Moving is a very cleansing experience for me, generally.  It's not just about moving from one physical location to another, it's also about purging, taking stock, reevaluating, and rethinking the things I have come to take for granted.

On some level this is about things like the bathroom being the second door on the left, how not to trip and fall while making my way through the apartment in the dark, where all the light switches are...  but it's also about the other levels of stuff that has accumulated.  Friends, enemies, patterns of thoughts or behaviors.  It is now time to take stock, not just of the things I have, but of who I have become and to determine what needs to be thrown away and what I can keep (even if I don't need it).

Overall, I am a more trusting person than I was when I first moved here, but I was wrapped up at that point in a big ball of distrust... with good reasons that I will not get into right now.  I am also a more wary person than I was, not suspicious, just careful...  cautious, even.  I will admit that I am more jaded, but will deny being bitter, since I don't believe I am. 

Maybe it's the move, maybe it's the upcoming milestone birthday (30), but it's something I can't avoid, nor do I want to.  It's time to take a good hard look at who I am.  Even though I do like who I have become, who I AM now, I certainly feel there is always room for improvement, and if the motivation to improve is presenting itself now, who am I to deny it?

So I am riding this wave of the moment.

~FG };^>

I can't ever get to sleep on Sunday nights.  Even when I go to bed on time or early I just lie awake in bed staring at the ceiling, NOT sleeping.

It's insanely hot right now.  I feel like I'm going to melt.  I spent most of the day with sweat pouring off of me.  Moved NO boxes, nothing at all has gone into the new place, but I did throw a lot of things away and prepped stuff to be moved.  Heh.  I should probably do it now, in the middle of the night, while it's cool outside.  My luck, though, it would just serve to wake me up, not tire me out and I'd be completely worthless tomorrow at work.

I keep looking at how much fucking crap I have and how much of it I actually want to keep.  The stuff in boxes is the stuff I can put off until after the move (forever and ever after, honestly, probably), but the rest of the crap...  I just cannot believe that I save these things.  I try to look at it in a detached manner, none of that "Maybe someday I'll have use for this useless item", but I'm still moving incredible amounts of unnecessary, unimportant junk.

Spawn asked for a teleporter today.  Something we could use to automatically transport all the stuff over to the new apartment.  He is not being as helpful as he could in terms of this move, but at least he *is* working, somewhat.  This heat and humidity is very demotivating.  We're both on a two shower a day schedule and all I can think about is how much cooler the new apartment is.  *sigh*  Crossbreeze and a plethora of ceiling fans.  *daydreams*

Oh man, I really wish I could sleep.  I'm preoccupied with all kinds of things, including the move, sex, boys, friendships, how motherfucking hot it is...  all the usual stuff, but it seems like that "usual stuff" is more in the front of my mind than it usually is.

Once again, as happens periodically, I find myself wishing that I could just turn all my thoughts off.  Just long enough to fall asleep, at least.

~FG };^>

This makes post number 5 for today, but if I take long enough to write the whole thing down, then maybe it won't post until tomorrow...  heh.

I am a complete and utter slacker today.  I really should be moving...  I should have done *anything* productive today, but I haven't.  It's been incredibly hot and, quite frankly, I just don't feel like it.  This is not a good mindset for me to be in right now, since there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

I went to be embarrassingly early yesterday.  Let's just say that I think I slept for 18 hours, but it might have been more.  It was interrupted only by a couple of phone calls throughout the time when I really should have been awake...  I don't think they knew I was sleeping, but I don't really remember the conversations very well.  I think I almost went out and just relied on the phone to wake me up when it became important....  it was never *actually* important.

Today, I totally intended to at least make some progress on the move.  I failed miserably.  I did wind up going out to dinner and seeing a friend I haven't seen in months.  *waves to Kate*  After coming home and showing the girls the new apartment, it took me TWO HOURS (I kid you not) to actually get back home.  I stopped at every stoop on the way to socialize.  It was really nice and I enjoyed it, but here I am...  several hours later...  still not having done a goddamned thing.

So here's what I'm thinking...  pop open a bottle of wine, stick on a movie I don't need to actually pay attention to and do as much as I can before I pass the fuck out.

Tomorrow I have no choice...  that's the day I have the truck, I *have* to move tomorrow, whether I feel like it or not.  I also have several people lined up to assist.

But today was totally slacker day...  and I refuse to apologize for it.

~FG };^>

I remember, when I was about 3 or 4 years old having what I felt was a very important conversation with my mother.  "How can people say that you should never talk to strangers?  If you never talk to strangers, you'll never make ANY friends at all."  This led my mother to discuss with me what makes a person safe to talk to and how to feel out most situations and decide which strangers were ok to talk to and which ones to avoid.

While I do talk to strangers, I keep myself pretty safe overall.

One of the things that I taught my son when he was very little was how to find a safe person in an emergency situation.  "If you get lost or separated from me or your father, the best thing to do is to find a mother with other children and tell her you are lost.  She will most likely help you out."  (Uniformed police, etc. are not overly common in my area and uniforms are an easy way to manipulate and trick people.  It's harder to fake caring for children.)

Anyway, I was reading an article about that Boy Scout and it struck me that one of the things that made this worse than it needed to be was his parents ingraining the scare tactic of "NEVER talk to strangers" instead of taking the time to teach him how to keep himself safe in most situations.

"Some clues to what led to Brennan's four-day odyssey have emerged, though the boy has revealed few details: Factors include his partner's failure to follow a key Scout rule to always look out for your buddy, a wrong turn Brennan took in the woods and the boy's strict adherence to parental advice to avoid strangers _ in this case rescue workers.

<snip...>

The boy said he kept two thoughts in mind, both of them instructions from his parents: Never leave a trail and never talk to strangers. So, when people on horseback appeared on his trail Tuesday, Brennan pulled off the path and out of view until they passed."

I hope that people will take something away from this.  I hope that the lesson here that scare tactics are just as dangerous as not teaching your children anything at all.  Don't get me wrong, I understand that people want to shelter and keep their children safe, but isn't TEACHING them how to take care of themselves the best form of long-term safety that there is?

~FG };^>

Gossip though I may be, I can keep secrets pretty well.  My other gossipy friends understand the rules when it comes to secrets.  There are a couple people in my circle who hear most everything unless it comes along with "Do not tell anyone, not even [insert person's name]".  Non-gossips will generally add that "don't tell anyone" and I always respect that. 

I don't even necessarily need the don't tell to understand when a secret is really a secret...  and some secrets are kept from *everyone*, regardless of whether they know the person or are safe.  Some things are too private to ever be disclosed, even in "this friend of mine" vagaries.  I have a lot of respect for secrets...  well, the secrets of other people, anyway.

My own secrets are a totally different story.

Things that I consider secrets stay with me for a long, long time.  I don't tell *anyone* the things that I consider "secrets" when they pertain to me.  As a result, they build up forever, bubbling, longing to be told, to be heard.  When I finally do start telling them, I tell them to everyone, starting off with "can you keep a secret?" and hoping against hope that they won't tell anyone else before I have a chance to. 

I apologize for how vague this is going to be.  There are several important reasons that it *needs* to be vague, none of which I intend to disclose to the internet at large.  "She" is not one person, but rather several people who have said various things to me that I need to decompress.

She says he crushes me whether I like it or not.  She says that I am in denial for not believing it, regardless of what my reasons for not believing her are.  She says I should find out, even if finding out either way could jeopardize our friendship.  She says that I'm being blind or silly (in so many words) and I might as well pursue this, though I have little to no interest.

She says the other one crushes me, too.  She says it's obvious that he does, though I have convinced myself it simply isn't true, if for no other reason than to keep myself safe from heartbreak and disappointment.  She says that I am silly for not taking care of these things and putting my heart and sanity on the line.

She says that I need to be more aggressive.  As if I weren't aggressive and assertive enough anyway.  She says I need to go after the things I want regardless of the consequences.  She says I should throw caution to the wind.  Personally, I think this is a very bad idea.

She says that I should just give up on certain things.  She says it's not worth the time or effort that I'm investing in things.  She may be right, but it's not that simple for me.  In fact, it's not exactly a choice that I've made.  She says "It's just not worth it" and she may be right...  but that doesn't make it easy to deal with.

She says I need to turn my thoughts off.  She says "Stop thinking about it." as if that's somehow possible for me to do.  She says it's possible, but when she says that all I can think is that she really has no idea how my mind works and that maybe, just maybe, she's not as smart as I am...  or perhaps it's not about how smart you are, but the ways in which your intellect works.  She says "You should" and I think "Ha!  I wish!"

She tells me things She thinks I need to hear.  She tells me things I know I need to hear.  She tells me things I can or cannot believe, but She always tells me these things with love.

And that's why I love Her.  This is what makes Her such a good friend to me.

So always, Thank You.  And sometimes...  SHUT UP!  (kidding...  sort of...)

~FG };^>

I intended to write Thursday, but never actually had any time to do so.  Not that that's a bad thing, since I was productive and then went out, but that was a much needed distraction.

This was the early part of the evening:

I get home and Liz calls.  As I'm on the phone with her the doorbell rings, Allison coming over to see the new (still mostly empty apartment).  Hang up with her, toss the phone and take Allison to the new place...  she properly fawns over it.  She leaves and my "one hour of moving" clock starts ticking.  One box moving (as in, pack a box, move it over and unpack) for an hour, after which I am EXHAUSTED.  Reward myself with a shower, then Awesome Mike calls to confirm plans for going out.  Hang up the phone and the doorbell rings.  Chaos and Dad are here to visit.  Hang with them while I try to burn CDs (and successfully only accomplish one of the two).  Pull the burned CD out of the drive as Mike is telling me he's pulling up and run out to his car.  I think that was the first time I was able to stop since arriving home.

Wonderful dinner, then off to the bar.  Turns out *someone* (*pointed glare*) Googled me to find my blog...  and read the whole thing.  *Someone* knows my secrets...  but that's ok, they were secrets I had offered to tell anyway.  I like to think they're safe.  If my guess is right, he is like me in the fact that other people's secrets are safe, but my own are the ones hardest for me to keep...  I may never know if that's the case, but it makes me feel better about my own failings when it comes to my own secrets (ha!  hence the blog, eh?)

******Time for random ramblings once again******

I've been invited to go with the girls down to New Orleans in January or February.  They are *not* taking no for an answer.  So, alas, I think I'm going to have to go (*melodramatic gesture*).  The offer to feel up one of the girls is not (though I know she likes to think it is) the deciding factor here.  I'm not all that interested in feeling up one of my good girlfriends (or I probably would have done it long before now with someone - heh).

Today was the Spawn's last day of school for the summer.  I was looking forward to hearing about the last day, spending time with him and making him move, but as it stands, he got invited last-minute to an overnight end-of-the-school-year party with a friend.  How can a mom like me say no to that?  Come on, I've been known to drop everything to book town or just have a night of barhopping.  I would say no to the barhopping, since the boy IS only 11, but an overnight party at camp.  OF COURSE he can go.

But he has to go NOW.  The voice mail comes and the return call to Spawn's friend's mother and she'll be there in 10 minutes to pick him up.  If I can get ahold of him ahead of time, he should be packed (swim trunks and a change of clothes) and ready to walk out the door, to return tomorrow morning.  Only problem is, I have no land line at my house, and he didn't reply to the email, so there's no way for me to know if he went or not until *after* I get home from work...  he did go.

This is what makes life fun, though.  And since I know he's safe, I'm going to say that this is what makes parenting fun for me.  Being able to say yes to silly fun things like this.  If I want him to be comfortable doing the adventurous spur-of-the-moment things like this as an adult, I feel it is my duty to allow him to do them as a kid.  At least, I think so.

You know, it's been less than two months since I put up the hit counter on this site (though I've been blogging for longer than that) and I've already got over 100 hits.  I have no idea who is reading this thing.  I can count 3-5 people I know for sure read it, but I doubt they've come 20+ times a piece to view it.  Who are these people...  more importantly, are they people I know?  At least some people comment or talk to me directly about it...  I know my secrets are safe with them, but I seriously wonder how many people are reading it just to get the dirt or the blackmail-worthy dish, depending on the situation.

*taps on monitor*

I want to know who's out there - at least if I already know you.

~FG };^>

I didn't *actually* wind up moving anything yesterday.  Probably that was a smart thing, but I'm starting to feel the pressure weigh on me.  I have a LOT to move and not nearly as much time as it feels like.

The apartment is almost clean and, as I start to slowly move the non-essentials over and change things around, I'm starting to realize that my planned layout may not work *quite* as well as I had hoped.  That's fine, though, I am far too tired to actually stress over minor things like figuring out what goes where.

Two flights of stairs, many boxes of books, heat and bad knees.  This just makes me TIRED.  Oh gods, so tired.  FyreSpawn and I worked ourselves sweaty and exhausted, but I don't feel like we got all that much done.  There is so much more to do.  I must attempt to recruit strapping young (or whatever) boys (or girls, but probably I'll have better luck with boys).

I've got my stepfather's truck on Sunday, so hopefully I can get Chaos to help me move the stuff from Mom's house...  get it the hell out of her basement and regain access to boxes of books and to things I never should have taken for granted.

Right now, though, all I can think about is how comfortable my bed looks, how much I want to shower and how the bathtub is calling my name...  "Fyyyyyyyyrrrreeee....   fyyyyyyyyyyyrrrrrreee...."  Oh yeah, let me wash off some of the aftermath of what I already did.

...and maybe he's right.

So I'm moving to a bigger apartment.  Staying in my neighborhood, keeping my landlords, but getting the bigger (and better) place.  I have 10 days to move everything I've accumulated in the past 5 years and get all my crap out of Mom's basement.  I got the keys on Sunday and didn't do a DAMNED thing.

Yesterday FyreSpawn got to see the place and fell in love with it.  He's so excited about the concept of having sleepovers (now that there's enough room), having a BIG bedroom and being able to have parties (again with the room).  We moved several non-essentially boxes and bins to the new place, but we are quite limited in that there's still a good bit on cleaning that needs to happen.  This means that the kitchen and dining room are off limits, so all I can really move at the moment are boxes of books and the bookshelves.

The cable people won't come until NEXT Thursday, so even if we move the beds, dressers and electronics, all my internet access is going to be at the old place.

Ugh.  As easy a move as this is, it's a real pain in the ass.

My goal for tonight is to pack/unpack at least 2-3 bookcases to the new place and still be in reasonable enough shape to go bowling with the Unix team.

I went through three flowers today, all in my hair, one at a time.  The heat still hasn't broken, so as each flower wilted, I had to replace it with another one.  I was fully prepared for the mocking I assumed would ensue, but the flower was so subtle that few noticed it and even the teasing was in good fun and sport.

I apparently made a mistake in sharing the upcoming open mic at work with someone.  She's probably going to send out an email in the hopes of getting people to come to support me.  I'm somewhat embarrassed by the prospect, but also rather happy.  This way no one can say to me "I didn't know this was happening" and maybe, just maybe there will be friendly, familiar faces for me to look at while I perform, and shelter to take when I'm finished and become a bundle of nerves.

I really need to practice.