16 November 2008

What kind of burger?

I know a lot of time has passed, but I have good reasons. It's been a crazy time.

First, while cleaning up from the hurricane, Giordi informed me that they need my bedroom. No biggie, right? Except... they were going to build a bedroom for me in the garage, but have decided that this would lower the value of their house, so...

So I was looking for a place to live. An old friend of mine who works for the government, Katy, is selling her RV, one of those trailer types, and offered too sell it to me. My eyes kept saying "no", but my mouth said, "yes". I asked my eyes what the problem was, and apparently I was traumatized by the idea of trailer homes.

It seems I have an allergy. When I was a child, I often had to go visit mobile home sellers with my various redneck relatives in my mother's family. Upon entering a brand new trailer, I would have a reaction to something in the wood, which resulted in temporary blindness. Every time.

Also, no one wants to be labeled "trailer trash".

I was discussing this with a real estate contact of mine, and he said to think of myself more as a Gypsy. Now, this I can deal with. I shared this insight with all my friends, and Giordi, a descendant of Romanian Gypsies, said, "In Europe, Gypsies were trailer trash." Yeah, that helped.

Anyway, so I went to the store and purchased some long skirts and bandannas and dug out my tarot cards. And started looking for a place to park an RV.

Apparently, after the hurricane effectively erased all beachfront property within 150 miles of Houston, all those people living in their beach houses before moved into their RVs while contractors from all over the country rebuild the beach houses.

And wanna bet where the contractors are living?

So, I was conducting a massive one-woman hunt for an open RV slot. I didn't want to give up on the RV thing, because not only do I now have a verbal agreement with Katy, but I also have a 60 pound dog. Try to find a reasonably-priced appartment that will let you have a big dog. They exist, but they're few an far between, and mostly in poor repair. Probably from the big dogs.

So, I was conducting the hunt. Then, one day, upper management announced a mandatory "all-hands" meeting. Since I had hands (I checked), I went. It's a good thing, too, because they announced that after ten years, our office is closing and we're all being laid off and our jobs are going to India.

Yes, they said it.

My favorite part was where they said that for the remainder of our time there we're still expected to provied the same great service we have for the past ten years. Even all the managers laughed at that, including the guy who said it.

Anyway, so now I'm looking for a place to work and a place to live. It would be funny if it weren't the tragedy of Modern America. Am I now a homeless, unemployed crazy person? Well, not yet, because I haven't vacated my bedroom and I won't actually lose my job until January.

Oh... and the crazy part? Well, somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how, I got into a discussion with Giordi and Anna about Asperger's Syndrome. We had discussed it before, and I thought they were implying that maybe Jean had it, but it turns out they think I might have AS. I tried to argue it down, even looked up the symptoms, but that didn't help my case any. So I called my ex.

At one point, we had thought my daughter might have AS, but in the end my ex said, "No, she's just like you." Hrm. So I called him. "How did we determine that your child doesn't have AS?"

"Actually, we didn't. We just assumed she's like you." Crap. OK, so I started arguing my point as best I could. But everytime I said, "Asperger's", Giordi would chuckle and say, "ass burgers". So the discussion didn't get very far.

So now, I have to find a place to work, and a place to live, and a pshrink to prove I don't have AS. That's why I'm a homeless, unemployed, crazy person. The only good part is that gas prices have gone down lately, so I think I might be able to afford all the travel.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am planning my second transition attempt at 30 (to try to live as a woman) and my parents think I have Asperger's Syndrome.

I am not sure I really have AS but I will admit to being a little different than most people in some ways. I think my life has just forced me to emotionally withdraw from the world.

Anyway.. I am on transhouston as Amanda-tg or just Amanda and I attend HTGA meetings and will soon be going out.

I am going back through the early stages where everyone tells you how wonderfully passable your features are. I think my features are better than most but maybe it is all in my head. My body is a little pear shaped without 'mones and I have really fine features compared to my brother. Still, I am large and have some recession so when people say that I look like ftm,etc. I am cautious.

I have almost wondered if there is some sort of genetic IS condition that creates Asperger's type symptoms. Everything might be related but I am not sure.