Warning: This could be REALLY long…

Wednesday:

• The Good: I went to my meeting with my new boss at Leroys. I got a TON of paperwork to fill out and manuals to read. My boss is incredible. I think I will really enjoy working with him. I need to call him first thing Monday. Or maybe tomorrow, as I think he works weekends. I have to go across town to get my fingerprints done for my gaming authority thing. Problem with that is that I have no car and no way of getting there before I go home Wednesday.
• The Better: I’m going home next week. I checked ticket prices as I had been talking to Christy about going home or her coming here to visit. Tickets were $29 each way so I called Mom and she booked them for me. She’s amazing. It’ll be a quick trip. Only 46 hours in MN. But it will be totally worth it.
• The Bad: I drove back from my meeting and went straight to the radio station to pick Justin up from work. I pulled into a parking spot and turned off the car as it has been getting hot lately, and called him to let him know I was there. I went upstairs to his door and he met me out front. We walked back down to the car, not even 2 minutes later, and nothing happens when we turn the key. We are carless. Awesome. Terrible.

Thursday:

I have to be to work by 1pm. Without a car, I decided to give the public transportation a try. I plan my trip on the website. It says I have to be to my first stop by 11:22 a.m. to make it to work by 1pm. Okay. Sounds like a plan. I got there about 5 minutes early. Waited for what felt like forever. The bus was about 5 minutes late. Got on the bus. Didn’t have a CLUE what I was doing. Ended up having to waste $2.50 on a second ticket because it doesn’t make change. Lame. Whatever. Bus gets to my stop and I ask the busdriver for reassurance as to what I am supposed to do. She says the stop I need it across the street and to the left. Okay.

Go to it… There is NO shade. NO seat. Nothing. The closest thing to me is and Adult Store. Joy. I was about 10 minutes late according to what the trip planner said. Obviously I missed the second bus because the first was late. I start walking as I call Dewey in tears. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where I am. I’m at LEAST a mile and a half from work if I had a straight shot… but of course the 95 is in the way. I can’t exactly cross the 95 by foot…. So I walk along the bus path as Dewey is trying to figure out where I am and when the next bus will be there. He can’t figure it out. Finally his mom calls him and she offers to pick me up and take me the rest of the way to work. “Where are you? What are your cross streets?” Uhm… I don’t know. I have NEVER been to this part of town. (Mind you it was a very nice part of town. I’d say upper-middle class range. I wasn’t scared of what might happen. I was just freaking out because I had no idea where I was and I had already probably walked a mile or so.) So I finally got to a ‘major’ cross street and called Donna. She picked me up at a Walgreens. Turns out I was probably another 15 minute walk to work. Which is better by car, let me tell you.

Moral of that story: Public Transportation in Las Vegas blows. Big… BIG chunks.

Friday/Saturday/Forever-more Probably…:

I am homesick. Part of it is probably because going home is coming next week. But the rest of it is that I hate life here. I love my job. And I love some of the people I’ve met. I’m looking forward to starting my new job. But I cannot live at my means out here. I mean.. I have bills coming out of EVERYWHERE. I can’t get on top of things. I moved out here with a completely clean slate (except for school loans, of course). And now I’m close to 15,000 in debt total. Only half of that is school loans. The rest is medical and credit crap.

How am I supposed to make things work when half of my months pay goes to rent/house bills? The rest has to go towards gas and food if I expect to make it to work and such. And now with Dewey’s car dead… I don’t even know what we’re going to do. I obviously can’t afford a car. And he doesn’t know what he’s going to do. My roommates have been helping us both with transportation… but that’s going to come to an end quicker than we think. I mean.. Brandon’s got a job now (two of them actually) and should be starting his new job this week, I’d expect. And Candace has a job. I work 8 miles (by freeway) from our place. And obviously can’t count on public transportation.

*sigh* I’m losing hope. I made more money working at Runnings than I do out here. And hopefully I will be making more at Leroys… but in all truthfulness, I’m counting a lot on tips to make that happen. And who knows. I mean sometimes it will work out.. but what about weeks where I make NOTHING in tips? Then what?

I miss home. I miss my family. I miss having *real* friends who I can talk to about stuff. I love the people I’ve met here… but I don’t have that type of relationship with any of them. I don’t think that they would reject me, but I just don’t feel that bond that I do with my friends from back in MN. I miss being able to afford to do things.

But I can’t just go back to MN. If I leave here… I leave my future with Justin. I’d be giving up on someone who has meant so much to me in the last 3.5 years. He and I already know that long-distance will not work for us. I nearly ended it with him before I moved out because it was just too hard. Would I be able to live without him? I mean.. yeah.. I probably could.. But do I really want to? Do I really want to give up on that?

I just hate that I have NO one to talk to here. And although I really like Candace and Brandon, I hate having roommates. Nothing against them, they’ve been great roommates and have gone above and beyond their call to help us, especially in the last week… but it’s a space thing. I was already having issues with space with Justin when it was just us because everything we had was his. And now it’s only tripled. Everything in this apartment is someone else’s. Except my laptop (which is on the fritz, again) and my hopechest.

I’m just lost. I need a map. And one with good directions.

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