Day 63 - A New Low

After all the ridiculous business of the last few days, I have to say I thought today would start the upward trend. That thought ended at 6:30 AM when I rolled out of bed in an apartment that was 54 degrees. My heat went out! Long story short, it's still out. Indefinitely. I now have a space heater heating my apartment up to a cool 59... which is still far too cold for me. Honestly, days like this make me miss living in Missouri and Nebraska. Everyone I know there was outside today... and I'm freezing in a heatless apartment, wearing my winter coat over a sweater, warming my hands over a stove flame that is simultaneously cooking pasta for my dinner. A new low indeed.

So now the question's been coming - am I moving? Well, not out of Racine. The Lutheran teacher's job market is not rebounding from last year's harsh reality check. Teacher's that have jobs aren't about to give them up, so I really don't foresee a high school spot opening up for me in the near future. Now, am I moving out of my apartment, with it's back door view of the back of a gas station, cigarette butts littering the patio, and (for the time being anyway) no heat? That... I don't know.

Let me put it this way - the thought of moving makes me want to cry. From May 2008-July 2009, I changed my address 7 times, lived for more than a month's time in 7 different places, lived in 4 different cities and 3 different states. That's a 15 month time span in which I packed up my belongings and hauled them cross town/state, settled in and waited a month or so until I needed to uproot again. That's worse than any military family I've ever met! These 7.5 months that I've lived in Racine are the longest I've been in one place in years... so of course it's the one place I've been that I don't like where I live (the house with the collapsing wall notwithstanding obviously).

I promised myself when I moved in here that I wasn't going to move again until I left town, decided to buy a house, or got married. That sounds ridiculous, but I really don't want to move again. I think I need to though.