Caterwauling

I just canceled my Bally’s membership (I think three years of paying nearly $50 a month and not USING it qualifies as a good enough reason) and immediately signed up for Netflix (as it took me three years to hook up my f’in DVD player).

This should lead you to (accurately) conclude that

1. I am a blonde (well, a brunette/redhead, but with an Inner Blonde).

2. I am a lazy ass.

3. I will continue spending more time on the couch, but it will cost me a lot less and therefore I will not have the guilt of, “I should be using that gym membership.”

Oh, and FUCK BALLY’s. I e-mailed them two months ago to say please don’t renew my membership. So I got a letter this week to thank me for renewing and my debit card will be dinged again in a week. The HELL?!?!

Phone Monkey: How can I help you?

Moi: Hi, I just got a letter saying my membership was renewed. Two months ago, I e-mailed customer service to ask to let the membership expire at the three-year period. Please discontinue my membership immediately.

Phone Monkey: Is your address still (blah blah blah) Alexandria?

Moi: That P.O. Box is still valid, and that’s where I got this letter. (Editor’s note: Here’s your sign!). I don’t live in the area anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.

Phone Monkey: So why do you need to cancel?

Moi: As I mentioned, I do not live anywhere near the club anymore (Editor’s note: I live right behind it. Why do these reps have the need to look up my ass and see what I had for dinner?) and, well, DON’T use the membership because I cannot GET to the club.

Phone Monkey: Well, if you’re not currently using the membership, I can put it on hold and charge you $4 a month till you come back to it.

Moi: No. I want out of this membership, please.

Phone Monkey: (long pause) Are you sure it’s a good idea to cancel? Because then you’d have to pay $50 to reinstate your membership when you come back around.

Moi: I just told you that I can’t get to the club. Why should I pay for the privilege of someday maybe making the drive to a club I never went to when I lived there?

Phone Monkey: You have a nice day.

Thanks for reminding me why I quit going in the first place (not to mention the rude personal trainer who insulted me liberally).

I’d rather pleasure myself with a chainsaw than pay them another dime.

On iTunes: Goldfrapp, “Tiptoe”

With NaNoWriMo coming up sooner than I’d care to admit, check out the list of writerisms of which we’re all guilty yet we somehow cannot fail to avoid. And despite my being (I think) a bona fide grammatical goddess (although it’s not so obvious on this blog! LOL), I should very well be stoned for having more interesting vocabulary than content. Mmm, being stoned. …

And from Writer’s Weekly, World’s Worst Book Proposals. When submitting your finished masterpiece, I suggest using this line: “After all, hard work doesn’t necessarily get you anywhere in life. If anything, working hard is stupid, and theft seems a lot more intelligent.”

With seemingly everybody and their brother on the interview trail (and/or on a Doocing rebound), I saw this on MediaBistro: You can remove yourself from Google searches. If you try it, let me know if it works, ’cause I just got a big surprise the other day when I found that pieces of a website I killed are still very much alive in some parallel dimension.

On iTunes: Kelly Clarkson, “Behind These Hazel Eyes”

Meet my latest addiction: the Post Secrets website.

A local guy (from Germantown, Md.) shares intimate secrets from others that are too intense for them to keep.

My favorite (so far):

Many thanks to D2 for turning me on to this!

On iTunes: Black Eyed Peas, “Sexy”

Reader Poll Monday:

Besides blogging, what’s your favorite hobby?
Retail therapy. Let’s consider it the only exercise I get and, therefore, it’s healthy.

On iTunes: Sarah McLachlan, “I Love You”

“So how’s your move coming along?”

*bristle* *snarl* *hiss*

I’ve been pitching a lot of crap, I will tell you that much. Bags of knickknacks and failed attempts at skincare (i.e., wrong-color makeup, allergy-induced rashes thanks to alpha-hydroxy, fuck-it-like-I-ever-have-time-to-use-bubble-bath, etc.). And then of course the oh-yeah-I-remember-THAT-hobby joy. *sigh*

And my furniture? Cannot stand another move. It has seen at least a dozen since I was 19. The only new addition I’ve made has been a spindly $50 bookcase from IKEA to replace the spindly credenza-type display unit that so-called professional movers unceremoniously broke as they were moving it from Pittsburgh to Alexandria. How, you ask? They put my COUCH on it.

Fools.

I inherited some furniture from friends who have moved, and it’s in varying stages of disrepair, too.

I was talking to my mom today, who said that I really need to get rid of that couch. And the bedroom set. And the dining table. And hell, can’t I just leave it all here, go get a new place and buy all new shit?

She does realize, however, that I will never get a cheaper place, and as I am spending $60-$65 a week on gas for the car, saving? Not an option.

But she means well — I’m certain my clothes alone would fill a good-sized moving truck. And that’s enough effort to move all that without adding furniture to the mix.

Hell, after my last move, I gave up on the wrought-iron-and-pleather dining chairs. Having furchildren will do that. But did I ever replace them? Hah. If I eat at home, it’s usually sitting on the couch or at my crappy pleather computer chair that falls apart because I lost the bolt that holds the back to the seat.

My friend Shan had given me a lovely wrought-iron bedframe when she left town. Problem is, I never figured out how to put it together, so most of it is UNDER the bed, save for the headboard leaning against the wall. *sigh*

When I was in college, I spared no expense in buying Good Furniture. We didn’t have IKEA back then, or if we did, it wasn’t in my neighborhood and I didn’t have a car anyway, so bleah. I had thought said Good Furniture would last me till I got married or otherwise was shacking up with someone, at which point I’d be doing SO much better in life that I could get Even Better shit.

*bristle* *snarl* *hiss*

I used to take great pride in my apartments. And the fundamental reason it’s time to leave this one (other than eviction due to their fucking renovations) is that I am a big believer in changing environments — cutting ties with everything that reminds us of pain. And while I love, love, love my place, I went through a bad time here too. So maybe it’s time to go somewhere with better karma or, at least, without an ocean of tears filling its hallways.

I had to get a new parking sticker today, which was a joy I simply cannot tell in just one paragraph. But I did ask if we had any sister properties in my desired destination area. Which, if you like Wheaton, Md., you can get a 1BR for $1,300 plus all utilities. (!)

How that area commands that price tag is beyond me, but I ain’t gonna be the idiot to pay it.

I did, however, find a FABULOUS place on the Internet. I mean, FABULOUS. The price unfortunately includes a comma (argh) and does NOT have a balcony (the kitties would be so pissed, and I could not continue the tradition of the Housewarming BBQ) but utilities are all included and there are hardwood floors. Read: nowhere for Maddie to drag her butt after she takes a dump.

The virtual tour makes the place look so PRETTY. The problem? The area. It’s a lovely, clean and respectable area, but there is ONE area of town where I just cannot be right now.

*bristle* *snarl* *hiss*

The reason is best left unexplained, but think about what I said about generating new karma by completely cleansing oneself of the old. Serenity explained it in a recent post way better than I ever could. (Go. Read. Now.)

I get the feeling from my apartment folks that renovations are taking MUCH longer than they’d anticipated, so my Christmas move could go a couple of months later. Which would be fabulous in the “affording to move” department. I’ve had exactly three people volunteer to help me to move, too, so maybe I can breathe and not pay so-called professionals when people who know me care more about my sanity and my stuff than people who are actually on the clock (go figure).

Or maybe, I can dream a little and life will work out “just so” that I can leave behind the crap that now mortifies me at the prospect of people I respect seeing just how gnarly shit has become. But the heavy-ass entertainment center? Still in great condition. (Heh. Figures.)

But while I have the universe’s attention, here’s my laundry list of what I want, and my hope is that I at least get what I need for a price that won’t have me strapping a mattress to my back and hanging out in Anacostia looking for a corner (*shudder*):

Cat-friendly (i.e., no pet rents and hopefully no outrageous pet deposits). Utililties included (I like lots of light and 40 things running simultaneously). Air-conditioned. Dishwasher. Washer/Dryer (preferably inside; I went to the laundromat today and nearly killed myself at the pain). Hardwood floors (I spend hundreds of dollars in pet-stain sprays because Maddie shits everywhere, although come to think of it, she wipes her ass on walls and throw rugs too. So I’ve got to toss all my rugs before I go).

Possibly dog-friendly, too, as I so very much want a Shiba Inu like this Sumi (or if Bayou and Lach bring her out from Seattle, I can keep her. LOL — jus’ kiddin’!).

Wow, I feel like I should be on Santa’s lap, wriggling happily, as I’ve never listed all the things I’ve wanted like this!

Well, Santa Baby, I need walk-in closets. And a balcony! I want a garden-style community — highrises attract elderly people and elderly people just scare me (Shan was on the 17th floor and the fire department was there every night because they were leaving ovens on and not blowing out candles and such. Sca-RY!

I’d also love a second bedroom or a den, but alas, now I KNOW I’m dreaming! I just want some kind of writing alcove/window seat/inspirational area with an OK view where I can dream out into the great blue yonder.

And lord, please let there be intelligent, witty and charming single people with whom I can interact. I’ve got great neighbors right now (quiet, courteous, friendly), and I’d like that plus a little upstairs-downstairs action, if you don’t mind — I’d like to *break in* the new digs as soon as possible.

See? It’s all about having something to look forward to!

On iTunes: Ivy, “Undertow”

In amazing news, I found Inspiration at a coffee shop, and I wrote till my brains fell out I ran out of pages and my ink-stained hands destroyed my new (totally on-sale) white Nine West purse with the snakeskin strap. But that doesn’t matter — my beloved black-and-pink dream journal, themed “Letting Dreams Run Their Course,” is now officially jam-packed with nothing but.

Now to muster up the courage to read it. Else put the damned thing away and not ruminate over its contents and start a new one already, themed “Turning Dreams into Reality.”

And while the madness shall stay firmly between the pages of the journal that will ultimately be buried in the box in my closet marked “Bondage Materials,” I still get a giggle when I read this passage (written today) when somebody said something surprising to me as we were eating ribs:

*takes a bow*

That was the only funny thing written, I assure you. The rest is this weird mixture of reality and delirium, expectations and wishes, disillusionment and hope. Lots of roundabouts inspired by my observations but nothing fully quantified. Like a handwritten version of this blog, truth be told.

And while I still truly believe I need some tangible beauty and color and inspiration in my world, I’ve found that I’m perfectly capable of creating my own in the interim. And even regenerating it when all else seems lost and barren and otherwise impossible to swallow. (Heh.)

In any event, until I get wherever I need to go — in every sense — I’ll just keep searching for it in my own mind so that I will know my Utopia when I finally reach it. Till then, I — we — all need to keep believing that such a place exists, else we’ll rush right past it and not even recognize it if it reached out to trip us. And maybe, if I’m right, we’re already more than halfway there, and each experience brings us closer to the “better days” that we’ve been promised.

On iTunes: Martina McBride, “Anything’s Better than Feeling the Blues”

I had plans on escaping to a local beach this weekend to do some writing and people-watching. It was a beautiful, temperate and sunny week, so GOD FORBID that kind of weather should carry over into the weekend. It’s pouring. Scattered T-storms on the horizon today and tomorrow. Whee.

Seems sort of pointless to travel in these conditions, especially because I am in high need of relaxation and things of beauty surrounding me — not amped-up Virginia drivers and mini panic attacks and CERTAINLY not more drab walls closing in on me.

Suggestions for overcoming burnout otherwise? If I don’t experience some measure of inspiration and freedom and color and escape and time outdoors SOON, my head is going to explode. Or maybe it already has exploded and I’m just trying to fix what’s broken before it outright dies inside me.

On iTunes: Emiliana Torrini, “Dead Things”