nervous ha-ha'ing

You know that feeling in your stomach that you can't help but laugh at? It's that feeling you have when you get really good news and realize that the reason it's good news is because it's about a bad situation. Like reading a bottle of Enablex 'Guaranteed to prevent bladder leaks for 24 hours' ha-ha, that's great! but in your mind you're thinking "I'll bet the 25th hour is a nightmare AND I still have a leaky bladder *FROWN*". Or going to the emergency room to hear "because of the pain associated with this procedure your co-pay will be halved" ha-ha, excellent! except 1.) you're still in the ER and 2.) there's more pain on the way. I think the word for it is...bittersweet. Those select moments where the only good news is that there is no more bad news (at least for now).

My bittersweet moment today came as I was paying rent. My lease is up Dec. 31st and I went to the office today to pay the final month's rent and discuss with MsDub (who, by the way, is just about the best leasing agent/office manager out there) my options. First a little back story: I would really like to escape Arizona. I have considered taking the AEPA and getting certified to teach so I can bail, but I'm not there yet, I consider that to be Option: Final. Ideally the UN would call me up and say "Aw shucks, you don't need to know French yet, we'll teach along the way, c'mon son!" and I'd be whisked away to a different hemisphere. I think the more likely scenario is that I get a job elsewhere in the states in some university's IT department (preferably someplace with some skiing, I'm looking at you University of Colorado at Boulder and Southern Oregon University). So why not get a job and hopscotch my way out of dodge? I'm almost done with my Master's and while it's an online degree and I don't have to be here for it, ASU is paying and leaving would change that (note: as long as I'm enrolled on Day One of the semester they'll cover the costs, so I could still be out by the end of January). Also, a new job recently opened up here that I may consider applying for, better pay, more challenging work, better title, we'll see. So I'm on the fence; I want to leave, but I'm not quite ready to ditch the free Master's degree and start over elsewhere unless it's something or someplace I really want. The bittersweet news of the day? All I said to MsDub was "My lease is up at the end of the year" she said "Oh my, already?! Well you can go month-to-month with no fee or sign a new lease with no increase since we haven't had any rent increases since you moved in."

That sound you heard where my eyelids narrowing into the most minuscule of slits as my brain tried to figure out what she was up to and my face tried desperately to conceal the joy at being treated like a person. You have to understand at my last apartment, we saw the rent go up $35 after our first six months then another $50 after our second six months AND we had a $200 month-to-month fee in addition to the increases. So to hear no month-to-month, no increase...you could have knocked me over with some sort of light, airy, tickle-inducing item. I left the office and felt a chuckle, a guffaw, a ha-ha welling up inside. This meant I had extra time to figure out what I wanted to do, where I wanted to go, and when I wanted to do it. HA-HA, sweet! bittersweet, if you will.