Well, folks, it's been a tough month. And I've decided to chalk it all up to my doppelganger. She's out there, and she's mean. Stay out of her way.
"Why would Fritz think such a thing?" you ask.
I think my tale will have to begin 26 years ago...when I was conceived.

I was conceived by a woman who desperately wanted a child and a man who wasn't too sure about the whole thing. Then, I emerged, and the woman was convinced that I was a gift and the man was...not too sure about the whole thing.

The years went swiftly by. We had fairly normal dysfunctional family. There was me, my mom, my dad, some alcohol, and four cats. Things were churning along in that sad, suburban, American lifestyle and then I went to college.

I went crazy but still kept a kick-ass grade point average. I did many a stupid thing. That's because I never had done ANYthing before college, so couldn't really gauge 'stupid' from 'coherent'. I was incoherently stupid. I caused my Mom a lot of grief and cost my Dad a lot of money. Don't worry. He had stopped drinking at this point, so he could afford it. It was just the principle...the doppelganger had made her entrance.

After college, I got a good government job and moved out into a tiny studio apartment. I drank regularly for a month and then decided the heartburn was killing me, so just upped my coffee and cut out the booze. I had a little tiny apartment in a little tiny town and I drove sixty miles everyday to work with convicted felons and I was poor and I had one friend and that was my stuffed animal. Then, I met the Estrogen Fishbowl (they came in pieces, back then), and had a good ole' time with them, including hanging out at their homes and eating all their food, because I don't cook.

I burned some bridges there, and thankfully, I'm making some of those up. Maybe that was when the doppelganger really got to work--when I was being such a shit to my friends and doing dumb things while drunk. I hated my job so much that I thought I'd transfer to the same job in an even more intolerant county. (Again, incoherently stupid). My other friend from work moved in next door to me, just as I burnt the last bridge with S&M Spinster. My other friend is gay, and we were inseparable, so my dating life was filled with blips because everyone thought we were a couple. And we were, in a really co-dependent way.

Through all this, I tried to be a good person. But that doppelganger was out there, wreaking havoc when I wasn't looking. Bitch.

And then I meet this guy who lives next door to me, and fast forward, I'm living in sin with him and loving every minute of it, and praising my tattoos and avoiding lectures from my father who still isn't too sure about having a kid but is absolutely certain that living with a man is right next to skinning a child alive. I hate my job because it's pointless and silly and degrading and dumb, and I talk about it on my blog and then I get fired.

The doppelganger is now ready for action, and she just threw up on me today.

Okay, so, let's see:
I woke up and realized my vacation time still had not been sent to me via check (with Georgia, if you get canned, your vacation time gets cashed out. I had about 110 hours coming my way). I called my old place of employment (always a pleasure) and asked my ex-boss if she'd seen it. She hadn't. It was suppossed to be here by now. So, I call downtown Atlanta, where payroll is. Ahmed or somebody tells me I should have the check. I say, "Gee. Maybe that is why I am calling. Because I don't have it when I should." He tells me to call back to old office. Old office says that the check got stopped up at a prison where the checks are cut. I call back to the downtown office and speak to a different person. She tells me that probation sends a letter to one prison which sends a letter to another prison which then sends a different letter to downtown, who then authorizes the check, passes the authorization to the middle prison which sends it back to the first prison which cuts the check and sends it to the probation office which sends it to me. Got all that? That's great, except ex-boss didn't get the paperwork done on time so now I have to wait until the end of October to get my check and I just bought a new car.

I call Mom. She calls the Guy Who Is Still Not Sure About my Existence and gets the okay for some money. He grumbles about it. As usual, I'm a big pain in the ass. The doppelganger must have gotten to him when I was in the womb. So, I have plans to meet Mom for lunch to get the check to pay the farmer in the dell. I decide to call the hopeful-employer and ask when I would know if I get a second interview and was told, "You have to come back in for more processing...we need a typing test. We'll call you." (Sigh). I get in my car to go to Mom's and a huge truck slams a small boulder into the windshield, leaving a nice little chip in the windsheild of the car I can no longer afford and is perfectly new.

I get to Mom's house, we talk, I cry, have some lunch, she writes out the check, I deposit it with great appreciation and relief...

I get in the car to go back home and get stuck in a three hour traffic jam (light for Fridays in Atlanta). Between shifting from first to second, second to first, I get on the phone to pay my cell phone bill.

It's one hundred and eighty seven dollars. For a cell phone bill.

Because while trying to get employed and fight GDC and fight the Department of Labor and calling everyone I know for a job and trying to keep myself sane, I've gone four hundred minutes over my calling plan.

Now, you can't possibly tell me that all of this happens by conincidence. It's not that. It's that doppelganger, and she's screwing up my karma. She's cursing me, and it's all coming out. NHL is Dead to Me swears up and down these things happen. I'm not convinced. That doppelganger is trying to kill me, somehow, and if I'm not posting for awhile, it's because she got her slippery little hands on me and demolished my very existence.