since i am moving in two (2) days, i thought i would read up on some moving tips. a quick google search yielded a virtual buffet of simple checklists and useless packing advice. a lot of it looked like this:

moving checklist

• hired movers?
• forwarded mail?
• eaten all perishable food items in one meal a la "perishable item stew?"

moving tips

• keep items separate! do not pack hamster with bowling ball.
• color-code and number all packed boxes using a complex coding system understood by only yourself, a lone computer science professor at cal-tech, and most of the cinematic characters portrayed by jeff goldblum.
• try not to break anything.
• if you hire movers, and you think they're stealing jewelry from your packed boxes, steal something back from them, like their lunch box or a small piece of their soul.

by far, the best hyper-link in the smorgasbord of moving tips was the one entitled, "how to ship your cat overseas." i did not click on the link, because i knew the actual web site would not be nearly as funny. instead, i sat very still at my desk for a few moments and attempted to picture a small tabby, completely packed with bubble wrap and duct tape, violently rolling around against the carry-on luggage while cursing like a sailor.

two more days. let's hope my "perishable item stew" doesn't make me too violently ill to finish marking all the boxes with colors, numbers, symbols, and scents. anything that smells like fish goes directly into the garage.

i'm rereading christopher pike's "final friends" series. i am a sucker for nostalgia; i remember reading these books on my family's camping trip to kentucky over ten years ago. "final friends" and kentucky combined gave me the idea to write a book about a bunch of teenagers going to kentucky and getting systematically pushed into the caverns of the mammoth caves. one by one the teenagers would get mangled on the jagged rocks, until, at long last, it was discovered that the main teenager, the killer, had actually been dead for over fifteen years. ah, back then, i could find inspiration anywhere. no wonder i'm such a prolific novelist today.

every turn of the page reminds me of another aspect of this kentucky camping trip. the way i spent the entire weekend sleeping in the car due to my fear of mud, bugs, heat, and fresh air. my discman turned on full blast as to effectively ignore any chirping birds or approaching bears. the communal showers that made me cry. how can i be expected to use a communal shower? what am i, an animal? then there was my dad getting pissed off for no apparent reason when i flipped out and stated that, no, i didn't want his stupid, crappy hot dogs for dinner, i wanted 'olive garden.' how could you go on vacation and eat hot dogs? hot dogs were for home, franchised family restaurants with strangely-accented waitresses were for vacation.

one of the only highlights of that trip was the "final friends" series. another highlight was when we called my grandmother and found out that our home's alarm system had been activated. the police had arrived, found nothing, and left. my mother immediately assumed the bulgarian mafia was trying to break in to steal her vhs collection, and we packed up our tent in record time and arrived home in the middle of the night to find out that, yes, her taped episodes of "moonlighting" were still in tact.

i am definitely not a happy camper. i don't think i've been camping since. bless my parents' heart for trying to do something so wholesome and family oriented. but screw them for thinking i'd like it.

five more nights in this miserable apartment. i go back and forth from the couch to the bed every hour or two in the hopes of escaping the noise from above, but it chases me. i feel so mental right now. not even a good game of sudoku can calm me down.

packing this bitch up has been a big pain in the ass. i'm paranoid that nobody's going to help us move. i got my friend will at work to volunteer, and now i find myself subtly reminding him every twenty minutes so he doesn't forget and make other plans. "what kind of beer do you want for moving day?" i ask out of nowhere, or, "oh my god, i was packing last night, for moving day, and i realized i have exactly 819 band-aids. i guess i keep buying band-aids. maybe they'll come in handy if you get a splinter, on moving day, from hauling around my heavy-ass coffee table."

he's on to me, but it's okay. i come into work and complain about my neighbors and lack of sleep. will says, "we should put a bag of flaming poop on their doorstep on moving day." this how-do-you-do sparks my interest. i tell will, "you bring the bag, i'll take care of the rest." i think of how i will change my diet the day before moving day to ensure a quality poop. i go out and purchase new lighters.

this is the third time i have moved in just as many years. the thought that we're moving into another rental and will probably have to move again in a year or two when we buy is enough to make me want to give away all of my worldly possessions as to avoid repacking them again. if only i wasn't such a pussy when it came to purchasing real estate. that's right, i said the p-word. what are you going to do about it?

i'd love to take a nap today. i'll probably have to go to my car to do this. watch your back, neighbors. moving day's going to be shitty.

everywhere i look, it's back-to-school this and back-to-school that. even though i haven't had to go to school in three years now, that familiar feeling of antsiness is beginning to creep on me. i'm waking up in cold sweats, asking myself, "did i remember to buy all of my number two pencils?" and "what am i going to do if my teacher thinks i'm stupid?" part of me always looked forward to going back to school, because there was always a possibility that the upcoming year would be my best year yet. maybe this year i'd date the captain of the football team or obtain a highly paid internship. it wouldn't be until mid-october when the disappoint would fully set in and i would realize no, this wasn't the year of being spectacular, it was just another year of inadequacies and mild constipation.

i remember the night before i started high school as clearly as i can remember what i ate this morning for breakfast. my parents were both at work, marcia was down the block playing with her friend, and i carefully prepared a dinner for myself consisting of tuna and tomato on toasted wheat bread with a side of bugles. remember bugles? they came in a box that made them look like they could possibly be cereal, but when you made the mistake of pouring some bugles into a bowl and adding milk, it was barf city, population you. i mean, me. the old jackie harris vehicle "sister, sister," was on the television set, and tia and tamara were also getting ready for their first day of high school. i was excited and nervous and panicky and nauseous and sweaty. i ate my tuna sandwich in front of the tv, but i kept bopping up to check my clothes or my skinny, sickly reflection in the mirror. i kept thinking that since i was starting high school, my body would start to fill out any day, and i would automatically be a "b" cup by, say, labor day. at the age of 25, i am still only an "a." i guess i still have a few more weeks until this labor day to plump up, but, at this point in my life, it would be much too big a pain to have to buy all new bras.

where was i going with this?

so there was always the hope and anxiousness, but i think i truly thought that high school was going to be a positive thing, that i'd have nice boobs and a nice boyfriend and the kind of high school experience you only read about in young adult novels where all the main characters are likable and popular. instead, my experience was more like a young adult novel where all the main characters end up in correctional institutions. of course, i exaggerate; i finally found a groove i fit into, and now i wouldn't change a thing. however, it saddens me to think of that night, me and my tuna sandwich and sitcom. all the things i wanted and thought i would have. all the freaking tuna i used to eat.

i haven't gone back to school in three years. instead i just go back to work. every morning. for the rest of my life.

well, i got my way, but at a pretty hefty price. we are moving out of this apartment on august 28 and into a townhome in palatine. anybody who volunteers to help us move will be rewarded handsomely. the weak need not apply.

anyone? anyone?

i will miss this crazy apartment and its multicolored walls. i will not miss the buffalo herd living above us. i may have a few choice parting words for them on the day we leave. unless, of course, i can convince them to help us load the truck.

le sigh. so much drama. my sister came over last night, and she aided in making me feel less spastic and stressed out. what a girl. only she could calmly insert the made-up word "shinkle" into a sentence and make it sound like, no, there is no other word that would fit quite as well. shinkle. you try using it in a sentence. it's actually fun.

pencils down

today we went to some church lady's house in order to take the "so you think you want to get married" compatibility test. it was 150 questions, and we used number two pencils. we had to keep our eyes on our own papers, and the test covered everything from spirituality (of course), finances, trust, our feelings on child-rearing, arguments, sex, our parents' relationship, and how well we thought we knew each other. i had several giggling bouts during this test, which i attempted to cover up by saying to the church lady, "why, yes, i would like some more apple juice," but part of me was slightly worried that chris and i would completely fail. maybe we did completely fail; we won't get the results back for another month.

the questions were (mostly) in true or false form, with the answers ranging from "strongly disagree" to "strongly agree." here are some examples:

you are unable to sleep at night due to imagining your partner propositioning hookers on a street corner somewhere in east st. louis.

you and your partner are doomed to a life of financial hardships riddled with hot dog dinners and periodically having the cable shut off.

you believe that having children is the key to solving marital problems. in fact, you're pregnant right now, and every time your partner attempts to hit you, you scream, "but i'm having your baby!"

cocaine is clearly the answer to most of life's problems.

your partner would never go out and buy a 60 inch flat screen television without consulting you first, or at least playing dumb when you question him about it afterwards, saying, "but when you said no, i thought you were kidding!" you would certainly not take the remote control and jam it down the garbage disposal and then proceed to sabotage his social life by somehow getting him arrested for first degree mail fraud.

you believe you could never be happily married to anyone but your partner.

that last question was real. i asked chris about it afterwards, to see what he put down. "strongly agree," he proclaimed, and then i felt mildly guilty. see, i put down "disagree," because while "strongly agree" may be the romantic answer, "disagree" is the practical answer. plus, it's the one that keeps me from going crazy. saying "strongly agree" to that answer makes it seem that, if chris had never come into my life, i'd have been destined to sixty years of living with an apartment of stray cats. and then death. if chris had never showed up that night in the sushi restaurant, then i'd have eventually settled down into a loveless marriage with a periodontist. i can't imagine that. it's too depressing. unfortunately, i think chris was a little insulted, maybe hurt, at my answer. maybe i shouldn't have told him and then just waited to be confronted with it when the results came back. but doesn't anybody understand where i'm coming from?

i also felt a little weird about answering a few of the questions regarding my parents. there was one question that was ranked "never" to "all the freaking time," and the question was something to the tune of "your parents displayed abusive (physical, mental) behavior towards one another." the correct answer would have been "frequently," especially during my pre-teen and teen years, but i couldn't bring myself to answer honestly, not when this test is being scored by this nice church lady with all of the free apple juice. why does she need to know this? why does the catholic church need to know? chris knows. isn't that enough?

i answered, "seldom," and then moved on to the next question, where i promptly lied again and answered that, yes, i can do ANYTHING as long as i put my mind to it.

now, of course, i'm thinking about this, why this question was even asked. all of my parent's fights are still in me, of course, branded with fire and broken glass into my memory and subconscious. does that mean that my marriage will ultimately be abusive? or that, if i can't egg chris on to the point of slapping me around a little, i'll think that something is "wrong" with us? it's a pretty weighted, loaded question, and i've been mulling it around all day. to be brutally blunt, i am often filled with pride for myself, that i came from a house rife with dysfunction and a mental mother and a father who, for years, couldn't handle his anger any other way except to occasionally smash in his wife's face or leave her stranded at the k-mart with no ride home and then to throw beer bottles at her after the taxi dropped her off an hour later. i think to myself, "man, i'm pretty great for seeing all that and not ending up a complete fuck-up." i pat myself on the back and then reward myself with a hoagie. but maybe the joke's on me. maybe the joke's on chris.

i wonder if those tests work when you're not totally honest.

well, except for the family questions, i was pretty honest. and i was mostly pleased when i was done, noting that my first instincts generally told me that, yes, chris and i trusted each other, and, yes, we shared most of the same beliefs, and, yes, we're usually on the same page. there were a few questions about whether or not we wanted children, and, in the car, we compared answers. we had both put that we wanted two children starting in 2-3 years. so, watch out for that. i'm going to be one hell of a mother some day.

or maybe the joke's on me?

things are a freaking mess. rather than get into everything, i'll just leave it at that: freaking mess.

most of this week has been spent ear-deep in said mess, although i suppose there were other things. work at the optical on tuesday, hanging out w/ gail, olive garden with banker girls, hot dog day at chris' family house. first annual. i love the assumption of first annual.

my hair is a force to be reckoned with. it's gotten long and heavy and bigger than usual, and the hair near my scalp is a flat black while the rest of it's been sun-stained to an unhealthy rust color. i keep meaning to do something about it, but it's really near the bottom of my list. where am i going to live? am i going to get sued? why is my (free) lawyer so inept? we saw the apartment offered by my boss' brother-in-law. it's huge, which chris likes, but it's a dump, which i hate. i have no stability right now, and work has been insane. a simple loan refinance has spiraled out of control, and you should see how two thin pieces of paper have suddenly multiplied into an overflowing in-box full of jargon that, frankly, i don't understand. i feel like i'm just DONE right now, with everything. i wish i could call a time-out like zach in "saved by the bell" and then take a few years just to lay around and eat cheet-o's.

but i said i wouldn't get into it. sorry.

also, my amazon seller never shipped me my book. you're on my list, salebooks-at-aol.com. you have made the list.

overall, i had a very enjoyable birthday, thanks for asking. at lunch with jason, while complaining (of course) about my apartment, i got a fortune in my cookie that stated, "your present plans will succeed." moments later, i recieved a phone call from my boss who told me her brother-in-law had an apartment for me to move into at the end of the month, a 2 story, 1400 square foot affair above his law office. there would be no one above me, a lawyer below me a few days of the week, and nobody to the left or right. it would be like our own little house, perched above a man who would probably administer free legal advice. all we have to do is see the inside, and then it's broken-lease-ville, population us. that free legal advice will DEFINITELY come in handy.

anyways, aside from that phone call, the rest of my birthday, as stated, was enjoyable. i saw my mom, jason, dan, and rachel (briefly) in the morning and afternoon (in that order). then, chris took me out for a night on the town. i wore a skirt and everything. yesterday, we went to a pig roast. as much as i love meat, seeing a whole pig gutted on a barbecue grill made my stomach squirm a bit. this wasn't a small pig, either- it was gigantic. i would have loved to see the tongs or spatula that had to flip that baby over.

afterwards, we headed over to chris' family for dinner. they showered me with birthday presents, which is always nice. i guess i'm finally "in." as a sidestory, chris' father had a near-death experience last week after a choking incident, a month or so after returning from a month-long camping trip in wyoming. chris had me laughing when he said, "i can't believe you survived 4 weeks in the wilderness only to return home and nearly choke to death on a bagel." my laughter was inappropriate, of course, but i don't think anybody held it against me. damn that cheese and his witty observations.

holy crap, today's my 25th birthday. from this point on, every day will bring me closer to thirty than twenty. but, hey, at least my car insurance premiums dropped today.

i am standing in the hallway of the second floor of our apartment building just outside of #202. this is the apartment directly above us, and i cannot take it for another minute. i am full of rage, but i am also afraid. i avoid confrontation; avoiding confrontation is my second favorite hobby. the noise has become unbearable, though, and our lawyer's not moving quickly enough to get us out of the lease. i have to sleep. i ring the bell.

there is the sound of foreign chatter, and then the door swings open. i gasp for breath. the apartment lays before me like the forgotten storage garage for some long dead family. the place is packed full of stuff, and there are two things i notice at once. a giant baby's crib takes up the entire center of the living room, and the couch has been made up like a bed. there are at least four people living in this one bedroom apartment- two adults in the bedroom, one on the couch, and then the baby in the crib, the construction of which would explain why i've been hearing so much hammering.

despite my hatred for these noise-makers, these floorboard-squeakers, these foot-pounding-walkers, i instantly become sweet and apologetic. i introduce myself as jackie, the girl who lives below. i extend my hand for a shake, but then have to retract it when the man at the door looks disdainfully at it. i politely explain that i think the apartments have been poorly constructed, that i hear every move that they make, that i haven't had a full nights sleep in weeks. the man says he'll take care of it, and i look over at the rest of the family wedged in between their furniture. they look away. i thank him profusely for listening and understanding and then head downstairs.

the noise does not stop that night until close to midnight. i lay in bed praying that any moment they will all go asleep. i eventually drift into a restless sleep and then am suddenly jerked awake at 3:30 am by an amplified sound from above, from the crash of a body throwing itself straight to the floor, from the tumbling over of what sounds like that gigantic crib, from two overweight individuals having a jumping contest. it is 3:30. they're awake. i'm awake. i burst into tears.

i want to kill them. i want to kill myself. i try to sleep on the couch, but the couch sleeper above is also awake, walking around the maze of furniture, banging into walls, knocking over chairs. what else can i do? i've talked to the landlord. i've talked to a lawyer. i've talked to the offenders. i just want out. please, lord, please, just help me sleep at night.

i am in one of the bitchiest moods of my entire life. i've got way too much stuff on my mind right now, and every time i begin to try to sort through it, something else comes along with the sole purpose of irritating me. why am i not a happy-go-lucky person? why does it take so little to piss me off? why do i sweat the small stuff? i know life is short; i know you're supposed to enjoy every minute of it and not take anything for granted and be happy and grateful for all that you have. in theory, this would be a wonderful way to live. in reality, i'm drowning in my own wave pool of shit.

i'm tired of everything. i don't want to worry about money or a wedding or living in an apartment i hate. i don't want to constantly have something new to do, be it getting an oil change or taking over yet another duty at work. i want to sleep at night and laugh all day. i'm sick of having so many complaints. i hate being responsible for more things than i feel i can handle. i can't stomach decision-making anymore; even going to the grocery store is starting to feel too heavy for me. i don't know what i want to do- but i have to do something. my outlook has to change, otherwise i'm going to go over the edge and lose everything. chris, my job, my independence, my happiness. i'm at the breaking point, and something has to give, and i have to be the one to give it. or take it. or just chill out.

how did i handle these feelings before, back when i was constantly depressed and moody and crying and screaming? did i handle them at all, or did i just bury them somewhere that i thought was inaccessible? and now everything's shifting and i'm dealing with those old feelings all over again. i know that i have wasted and am wasting so much. too much time has been spent worrying about things out of my control, or things in my control that i'm afraid to touch. why can't i be like [everyone else]? and what would make me happy right now?

door county with chris. that was happy- just me and him and our own private house in the woods. i'd say we should go back, but i don't think... we can afford it.