Why, when I’m all, “I just got back from therapy, and it was rough, but I’m feeling better than I have in weeks, I think I can cope with shit,” do I go check something I KNOW is going to be pissy? And then it IS pissy, and now I’m upset. Fucking awesome. Thanks, internet, for reminding me why I pretty much just stick to my blog, and don’t post on threads and don’t join communities, and don’t do shit else. (Except Kingdom of Loathing, you guys are awesome.) And now I get to un-enter a bunch of data from a website with THE SHITTIEST interface ever, so un-entering that data is going to take like an hour at least, the whole while I’ll be getting upset over people’s pissiness.
Fuck it. This is trifling, and not worth my time. Food, laundry, and Eureka are worth my time, but not this bullshit. And in the immortal words of the Great Natasha, “There are wars going on.”
Just got back from my first therapy session with the new therapist – which means, it wasn’t a consultation, and we’re going to keep working together. It’s good, he thinks we can get a lot accomplished, and I feel the same way.
It kinda fucking sucked, I’m not going to lie. But only in the way that a session kinda fucking sucks. I mean, you’re sorting through the shitty emotional, psychological debris of your life, and it’s rough. It was only a little rough tonight, actually, pretty light, even though I cried alot. I tried to crack jokes, too, though – I’m a wiseass, it’s probably my strongest coping mechanism, and you know it’s fucking BAD when I’m not making lameass jokes or sarcastic “witty” comments. It’s only going to get rougher, and I know this, but I’m doing it. I need it, and it’s going to make me so much better able to cope, and just all-around better. So it’s going to be hell, I’m sure, at times, but bring it. Let’s go. I’m ready.
Well, I say that now, but ask me again after my next session. Which, by the way, since evenings and weekends are such high-demand times and my schedule is nice and flexible, will be next Wednesday at 1:00pm. So I get to go back to work afterwards. That’s going to be fucking awesome. You know which “awesome” I mean, I don’t have to tell you. Actually, though, I don’t fucking care. I need this, it’s important, and it’s no big deal. So I go back to work with a honking red nose and a tear-streaked face, so fucking what. Either people will ask me if I’m okay, and I’ll say, “Yeah, I just had a therapy session. Now what do you need that’s work-related?” OR – they’ll be afraid to bother me and leave me alone. So, either of those options I’m okay with. Win-win. If they don’t ask, I’m fine. If they do ask, I answer, and I’m still fine. And that really is awesome. And now I have laundry to go do. Shit, actually, dinner to go eat, and THEN laundry.
Well, today was pretty awesome, until I got off work. Then it sucked and I got to have another meltdown. Which was awesome, by which I clearly mean “not at all awesome.” Lots of crying, basically because 1-people are mean (but fuck ‘em) and 2-we have to repair the fucked up tiles on our front porch. Which wasn’t what set me off – realizing what a huge fucking ridiculous task it’s going to be, is what set me off. But it’s cool, we’ll get it done, I’ll get past this. I can say this now, because I took some fucking Klonopin, and it finally kicked in, and now I can cope. That’s such a wonderful feeling, being able to cope. And you really don’t appreciate it (or I didn’t, not on a daily basis), until I was so viciously UN-able to cope. Coping is awesome. Handling your shit is awesome. Losing your shit and crying hysterically, not so much.
But, this evening we pried off all the loose tiles, and cleaned them up, and basically prepped the porch. We go back Saturday (if not earlier, and also to mow the yard), and mortar those little fuckers down, wait a couple hours (thank you speed-set mortar), seal ‘em, and then grout them, and then like a day later, we’re good to go. Greg was extremely sweet to me while I was melting down (and PS, I’m SO OVER meltdowns, they need to get the hint already and just go somewhere else), and then the Klonopin kicked in, and our friend Mel came over to hang out, shoot the shit, and watch Dirty Jobs, so that was 1-extremely fun and 2-extremely good for me.
I have a consultation with a therapist tomorrow. I’m pretty sure he’s going to be a good fit for me, but I want to make sure. If so, then the plan is to do therapy once a week, and get past some shit. Awesome. I have to remember, though, to ask him what he thinks of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, because that’s a dealbreaker. That’s, actually, why I’m not going back to my old therapist. She seemed really cool, except she recommended that book to me, and recommended it highly. I think it’s a bunch of sexist bullshit (and that’s putting it lightly), so, realizing that, I don’t think we’d have as much of a therapeutic relationship anymore. Hence trying someone new. I think he’ll do, I just can’t have another John Gray fan. It would be like, for me, trying to do therapeutic therapy with, say, a Scientologist, who’s convinced all my problems stem from tiny aliens living on my body that need to be knocked off. I’m not saying it’s not a valid worldview (except, it’s kinda not), I’m just saying – when you’re already occasionally prone to like, delusions and shit (when it’s really, really bad, not lately), the last thing you need is to be seriously thinking about little alien dudes living on your skin. Yeah.
Anyway, I’m feeling much better now, and I feel like maybe fixing those tiles isn’t undoable and unmanageable and out of control (like I was earlier), and I’m looking forward to the consultation tomorrow and possibly/probably starting therapy again (which, it’s hard work, but it’s worth it). And maybe now I’ll read a little before bedtime.
Except for one last shout-out to all my peeps and friends – you guys are the shit, and you keep being the shit, and you keep blowing me away with your awesomeness, compassion, and generosity, and, yeah. Things have been shitty lately, and can still be shitty, but the load is definitely a little lighter and easier to bear thanks to all y’all, and I appreciate the fuck out of it. I have like a ridiculous list of thank-you notes to write and goody baskets to put together, and they’re coming, trust.
I was going to end the post with this, but I think it’s important enough, and this post is crazy long, that I’m starting with it. I want to be honest with y’all, and maybe this’ll help people with similar issues. This past month has been hell for me. (Probably hell for Greg, too, since he’s gotten to watch me go through it, on top of dealing with his own problems, frustrations, whatever.) Once I got the Klonopin, it was easier, but I have been seriously depressed, despairing, anxious, panicking, bitching out, melting down. I haven’t been suicidal because I’ll never be suicidal (I have issues with suicide, which we won’t go into here, but it means it’s NEVER an option for me), but I’ve been as close to it as it’s possible for me to get. I’ve been in bleak, black, dark places I haven’t been to in years and years, and never wanted to go back to and didn’t think I would. It hasn’t been pretty. I’ve told Greg I think on two occasions that honestly if we didn’t have so much shit to do and such a short amount of time to get it done in, and also weren’t dirt poor, I would check myself into the hospital. And I’m not ashamed about that. That was before I got the Klonopin, but regardless – I have no problem admitting when I can’t deal and when I need fucking help. This month has been rough, and I just haven’t been blogging about it, but I haven’t been this bad since I was a teenager and shit went down with my dad. Which I also haven’t blogged about, because I was worried he or other family members might come across it and have problems with it. I’ll probably tell you eventually, so you have a benchmark. But I’ve been pretty crazy for the past month, and this post is already crazy long, so I won’t go into all the myriad symptoms. And when I say I’ve been depressed, I don’t mean “sad,” I mean “clinical depression” type depressed. BAD. It’s finally turning around, it’s looking up, I went to the doctor and got help and meds, Greg has been a HUGE help, our friends have been a HUGE help – and it helped a bit that I knew when it started that it was probably circumstantial. I mean, I knew at the beginning that I was going to be depressed and anxious and crazy and everything else, but that the cause was the break-in, the attempted break-in, the moving and selling the house on short notice – and that meant that eventually, I’d be out the other side and alot of what was making me depressed and anxious and crazy would not be aggravating me anymore. Moment to moment, when I’m at the bus stop about to lose my shit and start bawling in front of complete strangers, yeah, it’s a little embarrassing and I’m ashamed, but only right then, in the moment, because I don’t like to cry in front of other people, and especially not in front of strangers. I’m not fucking ashamed of this, and that’s what I want you to take away from this long ass post, and share with other people. We’re all crazy, we’re all insecure, we’re all neurotic, the only difference is a matter of degree, and it’s not a fucking big deal. We all have high points, and we all have low points, and we all need help from time to time. There’s no shame in asking for it, and there’s no shame in turning to your friends for help, because they’re your friends, and, trust me, they want to help you through shit. Also, there’s really no shame in asking strangers for help, either, because I’ve done it alot the past month, and I’ve been consistently amazed at how fucking goddamn AWESOME and generous and nice and compassionate strangers can be. And this week, I’m finding a therapist and going back into therapy. It’s just the right time for me, and I need it. And there’s no shame in that, either. I think everyone on the goddamn planet could use therapy, of some sort, at some point in their life (maybe not lifelong), but there is not a single person who could not benefit in some way from some form of therapy. So, that’s my message, basically: take care of yourselves, take care of each other, ask for help if you need it, and don’t be afraid, don’t be ashamed, because your friends love you, and even strangers are compassionate and willing to help.
Now that’s out of the way, let’s go over the highlights (and lowlights) I’ve failed to mention here yet.
-Thursday, the 3rd, the realtor (Kelli) came over. I cancelled my doctor’s appointment (that I desperately needed, let’s be real), and we signed a lease at our apartment. The apartment we got – Thursday, in the second bedroom (which we planned on being all storage anyway) there was a slight crack in the ceiling where the sheetrock was buckling. We were told it should only be like an hour’s worth of work to fix, we weren’t worried. Thursday night, Tiffianna comes over to help us pack and clean. A storm’s coming, and we need more boxes. Greg’s JUST gotten home from the grocery store with food, he and T are hungry, I still can’t fucking eat, so I decide to run back out to campus and scrounge some boxes. The storm hits seconds after I leave, EXPLODES into ridiculous. It takes me about seven minutes to get to where two minutes’ drive-time would normally get me – I realize that I can’t fucking see SHIT. Initially, I was telling myself it was just a little rain, and not to be a pussy and go get some boxes because we need them. Then I realize it’s not a question of being a pussy, it’s a question of being a MORON or not, and/or having a deathwish. I can SEE street lights and power lights and neighborhood lights just going down all around me, so I turn around. Which takes like five minutes, because I can’t see shit. I get back to the mouth of our road, which I left maybe ten minutes earlier, and now a tree is down across it. But there’s enough room to sidle around, so I do. I get past it, and another fucking tree falls RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY CAR, a rather large branch hitting the windshield. I’m freaked out and convinced I’m going to die, but also that I absolutely cannot do anything other than get the fuck home, or I’m going to die. Sitting in that car and waiting out the storm and praying another tree won’t fall on the car and kill me? Not an option. But the second tree is fully blocking the street, and I can’t see well enough to back up AROUND the tree I know is still behind me. So I had to drive into someone’s DITCH, praying it wasn’t deep enough to trap the car in it, white-knuckling it and hyperventilating the entire time. I finally, magically, miraculously get home – it’s pitch black of course. I park as close to the house as I can, because it’s coming down torrentially. The water is above my ankles when I get out. By the time I get to the kitchen door, the water has weighed my jeans down so much they have fallen off my waist, and my hands are full, so I’m pressing the top of my jeans to my thighs to keep them from falling further, but I can’t pull them up. I’m in my undies, basically, and thanking god it’s so dark – I see someone coming to the door to let me in, I can barely make them out, and I’m thinking, “I’m in my underwear, please be Greg and not Tiffi.” It was Greg. But really, what a ridiculous thought to have at that point – like, I’m home, I’m safe, Greg and T are safe, the house is safe, the cats are safe, who gives a fuck if Tiffi sees me in my underwear, plus it’s so dark she probably couldn’t anyway. It was a little surreal, though, so you can forgive me for worrying about someone seeing my undies. Tiffi hangs out until the storm dies down enough for her to go home (her wife, Dara, was home alone and sick, poor thing), and eventually Greg and I go to bed, taking the cats into the bedroom with us and blowing out the oil lamps (thank you, Jodi and John, for that awesome, and practical wedding gift). At three in the morning, one of our neighbors starts up a generator – I didn’t know they had one, and I’d never heard one before, so of course I thought someone was sawing their way into our house or some shit, and spent like forty minutes sneaking around the house in the dark (because if I used a flashlight, they’d know I was onto them! this is how crazy I am), and peering out the newly-installed peephole – I can’t see SHIT, but I’m trying to figure out if it’s a bush I’m seeing, or a person, and every time I make the wood floor creak, I’m all, “Fuck! Now they heard me!” Finally I realize I’m being ridiculous, and also, honestly? The weather is INSANE, and we’re locked in our bedroom, we have tons of shit packed up in boxes everywhere, and no power – so really, if someone wants to break in right now and try to navigate the house in the dark, without falling and getting hurt by boxes, and steal some shit, and then make off with it in the torrential rain? They’re fucking crazy and welcome to it. I go back to bed.
-Friday, we get as much shit done as we can while it’s still light out. Tiffianna even comes over after she gets off work (at the Capitol, for their Fourth of July celebration), and helps a bit, cleaning and packing – she is a ROCK STAR. We still don’t have power, though, so we can’t do shit once it gets dark, and after the previous power-less night in the house, we decide to pack it up and flee for the apartment. We take the cats, ourselves, a change of clothes for the next day, and blankets and pillows to sleep on the floor. When we open the door to the apartment, what do we see? At the end of the hallway, the door to the second bedroom is open, and that “slight” ceiling damage? Was due to a roof leak, and thanks to the rain the night before, there is now a 3′x6′ hole in our ceiling. Sheetrock is hanging down wet, insulation is ALL over the floor, and it’s dripping. I freak out about our apartment getting flooded – remind me to tell you about Tiffi and Dara’s apartment getting flooded one time, not the one they live in now, and it was like 500 gallons of 30-year-old water, but this is what I’m envisioning happening in OUR apartment when I see this shit in the second bedroom. I call emergency maintenance – the guy is SUPER nice, and brings over a large bucket to catch water in, and tells us it’ll get fixed asap, except the roof has to be done first, and even though they called the roofing company Thursday to get it done Thursday, and a storm was coming, the roofing company apparently didn’t feel like coming out. Oh well. We shut the door to that room, let the cats out, grab some dinner, and then go over to hang with Dara and Tiffi to get our spirits bucked up. That did help, since Tiffianna was all, “Our apartment was flooded with 500 GALLONS of old ass water. You’re not dealing with that situation, you’ll be fine.” But of course, I’m not on meds yet, and Tiffianna was plying me with wine (which usually makes me giggly and tipsy, but was making me maudlin that night), so I have visions of a flooded apartment, and our cats – if not drowned – then certainly walking around funny and indignant because their feet are wet and there’s no furniture for them to jump onto. Also? We’re sleeping on the floor, so of course I’m expecting the carpet to be soaked and miserable. When we got back, it was fine, and there was maybe an inch of water in the trash can. Although the cats are freaked out because it’s a new place and there’s no furniture and they don’t know what the fuck is going on. But the cute part was, we all slept on the floor, and I guess it’s because they were so freaked out, but they snuck under the covers and slept snuggled up right against us. That was cute. And I was all, “Aw, Chalupa, you really do love me!” At least until she left to go lay next to Greg, who, in her defense, tosses and turns much less than I do.
-Saturday, we left our stank dirty clothes at the apartment, so hopefully it would chill the cats out a bit, fed them, then headed back to do more shit at the house. Still no power. We were without power for three days. When we emptied the fridge and freezer, I wanted to cry, we had to throw out so much food – which meant wasted money, and I should just tell you right now that the amount of money we’ve had to spend, been spending, and will continue to be spending (especially paying rent and mortgage at the same time – while technically we can do it, it’s tight), is a huge factor in making me nuts. So, more cleaning and boxing shit up Saturday while it was light outside, and then back to the apartment, to sleep on the floor again. 
Also, after all the rain Friday night, the hole in the ceiling in the second bedroom was now 4′x6′. Oh – and during the day, we took SEVERAL trips to the dump, which is seriously one of my favorite places ever. You pay a dollar, and you toss shit out, which is satisfying, flinging it into the dumpster, and the people are so nice. We even went to household hazardous waste with my bucket of copper sulfate (from etching), which I was so worried about how I was going to dispose of it, or whether I’d have to lug it to the apartment and then to the new house – they took it like it wasn’t even a thing (which is probably wasn’t, for them).
-Sunday, we toss out all our food in the fridge and freezer. Depressing. We finally have power, though, so that’s cool. Our original plan was to go to work like normal the coming week, and work on the house in the evenings, but we realize if we’re listing the house that Friday (the 11th), we need to just take the whole week off and make sure shit gets done. Sunday night we also took a tiny nightstand table and a dvd player and a tv over to the apartment, and rented a movie, to give ourselves a little reward for all our hardwork. Tiffianna says the first thing she moves is a tv and dvd player, because it’s less depressing when you feel like you can have a little fun after a day full of shit and assbusting, and she’s absolutely right. We were too exhausted to watch much of the movie, but it helped lift our spirits a bit to feel like it wasn’t all assbusting work and no play.
–Monday and Tuesday, cleaning, cleaning, cleaning, packing, packing, packing. LOTS of trips to the dumps (they recognize us there, they joke around with us, I SERIOUSLY love the dump). We hit the jackpot at two ABC stores and got tons of boxes – although some douchebag, after I had already carted all the boxes out to the car, tried to quibble with me about how he needed a small box or two, and I sucked it up and offered him four (instead of bursting into tears on the spot, which I SO could have done, I was such a wreck), and then, even though I was trying to be gracious and share boxes I had already carted out and snagged, he decided to be a dick and get all huffy and “I *guess* you can just have them, then.” I guess I can, motherfucker, since I carried them out the store and broke them down and you’re being a dick. Fuck you then. But I got my boxes and he didn’t, so fuck him, I won. But damn people can be mean. (On the other hand, a ton of people have gone above and beyond and been really nice, so there’s that – although that made me burst into tears even faster, when I was exhausted and stressed out and someone would do us a solid favor.) Tuesday we got a storage space, because it was obvious not all our shit would fit into the apartment. We ended up getting a storage space where the manager is this woman
Ana that Greg knows through another band, and Ana cut us a fucking goddamn ridiculous
deal, and I almost burst into tears in the office, she was so fucking nice to us. By the way, I have a list of people who are getting thank you cards and/or goodie baskets, and you better believe Ana is right at the top of that list.
-Wednesday, we got the U-Haul. We only knew one person who had Wednesday off during the day, this dude Joe from Greg’s band Zardoz (the newer band – and also an awesome movie that you need to see). Joe is tall and skinny, but he whooped my motherfucking ass when it came to carrying heavy ass boxes full of books and shit. We packed up the U-Haul with everything that was going to the storage space, and took it out there, and Joe is brilliant at packing a storage space to capacity, since our space was a bitty 5′X10′, and I didn’t think it would all fit, but by god it did. Joe had a friend coming in from out of town just for the day, so he had to leave and meet them. We drove back to the house, and met Pat (Greg’s mom) and Johnathan. We couldn’t load everything, though, because our realtor was coming over with a photographer to take pictures for the virtual tour, and we had to leave some furniture and shit for “staging”. Which I think is bullshit, but whatever. It’s just lame that we had to move basically halfway out, so the house would be clean enough, but we had to leave some furniture (and couldn’t move all the way out) because potential buyers are fuckwits with no imagination and need to see furniture in the house to get an idea of what it could look like with all their shit in it. And in the meantime, we’re trying to live in an apartment. Did I mention we had to leave the bed in the house for the pictures of the master bedroom? So all this time we’d been sleeping on a goddamn PALLET of blankets in the apartment, on the floor. Nice. Pictures get taken, photographer leaves. I also had to take a couple breaks and hide in the bathroom to cry. In the meantime, we can finally load up the rest of the furniture, and because we couldn’t load it all from the beginning, we couldn’t use the U-Haul space as efficiently as possible, so it looks like not everything is going to fit. Also, Greg has been doing way more of the heavy lifting than me (because I am so weak), and he is getting gassed and about to lose his shit, too. NOT GOOD. Finally – KT shows up, with a second wind, and a fucking hex wrench so we can take apart our bedframe (which won’t come out the house unless it’s taken apart). KT got all our shit in the U-Haul, he was a goddamn rockstar. Kelli stuck around, too, to help us load up stuff – me and her were getting the light/little stuff. So the U-Haul is loaded, and not a moment too soon, because it’s starting to rain again. Of course it is. Of course. So, Greg drives the U-Haul, I’ve got the hybrid with some shit in it, KT’s got his van with some shit in it, and even Kelli (our realtor) put some framed pictures in her car (since they wouldn’t fit elsewhere), and we head out to Carrboro to unload. We take a break to get dinner at Subway, and this other guy from Zardoz, Rick, calls up to say he’s coming over to help. Fucking RAD. Greg’s spirits were much, much improved, and that was huge. Rick meets us at the apartment, and he, Greg, and KT basically power all the heavy furniture and shit into the apartment double quick. Kelli and I helped with some little shit. KT went home, and then Kelli and Rick hung out and had some beers for a bit, and since Rick is a property manager at an apartment complex, but is taking real estate classes, he and Kelli talked shop for a while. Kelli left, but Rick GRACIOUSLY stuck around, even though I PROMISED him I was done putting him to work, and he and Greg helped me put the bedframe together and lift the mattress on when it proved to be too big a project for me by myself. And Wednesday night we slept in that bed for the first time in the apartment, and it was fucking glorious.
-Thursday, the 10th, more cleaning, packing, a trip to the dump – most importantly, I went to the goddamn doctor and told her what had been going on and she gave me a script for clonazepam (aka Klonopin), and it’s wonderful. We also discussed my not being able to eat, and occasionally not being able to drink water, and how to deal with that. Here’s the thing, it was all nerves and adrenaline, so it’s pretty much cleared up since I’ve been taking the Klonopin regularly, and I can sleep, and I don’t worry as much. (Although I still worry a little, but I don’t want to take more Klonopin because 1-I’m ALWAYS going to worry about some dumb shit because I’m nuts like that, and 2-Klonopin will fuck you up, so I don’t want to up my dose, since it seems to be a good balance right now.) I’d weighed myself Tuesday the 1st after I got out of the shower, and then they weighed me at the doctor’s, and I’d lost 14 lbs. in nine days. Because I was not eating, and I mean AT ALL. I would eat maybe one thing of baby food a day, and that was a struggle to get down. (And of course Greg would pick out whichever flavor wasn’t 1-totally disgusting and 2-had the highest calorie content.) On the bad days, trying to sip water made me gag. That’s fucked up. Actually, weighing me was one of the first things they did, and this poor high school student who’s interning there for the summer did it – and as soon as I saw my weight, I burst in gasping sobs. (And I’m sure he thought I was upset at how fat I was, but no, I was upset at losing so much weight so fast because I couldn’t fucking eat.) I talked about it with my doctor, and she said 1-it would probably clear up after I started taking the Klonopin (which it has, and thank god, because I fucking love eating, and I know I could lose some weight, but not like that) and 2-if it didn’t, that I shouldn’t try to force myself to eat when I wasn’t hungry, but just to wait until I was hungry, and then get high calorie shit, like milkshakes. Seriously. She was like, “Honestly, wait until you’re hungry, and then get a milkshake and fries. Or stuff with lots of butter, olive oil, or peanut butter.” Love her. (I mean, and obviously, once I can eat normally, stop pigging out on milkshakes, but you know. And actually, the Klonopin fixed that shit up so fast that I never had to get a milkshake, and have been eating pretty well.) So now I’m loopy, and giggly a little, and can’t wait a fucking straight line to save my life, but SO MUCH BETTER.
-Friday, the 11th, the house went on the market officially. No real biggie, just more packing and cleaning, and moving shit over to the apartment. Oh, and in the evenings? We’ve been relaxing by watching one episode of the first season of My Life on the D-List as a reward for all the ass-busting. Greg loves Kathy Griffin. I love Kathy Griffin. I just wish Netflix would get their shit together and provide seasons 2 and 3 already, damn. Also, our friends Jeremy and Kimmi (Jeremy’s in Zardoz with Greg, and actually is the one who introduced us all to the movie Zardoz), VERY fucking graciously took us out to dinner at the Spotted Dog, coffee at The Open Eye, and then Hellboy II, AND gave us a Target gift card in a generous amount, to help us deal because they went through some shit a while back, and knew what we were going through. I fucking love them. Seriously. I only wish we’d known they were having a shitty time a while back, so we could have hooked them up like they hooked us up. But it’s cool, we’ll just take them out to dinner and a movie sometime, and invite them over for games and shit, and get them back. This is what happens when you’re friends – you do each other solids, and Jeremy and Kimmi did us a huge solid. And Jeremy apologized several times for not being available when we were moving – but here’s the thing, we had help moving, we had help cleaning, and honestly, we needed a good fucking break and a fun time as bad as the rest, so Jeremy and Kimmi (and Dara and Tiffi when you let us hang out and drink your beer and wine and shit), THANK YOU SO MUCH. You honestly, seriously, I can’t stress this enough, helped us out hugely, and we both appreciate the hell out of it. Plus, as crazy, depressed, desperate, anxious, and prone-to-meltdowns as I’ve been lately, shit like this (ie – awesome friends helping out in whatever way, or even just talking to us, just a phone call, even, or email or IM, anything), has saved me from being worse.
-Saturday, more cleaning, but the BIG project was painting the front door (just the
outside of it, because it looked a little dingy), and the wood board on the back porch (why can’t that goddamn house be solid brick, is all I’m saying? The next house? 1-TWO toilets, minimum. 2-Either solid brick or solid vinyl-siding. None of this wood bullshit that needs to be painted and is a pain in the ass.). That took pretty much all goddamn day, and wore us the fuck out. Then, right as we were finishing, and I thought we were finished completely, Greg was like, “So I guess tomorrow we’ll get the woodboard on the back of the house.” I was like, “……FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!” I thought it was just the board on the porch Kelli wanted painted, but no. Whatever.
-Sunday, bright and early, hottest part of the day, we get started painting that goddamn son of a bitch back board on the back of the house. Pain in my motherfucking goddamn ass. Son of a bitch goddamn it Jesus hanging on the Cross. (To quote Kathy Griffin’s mother.) Two o’clock, while I’m in the middle of painting the motherfucker, and we’re less than halfway through, I get a phone call from a scheduling agency – someone wants to come see the house from 4:30 to 5:30. Which means we can’t be there. And I’m like, “Here’s the thing, we’re in the middle of painting, so don’t touch it. And this should be in the showing information, but I just want to remind you – 1-the landscaper is coming out the 18th, so the yard looks a little scary and overgrown right now, but it’s showable, and it’ll be looking so good after the 18th. 2-My husband is recording a band this coming week, so the rest of the house is ready, but the studio can’t be cleared out until the 18th. But at that point we will pack it up and clean it. Just keep those in mind, but the house can be seen, we’ll be gone at 4:30.” Cool. We bust ass in a HIGHER GEAR than I ever thought possible to finish painting that goddamn back board. We finish up a little early, do a couple minor repairs in the house that need to be done, and then flee to the apartment around 3:50, so that we’re gone by the time the potential buyer gets there. (That was the guy who “decided the house was too old for him.” Awesome.)
-Monday, Greg records a band, takes the day off from work to do it, I go to work. I worked late to make up time so I could take that Friday off (the 18th) to clean out Greg’s studio, and it ended up he quit recording around the time I got off work, so he just picked me up, and I didn’t have to catch a bus.
-Tuesday, Greg has to work, so we both go in to work. After work, we drive out to the house so he can record, and I can clean. I got grumpy because it wasn’t just the band at our house, and they weren’t just sticking to the studio. They brought girlfriends, friends, relatives, to see how “cool” it was that they were recording, and they were all over the house, so I couldn’t get as much cleaning done as I’d planned on, I got a little ill, but didn’t cause a scene. (I get the excitement over recording your first thing, and wanting to show your friends, but damn. That’s not really professional – also, it just holds shit up. Also, when your studio dude’s wife is trying to clean the house spotless to sell it? You’re just making her ill. Just saying.)
-Wednesday, Greg had off to record all day, so I went to work and caught the bus home. I have a HUGE thing about buses and bus schedules and getting places on time and not being late and not getting lost, and it’s SEVERELY crippling and anxiety-inducing for me. But I got home, so it was cool.
-Thursday, Greg had to work again, so we both go in to work, then head over to the house afterwards. I’m planning on cleaning, but, um – wow, this is embarrassing. I had a MAJOR meltdown. It was fucking ugly. The band and the kids with them, they weren’t even taking over the house that badly, or making a HUGE mess (although I AM still ill at whoever threw a half-eaten chicken nugget on our back porch so that ants could find it and swarm all over it – like, seriously, dude? What the fuck.), but I lost my shit BIG TIME. I’m not going into any more detail here, because it’s private, and it’s embarrassing, and I’m not going to tell you guys shit about me and Greg yelling at each other (although in this case, I did all the yelling). But it was BAD. And, I tried not to cause a scene in front of anyone in the band, but I did at like 1 in the morning (when I drove back out to the house to see if Greg was done and needed a ride), and I think I scared the shit out of that poor kid. Not my finest moment. In fact, one of my very worst.
-Friday, the 18th, we had planned to both take the day off, and the landscaper was going to do the yard, and we were going to finish the studio. Well, it turned out Greg had to work. And then the landscaper turned out to be not totally on top of things and thought that when we said, “We’d like you to do this on the 18th,” we meant, “We will call you on the 18th and tell you when to do our yard.” So I did shit around the apartment, unpacked a bit, hung up some pictures, and then Greg came home and we went back out to clean the house. Dylan and one of the dudes from the band Greg recorded came over and helped. I also cut THE SHIT out of my finger. Here’s how: I’m cleaning out cabinets (I mean, getting the dirt out – they were already empty), and I’ve got some paper towels, I’m basically dusting. I thrust my hand into the back corner of a cabinet we only kept plastic pitchers in, and slice the fuck out of my finger on a biggish shard of glass. So, since we ONLY had plastic in that cabinet, I know this shard of glass must be from before we bought the house, which means 1-Chuck and Amy didn’t clean out the cabinets when they left like I’m doing, and 2-it’s Chuck and Amy’s fault. I freaked out, bled like a stuck pig, and had to ask Greg repeatedly if he was SURE I didn’t need to go to the hospital. It was a bad cut, actually. (Side note number 1-according to my friend Kate, if you wait more than eight hours after a cut, the hospital won’t stitch it up due to a higher risk of infection; and, really, you don’t want infection getting stitched up into your now-closed wound. Side note number 2-last I heard, Chuck and Amy had moved to California, but I passed Amy on campus last week. If I 1-hadn’t been high on Klonopin (or as Greg calls it “clownopin”), and 2-hadn’t needed to piss so badly and been hurrying to the bathroom, I would’ve bitched her out about my finger and also about not using any goddamn painter’s tape when they painted. For real, I had to scrub a shit ton of latex paint off a goddamn non-working steel kitchen vent for like an hour. I mean, it came off, but it shouldn’t have fucking been there in the first place because, HELLO, PAINTER’S TAPE!)
-Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, we cleaned the studio some more. Monday, we took the trash and recycling and yard waste out to the curb, and also five super-bulky items that the City of Durham’s Solid Waste peeps were coming to pick up Tuesday morning. (I mean, I had to make the appointment and pay for it, but it was cheap, and it was fucking AWESOME.) Monday, we went over after work, because last week we both worked our normal schedules.
-Tuesday, Greg had band practice, so I took it easy at the apartment that evening, and took a long, and much-needed, bath. That ruled.
-Wednesday was pretty bad, actually. I missed the bus I was aiming for – I’ve mentioned how I am about buses, and whatever you’re imagining, you’re probably thinking it’s better than it really is. I am BAD about buses. So I’m thinking Greg and I will leave work Wednesday, meet at the bus stop and catch the same bus, go home, hang out together for a bit, have dinner probably, and then he’ll go to practice, and I’ll do laundry. Well, I missed the damn bus, but Greg caught it. I only knew for certain the one bus went by our complex, so while two other buses that I *thought* might take me home passed by, not a single damn bus had bus schedules on them, so I couldn’t be sure. (Apparently they’ve stopped printing bus schedules now that the schedules are online? Which didn’t help me at all.) Also, one time, years ago, I took a bus I was pretty sure would get me home – it was going on break. So I sat on the bus about thirty minutes before the driver decided to tell me he was about to leave for the day, and that I should walk about two miles further down the street to catch another bus that would be coming in another twenty minutes or so. So I don’t fucking get on a bus unless I know for sure before getting on where it’s going, where my stop is, and what the scenery looks like when I need to press the button to get the bus to STOP at my stop. It’s a huge thing.
And I missed the bus. Greg didn’t miss the bus, because he thought there was no way he’d beaten me to the bus stop. Actually, he was on the bus I missed, that I saw pulling off JUST AS I got to the stop. I had to wait for an hour for the next bus I knew would get me home – I was desperate enough to walk it, but didn’t even know how to walk home from where I was, how sad is that. I was frustrated, scared, I wanted to cry but I was in public, and I was still on campus so I was having to dodge one or two coworkers who wanted to be friendly, but if I talked to them I’d start bawling, and I couldn’t handle that. So, basically, when I finally got home, Greg’s worried because he hasn’t heard from me, and I have another pretty big meltdown/bitch-out. Nice.
-Thursday, we caught the bus together, and I had figured out a second bus that would take me home, in case I missed the first, so I was doing much better. Then we helped Rick, who had graciously been storing and drying out some sound treatment panels for Greg (they were moving them from the house to the apartment when it started pouring, and Rick’s apartment was closest), move the panels to the apartment. When we got to the apartment, there were three Mormons there, witnessing to some dude in the parking lot. I was afraid we’d have to figure out how to politely stave them off since we needed to clean the house some more and didn’t have time to listen about Mormonism, but they were fucking awesome, actually, and helped us move the panels in, and then just left. And then Greg took me and Rick to Carrburritos (delicious), Rick went home, and we went over to the house to clean some more.
-Friday, last night, we went to Merlion with Jj and Amanda, and then hung out at their house for a bit, and it was fucking awesome, and just what I needed. But we had to come home and go to bed early, because we needed to take some last stuff from the studio to the dump today, and the dump is open from 7:00 to 12:30 on Saturdays.
-We got up at 7:00am this morning, and headed out to the house. Greg’s foot is fucked up from all the moving and shit, and he hasn’t been able to completely stay off it to let it heal, so I mowed the ENTIRE lawn by myself, so he wouldn’t fuck his foot up worse. He broke shit down and took it to the dump. I did that entire fucking yard, it hadn’t been done in like three weeks, and I’ll admit I gave the yard the finger like ten times, occasionally while cars were passing. But I got it done. I told Greg later that I’ve decided I am a “reluctant badass” or a “lazy badass.” Like, clearly I can be a badass, but it’s hard work, so I’d rather not, hence “reluctant” (or “lazy,” because, honestly I’m lazy, let’s call a spade a spade). Greg took shit to the dump, we swept the studio and mopped it – and we’re FUCKING DONE WITH THE HOUSE, PEOPLE!!!! From now until it sells (hopefully soon, fingers crossed), we just go every Saturday to mow the yard and spot-clean as needed.
Also? The landscaper. The yard DOES look better than it did. But dude didn’t do half the shit he said he was going to. I’m not entirely pleased, but I’m willing to let it slide as long as he only charges what he quoted. It’s entirely possible, even though he does this shit for a living and should be able to estimate jobs properly, that he just WAY underestimated what a big deal our yard was. On the other hand, there are several bushes he said would be totally gone – they’re still there. He said he would open up the area around the mailbox at the top of the drive – nope. It looks better, but there are still plenty of areas where it doesn’t look so much like we grew the plants like that ON PURPOSE (ie, and had landscaping done), as much as it looks like they just haven’t gotten overgrown and out of control YET. We’ll see. I took pictures of all the stuff he didn’t do, so if he tries any funny shit, I think I’m ready and disgruntled enough (well, maybe I don’t mean “disgruntled” so much as “unsettled”). But hopefully he’ll just bill us what he quoted, and we’re willing to call it even and pay up.
And now I’m going to try getting off the Klonopin, because I think the large stressors are over with, and maybe I can start re-learning to handle stress on my own.
And now I’m going to quit blogging, because I’m hungry, and Skeeter is crying at me because he’s tired of being ignored. Poor thing. Although I will say, if you’ve read this far, he has CONTINUED his new trick of getting up on the tops of doors, and scaring the SHIT out of me when I’m bleary-eyed and brushing my teeth in the morning, and happen to look in the mirror and see eyes staring at me! What a weirdo.
I just finished “Journey’s End,” and I am so pissed. Seriously? Considering not ever watching again.
Explain to me how that was “the most satisfying finale ever.” Mickey got the shaft. Jackie, we’ll never see again. Sarah Jane gets exiled back to that godawful children’s show. Martha gets to go save the world by herself again because the Doctor said to. Jack does get to go back to Ianto, Gwen, and Torchwood – and the pterodactyl isn’t dead – but I swear to god they better not bring up that Gwen+Jack=OTL bullshit. Donna got to be Doctor Donna for a few amazing moments, and then had her fucking memory completely wiped. The Doctor’s back to being depressed and alone. And goddamn Saint Rose gets her own fucking Doctor as her OTL – baaaaaaaaaaaaaaarf. But I guess since Rose is happy, it MUST be the most satisfying finale ever.
Fuck you, Russell T Davies. Fuck this “Doctor and Rose together at last” bullshit. That Christmas special better be goddamn fucking amazingly incredible, and there better be one fucking episode SOON where Donna finds her dude, or I’m out.
Oh my god. I just looked at the preview for the Fall issue of Vogue Knitting.
Holy shit am I glad I cancelled my subscription. Their shit just gets uglier and uglier, and this is THE WORST. It’s fucking HIDEOUS.
Seriously, people, what is the deal with thinking something has to be fucking gross to be “high fashion?”
BARF.
I hadn’t planned on being awake for another hour and twenty minutes, but I’d forgotten what I should have learned last Monday: namely, that the apartment complex gets their lawns mowed at the ungodly hour of 8am Monday mornings. Probably alot of tenants are already at work or on their way, but I’m not. Gah. Good thing I went to bed early last night because of the Klonopin, and I’ll just need to remember not to party too hard on Sunday nights. (See, that’s sarcasm, since I am soooo not a hard-party-er, oh, ever.)
Speaking of things I should have remembered, I didn’t remember until thirty minutes after the Klonopin kicked in last night (and so was in no state to blog my remembrance *then*) all the houses Greg and I went to see (when we were first looking three-ish years ago) that were fucking awful. I was all worried and freaking out about whether our house is good enough to show and/or sell, and I was forgetting such highlights as the cat piss house. We go to this one house, and as soon as Kelli (our realtor) opens the door, this STENCH of cat piss hits our noses, and at that point I just say, “Oh hell no, I’m done. I don’t need to see anything else, we’re done, let’s go.” Kelli and Greg convince me to give it a chance, and we go inside, and good god, it only gets worse. The whole house is carpeted, and every inch of that carpet has been pissed on but good. There are cats everywhere, and you cannot find a room that doesn’t REEK of cat piss. It was unbearable. But we’re still looking at the house. In one room downstairs, we open the door, and can’t get into the room it is so JAMPACKED full of trash and broken furniture and refuse – for reals, can’t even stick a foot into the room to wiggle it around – and on top of that an angry, probably half feral cat pounces out and streaks past us. And *of course* that room reeks of cat piss. Back upstairs, in the kitchen, the owner has left a notepad on the kitchen table with a brief note about someone else’s complaint about the catpiss/carpet combo, and she’s noted down that she’ll give a $3000 carpet allowance at the most – I don’t know if she forgot to hide this notepad before we came over, or if she left it out on purpose so potential buyers wouldn’t have to bother her, they would just know what her limit was. But Kelli looked at that number, and thought about all the carpeting in the house, and was like, “Unh-unh. That’s not going to cut it. You’re going to have to rip everything out down to the subflooring, down to the cement, clean it like crazy to remove ALL traces of catpiss, and then re-carpet, and $3000 won’t get that done.” See, *our* cats don’t mark – but if we move them into a house that is FULL of other cats’ markings, 1-I can’t live in such a STENCH, and 2-Skeeter and Chalupa would probably start marking just to establish their own new territory, and while I couldn’t actually blame them, it would be so bad. BAD. SO THEN! So then we finally go outside to the balcony/porch that’s off the kitchen, and there are two dogs in this woman’s backyard – one tied up, and one hiding (or so we think) under the porch, and it’s obvious the dogs hate each other and want to fight. So we’re standing on the porch, frankly discussing the fucked up state of the house, and what a shithole it is, basically, when we hear a cough from under the porch, and something (I forget what at this point) that clues us in to the fact that the owner did NOT leave the house like she was supposed to, but just went and sat in the backyard. So, 1-she’s restraining the unrestrained dog that wants to get at the tied-up dog (she said something to the loose dog after she coughed, which is when we realized she was sitting down there), and 2-she’s heard EVERYTHING we’ve said about her house. Although, really, that house was fucking insane, so she probably needed to hear it. Honestly? The only person who would buy that house near her price and with her pittance of a carpet allowance, would be another crazy cat collector with no sense of smell whatsoever. It was INSANE. I wish this blog was in Smell-O-Vision, because only then could I properly convey that house to you.
There was the house that was in a nice neighborhood, all the houses around it looked great, the lawn was mown, but the bushes weren’t terrible. When we got up to the house, though, the front windows were all broken and wide open. At first, we’re thinking some transients or druggies broke in to squat, but as we inspect the house, it’s looking more like it was condemned and someone started demolishing it, but then gave up halfway through and decided to sell it to some sucker instead. Greg doesn’t remember this house, but I do. Oh, do I. The front porch railings were basically held up with spit and a prayer – I touched one lightly, and it fell over. (So I propped it back up – I mean, I didn’t feel like I’d broken it or shit, since it seriously wasn’t even nailed in place, just propped up to begin with.) We walk onto the porch – the roof over the porch has a hugeass crazy-looking hole in it, almost like someone fell down through it. I mean, there’s all these broken, splintery ends of wood pointing down towards the porch, and the hole was maybe two, three feet in diameter. We walk in the house, and it’s two stories, and it’s such a fucking WRECK inside, and the stairs are so jacked up, that we decide it’s not even safe to go up to the second floor, and at that point we just turn around and leave.
There was another house in a not-so-nice-looking neighborhood. Here’s the thing, the neighborhood wasn’t really the problem (although, after what’s happened lately, the surrounding neighborhood’s apparent safety levels will DEFINITELY be on my list of things to pass muster). The problem was, all the other houses were fucking shitholes, and piled full of trash to the point that you could SEE it from the street. Like, some of the houses tried to put sheets or blinds or cut up trash bags on the windows, so you couldn’t see what was inside, except that you could totally see the outlines of all the shit inside pressing against the glass, it was that loaded. I don’t know if that whole neighborhood was full of severe OCD hoarders or what, but that’s what it looked like. But that’s the neighbors houses, not the one we’re there to look at, right? WRONG. We pull into the driveway, and this house is exactly the same. In fact, there’s one window where they didn’t even TRY to hide it, there’s no window covering, you can just see floor-to-ceiling bullshit and trash. And the other windows that ARE covered? You can see floor-to-ceiling outlines of the shit piled up against the windows. At this point, it’s obvious we couldn’t even *move* through the house to look at it, so we don’t even get out of the car, we just leave.
There were plenty of other relatively jacked-up houses, but those are the top three I’m remembering right now. And you know what? Our kitchen and studio might need some more cleaning, our yard might need some work, and we might have an old couch on the back porch to drag out to the curb tonight so it can get picked up tomorrow? But our house is SOOOOO much better than those three, it’s not even funny. I really need to not worry so much. I wish I’d remembered those houses *before* I had to take a Klonopin to chill out, but you know, shit happens.
Today I get to go to work, and then after work, we’re hitting up the house to drag shit out to the curb (including the trash can, the recycling, and that couch), and then clean some more (while it’s still not too late, since we have to work tomorrow morning, too). AND! I finally got my sound fixed on my computer – somehow it had lost track of the drivers for the audio device, so I found them, reinstalled them, and then told the computer where they were (apparently it’s not quite enough to just reinstall them) – all of which is huge considering I was all, “Greg, I don’t know if I can do this myself. I might need you to do it. Or I might need you to call KT.” (Since KT is…well, I’m not sure what his actual job title is, but he’s a computer guy, and he fixes computers and shit, and knows WAY more about them than I do.) But anyway, I did some googling, and fixed it, and YAY for me! Unfortunately, the fix happened around midnight finally, and I needed to crash, so I *still* haven’t seen “Journey’s End,” but I’m close! Finally, I’m close.
The mowing seems to have gone away – either they’ve stopped, or they’ve moved to a further-off building. And I’ve still got an hour before the alarm goes off, so I’m going to see if I can get a wee bit more shut-eye. Later taters.
Also? iTunes decided to stop playing sound on my computer this weekend, and it took forever to fix that. Now iTunes is fixed, so I can listen to music on my computer. That’s cool.
Here’s the thing: My biggest plan for relaxing today was to FINALLY watch the finale of the latest season of Doctor Who, which I STILL have not seen yet, and it’s fucking killing me. (Although I am a teensy bit spoiled, so it’s not killing me as much as it could be. But it’s still killing me.) So, iTunes is fixed, but apparently that’s the ONLY thing on my computer right now that wants to play sound. So I technically could *watch* the finale, but I can’t hear a goddamn thing. So unfair.
Okay, taking that Klonopin, and then reading some Island of the Day Before, and basically writing the rest of this evening off. I need to chill out, for reals.
Also, even though they’re never going to see this: Dear possibly-interested buyer who is viewing our house tonight. Thank you for viewing our house. Please do not think I am a total bitchface. I am just freaking out because I don’t know if you’ll look at the house and not understand that the kitchen and studio and yard will be SO GOOD in like two days, and also the showing service gave me negative notice, and I’m a little neurotic. And by “a little” I mean “really fucking.” So I’m just nervous, is all. I wish I had gotten up early this morning to go bust more ass and clean, but I was so tired, it just didn’t happen. But I’m probably just being a freak. You’re probably going to totally understand that we moved out in a week, put the house on the market at the end of that week, and have been busting ass to clean ever since. Your agent is probably all on the ball and shit, and told you, “The kitchen and studio will be good in two days, as will the yard once the landscaper shows up.” Or maybe they didn’t, and you’re just a reasonable person who’ll look around and think, “Cool, this is a cute house. They’ll finish cleaning, and I’ll be sold. It’s perfect.” I am just a nervous mess right now. So, if you ever find this bitching about selling the house, sorry. So very very sorry. I should have taken a Klonopin this morning, and then I wouldn’t even be in this mess, but I didn’t, so here we are. Funny how these things happen.
Okay, I don’t want to jinx the sale of our house, but this shit is a little ridiculous, and I’m ill, so I’m blogging it. I mean, crazy stuff happens to me, and I blog about it, right? That’s pretty much the raison d’etre of this blog, to relate craziness and give me a place to vent occasionally. With some knitting or pet-related content every once in a while. It’s cheaper than therapy. (Which I will be starting back up soon, too, by the way. Oh yes.)
So there’s some centralized showing company that is supposed to call us and let us know beforehand when someone wants to show the house, so that we can be sure we’re not fucking there when the potential buyer(s) show up to see the house, right? That’s cool and the gang. Especially since, while we are technically sleeping at the apartment right now and most of our stuff is moved out and the house is mostly cleaned – the kitchen and studio still need some work (although they’re better than they were), there’s some large pieces of trash/furniture that won’t be gone until they get picked up Tuesday morning, and then our landscaper didn’t understand we were trying to schedule him for Friday, so he won’t be done til Wednesday, actually. (And he better be done Wednesday, or I am going to have a panic-attack-slash-bitchfest.)
Yesterday, we BUSTED ASS. Like we’ve been doing. I cleaned like a motherfucker. I’m talking about some getting-down-on-my-hands-and-knees-cleaning-baseboards shit. I was soaking, dripping wet with sweat yesterday. I cleaned motherfucking EVERYTHING. Every surface. I took fucking light fixtures down and cleaned them. I swept, I mopped, I used Murphy’s wood oil soap whatever the fuck, I got so much cleaning supplies all over my hands (because gloves just get in my way), I’m convinced I ingested it, even after washing my hands a billion times. Like, that cleaning stuff? Is GROUND INTO my skin. I will be developing weird diseases and shit years down the road from now, and when the doctors finally figure it out, they’ll be all, “Did you…use Murphy’s and Liquid Gold and 409 and 409 Glass and Surface and Tilex and bleach wipes and bleach-free wipes and a GANG OF OTHER CLEANING SUPPLIES all in the same day? Also, did you not wear a respirator while doing this? Well, that explains it.” Except for the kitchen and the studio, that house is goddamn pristine. It’s definitely in better, cleaner condition than when we saw it and bought it. The kitchen and studio are better than they were last weekend when someone came to see it, and they’re close to being done. And then we just go out once a week to mow the yard and sweep, and wait for it to sell.
So, I’m taking today off – Greg had a game in Cary, he needed a break and he had the car. I can’t stay at the house by myself getting more cleaning done, because he might be getting back late, and you know how I am when I’m alone and it’s dark outside. So I took today off. I got some shit done around the apartment – like I hung some paintings that needed it. Also – your girl is an idiot, because she tried to kind of sort of open a package of Hercules Hooks with her teeth – just trying to remove an “innocuous” piece of plastic – and chipped a tooth. Not badly enough to warrant a dentist trip or anything, purely cosmetic and a small chip at that, but still. Damn I am stupid. So whatever, I’m taking it sort of easy, getting a little bit done, and I’m like, “Wow, I’m exhausted (must have been all that ass-busting this weekend), I’ll take a little nap.” Go lie down in bed, and of-motherfucking-course the phone rings. But it’s the showing people, and someone wants to show the house tonight, and I’m more than happy for that, because shit needs to sell already. So they’re like, “We have an agent who wants to show your house tonight. It’s vacant, right?” And I’m like, “Well, we’re not living there, if that’s what you mean, but the kitchen and studio aren’t quite done yet, and the landscaping isn’t happening until Wednesday due to a mix-up, but everything else is good to go.” And they’re like, “Sounds great! The agent will show your house between 5:45 and 6:00 tonight.” And I’m like, “Thanks so much, I’ll let my husband know, so you don’t have to call him, too.”
I hang up the phone, and as I’m calling Greg, I notice the clock: 6:01. WHAT. THE. FUCK. PEOPLE. You are supposed to call us BEFOREHAND so we can make sure we’re not at the house when bitches show up. I mean, yeah, we’re in an apartment, but we’re still going to be going over to the house for cleaning and shit. And even when we’re done cleaning the kitchen and studio out, and the landscaper’s done, we’re still going to be hitting that place up once a week to mow and sweep. DAMN. We need more notice than, “By the way, an agent is planning on showing your house fifteen minutes AGO.”
And of course, I call that service back to be all, “Um, guys? We need at least ten, twenty minutes’ warning. Come on.” And they close at 6:00 on Sundays. So someone scheduled a showing at the last possible minute, giving us ZERO warning, and the lady called, told me about it, neglected to mention that the showing was scheduled for 5:45 to 6:00 but, oh, it’s SIX RIGHT NOW, and then hung up and left the office. And of course they don’t do voicemail. And of course *I* still haven’t added our realtor’s number to my cell, so I had to call Greg and be all, “Um, when you get a chance, call our realtor, and have her tell that showing service that we need PRIOR notice. Not like, as-it’s-being-shown-or-after notice.”
UGH. And of course, now I need a Klonopin to chill out, because I’m all, “Great. On the one hand, hell yes we need that house to be shown, because it can’t sell without being shown. On the other hand, that kitchen and studio and yard are not ready yet. Goddammit.”
Shit, while I’m burning bridges, might as well do it fully. So what I wasn’t blogging from last weekend? We’re painting the back of the house, which was a fucking BRUTAL job. Not even halfway finished, we get a call that someone wants to show the house in two hours. So we BUST MOTHERFUCKING ASS to finish painting, and get shit cleaned up as much as possible, fix a couple things up in the house while we can, and then get the hell out of Dodge so it can be shown. Let me take a moment right here to say that the age of the house is included in the listing, basically – I think it says it was built in 1952. It might not actually say, “This house is 56 years old.” But it does say it was built in 1952, and you can do the math, right. Also, that house is looking goooooood for 56 years old, okay? It’s good. It’s not looking old and rickety and shit, it looks like what it is: a well-built house that people have loved and taken care of. So Monday, Greg gets a follow-up email from whoever showed the house that day, and this is what they have to say: “My client decided the home was to old for him. Thank you.”
Here’s what I, um, had to say about that, in the original post that I wasn’t going to post until after the house sold, but you know what? I’m a dumbass, reckless, whatever, I’m going to post it right fucking now:
“FUCK. YOU. DUDE. You couldn’t have decided that from the listing, where it SAID how old the house was? Jesus fucking christ. How stupid do you have to be to see that a house is 56 years old and think it’ll be like new? Thanks for busting all up in our precious cleaning time, you fuckwad. Thanks for making us bust all that extra ass to make sure the paintjob was done before you came over, fuckwad. Jesus fucking christ. I was fucking exhausted yesterday. I was fucking BEYOND EXHAUSTED: yesterday, Saturday, pretty much all of last week and a half. Did I mention I couldn’t fucking eat and could barely drink water and lost 14 pounds in a week and two days and was busting ass on a couple sips of water, adrenalin, and some Klonopin? FUCK YOU SOME MORE.”
I am just betting that when Greg gets a follow-up from whoever showed the house tonight, it’s along the lines of, “My client decided this house was too old.” or “My client decided this house wasn’t clean enough.” or “My client decided the yard was insanely out of control.” Like, no shit, dude, I told the scheduling service all that, and it’s going to be fixed. But at the same time, I’m not going to be all, “No! You can’t show the house today, you have to wait until after Wednesday!” Because what if I did that, and then whoever was interested lost interest and never came back to see the house when it was 100% ready.
Also, there are a billion other things that really aren’t that important, but did I mention I’m crazy neurotic, so of course now I’m flipping out over this dumb shit, and I need to go take a Klonopin. Awesome. I mean, I already know whoever’s looking at the house tonight 1-isn’t buying it, and 2-isn’t even making an offer. Even if the house was perfectly ready to go and the yard was good, I would assume that, because it’s only the second showing of the house, and I’m a pessimist. So I shouldn’t be freaking out and worrying, but, hi, I’m fucking nuts, so of course I am. Okay, time to take a Klonopin and then go try to read a book or some shit and forget about this. At least until tomorrow, or whenever Greg gets that follow-up email that’s basically like, “Thanks for letting us look at your house, but it sucks, so no thanks,” and I can laugh or cry or rage or whatever about that. This is hell.
I wish we had had slightly more notice, that we were going to sell the house, and get it ready in such short time, and I would have gotten up with Dirty Jobs all, “I know it’s not, like, pig farming or sewer inspection, but it’s dirty, it’s sweaty, it’s back-breaking and ball-busting, and it’s all got to happen in about a week’s time, and you’re also guaranteed to see me have a couple breakdowns in the meantime, so come on out! It’ll make great television!” Plus I bet you dollars to donuts, Mike Rowe is stronger and faster than I am, so he would have been a bigger help to Greg.
Here’s the thing. We moved into the apartment. At first, the cats were weirded out, because we fled over here that first night because there was no power at the house, and all we brought with us were the cats, a change of clothes, and some pillows and blankets to put on the floor for sleeping. As we moved more furniture and clothes and shit over, the cats got slightly more comfortable.
The weird thing is – weird because Chalupa is the more skittish of the two of them – she got more comfortable in the new apartment faster than Skeeter did. He kept getting startled, and freaking out and trying to hide, while Chalupa was walking around, checking stuff out, sniffing things, rubbing her face on it (marking behavior), and jumping up on shit to investigate. Then she turned into a little hellion. Seriously, you guys, she has been SO BAD. Beating up on Skeeter. Claiming the cat tower for herself (when previously it was Skeeter’s and she wasn’t even allowed to consider getting on it). Running across us while we’re sleeping with her claws out. Doing shit she knows she’s not supposed to do, and not just *doing it*, but giving us stank looks while she does it, like, “Yeah, bitch, that’s right: I’m doing this. I’m doing this thing I’m not supposed to, and I’m doing RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU and I don’t give a shit. Fuck you, humans. Now where’s my damn food.” She has turned into a little hellcat.
I mean, a hellcat, relatively speaking, for Chalupa. She’s not going outside the litter box, or marking the walls, or biting us hard, or anything REALLY bad. But compared to what a scared, mild-mannered thing she was at the house, she is hell on fucking wheels in the apartment. Skeeter’s been an angel, because 1-he’s still getting used to the apartment, and 2-his mom is beating him up like it was her job. (She’s not really hurting him, she’s just establishing dominance, and, probably, let’s be honest, getting back at him for all the beatdowns he handed out at the house.) My friend Kate thinks it’s because they’re still a little nervous about the apartment, and once they’re both used to it, things will change. I think she’s mostly right – although Chalupa is loving the hell out of that top post on the cat tower, so I don’t think she’s giving that up, oh, ever. But she might start sharing.
So, there I was, all ready to post about what a weird change of status it is for Chalupa to be the bad cat, and Skeeter to be the good cat. Like, Greg and I are in the living room, and I hear someone getting up to serious mischief in the back bathroom: unrolling all the toilet paper on the roll. Now, neither one of them has done this shit in ages. They both know better. Skeeter is on the back of the couch, dozing, while Greg and I are watching either My Life on the D-List or Dirty Jobs, our reward after a day’s worth of ass-busting moving and cleaning. I will admit I am a little hopped up on my Klonopin (or, as I like to say it frankly, “high”), so I get up to head back to the bathroom, and I mean to say something like, “Your ass better be running!” You know, because here I come to hand out a beatdown (or, in reality, just stop you doing that shit, and re-roll the toilet paper, you bad, bad cat). What actually comes out of my mouth – and what Greg has been quoting to me and cracking up about ever since – is, “You better ass run!” Nice. Did I mention that my grammar and my balance and my walking are not so hot on Klonopin? I can focus, I can do math just fine, I can go to work and get work done. But when it’s time to head for the bathroom, bitch is staggering, for real, and bumping into all these cubes on the way there. I am so sorry, you guys. And I cannot talk right, either, my words get all jumbled. (I didn’t have to take any today to chill out, which is why this post is pretty coherent. Awesome.)
So, I’m heading down the hallway to get Chalupa to stop unrolling the toilet paper (and, yes, I’ve got one hand on the wall to steady myself a little, shut up), and I’ve just said, “You better ass run!” Now, if it was Skeeter, his ass would already have slunk under the bed because he KNOWS he’s doing wrong. But the new and improved? unimproved? new and bad-attituded Chalupa? Hell no. She’s waiting for me on the threshold of the bathroom, watches me come in the room, looks at the mess she’s made, and then just saunters fucking past me. SAUNTERS. The attitude, bitches, I can’t even tell you. Like, “That’s right, bitch. I just unrolled ALL your toilet paper. That was a new roll, too, um-hmm. Go on and clean it up, I’ve got other shit to get to.”
Shit like that. On a regular basis. I was all ready to tell you about how BAD Chalupa has been, and how GOOD Skeeter has been – like, are we in Bizarro World? So ready to post about that, and I discover THIS SHIT. Get this. I’m going to post the pictures slightly out of the order I took them in, for better clarification. Again, these are cellphone pics, so sorry if they suck.
Here is a picture of the top of the door to the bathroom off the hallway. (There are two bathrooms in our apartment, one directly off our “master” bedroom, and one in the hallway, I guess for visitors and the sucker in the second bedroom. In our case, the “sucker” in the second bedroom is like our computers and boxes and shit, and they don’t need a bathroom. Also? The hallway bathroom is larger than the master bedroom bathroom. How bobo is that?) Anyway, here’s the top of the door, taken from inside the bathroom, with the door open (so it’s against the bathroom wall). The door is slightly cracked, and we’ve got a towel rack hanging on the inside (the side of the door that’s IN the bathroom); on the hallway side, you can see the shoe rack we’ve got hanging. Here’s that picture:
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Here’s the picture I took just SECONDS before, of Skeeter scrambling the fuck down from the top of the door. Now I know there are cats who get up on the tops of doors, and on the molding over doors and shit – not our precious darlings. At least, not until this apartment. Greg thinks he climbed up the shoes on the shoe organizer, but that doesn’t explain the third picture – we’ll get to that in a minute.
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I had gone into the bathroom to brush my teeth or some shit, and I notice some movement in the mirror above my head, look up, and a goddamn CAT (Skeeter!) is staring at me from on top of the door. Scared the shit out of me. (Not really, though, lucky for the damn cat.) So of course I go get my camera, and once he sees that, he knows he’s doing something he probably shouldn’t, so he gets down, and that’s all I can catch, picture-wise. So Greg thinks he’s been climbing up the shoe thing. I think he’s jumping from the sink, but we haven’t seen him do it, so we’re not sure. We’ve just been walking into the bathroom for whatever reason, and he’s already chilling on top of the door like a fool.
Here’s why I don’t think he climbed the shoe thing. Or, even if he did, it doesn’t explain THIS PICTURE, which is from the fucking bathroom INSIDE our bedroom. Not the hallway bathroom, the master bedroom bathroom. I don’t know how the fuck he got up here, unless he jumped from Greg’s dresser, which might possibly be close enough, but I don’t think it is close enough when the door’s open (and Skeeter can’t get on top of it when it’s shut, right), and I don’t think Skeeter’s THAT skilled of a far-jumper. But, again, I haven’t caught him getting up there, so I don’t know. I only catch him after he’s ALREADY up there. For all I know, Greg could be putting him up there to have a laugh at my consternation, but actually, I know that’s not the case, because Greg’s usually right with me when we find Skeeter up there, and he’s as confused as I am. Maybe Skeeter has learned to fly, in which case, he better damn reveal it so we can make some skrilla and get rich off our flying cat. Anyway, here’s the last picture, of Skeeter on top of the door of the master bedroom’s bathroom:
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And, actually, two things. Number one, you’ll notice he’s actually got some feet on top of the door, and some on the molding over the door. Number two, check out that facial expression. Does that look like a good cat that has the decency to look even slightly embarrassed when he gets busted getting up to no good? No. It does not. It’s the face the “old Skeeter” would make when he would get busted, all, “Hi guys, just doing some shit here, it’s cool right?” What a dodo. On the plus side, he’s not ruining anything, or sharpening his claws up there, and if he’s getting up to mischief it means he’s feeling more comfortable in the apartment.
