Moving Day

Guys.

I know I haven't been around lately.

I have been busy. Working. Planning. Holidays. Staying alive (Oh, oh, oh, oh, stayin' aliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive).

Today, though, I am moving. Moving in. To my new apartment.

I am going to take some after photos, I'm hoping to get them done before I move stuff in, but the sink and shower may not be finished before I start hauling boxes over and cluttering the place up.

I did do a really good job on the remodel, I gotta hand it to myself. And by "good job" I mean my ideas, not really the work, since all I did with my hands was paint. But still. I bought all the shit, I made every decision, I designed shelving, I coordinated colors. I DID IT, YO.

And today, all of my stuff-- my clothes, the kitchen stuff, the bathroom stuff, my books, my photos, my NEW COUCH AND CHAIR OMG, and my bed-- all of it will be moved over. If I am super-productive and maybe have a little bit of luck.

So send a good wish or two my way, think of me, etc., and I will be back, here, very soon.

Day One, Part One

Look at me! I took a shower, I am wearing real pants (not pajamas), and I am in a coffeeshop, AKA the Real World. I'm not bawling like a baby in a dark corner somewhere! Also, I am eating the fattiest scone ever conceived by the mind of man and drinking a Monkeytail, which is a 4-shot Mexican mocha.

Look!

SO EFFING GOOD

This is the place I used to go all the time when I was alone in Boise with Charlie, back when he was a tiny little infant. Six months of solitude, that was. Hard.

Anyway. Coming back to Boise is strange. Like I said, I thought that the time I was here without Dust was more like two months until we talked about it a few weeks ago. It was a hazy time. Coming back did give me that familiar feeling of "Me Against the World," though. Which... well, I mean I guess it's better than "Everyone Against Me." Or "Overwhelmed and Unable to Cope."

SIGH THIS IS GETTING ME NOWHERE.

Anyway, I am going to finish this shit, or at least try to eat some of it, and then go walk around stores for a little bit, until I can be alone with my thoughts again.

Semi-Automatic Bullet List

• I have had roughly four hours of sleep on average per night for the last week
• I have lost ten pounds in the same week, even though I stopped exercising because my muscles weren't healing due to lack of sleep
• Both of these things are stress related, although I am not sad about losing weight
• This ice cream looks delicious
• I am supposed to get my computer back today YAAAAAY
• I got these in the mail (Birthday/Christmas present for hubby) literally 20 minutes ago; I think he will have them before dinnertime even though his birthday is December 1 and Christmas is almost two months away
• I am impatient, generally
• I need to buy myself a cup of coffee. FOR REAL
• I need to get a hair cut
• Change is scary.
• Tired.
• So.
• Tired.
• If I get my computer back, I will give you a WHAMBANG post, with no annoying bullets
• I started a twelve-step recovery program a few days ago. 
• I am still on step one. 
• I like to think that I already accomplished step zero, which was acknowledging a problem and starting to fix it, as that means I have ONE DOWN!!
• Thank the Lord Jesus that it is not for alcohol, because I am not ready for that at all
• Life is hard

Resolved!

So you know how people make New Year's resolutions, then never keep them? The gym is all crowded for two weeks, the liquor stores are desolate, cigarette sales go down, and there's not an empty pew in church? Then two weeks in, everything is back to the status quo.

I think maybe part of it might be the timing. You are asking people not to drink or smoke or eat greasy burgers and instead to go to the gym and church the morning on which they wake up with their worst hangover of the year. Also, it is the dead of winter, and the Super Bowl is right around the corner. Please. That would be like trying to fast on Thanksgiving Day.

OK, so here is the thing. Right now? We have a solid month (slightly more, actually) before Thanksgiving. It is the end of summer but not yet snow-clogged, depressing winter. And what you really need is ONE solid month of unbroken resolution. ONE month. If you can do it for 30 days, chances are you can do it almost forever. Unless "it" is not breathing. Wait, no, that totally works. If "it" is... running a marathon a day, you would definitely die, though, and not be able to keep it up.

I am getting sidetracked. MY POINT IS! Now is the time, ladies and gents. The hour is upon us. Make haste. YEA! MAKE HASTE!

Where did that come from. It must be really late.

MY RESOLUTION: To make no resolutions, because all I do is break them.

Adult Stuff

Age is a funny thing.

It is weird to actually start feeling as though you're older, wiser, more of an adult. And it's little things that set it off. My Dad running around dating my mom's friends, flying them to see shows in different cities just because he can. My mom flipping out that my 28-year-old brother is HAVING SEX!! with his girlfriend of two years.

I feel more adult than my parents. Like I can step back from this situation right now and say, "Hey, family, you are crazy. I see that now. And all the things I thought were normal when I was little? It was really fucked up for you to teach me that was normal."

I thought it was perfectly acceptable to be arrested and thrown in jail because of political protests I did when I was TWELVE years old. And it was my mom, telling us that this is what we were SUPPOSED to do, that we were right, and the other people were going to hell for everything they did. So she let us get arrested and thrown in jail. And not just once! I lost count of how many times I was arrested as a minor. It was probably over 20 times.

We usually got arrested with other kids, too. We'd all get thrown into juvie for a few hours, until our parents (or the random person our parents had signed custody to for the day, since they were also getting arrested) came to get us. Sometimes they'd just put us in the holding tank at the regular jail with other adults who'd been arrested. Crackheads, parole violators, shoplifters, prostitutes, drunks.

And I thought that was NORMAL. Like, that it was just how the world was, that I, as a child, had to go to jail all the time to show God that I was serious about being on his side or something.

One time we were in Washington, DC, and my mom got arrested in a lock-in at a US Senator's office. Me and about six other kids just bummed around DC all day waiting for our parents to get out of jail. We slept in the hotel room that night with the DOOR OPEN because it was hot. In the fucking murder capital of America.

I never really thought about some of this stuff until recently. Just how fucked it all was. What could have happened to us! What the FUCK were our parents thinking? For real. WHAT. THE. FUCK. I mean, I know my dad was working and not really paying attention to anything, until my mom got locked up for 60 days or something. And since we were being homeschooled, I had to homeschool my brothers. I think I was 14 when that happened.

I dunno, man. I just feel old. Maybe God was protecting me that whole time. I can't believe my parents would put me in that position. I would NEVER do that to my kid. I know that everyone in the world is basically just waiting to rape kids. OK, that might be a slight exaggeration, but still. I am going to do anything that I can do to give him a fun-filled life with a bare minimum of danger. LIKE AN ADULT.

Welcome to the Family

You know, this journal is important to me. But most of the time, I leave it to the absolute last moment of my day, when I am completely wiped out from the rest of my day, and have zero time to do a thing with it. Then I throw something inconsequential its way, like a song or a drawing or someone else's poem.

WTF, me. I am starting to treat this thing like family.

Why is it, anyway, that we abuse family like that? Is it that we are comfortable with them seeing us as we are, or is it that we know they'll be there, regardless?

We should all give our families more respect than that. Well, at least, if they return the favor.

Preemptively.  Otherwise it might be a waste of time AND a bother.

Regardless, I shall honor you, my webtastic family, with a REAL LIVE POST tomorrow. About THINGS! With VISUAL AIDS! Accompanied, potentially, by POETRY! And maybe a release of WILD DOVES! Or maybe not the doves. Maybe... a description of a dove? No, there is no way I am doing that. How about... a passing mention of a dove. NO! A DOVE PUN!!! Or at least some sort of pun.

OK, let's just cut this loose with a general GOODNIGHT. Sleep with the fishes!

Or don't. Whichever.

Procrastination

I kind of feel like I may have already entitled an entry here "Procrastination," but I am too lazy to check.

I am currently putting off a deadline. I was recently hired on as a contract grant writer by a national corporation. I used to be the boss of the girl who hired me. I was thinking, "Hey! It will be fun to feel like a productive member of society again! To be doing work that requires skill, and thinking, and writing! To get PAID! IN REAL MONEY! To feel like your job is somewhat respectable!"

GOD was I wrong. I hate work. I hate working. Except now I have committed to it, and have to do it. And I have a deadline, and it is just HANGING over my head. Like the sword of Damocles. That's the one I'm thinking of, right? Damocles? Anyway, it is like a sharp sword. Over my head. About to drop. On the 20th.

And even though I spent the last countless weeks out of my mind with boredom, I now have a million and eleventy things that I MUST do before I write this project. Just because I am putting it off. UGH and the more I put it off the heavier it weighs on my mind, until it is like an Escalade sitting on my shoulders.

I have a whole entire day off tomorrow, but instead of starting/working on/finishing the grant, I will undoubtedly make bolognese sauce all day, then construct a perfect lasagna in the evening.

Because that is what respectable, employed, white-collar contract writers DO.

Like a motherfucking ADULT.

PANIC

Why does communicating with people sometimes send me into a blind panic? For real. I had to check my voicemail, and I am supposed to call my grandma, who is not feeling well and is 89, and one of my best friends, whom I have not spoken with in months. These are people I love, and I should not be dreading this.

It is now 4:00, I've been off of work for FOUR HOURS, and I managed to check my voicemail (which I haven't done in literally over a month). Just going through and deleting all of the messages got me sweating. Like I had run a mile or something. I wrote nothing down. I tried to remember some of the details. Mostly, I deleted.

FOR GOD'S SAKE, PEOPLE. IF I HAVE NOT ASKED YOU TO CALL ME, PLEASE DO NOT CALL ME.

I almost hung up immediately, but the first message on my voicemail is one I've saved for years. It's from January of 2009. Literally, saved for years. And it makes me smile. And the second one is one that I've been saving for a while, too, because it makes me happy. So I had the two happy messages to give me the courage to wade through the rest of them.

Now I have those two phone calls. I need to just man up and get it over with. ARGH I AM SUCH A BABY SOMETIMES.

Kick-Ass Sandbox? Check.

So we're constructing a sandbox out of stacked slabs of Idaho Quartzite.

Yeah, no furniture yet. We have to prioritize.

ETA: Picture proof!