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.
