adrift: how C3PO totally ruined my day.

today has sucked from start to finish. and by start, i mean at around 1:30 am i threw up my hands in despair because the C3PO mask i had been attempting to make ALL NIGHT was officially and irreparably creepy and awful.

the last ditch puffy paint accents i had applied in delirium made my robot friend look like he had just participated in some elicit activities resulting in a face full of shiny golden robo-semen.

UNACCEPTABLE!

i don’t know why i thought that this task would be simple. C3PO masks are best left to vacuform machines and people with masters degrees in paper mache. i am neither of those. what i am is a person who needs a decent C3PO mask by friday and has run out of options.

this, and the lack of sleep caused by this would color my whole day.

i was cranky and emotional and punctuated my afternoon with occasional bathroom crying jags. sometimes things just go really wrong and you can’t seem to get out from under it.

i decided to drag my carcass around town on my lunch break in hopes that some fresh air might cure what ailed me. but half way across town, i realized that i had forgotten my debit card.

when i’m really bummed out, all i want to do is shop and eat. being unable to do either of those things crushed my spirit a little. it had never really occurred to me how much i placate myself with stuff. with consumption.

i imagined myself eating a big cookie and buying a new dress. i imagined myself feeling better. i didn’t. it was just me and my mood wandering the streets alone.

i still feel crappy. and my allergies are acting up. and one of my eyes is slowly puffing shut… but i’m strongly considering leaving my debit card at home more often. maybe i need to hang out with my sad sometimes- instead of trying to smother it with lattes and new lip gl0ss. maybe i would save some money and learn some new coping skills.

i don’t know.

on a related note, does anyone have a C3PO mask i can borrow for a few days?

resolved.

i was lucky enough to come into a bit of an xmas windfall this year. nothing earth shattering (most of it went to bills and to my saving’s account), BUT i decided to give myself a small allowance to spend on whatever i wanted. DANGEROUS. it could have been anything, or everything… i have a bad habit of burning through cash without really paying attention to where it goes, or really caring too much when it’s gone. i’m all like “oh, that’s was fun”, instead of feeling the intense sense of guilt and shame that keeps most people from getting in financial trouble.

the last year has overall been a good one for my financial evolution. this was the first year in over a decade that i didn’t use my credit cards even once. i also managed to have a savings account with actual money in it for more than 15 minutes. on the other hand, i didn’t pay off my credit cards as much as i would have liked, i didn’t manage to keep the majority of the money in my savings account, and i still didn’t start an HSA.

so for 2011, i have only one resolution. it isn’t to save more, or spend less, pay off the credit cards, or even open an HSA… (although all of those things are certainly worth keeping in mind). my resolution this year is just to PAY ATTENTION. wherever my money travels should take me this year, i would like to be watchful and be thoughtful about every dollar i spend. i’m thinking about leaving my debit card at home, giving myself a cash allowance, being more careful about monitoring my mint account… but it doesn’t really matter what i do, as long as i’m being vigilant.

i decided to lube up my resolution and get started a little early with the aforementioned windfalll. instead of just throwing the money into my checking account and going apeshit on whatever i happened to find first, i sat down and really thought about things that i wanted, needed, and would generally be too cheap or too broke to afford the rest of the year. here is what i came up with: