I'm bleeding out...

I'm sitting in the living room of my new apartment with my darling daughter...we're both on our computers and watching an awesome comedian named Gabriel Iglesias on TV, and laughing hysterically.

The fact that we're in our living room and watching TV is something I still can't quite get over. For over a year, Chelsea and I hadn't been able to relax in our living room and hang out together, and this is just. so. nice!

I love our new place. It's full of natural light, and the hardwood floors are so shiny and beautiful, and it has such possibilities. It's true, it needs a lot of work, but I don't care. The feeling of freedom I have here is priceless.

We're on the second floor again, but with a huge difference. Just to get up to our building we have to walk up a gauntlet of steps on a very steep hill; by the time I get to the actual steps to get up to my apartment, I have to stop and take a breather. When I'm carrying groceries or something, forget it - I start seeing black spots before my eyes on the last flight of stairs, it's pretty funny.

This is the type of place where everyone knows everyone else and hangs with each other. It makes me a little uncomfortable, actually, because I'm not the social type. I've already told Chelsea she will have to do all the socializing for us.

So...I think the current school of thought on me is, um, crazy, flaky, scattered, suggestible and absent. That's just the impression I have, anyway.

I think it's because I moved, and so quickly. People aren't used to me doing anything, much less in a hurry. I'm definitely more of a turtle type. I've only made a few major decisions in my life:

1. I had a daughter.
2. I decided NOT to work in a factory.
3. I graduated from college with a degree in Philosophy.
4. I moved.
5. I moved again.

That's all I can think of.

But anyway, this is what I come up with when people ask why I moved:

To co-workers: I had to move because my floor-sleeper wouldn't leave.
To family: Um...because...it's closer to work?

Neither of these seem to be an acceptable answer to people. I wonder why?

.......................................................................

It's 2 a.m., and I've relocated to my bedroom. I'm trying desperately to end this useless post, but my daughter followed me in here and is playing with my kitty. Chelsea isn't going to bed anytime soon, she came home from work at 9 p.m. and this is Happy Hour.

I am sooo old!

I have a tendency to wear my mind on my sleeve...

You know, I just looked at this picture and remembered that movie Lawnmower Man from a zillion years ago...I remember actually going to the dollar theater and seeing it with a friend of mine, back when we were in high school.

I'm so old.

That theater is now a Steak n' Shake, I think.

So weird, the stuff you suddenly remember out of nowhere. :)

My week has been filled with migraine, work, rehab place to visit my grandpa, moving boxes around my apartment, moving boxes around some more, migraine, migraine, work, migraine.

I also fit in some time to watch the MTV Movie Awards, read a little, tweet a little, play Legend of the Cryptids a little, and I felt terribly guilty THE WHOLE TIME.

And...I went to the basement by myself for the first time to wash clothes and nearly died on the stairs. It was dark, and I managed to miss the last step completely. Luckily, there was a wall right in front of me for me to smash into.

Staircases - I just don't do well on them, for some reason.

So...you know my co-worker Mark, right? The one who's now my landlord? Well, we're old cronies at work, we've sat next to each other for years...he's the one I bestowed my window seat to earlier this year.

We've worked in the same office at the same job for the last 15 years or so, and we're considered 'old-timers' on our team. We recently acquired a new person, who's been with the company maybe 7 or 8 months...and wow, I just don't know how we're going to break her in.

I've caught her several times asking our supervisor for MORE WORK. Then, I heard that she went and asked ANOTHER team's supervisor for more work. THEN, if that wasn't bad enough, I overheard her bragging about the fact that she had to go and ask for more work.

Oh, boy.

But the really funny, awful thing happened on Tuesday.

Tuesday, I was sitting at my desk, typing up an email, minding my own business, when I heard New Girl walk up behind me and start talking to Mark. So of course, I immediately ceased minding my own business and started listening.

New Girl: Hi Mark...
Mark (warily): Hi...
New Girl: Um, I was working on some of your accounts...

(Here's me, thinking, OMG, if you even so much as touch one of MY accounts I will END YOU!!)
(sorry...I have rage)

New Girl: And um...don't take this the wrong way...

(Here it comes, that phrase is never followed by anything good)

New Girl: But...WHAT do you DO all day?

(??? Oh no she didn't!)

New Girl: I mean, these are in such bad shape, some of them, and I was just wondering, why...

Mark, after being momentarily stunned into silence, very gracefully told her what he did all day, as he is the leader of our group and does all the things that we don't have to do.

Finally, New Girl left.

Seconds pass by, then, at the same time, Mark and I slowly scoot our chairs back until we can see each other behind the cubicle wall.

Gut-splitting laughter ensues.

We're trying to talk as we're gasping for air.

"Did you hear-"

"Did she just say-"

Finally, Mark gets it out...

"If she'd been one of us, I would have told her the truth.

"What do I do all day?

"AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE!"

This is the mantra of someone who has worked in the same job for years and years and years.

:)

Poor New Girl. It's not her fault she's new and gung-ho, but it IS her fault that she asked one of the rudest questions I've ever heard, and jokes have abounded in our pod the last couple of days about what we do all day.

Besides work, that is.

Miss you all...

:(

If you were an ocean, I'd learn to float

This is my beautiful living room!

As you can see, I have my priorities straight. 5000 boxes to unpack, but the TV and cable are hooked up! :)

I'm afraid I'll never get back in the swing of things. I can tell I'm missing some awesome posts...there's just so much to do here. 

But even though I am frantic to get back online and blogging, and we have so much cleaning and unpacking to do - not to mention worrying about Popa and my brother - still yet the biggest thing I've been feeling is RELIEF. 

A little bit of it is that we're done with the move; but really, most of the relief is that the floor-sleeper is gone from our house. 

I didn't realize how much his presence was weighing on me until he was no longer there.  

I mean, yes, obviously, because I MOVED to get rid of him...but I still didn't realize!

I'm no longer confined to my room. Chelsea keeps her door open. We can walk around the house and talk to each other and joke and laugh and work and argue - all of which we've done this week. We couldn't do that before. 

Here's a new list:

1. No more visitors! Ever!

So...I still have a bump on my head from when I fell. And bruises. And hurt feelings because Chelsea laughed at me. 

Well, she laughed AFTER she helped me back up the stairs, pulled the remaining branches out of my hair and brushed the twigs off my face, and let me lay down and head-bleed all over my pillow while she made five more trips up and down the stairs getting stuff out of the car. 

So I guess I had it coming. And I do fall down a lot. But I mean, two or three days later, I was still pulling thorns out of my head! 

She is such a brat. 

I'm not giving up, I'm just giving in

Chelsea helped me with my room yesterday. We're packing this week, among other things.

When I learned of my grandmother's cancer, back in 2009, that's kind of when things went south for me, and my room reflected that. 

We got through piles of books, DVDs, CDs, papers...the stuff on the bottom was stuff that I'd last seen 5 years ago. It was kind of like an archaeological study on depression symptom #2: not having the energy or the interest to take care of things.

I'm much better now. In the past year, especially, I've come a long way from the dark place that landed me in the hospital back then. I think I've finally hit the right combination of medicine, I have figured out coping mechanisms, I know my triggers...

But this month, I'm desperately wishing to be anywhere else. Isn't that awful? I want to drown my sorrows in something...check myself in the hospital...just lay under my covers and hide forever!

But I can't, because I'm stronger now. My brother has cancer and the pill he takes makes him sick and my grandfather had brain surgery again and he's in the hospital and I have to divide my time between packing up my life to move this week and visiting my grandpa in the hospital.

My grandfather also has cancer again, and this time they can't do anything with it. They're giving him six months to a year.

My mom and my aunt, wimps that they are, sent my brother to tell me the news. He was very no nonsense about it, much like he was when he told me that he himself had cancer.

I just want to cry.

Well okay, I have. But only in my room, late at night. 

I just can't even express how much I hate cancer.

Tonight's the night the world begins again...

There's so many scary things happening right now, and all I want to do is hide.

If I could just stay in bed and cuddle my kitty forever, I'd be content.

I guess I can't do that.

Treasure your family and make time to be with them. Appreciate your good health. If you can walk and run, do it! Drink in the beauty around you and listen to music...and if you are artistically talented, use your talents! Paint, draw, dance, sing and play the piano...the world needs it.

And I meant what I said about family! You blink and they're gone, or different, and all you have left is your memories. Cherish what you have, and make the most of it.

Family = everything.

I'll never get used to it...

Meadow with Poppies, 1902 - Pal Szinyei-Merse

CAUTION: AMBIEN POST

I am trying to write with extra care and precision but my eyes are mostly shut and I'm thinking about puppies for some reason, which has nothing to do with my post...

Oh dear, it's already gone off the rails!

Anyway, just thought I'd provide a weekend update and a promise to do better in regards to my blog. :)

Update:

1. Still moving. I have to turn in my letter by Friday. I tend to procrastinate. I need to be out of here by April 1, yay!!!

2. Still sickly. I have discovered that I CANNOT eat dark chocolate. I was given bad information and so for Valentine's Day, certain people gave me some wonderful dark chocolate to eat. It was good. The ensuing migraine was very, very bad.

3. Dwayne finally got his letter on Friday, approving his disability. TWO YEARS and TWO DENIALS later, and two years of no income, before he could get this approval. Because he has not had access to good medicine during this whole time unless he paid for it out of pocket, he has deteriorated to where now he is in a wheelchair 99% of the time. His poor hands and fingers are permanently disfigured, the joints are twisted and knotted...he has the hands, knees and hips of a 90-year old. He is only 46.

4. It's hard not to be angry at the government in this kind of situation. His savings are gone.

5. But I guess all of us are in bad shape. I know the economy is supposed to be getting better (really?), but I'm not feeling it.

6. My brother, for instance, lived with my sister-in-law and their baby at a very nice house that he had owned for years. Then the Recession happened. The house got sold, and my brother moved his family into an apartment. They had another baby, and my brother moved his family again, into the apartments where I live. It's the WRONG WAY. As your family gets bigger, your house is supposed to get bigger...not smaller!

7. As for me, my rent here has gone up and up, but my pay stays the same. Oh excuse me, the company raises our hourly pay every year, but its minuscule, and insignificant since our health insurance goes way up every year and any raise we see is immediately swallowed up by the health insurance.

8. Okay, I gotta wrap this up because I forgot what my original mission was and I've fallen asleep 30 or 40 times now. Ambien 1, Michelle 0.

9. We'll continue later and see if I can stay awake for Round 2. Should be great fun.

Goodnightzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz................

Don't you bring me down today...

Orchard in Blossom with View of Arles by Vincent Van Gogh

I'm only mildly irritated that every time I try to comment on a post, my comment disappears into the blogosphere. THREE times that has happened, so far. No wait, FOUR.

I'm practicing my breathing.

Chelsea and I are moving! Probably. Most likely. Our new place will be not as nice, is smaller and has no fireplace, BUT it's closer to work and is almost half the rent.

The most important thing and the biggest impetus for our move is that our new place will not have a floor-sleeper.

I know it's a tiny bit ridiculous...I'm basically moving because my squatter won't leave.

Let me be a precautionary tale, although I seriously doubt there's anyone out there as naive, gullible, timid, pushover-y and can't say no-y as me.

I'm going to pick this up again tomorrow when my stuff isn't disappearing into the nether...I'm hoping this doesn't disappear!

Let me know if you have some oceanfront property in Arizona you're looking to get rid of...