Getting Philosophical

Things are progressing in the New York trip category. Not much is “confirmed” thus far, but I think we’re pretty much decided on going with the flow with definite end points for a few of the days. I realized a few days ago that this trip is during the third week of the month. My IMA meetings are always the third Tuesday of the month. Whoops. I get to try and find someone to stand in for me for this meeting. I’m the ever important Collector of the Money and Distributor of the Meal Tickets person. Heh. I just kind of completely forgot about it. I hadn’t put the meetings on my calendar when I looked for a good time for New York. Oh well. It’s not exactly an unsolvable dilemma.

In the apartment arena, things appear to have kind of worked themselves out. This is assuming those ladies at Breezewood really know what they’re talking about and I’m not going to bank on that. They informed us that the current tenants in our apartment are actually leaving at the end of August rather than the end of September so there should be no problem with us moving in a week or so before the end of the month, thus avoiding a “must move in 30 seconds” type situation. They had told us this previously before we signed the lease. When we went there for our appointment, the lady who was there had no idea what we were talking about. It’s precisely this kind of communication problem that makes me nervous. But as Adam says, we were both on the line when they said the people would be out by the end of August. I’m not sure what kind of legal recourse that could give us should they have been full of shit, but I’m hoping it all works out. I put in my Intent to Vacate form last Friday, so I’m moving out at the end of September no matter what.

Now I’m left with the tedious task of changing addresses and otherwise preparing to move. Thankfully I had the great idea of getting my PO box 5 or so years ago so I avoid most of the moving address changes. According to my calculations, the only addresses I need to change are the ones that Bemis has (which I changed this afternoon) and the IMA mailing list one (which I can do online.) All the other (important) ones go to my PO box already or have already been changed to do so. I’m so organized. Tonight we plan to head down to the Time Warner office and put in the switch for cable and the internet. After that, all I have is my electricity. They have an online form I could fill out, but I think I’m going to call their 800 number anyway just to be sure it goes through. When I moved last time they somehow “lost” the request to stop service and I ended up paying for a month that I didn’t live in the apartment because the stupid landlord would never call the electric company to accept the charges. Ok, it was only $20 or something, but still. It was annoying. I’m going to do it right this time.

Those are the two major happenings in my life right now. Other than preparation for these two things I basically sit at home watching movies, bad tv, or playing “text twist” on Yahoo games. My life is boring. I’ve been heading to bed at around 8 lately and I end up accidentally falling asleep before Adam calls me around 10. I usually wake up when the phone rings, but I get the feeling that I don’t make much sense during those conversations. Or I come off as very crabby. He has been spending more and more nights over at my apartment these last few weeks. It’s nice, although he doesn’t ever seem to want to get up in the morning. I’ll have to come up with a more creative way to wake him up than poking him and saying “get up.” We’ll see.

And now we regress back to something that happened a few weeks ago that I forgot to mention previously. When Adam was ref-ing for the 3-on-3 tournament put on by his church, he invited me to attend the Saturday evening mass and then go out to dinner with him and the other organizer people. While he is full-on Catholic, I jokingly refer to myself as “Catholic on Christmas Eve for a few years in high school” because I would play my cello with an ensemble developed by my mom at Holy Name in Sheboygan. We never actually stayed for the service though, as we were just the before mass entertainment. So this was my first “real” Catholic service experience. It’s not like it was a big shock. I mean, I was Lutheran for a few years a while back and they’re really quite similar (no matter how much Lutherans deny that.) Of course I felt like a dork when everyone got up to do the communion thing, but there’s not a lot to be done about that. The lector (or whatever the person who leads the service is called) had a beautiful voice. I could have just sat there and listened to her all evening. The priest was kind of interesting although some of the things he said made me snicker. All in all it wasn’t a bad experience although I’m not sure how much of it I could handle on a regular basis. All that sitting and standing and kneeling stuff gets confusingand annoying. I kept getting my hands crushed by the guy in front of me.

I have a general problem with the format of both Catholic and Lutheran services. They both are very structured and involve statement, response type interactions between the priest/minister and the congregation. I learned from my time with the Lutherans that you can basically memorize your “lines” and go on auto-pilot through the whole service. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t that kind of defeat the whole purpose of gathering and worshipping? If everyone is there saying all the right things at the right time while in reality they’re making their shopping list in their head or thinking about what they have to do when they get home, what is the point? You basically have to remain alert enough to hear the dude in front say “the lord be with you” so you can respond “and also with you.” I’m not a fan of organized religion (or actually, any kind of religion) but it seems to me if you’re going to make the effort to go to church for an hour or so every week, you might want to go somewhere that can keep you on your toes. Otherwise you're basically just going for show. That’s just my thought on it though. The most interesting and engaging church I ever went to was the Evangelical Free Church. They had all kinds of music, interesting sermons, and other things to keep the congregation fully participatory during the services. None of this “lord have mercy, Christ have mercy” stuff. There is no way you could tune out an entire service. It’s too bad they replaced their pastor with a complete asshole who had a problem with my mom so we had to leave. It was a fun church to be a part of.

Wow, I kinda went off there for a bit. Enough of that. I do my best not to make a mountain out of a molehill or whatever that saying is. I’m trying not to place too much importance on that kind of thing but it’s difficult given my upbringing and previous doomed-from-the-start relationship. Oh well.

Anyway, after the church thing we went to Victoria's for a dinner thing. Aside from the fact that I was probably still slightly hungover from the previous night and hadn't eaten all day so I was kind of crabby, it was a good time. The folks there did the requisite shit giving about me dating Adam (or AJ, as he is known there... heh.) They were a fun group of people. I didn't interact with them as much as I probably would have if I had been all there, but oh well. Next time. After a few bites of chicken parmigean (I know, I spelled that wrong), we packed up Adam's plate full of the ocean into a box and headed back home.

Well, right now I’m going to go focus on figuring out how I’m going to get all my crap packed up and moved to Neenah. Ugh. I hate moving.

*Applause*

Don't ask me about that title. I'm not very creative so now I've decided to just use random words instead of anything that makes sense... Just go with it...

So, a few interesting things have developed over the last few weeks.

Firstly, during a discussion at work about whether to send me out to Lebanon (PA) for a week, it occurred to me that I have almost two weeks of vacation that I need to use before the end of the year. I decided to see if I could swing a trip to New York since I know my mom has been bugging me to come out there since she moved, uhm, three years ago now? Things seem to be going well in the planning phase. As it stands, I should be spending a week(ish) in upstate New York the third week of September. Adam will be coming with me. We’ll be driving since the whole rental car thing is just a complete rip off if you’re not 25. So far the plans include Niagara Falls, Buffalo (including a dinner out with my sister and mother to celebrate her (my mom’s) birthday), possibly one of the various state parks, and anything else that tickles our fancies. We’ll see how it goes. It should be an interesting time. My mom has already threatened Adam with the old photo albums. I think she was kidding…but I’m not sure. It will be a good opportunity for him to meet my mom and sister before next May when everyone else (I assume) will be there and the dynamic will be much different.

Apartment-wise, we had the meeting with the new landlord people last week and sat down and signed a bunch of paperwork including the lease. The person didn’t seem to know what she was doing which was kind of concerning, but Adam told me she was new so she probably didn’t know exactly how it all worked. Great… I’m also concerned about the timing of this whole deal. Our lease starts October 1st, and unlike Brookside, they don’t have a one month lead time. The people who are in the apartment now could theoretically move out on September 30th. Since my current lease is up on the 30th, this could cause some problems. I was re-reading my lease last night and apparently I have to be out of the apartment and have the keys returned to the office by noon on the 30th. This means I have to have all my stuff out and have the whole place cleaned by that time. Wow. Now if the people in our new apartment don’t leave until the 30th, you can imagine the dilemma. The management is supposed to be checking with the current occupants to see what their plans are, but they haven’t gotten back to us yet. This could be one stressful move…At least it’s a much better apartment though, right? Heh.

Ok, so there were only two interesting things. Other than that, it’s been life as usual. I’ve been cleaning a lot lately, getting rid of all kinds of crap that I don’t need. I figure that way I won’t have to move it with me. I’ve gone through my four+ years of Cosmo magazines, re-reading them all before I throw them out. It’s remarkably repetitive. I mean, how many ways can there be to please a man? I only need one or two and I’m good… LoL. I probably won’t renew it when the subscription ends at the end of this year. I guess that’s just something you grow out of eventually. I was never a diehard Cosmo girl type anyway. I just read it because it amused me. I prefer Maxim any day though.

I also had a great time cleaning out my medicine cabinet. I found some iron tablets that expired in 2002. Oops. Guess I forgot to take them, eh? I’ve been procrastinating on cleaning the closet in the bathroom. There’s all kinds of crap in there I never use. All kinds of hair crap. In my attempt to tame my unmanageable mane (see, I’ve been reading too much Cosmo), I acquired a myriad of frizz-reducing, hair-controlling sprays, balms, and other such products. I used each one once and determined that it didn’t work worth a damn and threw it in the closet, never to see the light of day again. So I get to go through all that crap and throw it all out. Fun. See why I’m putting it off? I did clean out the closet in the dining room though. I’ve got a lot of bedding I no longer need (twin size sheets? I don’t think so.) I’ll be keeping my full size bed (it will be in the second bedroom) and we’ll be getting a queen, so the twin and king size sheets I have are not of any use to me. Away to Goodwill they go. I’ve given so much stuff to that place in the last few months…

I’ve been lying around watching too many bad movies lately also. Wal-Mart had this whole bin of movies that were $5 and I totally over-indulged in them. I must say that Earth Girls are Easy is quite possibly the worst film ever. It’s one of those “it’s so bad, it’s good” deals. It’s got tons of cheesy song and dance numbers (including the ever popular “’Cause I’m a blonde (yeah, yeah, yeah…)”), a really stupid plot, and some pretty bad acting. Jeff Goldblum was a totally hot alien though… It was completely irresistible. As was To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. There really is nothing like Patrick Swayze, Wesley Snipes, and John Leguizamo in drag. I had the great fortune to find A Simple Twist of Fate, a movie I’d been trying to find for a few years now. I suppose I could have broken down and bought it online, but then I would have missed out on my “Oh my god, I found it!” shriek to which most of Wal-Mart was treated. There were a few others that I bought as well, but they didn’t inspire such glee. I’m a member of the Columbia House DVD club, but I’ve really been slacking in buying my 5 or whatever DVDs I have to buy in order to fulfill my contract. They just don’t have the best selection. Oh well. I’m sure I’ll find something.

The Results...

Ok, so the whole "inflatable" thing was just a ruse to throw me off track. What the surprise was is this:



It's so cute. It makes me laugh. We saw it last week at Sparkadoodles and he decided to go back and get it for me. How sweet. More pictures on the photobucket site. (It says "OINK" inside! Hee hee.)

This morning we went up to Verlo and checked out some mattress sets. We want to get a bigger/longer bed for when we move. I think we found one that's firm/squishy enough for both of us. We'll see. We've still got time of course.

I'm definately going to be glad to get away from here. The noise from the highway is nigh unbearable at night when the windows are open and last night the stupid neighbors to the right sat on their balcony drinking and talking loudly until almost 2 in the morning. *sigh* Inconsiderate bastards.

Anywho, that's about all I've got.

Blah...

Hmm. What to write? In all honesty, my life has gotten pretty boring. I work all day and spend my evenings alone in my apartment watching stupid tv or reading back issues of Cosmo. I occasionally drink too much and fall asleep too early. It's like I'm back where I started but the only thing that's changed is that Adam got a second job. Funny how that one thing seems to have changed so much. It's not just that he's not around as much as he used to be, although that certainly is true. I feel like I just have a bad attitude about the whole thing. I can't seem to get over it.

Anyway. In some ways it's nice to have so much "alone time." Right now, for instance, I'm sitting in front of the computer topless with a pore cleansing mask on. It's very bright green and smells funky. I would never do that if Adam was here (although I'm sure he wouldn't mind the topless part.) It gives me time to do weird cleaning or just lay around doing nothing. Of course I get lonely and bored so it's a tricky thing.

It's been too hot here lately. My electric bill this last month was ridiculous. I've had to leave my bedroom and sleep on the futon directly in the path of the AC a few times. I cannot wait until we have an AC unit in the bedroom. *sigh* Last night was decent and today hasn't been too bad. I've just had the windows open all day. It's still pretty warm but less humid. The weather in Wisconsin generally sucks all the time though so this is to be expected. A few weeks ago it had been practically drought-like conditions it had been so long since it rained. Then all the sudden one night it rained for like six hours. The street flooded (again) and my car practically floated away. (Ok, slight exaggeration.) Ridiculous. Now it's just been freakin' humid as hell and miserable for all those trying to conserve energy. *sigh* again.

Nothing much else has been happening lately. Lots of nothing. We have an appointment to go sign the lease for the apartment in Neenah next week so we'll see how that goes. Other than that my calendar is pathetically bare.

I need some excitement in my life dammit!

Oh yeah. Adam has "a suprise" for me tonight. It's inflatable. I'm slightly wary of it and have no clue what it could be, but he says he's 90% sure I'll like it. We'll see... it apparently takes assembly so I have to banish myself to the bedroom when he gets here so he can set it up. Weird...

I'll keep you posted.