I'm boring. Life is boring. I spent yesterday in the land of Frustration. Today I am in the valley of Slight Irritation and headed to the river of Vague Discontent. -- House fell through - parental concerns about the neighborhood won out. I didn't realize how much I wanted to move out until I thought I was going to move out. In the course of one exuberant weekend I had already started thinking about design styles and sorting through my possessions to get rid of all the old crap I didn't need to carp into my beautiful, Brand New House. I've looked at the listing for every house in half the county in my price range. Got nada. Seeing three houses tomorrow but whatever. Now I'm looking at houses in double my price range just for funsies. It might be called "encouraging" that I want nothing in those price ranges either. The dearth I see on the market isn't my price range; I suppose it's my taste. At least I know I'm not going to jump and settle on something just to get out. Also GOD people have some terrible taste, by which I mean "personalized" taste, I suppose. I've seen walls the brightest, most awful shades of green, pinkish-red, and so on. Why wouldn't you paint before you put the house on the market? PAINT IT ALL IN NEUTRAL. Sadly nothing can help interior wood siding. EDIT: I'm actually at the point where I find new listings on my own faster than my realtor can send them to me with his once-daily automated little system. -- After giving up on the lovely house in a fit of "might as well fucking do SOMETHING" I applied to one super-selective super-special all-costs-paid grad program. With the idea of, "well can't go to grad school if I have a mortgage, guess I can give this one stupid shot," and also "my brother wanted me to apply there, he also applied there." Got the confirmation they'd received everything today and should hear mid-March. Not expecting anything. Odds are less than 1000:1 I'd get in, I'd have to quit my job if accepted, and I wrote my cover letter that day. -- Crush on bartender is "same as it ever was," aka, gloriously obvious and going strong since the early summer. He feeds into it some, but I don't think he's interested in dating (or dating me) at the moment. That's really okay, as I keep saying, because I can see why the relationship might not work in practice. All I know is that I just want to talk to him all day, basically. - I'm boring. Life is boring. Things will get better. This is winter's final frigid push and the warm weather will finally be here and maybe then I'll be able to persuade myself to exercise with a vengeance the way I want. More houses will go on the market and some of them will even be beautiful and I will find one in a good neighborhood, or my house will stay on the market until spring, we'll tour the neighborhood and realize it's okay, and I'll buy it. I'll pine after my crush forever and ever until he realizes it's time to give it a shot and we'll do it and we'll be in love forever! (More likely: my attention/patience will fade as I find people who more actively reciprocate my affections.) (But disclaimer: Crush has lasted since early-summer at this point, which by my standards is fairly impressive, and I find I have oddly accurate & good memories of our interactions to date, which is spooky.) Blah blah blah blah for now, though. blah blah blah blah - One super shining point, since the bf and I broke up, I've saved like a crapton of money mysteriously. Guess it's from not driving to & from Philly all the time, and also not going out so much or so decadently, and also only paying for me (we traded off).