I Have A Bad Relationship With Money

With me having a real straight-up job now (well, two of them), me and money are going through another new dalliance in our dance.  I'm afraid of it, don't know how to handle or control it.  I bitch about it when I don't have it, yet as soon as I get some I give it away.  It frightens me, money, because in this capitalist society it's the one thing that allows me to do things, but not only do I hate doing anything to get it, but it seems to leave me as soon as it's gone.

A bunch of things yesterday illustrate my dangerous tête-a-tête:

• I was trying to fill out my expenses for the month, and I flipped through my credit card statement online to see if I wrote down anything that I actually did not pay in cash.  I then stumbled upon a fear in the back of my head that came true: I'm charging a hell of a lot of shit on my credit card.  And most of them are expenses I need to incur (gasoline) or mundane pleasures in my life I'm not ready to cut out (coffee).  Last month there were one-time charges on satellite radio, a donation to a political action committee and a special night out or two.  But even subtracting all that, last month's bill reached $700.  Gas doesn't quite explain all of that.
• When having dinner with my family tonight, there was a story on the news about the high price of gas.  I was dressed and ready to go the Swarm game tonight, but My Father said, "Don't go anywhere you don't have to," to which my Grandmother thoughtlessly repeated, "You shouldn't go anywhere you don't have to, which is a very, very annoying tic.  They're both right, but I don't give a shit -- it's Saturday, should I just stay home?
• Still, I go out.  And I get money for tonight, for a trip to the stripclub.  With money coming in, I think I can afford it.  Even though all of my income has to pay for my trip to Tuscany and my previous credit card bill.
• I've never paid more than ten bucks for a Swarm ticket, so when a guy hanging out in the passenger's seat of a minivan offers me a pass for a ticket for $5, I pounce on it.  As he drove away I thought, What if he ripped me off?  I had a passing thought of getting its license plate, yet I leave for the gate and don't turn around, and he drives off.  Thankfully, it worked.
• God, that's a nice Swarm "V" year souvenir Coke cup.  I should've bought one.  Too late.
• And then they win the lacrosse game, ensuring a home game for next week's playoff match.  Oh, I already have a ticket to the North Star Roller Girls bout.  It would've been another chance to buy a souvenir cup.
• Finally, at the strip club, I didn't get a lapdance, but I did get a massage from a girl whom I think gives happy endings if we were anywhere else.  It was excellent, even if she didn't accede to my request to do it topless.  The kinks all around my back are gone, and they still are gone as I type this.  But after I gave her $20 for her time, the waitress at the bar, the former stripper, the one whose tits I bite into and once had a small disagreement over whether she gave me a handjob or merely touched my penis, she hectored me for getting a tip.  I told her it was like a dance and she didn't ask for one.  "But still," she said.  I need to see titty, so I prevented any bad blood between her and me by walking over her and fucking giving the masseuse/stripper five bucks.  But I had to give her the Evil Eye on my way back to my chair.  OK, so there's gonna be bad blood.  Don't ever tell me what to do, and especially, don't ever, EVER tell me what to spend my money on.  It's mine, not yours.

This afternoon wasn't so great, either.  There were tasks I wanted to do yesterday that I couldn't because I had to watch over the turkey they made yesterday.  Wouldn't Easter have been a better time to eat it?  Anyway, I had six things I wanted to do.  I only did two of those things because the places for the other four were closed for Easter.  When did Easter become a major holiday?

I'm planning on going to the Chris Cornell concert tonight.  It's in St. Paul, so I'm using up some gasoline.  I still hear My Fucking Father yelling at me about not going anywhere yesterday.  And as I was about to leave for my run of aborted errands my parents came home; Mother yelled at me about wasting gas as I left this afternoon.  I didn't care, and yet because of all the shit I failed to do, this nagging in my head is getting louder and louder.  Just to get them off my back, I lied to them and said I'm going to work tonight.  They bought it.  But maybe I shouldn't go to the concert.

Fuck, I will.  I have two jobs.  I'm rolling in the dough.  Right?