$6 Gas; what's your guess?

[infinite monkey]

You're an ass. n'yuk n'yuk.

HA! I can see me on a donkey (dunkey) on the interstate. They'd think I was as nutso as the woman they just found pushing an empty wheelchair down the interstate.

If I sat on the dunkey in robes and looked serene, they might think I'm the virgin mary.

Would I need a license plate? Insurance?

I should get vanity plates for an ass, I would think.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

...They'd think I was as nutso as the woman they just found pushing an empty wheelchair down the interstate.

yeah, was that weird or what? Then the naked, disoriented woman they found wandering around in Xenia...she told them she'd left her two week old son in the car...somewhere...she couldn't remember where...ACK! Do you think she was roofied?

[infinite monkey]

AND, she said it was some kind of red car...and it was totally blue.

I don't know what she was on, but that is unbelievable!

Does one typically get naked first, then disoriented, or is it the other way around?

[BigV]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

I commute 90 miles a day. There are no options for public transportation or even car-pooling. Even getting decent mileage it hurts the bottom line. And my bottom.

But what to do? We're at the mercy of whoever is getting fat off this and I join the ranks of 'complain and keep driving.'

Originally Posted by lupin..the..3rd

Or you could just move. 90 miles a day is insanity. I know- I used to do that myself years ago. And then I realized that by moving closer in to the city, sure, housing costs are higher, but with the many $hundreds of dollars per month saved on gas and car maintenance, it's a wash. And now I have a few more free hours in my day, instead of throwing that time away sitting in the car. My commute now is 2 miles. I go home for lunch every day, and on nice days, I walk to work. I will never ever go back to long-distance commuting. The hassle, expense, and hours of my life lost just aren't worth it IMO.

IM--

I used to commute about 80 miles... each way. http://maps.google.com/maps?f=d&sour...e=UTF8&t=h&z=9

Insanity is an understatement. When I moved to Seattle, I vowed that whichever I found first, a job or a place to live, I was going to put a pin in the map at that location, and draw a little circle around it and confine my search for the other endpoint to locations within that circle. My greatest radius (now, sadly, recently ended) was 17 miles, each way. And that felt LONG compared to the two previous commutes of under ten miles.

It's worth it to move one of those endpoints. Obviously it costs more to drive more. But it's not just more gas. It's greater wear on your car. It's more time spent at risk on the road. Most of all, it's more time spent fucking driving that you can't spend doing *anything* else, audiobooks notwithstanding. I would routinely spend two to three hours each way, each day. I'll never get those hours back. I have NEVER regretted changing that habit. My life improved when I stopped spending so much of it behind the wheel behind some idiot.

I am familiar with the conundrum you describe. I lived where I could afford the rent, and I worked where I got paid what I needed to live. This really was the case. But those parameters are changeable, albeit with difficulty. But for me it was totally worth it. I wish you the best of luck. Keep in mind the value of your limited hours; spend them wisely.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

snip--
Does one typically get naked first, then disoriented, or is it the other way around?

I have on occasion gotten disoriented, usually clothed. But when I get naked I'm almost always focused.

[infinite monkey]

I am familiar with the conundrum you describe. I lived where I could afford the rent, and I worked where I got paid what I needed to live. This really was the case. But those parameters are changeable, albeit with difficulty. But for me it was totally worth it. I wish you the best of luck. Keep in mind the value of your limited hours; spend them wisely.

Thanks BigV.

I'm really having a hard time with this. As things get more and more wacky at my job I think..what am I doing this for? It doesn't make me happy, but I don't know what would. I've done it all, what do I expect to find?

I'm very tired of all of it, and I have to figure out what to do about it. Already, in the back of my head, I see my family thinking I'm a failure. Somedays I just want to give up: it's just that now that feeling seems to coincide with the fact that it's hard to afford to even go to work now, all things considered.

Gas was 3.96 this morning.

[glatt]

Do you rent or own your abode?
If you rent, when is your lease up?

[infinite monkey]

My lease is up whenever I want it to be, theoretically, but there's a lot more to it than that.

Also, there is nothing I want to do less than to live in or near this armpit of a city. For a while I looked into loft apartments, imagined me as a city mouse (huh, weird, that's from a title of a story I wrote when I was a kid "the city mouse who wanted to be a house mouse") but really...I hate this dirty and poor and crime-ridden hell hole.

When I talk about this, I don't 'cry' per se...but tears just fall out of my face. I am really truly miserable.

[plthijinx]

i found this quite interesting. from the houston chronicle...

In a letter to the top Democrats and Republicans in Congress, Obama said the “unwarranted tax breaks for the oil and gas industry” should be eliminated and replaced with investments “in clean energy to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.”

“There is no silver bullet to address rising gas prices in the short term,” Obama said. But he added that slashing “these wasteful subsidies” for oil and gas producers would help in the long term.

then:

“Gas hitting four dollars per gallon seems to have finally caused Speaker Boehner to see the light on the insanity of providing subsidies to profit-soaked big oil companies,” Schumer said. “At a time when we have a record deficit, it makes no sense to keep rewarding oil companies for socking it to consumers at the pump. These subsidies are a relic of a time when oil was $17 per barrel and oil companies needed incentives to drill.”

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

...there is nothing I want to do less than to live in or near this armpit of a city...I hate this dirty and poor and crime-ridden hell hole.

When I talk about this, I don't 'cry' per se...but tears just fall out of my face. I am really truly miserable.

That's why rent is so reasonable.

Kettering is ok. I mean, let's face it, it is Ohio, so just how good can it be?

I feel your pain, though. The weather, the boredom, the boring weather...it suxxor here. If I had money I wouldn't buy a mansion here in Ohio, I'd buy a little cottage in Cape Cod.

[plthijinx]

the letter from the above story:

[infinite monkey]

I wonder. We're just the medium people. We're not the big people or the small people. We should suck it up (siphon?) We are supposed to carry the weight. Well, my ass hurts.


I'll believe it to be addressed when I see it, because we. don't. matter.

[plthijinx]

IM i know what you're feeling. only kinda in reverse. i live in a nice neighborhood in a nice condo BUT i commute 45 to god knows how long to work where gunshots in the neighborhood behind the track don't even phase me anymore. i used to duck, now i turn and look to see who got shot! sad reality but true. maybe if we could get S123 back from sarah's estate we could put her to work protecting us and whoopin' da hood back inta shape yo!

[infinite monkey]

My neighborhood is fine. I hate the town, of course, would rather live in the country. It's this CITY where you might as well ask to be shot or raped or mugged, or killed in a car accident, just trying to get to work to make a buck.

As I said, I'm still working on and waiting for some changes at my old job. Or, maybe things will get better here (since I am privy to a piece of information that NO ONE ELSE in the office knows about, except for the person who is applying elsewhere...enough said.)

It's just been a rough time. It will get better. I'm world weary, and I'm world weary in a mostly solo fashion, and I'm too old for this shit.

[Trilby]

Originally Posted by infinite monkey

...It's this CITY where you might as well ask to be shot or raped or mugged, or killed in a car accident, just trying to get to work to make a buck...

but that's what makes it exciting!

I kid, I kid.

It'll be okay, Infi. When you get off work, go have yourself a nice drink or two. Or four.