jig dancing in the dark

today wasn't off to a very good start... woke up because my bed was pulsing from the downstairs stereo again, to the same damn song over and over, then as soon as i resigned myself to being awake, the power went out. AGAIN. no notice. more importantly, no internet access to finish the work i fell asleep in the middle of last night. and most importantly: NO COFFEE. after a cranky, sheet-faced trek to 7-11, i tried to be productive, figured it was a good excuse to catch up on that pile of NYTs threatening to take over my bedroom, but it was hard to read over the whining of the guys trying to work on the building across the street, who also had no power. (it wasn't the "electrical upgrade" this time-- that's done, for now, tho they haven't cleaned up their considerable mess yet-- i think it was another tree-trimming in the alley exercise. someone must be sneaking through the alley at night with miracle gro.) and then i remembered to try VCU again, in my attempt to get the elusive guy who can answer my question on the phone. it took a while, but i finally did-- and while he apparently never received the paperwork he requested, which i sent nearly two months ago (an important piece of paper went astray on that campus? get out!), i did press him for what the answer would be once he got it. and it was the good answer!! commence with the jig dancing! now, the next hurdle toward that end is to find some advisor-type willing to sit down and help me wade through the zillion credits i have versus the graduation requirements that have changed twice since i first enrolled. and then, of course, to start saving money toward tuition, since i doubt i'll ever be eligible for any financial aid anywhere ever again. actually, no-- before that, i'll finish the AA completely, at that other college i owe $ to. virginia has some nifty rules that'll let me skip some stupid stuff once i transfer, if i have that other piece of paper first. VCU in particular doesn't let you skip as many as others, because they're snobs (?!?), but it'll help with some tedious stuff. i *think* i finished the science before i was forced out, but who knows, with the new reqs... it's the entry-level english classes that i need to be most careful about, ironically. if they try and force me to take that ridiculous eng 200 class after i've already finished an english major, a writing minor, and an american studies minor (each and every class involved had eng 200 as a pre-req), nevermind the AP score that got me out of a similar class at W&M, i will riot. and that'll be yet one more excuse for me not to finish. meanwhile, it turns out that i failed to file my state taxes for 2004, oops, so there's that-- and i know i'll owe, because i owed for federal that year, and state always seems to be higher... so my initial impulse at the above news to send every meager penny i have in my possession right now to JSR toward my debt to them needs to be quelled in favor of being able to write checks to the state for both 2004 and 2005 taxes. i'm guessing it'll be about $150 between the two, and that's after the $90 i just sent to the IRS, and the two nights i had to take off this week when i was sickly. and looming on the horizon, the $200 in continuing education classes must be paid for, which i HAVE to do in the next two months, else i won't be able to renew my real estate license. which means i won't legally be able to get paid by my other job, if indeed anything comes up to be paid for. (optimism reigns on that one, else i wouldn't still be doing it.) and only one more week to decide on my cafe schedule for the summer. i'm torn between wanting to stay here and work my ass off and be ready and able to go back to school without difficulty in the fall, and wanting to go relax in temperate rhinebeck and deal with it all when i get back. some middle ground would be best, and will probably be the reality, but it's hard to envision how that'll work...