Five Month Plan

I’m sitting in the waiting room of the Jeep service station, waiting for my car after an oil change. Yes, that’s right. I know how to party on my vacation days. Because I have rare uninterrupted time to write (and I’m not seething because I’ve stupidly locked myself out of my apartment), I thought I’d share with you my new plan.

I have five months to make a new life for myself.

I know this sounds drastic, but I’m not happy, and things need to change. My friend Pen inspired me because she has roughly a 22 month plan for changing her life. I don’t think I have that kind of time. Let’s just say a birthday is coming up—a birthday I have dealt with by putting my hands over my ears and singing “LA LA LA LA LA LA”. Since that approach has not successfully kept time from moving forward, I’ve decided to do something more productive.

Now, I don’t mean that everything in my life will change. For instance, I have a close relationship with my parents. So, that stays. I have some friends I actually like (I know, this sort of violates the whole “I hate people” mantra I have, but go with it). But there is a lot of stuff in my life that I do not like, and this will change. I feel like I’ve been sleep-walking through my life, and I just can’t do that anymore. I can’t get that time back, and continuing to waste it seems like an unforgivable sin.

The only problem is, I’m not sure I have a plan. We jokingly decided on the “Dart Board of Fate”. Literally, I’d put cards up of my various options for the next five months, and then I’d throw three darts and see which ones will have to happen. I suppose I’d have to close my eyes to truly leave this up to fate, but that might be dangerous for anyone standing in the vicinity.

I know the things I don’t love, but I don’t know how to fix them. The job has seen better days, but it pays my rent well. In this economy, looking for a new job sounds like something fairly challenging. Investment banks are usually a good bet for people like me—but let’s face it, investment banks aren’t good bets for anyone right now. So, unless I make a huge move (personal assistant to Mr. Clooney kind of huge), I’m not sure how that one is going to shake out. And just for the record, I don’t have the temperament for personal assistant work. The first time someone asked me to get them a car/cab from Los Angeles while they are in Germany, I’d quit because working for someone that helpless
(or lazy) would annoy me.

I don’t have a house. This is not a shock in Los Angeles. People have cars here, not homes because the market is still way over valued here. This economy may take care of that, but so far, the three bedroom cape cod style house up the street is still over $2 million. In other words, the price is still just slightly more than I can afford at this time.

Of course, there is the love life. If I’ve proven one thing with this blog, it’s that LA is truly where dating comes to die. I’ve had a friend try to set me up with a friend of her boyfriend. Apparently, the threat of dating me was so strong and disturbing that not only did the date not happen, but they are no longer friends with the guy. Sweet. I said yes to a guy who said the always not helpful “we should get a drink sometime”. Yeah, as you might recall, he left the country two days later, and I’ve never heard from again. My hair-dresser was going to set me up with that guy who saw me getting my hair dyed and still thought I was cute (clearly deranged, but I agreed anyway). She never saw him again. There was the guy who was supposed to meet me at that movie premiere, and he… wait for it… never showed up, and I never heard from him again. So, I’m either the agent of dating death, or luck is really not on my side.

Despite all of this, I am still determined to make the next 5 months infinitely more interesting than it would be if I just continued to do what I do—hide in my apartment, watch the X-Files and work.

Feel free to send suggestions for the cards that will go up on the “Dart Board of Fate”. I’m hoping to start throwing darts at something by the end of next week. Of course, those darts might be heading at people rather than plans, but either way, things would definitely change.

Kate