I Am Like Fox News ::cough::

I am now officially 29 years old. My ability to only sleep four hours at a time remains intact. I am so relieved. Or is it releived? Relieved. Yeah. I know there is spell check, but I have been awake since 2 am so I don't have to use it.

Okay - first things first - to everyone that responded to my post yesterday: thank you. I *did* have a happy birthday and I am so happy to share that date with mely and kita and tink. We are so very very cool.

Unfortunately, I realize too late that my post about finding an apartment was really and truly and quite unflinchingly one-sided. I am ashamed of this. Not that I posted what was going on and how I feel about it, but that I did so in a public forum with little thought to fairness of equality. This is my journal and I firmly embrace it as such - I have reaped a lot from having a place to record what I am going through at any given time and also in it being in an interactive environment. This is social for me. One time, I went to see Kurt Vonnegut speak and he said that he knew exactly what it was that women wanted - he had solved that great mystery. He actually said a lot of things about this - it was all very funny and I can't quite recreate it here, but he stated "Women want...more people to talk to." - Or something along those lines - perhaps he didn't end on a preposition? Anyhoo, I think there is truth in that - and LJ affords me a place to speak and exchange ideas with people I like and respect and people I have much in common with and also, quite frankly, people I don't know at all. That last part is kinda strange, but not nearly as creepy as you'd think. Well, kinda creepy - but I like creepy.

So this is my journal - a place for me to record my thoughts and reactions and reflections and it should be one-sided. However, my post yesterday was unfair to my sister in that I pretty much bad-mouthed her to people that know us both and never allowed her a chance to defend herself. The whole move and buying a house thing has been building since January and I have known it was coming - I was just taken aback by the speed and the disruption of my plans. I do not react well to having my plans messed with. It brings out the worst in me. Also - hysterics. So, while I stand by everything I wrote, I am wrong in doing so publically and not making that a private post. Eh - I suck sometimes. I told ya'll - not perfect and not always fair and balanced.

So here are some things you should know: I am not easy to live with at all. I am lazy to a fault, I have never met a dish that I would voluntarily wash, and my dog is temperamental, spoiled and ill-trained. I can be uncommunicative and I tend to tell the same jokes over and over again. I will cook dinner and pour butter over your food if we are both dieting and you are losing weight faster than me. I will mock you at every given opportunity and borrow your clothes without asking. If I am 12 and you are 15, I will take your Guess jean jacket to church camp secretly and then lose it. I will never ever replace said jacket. I will expect you to pay the check anytime we eat out, unless told in advance that I need to pay. I will not pay rent. I will expect digital cable, high speed internet access and a fully functioning website with sufficient bandwidth to store all my vids and I will do all this without ever once learning any html at all. At given times, I will try to upload stuff to that same webspace and not apologize when I break it. I hog the computer, complain about TV show picks, and generally spread my malaise around if I am unhappy. I am bad with money. I spend without thinking and I am very defensive if this is ever brought up - no matter how tactfully.

I understand exactly why this move is occuring so quickly. Dawn didn't really have a choice in order to get the house she wanted. I was pissed about my plans - not so much her (although that therapy crack is still pissing me off - but that is to be expected - I call her a freak just as much, I just don't tell ya'll about that). She has tried to be understanding and help me out and I think now I have finally formulated a new plan - a different plan - no less valid than the original one - I will be much more considerate of her as well. Although - us packing...not gonna be pretty. I'll try to keep from bitching to much here, though.

A Delux Apartment, In the Skyyyyy...

Having now formulated and embraced a new plan - I feel the need to share it as I crave validation in any and all forms. Also - if I put it here, I am much less likely to forget key plan parts.

I have decided to give up on the house idea for now, no matter the seductiveness of a fenced in yard due to:
a. Houses are more expensive
b. I would be responsible for the yard upkeep and I don't do well with upkeep responsibility
c. Utilities will be cheaper in a complex
d. Finding an affordable apartment that accepts pets is much easier when going thru complex.

I'm running back home for lunch. They have a one bedroom that I want to see at current complex. If I like it and all goes well, I will sign a lease and give them a deposit. I am not freaking out about this. I want my move in date to be 2-23-04 which is the day after I leave Unknown LJ Tag's place. I have that day off and I figure I can get the bulk of my books and clothes over there on that date and be able to set up getting cable and all that before I actually move in. I'll have to get my furniture into the new place as well, but if I look helpless and befuddled, I can generally count on my dad to figure something out. Since he is extremely busy right now, I figure Dawn will step up and handle getting my shit moved down the street.

It is important that I get this handled right now. Uncertainty will put me in an early grave. Or at least give me panic attacks. I'm on the verge of a panic attack as I type and it is only rereading the plan that is keeping my breathing steady. I need to communicate this to my heart-rate. My jaw is clenched - but that is just something I am gonna have to live with until...well - until I win the lottery.

God. A budget. I just wrote out a budget.

Where the Home Is

So I found a place and put down a deposit and got my new address and my move-in date is 2-23-04.

And then Dawn called and she is having problems with breaking the lease and it really is gonna be a pain and cost her a ton of money and if I want, I can just pay 1/2 the rent to her and stay through the end of June at the apartment.

Luckily, my deposit is refundable.

I don't have to move now. I'll be in a 3 bedroom apartment by myself - but no moving of me will be involved.

Which means I can relax with gusto at Unknown LJ Tag's house.

Let me tell ya about yesterday.

So - I was stressed and in denial and I decided to go see a matinee. By the time I made it out to the movie theater - I had a couple of hours to kill until the next show. I was also hungry - so I decided to go buy something to read while I ate a late lunch. I went to Barnes and Noble and promptly forgot my name, remembered that I like Neil Gaiman and grabbed a copy of "Neverwhere" just cause the title sounded quite cool and I have not read it. I need to start printing out melymbrosia's posts and if heres_luck would do the book meme I suggested - well, then I could just keep those lists in my car and never be at a loss in a bookstore again.

Actually, this one time I was not at a loss at all. I sat down over a burrito at Moe's, started reading and promptly fell in love with Richard Mayhew. I mean - I *love* him. From the moment he stood up drunk in Scotland and ran after the old lady to give her his umbrella to the way he met his fiancee and then could never convince her he was not a museum person after that - I loved. I do. This story - well I am only half-way through, I hope to finish it tonight, but good lord, it is the perfect story for me.

After about an hour at my booth reading intently, I realized that I was having difficulty placing the story at London in my head. No - that is not it. I was not having any difficulty at all with the London part - and most characters (like Mr. Croup) sounded as they should sound in my head - but Richard and Door had American Midwest Accents and damned if I could go back and make em English (well, Scottish for Richard) now. I blame my tendency to cast actors as characters in books in my head. I don't always do it and it is a lazy shortcut that lacks imagination - but the part of Door (in my head) is now being played by Summer Glau just cause Door at first was all River-like (from FF). I am trying to recast Richard as Ewan McGregor, but he started out all adorable and ignoring his going away party and being nice to an old lady and I couldn't help it. Tom Welling just kinda snuck in there. At this point I have succeeded in pulling Tom out of my mind's eye as the protagonist - but I am not successful with the recast of Ewan (he just does not fit) so that means he is kinda faceless right now, and this is how I know I love him. Even faceless, I am all about the Richard Mayhew. I hope he doesn't die.

So I am reading and time is passing and I have to make a decision: "The Butterfly Effect" or "Big Fish" -- now here is the problem: I have been looking forward to seeing TBE since I saw the trailer at RotK. I *know* there is no way that movie can ever live up to the trailer, *but* I still want to see it desparately. I also have avoided all reviews of this movie, cause I don't wanna know if it is bad - I just want to see it. Unfortunately, due to the weather and work and the Smallville vid and everything, I have not been able to get to the movie theater since it opened. Meanwhile, "Big Fish" is killing my FLIst. I *know* this is gonna be a great movie - I should go see this movie. I was in front of the movie theater and I was getting stressed trying to pick a film and if I went to see TBE, I was gonna feel guilty for skipping out on a chance to see BF and if I went to see BF then I was worried I would spend the entire time thinking about Ashton Kutcher topless.

I realized then that I would rather just read my book. So I went to Planet Salon and asked for someone to fix my purple hair.

This is the best part: I had a team of hot blond boys working on my hair for the next 2 hours. Seriously, head hot blond was in charge of mixing up and deciding what colors to use and he was directing his apprenticey hot blond guy. At one point I had bright orange hair and they were making 5th Element cracks. I love these guys and have I mentioned how incredibly hot they are? I mean - the apprentice guy was not nearly as hot as the head dude and the apprentice guy looked kinda like Owen Wilson, if you beat him to death with the pretty stick. I was in heaven.

My hair looks great, too. Kinda the same as it was this summer, but with a coppery kinda cast. NotOwen was so sweet - before he fixed my hair, he sat down beside me and got all serious and wanted to discuss my conditioning schedule and begged me to stop washing my hair everyday. He was so adorably earnest that I wanted to make him a website and give him a super-power and write fanfic about him and head hot blond saving the world through better hair care. It was also really important to him that I use this particular Bumble and Bumble shampoo and normally B&B is too expensive for me, but this guy. Well, he could truly see me anything. I can't wait until my roots show!