High-Maintenance

I usually don't think of myself as being high-maintenance, but my mom said I am. Admittedly that was after I said she was. She is just very vocal. If she doesn't like something, she tells you (and everyone within a 2 mile radius) right away. For instance, we went out for Italian food last night and they brought our appetizer, stuffed mushroom caps. But no little plates to eat it on. However, we did have bread plates. So I just put my mushroom cap on my breadplate. But my mom was all, can we have appetizer plates, before the appetizer gets cold. I see her point but, I also just try to make do with what I have. I think she just has higher expectations than me for some things. Yes, it took the waitress a while to bring us appetizer plates (which were the same size as the bread plates). But the mushroom caps didn't get cold. The waitress also didn't bring me a refill of my water glass.

The cats are getting along better than ever. They can even stand to be in the same room as each other. And my big girl was totally friendly to my mom. This morning I woke up, and she was hanging out with my mom, sunning herself. Admittedly she was probably hanging out with my mom because she figured that eventually my mom would figure out that she needed breakfast. But still, it was very nice to see the shy girl being social with someone other than me and the boyfriend. When most people come over, she hides under the bed and won't come out until they are gone. I get that. Sometimes I feel like that myself.

Clean!

I'm not quite awake right now. I just woke up, medicated the kitten, and made some coffee which I am slowly sipping. But I have to say, my boyfriend cleaned the hell out of this place. There are boxes sitting around but the place looks very clean and orderly. My mom will be impressed.

The Unpacker Slacker

It's only been a week and a half since we moved, and the last few days were the first time the thermometer dipped below 90 at night, but I still haven't done a lot of unpacking. I remember the last time I moved, where I was unpacking everything really quickly, and then just had a few boxes that I never unpacked. This time all I did was unpack my books and put them onto the bookshelves, and get out a few tolietries so I could do my usual grooming rituals. I'm one of those people who has WAY too many bottles of crap in the shower. I have a body wash for waking me up, one for putting me to sleep, one to make me feel pretty, etc. And also four different conditioners. Add a bar of soap, a razor, and a comb, and the shower is pretty full. I think the boyfriend is happy he doesn't have to share a bathroom with me. I still have three or four boxes that say "bathroom" on them that I have to unpack. Plus, I have a couple of boxes of clothes. And I know most of what is in one of them is skinnier jeans. I could be optimistic and unpack them now, but maybe I'll just throw them down in the garage for a while.

My mom is coming into town tomorrow, and the place is pretty scary. My mom hasn't come to visit me in at least two years. She lives on the east coast, and more often than not, I go to visit her. We did get together a few times in 2005 (in Hawaii for a wedding, and in San Diego where she had a business conference) but haven't seen each other since then. We were going to meet up at Nashville's Opryland Hotel, but due to my mom's back injuries, we had to cancel that trip at the last minute. She had back surgery, is looking at retiring, yadda yadda. So now she has one last business thing in San Diego and is going to come see us first.

My mom, who has known me my whole life, knows that I'm an incredible lazy housekeeper. I don't know if I'm a slob so much as lazy. I have a few pet peeves, like I hate dirty dishes sitting around and I hate it when you run out of toliet paper, but I'm not very neat. So she doesn't have a lot of expectations, but still, it would be best to not appear to disgusting. Some of the problem is that she dislikes the boyfriend a lot, because of his jobless situation and his lack of getting himself together, so she will probably blame some of the mess on him. Quite frankly, he's a lot neater than me. Then again, everyone but the kitten is neater than me. (Seriously, I put down a clean litter box, and he's in there two minutes later flinging the litter around like confetti.) But since he has no job, he should be cleaning, right? I did tell him today that he had better be waking up before 3 PM so my mom isn't yelling at me. I'm actually more afraid that she's going to yell at him than me.

She is going to meet her grandcats for the first time. This is about as close as my mom is going to get to being a grandmother. Neither myself nor my brother have shown much inclination to reproduce. My brother and his wife have four cats. In the true competitive sibling spirit, I hope she likes my cats more.

Where Is The Can Opener?

Squeaker Of The House

Teddy the kitten pretty much walks around squeaking all of the time. He's sitting right hear next to me while I'm typing this, moving around, squeaking, and cleaning himself. And occasionally sneezing. He doesn't really seem that sick anymore though, thankfully, and we still have a few days of antibiotics left. He is super cute though his fighting with the other cat is getting a little bit annoying. They had a big squeak and hiss match tonight. After a too long, too irritating day at work, I was ready for them to be quiet.

Too Many Elephants

Last night, I was going to meet the ladies from my therapy group at the Elephant Bar. Now, for some reason I thought it was the Elephant Bar closer to my house, so I showed up there. And waited. And waited. And finally called the woman who organized it, to find out that it was actually at another one. So I drove up there and had dinner. I ordered way too much food. The side salad itself was a full meal, gigantic iceberg lettuce wedges covered in tomatoes, bacon, eggs, and blue cheese dressing, pretty much a cobb salad. Then I only ate a bit of my entree, and brought the rest home for the boyfriend. But of course I had dessert AND a glass of wine. Not bad.

It's kind of weird because although we know each other from therapy and have similar issues, we are all pretty different people. They are pretty used to my (very sarcastic) sense of humor, but last night I said one or two things that I had to append a "just joking" to, in the interests of not looking like a total ass.

Also, I think I overpaid for my stuff. I just generally suck at figuring out how much to pay for bills, and always round up. I'm used to having to pay for everything with the boyfriend anyway. So we all put down money and there's like $20 too much, so I told them just to split it. Should I have gotten a few bucks back? Probably. Will not getting that few bucks harm my financial situation? Not at all. Will I even stress about it? Not at all. I would rather not nickel and dime stuff like that. If this was say, a friend of mine who always doesn't put enough money down, yeah, I might have insisted on my fair share, but quite frankly in this situation, I didn't mind.

I'll be glad when therapy starts back up in two weeks. How dare our leader leave us to go on vacation? Haha. Oh one thing that was interesting is that we were all speculating about our leader's life, piecing together details of what we remember her saying. She's pretty closed about her life, while all of us are always opening up about all kinds of crap. Though quite frankly, I don't blame her. Sometimes when you say something in front of a group of people, you just feel exposed and nervous, like your bathing suit top fell off or one of those dreams where you are naked and everyone else is dressed. I think that's why the whole blogging thing is easier, just words on a screen, and I hide behind an alias so no one knows. In therapy group, I'm always reticent about key details in my life.

In my twenties, I wasn't like that at all. I talked about everything to everyone, except maybe my family. I would tell coworkers all kinds of crap about me. I may have had more work friends at one point (at another job, long long ago), but I found myself getting burnt by that.

Carried Away

I get carried away at work a lot. Sometimes it's game playing. Sometimes it's web surfing. I have been known to google old crushes, random acquaintances, old friends, and members of my family. Then lately I have been just looking at the blogs of random people. People who are unhappily married. People with sex inequalities, where one of the partners wants it way more than the other. One of the things I noticed from reading a few is how trapped people feel by marriage. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are happily married as well.

In the last two or three years, just about every single friend I had got married. A lot of them started dating the same time me and my boyfriend did. It was almost like an epidemic. I was a bridesmaid in four weddings. I did a reading in another. In 2004 and 2005, I attended four weddings each year. I went to back to back bachelorette parties in Vegas in 2005. It was totally mad the amount of trekking around I did, the amount of money I spent, and sometimes, the amount of crap I had to put up with. I know there are way worse experiences that others have had, but dammit, it was annoying after a while. I suppose that there are a lot of women who have that fantasy of being a princess for a day, but I don't really. I'd rather be a total uber-vixen for a day, a professional dominatrix, or something fun like that. Admire me, maybe, but I will take control.

Anyway, at one point, I had a huge desire to just get married, but the funny thing is, after each wedding, I wanted it less and less. Now at this point, if I did want to be married to the boyfriend (and I'm really never totally sure about that), I think I'd just take off to Vegas and do a quickie wedding. It's not like I wouldn't want to be the center of attention and have everyone gush and fawn and make a big deal out of me. It's that weddings are a total pain in the ass. All that stupid planning and worrying about asinine insignificant details that no one but you could give a shit about. I don't really know why people bother. And I'm sure if I got started with it, I'd be one of those Bridezillas complaining about the colors of the envelopes not being quite right or bitching at their bridesmaids for not behaving. And I don't want to be like that.

Prognosis Good, Feline War Continues

The vet said that the kitten does not have ringworm. She actually thinks what happened is that he got a scratch on his face above his eye and that was what caused him to scratch more and remove fur near his eyes. So the question is, was this a scratch from the other cat? I guess I can't order a feline DNA test to find out. Cat CSI? It also might have been from him falling in the toliet the other night and then the boyfriend "washing" him with some random body wash. The boyfriend was like, oh I just used a little bit. Uh yeah but that's not good for the kitten.

The good news was, the kitten has gained almost half a pound in a week, so he's looking more normal and less like a feline Kate Moss.

There was a woman there who had a kitten she had had for three weeks, and the kitten and her older cat were getting along. I actually think Teddy and Kiki are getting along worse now. He went for her food when I got him home, and she was hissing and kept advancing towards him. I must buy a spray bottle to spray them both with water, and perhaps lace the water with catnip to encourage good vibes. Though perhaps Kiki would put him in the oven and claim it was because she was high. My girl is a sneaky cat.

Rats And Fungi

It smells terrible at my desk. What I heard is that there was a mouse hole in the building and they plugged it. Okay. So does that mean there is a trapped or dead rat nearby? I would assume so from the smell. I'm trying very hard to block it out and not hurl all over my desk. It's more nauseating than almost anything I've smelled before. And that includes the hot tar burning on the roof they did last year. I am almost hysterical from the smell, seriously. I am pretty sensitive to smells. I remember my first mega headache as a child from pineapple Now-And-Laters. It was bright, vivid, and horrible.

Fortunately, I get to take off work early today. Unfortunately, I'm getting off early because I'm taking the kitten to the vet. He looks like he might have ringworm. Ugh. I have had him for all of a week and this is his second vet visit. Poor guy. He's pretty stressed out. The other cat might be laughing her furry butt off at him. She's taken to being more social and friendly lately, so perhaps she has forgiven us for the move.

So, basically, there was a dead rat under our printer, a few yards from my desk. The facilities guy came and found it. I'm still kind of shaking from nausea, the smell, the thought, ugh. That is on my top ten list of worst work experiences. And I work in tech support and get yelled at randomly by all kinds of people. It was so fucking disgusting. When the facilities guy took the rat out, everyone wanted to look at it but I hid my eyes. I went outside and almost threw up from the smell. I still feel shaky and jumpy. Totally horrible. I admit I'm probably girly about some stuff. I don't mind killing bugs, but I am kind of grossed out by some of them. And definitely, rats are high on my list of nasty things. Now even more so. Ugh.

Well, the one good thing is that I'm probably not going to want to eat anything anytime soon. I call it, the Dead Rat Diet.

I'll Just Sit Here In The Dark And Suffer

Because of the possible energy crisis (yet again) here in California, we are trying to conserve energy. So someone turned off half of the lights in the building. Unfortunately, since I'm totally sleepy and bored anyway at work, sitting here in the dark makes it about ten times worse. I will admit that my idea of energy conservation involves sitting on my ass and/or sleeping. And sitting here in the dark, I'm sitting on my ass, on the verge of sleeping.

This weekend was literally a sweat shop of packing crap into boxes. We had to get everything out of the old apartment by yesterday, so we did, but it was pretty hellacious. And this didn't involve actually cleaning the old apartment. They told me that I would get my cleaning deposit back, less $120, if I didn't clean it, but I would quite firmly believe I won't get any money back. It wasn't like I trashed the place, but seven years of rough living adds up.

I ended up talking to the guy who had the parking space next to mine at the old place. He said they were raising everyone's rent, some people by 20%. I'm pretty sure that's not totally legal in San Jose, that they have some kind of rent control that should prevent that. I am extremely glad that I moved out. If I'm going to pay more rent, I should get a better apartment anyway. Which is what I have now.

We were totally bickering in the heat over the weekend. But I have to say, with it being as hot as it was, we didn't really have the energy to fight much. No one wants to draw a line in the sand, when the sand is too fucking hot on your toes.

And we got a little bit of a feline detente last night by feeding both of the cats some tuna. My big girl was able to stand in the same room as the kitten without hissing. I could almost see the thoughts going through her head, "hate that brat, but um, delicious canned tuna." We managed to control him enough to keep him from bugging her. Since he's been getting over his URI, he has been getting more energetic. My sometimes clueless boyfriend was like, oh he's not docile and sitting still anymore. Uh yeah. He's a kitten. That is what they do.

Covered In Sweat

Okay, totally disgusting, but I'm covered in sweat right now. We went to the old apartment and bagged and boxed everything that was leftover, and put about half of it in my car. The second half waits for tomorrow, when I finally turn in my keys. I didn't really think I would need the whole week, but we took forever getting the rest of the stuff out. All this sweat and hard work has done wonders for my depression of earlier today. That and a midafternoon nap. I came home from the Humane Society and just passed out. I feel better.

Why I Just Cried

(Although numbered, in no particular order of cry-worthiness.)

1. Our refrigerator is working sporatically. It stopped working for a while last night. It is working now. I guess I should call the landlady and get it checked out.
2. We can't find our DSL modem. We looked in everything that was packed, and it doesn't seem to be anywhere, either in the logical places it could be or weird places. I assume such things aren't that expensive, but I would like to stop having to spend money on everything.
3. I can't tell if our phone line has been activated, but it appears that the only phone line activated is in the bedroom. Damn AT&T. I suppose yet another thing to work around or pay money for.
   
4. Our new kitten reminds me a lot of my mom's cat that died last year, the one I grew up with. I think that was the thing that made me start crying, missing him. I think he was just one of those exceptional cats. I hope our new kitten turns out to be something like him. He already has that large sweet purr. The cat that died, he used to purr all the time. In fact, when he went to the vet, he would be purring so loudly the vet couldn't hear his heart.
5. It's still incredibly fucking hot and I still have to clear crap out of the old place. It's still not too late in the morning and already feels like over 95 degrees.

Could It Be Any Slower?

Okay my job sucks. I know I've posted that before, doubtless, I'll be posting that again. But there is nothing worse than when the day is dragging by like fucking molasses and I'm just thinking of anything that will pass the time. I'm continuously updating My Yahoo! just in case any of the blogs I read has updated. I'm even reading the news. Not just the entertainment news either. It's better than staring off into space, but only slightly. I hope that like Lindsay Lohan or Paris Hilton does something stupid, and it makes a big headline. Though even my interest in the antics of those young ladies is starting to wear thin. I guess this was the point where I realized that I was old, when the people who appear on the tabloids weren't even alive when I was starting junior high. Hrm, my math might be totally off because of my brain freeze, but you get the idea.

I just have too much crap to do. I have to be out of the old place totally by Sunday. In the blistering heat, I have to drag my ass over there and get rid of stuff. It's definitely starting to whittle down, and the boyfriend cleaned out the fridge last night, but it's still taking time. And energy. Okay, it's the weekend, so I have time. But no real energy. I feel like sitting around reading smutty novels, drinking beer, and snoozing.

My best friend's sister got married a few weeks ago and is talking about doing a wedding reunion. How fucking ridiculous! Get over yourself. People showed up to the wedding and worshipped you, now move on. I say this from the experience of having been at 9 weddings in the last 2 years. No one cares about your wedding as much as you do. Not your parents. Not the groom even. Certainly not all your guests. Yes, everyone is happy for you, that's why they showed up and brought you gifts. Move on. Be happy in your life. Marriage is not about the wedding.

Admittedly, I don't think I'm going to get married. Certainly not anytime soon. But if I want everyone to worship me, I'd rather just start my own cult or something.

Somehow I Made It Through The Day

There is nothing harder than going back to work after being off a few days. Add to that, being incredibly tired from the packing and moving shenanigans, the running around, the trying to adjust to a new place and the abysmal heat. Well, I made it through the day with enough caffeine and sugar. I even went to the old place and brought home a box of stuff. And threw out a bunch of crap. So I think I could get some kudos if I sit here staring off into space, waiting for the air to cool down a little before I go to sleep.

The cats are pretty much at a cold war right now. My big girl walked by, staring at me playing with the kitten, and she hissed at him. Then he started to move towards her. Cold war turns hot? She turned tail and walked away, as I grabbed him. He probably was just going to play. I hate seeing her get upset though. She is a very shy cat, and when we first got her, she spent the first month under the bed. I would pry her out with love and treats, and eventually she would come out. But since our move, she's been under the bed a lot. And I know some of it has to do with adjusting to the kitten. What I need to do is get a few cans of regular people tuna, and spread it all around to get everyone in a good mood. Maybe we can smoke a catnip peace pipe, haha.

Sure Happy It's Thursday

Ugh. I am just waiting until I start feeling like a normal person again. I am back at work and other than the air-conditioning, I fucking hate it. I am so tired and have had a sore throat for days. Though I went to the dentist yesterday and they assured me I'm not sick. However, the asshole dentist once again said that there is something wrong with the way my teeth are placed, and it's just an aesthetic issue, but wouldn't I like to get it fixed. Hell no. If it's just an aesthetic issue, then there is no way that the dental insurance is going to pay for it, and really, there's no way I'm going to pay cash to fix something that isn't even broken. I think my smile is fine, honestly, and anyone who doesn't like it, can kiss my ass.

I did find out that it doesn't take any longer to get to work from the new place, which is good. And since I left early this morning, I had time to grab another coffee which has marginally woken me up.

The boyfriend told me that the old place was picked clean, very little to move over. So I went over there last night and quite frankly, there is a TON of stuff still there. Including the entire contents of our refrigerator, cabinets full of food, many dishes. Ugh. I'm going to have to get my ass over there again tonight and get some stuff out. I really could kill him and leave him at the old apartment. Haha. Then I definitely wouldn't get any of my security deposit back.

Moving Sucks

Moving just sucks. I could make a list of all of the things that were screwed up, but it wasn't that bad. So far the real thing is that it all takes so much time, money, and energy to go through all of this. The movers took 5 hours, instead of 3 like I thought, and that was expensive. Oh the best part was after they moved us, they asked for tips. Is a tip really something you ask for? It seemed weird to me.

My poor kitty is freaking out bigtime. She spent most of yesterday cowering in the bathroom I set her up in, and then walking around meowing like she's looking for stuff. Then now, she's just under the bed. She ate some breakfast, so I'll see if she'll come out for dinner. Then the day we moved, I ended up picking up Teddy from the Humane Society. He had to have his um, manhood, removed before he could come home. Now he is doing okay, but since I got him home yesterday, he developed a URI (upper respiratory infection) and when I took him to the vet today, she put him on antibiotics. I got some dinner in him tonight, so that was good, and I'll try to feed him again. I'm no vet, but I recognize the whole "if there is appetite and poop/pee, the cat is probably okay."

I should be doing something, unpacking stuff. It's too damned hot. So far, I mostly unpacked my bookshelves. Not terribly useful, but good to get it out of the way. Somehow I ended up with 4-5 boxes that are for the bathroom, and really, do I need all that crap? Also this bathroom is a bit smaller than my last one. I remember clearing out whole drawers, just throwing all the crap in my boxes and thinking, oh I'll deal with that later. Well, now is later and I have no desire to deal with it.

I'm almost looking forward to going back to work on Thursday.

Uhoh

We're getting a little black kitten. His name is Teddy and he came to the Humane Society from some mysterious circumstances. He came in with severe head trauma and was in a coma for three days, but now he seems to be doing okay. It's not clear if this is true, but I heard that he was beaten and that's where the head trauma came from. As my boyfriend said, he needs us. He needs to go to an adults only home and be nurtured. Poor kitten. It's just disgusting that people do stuff like that. I'm a little bit nervous about having a kitten as they are a lot more work than just getting an adult cat, but I'm hoping it goes okay. I also hope my current cat doesn't get too mad at her new little brother.

Life At Thirteen

I feel like I'm about thirteen years old again. But not in a good way. Having my period usually makes me kind of weird and out of it. I never had bad periods when I was younger, but as I get older, weird stuff happens. I have had the period that was exactly like being stoned. I was starving the whole time, and feeling all spacy and weird. I've had the periods where I just feel like I have a bad cold and want to do nothing but sleep. And now, I have the period where I feel like I'm thirteen years old again.

I just got back from volunteering at the Humane Society and I feel like crying. They had to put eleven cats to sleep this week, because upper-respiratory infections are running rampant and there are just too many cats for them to affectively treat them all. It's really sad because URIs are totally treatable, with medication and time, but some of these cats just didn't get less sickly. This is less than ten percent of the number of cats we have now, but some of these were cats that I knew, spent time with ...

Even though I understand it, it's hard.

Also, I have a humongous crush on one of the volunteers. I met him for the first time today since he usually works sometime during the week. I had a crush on him just hearing about him, for some reason. In fact, initially all I really heard about him was that he was a guy. And there are quite a few guy volunteers, so why this one? I don't know. When I met him, I just found him attractive, totally what I think of as my type, tall, thin, prominent nose. I found myself kind of hovering where he was and all that kind of crap, the kind of crap I used to do when I was thirteen. Silly. Even if I didn't have a boyfriend, who I live with, I doubt that anything would happen. But my hormones are all over the place now.

I almost never get random crushes on people, probably because of the Prozac killing my sex drive. So now that I've been off it for a month, maybe I'm getting back to normal. Is this normal? For a thirteen year old, maybe.

What I've Learned From My Job

• Anything can happen one time. Reboot and see if it's still happening.
• Someone is always keeping track of how many times you go to the bathroom and if you wear the same pants twice a week.
• Even if you don't get stuff done on time, there is always someone to remind you of that fact.
• Complaining gets results, but people will probably resent you behind your back.
• Don't joke about things with people whose sense of humor is a shriveled pile of dog crap. They will think you are serious, or possibly, being offensive.
• The more ass you kiss, the more you can get away with.
• Whatever you think your salary is lacking, you can make up for it in purloined supplies. (I think I got this idea from Dilbert.)
  

I started off writing stuff trying to be positive, but this all reminds me of how much I am annoyed by and hate my job. After the move, I swear I'm going to start seriously looking.

My New Favorite Blog

I just spent a few hours at work checking out Dagny's Empire. Her writing style is really riveting, and she is both wise and entertaining.

Heat Wave

San Jose is too freaking hot. My apartment is too hot. I'm sitting here and I should be packing but what I really feel like dong is putting on pjs and going to bed. I don't really feel like I've slept well all week, too busy thinking about crap.

I seriously think that I have that PMDD. I think that when I was taking Prozac for a year, it was massively controlling my symptoms. Did I have it before I started taking Prozac? I'm not sure. But now that I'm not taking Prozac, I have the real full blown deal. This isn't just the PMS of yesteryear, with some aches, some pains, some irritability. I honestly feel like a different person, like I'm just sleepwalking through the week. Last month, I was on a half dose of Prozac, and it was pretty bad. But now that I'm taking no Prozac, just my Celexa when I remember to take it, well, it fucking SUCKS. I have been eating shit all week. Diet? What diet? I had ice cream after dinner tonight. And usually when I'd get PMS, it would be maybe the day right before my period, or two days. But I swear I've been like this since Monday. I'm just hoping my period shows up soon.

My best friend was out of town for her sister's wedding in Mexico. We IM every day, but not when she was out of the country, so it's good to have her back. I had to catch her up on all the shit. I feel massively moodswingy, probably because of the PMDD. I should probably talk to my psychiatrist about that. I am trying not to take Prozac because it interferes with (aka, completely crushes like a tin can) my sex drive. But who wants to have sex when you feel like blowing up your office then sleeping for a month?

I actually had a kind of fun thing at work. We took some pictures today. Though I was kind of shocked to see how big my ass looks, it has a really nice shape. I think it's probably that litany of squats and other crap I've done over the years. I actually did two workouts this week, not bad for an ice cream eating slacker.

Tomorrow we pick up the keys to the new place. Yay. I keep saying I'm half done with packing but I packed another three boxes tonight and it still seems like there is a lot of shit sitting around.

Done On The Phone

Finally, I think I just made my last phone call to arrange crap. I called PG&E and the electricity and gas stuff is taken care of. I have to say, PG&E had the best customer service by far. And they had one of those automated "you talk and it understands" services and it actually worked pretty well, though I do feel like a moron when I'm saying the stuff out loud at work. I have read that those services work better than a regular person listening, which is kind of cool. Though I ended up having to talk to a live person anyway, and somehow all the information I gave to the computerized voice didn't get transmitted to the live person. Anyway, it's done. I can go back to, um, pretending to work.

Dragging Week

I called Comcast and finally got the cable move resolved, though it seemed incredibly byzantine and like my AT&T call, it took WAY longer than it needed to. The woman who I talked to didn't speak a lot of English and didn't explain things to well. For some reason, they can't shut off cable at my current place until way after I move out, but I only have to pay for it until the day I move out. (So if the rental folks manage to clean the place in time, and find a new tenant, some lucky person will have a few days of free cable.) Thankfully, the jackass who lived in the new place did manage to turn off the cable, so I can get the cable setup the day we move in. Though for some reason, they have to setup an appointment to do that. I am not sure why we can't just plug our fucking cable box in. Byzantine.

Got in a big "discussion" with the boyfriend last night. I have been trying to ask him to do small things. One of these was to turn in our change of address at our local post office, which coincidentally is open only when I'm at work. So, two days in a row, the thing is STILL sitting on our coffee table. I told him that I feel like I have to nag him to get things done and I can't rely on him. And he has NOT packed a SINGLE box. Anyway, the discussion went downhill from there. For some reason, he was doing the turn-it-around routine and started talking about how I never want to clean anything out, blah blah. Okay, that's true, in the past, but now that I'm moving, I'm throwing tons of crap out and packing three boxes a night. As Kathy Griffin would say, "suck it!" I went to bed mad. But I needed to go to bed, and frankly, since it takes him forever to work out that he needs to back down (if not apologize), I didn't have time to stay up and wait for it.

So I'm dragging today. I woke up with a congesty feeling in my head, behind my eyes. I took three Excedrin at work. Those things are seriously the bomb! They have tylenol, aspirin, AND caffeine. They kick the ass of most headaches. And wake you up. I'm glad we stock shit like that at work. I'm still dragging, but a little bit quicker. I ate half a poppyseed bagel too. I think that this is a combo of moving stress and PMS or something, but I just feel crapazoid.

I don't have therapy group for four weeks because my therapist is going on vacation, but I'm going to meet the group folks tonight at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I'm going to try very hard not to throw myself headfirst into the cheesecake, but quite frankly, I am not going to stress if I have one slice. I can always redouble my efforts next week, after some of this shit has passed. Not to mention, PMS + cheesecake sounds fucking awesome.

Nice

Comcast's system is down. The woman told me to call back tomorrow. Great. I am glad they aren't my internet service provider as well as my cable provider. In fact, getting the cable moved isn't on MY high priority list. I don't need to watch that much TV.

At Least I Get Paid For This

I spent thirty minutes on the phone with AT&T to try to get my home phone and DSL moved to the new place. The woman did say it would be twenty minutes, which seems totally ridiculous. I think some of it was her putting me on hold, or doing random crap in the background. Part of the delay was that the dumbass who moved out never canceled his phone, so they were still showing an existing line at the house. Uh, okay. I think I just did that guy a favor since he's paying for phone service now for about a month in a place he's not living. And I found out that I'm paying a ridiculously high price for DSL, more than twice as much as I could be paying. I guess it pays to actually check on these things and assume that the price they gave you to begin with a year and a half ago could go up. It really doesn't help that the company has changed hands to AT&T. It used to be SBC. Who bought out PacBell right before I got DSL. WTF. Same shit, different name.

I have little qualms about using my work time to call and arrange this crap. In fact, I think I'm going to call Comcast right now and get the cable moved, since that's a high priority for the boyfriend. At least, I think that it's still Comcast who is our cable provider. Who knows at this point?

Procrastination Central

I did manage to pack some boxes yesterday, but not a lot. I did go through everything in my desk and throw out most of it. But that's about it. There is still so much left to do, and the boyfriend takes little initiative, other than dumping things in the trash. Then again, that is better than nothing. And he did do my laundry last night, which was cool. I am going to be so glad once we move because we'll have our own washer and dryer. No more quarters stacked on the counter. No more fighting with people who are tying up all the machines. We ordered our washer and dryer from Sears yesterday.

I have not been doing a good job of dieting, or packing, or even working. I'm not really sure why but I find it hard to stay motivated. Today, for instance, I should be making a bunch of calls for getting services moved but I'm yawning too much to do that. I might actually take a break and take a walk over to HR to drop off some forms. HR is one of the farthest out buildings. I shouldn't even get started on our HR department.

Cut Short

My last post got cut short because my boss let me leave work early while I was in the middle of composing it. Not bad for a Friday. I am sitting here at home, and the cat is looking over my shoulder, watching me type. I do kind of feel like sleeping but I probably should drag myself to Jazzercise tonight. I should do a graph of how much money I spend monthly on workouts versus how many times I actually do them, but that would probably just depress me.

I had a very bad diet night last night. See, I met my friend for dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, and I always think, oh that's good, they have healthy salads. Sure. And I tell myself I won't order cheesecake. But I do. And it's always so fucking delicious that I eat the whole huge thing. I guess seeing other people around me eating cheesecake is what pushed me to it. Yeah, it's all their fault. (And they do have a low carb cheesecake, but no, I didn't order that one.)

Making Progress

At least, I called movers and setup my move date of July 17. So I have 10 days. 10 days? What the hell am I thinking? I have still done no packing. Nor have I managed to push or guilt the boyfriend into doing any packing. When he moved in with me, he did it in two days, and had his mom pushing him the whole time. If nothing else, I never want to be like his mom. She's a real pushy nagger, a kvetcher, the kind that whines out complaints to people.

Box Rebellion

So I know that I pretty much bag on my job all the time. I hate my job. But it has been nice lately because people keep giving me boxes, especially my boss. The thought of buying boxes totally does not appeal to my cheap nature. Quite frankly, why spend money on something that you are only going to use once and discard afterwards? Thus far, I have collected many boxes at work, and I made the boyfriend take them out of my car.

I have made no actual progress with the packing, but over the weekend, I did get rid of a lot of stuff. I figure that will make it easier to pack, when I have less crap. I suppose this weekend, I will work my ass off. I tend to work better with deadlines anyway.

I realize my new meds that I have been trying to take in the morning have made me incredibly drowsy every day. I really actually had a hard time telling, because I am generally drowsy at work anyway because of the boredom factor. But the last couple times I talked to my mom, she said, you sound tired, and I put two and two together. So I will go back to trying to take these meds at night time.

Celebrities Are Just Like Us

Check this article out about Ashley Judd. It's probably not surprising that she was depressed, because let's face it, probably most people have been depressed at one time or another. What's impressive is that she admits it to the news media.

Plagues and Madness

It's been so hectic today at work. I just feel totally exhausted. Admittedly, some part of my exhaustion is due to being hungover. I only had two beers yesterday but that was enough to make me pretty tipsy. These were from Trader Joe's private label, brewed here in San Jose. Tasty. Then by the time I got home, fireworks were still going on and on, so I finally just put in earplugs before I went to sleep.

It was really nice to have a day off in the middle of the week, however, it was really difficult coming back to work today. Almost like having two Mondays in one week. Not to mention the fact that everything is crashing today and the phone has been ringing off the hook. It's totally fuckup central around here.

Boredom, Thy Name Is Pseudo-Holiday

Am I the only person who doesn't have today off work? Possibly. There are some suckers here at work, but it's pretty darn quiet. I was kind of contemplating taking a nap, but of course, all of the management is here. Surprise! Well it isn't a Friday, so that explains their perfect attendance.

We had dinner last night with my boyfriend's family. Seriously, have you ever seen that show Soap? That's kind of what his family is like, a ton of step-siblings and all kinds of weird crap going on. I think every one of his stepsisters has been married at least twice, and probably, at this moment, one is contemplating divorce. It's total drama all the time, lots of booze, lots of catfights. My family is nothing like that. My family is pretty much like me. We go for the little backbiting from time to time, but we definitely don't throw shit at each other, or storm out and say that they'll never speak to you again. Or drink a lot. Egads.

Early Birds

I got up early today (9:30) to meet a friend of mine for coffee. That's early for me on a Sunday anyway. On the seventh day, I rest. But I hadn't seen her for a really long time. She has a baby, well now a one-and-a-half year old, so she's pretty dang busy all the time. And the best time to call her is 9 pm, which frankly is not very convenient for me since that's when all the good shows are on. Haha.

I was at the Humane Society for four hours yesterday. Over 15 cats (though mostly kittens) got adopted which was great. Sadly, a lot of the cats are jammed in the cages and many have URIs (upper-respiratory infections, aka colds). Hopefully more will get adopted today. I was almost tempted to come in again today, because it seems like there was so much to do. But I should do more work around here, moving-wise.

I'm starting to feel like my libido is coming back. I took Prozac for over a year and while it totally lowered my anxiety, it also lowered my sex drive. But quite frankly, I think about having sex with fantasy people, or a hot one night stand I had 5 years ago, not with my boyfriend, who is on meds of his own. I guess it doesn't help that we are not totally getting along with all the move stress. Every once in a while, I think about bringing up the "why don't we have an open relationship" card because I'm very certain that I could go out and get laid with no problem. However, I'm pretty sure he never could. Why? Well because you'd have to wake up before 6 pm and leave the house occasionally.