New Apartment @ MindSay

Well, yesterday the new apartment really paid off in multiple ways. First, living closer let me get to work on time despite oversleeping. Then, later in the day, I was able to run home and take my meds (I'm bipolar), which I had forgotten to take during my rush getting ready in the morning. Since I hadn't had my mood stabilizers, I was feeling a depression coming on for no reason. But being able to go home and take those meds really helped boost up my spirits. I never could have run home if I were living at my old house, which was a half-hour from work, as opposed to the five/ten minutes my current apt. is from work. 

Today I actually heard my alarm (slept without earplugs - and didn't even hear the neighbors' annoying wind chimes, so I guess I've learned how to tune them out), so I had plenty of time to get ready. I even had time to put on jewelry. I'm all decked out in earrings, a necklace, and a bracelet (and a fancy pearl-style scrunchie in my hair). Having my fake nails removed means I can put on necklaces again. There's nobody to look good for at work - my dept. is all women, except for an old, married guy who lives/works in Maryland. But I like looking "pretty" for myself, anyway.

As you can see, my new place is particularly empty yet, but I'm working on that.  I have my new bed and couch coming tomorrow (I can't wait) and I still have to find some furniture and things to fill up the space.  For now it's an "almost home" sort of feeling...

I think these photos are pretty self explanatory.  From the pictures of the livingroom you can see the mess of blankets and pillows I'm currently using for a bed.  Why did I choose the livingroom to sleep in right now?  It's my habit to watch TV until I get sleepy.  I got into that habit because I have some very intense dreams and sometimes I wake up hearing voices calling my name.  The television drowns all of that out.  That and the meds!!!  Astute viewers will notice that the image on the TV at the time I took the photo is the "deleted animation" screen for season 2 of Robot Chicken (I'm a BIG Seth Green fan).

I'll post photos later when everything starts to really look like MY place.

Oh, and it looks like I forgot to rotate that picture of my refridgerator!  Yeah, I'm big on decorating fridges with magnets and so forth.  Shown here is my 12-piece set of Lord of the Rings postcard magnets by the Brothers Hildebrandt, a set of four Celestial Seasonings herbal tea magnets (gotta love the inspirational sayings on those things -- I know, it's corny, but I love it), several Bloom County ones (the one cartoonist to influence me the most is Berkeley Breathed), and more than a few tiny magnets of myself! 

My move into the new apartment is half way done.  Meaning: I still have no furniture, am sleeping on the floor, and waiting for my brother to pay me back some of the money he owes me so I can get a van to pick up the rest of my stuff in storage.  It's strange.  I have all this space now.  At least three rooms to make my own and not much to fill it with.  Trust me, I'll have a great time filling the space up, but it just goes to show you that I've been used to living in small studio apartments that I had to make do with over the last three years.  Now I have an actual real apartment that feels more like a home than anywhere I've lived at in this entire decade!  And that's saying something about how I've lived.

I was going to upload photos of some of the empty space, but my camera has run out of battery power at the last minute, so those will have to wait.  Meanwhile I have to write down a few funny experiences since I've moved in...

My neighbors all have dogs and cats.  It's really cheap to have pets here, only an extra $20 to pay each month to house the little things.  I have considered being a cat mom again, but until my financial situation evens out, I'm not going to make that investiment just yet.  I know the pain of caring for a cat for eleven years only to have him taken away from me and not being able to save him, a pure bred Bombay, from the pound.  I didn't get the chance to even tell "my baby" good-bye.  As soon as I moved from Point to Milwaukee, I fully intended to bring him with me, but the people I left him with didn't know how to take care of a cat so they gave up on him.  It's a tragedy, I know, so when I see a cat or dog close by, I really go ga-ga for the animal.  I think the animals sense this and they tend to run up to me. 

As I was moving in, the neighbor's English Toy Spaniel (a breed I've always liked), an unbelievably cute white and ginger pup, just came running up to me out of nowhere.  It didn't yip or anything, just jumped up on my legs and tried to leap into my arms.  I squealed with delight and dropped everything to pet him.  My brother behind me groaned, "Val, you can't just drop everything for a dog."  But as soon as he said that, four other little dogs of various breeds, all came running up to me.  My neighbors were all yelling at their dogs to back off, but it didn't matter.  These dogs were welcoming me into the neighborhood and jumping on me with love.  They didn't even slobber on me or lick me (something I hate that dogs do) and they didn't pee on my stuff (another thing I hate that dogs do when they encounter a new person with new stuff to mark their scent on, give me a cat any day who just rubs my stuff -- pee is harder to clean).  My neighbors all apologised for the adoring "attack" by their dogs on me, but I just giggled it off.  I was more than happy to be attacked with love!

So just about every other apartment is filled with little dogs and cats.  My next door neighbors have a big fluffy ginger cat named Loki.  According to them their cat is a bit of an asshole, but according to me the cat is just neglected during the day while they're in class.  Loki likes to "talk" to me through the door while its humans are gone.  So I talk back to him.  The result?  I think my neighbors now think I'm a crazy woman.  The same neighbors are musicians -- one is a cellist, the other a violinist.  At night they practice, filling the air with the light screechy lilt of their music.  The sound is both pleasant and only slightly silly.  I try not to laugh whenever I hear one of them fuck up!

One of the coolest things that happens in the early morning is that a fine mist creeps through the apartment complex from the nature reserve.  It's very picturesque and errie at the same time.

The night air last night was filled with the sound of people fucking.  I'm not sure what apartment it was coming from, but just as the couple were reaching a climax, someone's blood hound started to howl!  NOW that's slap ass funny.

This morning I noticed a face print and several hand prints on my windows.  I'm not sure if they were there before I moved in or not.  It left me with a creeped out feeling.  When I found the smear of a lipstick "kiss" stain on my living room window, I was reluctant to wipe it off.  It's just cute.

So that's the first preview of my new place.  Can you tell I'm in love with it?  I really do have the feeling I'll be here for several years to come.

I think I just found my new apartment. It's a some-what nice one bedroom about three or four blocks from where I live right now. The rent is $375 plus my share of the bills (a third of the electric and about 45% of the water and gas roughly fifty or sixty dollars a month).

The guy who showed it to me was sort of a dick but I can deal with that. I had to ask him to clean up the sink in kitcen and the tub in the bathroom before I signed a lease. But if all goes well I'll be moving in next week.

Thanks for Reading,

Mark M.

So, the apartment hunting isn't going so hot. I have called and left messages at probably a dozen different places. I've heard back from three. The first one was a dive of a place, in a bad neighborhood, and was owned by a crazy old man. The second place the rent was too high for my budget. The third they didn't have a one bedroom apartment available.

I like living by myslef, so I am just going to find a cheap one bedroom apartment near where I am living now. The cheapest place I've come across is $300 a month plus utl. I called the guy a while back but didn't take a look at it because I didn't know if the house would be or not, I called again and left a message last week, he hasn't gotten back to me.

Worse case scenerio, I'll have to crash at my folk's for a couple day while I look for a place. I really don't want to do that because that house is a total fucking mad house. That's why I got the heck out of there four years ago.

I should be able to find a place though. Anyways, wish me luck.

Thanks for Reading,

Mark M.