I give up.

No, seriously. I just talked to the realtor who is selling the house I
live in. The same house I JUST MOVED INTO three weeks ago.

Yeah, they found a buyer. And the new people want to live in my apartment. No,
it's not definite yet, but it's hardly hopeful.  I'm angry,
miserable, and absolutely devastated. I don't even get to enjoy my new
porch in the summertime, or the new
stuff I ordered from Ikea that's supposed to be delivered tomorrow.
These people are taking it from me. I went through all that moving BS
for absolutely nothing. NOTHING. And now, i have to do it all over
again.

I'm NOT doing it again. This is absolute bullshit. I might as well quit
my job, which I don't even like anyway, and get the hell out of dodge.
This place absolutely sucks. I'm not putting up with this fucking city
any more. I hate it here. hate it, HATE IT.

I'm taking my bunny rabbit and I'm leaving.

I don't want to be cheered up. I don't want help, or even a solution.
I'm tired of living from stopgap to stopgap. 
I don't care if all this sounds petulant or unreasonable or selfish. I
used to be a really happy, positive person. Now everytime I hang on to
my optimism I just get fucked over. Fuck that. I'm just angry
now.





You know what this is like? it's like the soggiest bowl of cereal
you've ever eaten. You start out with a bowl of cereal and put milk on
it, and then you eat all the cereal but there's still milk in the
bottom. So you add more cereal to balance it out, then you run out of
milk, and you add more of that, and it goes on and on and on. You can
even try a different kind of cereal, but really, it's no different. The
you're still eating soggy cereal forever and ever and you don't know
why you're even doing it anymore. Jobs and apartments are exactly like
that. I don't want to live like this.

I think I'm also going to pretend to be ill (other than mentally, which
I already am) and leave early and not go into work tomorrow. Fuck,
there's no point, I might as well not go in to work at all, ever again.

Somebody is going to pay for this.

And I left my phone at "home" today, too. So much for that. I might as well go live in a cardboard box at this point.

A week ago I was on the phone with my new landlady, going over a few details about the apartment.

The conversation began because I'd called her to tell her I'd broken
the knob off my upstairs door, in a tedious story involving a key i was
never issued by the realtor, an inept pair of emergency locksmith /
assrapists in the dead of the night, an extortionate amount of cash to
pay for said services, my shattered bits of former doorknob hacked up
all over the floor, an attempt to extort another $300 from me to
install a new lock and keyset- hahaha!, and a declaration at one a.m.
on my part to fuck the hell off, i'll buy my own damn doorknob at home
depot for under thirty bucks, nice try, thanks.

I was hoping she'd have her husband fix the door for me, and maybe even
partially compensate my expenses since i was never given the damn key
in the first place. Instead she decided to tell me that she's putting
my house on the market, which, as it turns out, was her intention all
along.  News to me.

Thing is, when i put down the uber-wad of cash that was my deposit and
filled out the application, i had been told that it would be a one-year
lease. Which i certainly preferred, since i planned on settling in one
place for some time. Then there was all the falderal around if &
when i would sign my new lease, which ended up being  at,
literally, the last minute. When i arrived at the realtor's office on
the last evening in January they gave me an at-will lease to sign,
which i did voice some concern about at the time. I was assured there
would be no issue.It was far too late to back out anyways, nevermind
the fact that i'd forfeit my deposit, so i signed the lease. Turns out
I was bait-and-switched, so that the landlords would be free to boot me
as necessary pending the sale of their property.

The other day a realtor came by my house to introduce himself and set
up times for prospective buyers to come view my space. Shortly
afterwards two groups barged in on me in my pj's while i was eating
scrambled eggs- oh, yes, did i mention the lock hasn't been fixed yet,
either? The weekend pretty much consisted of various realtors blowing
up my phone to alert me last-minute of their arrival, and continuously
being interrupted by a parade of people tramping through my house and
ogling my stuff. All while i'm trying to find the heart to unpack or
relax, well knowing my time there might be entirely fruitless should
any of these strangers decides to give me the heave-ho.

My mom says the same thing happened to her once, and i shouldn't worry
since the new people will probably let me stay. Matt has also tried to
reassure me, at the very least reasoning that not only is my place
optimally set up for tenants, but there also isn't anything i can
really do about the situation, so i might as well enjoy it while i have
it. I know he's right. I think i'm just tired of feeling decieved and
uncertain and helpless all the time. I'm nearly always stressed out or
snarky or exhausted lately, and it's beginning to wear thin in places.
I just want my studio, and a sunny chair to sit in, a porch for summer
days, and a kitchen where i can cook meals for my friends.  I want
my apartment. i want to stay.

So after scowling at a group of intruders on Sunday, Matt and i went
for a walk up to Melrose for a distraction, which is about a mile north
from my apartment and has a pretty little main street. I was born in
Malden, and my parents lived in Melrose with me for the first few
months of my life. I like the area. It reminds me a little of Jamaica
Plain (prime artsy neighborhood, for you non-bostonians), if all the
obnoxious yuppies and hipsters were summarily excommunicated, and
instead the blue-collar natives developed a sense of creative
expression. Most everything was quiet and buttoned up for the morning,
so we peered in some windows, including a couple of antique shops and
artsy craftsy gallery places. These in particular piqued my interest,
so when we got home in the afternoon (finding the place mercifully
empty of realtors), i looked some things up. Turns out Melrose has a
spiffy little art scene of its own. Not too suburban, not too
pretentious, not too insular; just a low key civic energy directed
towards fostering local art. I can totally dig that.

So here's the plan: I combat the negative momentum that's been plaguing
me (ie, realtors, locksmiths, moving companies, decievers all) with the
wealth of positive creative momentum that is my trademark. Kerri calls
it my "Mojo". At any rate, I'm excited to get up in my studio and
paint, now that i've scoped out this welcoming forum nearby. And
perhaps that kind of creative territorialism will counteract the
invasive bad juju, and make it so I get to stay in my house.

My house!! In my neighborhood!! with my art on the walls, dammit!

suffice to say, i made it into my new place. After calling the moving
company and leaving a voicemail telling they flunked out, I made
arrangements with Uhaul and recruited Josh, Matt, and his bro Chris to
help shift my stuff. There's a few interesting stories between here and
there, including a few choice rants at certain parties, but for now i
am feeling positive and just wanted to share some pictures of the
settling in process.

 
Buddha, in my dining room:

mmm. buttercream yellow.

The livingroom (they painted over my red walls, nyagh!)

My very serene bedroom:

Uber-closet. Witness the ocd color-coordinating.

My studio space, looking blank. We'll change that soon enough!

view from my kitchen window:

It's amazing what can be done with dishware without the threat of clumsy roommates.

Matt makes the BEST SCRAMBLED EGGS EVAR.
Ugmoe supervises from "his" blue rug.
 

Matt is the only person Ugmoe actually likes.
 

As you can see, he has made himself right at home, and is now lurking under the livingroom chair.

Glamour Shot! Check out the sweeeet mullet.
 
 
 
 

Well, today is- was- the big moving day. Very exciting! Woke up with anxious butterflies at the asscrack of dawn. Puttered around, organized, reorganized, organized [at that point compulsively shifting boxes back and forth], counting down the minutes until the movers arrived. yep. very exciting.

EXCEPT THE MOTHERFARKERS NEVER SHOWED THE FUCK UP TO MOVE MY SHIT.

Seriously, all of you who have been reading my droll, tedious little moving-saga over the past few weeks, please back me up here: Does it not seem to all of you like i have been unnaturally thwarted at every turn? And not that moving is ever easy, but i cant reiterate enough how diligent and organized I've been about every detail? And the universe just keeps on trying to karmically assrape me? WTF?

After the initial panic [tears, fetal position among the piles of boxes, ensuing wrath], i calmed down enough to make a few calls and investigate. The moving company's offices aren't open on the weekend, but i surmised that they somehow set me up to move on MARCH 3rd, instead of february. I deffo had a conversation with the representative three weeks ago about my crazy situation and having to be out of my place on short notice, so she must have made some typo. One little typo, and all my plans are screwed.

calming myself further, i decided that if they expected me to move in march, and i wanted to move this weekend, the only thing to do would be to get a U-Haul and some compadres, and bribe them with beer and cash. So i made a reservation at the local place for tomorrow morning  at 9 (and steeled myself to be  unfazed if the place somehow spontaneously explodes before i get there, thwarting me again), and also thereby save myself the half grand or more the moving company would have cost.

That's it, you see. This is all because i'm not supposed to blow my money on the moving company, because then! yes then, i'll be able to use it for something really lovely later on. Yes yes. This is my reasoning; if i wasn't ultimately optimistic, i would have snapped a week ago. So this is good. mm. okay.

Matt suggested we have one last hurrah at the local brunch place, and we talked to our favorite waitress over eggs benny, and i felt consideraby better after that. Then we loaded as many boxes as possible into the back of the cherokee, drove to malden, and unpacked what we could, and wandered around in the new place for a bit. Matt was pretty impressed, being the first of my friends to see the place in person. it was reassuring to be reminded that ultimately, this new apartment will be so totally worth all this torture. Margarita parties on the porch in the summer, aw yeah!

But i'm not counting any freaking chickens yet......