Fuck in all the possible ways the word may be used.

I'm trying to stay cool. I really am. I am trying not to be engulfed by a fiery ball of passionate rage.

If there's nothing you can do about something, there is nothing you can do about something. And you shouldn't let it get to you. Right? Right.

So. Yesterday, after trying all day on Friday to get through to the Korean Consulate in Dallas, we had decided just to drive down there, when I thought I would try calling information and see if they had a different number. Information had no Korean Consulate listed in Dallas. To make a long story short, there is no Korean Consulate in Dallas. I don't know why there is a phone number listed for one. I don't know why there is an address listed for one. Because it doesn't exist.

The only Korean Consulate in Texas is in Houston, which is six hours away and currently ravaged and destroyed by Hurricane Ike.

So, despite the fact that the Dallas Consulate is listed on every ESL website, and if I had known it didn't exist, I could have handled this all a month ago, I find out that if I overnight my documents to Houston, they can have them back to me by Friday or Saturday. And probably have my visa by the time I'm supposed to leave on Monday. At this point, I'm not taking any chances -- not only do I listen to the automated message about what documents I need to send on the Consulate phone line, I check the website AND I call and speak to someone in the office. They all list the same three documents. No I don't need to send anything else. They are sure.

This evening, I got a phone call from Houston saying that they need three additional documents. Just in time to completely fuck my chances of leaving on Monday.

And that's not all, folks. Mike called to make his appointment with the Korean Consulate in New York today -- apparently, they have no operating phone lines at the moment. He'll have to call back tomorrow.

Deep breaths and the serenity prayer are the only things I have left. That, and cigarettes. And Mike's not even here to smoke them with me, in a haze of seething-rage-turned-dilapidated-apathy.

What did I do wrong in a former life?

So Guy, my favorite person in the world aka the guy (ha ha) handling this whole recruitment nonsense, sent me an email today demanding to know where my visa is and when I'm leaving for Korea, which was funny because I was just about to send him an email with basically the same content. This was then followed almost immediately by a bizarrely chummy email stating that he was leaving the agency to go back to school and get his masters and that it had been really great working with me, but not to contact him anymore.

Red flags? Anyone?

So now I'm back to the original guy who was totally inefficient at answering any of my questions but could call at 8 am on a Saturday just to check if I was still alive, named... well I don't remember and that's not important anyway. What this means is that a significant portion of my day tomorrow will probably be spent explaining things people should already know. And as for what the hell happened to Scott Kim in Korea, well that's anyone's guess.

Mike and I probably need to speak on the actual telephone soon. Just to confirm that we both have the exact same non-information and absolutely no idea what's going on.

I want to leave. I do not want another month here. I'm sorry. I love everyone and home is where the heart is. But I want to leave. Now.

I need to watch Obama's speech, but I can't concentrate on anything right now. I can't even hold conversations because there's this big distracting question mark looming over everything.

Things I do know about the immediate future:

1. Steph and I are eating donuts and watching Degrassi tomorrow night.

"It's never the right time for donuts," is what I said to her.

I can't eat them in the mornings because that much sugar so early makes me ill. We never make it out of our pajamas before lunch, and we eat too much for dinner to follow it with anything at all, especially donuts. But she's standing firm on this one, I think.

Shame, though. The whole idea originally was to get donuts early in the morning so we could throw them from the car window at passing joggers. Because healthy people are annoying.

2. Heath is coming up on Saturday. I don't know if we are going to Fry Street or not, but I sort of hope not. The Denton bar scene leaves something(s) to be desired, and I'm not usually pleased with bar scenes as it is. I'd be happier sitting in just the three of us splitting a bottle of red and catching up. I'm getting old, what can I say?

3. Cheesecake is supposed to factor into all of this somehow. The basic outline I'm getting is that we're going to replace all our normal meals with horrible desserts this weekend. I'll let you know how that turns out.


Going through old photos messes with my head. I think I've had six lives already. And here I go, getting mixed up in a new one.