cold sweats. december 4th.

so somehow i forgot a story last night. it would have been update two, but i'm just going to lump it on with this one.


the last two nights, i've woken up from nightmares flat on my back, soaked in sweat.

the majority of the time, when i'm having nightmares, i'm paralyzed in my sleep, and i wake up flat on my back.


two night ago, it was almost two in the morning. i woke up because of a metal on metal crashing sound. and i guess that, because i was having a nightmare, the following thoughts made perfect half-awake logical sense to me.

i had taken my wall unit out of the window before i went to sleep. there's a draft in my room because of it, it was letting 20-30 degree air in. so i put it on the floor under the window.

and in my waking from the metal crash, i woke up. and thought that someone had thrown a gun or something into my window and the sound was it hitting the unit. there was no glass sound, so i can't really understand how scared i was, sure that i couldn't get up or sit up in bed to see what had made the noise because i either thought someone was throwing things in or was inside my place. for probably five minutes, my heart was racing and i was sweating even more. terrified to move.

it's leftover from that shootout on thanksgiving. but after those five minutes, i knew what the noise was and sat up and verified.

i had put a cake pan of water on the radiator because the dry heat from the radiator had been giving me a sore throat worse than the one from my cold. it had fallen off and behind the radiator while i was asleep. mystery solved.


so today was strange. i got a facebook message from someone i knew in high school, and even though we weren't really friends, we were classmates senior year. she was coming to phila for the day and i'd agreed to meet her for a drink sometime after lunch and before dinner.

i ran errands with kit, and she texted that they were having lunch instead of dinner at my favorite restaurant, and could i meet then. but i couldn't. they ended up leaving before dinner, so i didn't end up seeing her at all.


so kit and i went to lunch instead, and then we watched some episodes of 'the middle' and i came home. sat down, started to queue up a 'buffy' episode, and my dad called me.

i answered, wondering why he was calling. he's been calling me about once a week, which is pretty odd, but i've been going with it. he was calling to ask if it was snowing and if it was super cold.

but then he asked about ever and the divorce.

which became over a one hour conversation. toward the end, he said that he was probably stressing me out even more by making me talk to him about it.

and i had thought that more than once while i was talking to him. but he's really the only person (other than my shrink) that i've talk to about it for any length of time since things have become increasingly stressful for me.


part of the errands i ran today were for mailing the paperwork and second half of my retainer to the lawyer.

i felt sick on the way, and shaking when i left the post office after having sent it off. back and forth between starving (i hadn't eaten yet, and it was about 3pm) and nauseous.

i managed to put it aside thanks to kit. and then came home to dad asking a million questions. most of which i can't answer at all.


and it got me all worked up again.

it's just so stressful right now.

and i know that i could just email ever and say three things and feel differently about it. but i'm afraid to. one, because i have a feeling i know the answers. two, because i don't want him to know that he is succeeding at stressing me out and pissing me off.

i'd tell him i closed the joint account. tell him to pay state farm the $210 he owes them so i don't have to. and ask if he intends to pay the mortgage for last month or this month.

so i emailed my lawyer instead and asked if that was a bad idea.

along with other questions i have with the divorce in general.


i never should have left the house. i know that. and all of this now is because i have no control over him and his choices.

speeding this thing up is going to be expensive. i thought it would be done two months ago. and i can't believe that i'm no closer to it being over, ultimately, now than i was six months ago when i filed it.

kit keeps telling me to make a list, but that chore seems so scary. it's like, if i don't write it down, maybe i won't have to deal with it. or something. avoider tendencies at their best, i supposed.


landlord just came out and apologized for the tone i thought he was taking. but that no one has been paying rent on time and that his bills are piling up.

i told him i'm under stess too and that i don't take it lightly. and said nothing else, so he walked away after saying that he wasn't trying to say i'm irresponsible.

whatever. got that out of the way. without telling him to fuck off. a plus? debatable...


i guess there should be two lists. here i go...

one is what i'm afraid of. what i worry about.

this one is harder than the list of things to do. i wrote that one out first, proving my own point.

i'm afraid of having to pay the mortgage and not getting it back.

i'm afraid that he'll sue me for alimony.

i'm afraid that i can't kick him out of the house, and that i can't move back in even if i have to pay the mortgage.

i'm afraid that he threw the things for my coffee work away.

i'm afraid that, if he didn't, that i'll have to go and get them myself.

i'm afraid that he changed the locks. which doesn't really matter, because honestly, i don't know where my house keys are anyway.

i'm afraid that i'm going to get fucked over in court.

i'm afraid that he's going to drag this out for the maximum amount of allowable time.

i'm afraid that i'll never be granted my divorce.

i'm afraid that the house is destroyed.

i'm afraid that i'll have to go there to paint and do other things to get it ready for sale.

i'm afraid that i'll have to see him in court.

i'm afraid that i'll have to see him at all.

i'm afraid that i'll have to arrange things related to the house with him.

i'm afraid that he'll find a way to stay in the house and make me pay for it.

i'm afraid to email him.

i'm afraid not to. that all he is waiting for is contact from me.

i'm afraid that my lawyer is an idiot.

i'm afraid that i'm confused because my lawyer is confused, not because i'm overwhelmed and stressed and panicky.

i'm afraid that the judge won't file an order to make him keep up with the payments.

i'm afraid that the judge will see this as my fault and award him accordingly.

i'm afraid that my dog is dead or dying, and that he wouldn't tell me.

i'm afraid that i'll never see her again.

or that, if i do, she won't know who i am anymore. or care.

i'm afraid that i'll have to move out of my apartment and lose my deposit.

i'm afraid that i'll have to move home ahead of schedule.

i'm afraid that my parents won't be able to help me financially.

i'm afraid that the roommates moved out.

i'm afraid that i'll have to see them if i have to go there.


there are so many things that i am afraid of. but this is what i'm fixated on, and have been for the last few months.

part of me wants to pay the bills from his account and play dumb.

part of me wants to drive past the house and see what i can see.

part of me wants to find a person who can go there and spy for me and tell me everything.

i'm afraid that he would see me drive past.

i'm afraid that i'll lose a friend just for asking them to tell me things.

i'm afraid that i'll be in florida at some critical point in the court related stuff that i have no way of knowing until i'm already down there.

i'm afraid that i won't be able to get things fixed at the house before it goes on the market. and that i don't have to money to fix things anyway.

i'm afraid that i'll have to get a restraining order against him.


the other is what i have to do.

get tax paperwork together to show his income.

get the mortgage paperwork together to show what was qualified from his income vs mine.

get credit card statements together, in case he denies that the majority of our debt was from his business.

make a list of everything i left at the house when i moved.

make a list of his business equipment and inventory.

find the car paperwork to show what was financed and when.

find the house invoices for everything my parents paid for.


house related to do list (an afterthought)

paint the walls.

repair the bathroom ceiling.

make ever replace the shower in his shop that he singlehandedly destroyed.

carpet the hallway on the second floor.

paint over the chalkboard wall.

shellac the exposed brick.


it's not that it's so much to do. everything for the most part is all in one place. i just have to look through it all and have it in a divorce box.


on the plus side, i rearranged my most recent mix, and took off the songs i tend to skip when i listen to it, and added in some songs that i wanted to add. and it's solid now.

also, i paid all my bills and have a nice chunk of money left over. despite sending the lawyer $500, i still have $1000 that is extra. granted, that might go to the mortgage. but i'm proud of myself for actually saving up that much money. i've never saved up that much before, so i'm making progress as a human.


to the pile of worries, i have all the surgery worries freaking me out.


and now, because it's getting closer to the time of night when i need to go to bed, i have to stop this.

when i told dad that he wasn't stressing me out, and that it's probably healthy to talk about it as much as i think about it, i said that it's okay to deal with it as long as i don't do it right before bed. because then i can't sleep and have nightmares, and get all worked up.

so i'll sign off and watch some buffy and think back to my days at college that first year. how different and great things felt back then. how i ran around carefree and boycrazy.

and not think about how off-track my life got right after that.