived, and my reasonably hysterical grandmother told them her husband and the dog were still in the house. They rushed in to find my grandfather beating at the flames on the walls of the living room with a wet rag. At no point was his brain able to accept that his sacred temple was being defiled by a greedy force of nature that cared nothing for him or the memories hanging in neat little frames all over the walls.

One of the firemen forcibly dragged Papa out of the house, while the others looked everywhere for my grandmother's Satanic dog who hated everyone and hid from them in the farthest corner under a bed in the back of the house. They somehow managed to grab the dog as it fought with it's heart and soul not to be taken, and grabbed every single family photo off the walls on their way out. They then proceeded to put the fire out, which had already burnt a hole in the roof that wrapped through the kitchen, bathroom, and the living room already, without seeming to get so much as a gallon or two of water in the house. The water damage was negligible. Those men from the Houston Fire Department were god damned heroes.

After that, my grandfather's mind started to slowly slip away. The man had been immortal before that day. That was the exact moment that his brain gave up it's noble, unwavering resistance against the forces of time and began to deteriorate. Mema ("ME-maw") started to stress out terribly shortly thereafter, to her own mental detriment. She has since stabilized, after a long and arduous struggle to accept that Papa would never be the same man she had been married to for so many years again.

So that's half of my family. Mema and Papa. They're some of the kindest old coots you'll ever meet. And apart from a few vices and quirks that are near universally shared with minor variation by all grandparents, by most humans anyway, they're really wonderful people. I love them to death, and it will be extremely difficult to accept when they're gone. The other half of my family is myself and my mother.

My grandmother was 40 when my mother was born. My mother was 18 when she had me. So when I was growing up and my mother was as much if not more of a mess than I have been this decade, it almost felt like we were siblings, and Mema and Papa were our parents. Now my mother and I have to find ways to keep my grandparents from hurting themselves or each other, to keep them getting dressed and to keep my grandfather clean shaven. It's like year by year, the dichotomy is being slowly flipped around on us, and suddenly we're the parents, inheriting all the responsibilities therein.

As rough as it's been, it's been a moving experience. My mother and I have both grown psychologically, or spiritually (if you'll permit the term) by leaps and bounds as we've fallen into our new roles, though she's admittedly had the worst of it.

But I still think of all the stories Papa used to tell. Now he only has a new handful that he remembers, and he tells them so many times we can't help but stop him from telling them. It's sad, but life has to go on. As they've gotten less and less present, I've more and more had to come to terms with the fact that my mother and I will soon represent the entirety of my family from top to bottom in my mind. And my friends have become more and more valuable to me as time passes, because I realize that moving forward, my family will consist of my mother, myself, and the people with whom I am able to manage and maintain close relationships with. And as this knowledge has slowly dawned on me, my friends have become ever more precious.

One day, I hope to be a Papa myself, and to tell my grandchildren a hundred stories about my Papa before me.

Not everyone in a family is related, and not everyone you're related to is your family.

Family takes more than blood.  It's deeper than that; it's something shared, developed, and forever a part of you.  It's the millions upon millions of tiny things connecting you to someone else; the things that make them important no matter what happens.

My mother isn't my mom just because she gave birth to me; she's my mom because of the way she looks out for me and worries over what'll happen to me and what I do even when it exasperates me, or I snap at her.  Because of the care she took in raising me, the shelter and protection, of pushing me to do everything I can instead of just what I have to.  Because I know that she'll be there to listen whenever I need to drop in a call.

My father isn't my dad because he got my mom pregnant; it's because of how much he put into the family, that he provided for us, and that he was around whenever it was needed.  That he knew when to lay down the law on misbehaving, but also when to let things slide, or even encourage something small.  That he introduced me to so much of the literature, media, and sources of philosophy that shaped me; that he showed me how to be who I wanted to be, both as an example of things I knew to emulate, but also things I needed to watch myself and avoid.

My brother isn't my brother because he was born to the same parents as me; it's because forgave the stupid stunts I pulled, but also pulled stupid stunts of his own on me.  Because he'd needle and make fun of me, but still wouldn't accept that coming from anyone else.  Because he introduced me to music I wouldn't have otherwise heard, gave me competition in the things we shared, and because we could enjoy the things we didn't share as well.  And because now that we're not kids anymore, he's still there, even when in a different city.

And despite not being relatives, my cloesest are still family; because they shaped who I am, challenged ideas I had, presented new ones to consider, helped me through tough times and relied on me to help with their own problems.  Because we trust each other implicitly, and know each other inside and out.

Your family isn't your relatives, because a family isn't just born.  It's made, nurtured, and fed every day you have it; it's earned, through what you do for them, and what they'd do for you- just because you are what you are, instead of what you and they can get out of it.  I might bicker with family, fight; I've hurt them, and they've hurt me, but in the end that just contributes as much to what we are as all the rest.

They're my family, and I love them all.

               

Today's topic:

Family

Better late than never.

Dancing

     My folks collected records when I was a kid.  I remember traveling around looking for the vinyl disks.  I think my old man was hoping to score that insanely rare piece of music that was worth millions but he only paid a quarter for.  It never happened.
     A wonderful side effect of this hobby of their is the love of all types of music it gave me.  I was exposed to every genre of tunes that existed at the time.  I remember rock and roll from the 50's and 60's.  I also remember the soul music from the last 60's and 70's.  The Motown sound.
     I still enjoy a wide verity of music, wider now then I did then.  But there is nothing like soul music.

Just the other night, I was eating dinner with a friend and she told me that she believes in soulmates. Not in the way that there is one right person for everyone, but in the way that there are people whose souls are connected, and the bodies belonging to those souls can recognize one another.

I told her I do not believe in soulmates, but it certainly sounds like a romantic notion when she describes her beliefs. She also described important people in her life, the ones who mean a lot to her and guide her as “lights” in an otherwise dark universe. Without ever realizing it before, I completely agree.

Today's topic is...

Soul

I think religion as a whole can be almost entirely explained by our tendency to seem patterns in randomness.

The daytime slips away
More quickly now
I find myself searching
Through the night

The man in the moon
The only friendly face
That I can find
In this unfamiliar landscape

What I wanted
May no longer exist
I fear that the end
Is inevitable

Pareidolia!

There are definitely a lot of moments in cinematic history that stick with you, haunt you, resurface in the cracks between moments to make you do a full body shiver.

The one that gets the most replay time in my head is the scene in Outbreak where the person in the back sneezes and we watch the droplets scatter all over the theater. 

unce unce unce unce DROP



*cough hack wheeze cough cough* wubwubwub

I squeeze the wrapper of the cough drop, popping it into my mouth and tossing the wrapper out the window of the car, my eyes darting over to see if my passenger noticed. She didn't. I look at the road again, only peripherally aware of my surroundings.

What I don't realize is the symphony of other sensations passing through the air as I focus on that which is close at hand, the stinging menthol tickle filling my senses as I bite into the cough drop. What I don't acknowledge are the subtle things being communicated between my body and hers. I have a strange sensation that she's looking at me, as her glands begin to release that particular pheromone that tells my body to respond and I turn to catch her gaze and I confirm that I am, in fact, a mind reader.

I wonder how long it will be before science documents these other senses as my body, through scent and a subtle language of body movement that few are acute enough to recognize communicate back to her that I adore her gaze and I want her to keep looking, and that later, I'd like to get closer to her.

To which her body responds, I'd like that as well. And I continue driving, blissfully unaware of our conversation, and wondering at my new found psychic powers.

Today's Topic, because I'm sick as a dog and riding a NyQuil high is...

Cough Drops

Tasting your neck as I caress your skin with my lips
Your hair surrounds me, clean and soft as it falls over my eyes
I can feel your longing, I can sense your desire
I see your beauty and your strengh
Your passionate moan pulls me forward
Fully present, Alive

     Have you even been driving and turned your head to look into the eyes of someone looking at you?  So many people I know have described this ever event to me.   When they explain this to me, everyone speaks to the idea that they somehow sense that person looking at them.  I have experiencing this myself too many times to count.
     I remember hanging out with some friends and a buddy was seriously hitting on his date.  Her friend that was hanging out with us wasn't getting the same amount of attention.  I remember something in my brain told me I need to turn my head away from the buddy and his date to the friend as if I had been given a message.  As I turned my head, the friend attacked me with a very passionate kiss. 
     There are senses we don't understand yet.  Ways of perceiving the world around us that we cannot yet explain with science.  But I believe that a day is coming, a day where we will agree that there is more then the original five.

....how about...

Senses

     She and I exchange various one liners for about a half hour.  Nothing of substance.  Joking, more or less.  Yet each line exposes a bit of ourselves to the other individual.  I slip a cuss word into a line and she asks me not to use such language.  I gain an understanding of the photos.
     Later, things turn more serious.  We share feelings and ideas that matter, not just mindless crap.  We bear a bit of soul to each other.  Not enough to make ourselves venerable but enough to show that we want to interact with the other in a more serious manner.    
     Things come to an end and we make plans to 'bump' into each other online in this fashion again soon, allowing each of us the chance to seek the other out without the need to set a time.  The flexibility of the Internet at its finest.
     Will anything come of this?  It is a crap shoot but isn't life about the journey and not the destination?  Online flirting would qualify as the journey indeed. 

A bat of my eyelashes
A wink and a nod
A gesture, a movement
A look deep in your eyes
An embrace held longer
A whisper, a secret
A brush of your hand
A flip of my hair
A walk, an attitude
A feeling shared
A moment

...how about....

Flirting

There are three addresses now where I check the mail on a regular basis. My home address, my parent's home address and my parent's other home address where the mailbox sits on the land they purchased. There's an old house on the lot, that will someday be demolished. For now it sits, accompanying the dirty mail box, with it's resident spider and it's hinged opening that doesn't ever fit squarely onto the box itself.

Address

     There has been a rash of groups putting college level courses online for free.  Since they are free, they don't provide any college credit but I have found myself spending a lot of time thumbing through them web site and becoming more and more excited about the offering I am finding.
     I just don't understand why?  Am i harboring a secret desire to go back to school?  Is it simply my love to learn new things?  Is there some kind of hope within myself that these courses can lead to a change in my current employment?
    I guess I need to pick a course and explore these options and see what comes of it.

School

Traveling to a theme park is always exciting and I usually look forward to it months in advance. I feel giddy like a child upon entering the gate and experience the day as carefree enjoyment, not to be interrupted by anything or anyone.

That is, until we hit the water rides. Somehow, I always neglect to think about the ramifications of getting soaked through without having a change of clothes. The moment of realization comes when you take that first, wet seat into the ride, where a puddle from the last poor rider remains. After this, I tend to feel a bit icky for the rest of the day.

Today's topic is

that icky feeling when...

do tell!

There is a crispness to the air. The leaves have not changed yet not dusk comes earlier. You need a blanket at night. A jacket is required in the morning but not in the afternoon. You don't want to roll the windows down on your way to work. Summer has retired for the year and given way to Fall.

Cool winds start to blow
The world starts to die again
And I start to live

Whenever I rake
The Peanuts theme is playing
Inside of my head

Today it's the
Autumnal Equinox

(I'd like to make my own little illustrations to go with this...)

To speak the words I’d like to say
Means they might take my job away

To do the things I’d like to do
May fail those I have obligations to

In this country it’s a myth
One every citizen must live with

Freedom has it’s price, you see
To be paid for by you and me

Soldiers giving up their lives
For foreign oil, greed and lies

Slave wage workers need a lift
As they head out for their second shift

Healthcare costs are way too high
Without attention the poor will die

I want to see my freedoms thrive
To see my people stay alive

We need to build community
To see potential, living free 

My fellow Americans, let it be known heretofore that today's topic shall be writ by the people as...!
Freedom of Speech

It is an absolute fact, save a brief and unfortunate plateau during the Dark Ages, that each successive generation is better than the one before it in nearly every statistical respect. Things are better today than they have ever been. With each passing year, infant mortality is a smaller fraction of what it once was in our savage days. There is less disease, less war, less violence, less bigotry, more understanding, better technology, more social progress, with each generation and yet people will fight that fact no matter what evidence is presented to them.

Data and facts be damned, every generation will say about it's successors, this generation is lazy, disrespectful and stupid! And every generation will simply be wrong. While we should strive always towards our ideals, and though we delight in the theatre of the stories we tell ourselves about how terrible the world has become and what a dire predicament our species is in, the fact nonetheless remains that today, everything is better. And tomorrow, everything will be better still.

Don't allow this information to make you complacent; do not let it extinguish your desire for a better world for your children. But take comfort in knowing that we have always solved our most critical problems and will likely continue to do so. And just as it was for people just 500 years ago, though cynics certainly demolished the idea as preposterous, it will only be a few centuries time before the world you have always desired to live in will more or less manifest itself, with it's own problems, but with those we experience now as ancient relics of a less civilized era. And they will perhaps look back at this transitional time and think "How could they not have dreamed of something better?"

But we did, in the darker recesses of the social mind; we do dream of better things. As our ancestors did, and as our predecessors will, and history shows that we will slowly but inevitably achieve that better life, one way or another. The hubris of the human race tricks us into believing that no matter where we are in our history, modern times are the pinnacle of human achievement, and science is at it's zenith.

But the fact of the matter is, we are one rung on the ladder, higher than those before it and lower than those to come. And we can take comfort in the knowledge that the Homo Sapien species is still evolving. And we are, as a race of beings - as a plurality of entities - growing up.

Oh shit. I did it. I started on the road to actual adulthood. I began the process of buying a home.

This is nerve-wracking. The concept of so much debt is staggering. The scrutiny by the financially-savvy moneylenders of all my poor choices in the past (yes, that debt was ex-husband's, but I had it in my name because I'm a doormat), the juggling of 401K loans, and gifts from relatives, and sexual favors in return for gifts from friends (I'm kidding... mostly.)

I'm up late every night with worry. I don't even have the apartment nailed down yet, and I am spazzing nightly about debt. I'm also spazzing over the possibility of not getting this place. I am so in love with it. It has a door to Narnia, for fuck's sake.

So I explored the concept of crowdfunding. Am I truly an adult if I'm appealing to my friends and strangers for financial help? I think I am. I have always been ready to help a person in need when I was in a position to do so. I will always do so in the future. I think this is an amazing tool for fostering community. I don't think it's wrong to utilize it. Still, I add to my list of nightly worries the concern that my friends think I'm weak and opportunistic.

But dammit! This apartment needs to be mine! Narnia!

Cross your fingers for me. Chant for me. Send good vibes my way. Pray for me. Whatever you can do to encourage the forces of this world to grant me this opportunity, do it. I would do the same for you!