A Mighty Fine Life

Well it didn't kill me, but it tried!

I got up at 7. For those of you playing along at home, on a normal work day, I get up at 8:30. 7 AM is an unacceptable time in the morning to me. (The hour before that is "negative o'clock;" you count backwards.) But I did it, and dragged myself to the park, and met up with my team. Incidentally, all of them are way better fundraisers than I am; between the 8 of them, they raised almost $10,000.

We were ushered into the park around 9:30, and the walk began at 10. The walk was mostly fine. But long. And, uh, did I mention I'm way out of shape? And have something resembling chronic foot pain? Six miles is a long goddamn walk. The group was instantly broken up, my section was way fast, and we made fantastic time for the first 2/3 of the walk. Then we stopped to wait for the rest of our group. It took 20 minutes. That was enough time for the soreness to set in, so when we got started again, I was with the slower group.

Then I had a bit of a fight with the curb. Gravity refereed. I lost. It was actually kind of stunningly impressive; I stumbled forward, like, eight feet in my attempt to catch myself, but just couldn't do it. I damn near faceplanted, but caught myself on hands and knees. Here's how good physical therapy has been for my wrists; obviously when I caught myself on my palms, they took the brunt of my weight, but were fine! My hands weren't scratched, which was a surprise, because they felt like they should be. My knee? Well, it began to hurt near the end of the walk, and is fine whenever I'm sitting down, but man, that whole walking thing reeeeally hurts. We'll call the fall disaster #1, because ow.

So that was the AIDS walk. I didn't get to go to lunch with the team after; I had to run home, so we could proceed to Part 2 of the Day of Mild Disasters.

The plan was to hurry home, grab Blanca, and high-tail it to U-Haul. When I made my reservation for the pick up truck, I asked specifically about how late they were open for drop offs. They said 5. I double checked. Definitely 5. That meant it would be tight, but we should have been juuuuust able to get to Brooklyn, get the bed, get back home, drop it off, and get the truck back to U-Haul. Because if we couldn't do that, the truck would need to be returned Monday morning. (Upside: they wouldn't charge extra; technically it's mine for 24 hours. Downside: I haven't driven in 3 and a half years, I've never driven in the city, I am a nervous driver, I hate driving, and I've never even driven a moderately large car, let alone a truck.)

We arrived around 3. And were promptly told -- bum bum BUMMMM -- that the latest drop off time was 4. Disaster #2, because I had a FUCKING HEART ATTACK. Disaster loomed imminent! There just was no way humanly, physically possible to get that done. But luckily, by the time I had even PROCESSED that, Blanca was on the phone with our friend Cristina, who can and does drive, and who has graciously, wonderfully agreed to come into the city tomorrow to drive the truck back for me (HI CRIS, ILU).

So Blanca and I took off, got into Brooklyn, and promptly got lost thanks to crap directions. We'll call this disaster #3a, because it wasn't very big. We eventually got better directions and found the woman selling the bed; we moved it onto the truck, paid up, no issues. Except it's an open pick up truck, right? And an overcast day, right? And I was waaaay too busy and stressed to get a tarp, right? YOU CAN SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING, RIGHT? Disaster #3b, but the rain was thankfully brief and the mattress thankfully protected by an old mattress pad. So we headed back to Manhattan, but were stopped at the toll booth -- because we hadn't pulled over at the truck checking station, apparently. After lecturing us, we were waved on. Phew!

So that was basically the end of the disasters; after that it was just moving the pieces of the bed (frame, box, mattress) in, and moving the old POS futon and its frame out. Just FYI, if you've ever walked six miles and taken a dramatic spill in the process, wrangling large, heavy objects is NO FUN. But we prevailed. Blanca is a serious freaking HERO for all of her help here. (HI BLANCA ILU.) Now all that remains is cleaning my room (because it turns out I had a lot of crap in the 2 inches of space under the futon frame, who knew?) and putting sheets on the bed, AND THEN I AM GOING TO SLEEP FOR A MILLION HOURS.

I've already called out of work for at least tomorrow morning, for the truck returning adventure. We'll see about the rest of the day after that.

ETA: Ahahaha, how much do I suck? When I left the AIDS walk, I called Rachel and asked her to make me spaghetti so it would be ready when I got home, but we didn't have time, so Blanca suggested I eat in her car on the way to U-Haul. AND I TOTALLY LEFT THE BOWL IN HER CAR.

Tomorrow may well kill me.

I'm doing the AIDS walk in the morning. This is not a big deal or a problem -- though it will probably be tiring, and I have perpetual foot problems, so it will be at least somewhat painful, methinks. Still, no big.

Thing is, after that I'm getting my new bed. Except it's no longer an order from Ikea, it's a slightly used bed a friend of a friend is selling for $50. The catch, I need to pick it up. Lacking a car, I'm renting a UHaul pickup truck; lacking the willingness to drive myself (I haven't driven in over 3 years, have never driven in the city, hate driving, and am not very good at it, frankly) I am bribing munkykiss into doing it for me. Hooray!

Except we need to be done by 5, as that's when the UHaul location closes for the evening, and if we aren't done then, I'll have to drive it back myself Monday morning. That would be really bad. For all the aforementioned reasons. DO NOT WANT.

So, AIDS Walk and then moving a heavy, cumbersome object, under deadline pressure! What are your Sunday plans?

As for today, I need to go run errands, but in fact all I want to do is take a nap. Sigh.

So once upon a time I was told by ConEd that a) our account at our previous apartment was canceled, and b) it had been moved to our current address. So today, when I received both a bill for August at our old apartment AND a notice that our power is going to be shut off in THIS apartment, due to non-payment.

FUCKING CON ED.

So the guy who said he canceled our account didn't actually. It turns out he needed RACHEL to do that, and he didn't TELL ME THAT or she'd have called. He said it was done, no problem!

Our apartment management company never changed the account. So we had to convince ConEd to open a SECOND account at this residence, and I need to call the company tomorrow and get them to cancel theirs.

I just -- ARRRRG. Why why why? WHY CAN'T PEOPLE BE COMPETENT AND DO THE THINGS THEY SAY THEY WILL?????

And because when it rains, it pours, my company was sold last week. AND I have an employee review tomorrow. The two are not related; the first is actually good, because my job is safe and now I get better benefits (dental! vision! a 401k! huh?), the second is intimidating, but hopefully will have positive results.

JUST, STRESS.

I am not at all sleepy, but really need to go to bed because I work tomorrow. Even though tomorrow is Sunday. There's a massive international HIV/AIDS conference going on all next week, starting tomorrow, so I shall be quite, quite busy with work and likely pulling 10-14 hour days. JOY.

But this is a happy post, because after living here for a week and a half, I finally have something that resembles a bedroom! It's actually very sparse and empty, because I don't own much stuff and the room is much bigger than I thought it was when we signed the lease (hooray, I guess!), but it's clean and unpacked. I have my closet all set up -- I own very little hanging clothing (well, I own very little clothing period) so that wasn't hard, but I think it's the first time in my entire life I've had an organized closet. And I washed pretty much all the clothing that I own (it took one load; I wasn't joking about not owning a lot of clothes) and it's all put away neatly, too. Which yes, is a big deal for me, as anyone who has seen the state of my bedroom on an average day since I was about 4 years old can tell you.

I would like to someday buy a new bed (the one I have now is a futon that was primarily intended to serve as a couch, is not a standard mattress size and thus can not be made up properly since no sheets fit it, and also it isn't very comfortable), and a real dresser (right now I have two plastic drawer thingies side-by-side), and maaaaybe even a desk. I have room for it! But first things first; this week I'm going to buy some bookshelves, because I need more than the one I have. (I'll probably buy more than I need, since I buy a lot of books...)

I need posters. I finally have walls to hang things on! I have virtually nothing to put on the walls at this point, as it's been so long since I've had a room to hang things in. I've got some action figures to hang up, and...that's about it. All the stuff I had from college has disappeared somewhere, or ripped, or I've gotten over. I'm buying that Newsies poster (I've settled on the orange one) but I have a lot of blank wall space here.

But mostly I'm just very happy. A room! That's mine! With my stuff in places I can find it! It is temporarily super clean, even! Hooray on all counts!

Okay, I'd best sleep now.

So I'm on vacation.

It's not that exciting: I took the week off to handle the details of moving. We're about 85% packed (not bad), we've scrubbed and mopped the kitchen, thrown serious amounts of junk and semi-junk, given away four crates of books and three bags of clothing, etc. Today I dealt with utilities and internet.

It actually -- knock on wood -- went very smoothly. I called ConEd this morning and they were confused because an account had been opened by the leasing company, so I called the leasing company and (after leaving a message, not hearing anything, and calling back) they told me that they handle that automatically. So hooray for that.

I also called the cable company, and they were...really...helpful? Which kind of suprised me, but they set up an appointment for a dude to come by and hook up cable in the new apartment on Thurdsay morning, so hooray. I have no idea when cable and internet are going out here, though, so if I vanish that's why.

Now we just need to worry about the move itself. And getting the A/C unscrewed from the window. (No sign of the super, which is unusual for him.) The move itself happens Wednesday morning.

Going to see Batman with Jess and Rachel tonight. Cool.

I said last night that I really enjoyed Journey to the Center of the Earth. Here's the slightly more coherent reaction over at Hathor, though it only deals with Hannah and how awesome she was, and not the ludicrousness of the movie as a whole. (Because it is quite ludicrous. But I would watch Brendan Fraser punch semi-sentient plants in their kinda-faces all day.)

In other news, Rachel and I packed eleven boxes today. All of books. (We have other possessions, but that's probably about half of everything we own...) The liquor store was kind enough to provide us with free boxes. By way of thanks, we also bought a cheap bottle of wine, and, uh, drank it. Whoops?

So in the time I was basically computerless:

1) I (finally) went to the dentist. I have four cavities, which will be filled over the next month or so. On the one hand, this sucks. On the other hand, considering I've had no dental care at all for two and a half years and I thought I was going to need a root canal or something, it's not that bad. I didn't especially like the dentist I saw, but the convenience of his office being in the same building where I work can't really be beat.

2) Tuesday evening was feminist SF book club! We read an Ursula LeGuin collection, which I thought was very good, even if it isn't what I, personally, would pick up for fun. Last time I went, the discussion was kind of meh; this time it was great and smart and full of people thinking about things and disagreeing politely and generally being awesome. I'm so pleased, let me tell you. (And afterwords, a coworker [who also is part of the club] and I went out for ice cream. Well, sorbet on my part. But it was fun times.)

3) Yesterday, harriet_vane and I finally went and saw some apartments with our realtor, who is a very nice guy. Knock on wood, we found one we loooooove, and so began the process of nabbing it. Such things can always fall through, so I'm trying not to have my hopes up too high, but it would be so fantastic.

4) Work has been work. To make up for the time I've been off getting my teeth cleaned and trying to find a place to live, I stayed crazy late a couple nights and came in early, too. Which sucked and was pretty exhausting. Ah, well. Sadly, it's just going to get crazier; between the big-ass conference at the beginning of August and the week I'm taking off for the move, it is going to be super stressful and annoying. Groan.

5) July 4th! Pretty much my favorite non-present-giving holiday, because I looooove fireworks. poisonivory is coming out to play, and she and harriet_vane and I are hopefully going to go see the giant show. Hooray! Also: long weekend! Double hooray!

6) I read Suzanne Brockmann's Hot Target, and you should too! You know, if you like WWII (or WWII movies), trashy romance, trashy gay romance, hot Navy SEALs, and -- especially -- dreamy gay-in-denial actors with substance abuse problems and daddy issues. (And who doesn't?)

7) I have a Twitter, if you are a person who likes to follow those. It's mostly mundane stuff and complaining about work, though.

8) I have written jack shit. I know I should just get back to work, but I had such momentum built up in my projects that now that Teh Novel has been wiped I'm just exhausted and having trouble forcing myself to get started. Maybe this weekend. We'll see.

I'm at my sister's appartment and exhausted. Last night was great, however; Mom and Dad took me out to dinner, then Tim and I hung out for awhile, and he came over to help me finish packing, which took until almost six in the morning. I then got up at ten to really-really finish and caught a 12:40 bus, which got here late, and Rachel and I dragged the universe's largest suitcases all the way to her appartment.

Sorry about the lack of calling back anyone who called me. Too tired to speak. Dinner, then bed. Oh yes.

Which Lohrists are going to lunch tomorrow, when, and where? Call me. I might even answer. Unless I'm asleep, which seems likely. (I need to know which late Chanukah presents I'm bringing.)

Aaaand, that's all I got. Goodnight, everybody.

My room is freakishly clean. Well, except that it needs to be vaccuumed very badly. Otherwise, thugh. There's a small pile of stuff I need to throw in a box in one corner, because I really don't know what else to do with it, but it's all stuff I'm keeping. I have two milk crates of books, a large box of DVDs, my stereo, and my printer. That's about it for stuff in my room.

All my laundry is clean. All of it. I've spent the last three days on that. It's all nice and folded out in the living room; I need to go through and get rid of a bunch of stuff that I know I'm never going to wear again, and figure out what I need to buy. I know I need a couple of pairs of jeans, and bras, socks, and underwear, but I'm not sure if I also need shirts. I really don't want to spend any money on this, but... I need to, and it's cheaper here than in NY.

My plan is to leave this weekend, by the way. I am very excited and incredibly terrified.

Tulio is continuing to flip out, but there's really nowhere in Ithaca to get him fixed. Which means that ASAP upon arriving in NY, field trip to the Apple Store! This is never a bad thing, anyway. Let us just hope that Tulio makes it that long. (I thought he was done for last night, when he wouldn't charge, since that's one of the symptoms of what seems to be his problem; but it turns out I'd just kicked the cord and it had come unplugged. I felt very stupid but relieved when I realized that.)

So in the next couple of days, I need to shop, go to the bank, and throw this stuff into boxes. I'm not sure whether it's all going with me to live in Rachel's apartment (and leave me to figure out how to get it to wherever I end up living) of it only the very necessities are coming this weekend and Mom and Dad will bring the rest to wherever I live later. Details, details.

Either way, I'm feeling very accomplished. I've still got a couple of piles of stuff through the rest of the house to go through, but things are looking... okay.

I'm still working on the Refuge problems at the moment, by the way. It hasn't been forgotten, I'm just busy and we're waiting to hear back from someone who actually knows what she's doing before proceeding. So that I don't break things further. But isn't the new layout purdy?

New Project Runway tonight, woo!

So here's what it looks like. Worst case scenario: working full time, making minimum wage, I can afford to live in the city if my rent/utilities are no more than $500/month. That would not be likely to happen, though. However, if I'm working full time and making 8-9 dollars an hour, I can afford anywhere between $500-$650 a month. That's just an estimate, though; I'm doing my best to estimate cost of living and such. So it'll be interesting to see how close I am.

I'm getting psyched.

I just finished re-reading Last Days of Summer and it made me sniffle.

Margot left this morning. I'm off today, tomorrow, and Thursday. Friday is my last ever shift at the kiosk; I work Saturday, Sunday, and Monday at Regal and then I'm done. Forever.

Speaking of work, a few days ago I woke up to a text message from my awesome friend Sarah (jessiethejester, who never updates), who did the run-away-from-home-live-in-NYC-have-no-money-ever thing four months ago: her manager will probably be willing to hire me in the Borders cafe where she works; she can train me. Borders pays better than Regal, and gives better benefits. So it's nothing definite, and I have Regal to fall back on if it doesn't work out, but awesome.

Speaking of which, my tooth is acting up again. Yes, Dad, this time I actually will call the dentist.

I visited Mr. Githler, my evil eighth grade history teacher. He was mean to me, but if he hadn't been, I'd have suspected he had a terminal disease. Being in my HS was very, very, very weird.

Margot and I watched Newsies last night:
queenitsy: Why does Dutchy choke when the bell rings?
second_batgirl: Pavlovian response? Oh, look, he swallowed.
queenitsy: He must be very well trained, then.
...I forgot how much I loved this movie.

Rachel visited and then Margot visited and it was awesome. Now I have no friends again, at least in the area, and this is sad.
(Mr. Githler: So you've been living in your parents house and working two crappy jobs. What friends do you have in the area to make you feel better?
Me: ..."Friends"?
Mr. Githler: Why aren't you on heroin by now? I would be.)

I'm glad to be nearly done with work. I've never been as angry at a customer as I was a few days ago; it's not a real horror story, but I swear to god there is a correlation between people who buy icees and people who are fucking morons, and clumsy ones at that. Then I discovered that I had a double shift with both jobs, after I was ten minutes late for Borders. So that was a 14 hour day. I made Mom and Margot come rescue me with food and a sweater so no one would see my Regal uniform.

Margot and I watched all of Hana Youri Dango, and it was awesome crack. I deeply, deeply wish that Hanazawa Rui was my boyfriend. Or older brother.

I'm moving very soon. This is terrifying the hell out of me. But also very exciting. Um, eek?