Overly Verbal

Apparently, regardless of how busy I am, my blog remains. And since I’m largely happy, and we all know that my blog is really boring when I’m happy, my blog remains boring. I do have a couple of things to write about, though, and so I shall.

First off, the putting of the majority of my personal belongings into storage went brilliantly. It took less than a day, partially because the truck rental company gave me a 16 foot truck even though I had reserved a 10 foot truck, and partially because I was “aggressively vertical” about the space in which my belongings are currently stored. Sure, there was a point in time when I was inside the storage space behind my dresser, and had to perform a fairly acrobatic movement so that I did not have to live in the storage space for the next several weeks – climbing over the dresser was pretty easy, but climbing back over it in order to remove it from storage without harming it or myself may prove to be less so. Only time will tell.

Secondly, it may have become apparent that the reason I am moving is largely because the place in which I now live is crumbling to pieces around me. A couple of weeks ago I had no hot water when I woke up. That was a little alarming, but I had hot water when I returned from work, so I, as they say, shook it off. And Sunday I had no water at all for at least a couple of hours, and that was also alarming, but I manned up and simply neglected to do my laundry, not wanting to test the availability of water in the laundry room by putting four quarters into a machine.

And today, I went to get some leftovers out of the refrigerator and was dismayed to find that many of the liquids and some of the solids in my refrigerator were frozen. It will likely come as no great surprise that I had not recently changed the settings on my refrigerator so that it would be so cold inside as to freeze the water therein. Having only about eight days left to live here, I simply called my new property management company and left a message to the effect of “I am not inclined to spend any time watching someone install a new refrigerator, and I believe it would be foolish to attempt to repair the (at least 20 years old) refrigerator (and would be happy to provide photos of the rust on the outside, should that be necessary), but I just wanted to let you know that it’s malfunctioning.” I am simply going to categorize the refrigerator as an over-achiever, remove everything from the refrigerator sometime on Saturday, and be done with it, because to do anything else would likely send me over the edge.

In other news, all that is left in my apartment is my bed, my computer, my TV, some furniture I intend to divest myself of one way or another, a shit-ton of paper and junk I need to organize, and my clothes and shoes.* Here’s something – I have way, way too many clothes and shoes. With only one pair of feet, I’m not sure why I need 28 pairs of shoes, but whenever I look at them and think, “Okay, some of all y’all need to go to a different home,” I want to keep them all. I did manage to identify a number of articles of clothing that I can donate to someone who needs them more than I do, but I think any rational person would suggest that I have a problem, and one that needs addressing. I am easily one of the least girly girls I know, but the shoe thing . . .

You know what? Never mind. If that’s the biggest problem I have, too many pairs of shoes? I’m sitting pretty, so I’ll just shut up now.

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* And Molly. Did I forget to mention that recently Molly woke me up at 3:30 because she was playing with a live mouse? If that sounds familiar, it’s because she killed a mouse in August: when last I saw the latest mouse it was alive, but I don’t think it’s particularly inclined to come back. (I believe she ran it through the wringer, but you just never know with the rodents that choose to enter your kitchen.)

So I thought I finally had a plan in place, plenty of time to move, etc., when I changed my mind. Again. Now, instead of having however many days I thought I had to move, I’ve decided to put most everything I own into storage over Thanksgiving weekend, which is not as far away as one might hope, and to live a spartan but incredibly clean life for some two weeks before I turn in my keys, in order to facilitate the turning in of keys, and decrease the cost of moving, on account of I can rent a cargo van and a storage space for less than I can rent a truck and some movers, utilize my own labor instead of that of some smelly guys who are likely to drop my pristine and lovely dresser on its head, and not only save money, but also decrease the urgency with which I must move my things into a new place on a weekend when there is likely to be bad weather. (This plan seems to have also diminished my ability to write coherent, logical sentences. Whatever.)

This, of course, means that I am to have my apartment prepared in somewhat less than ten days from right this very minute, and given that I have been invited to a Thanksgiving day meal that will require my making and then bringing some fabulous addition to the feast,* I should really be, say, packing, instead of playing Scrabble online, writing entries to my blog, and talking to my cat.

Ah well. Somehow I’ve always managed to pull off my crazy plans before, and I don’t see why this one should be any different. In the meantime, though, holy cow do I have a lot of things to do!
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* How amusing was the conversation with the “partner” about what I might bring to this meal? Amusing indeed. We’ve considered my performing an interpretative dance about American history, bringing construction paper so we can all make Pilgrim hats, or arranging a showing of “Lords of the Gourd”, but given that I am trying to impress the people that I am dining with, I think we settled on either cookies or cheesecake. (I’m sure if I’ve forgotten any of the proposals, a certain someone will bring it to our attention.)

So this morning I was royally pissed off, and when I calculated my remaining days in the ghetto I accidentally added a whole week – righteous indignation does in fact harm my ability to count. So I only had 37 days before I had to move then. But now I only have 32, including today. I gotta get moving!

See, what happened was, I figured out in my head that my daily rent couldn’t possibly be that much less than the daily rent of a truck, and if I just put all my possessions in a truck a week earlier than I had planned, I could pay rent to a truck rental company instead of my current property owner for that week. So I spent this morning negotiating with a certain someone about possible truck parking locations, and the feasibility of Molly and I sharing a one bedroom apartment for a full week with this certain someone (who will be in the middle of finals, and also trying to pack his own apartment, and also allergic to cats) instead of for one night.

Here’s something – I am not used to sharing decision-making. Yes, Molly makes some of the decisions around here, like when we are to open cans of tuna, and whether or not it is terribly, terribly important that I acknowledge that she is triumphantly carrying around a potholder or a rubber glove, but for the most part, I’m quite used to doing things without all that much regard for how others feel about my decisions. Somehow* I now find myself with a “partner” who is accommodating and kind, however, so negotiations proceeded apace, and I am bound to vacate my apartment a full two weeks earlier than I thought I was going to when I woke up this morning.

Which is fine, except that the day I have to have the truck loaded is at the very end of what will be my busiest week at work this year; the week I will be sharing an apartment will be a week without high speed Internet access, let alone wireless Internet access; and I honestly have no idea how much it costs to rent a ten-foot truck for an entire week, even though I have had ample time today to look it up (instead I was playing Scrabble games on Facebook and performing other similarly important activities).

There are some benefits to my plan, however, not the least of which is that after sharing a one bedroom apartment for a week, the two bedroom apartment we are moving into will seem like a palace. That, and loading my truck a full week before it can be unloaded will separate the physical activities from one another so that I have time to recover in between. (I say, as if I am actually going to be loading a truck. I might be doing some unloading, depending on how many of you all I rope into helping me, but I am most assuredly going to be paying some guys to load the truck for me.) (Because I am weak, and they are strong.) (If somebody wants to tell me that supervising is easy, though, I will gladly trade jobs with you so you can have my supervisee for a while.)

I think that’s all I’ve got right now. I should be doing something productive, in fact, like, I don’t know, renting a truck? Moving is hard.
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* Stupid, blind luck? That, or it just finally became my turn.

If I’m counting correctly (which I may not be, because being furious definitely prevents my spelling correctly, and may very well prevent my counting accurately), I only have to spend 45 more days living in the ghetto. And that last day won’t be so much living here as it will be loading a truck with my things so that I can no longer live here, so I’m going to call it 44 days. And 44 days is roughly 1,050 hours, and all I have to do now is figure out how much patience I have remaining and see whether I can’t stretch it out so that it lasts 1,050 hours.

Yesterday I received a very odd message from the owner of the property I live in now, indicating that I had not paid my rent for November, and explaining that my failure to pay the rent in a timely fashion was the reason the property I live in now cannot be maintained to my satisfaction. And I was rather rudely accused of having ignored repeated contact from the newly engaged property management company requesting that I paid my rent. Thing is, I had not only paid my rent for November, I had paid it early, and received a letter from the property management company thanking me for my timely payment. Not only that, but I hadn’t received a single communication from this company after that letter was received.

Clearly, there was a breakdown in communication somewhere, if my point of contact at the property management company not only believes that I didn’t pay my rent, but also believes he repeatedly contacted me and asked me to pay my rent, when I believe he didn’t.

So here’s how I would have handled the situation, if I was a property owner, and my contact at the property management company that I had engaged told me he had not received any rent for the month of November. First, I would have called my tenant and said, “I just talked to the guy at the company, and he says he didn’t receive the rent. I’m quite sure that because you are a sensible person you would not deliberately withhold rent, knowing that my financial situation is precarious, so let’s figure out what happened, eh?” That sort of communication, as opposed to hostility and accusations, tends to lead toward a more satisfactory outcome for everyone.

Then, I would have learned that the property management company has at least one employee who believes my tenant paid the rent, but another employee who believes the tenant had not. This to me would indicate that the company has some record-keeping difficulties (that lead to financial difficulties on my part), and I would have disengaged the company, because their services did not please me.

Then I would have apologized to my tenant for having had to make her prove that she had paid her rent. (But I wouldn’t have had to apologize to her for having assumed she was wrong, because I wouldn’t have. See how much easier it is to handle things my way?)

Then again, I approach the world differently than other people do. I’m all rational-like, except for the part where I assume people have the best intentions until they prove otherwise. And I naturally assume that in any given conflict between an individual and a giant conglomerate whose job it is to collect money, the individual is probably the one I can trust more.

So it’s Veteran’s Day, and as usual I’ll be remembering people I know and have known who served and are serving our country. But this year I’m also reflecting on the fact that any given soldier cannot be held responsible for the actions of our entire military, and no matter what you think about how our country conducts itself, each soldier deserves to be treated with the respect that his or her position holds. The flip side of that, of course, is that the individual actions of any given soldier reflect not only on our military, but on other soldiers as well - our soldiers therefore have the responsibility and duty to conduct themselves, both in uniform and out, with at least a modicum of decency. While it can be a great disappointment when one does not, I will not let the words, actions, and behavior of one person diminish the good that other people he is aligned with have done and are doing.

And that is all.

So on Friday Mouse and I went to the vet, and Mouse didn’t get to come home with me. I’ve never made such a painful decision before, hope never to have to again, but I know what I did was right. Mouse led a good, long life, filled with every pleasure he could have desired, and he knew he was loved. I think that’s all you can ask out of life, heck, probably more than you can expect, and while my house is sort of empty now, after having had the best roommate of all time for some eleven years, it’s also filled with memories that I wouldn’t trade for anything.

Like this one:

And I know that many of you knew and loved Mouse as well, having cat-sit for him, or lived with him, or just hung out on my couch with him, and I’m glad about that, but I’ve decided that after all the difficulty I’ve had in simply writing about this, reading stories about how well we all liked Mouse and how sad we are to see him gone will just make me cry, which is something I’ve been doing entirely too much of lately. So I’ve turned the comments off on this entry, even though some of you have offered to add something and I would certainly be touched by your kindness. I don’t mean to deny anyone, but sometimes saying nothing at all is the right thing to do.

In fact, I wish I could have said nothing at all about this now, but I miss him already, and my blog is going to be just that much less fun without him. Molly and I are asking that you bear with us as we adjust to our new situation, and promise to return again just as soon as we’re up to it.

I’m sorry that all of these stories involve Democrats. That was not my intention, and I actually voted Libertarian this year*, but I can only tell you what I saw:

First, at 7:05 a.m., Democrats handing out donuts and coffee to people in line to vote, only not identifying themselves as Democrats when they asked “Do you need a sample ballot?”, said sample ballot being one already filled out with only the Democrat-ic selections already made. I don’t know what those people were doing in the parking lot of the polling place, such that they had access to the voters waiting in line, and I will not back down from my position that they did not belong there at all. In any event, I needed neither a donut nor a cup of coffee at that time, and I had already read the ballot online**, so I didn’t need one of those either, but I can tell you that from the information I gathered during the 45 minutes I stood in line (waiting to vote for someone who wasn’t going to win no matter what I did), it appears that some of the people in that line had never voted before, and were therefore susceptible enough that handing them a “sample ballot” with their choices already made for them was reprehensible.

Actually, reprehensible is not a strong enough word, but that’s all I’ve got.

So I actually get inside the building, and there are no fewer than three of these “sample ballots” on the table where people are viewing the actual sample ballots, and gathering information about bond measures and whatnot. And I stand there for a while, finally catch the attention of the Republican “poll watcher”, and beckon him. He comes over, with the Democratic “poll watcher”, I identify the problem for them, apologize for taking them away from what they were doing, and they say, “No, you’re absolutely correct. Those don’t belong there.”, then remove the offending materials. Thing is, I’m not a “poll watcher”. I might prove to be a good “poll watcher”, but I totally stepped on their toes by doing their jobs for them, and I shouldn’t have had to. Next time around I might just sign up to be the election police, but this time around, I expected the election police to be more on top of it than they were. Oh well.

Then there was the whole day at work, where everyone just assumed that because I seem kinda cool I must agree with them politically. I do not, I will not, and it’s stupid of you to think I might. I’m not always gonna correct you, because I have, um, work to do while I’m at work, but I am occasionally going to mention that there are in fact other parties involved in the political process, and it would behoove you to learn more about them.

Then I’m on the bus on the way home, and a guy’s running down the highway, in the pouring rain, during rush hour, holding an Obama/Biden sign. Fine. He might be crazy, but at least he has convictions. He keeps catching up with and then falling behind the bus, and that’s amusing, and yay for our freedom to express ourselves by running down the highway in the pouring rain during rush hour holding a sign, if we see fit.

(I mean, really, yay for that. The first thing I thought about this morning was Thomas Jefferson, and for all the bitching I do about modern America, I feel an equally deep reverence for the ideals of our Founding Fathers, and a respect for those who attempt to uphold those ideals, even if all they do is pull a lever once every four years.)

Then, still on the bus, I see a man standing in the median. He’s holding an Obama/Biden sign, but it’s raining, so his sign is all floppy. And we’re at a really long light, so I have time to watch him go up to a sign placed in the ground by a nearby apartment complex. The apartment complex used a really solid wooden stake, and their sign said something like “Apartments Available!” and had a phone number on it. This young man goes up to that sign, determines that it will easily hold his Obama/Biden sign, and then takes it out of the ground, covers up the apartment complex’s sign with his own, and proceeds to march down the median holding his now-not-floppy sign. I very nearly crossed eight lanes of highway to spew my righteous indignation at him, but it was raining, I was concerned about whether Mouse was still alive, and I realized that talking to him was not going to undo what he had done, so I did not confront him.

I probably should have, but goddamnit, I voted today, and that’s enough.

And that’s all I’ve got. I realize that complaining about such minor infractions is rather ridiculous, given that we are lucky to live in a country and a time where we have the freedom to vote as we please with immunity, but the only perspective I can access is the one I’ve got, so there you have it. I hope I don’t have to write an entry like this any time in the next four years.

Finally, Anderson Cooper is totally hot, and I am going to watch CNN now until Anderson Cooper is no longer on my TV, because he pleases me.***

Happy Election Day or something.

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* Bob Barr? Eww. The Libertarian platform? If anyone tried to describe me as anything other than fiscally conservative and socially liberal, they would fail miserably. Sarah Palin is an abomination, Barack Obama is a fine orator (who I am persisting in referring to as Hopey McChangeyPants), and that is all I have to say about that.

** Dear Fairfax County, Virginia,

I like parks. I think parks are really, really important. But you cannot rape the school budget and then ask me to allow you to borrow millions upon millions of dollars to build and maintain parks and expect me to play along. If you want to borrow money to improve the schools, have at it. Otherwise, kindly get your goddamned priorities straight.

Thanking goodness I won’t have to live in Fairfax County much longer,

Jennifer M.

*** And if you happen to be, say, my boyfriend, and are alarmed that I have the hots for Anderson Cooper, rest assured that he is not anywhere near as cool as you are, so you’re good.

This is the face Molly is going to make if she finds out that you didn’t vote:

News! I’ve got news! I haven’t had a roommate in a very long time, but right around the middle of December, I’m going to start sharing a home with someone. I suppose it isn’t entirely correct to call it a roommate situation, but that’s just going to have to do for now – completing apartment applications that required filling in a blank that reads “relationship” forces one to recognize the inadequacy of words to describe, say, a relationship. For a while I was leaning toward Person of Opposite Sex Sharing Living Quarters, or POSSLQ, if you will, after a brief but intense desire to write “soulmate” (only to see the look on the face of the person reviewing the application), but we finally, after reading all about relationships on Wikipedia, casting about for a word that would suffice, settled on “partner”.

No matter what you call it, it’s going to be grand. When two people are moving out of two separate apartments into one, there are all sorts of fun conversations: where are we going to put all of his guitars (and my keyboard), how does he feel about my bowl of hedgehogs* (it’s balanced by his small but vibrant collection of plush South Park figures), whose coffee table is less ugly (His? Strange, but true.), the fact that his cat allergy, combined with Molly’s asthma, finally justifies my long-awaited purchase of an exceedingly expensive vacuum cleaner (which as it happens - and I am totally not making this up to rationalize spending over $500 on a vacuum cleaner - is certified by the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America), etc.

Of course, there are sacrifices to be made. I will be losing my home phone number, for example, and apparently have to give up my Verizon FIOS in order to have cable internet access, on account of I am moving so far out into suburbia that I’ll actually be living in exurbia. And he’s going to have to relinquish many of the items in his kitchen so we can fit my kitchen things in (although I am leaning toward having one shelf in a kitchen cabinet in which we keep books that are not cookbooks, on account of if there is something more charming than opening a kitchen cabinet in the home of an English teacher and finding books there, I don’t know what that would be).

(I’m pretty excited about the whole thing, but there’s one thing I’m not very excited about, which I mention now only so it won’t come as a shock to you later – I don’t think Mouse will be moving with me and Molly. He’s nearly 17 and a half now, and I think he’s simply forgotten where it’s appropriate to relieve himself. Sometimes he gets it right, but more often than not he doesn’t. He isn’t grooming himself as well as he used to, and he’s showing many other signs of advancing age, and while I’m trying to be realistic about the fact that a domestic cat can’t live forever, I sort of wish he would.)

Anyway, I’ve been talking about moving out of the ghetto for a very long time now, have felt a real sense of urgency about it since the man trying to climb through the window episode, but I really wanted to hold out until I found an ideal living situation. And now that I have found an apartment in which there will not only always be someone I enjoy talking to, but also such luxurious amenities as a rust-free refrigerator, a full-sized stove, a heating and air conditioning system that is less than 20 years old, and carpet that is not disintegrating before my very eyes, I’m glad that I waited so long. I’m actually anxious to move, and wish the perfect apartment was available sooner, but the sense of relief I feel about finally figuring out what the heck I’m doing is rivaled only by my gladness that I will one day soon relinquish the keys to the place I live now, and get keys to a place that suits me better (said place also having such novel and technologically-advanced programs as direct debit payment of the rent, so that my rent will never get lost in the mail again.**) I’m still waiting to see everything completely finalized, but it won’t be long now, and then you get to help me move!

Yippee!

I’m sure there’s other stuff I could tell you now, but I’ve gotta go do some laundry. And eat dinner. And blah, blah, blah, one has to live in the world, etc.

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* To wit:

** Hey! I’m not only going to have to pay less rent for more space, I’m also going to save over $5.00 a year on stamps!

Free tacos when people do something pretty!

That is all.

I have something to bitch about!

So lately iTunes has been making me upgrade it frequently, and it recently decided to consolidate my music library or something, and it changed everything around so that many, many songs are suddenly classified as parts of a compilation when they are not, and Wednesday night I spent easily two minutes of my life trying to find a song by looking for the artist, and I eventually found it, but not where it belongs at all. Why does iTunes keep screwing with me? I’m busy, and I don’t have time to fix their wacky categorization.

(However, I’m sure that you’ll be pleased to know that if you were wandering around my newly miscategorized music library, you’d find The Buzzcocks right before Captain & Tennille, followed swiftly by Cheap Trick. How are you not gonna be happy about that?)

Actually, I do have time to fix it, because soon I’ll be on a plane, on my way to Texas. My most valiant attempts at locating and then purchasing a pair of cowboy boots to wear to Texas failed miserably, but Wednesday I purchased the most adorable dress in the history of dresses, which happens to match perfectly a pair of shoes that have been sitting under my dresser waiting patiently to be matched to the perfect dress, and so this evening I will be the (admittedly self-declared) Queen of Adorableness. Which is, well, pretty much as we expected. (And also better than the title I earned at work the other day. I am apparently the Empress of PowerPoint, but this title seems to carry with it responsibility for teaching everyone and their mother how to actually use PowerPoint. While I appreciate being recognized for my skills, it just so happens that almost every single feature of PowerPoint* serves to make things ugly and difficult to comprehend, and it pains my soul to make things ugly and difficult to comprehend – Animation? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should - so I’m trying to figure out how to abdicate that particular throne.)

In any event, I feel certain that at least one person will feel compelled to photograph me in the most adorable dress in the history of dresses, and if you’re nice, I’ll share.

Also, Sara asked me to do this book thingy – you’ll find it below the, you know, fold.

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* Each of which one can find assistance in using by, say, trying the “Help” feature. (I’m just sayin’.)

[Pretend this is a fold.]