29 April 2009

Feelin' Alright

The past few days have gone by in a pleasant blur. And no, not because I've been drinking or drugged, haha, you're all funny.

I think I'm gradually beginning to make peace with my gigantic upheaval and it actually feels good. We've been staying with my mother-in-law, out in the country, which I thought for sure was going to be a supreme disaster. I've been pleasantly surprised. I'm enjoying my time there. I think I'm actually going to miss it a little bit when we do leave next weekend, and I'm not sure if that's to be attributed to the fact that I've been somewhere for more than two days in two weeks, or if I'm simply genuinely enjoying myself. I happen to think it's the latter.

I've been sleeping really well for the past few nights. Very heavily. I've also been getting up much earlier than normal, which seems to set a good tone for the remainder of the day. I actually have time to decompress in the morning from the previous day, so as to prepare myself for the hectic day that's sure to come. And they do. But they've been pretty tolerable lately. I'm decently content.

My daughter is going through a funny phase right now. Totally age-appropriate, but odd to me, nonetheless. She's becoming a Grandma's Girl, as she's been seeing a whole lot more of my MIL, which doesn't upset me, but I feel mildly shunted to the side. I come back from work, super-stoked to see my little dolly and she gives me a dirty look and runs to her Nan (the MIL). I honestly can say that it doesn't upset me... I can understand. I know when I was younger, and even up until I was around sixteen or so, I was the ultimate Grandma's girl. Maybe it's karma coming back to kick me in the ass. I'm sure my mother felt just as neglected as I probably am right now, and I'm sure that I'm just worrying and obsessing over nothing, but still. She's my little sweet pea and I want all of her attention all of the time, 'cause I'm an affection whore.

Regardless. Things are going smoothly. I don't really enjoy living out of a suitcase; all of my stuff is super rumpled and even though I'm getting up much earlier in the morning, I just can't seem to bring myself to break out the iron. That's beyond me right now. It's still odd that my toothbrush is hanging out in a foreign toothbrush holder and the shampoo and conditioner just isn't right, but I'm dealing. My crazy, obsessive-compulsive, perfection-crazed self can take it...

The past few days have proven it!

27 April 2009

Home Sweet Nowhere

It's been nineteen days since my last post, if my math serves me correctly. I could be wrong, but I never said I was a mathematician. I'm a writer. I'm not supposed to be able to add and I don't make bones about it.

Things have been chugging right along as scheduled; for any of you unaware, I'm in the process of a big relocation and packing and sorting and throwing out and (throwing up and) renting moving trucks with dollies and insurance and driving the big twenty-seven foot bitch almost three hundred miles from my current home. Which, incidentally, is no longer my current home, as I vacated this past weekend. I had a ten-hour packing and loading marathon this past Friday and then Saturday, had a four hour unpacking marathon coupled with a fourteen hour round-trip commute. The word "hellish" doesn't even compare to what these past few weeks have actually been.

My family and I are now in limbo. Translation: transients. We stayed with my family this past weekend and moved the remainder of our belongings to my mother-in-law's house, which is about fourteen miles from where I work, out in the great outdoors. The great outdoors meaning "ten miles from the nearest store" and "tick country", which, incidentally, my husband found one on him last night. How awful. I felt buggy all night. I awoke this morning to the sounds of way-out-in-the-country birds, and it was cool; but it was at 5:30 this morning, which is about two hours earlier than I normally get up on a given day, at the latest.

I feel odd, to say the least. I really do feel that sort of homeless sense, or even at least that subtle sense of displacement. All of my belongings are waiting for me in my new home and I'm living out of a suitcase and a train case for the next eleven days. I know I shouldn't feel as oddly as I do, being that we're with family, but I do. I feel discombobulated. I feel spinny. It's almost kind of like having a very, very mild-but-constant anxiety attack. I feel like I kind of don't belong anywhere and I just want to go home. But there is no home to go to right now; our home that was our home last week is just an empty, sad shell and my new home isn't yet a home - it's a house. And a house that's three hundred miles from where I am right now. It seems further away than it really is, in all senses of the word.

I was actually looking forward to getting to the office today, just to solidify a little bit of normalcy in this currently-uprooted state, which is weirding me out as it is.

My husband has a week and a half of finals left and then we're on the road. I'm just scared that this move is going to be an even bigger deal that I thought it to be, to begin with. And even bigger than it's turned out to be so far, which has been unpleasantly surprising.

01 April 2009

The Ultimate FML

I haven't posted much over the past few days, primarily due to the fact that I've had nothing but FML moments; one on top of another.

I'll backdate to Sunday night. I'm getting a cold. Or I have a cold. I'm not really quite sure what stage it's in right now, other than miserable sneezing and a nose that runneth over. Jane's got a little bit of the same thing. I'm always, always that one who gets that last cold right at the ass-end of cold-season. Right when the weather's breaking and the sun is shining. I can never fully enjoy the first few weeks of the Vernal Equinox because I'm usually laid out on the sofa for it.

Sunday night approaches and I'm stoked about getting to bed early. The husband's working a long weekend, Jane's relatively calm (for a seventeen month-old) and I can just tell she's going to go out like a light. I'm sipping a steaming cup of tea, awaiting bedtime. For the both of us.

Eight-thirty rolls around and she's half-asleep. I am, too, for that matter. I, happily, place her in her crib, cover her curled-up little body with her afghan and tiptoe off to my awaiting bed. Smiling, I crawl in, so content, despite the fact that I'm not feeling well and I doze off probably within minutes.

It's amazing that people talk about the "calm before the storm". Things had been going so unnaturally right for weeks and months up until this point that I was almost beginning to question where the fuck up was going to occur. Things had been so pleasantly placid, just swimming right along with all of our moving plans and the massive pay-off of some bills; I couldn't have asked for a better start.

I wake up, around 1:30 AM and practically fall out of my bed, I'm so startled.

There's music absolutely blaring - to the point that it's literally rattling the windows half out of their wooden frames.

I live in a relatively quiet, secluded neighborhood, but alas, as all good things must come to an end, we've most recently had some "questionable folk" move in next door. Need I say that this is even more of an incentive to be moving away, as if being one-half mile to the beach isn't incentive enough. It's been nothing but moderate chaos for the past few weeks, since these people moved in.

I've seen these people (with children, mind you) on their back and front porches all hours of the night and day, barbecuing, drinking, smoking; generally being irresponsible and disruptive. Not to mention, poor examples for their young children. People come and go all hours of the night, in and out of the home at fifteen minute increments. The imagination doesn't need to stretch too far to imagine what's going on in that hellhole.

I digress, as I always do.

This night, in particular, was really horrible. I made several attempts to get back to sleep, but it seemed that each time my eyes began to close and I began to drift off, the music would thud back on in the house next door, and I'd be startled awake, once again. This went on for about another hour and I decided to just get up out of bed, sneak outside and have a cigarette. I was awake, anyway. Why the hell not.

The moment I set foot on my back porch (which is relatively shielded from the neighbor's view), all I could smell was pot smoke. Like, really. With kids in the house. A gigantic drinking, binging, smoking party with children in the house. I've seen these kids; they probably range from eight months to about three years old. There are four of them. I saw them earlier that night, at the house, playing in the dirt. I was enraged. Disgusted. Appalled that these people not only had the cojones to disrupt the peace of the neighborhood at 3 AM, but to do it in front of children. There's all sorts of fighting, screaming going on; hooting, hollering and laughing.

I did what any annoying citizen would do.

I phoned in a complaint to the local police department. FML. The conclusion to this particular matter will follow.

Monday, I make the attempt to set up my utilities at my new house and find out that there are massive problems with procuring the utilities, to the error of the current owner. I try to make contact with the woman, and she's on a business trip for the next two weeks, unreachable. I'm moving in three weeks. FML. I still can't get ahold of the woman.

Tuesday rolls around. My husband and I awaken, only to find that his ridiculously over-priced windshield (for an SUV) has been busted. In our own driveway. Refer to the first occurring incident. Gee, wonder who did that. FML.

Tuesday, revisited: My paycheck, in an error by my workplace, isn't direct deposited on the day it should have been, and due to auto-drafts on my checking account, I am overdrawn by $210 dollars. FML. FML. FML.

Today. Oh, for the love of God, today. After dealing with my insurance company on the phone all morning to file a claim and set up service to have the windshield replaced (not repaired, replaced), I get a call from my husband, who tells me to get back on the phone with the insurance company.

He was rear-ended in the parking lot at school.

F my Effing L.