the house

It's been almost 2 years since my Dad retired, and about a year for my Mom. In this time, they have, like most retired couples do, thrown around the idea of selling their too-big, too-hard-to-care-for house, and moving into something smaller. Perhaps a little 2-bedroom house in town with a little yard, or maybe a townhouse in one of those retirement villages, or possibly even a house far away in a much warmer climate, where my Dad's hips and knees won't bother him so much, and he will never have to snow blow another driveway ever again.

In my mind, this possibility has always been a "someday" kind of thing. On some distant day that I don't have to think about, my parents will move out of the house they've lived in for the past 20+ years. There will be a teary goodbye, all the neighbors will come over with their best wishes, and maybe we'll even bury a time capsule. Right next to the circle of cement at the top of the driveway that used to hold up the basketball hoop, but my Dad was never able to dig up because it went too deep, and maybe he didn't want to anyway since it has the hand prints of me and my brother and the paw print of our old dog Emily.

But it seems that "someday" is coming much sooner than I had hoped. They plan to put the house on the market either this Spring or next. They've already had two people come out to give them a recommendation on how much to list it for, and they've begun the staging process.

A few weeks ago, I was devastated to learn that my Dad had gone through half of the enormous bookcase (that he built) in the living room and given a ton of books to Goodwill. I got mad at him for not asking me if I wanted any of them, which I know was completely selfish and bratty. But I think that what I was really feeling was the sentimental attachment to the house and all the objects in it. Even though the books belonged to my parents, I felt like they had just given away a part of my life. The process was starting - the process that would end with them not living there anymore, and me having no reason to drive out to my old neighborhood anymore. The next day, my Dad called me up and told me he was sorry for upsetting me, and that he wanted me to be there when they went through the other half of the bookcase. As guilty and ridiculous as I felt for blowing up at them, I felt happier that they decided to include me in this process of change. And after the second book purge, I came home with a box and a half of great old books that either I'd loved as a kid (the Tolkien Bestiary), sounded like an interesting read (a biography of Jack Kerouac), or were just really cool (a leather-bound Atlas from the WWII era). The other night when I went over to their house for dinner, I found a couple more boxes of old stuff they wanted me to go through before they threw it out, sent it to Goodwill, or put it in the "garage sale" pile. This time it was kids books that had been in a bookcase down in the basement for who knows how long. Even though I have no idea what I'm going to do with them, I decided to keep quite a few of these old books, for various sentimental reasons (one of them was a personalized story about Mother Goose given to me by my Grandma, who passed away last year).

I am going to accumulate more "stuff" during this move than is physically possible to fit into my apartment. I know that my parents will only be taking one living room set with them when they move, so they've offered the second one to me. My Mom has also mentioned giving me the dining room set. And to my shock, they lately offered me the antique record player that we've had for as long as I can remember. Even in the house before this one.

The thing is, I'm not sure if hanging on to things from the house is going to make it easier or harder for me to accept that they're selling it. That house embodies my family. It was my uncle's construction company that built it. When it was just a hole in the ground, my Dad, brother, and I brought a maple sapling that we'd dug out from behind the garage of our old house, and planted it in the far corner of the backyard of the new house. It's a big, healthy, beautiful tree now, but for a long time, you could still see the crooks in the trunk caused by it's rough beginning. During construction, I used to make things out of the scraps of colored wires left on the floor after the electrical work. I remember the first thing I ever put in my bedroom closet - a My Little Pony corral - and I don't think the room even had walls yet. My little brother only remembers living in this house.

Saying goodbye to this place is going to be difficult, to say the least. We built that house in 1987 and it's always been home base for me and my brother. The place we knew we could always come back to. I visit my parents at least once a week, sometimes more, rarely less. I know that that won't change if they move, and my brother and I will be just as welcome in the new place, but will it feel right? Will it be home? And if they do decide to move out of state ... well I just don't know what I'll do on Wednesday nights anymore.

MOVE

WELL!! I'm all moved in to the new apartment. Aren't you so proud of me? Yeah, whatever. I'm just hoping that this one doesn't suck as much as the last one did, and I don't end up moving again a year from now. But I think it will be just fine. Aside from a few little things, most of which are just normal hazards of living in an old building, I am crazy about the new place. Did I say the exact same thing about the last place right after I'd moved in? Perhaps. But when I put it all out in front of me, the new apartment is so obviously superior I almost can't handle it.


THE OLD APARTMENT
Pros:
Location - right around the corner from Brown Line
Vintage - I loved the built-in cabinets in the kitchen
Large living room
Radiator heat - the pro being the fact that it's free
Closet space - tons!

Cons:
Tiny useless kitchen - one square of counter space, not enough cabinets, and a midget fridge
Tiny useless "eat-in" area - my table didn't even fit and had to be put in living room
Vintage - the bathroom hadn't been updated since the Civil War (What is up with separate faucets for hot and cold water?)
Bathroom - no storage, no towel bars, no room to turn around, and a temperamental shower
Tiny bedroom
Radiator heat - the con being the fact that there wasn't one in the bedroom (!!) and I had to rely on a space heater, which drove up my electric bill
Bugs - they had an exterminator come once a month, and when he inexplicably didn't come for a few months, I discovered why he was needed
Smell - there was a weird smell when I moved in, which I eventually just got used to, but for a while I was buying all manner of air freshener to try to get rid of it
Price - yes, it was within my price range, but I never felt I was getting my money's worth - and I happen to know that the new tenant is paying $150 a month more than I would have been, had I stayed - shady...


THE NEW APARTMENT
Pros:
The courtyard building is really pretty.
Location - still very much in the neighborhood I want to live in
Size - it matters
Closet space - I lucked out again in that department
Bigger, better kitchen - granted, the kitchen is still rather small, but it's still such an improvement, and you would not BELIEVE the amount of cabinet space! And counter tops! And a bigger fridge!
Dining room - one that my table actually fits in, with room to spare
Vintage - it has the same built-in cabinets I loved about the old apartment, PLUS a built-in bookcase in the living room, and very pretty arched doorways
Radiator heat - again, free, and this time in every room!
Smell - there's a nice sweet smell in the stairwell and the apartment that I can't place, but I'm actually quite fond of - and they do say that a pleasant smell is a sign of compatibility. :)
Price - only $25 a month more than the old one

Cons:
Old windows - we'll have to see how they fare in the dead of winter - I think the living/dining rooms will be fine, but there are no storm windows in the bedroom, and cold air (and sound) already come through, so that is a potential problem
Hot water pressure - for some reason, the hot water only comes out of the faucets in barely more than a trickle, whereas the cold water is just fine - but oddly enough, the shower pressure is still satisfactory
There's a yucky light switch/outlet in the kitchen that I'm afraid to plug anything into


So that's the long and short of it right there. So far, I'm really happy with the place. Now, the biggest obstacle is finding the time and energy to get everything unpacked and put away! I got a great deal of it done last weekend, especially since I was off Friday as well. But on the weekdays, I just find it so hard to do anything! I still don't have a car, so I take public transportation to and from work, which adds an extra hour or so to my day. By the time I finally get home (I leave the apartment at 5:30 in the morning and return around 6 p.m.), I am so exhausted, all I want to do is eat dinner and crash. I literally have to force myself to do anything productive in the evenings - even just putting a couple things into a closet - just so I know I've accomplished something. And all the kinks I've had to work out due to the move have been overwhelming. Nothing ever goes as smoothly as you'd like it to. For example, I needed to hook up the telephone, so I called AT&T to get the line set up. They said they'd come out last Friday. Well, I got an e-mail from someone last week saying there was already working service at my address, but they'd come and hook mine up on Friday, provided the current service had been disconnected. Well, no one showed up on Friday and yet I have no dial tone when I pick up the phone. Not sure what happened there. Another example, I wanted to transfer my cable service from the old address to the new one. Well, apparently the new address was not in their system, so it was going to take them a day (?!?) to add it. When the lady called me the next day to tell me I'd been added, I missed the call and she left a message. She said she'd sign me up for the next available service date, but neglected to tell me when that was, or who to call to reschedule if need be. So now I have to call the main number again and go through all the rigmarole AGAIN. And that's not even the half of it. Suffice it to say that moving is a bitch.

Which brings me to the movers. I have said that hiring movers was one of the best decisions I have ever made. But this is really only partly true. Hiring movers was indeed one of the best decisions I have made, however, the particular movers I decided to hire was actually a very poor choice. I am a victim of "you get what you pay for." I was all proud of myself for finding a moving company that was charging about half of what the other companies were quoting me, but after all was said and done, I discovered why. First off, they broke a few things, dinged some furniture, and were generally very rough with my belongings. Sure, they wrapped up my couch up tight with cellophane like a Thanksgiving leftover, but I would have preferred they pay that much attention to my fragile (paper) Japanese folding screen instead, which came back to me with the paper separated from the wood frame in two spots. The kicker, though, and the reason I'd never hire this company again, nor recommend it to any of my friends, is that I am missing one of my air conditioners. And when I called the company to ask about it, they were rude to me! They said, "We don't have it. If we had it, you would have gotten a call from the foreman the next morning. I suggest you look through your things again." And that was all the help I got from them. Nice, huh? Well, at least it was the smaller, slightly defective one that I lost. :)

shoppin'

I have to get a couple things for the new apartment, and since I am trying to avoid doing any work at work today, I've been surfing the net looking for cool stuff. And now you get to hear all about what I found. Lucky you!

So, one of the things I need to get is a floor lamp. And possibly another table lamp, too, but I'm just gonna start with a floor lamp. I actually do not currently have any lamps at all, which I admit is rather odd, but my new living room doesn't have any overhead lighting, so I must either prepare myself now or live in darkness. I have a rather odd sense of style, so the things I like to put in my home are usually either somewhat old-fashioned, or retro, or just unique. Interestingly enough, I found some lamps I liked on the Target website! Go Target! But sadly, most of them are kinda expensive, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet. Here's what I found. Opinions??

I am really liking these stained glass type lamps (there are a couple other styles), though I wonder about how much light they will actually throw. Same with this one, except the fact that the rose design seems to be upside-down intrigues me. Will I love it for that or will it drive me nuts? This one is not typically my taste, and it's outside my price range, but something about it strikes me as really pretty. This one I think is really pretty too, but I'm not sure if the color of the shade will match my stuff. I think this last one is beautiful and it's closest to what I wanted to spend, but again, I worry whether it will give me enough light. But I guess if it isn't enough, that's when I'd get a matching table lamp to add to it.

The OTHER purchase I need to make for the new place is a telephone. An actual plug-into-the-wall telephone. The new building has one of those security systems that connects to your land line, so for the first time in three years, I have to have a regular phone. Not a big deal, really, but I completely abhor most of the phones on the market these days. They're all cordless blobs in black or silver, with little flashy lights and beepy things and I think they're ugly and I don't want one. So I think I'm going to get this. Or possibly this. Both of them come in a few different colors. I thought about one of these too, but I think that might be going a bit TOO far. :)

things I won't miss

About my job :
- The whistler. I will definitely not miss the tuneless whistling all day long, or the random verses of the Flipper theme song, or even the occasional ad jingle.
- Mr. Booming Voice. I will not miss hearing every single word this guy says, including when he's "whispering" on the other side of the room. Nor will I miss his weekly inspections of my fingernails and my coworker's hairstyle.
- My cubicle.

About my apartment:
- The squishy kitchen floor. Why it's squishy, I don't think I want to know.
- The schizophrenic shower. Temperature control is pretty much random, and that's only if the cold water knob doesn't fall off.
- The door that jiggles in its hinges every time the outside door opens or closes.
- The small and mysteriously radiator-free bedroom.
- The useless "eat-in" kitchen.
- The bathroom radiator covered in chipped, rusty (lead?) paint.
- The medicine cabinet that won't close because it's been painted too many times, and the overhead cabinet doors that won't open because they've been painted too many times.

nutshell

In a month I am moving again, trying to stay in the same neighborhood, just need a *better* apartment, which will probably cost me a bit more, not to mention moving costs. Since I lost my car, I have been very unhappy with using public transportation to get to work and back and I've come to the conclusion that I am not one of those people who can get by without a car. I was going to put off buying a new one until the finances allowed it (more comfortably anyway), but now I'm thinking sooner rather than later. The GOOD news is, the finance situation soon may not be as dire as it was. I was just today offered a new job at my company, which will come with a promotion and a pretty nice raise. And I have to say that this job really just fell in my lap right when I needed it.

Life is good. Complicated and messy, but good.

maybe my last post about moving ... maybe

Two things I was just thinking about:

1) I wish I'd been able to properly thank the random guy from my old building who helped me on move-out day. I had been out picking up the truck, and when I returned, my Dad and my friend told me that they met a guy in the hall who volunteered to help me move my stuff out "because he had nothing better to do." I mean, who does that??!! That is seriously awesome. And he helped SO MUCH! He moved a lot of the heavy stuff, stayed for a beer during our little break in the middle, moved some more stuff, then disappeared back up to his place before I could repay him with the food I'd promised to the rest of my movers. I feel immense gratitude to this guy (I think his name was John), and also some guilt for not being able to repay or really even thank him. So on the off-chance (and unlikely to the point of being near impossible) that he's reading this post, THANKS A MILLION!! :)

2) Maybe I should have been a truck driver. I was initially a bit frightened at the prospect of having to drive the moving truck through the city, around tight corners, down narrow roads, etc., and though I tried to pass the task off to as many other people as I possibly could, when I think back, I was damn good at driving that thing! Case in point, getting it out of the U-Haul parking lot! As my friend N can attest to (she was driving my car behind me), I pulled a beautiful maneuver around a car and another truck during the first two minutes. Yes, perhaps I shouldn't have even tried to pull out in between the cars that were stopped at the light, but a combination of my excellent truck handling skills, and the driver of the car backing up several feet for me to pass, got me through the left-hand-turn with nary a scratch. THEN, the next day, with two passengers with me (always makes me nervous), I managed a tight squeeze down a one-way street that was partially blocked by ANOTHER, BIGGER moving truck. Having navigators helped on that one, but man, did I feel accomplished afterwards.

It really is the little things.

bloggity bloo

I know I haven't written in a while, but I guarantee you I am alive. At the moment. And I have moved!! Yay!! I am currently living amongst a mess of boxes and bags, the contents of which are unknown and somewhat frightening to me. I am afraid of my own stuff. But I am learning to face my fears and little by little, things are falling into place. Well, they're not so much falling as I am putting them there. I moved in on Sunday, and did just the bare minimum on that day so that I could have a place to sleep and shower and make it to work in one piece on Monday. Then after work Monday, I made the very exciting trip to Target to get all the cleaning supplies and other essentials that I did not have so that I would feel a bit more confident in the cleanliness of the new place. I attempted to restrict myself to the bare-bones list I had made so that I did not go crazy in Le Tar-gee like I usually do and end up with $400 worth of stuff I have no room for, and aside from a couple unplanned baking pan and cutting board purchases, I did pretty well. Go me. So I was able to go home after that and clean the floors, the one thing that had been bothering me since I set foot inside the place. You know, supposedly they clean apartments between tenants, but who really knows how good a job they do? To me, it felt dirty, so I cleaned it. And that's pretty much all I had the energy to do on that day. Tuesday, I decided to tackle the kitchen, and DID I EVER! I have never in my life seen cabinets in such a state of disgustingness. They were ... well ... greasy. And gross. But now they're clean and sparkly!! Yay! On Wednesday, I slept. Seriously. I got home around 4:30, collapsed on my bed for two hours, got up to watch some TV and eat a little somethin', then went to bed. It was glorious. Yesterday, I regained a bit of my motivation and got my kitchen organized. As in, I PUT STUFF IN THE CABINETS. This was such a huge turning point for me, you have no idea! I've been feeling overwhelmed by the amount of closet space I have in this new place (not so much kitchen cabinet space, but whatever), and yet, I've been afraid to put things in those closets! I mean, what if I choose the wrong things? What if I choose the wrong closets for those things? What if I put something short in a tall space, and then don't have room for something tall in a short space? WHAT IF I DO IT WRONG??!! And then I got it. There is no wrong answer. This is MY apartment, I can put things where ever I want! And ... ummm ... move them if I do it wrong. :) But seriously, actually emptying boxes and getting rid of some of the clutter I've been living with was one of the best feelings in the world. And seeing my own things in my new kitchen felt pretty damn good too.

So my job for tonight and the rest of the weekend is to continue with my unpacking bonanza, and get things in order in the bedroom and the living room. I still have a few pieces of furniture I need to purchase in order to make this completely possible (like a shelving unit for the bathroom, and microwave cart and/or bakers rack for the kitchen), but I'm gradually starting to see things come together, which makes me happy. Tomorrow I have to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond to get a shower gift for a friend of mine who is getting married this summer, and I have the tiniest feeling (meaning a MASSIVE feeling) that I am going to come home with some of that "Beyond" for myself. AND THEN??!! First grocery shopping trip for the new apartment!! Oh joyous day!! :)

moving and movies

Packing for this move is going pretty well, though I still have loads to do. At least I've finished most of the errand-y things like setting up utilities, filling out a change-of-address, reserving a truck, etc. I guess the main thing I have to deal with now is ... STUFF! And I seem to have tons of it. I have packed up and removed boxes and boxes of crap from my bedroom and I still somehow have junk all over the place. How exactly does one person accumulate so much stuff? But whatever. I'm making my way through it, throwing things away as I do, so all is good. I spent the majority of the day Saturday packing (less two long-ish breaks where I watched the second half of The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Day After Tomorrow), and though I had the best of intentions for Sunday, I didn't get a heck of a lot done. I had a leisurely morning, then I went to see a movie with Jillybean, and then we got dinner, but afterwards, I don't know if it was allergies or something, but I just was not feeling up to more packing. But that's okay too, because I have decided to take Friday off work and finish up what I haven't done by then. The movie we saw was excellent, by the way, and I'd recommend it to anyone who likes foreign films, and laughing, and a little crying once in a while. It was at the European Union Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center. I'm not sure if or when it will be released here, but maybe on DVD at some point? It's called The Tiger and the Snow, with Roberto Benigni. Supposedly it didn't get very good reviews (personally, I haven't read any), but Jilly and I loved it, so it gets a thumbs-up from me.

That's it for now. Man, I wish I could take my cubicle outside today.

dream on

I believe I have had no fewer than ten dreams about moving since I signed my new lease. Can you tell what's been weighing most heavily on my mind lately? Yeah. And these dreams have actually been pretty funny. In one of them, the apartment I was moving into was much larger than I remembered it being when I first looked at it, and had quite a few more rooms. I kept saying to my friends who were helping me that this couldn't be right! This place is way too big! And I had these weird flashes of what the apartment REALLY looked like, but then it went back the way it was. In another one, my roommate was moving into the same building as me, and we got to share the cat. :) In yet another one, I moved in to discover that the bedroom was minuscule, and had no closet. Not only that, but there was a staircase that I had not noticed before, which led up to two more (occupied!!) bedrooms, one of which slept four people! So I was moving in with 5 roommates instead of living alone like I had thought. And then last night happened. I seriously dreamed of moving the entire night. It was like a dream montage that just wouldn't end. In one part, a friend who was helping me move ended up moving IN with me and completely took over the place. In another part, the bathroom was in a different place than it should have been, was much tinier, and couldn't fit the shelves I had bought for it. In another part, I was being chased through the courtyard and alleys by someone who supposedly only wanted to show me the laundry room (there was a pool, though, so that was cool). And in the final installment, I heard this noise that I didn't recognize (it sounded kind of like the sound my phone makes when I get a text message). Turned out it was a Thai food delivery guy buzzing to come in. I hadn't ordered any Thai, so I told him it must have been the neighbors. He knocked on their door, and they took the food and paid for it, but didn't give him a tip. I felt bad for the guy. Then when I woke up this morning, I discovered that I had a new text message. :)

one woman's treasure

Packing for this move has been interesting. Well, actually, I haven't done all that much yet, which scares me because it's happening in just over two weeks! Yikes! But anyway, the packing I HAVE done has been interesting. Last night, I went through this box of junk that had been sitting in the corner of my bedroom, untouched, since I moved in two years ago. I figured I'd be able to go through it and throw away most of it since I obviously hadn't needed it at all in two years. I was wrong. I ended up finding some precious treasures that I just had to hold on to. For example, I found a 15-page letter that I wrote to someone and never sent. I found the beginning of a story I'd begun to write, along with various scraps of paper with notes written on them (this was a story that I actually still believe in after all this time - unusual for me). I found many many many ideas I'd written down for stories and/or movies. I found a folder full of resumes and cover letters I'd sent out for jobs I didn't get. I found all my old Chicago film directories with notes and papers stuck in at random places. I found a folder full of memorabilia from my theatre days. I found a notebook that contained notes on the NewsMags I created for StarCourse in college, as well as a page of notes I'd taken about a cast conversation while I was subbing for a director on "The Real World" (both in the same notebook). And I actually found some things I'd been looking for, like information on my renter's insurance policy.

I spent two hours last night looking through a box of crap that I thought I'd just be able to throw away, and I actually had fun doing it. It was cool. However, if I keep it up, this packing thing is going to take forever!!

and stuff

Just a few more ramblings from me today.

1. I will not miss our upstairs neighbors when I move. I will delight in the fact that I will be living on the top floor and won't have to deal with people dancing on my head anymore. Friday night, our upstairs neighbors were having a party. This is fine. I have parties, so I can allow for others to have parties as well. However, I do try to have a little bit of respect for neighbors when I have my parties (for example, turning the music down as the night gets later), which our upstairs neighbors do not. At about 12:30 a.m. (yes, I know this is relatively early, but read on), after listening to their bad music for several hours, I noticed that each song was getting progressively louder than the next. Not only that, but the stomping overhead (I could only assume it was dancing) was getting ridiculous. I could hear the music as if it was coming from a speaker smashed up against my ear, and the "dancing" was literally shaking the walls of the apartment. A particularly heavy jump actually caused one of the bulbs in the overhead light to flash and burn out (granted, this was probably on the verge of happening anyway, but still). I needed to go to bed, and was already irritable to begin with, so I decided I had to go up there and ask them to turn it down just a scooch. Upon opening my door I was greeting by an even more deafening version of the current musical selection, and as I ascended the stairs, I noticed, "Wow, their door is open, how nice of them to treat the ENTIRE BUILDING to their noise." I stuck my head around the corner and saw no sign of the two guys who live there, but an entire apartment full of girls, who were all wearing heels or boots and were "dancing" (stomping) to the music as if the floor was on fire and it was their job to stamp it out until it was dead. I waved one of them to the door and politely (aggravatedly) asked her to turn it down a little, which, thankfully, they did. They're probably scared of me now, but what do I care? I'm outta there in less than 4 weeks, and then they can annoy their new neighbors to their hearts' content. :) Actually, I hope the new tenants are a couple with young children and a grandmother, so the bastards upstairs can learn the hard way that not everyone is ... nevermind. I'm scaring even myself with this train of thought. Geez, I'm mean. And old.

2. Yesterday I successfully injected myself with poison - I mean medicine - for the first time ever. I am starting a new drug treatment which requires me to give myself weekly injections of Enbrel using this Sureclick thingie that is kind of like an Epi-Pen. In actuality, the process is super easy, but the trepidation is all psychological. I mean, I've had all kinds of shots before, but never one I've had to give myself. You know, you go to the doctor for a vaccination or whatever, and you trust that the doctor or nurse administering the shot knows what they're doing, that they've been trained for all eventualities, and they've done this a thousand times before. But I was shown how to do this once, practiced once on a little foam pad with a syringe filled with water (two weeks ago), and read over the instructions five thousand times. I didn't exactly feel like I knew what I was doing. But I had to do it so I did it. And I survived. I did it exactly right. It burned a bit, as I was warned it would, and it wasn't exactly pleasant, but it wasn't unbearable either. I think I'll be able to handle it once a week. So I'm good. :)

3. I came across this online comic last week, and I found some of them to be oddly funny. Or maybe odd AND funny. Either way, they're all odd, and some of them were extremely funny ... in a weird, odd way. Anyway, here's a glimpse into an odd little corner of my sense of humor.

Love it!
Yum.
My favorite
And for good measure ...

And I haven't gotten through them all yet, so I'm sure there are plenty more that will tickle my funny bone!! :)

a.d.d.

Oh, stuff. So much stuff. I really want to write about things that are happening, or have happened lately, like my awesome trip to Miami and all the cool people we met down there, but at the moment, I don't have the concentration to stay on one topic for long enough to do it justice ... so here's some other random crap.

I've got this idea for a new little art project that I saw on a blog I read yesterday - I guess that means it's not really MY idea, but I'm taking what he did and modifying it a bit, so I'm MAKING it mine. :) I can't wait to start it! And who knows? Maybe somebody I know might be getting it as a gift some time in the near future ...

As you may or may not know, I am moving out of my apartment when the lease is up at the end of March, so I'm all full of emotion because of that. I love the apartment and the roomie, but I've always wanted to try living on my own, and I figure if I don't do it sooner, rather than later, I may never get the chance! So this is the time. I'm kind of looking forward to looking at new places, and I made an appointment with Apartment People for this Saturday (that's who we found our current apartment through, and it was a good experience), so perhaps I will come out of that with a new place lined up! Yippee!

I've been having this sort of weird, disconnected, slightly depressed feeling lately that I just can't explain. It might be a combination of winter blues, and the fact that I haven't seen much of my friends for a while (save for the two I went to Miami with). I am trying to remedy that by calling people up, sending e-mails and text messages, and trying to just be more involved in my own life, and not let this INSANELY cold weather get me down too much. I did not even leave my apartment this weekend unless I absolutely had to (which I did to go to the grocery store and a Super Bowl party), and I think maybe that was a mistake. Hibernating does not help one get out of a funk, it just buries one deeper. But damn, it's cold!!

And ... ummm ... I won't even mention the Super Bowl (whoops, did it anyway) because I don't want to make anyone cry. Except Rex Grossman. But my guess is he's already crying.

Well, that's all I got. I'll post another time with my Miami trip details, as I'm sure you're all DYING to hear about how we met Mike Ditka ...