Unwellness

Spilled au lait

I finally found a new doctor and made an appointment (for fucking July 22nd!), since my hands and feet have been swelling and tingling for a few weeks now and apart from being unpleasant, I also believe I probably have hypothyroidism and am dying. On the plus side, this condition causes depression that can't be treated by the usual medications... also, it can cause mild weight gain. Ah, self-diagnosis.... Ah, the curse of WebMD.

I just spilled the end of my cafe au lait all over this grumpy woman's newspaper as I sat outside of Lyceum , so I think that means it's time to leave and move my sister's car so she doesn't get another $115 ticket like yesterday. My car is sitting in a Friday spot waiting to see our good friend Roland at Swedish Saab Service, and we are all praying that it will be a simple, inexpensive visit.

Eye to eye

I was going to write that for the first time ever I am blogging while sitting in the same room as someone I know, other than Wes, but it's not true. I used to blog at work all the time. I would blog quickly and quietly while 2nd graders crowded around my ankles. I would blog my way through department meetings that I was leading. It didn't matter. In my early days of blog, I was incorrigable.

In any case, I am blogging while facing Asia, who is on her computer doing dissertation-ish things across the room from me. I was here for a while, ordering and putting milk in my iced coffee before I actually saw her head poking out from behind her computer. Then I thought, "Those eyes look familiar." And they were. That is the end of the very exciting story of running into Asia at Gorilla Coffee.

I had one bad and one good day this weekend. Saturday was bad, but after a good long snit I sort of got myself out of it and we went to dinner, where all our cards were declined and we realized we have been spending as though a new home suddenly fills your bank account with loads of pretty money (It does not). Then Sunday I went to Meeting and came home and suddenly decided to cook a lot of food, none of which turned out all that great, with the exception of some really lovely cantaloupe sorbet for Wes. And some passable pitas.

As I walked down here, I had some brilliant insights, some sort of metaphor for my life, and I was excited to type it. I was thinking about how maybe my blog could fill in for my therapist, who is on sabbatical. But somewhere between my dorky ogling of the hardware store windows, and my inner debate between milk and half and half, I forgot it.

Shoulder zits

That sums up my day. My sister had to dress me but as we were getting our asses out of the house at last I realized I have what could be considered a few too many shoulder zits to be wearing this tank top.

I am really not doing well. I have lost all will to unpack. I cannot communicate with anyone. All I want to do is play computer games. I am not playing well with others. As soon as Wes gets home from work, he says something or other that causes me to yell, glare, or throw things. Then I go to bed. This usually occurs by 8 pm.

If I could just get my act together to saw a bit more, to use the new plam-sized electric sander thingy and get those damn closet shelves hung. If I could stop freaking out about who does the party invitations. If I could eat something instead of just drinking beer.

It's just those moments that do me in - Wes saying, "But you didn't call me before you bought the towel rack to see if it was good." Or, "Well, the towel rack techinically fits, but the finish is sort of different from the way it looks on the box. It's kind of weird." Or, "I can do those invitations better on Quark at work."

I can't explain it. It just does me in.

I can't stop wanting to just go to bed and cry. I cried so much last night I don't remember anything else. I cried about having everything I ever wanted and feeling shitty still. I cried because I don't think my friends actually like me very much anymore and I just want to hide and stop trying. I cried because I feel so fat and ugly lately I can hardly bear it. I cried and cried and not even the dogs came to cuddle me.

The revolution has begun

So I realized that I still have the little wireless card that work gave to me (well, that the Director of Technology gave to me... and which he won't mind me keeping....) and that means that I can get online given the right circumstances, hereforth to be known as The Free Wireless Internet Revolution. My father mentioned this NYC trend, and my sister told me where to go. So one block from my house is the really snazzy Brooklyn Lyceum, which has a snazzy cafe with Free Wireless Internet. I am telling you, the world is fucking cool.

So I am here, drinking what may well be the best iced mocha ever (you get to choose from three types of chocolate - I chose dark because I am hardcore) and finally getting some quiet, private time to blog. Ahhhhh.

Since you have all been without my endless, privileged whining for three whole weeks, I will now give you the rundown of Things That Are Hard About My LIfe:

1. I got into the lovely Saab station wagon an hour ago intending to drive to Chelsea to 1) buy a towel rack like they have in hotels (don't ask) at Bed Bath & Beyond and 2) to pick up all the artsy pictures my Wes took in Venice and 3) to buy card stock for our housewarming/my birthday party invitations and 4)possibly go to Crate & Barrel to buy the end table we need, BUT the car was DEAD. AS A GODDAMN DOORNAIL. I do not appreciate this.

2. I have been waiting for a damn long time for my sister to call me back to tell me that I may use her car to go to the stores mentioned above. When I finish my mocha, I will be stealing her car whether she calls me back or not. I brought her keys with me for this purpose.

3. I would like our cable TV/modem to be working now, please. They cannot even give us an estimate of when this will happen. Yesterday and today, though, some nice men were running large wires around in our back yard, so perhaps this is a start.

4. I cannot find the thingies to hold up the curtain rods for the teenager's room, so I can only hang one of the three curtains I sewed for him.

5. I MADE (sawed, nailed, painted, etc) shelves for two of our closets but they don't fit right.

6. I am not on ANY psychiatric drugs for almost 3 weeks now, and I feel physically a ton better. No dizziness, no nausea. However, I am grumpy as hell and have the naggling fear that I will not be able to stay off of everything for too long. However, the grumpiness may be caused by A) moving or B) my period. Perhaps I should just go ahead and get pregnant now, since I am grumpy anyway.

7. I am so, so tired of boxes. We have reached that unpleasant end stage where there is nowhere to put the rest of the stuff in the boxes. We just wander around looking for something to put away, or for a place to put something we have in our hands. This is mostly because we need to have a whole all of built-in bookshelves made but that is a very expensive prospect. And it is not first priority. First priority: a wall and a door for our bedroom.

8. We have no wall nor door to our bedroom, and therefore we basically share a bedroom with my sister at the moment.

9. I very much want to build the benches and planters we have dreamt up for our backyard, but we need a whole lot of concrete bricks and I do not have them, nor can I just swing by Lowe's and pick them up because A) they are heavy and B) my lovely new car is dead.

10. I would like to have grass in the backyard but I do not know where to find the snazzy roll of grass like they have on the British gardening show Ground Force and therefore I am at a standstill on this issue.

That is all for now.
I missed you all something fierce.

Just so you know...

I really will blog again.

I just don't have Internet access (I am currently snagging a moment on a computer at what will be my new place of work).

We went to Venice. With a teenager.

We moved.

We live in box hell.

But it's OUR box hell.

Until Time Warner sees fit to bestow cable service upon our building...

Ciao.

Don't miss me too much

Tonight is our last night in Sunset Park and we are up late cleaning. Tomorrow is the closing and the amazing feat that will be getting all of our shit out of this place in some sort of organized manner. We have to take the cats and rats to one place, the dogs to another in the morning, and try to leave a bunch of stuff with a friend so that I don't have to do all the loads of crap by myself after Wes goes to work. Then we have the closing and then we come back and I take loads and loads of crap to the new place and then take the cats and rats to the new place and then Wes comes home to the new place, now full of random crap, and we paint our bedroom. Then we take the chihuahua (the whippet is staying at the doggy hotel where she can play with her friends and be happier than she would be in a hotel) to the hotel (where she is meant to live out all her days anyway) in Queens. Then I drive Wes to work on Wednesday and take the chihuahua and myself to hang out in the full-of-crap apartment while I paint the bathroom. Then we take the subway to midtown and check into another hotel. Then we wake up and go back to the apartment and await the arrival of our belongings.

Oh, what a glorious thing it will be to have our own furniture back.

We bought patio furniture at Ikea yesterday. It is made of acacia.

So after tonight I won't be here anymore, and I will most likely not have any access to the Internet until Thursday, so thank you all for putting up with the month-long snob-fest that has been my blog-live-from-Sunset-Park. I am aware that we are lucky to be buying a condo, to be owning a Saab and to be staying in the Sheraton. I am aware that for all the years I have spent calling Wes a snob, I am practically as intolerable as he.

Yes, sad but true. I will not miss our little home under the Brooklyn Queens Expressway. I will be happy to sip snazzy fair trade coffee on our acacia patio furniture in our private yard surrounded by the pages of the Sunday Times. I promise I'll still fight for the revolution on the weekdays, K?

Love ya. Mean it.