sigh.

its sunday night and i have no real idea where the weekend went. i don't have enough to show for it. im sitting here, on sunday night, drinking cuban rum (thanks kurt!) and wishing it wasn't sunday.

i think my mac mini has to go back to the shop. it has been coughing a lot, to the point of me re-installing tiger yesterday. and then today, it has had 4 kernal panics. yeah, i think it is safe to say that something isnt right. having never dealt with faulty apple hardware before, i am loathe to admit that it is having problems; i dont want to deal with it. but clearly something isn't right. i wanted to blame it on a specific program, but the last panic happened when only itunes was opened, so i dont think i can point at anything but some weird hardware issue at this point. (and software or hardware, a clean os and itunes shouldnt cause a fault — and it is certainly apples fault if it does have issue.)

otherwise the weekend seems to have consisted of me internalizing r's grad school app process, which can't be healthy for either of us. i have stayed away from it, but i think the unknown factors and fear of the future has really gotten the better of me now. there isn't an easy fix nor is there a point to worrying over things i cant control.

have i mentioned how much i hate my next door neighbor? i don't think i have. he plays his tv at all hours at excessive volumes. it really is awful and uncalled for. i want to believe the walls are thin. but i dont think this is the entire problem.

i can't wait to move into an apartment bigger than the one we have now. it is getting crowded. of course, that apartment could be anywhere in the united states almost so its certainly a give and take there.

i'm staring at the photos on the wall. i have plastic hangers that hold something like a dozen photos on the wall in long straight sleeves. most everyone i know has a place in these; i have 4 and i think almost every friend i know is hanging on my wall, albeit in a drunken pose. mike, andru, ben, petunia, me, eric, roxy, goose, ray, carter, my father, even goth robert all appear from where i am sitting and they make up less than 50% of the total. nostalgia is a powerful drug, kids.

the neighbors tv is so loud. its really annoying.

and hey, make that 5 kernal panics in a day, again with only itunes open. sonofabitch. guess i know what i am doing next weekend. arg.

and seriously, he needs to turn that tv way down. ass.

i guess its times to gulp the rum and escape to the bedroom. yeah, maybe being a homeowner isn't so bad after all.

we are in brooklyn. we moved in on the first and spent our first night in an empty apartment on a borrowed air bed. the movers were delayed. many days later, we are well on the way to being settled. there are still boxes around, but mostly because the apartment is being painted and a new kitchen put in next week while we are back in VA. the apartment is so good. we've meet the downstairs neighbors (who have two young boys) and the upstairs neighbors (with two college aged kids). the way upstairs people seem anti social and glum. but we may just have caught them at a bad moment. it is a nice small community here. just four families living in this huge old mansion. we pass in the halls and talk. those who share our floors and ceilings have kids too, so they know about the noise, the fussing, the early hours. we’ve heard ofetn how nice it is to have a baby around.

prospect park is just one block away. a long block, especially now when it is so hot, but really so close. we go every morning so finley can get his fill of the dogs. he wakes up and starts talking about dogs immediately. i love to hear him talk! on top of many dogs there are babies everywhere. and friendly moms and dads. i am working on being out going, joining in conversations at the park, introducing myself and finley. it isn't always easy. i can feel the awkward, self judging creature inside me start to wiggle as i prepare to reach out and make a connection to a stranger. but it silences quickly. it feels good to push past the discomfort and find that i really do like connecting to new people.

so all is well. we are finding the places for all our things. finding the things that need to go back to VA or up on the craigslist. we are exploring the streets. each evening my legs ache a little from all the walking. finley is adjusting well. and it all feels like home…or like it will be home soon enough. i can feel myself melting into this place, finding my groove, finding the places i go over and over, the walks i take, and even the new people i'll meet. it is nice to have a home again after almost three months of wandering. i need a home…i see that now…it grounds me and helps me breath. i feel lighter already, even in the heat and the humidity. it is great!

now i know what it must be like to be emo:

i feel a wistfulness in my soul as i stare at the map of rush hour los angeles traffic. i miss her. somehow, that image reawakens a yearning for the struggle, the time when the search was all that mattered. sure i knew that we were wrong for each other and i cursed her out for her shortcomings, especially the way that she treated the other men. somedays i thought that if i could just find the right path, we would be okay. other days i fought with her all the way home.

nowadays, working from home, i only take the car out a couple times a week. a tank of gas lasts at least a month. the podcasts pile up.

sigh.

of course on the other hand, i can walk over to the fridge right now and grab a beer. oh wait… what's that in my hand right now?

i feel bad. because sometimes, i'm not that nice.

like now.

so it's 10.30 at night and suddenly my neighbor is blasting some crappy movie. the walls turn out to be amazingly thin, since his tv hangs on the wall we share.

i give it like 10 minutes. i should perhaps go knock on his door. and if i get into bed and find that it is still loud, i will.

in the meantime, i turned on the speakers by that wall. i turned them up, turning off the other ones and the sub.

and then i turned up aphex twin.

i would turn it up louder, but roxy is asleep.

ive got it loud enough that it almost drowns out his tv. but not quite. which, considering i am sitting on the other side of the room, is pretty absurd.

did i flip into the twilight zone? first the hit-and-run, now this.

***

i finally walked next door and beat on the door. lightly and then harder. finally with my fist. in fact, i could hear the tv through the hallway, so it wasnt tough to time my knocks with silence from the tv.

and i did this for like 5 minutes. and he never answered the door.

i walked down to the courtyard. the guy has his porch door open and you can hear the tv through the entire courtyard. i cant believe im the only person who cares. i might be the closest one to the noise, but still. its loud.

what the hell?

AUGH. day two of being fedEx's bitch. i have cleaned, read, watched dvds, written and organized an extensive grocery list by where the items are found in the store. i just want out! even though it is 32 degrees outside with a nasty, biting wind.

i can not yet discuss the redskins' game. i am still too disappointed.

something is wrong with my cell phone. some time in december i flipped it open to my mesages menu to find that my outbox and other message menus were gone, replaced by inboxes. i have 7 inboxes. yesterday on my way back from brunch i stopped at the verizon store to beg for technical assistance. i also bought a new battery ; i realized i've had the old one in for a year and they are supposed to be replaced about that often. they told me it would be an hour for the tech support, but that they could also charge up the new battery in that time. i gritted my teeth, left my phone, and headed to starbucks to kill time. when i returned, the man at the desk recognized me and handed my phone, easy-peasy, and i was psyched. as i was walking off i belatedly thought to ask, "you were able to fix it?" at which point the guy said NO! wtf?! was he just not going to tell me, i wonder? so no one knows how to fix my inboxes and no one knows how it happens. frustration level in overdrive! i have insurance and could get a whole new phone for my $50 deductible, but it doesn't seem worth it just for a missing outbox. poo.

i watched "office space" this morning in my isolation booth apartment. somehow i had not ever put together the fact that ron livingston not only plays peter, the main character, but also is berger on SatC. why have i never realized this?

the other afternoon i went out in my backyard for the first time in awhile. i let gus out about 26 times a day, but i hadn't been out myself in a bit. i notcied a cigarette butt right by the sliding glass door, and as i bent to pick it up, i noticed another right by it. and another. and another. my yard was literally littered with cigarette butts. it took me a few minutes to put it together. inconsiderate upstairs neighbors who are smokers = yard o'butts. how yucky.

so i left a note near the front door of my building. i had really thought my days of being a note-leaver for people i was sharing a living space with were left behind when i left the house in VA. i don't want to be that neighbor; i don't want the only thing people in this building to know about me is that i am the girl who left the note. BUT raining cigarettes are not acceptable. i am hoping maybe someone above me had a party and people smoking out the windows or on the fire escape didn't think before flicking, not that someone above me is regularly throwing their butts into my yard without giving a shit. we'll see. as soon as the snow melts outside i will pick up all the old cigarettes and wait and see if any more fall from the sky.