Today I felt this tightness in my chest after we’d signed the lease and I’d gone to work, because I want so much for it not to be a mistake.

It was a beautiful day but all I could think was that maybe we did rush into it, that since the house wasn’t even ready for us that it was a sign that we should have kept looking, should have held out for something else, something more.

It’s the cutest little house, a squat little grey cottage set in a strange little slice of suburbia within the city itself. Just south of the golf course (the very expensive golf course), and only a few miles away from work. Further from the gym than I’d like, but only going three or four times a week is all right with me, especially since we live close to the highways anyhow.

It has black shutters and hardwood floors, and right now is so intensely dirty that I can’t shake the disappointment leaking into my thoughts. I keep telling myself that I expect too much, that when we clean it all up things will be wonderful, but I can’t help but be suspicious now that it won’t turn out that way, that we will just have another repeat of this apartment, which I liked so much in the beginning but which has slowly spiraled downwards, until it has become depressing for me to return to, to live in.

I also can’t help but think that it is partially because of the inhabitants that this place has so much negativity. Not only my across-the-hall neighbors, but my roommate too, I feel like have been slowly poisoning the energy here with their complaining, their constant yelling and conflict and general unhappiness.

And the place right now is so small I can’t even close my door to all of the bitching, the meanness that’s in this place, especially when my cousin is at home.

Luckily, this new place is about double the size of this apartment, and so we’ll all have room to breathe (I hope). My room is the entire upstairs, although that’s still small, but the floor space is more than I’ve ever had and I simply love it, love the possibilities it brings.

And even while I was happy about this at first, already the phone calls have started with the complaining, the rejection of a place that isn’t pristine. Complaints that there is some strange plant growth in the cabinet, some fruit flies around it, cobwebs everywhere, debris and junk left out.

While yes, I do think it’s a bit odd that the place wasn’t cleaned out before we got ahold of it, we also seemed to catch the landlord off guard in moving in on it so quickly. I asked my new roommate if he could sell any of her medicine that she left (jokingly…), and then told him to put it all in a giant pile so we could give it back to her later if she wants it. I told him not to worry about the root thing and the bugs, that they’d go away if we just tossed the whole growth or whatever in the garbage and bleached the drawer.

These things seem so rudimentary to me–that we should have to clean some when we come to a new place–that I almost can’t believe I have to give instructions on how to deal with them. It is almost as if I must now mother both of my roommates, when that is the last thing I want to do.

I want to be left alone, is all. No, better, I would much rather live alone than with lots of people, especially people I don’t know well. I have come to need space over the last few years, space in which I can retreat into myself and my surroundings and just be, without having to be everything else that they have come to expect of me.

So still, I do secretly enjoy the moments in the apartment when things have just been cleaned (by me), straightened (by me), and washed (by me). It’s those moments when I’m alone that I can truly relax, smile, do what I want. Lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling and drift off imagining that I’m somewhere else, somewhere fun, or dive backwards into myself and my memories and hash things over. It’s those nights when there’s nobody here, and it’s Saturday and I can watch three movies in a row and write in my journal, nights like that I enjoy.

I have no doubt that I will enjoy this new place, however much cleaning up I have to do in order to get to that point. Part of the charm in an old house, I told them, is that it’s old. It’ll have cobwebs, it’ll have creaks and dents and small holes in the walls. It will be grey on the outside, and on the inside yellow and blue and green. It will maybe have that strange depression in the tub where water seems to pool if you let it. And yes, it may have the occasional horrifying root growth where the previous owner forgot some kind of legume in the drawer. Big deal. It will also have the chestnut piano, the odd little window at waist level in the hallway that looks out at the refrigerator, the grate in the floor, the stairs that lead up into the master bedroom, and the yard next to the dog that pees on you. It’ll have the warped shutter, the perpetually open screen door, and yes, the little tiny hole in glass in the living room. And the three heart lamps the land lord left you because she didn’t want them. Yes, all of these things and more.

I still find myself hoping desperately that it is not a mistake, and knowing somewhere in my mind that it can’t be. It won’t be. It’ll only be a mistake if my roommates manage to convince me of it. And they’re not around much, so I don’t think that will be an issue, see?

People in my life make me so angry sometimes.

Been getting to work a bit earlier than last week, which gives me a few minutes extra to read my book, No Country for Old Men. It is helping me understand the movie more, and it looks good when I’m hovering outside. Shows everyone that I still have hobbies, and that I can make it on time.

Worked all day on graphics, which was refreshing from the normal stuff I am supposed to do. I think my boss just likes me so far because I will do what I am told, thus giving her the graphic that she envisions, not necessarily one that is sound in terms of design. Maybe that’s why one of my other co-workers is working so hard to break me of some bad habits… so that I produce graphics that work on a design level, and not graphics that are simplistic and ordinary. I don’t know though. It may not be a bad thing, doing exactly what I am told.

Drove through what seemed to be the end of the world. Well, the streets had started flooding from the torrential thunderstorm that began to roll over around five o’clock, and so it took me much longer than normal to get home. Several times the lightning struck so close that I flinched away from the steering wheel (as if that would save me from a true lightning strike). By the time I reached midtown it was over, and I didn’t even need my wipers.

Watched The Ruins (may be some SPOILERS!). Surprisingly, not all that terrible. Although I will say it wasn’t so much as a horror movie as it was a gore-flick. I do think it pushed boundaries for me though. I couldn’t watch a movie like Hostel all the way through (and indeed to this day I have not finished that movie, nor do I really feel I can in the future). And if I’d known this movie was more disgusting than it was scary, I wouldn’t have worried too much. And I probably would have finished my dinner well before seeing it.

I think it was the gore that made the film, though. The general plot is of course, hackneyed. Dumb Americans (and Germans this time, too!) decide to hike well out of the way of civilization on their last day of vacation, get stranded atop a mysterious pyramid in the jungle, and are kept there by some angry natives. Subsequently, terrible things start to happen and people die. Then everybody is dead, and the movie ends.

In this movie the only real “horror” element was the weird vines that emulated different sounds (a cell phone, someone’s voice), and that were flesh eating. Yes. And little pieces of them would break off and get into your body.  And aside from the characters carving themselves up… This film only made me squirm because of how disgusting it was.

Interesting though. Like I said, not a total loss of an evening. While I guessed where it was going overall, I couldn’t guess how it got there. It surprised me, I’d say. Which is a good thing.

Well… time for bed. I have a terrible headache. Ugh.

Wow, so many good things can happen in one day. I woke up this morning not expecting anything good, but by mid-morning was pleasantly surprised at everything that was going on.

I don’t want to jinx the run of good luck I’ve been having, so I’ll be mum on the subject for now. Maybe by the end of the week I’ll have something more to say

Whoo, what a week. It’s only now slowing down and I’m enjoying the relative quiet of my apartment, relishing the solitude of the weekend.

I’m not sure what the housing situation is yet, still. I think we may go for that house provided everything goes through. I had a mini-melt down over it yesterday, was unbelievably angry at my cousin (who seems to have changed his mind several times now, but has settled on ‘yes’ so as to appease everybody), and went home tired, haggard, and looking for someone to push me over the edge so I could explode.

I played a game for a while and when my cousin came home, everything must have been in my head (that or he realized that he shouldn’t push me on the topic anymore??), because we started laughing and joking about the game. He wanted to play as well, and relocated to the living room so he could use the Xbox (his Xbox), but yelled for me to help him pick a character name and then navigate through the prison and then around the main map. The scene reminded me of childhood, when I’d spend long summers at his house. During the day I would watch him play the games (I remember specifically Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega). He wouldn’t let me play until our grandfather came and yelled at him to get some summer reading done–and suddenly the games would have lost their appeal.

So we played games most of the night; our third roommate called at some point and we more or less resolved to apply for this house.

I am happy about it, but scared that I may be committing financial suicide if something happens and my cousin needs to back totally out. So scared that may be the case. And while I could float him for a month, maybe two… after that I would be ruined.

But I think as far as the house itself and the neighborhood goes… I am making a good choice. There are better, sure. But there are far, far worse. The matriarchs of the little strip have lived on either side of this new place for years though, so this brings me comfort. I’ll be able to jog outside again. It’s closer to suburbia than this place is, and suburbia is what at least my cousin and I are used to. It’s a house. It won’t have roaches from hundreds of people living around it. We’ll have a little yard, some place for my third roommate to build his bed. And I’ll be closer to my friends, who live in town, and closer to work. Further from LA Fitness, but I’ll cope with that (”further” by only six miles straight up the highway).

I suppose my reservations come from the fact that this is all happening soon, very soon. As in August 1, if all goes well, we’ll have a key and a new lease soon. As in… I can move out of this dump and start living a life without these terrible annoyances soon.

At least, that is what I hope.

These things have been on my mind lately:

• Money, which I never have enough of nor will I have enough of until I am fifty, or dead, or until I win the lottery
• This cute house I saw yesterday. The owner and I met and clicked. Frankly, it was quite odd since we began to uncover similarities in our tastes and interests almost immediately, beginning with one another’s meager and self-taught piano skills, to our respective 14 years of flute playing… A sign?
• The logistics of moving into another/out of our apartment, getting utilities switched over, opening new accounts, getting a moving van, fumigating all of our things, making sure we’re all around to sign a lease lsdkjfapwoeiajpsldfkja;slkj3rpaowiagha;lfkv!!!
• My writing, which has never been all that great, I feel has declined a lot over the last year as I become busier, with less time on my hands as the months go by
• My car’s registration, which will now be even later than it is already in being switched over to the state of GA, mostly due to a gross error they made in telling me what I needed for all of this to happen. Of course, it is not their faults though. It’s mine. Of course. Despite what physical proof I have of what I was told I needed, it’s still all on me
• The impending rumored furlough at Comair, which means a variety of things that upset me and my life
• Money, which I have none of
• My fish, which continue to die. I think it’s the store-bought fish dying. I have five little babies left but I don’t dare put them in the big tank with Puffer, who will certainly eat them. They won’t be big enough for at least another month, but I’m getting tired of not being able to make coffee when I want to on weekends
• Time. I have no personal time because there are so many things going on and it seems this summer will be busy perpetually and forever and forever. I go to work, get home late, do something prescribed or planned, and go to sleep right after. In the morning I’m crabby, don’t get to read, don’t get to write, and rush off to work, to start the cycle again. Ugh
• This awful project at work that won’t go away
• My absence at the gym this week, albeit a much needed and scheduled one. Still, I feel somewhat guilty as I’ve just started to make friends and feel disgustingly inactive (although I suppose not eating dinner for two straight nights because I’ve been so busy has at least prevented me from gorging too much on unhealthy food)

Don’t worry. I believe this is a lot of stress and PMS colliding into one gigantic explosion (which will occur, I predict, on Friday). Hopefully it’ll get better, and my lifesaver necklace will bring me luck and we will get the house, move all right, make some money, and be happy. Hopefully.

Now, off to play a game to get my mind off things, and eat pizza. Then be a dork install my new RAM. An ideal evening.

On Friday, the plane is delayed because of a mechanical problem. We walk around the aiport and look for a sandwich place. I settle on the Atlanta Bread Company, a cheaper version of Panera, and by the time we walk back to one of the gates (where another flight leaving at 8 PM is) the boarding process begins. That gate agent tries to charge my cousin $50 to change our tickets to this particular flight, and he gets annoyed and leaves. We do not even have confirmed tickets; it should not cost either of us $50 to change over (but especially not him, an employee of the airline). So we speed walk back to the original gate, which is now boarding and find that we have been cleared for first class seats.

I get on the plane and mostly read The Other Boleyn Girl, finish up a letter to the boy, and fidget. The sun goes down until all we can see is the burgundy horizon over the dark expanse of twinkling lights as we approach BWI, and a little while later we land and make it out to meet the boy, who is picking us up.

It’s been a long week, and so while the bar was enjoyable (Dad’s band played at Sonoma’s in Columbia) and while I was glad for the company of some dear and rather loyal friends who promised to come out and actually did, I found myself suddenly hit with a fairly solid wall of fatigue. So we leave a bit early (12:30 or so) and wind our way back across the counties to my house in Rockville.

Saturday is The Dark Knight, which I will not spoil here (maybe next entry, when I see it again). Then it is quiet much of the afternoon, but my step mother and Dad have us all sit down and eat a birthday dinner. Banana cake follows, as does the Batman Happy Birthday balloon, which seems to be following me from place to place.

The boy buys me a necklace for our four monthiversary, a smooth jade charm on a tiny gold chain. In the center is small golden Asian character of some kind which I cannot read or interpret. The jade is a cool and mottled, and when I run my fingers over it I am reminded of a spearmint Lifesaver, the kind I used to buy for our friend Dunbar in college as an attempt to win his friendship.

And while I have all kinds of jewelry from several people, most of it is costume jewelry I have bought myself. My father has begun gifting me the old jewelry that he’d bought for my mother, but I find (as snobbish as this sounds) that her taste is radically different from mine; while she coveted heavy gold and dark stones, I prefer silver, light and small gemstones, and elegant, simple cuts in most things. Maybe it’s because I saw her wear so many necklaces, so many bracelets, and so many rings, so that by the end I simply thought they and she were terribly gaudy. I don’t know.  So, the spontaneous and surprising gift of something real, and pretty, makes the relative quietness of the evening wonderful and pleasant.

In the morning, we make it on board a flight. I go back to Decatur to grab my car from work, and then try to nap. The cousin calls so that I cannot sleep, and he and his friend (my new roommate soon) pick me up to go house hunting again. Afterwards we go straight to Acworth to visit my aunt, who gives me a few gift cards at some money for editing her paper.

It is a good weekend, but frankly I am glad to be home, able to do what I want again. More than anything now, I think I need a vacation from taking vacation, just a weekend or two  to relax, sleep in, and do nothing. I suppose I can’t really complain though, since life is going well otherwise!

Friday I wake up early, take care of some last-minute chores and then stop off for some coffee, an immaculate vanilla latte.  At the office I fidget and wait for four o’clock to come around. I gently refuse tea, do my work, and then wait to leave until the thunderstorms pass over. For a while it seems as though I will be drenched; the fog rolls in and the mountain disappears. Lightning and thunder and wind. Just before I leave the sun comes back out and so I walk down to the train station and wait impatiently to get to the airport. Once there, I speed walk to the gate and sit on the floor. Eat some string cheese. Wait for my name to appear on the cleared list, which it does, at the last moment.

So I get on the plane. We fly smoothly north. While the sun sets, we fly into puffy yellow clouds. I spend the rest of the time chatting with the person sitting next to me about crosswords and where I’m from, and when I get off the plane it’s about 9:30, just late enough to justify a quick drink and some food.

The boy picks me up and we drive to P.F. Chang’s for lettuce wraps and key lime pie martinis. We come home, chat with the parents, and then go to sleep.

Saturday starts at six AM, and in the car on the way to Ocean City we eat French bread with cream cheese and yogurt. We chat idly in the car but mostly read our respective books. By ten o’clock we cross the bridge to Ocean City. The haze makes the buildings difficult to make out, but by the ocean the sky clears. We park near the Holiday Inn. The water is cold, there is a slight breeze, but the sun beats down. The boy and I go swimming and within a few minutes I am winded, hardly able to keep my head above water before being plunged underneath successive waves. I generally consider myself a good swimmer, but suddenly the waves are too much for me.

Suddenly the life guards are swimming with us. One beckons me over. Tells me to swim to him, so I do, and suddenly it’s easier. I look back for the boy and he’s swimming too, towards the other life guard. Apparently we have been caught in a rip tide, and had been swept out further than we’d though. We make it back to shore–the waves toss me down a few more times, grind sand into my skin–and lay out most of the afternoon. Later, we take a walk, and then stealthily slide into the Holiday Inn pool where there is a bar. People float around with drinks in the bright blue waters, talk, laugh, swim.

Back on the beach the tide has started to come in, and all of our things are wet. Around four we eat dinner to celebrate, and then drive home. It is a long evening, and today, Sunday, I wake up the next morning around 4:30 to fly back.

And today has been a long day, a wonderful day to crown the end of a long, wonderful weekend.

This week: my birthday. A play? Dinner. Going home again, if all works out the way I’d like for it to. A good week.

The day started rather clumsily; I’d had a dream where I’d been shot through the left hand. My alarm jarred me out of sleep and I stumbled from one part of the day to the next. Hitting things, tripping, and forgetting basic necessities (decent shoes), I struggled into work. My co-worker had beaten me again, arriving earlier than last time. I guess that means I’ll just have to get up and go earlier tomorrow then, to beat him.

And then I tried a new flavor of tea. I forget the brand (not important), but it was green tea. It didn’t give me the requisite caffeine boost I was looking for, and so I swayed some at my desk, pretended to work, but really relied on an obliging friend to keep me awake with interesting conversation until the end of the day.
As my boss was leaving, she muttered something. I muttered back, “Do you think it’d be all right if I went to class today? I mean we have so much to do…”

She waved me off. “Just go,” she said. “You’ll be much happier if you go.”

“Am I that transparent?” I said. I grinned despite my embarrassment. For a couple weeks now I’ve been pushing to get back to these classes; when I haven’t been able to go I have been disgruntled and generally unhappy the rest of the evening.

“No,” she said. “I’m just observant.”

Well, that put me in my place. I suppose I haven’t exactly been quiet about my devotion and love for the gym. Surely bordering on fanatic, she’s gotten me to say something about it every day. Now that means I will have to work on it, and from this point forward be extra productive and happy in the office.

Now that I have my way, life is just that much better.

I have some moderate plans for my birthday so far. It’s in two weeks. The boy’s is in a week. I’m fairly certain I will be going home, but I haven’t gotten tickets yet. I thinks o far all that’s planned is tagging along with a bunch of other friends to Park, a club in DC. This’ll be the first birthday “on my own” (and how ironic is it that I’ll be flying back to my home state to celebrate it then?).

(Also ironic is the fact that the person that I’ve basically spent the last five or six birthdays with is the same person I’ve always spent them with, only now there’s a deeper connection? Fate?).

Here’s to the rest of the week being a good one, and making deadline!

This weekend has been a blissfully quiet one, very appropriate after nearly two weeks of a new job, adjusting to new circumstances, acclimating to the changes in my life’s current.

In the mornings I get up at my leisure, ready myself for a day at work. Pack a gym bag and a lunch, although I may not get to partake in either (the class or eating a quiet lunch).

I get to work and stand around outside because I do not have a key. Read my book until someone lets me in.

Then I work until about 10:30 on various tasks, either assigned or carrying over from the day before. My boss makes everyone tea (I enjoy the Darjeeling tea. It’s in a purple bag. Black tea is my favorite, but it cripples me when I try to quit it), and we stand around and chat and then go back to work. Typically I interact with her more than a few times a day, whether it is to get feedback on something I’ve done for her or to ask timidly what she wants me to do next.

Sometimes I spin myself around in my chair. When no one’s looking I also get up and go to the window and gaze out. I can see the tip of Stone Mountain. Whether or not I see it clearly is a good indicator of air quality in the city on those particular days, and the last week I’ve had the opportunity to watch lazy thunderstorms roll away from us and over the mountain.

When I am stumped, I walk myself to the other office where my semi-mentor is working. Then we chat, he teaches me things, or he’ll tell me where to find what I need. I have hardly any contact with the others in the office, anyway, but I don’t mind. There is enough work on my plate for now, especially with the upcoming deadline on the fifteenth. They already expect me to contribute my part, to produce quality work, and to surpass things that they have already set up. It is intimidating. I find myself, on many days, wondering why they believe I am so qualified when it’s clear I know nothing.

Several evenings I found myself at the gym. I think I made a new friend this past week, one who smiled to see me again at Wednesday’s class.

Thursday we bolted out of the office a little late, too late to go to my requisite class but early enough to go home, order myself pizza, and relish in the thought of a whole three days off.

Friday was quiet. Very quiet, but perfect in its own way. I did chores, cooked, watched movies, and enjoyed myself. The same went for today, although I did not interact with nearly so many people or do so many interesting things. I have discovered though, throughout the last few months especially, that I truly enjoy solitude in its varied forms and have no problem enjoying time to myself. Perhaps that is strange, and puts me one step closer to becoming your stereotypical antisocial writer. I don’t know. I probably won’t know until it’s too late, anyway.

Well, some brief movie reviews for you, because that’s all I’ve been doing lately.

Wanted disappointed me. It had a lot of potential but bad writers who cut corners and left many threads hanging. If it weren’t for James McAvoy I would have ranked this movie just as low as I ranked Shoot ‘Em Up for its sheer stupidity. At least this movie had somewhat believable action scenes within its ‘verse. I wish they had done more, is all.

Wall-E has been the highlight of my summer so far, and I expect it will only be topped by The Dark Knight. It was funny, sad, poignant, and moving. I felt true empathy for the animated character, and although there was no dialogue, the film had a richness to it that made speaking unnecessary. I love Pixar. I will be getting this when it comes out on DVD, for sure.

I’ve rented a few other movies in the mean time, but they’re older and you may have seen them already.

Mean Creek played out like a short story, but managed to take me through a fairly strong set of emotions. I was surprised. Rory Culkin is not nearly so intolerable as his older brother, and the simplicity of this script made this movie work for me, I think. My cousin thought it was dreadfully boring, but I found it to be everything that it had set out to be: a movie about what happens when mean little children pull a prank on a misunderstood kid, and it goes wrong. They live with the consequences of their actions, plain and simple. I enjoyed this movie because they did not get away with anything; the seriousness of what they’ve done is real.

Chaos Theory, with Ryan Reynolds, was all right. Unremarkable, at best. Ryan Reynolds has never been on my radar as an actor to watch, but neither is he unbearable. I think I only rented this because Sarah Chalke is in this, and I wanted to see what else she was capable of. I didn’t believe her as the character she played. Instead, I expected her neurotic self to come out (as Eliot Reid) and begin speaking astronomically fast at any moment…

And…I finally saw The Guardian. This movie was also unremarkable. A formulaic montage movie. There was nothing really awful about the movie except its slight tendency towards the melodramatic, but neither was there anything that I will onto from it. Had a few problems with the ending. They could have ended it well before the two hour mark and the movie would have been fine. But instead they must have thought, ‘What else can we do to make this more dramatic?’ Oh well.