I Bid Thee Farewell, Electric City; The "Doomers" Claim One More

It's been quite some time indeed since I've last graced you all with the long-windedness of my blogs so there's no better time than the present to make up for lost time! LOL!

Where to begin? I'm still waiting to hear if I'm going to be offered a second interview with two other firms I recently interviewed with, and this evening I opened my e-mail to find a delightful little tidbit---I was fortunate enough to land an interview for an entry-level accounting position with a firm of the "Big Four!" More interviews may be on their way as well. My years as a retail veteran may soon be winding down in the coming months (I wonder if Lowe's will give me a cake or just a "don't let the door hit your derrière on the way out?!") LOL!

Yes, you also read correctly that I've finally given up hope that Scranton will be anything other than a struggling city replete with malcontents. Couple that with the recent upswing in random violent crime, and the Electric City has finally lost its luster to me. Nearly all of my college-educated friends have already left NEPA, and those who have remained to further their educations plan to follow suit once they snag their degrees in 2009. I, too, am now going to follow their lead by moving northeastwards to Hartford, Connecticut, pending my ability to land a position, of course. Fortunately for me though Hartford and its surrounding suburbs are replete with opportunities for those in the financial and accounting sectors.

My partner and I celebrated our first anniversary on September 6, 2008, but now as we near the 14-month milestone I'm going to force him to sit down with me so we can have a serious discussion about our futures. Cody doesn't seem very keen on relocating very far away from his family, and while he lives in close proximity to Milford, PA (a mere two-hour drive to Hartford via I-84), I'm not sure if he'd be willing to relocate to New England with me. I can sweeten the pot a bit by reminding him that CT is now the third state to permit same-sex marriage (besides MA and CA), but there will also be disputes about living arrangements. He's a country boy born and bred who loves wading in creeks, getting dirty, and being away from it all whereas I'm a city boy who craves living near to restaurants, coffee shops, lofts, galleries, pubs, clubs, and all other urban amenities. Neither of us is crazy about the suburbs (for obvious reasons in my case).

I'm also concerned about his apparent lack of professional ambition. He has a high school diploma, and that's it. He's currently working as a reservations agent for a Pocono resort chain. While he's currently outearning me by a hefty margin, I'll soon be making a starting salary higher than the median household income for Scranton. I worry that we'll move together to Hartford, which has a much higher cost-of-living, and I'll be the one burdening most of our expenses. He has talked for some time now about going back to school to be both a paralegal and a cosmetologist (don't ask me what the link is there), but he doesn't seem very "excited" about doing that---it's almost as if he senses that I'm concerned about our future finances and is just telling me he's going to specialize in something at school to pacify me.

I must admit that in our nearly 14 months together we have yet to have even ONE fight. He's very, very subservient and submissive, and that is becoming irritating to me. I'm an aggressive and bull-headed Scorpio who enjoys good debates, arguments, and downright slug-fests. I don't like always having the other party conceding to give me my way. Where's the fun in that? To be quite honest I'm considering just cutting him loose for good in the gentlest way I possibly can and starting fresh on the dating scene when I'm living in Hartford in mid-2009. The "gay scene" is much better in New England anyways.

Finally, I must regretfully say that today was a mind-numbingly depressing day for me as well. For the first time in roughly two months I went to visit my ill grandmother at her nursing home in Kingston. After about a half-hour I had endured all that I could of watching her wince in pain, nearly break down crying, and barely be able to communicate with us. My mother mentioned driving her around during this past weekend to see the beautiful Fall foliage, yet she couldn't remember any of it. It's painful to watch someone you love so dearly die such a slow, agonizing death from cancer, and it's even harder to wonder if you could have and/or SHOULD have utilized more time with your loved one before he or she succumbed to this condition. I don't know if she'll live to see Christmas at this point---she's terribly weak.

Well that's enough blabbing for now. My life has been incessantly busy as of late, and it's hard for me to believe that in just one year I could be living in a new city in a new state at the dawn of a promising career with a new boyfriend. Contrariwise I could also still be living with my parents and working at Lowe's after being unable to land a job in the accounting field anywhere, and be lonely as an added bonus! Prozac, anyone?! LOL!