domestic dispute. may 9th.

so last night, i posted. and i started trying to sleep. and i was in bed at about 1015. and i know i was still awake at midnight. doing tired math regarding the number of hours i was going to sleep. and even that tired, i knew it didn't look good.

at 1130, i realized that some nyquil might make the buzz i didn't achieve not a factor in my ability to pass out.

so i took that, and had a smoke, two hours after the 'last smoke of the night'. and got into bed. and eventually, i did fall asleep.


only to wake up at 2 am in a panic. because my neighbors were having a ridiculously loud fight in the middle of the street outside my window.

despite earplugs, i could hear every word. which was a girl (woman?) yelling to open the door over and over and over again.

i gave them a couple minutes to resolve their problem before i got up to look out, blindly, to see what was actually happening. and the girl was pulling on a car door, the car was running in the street. and they wouldn't let her in, if that was even what she wanted.

i called the cops at 123am. and said, 'i have a non-emergency. my neighbors are having a domestic dispute in the street outside my window. can you please send the cops?'


and they were on the scene within a minute. i guess the best thing about living pretty much in the hood is the strategic placement of a precinct two blocks from my house.

what was crazier is that someone else had already called the cops earlier in the evening when a fight broke out down the street, while aubree and i were hanging out on the deck and heard a lot of shouting, but couldn't make out what the fight was about.

i assume it was the same girl, who that same evening, was yelling from the second step of a stoop, past a mom in the doorway, at someone inside. three cop cars showed up then, driving the wrong way down the one way alley along the side of my house. and they patted down some guys that were walking outside the front of my house, went to see what was going on, and left.


but a minute after i called, they were pulling the girl off the car, while she begged, 'please open the door, they're going to arrest me or some shit.'

and the passengers didn't. and the cops did. and all i could hear as they loaded her into the car literally below my alarm clock, was that she didn't give a fuck. take her away. she didn't give a FUCK. and so they did.

despite my racing heart, and despite the stress of being up and calling the cops and laying there awake until well after two am, i didn't have another smoke. because i knew that i'd be up until 3 if i did. and at that point, i was only getting another 3 hour nap before going to suck store.


i managed to calm down and fall back asleep, i'd assume at about 230. and hit snooze twice when my alarm went off at 545 this morning.

somehow i wasn't late.

and robbie showed up a couple hours later, looking more tired than i have ever seen him. saying he had just been sitting in his van for 30 minutes, literally unable to make himself get out and load my delivery to bring it in to me. he scared the shit out of me, because he will fall asleep at the wheel, at stoplights, on occasion. at least this was broad daylight. but still.


this morning was the first time i had nothing to say to him. i hugged him the second i saw him, wanting to feel better after such a shitty start to my morning. and figuring out just how tired he was, after asking when i can bring aubree by to see him. and then telling him nevermind, when he couldn't even form a sentence explaining that there either was or was not going to be a good time. and told him to let me know if there's anything we can do to help.

that we make a great team and that we'd be happy to lend our services to help him out. and we stood by each other, not talking for maybe ten minutes while i made drinks, before he left.

it was sad. i was feeling awful and couldn't pull him out of it. and he was too tired to make small talk and feel better. it sucked.

and then he was gone and it was busy, and i was an erratic mess. but i survived my day, and made it home to talk to aubree when she got home from work.


like puppy daughter, i was on the deck and heard my bike coming down the alley and knew she was home. i ran through the house from the deck, and opened the door to let her in, welcoming her home from her first day.

and we have been talking about that, and visiting while we wait for the game and corndogs for dinner, with matthew, and probably mike.


mike, aubree, and i make a cute little orphaned family unit. no parents. living freely, and having fun.

while the cat moms are away, the little mice will play.


i'm super glad she had a great first day. i'm glad that she's not in over her head, and that she likes the doctor she's interning with. he's a mess, but she should be able to deal with him. tomorrow she takes her first trip to the mouse house. big day for little sister. i have a clue of where she'll be and what she'll be doing.

and thanks to caffeinating people, i know all the doctors she works with. it's pretty awesome to feel like i've done a good thing and influenced her in a positive way.

i really do believe that this is a great jumping off point for her. and saying as she's already gotten three job offers, before her first day, i know i'm not exaggerating or making it sound better than it really is. well paying jobs being offered to someone who isn't even established on campus yet, fresh after graduation, is a very exciting circumstance indeed.


i've done something selfish that is going to be super rewarding for her.

here's to hoping that all my selfish decisions pay off in the same way. i try to make as few as possible.

and moving forward, i can't think of any more that i need to make, at this moment in time. and that feels better to me. so i'll take it...

cinco de mayo, et al. may 8th.

it has really been a whirlwind. no exaggerating necessary.

and i'm catching a thirty minute window here, to try to summarize as best i can before we have a phils game watching party here.


i don't remember the day after being stranded. it was a good day, but i can't remember why now. i think just realizing that hormones played a part in that disaster was really important, and i was able to put most of those feelings aside and realize that i'm a really lucky girl who has a lot of awesome friends, who set aside time just for me. and that, under different circumstances, i might have had a few lifelines that night.

needless to say, except for the double blister i'm STILL rocking on my left foot from that awful walk, i'm over it. totally.


the day after that was cinco de mayo. i had an easy day at the office, driving a lot and getting paid and stocking up on everything i stock up on in delaware, and came home to cook up the enchiladas i'd prepped on monday.

contractor came over to celebrate, mike joined us when he got home from work. and that helped the time go by quickly until it was time to get aubree from the airport.

after dinner, the boys went their separate ways, and i cleaned the kitchen. which took two whole hours after all the cookies and enchiladas and dinner time. and then took to the loft to prep aubree's room as best i could.

it felt very comforting to know that i had an awesome reason to get that room together, and i was so excited from the time she boarded the plane until she texted me that she was on the ground, that i made easy work of it. i was exhausted from waking up stupid early, but my third wind helped me rearrange her room. we'd gotten the bookshelf up to the third floor so i could empty five bins of books onto it, and organized the loft so it felt more like a bedroom suite than a big ass storage closet.

i felt pretty awesome, finishing that. there was still a bunch of stuff in there, from ever, that i didn't think i could move alone. not to mention, the gaping window and roofing shrapnel littering the floor. but i did what i could, alone, and took to my room.

my room was a STY, and that is a compliment... it was a wreck. and i only had about 30 minutes to work on it before aubree landed, so i didn't get too much done. mostly putting all my winter clothes in bins and summer clothes out. which is one of the most exciting times of the year. thanks to pennsylvania change of seasons, i've been sick for a while now, but it's all so worth it to have windows-open weather for months. and to rediscover all those clothes i forgot about since last spring and summer. there's something wonderful about changing skirts out for sweaters and coats.

it put me in the best mood.

and then it was time to go. and literally, as i was walking out the door to go to the airport, aubree said she was here.

and right when i got to the airport, she was walking out. the timing was fantastic, and since she's living up here for three months, she overpacked. she went in to get two suitcases worth after we hugged hello and jumped up and down for a second, and we were buzzing over the bridge, to the house.


no one in my family has seen the house since well before i left ever, probably fall of two years ago. and as you all know, my house-proud self has been brimming over, so finally getting someone from my family here, who only knew the fucking disaster it was when it was the label hq, was really redeeming.


she made mention that mom had warned her about me before she left. saying something to the effect of our living space approach clashing. my mom was essentially calling me a dirty slob. and though i'm paraphrasing, i took offense to it. yeah, my room gets messy. and yeah, i might let the dishes sit for a day or two before putting them into the dishwasher. but the amount of hardcore cleaning i do here is something for the books. and i know she's only basing her warning off of the surprise trip to phila, when i was supposed to have that surgery and didn't, when i didn't have an hour to prepare for a mom visit.

i don't know. i got upset. but it is mother's day weekend. so i let it slide, and didn't mention it today when i talked to her.


aubree ended up sleeping in my room that night, so she didn't have to unpack and haul everything up to the third floor. we were up talking until about 2 am, and the alarm went off at 745 for our friday rounds.

all friday was supposed to consist of was going to my store for aubree to meet kim and pam, and then upstairs to meet her p.i. for her internship and to see her lab. only he wasn't on campus on friday. so we basically had coffee and hung out for over an hour, goofing off with the girls, while the three of them teamed up and made fun of me. it was cool. i took it with grace. and a lot of laughter.

and while we were there, i got a text from cat. saying she didn't need me to cover for her after all. so the afternoon shift at suck store was canceled.

and at 1045 on friday morning, i was officially off for the day.


what was awesome about that is that i'm going to be working 50 to 55 hours a week at suck store for the next two weeks. because i'm salary, i'm going to essentially be doing half a week's worth of work for free. so i didn't feel any guilt whatsoever taking a bonus day off. i'll probably take a couple more on the other end of suck store extravaganza.


and from there, aubree and i went shopping. mom and dad had given her specific instructions to use their card to buy anything we discovered necessary at the house, in light of her joining our little house party. and i hadn't been grocery shopping, except to pick up some phillies ice cream and pizzas and strawberry shortcake before she arrived, in case she was hungry that night.

so we hit target, and (groan) walmart. and the grocery store. as per our usual, we were goofing off and cracking jokes and laughing the whole time.

i cannot say, with enough emphasis, how happy it makes me, in my heart, to have my baby sister here with me.

i know we're still in vacation mode, and probably will be for at least a week. but the amount of fun we have together is awesome. we get along so well, and have both told each other before that we are probably the only other person we could have as a roommate and not want to strangle.

we'll put that to the test.

but i have faith that this house is big enough for the both of us. and that this summer will be both epic and awesomeness encapsulated.


so i only bought a few things that i needed, since i'm broke as shit for the next month or so, and then she ended up paying for all of it with mom and dad's money. and when we went to target, i did buy some things for myself, but didn't fight her about the food for the house. and then we came home and put everything away.


mike has been so funny since she got here. she's attached to my hip, and he's attached to us. i'm glad for it. we have a lot of fun together, and it's getting him out of his room and giving him something to do other than hanging out with his annoying/ignorant ex, so it's win win.


contractor had managed to work in a favor for me that afternoon. i'd given him the key to the house to give to two of his employees, who were going to finish what we had started: ripping off the rest of the siding, and mucking and silver coating the roof.

the favor is that they had two jobs before my house, so he paid them from that money, and sent them to my house to spend a couple hours working, and didn't have to charge me for it. they work fast and well, and had split the mucking/siding duties by the time contractor came over to see how they were doing, progress wise. i spent $200 on supplies, and paid nothing for two of his guys knocking out the work.

they finished the siding, and took it all down, garbage can full at a time, over the side of the house, by lowering and raising a rope. and matt requested ice cream from the ice cream man. but little did he know, i had sundae stuff leftover from kit's birthday (sprinkles/whip/magic shell) and had just picked up graham slam and cookies and cream ice cream, along with some sugar cones, an hour before for aubree.

so i told him i could do better than the ice cream man, and made him a super cute and super girly triple stacked ice cream cone. it was awesome.

and contractor helped rich finish off the roof, while mike, aubree, and i all stood out on the roof, supervising. i made them massive sundaes when they were done at sunset, and we all had some drinks on the roof while the sun fell.


and then contractor explained how they'd set us up for silver coating. i had no idea what they were talking about. essentially, you grab scrub brushes on sticks, and paint the roof silver. it's super easy, and they gave us instructions. i'd paid for all the supplies for the roof the day before, so they brought everything up to the roof for us. and made sure we knew what our instructions were before calling it a night.


i was going to do it alone when i woke up, because i knew it would only take about an hour, from what the guys had told us. but aubree said she loves doing house related work, and that, until she has her own, she wants to help with mine.


that night, at around 9 or so, we went to sidecar. we were exhausted from all the stuff we did that day, and we'd been eating leftover cinco food all day between working. so we went, not really hungry, and it was packed. mike wanted to go, too. so the three of us set out.

sam said it was 30 minutes to wait for a table because it had started raining and all the outside seating was done for. but aubree hadn't been yet, and was dying to go, so we did. and we waited. i think sam was a little annoyed, because aubree doesn't have a refined beer tongue yet. we'll get her there. but craft beer is not her thing, and she was in over her head. and eventually, sam said cider, which aubree loves. so she had that.

and we got snacky stuff, and finished our drinks and left. passed out relatively early, totally wiped out.


and, one full day after she got here, we woke up at about ten i guess, and got to work on the roof. i had to sweep the roof from all the demo we'd been doing, and then i basically trimmed out the roof with silver coat while aubree brushed on the rest. we work well as a team, and we had the whole thing coated in just under 45 minutes.

it was so beautiful out, and the sun was beaming down. my entire roof was silver glittery, blindingly bright, when we climbed back in the window to admire our handywork. somehow we managed to not be covered in it, and somehow we managed to not get it anywhere we didn't intend to. i still don't know how, it's the messiest shit. oozes like woah.

we came in, got cleaned up, and worked on her room together.


yesterday, aubree woke up determined to completely finish unpacking her room, and wanted all of ever's stuff out of there. also, she wanted some things i had double of, in my room, up to her room.

so we spent the morning rearranging and moving furniture between the floors. up and down, over and over. third floor to the basement, second floor up, and then had some lunch.

and then started cleaning.

originally, we'd planned to do a mini bar crawl last night.

but what had happened was, we started cleaning. and we're both the same: we do not stop until we are done.

and what was awesome is that we tag teamed it. after we did the roof, we put the tarp back up over the window, and cleaned all the demo debris that was inside the house. i vacuumed all the floors, she mopped behind me. from the top to the bottom.

we stalled out on the first floor though.

by 7 i had a beer in hand. i was sick of cleaning, and had to deal with all of ever's shit in the dining room (tables and baker's racks times 5). we moved the tables down, but i had to take apart the racks to move them to the basement, which is why they'd been sitting in there for two months. it's not hard, but i just never feel like doing it. especially since one was covered in ink. cleaning it as i went made the disassembling of one rack take well over an hour, instead of ten minutes.

but i powered through, while aubree watched the end of the phils game, which was a good one to catch. and we moved everything down to the basement, for a truly sparse dining room.

and at 11 last night, i was so fucking burnt out i had a second beer and was ready to call it quits. i only had to vacuum the living room and dining room, which are easier than anything else. and we came in and looked at each other, and went back to it, after literally saying three minutes before that we were done for the night and just couldn't do it.


we shared the idea that today we would truly do NOTHING. so we worked until midnight, and the entire house was clean.

we could hardly stand when we went to bed, but passed out and woke up feeling good.

and today? we did nothing...


she's concerned about getting enough exercise here, which i consistently tell her will not be a problem. i bike for about 40 minutes a day at least three times a week, and as often as possible when i go out after work. i have the gym membership, where i can take her if she wants to go, even though i do not want to go for anything other than a delightful fake tan. but i will, since she needs it. and aside from that, i walk quite a bit, too. so i wasn't concerned. but she is a runner, so she wanted to go for a run today.

my brilliant idea was to ride my bike ahead of her to pace her. and we did. all the way to my store to drop off some cups i forgot not once, but twice. and then home. it was awesome. she felt better, and it was a perfect day for it.

and then picked up matthew and his roommate and went to no gringos for lunch. mike met us there later. we stuffed ourselves, sharing horchata and chips and dips as a table. it's byob, so we all brought beer with us, and made an afternoon of it.

it was super fun, and it was nice to introduce him to a couple new friends, and have him well received. my sister liked him, and mike has met him a few times before, and likes him.

i was a little bummed when everyone wanted to go home and nap after our big ass lunch. but that was my writing time. and initially, matthew was going to come over to watch the game tonight, despite the fact that we both have to wake up at 545. and after his nap said he was cranky and just wanted to stay home. and asked to see me another day this week.

fine by me. i've missed him a bit these past two weeks. he's been very absent. i felt like things got super weird after not going to the wedding with him, but he got a friend from new york to go instead. he said she wasn't much fun and wouldn't even dance with him. and that he almost cried when the couple read the vows they'd written to each other.

it's funny. i enjoy our wholesome dates and group dates as much as i enjoy our one on one less wholesome dates. i've missed having him make me laugh, and the giving of mutual shit. today everything felt normal again, and i think he was genuinely beat when he flaked tonight. i also think he enjoys spending more time with me, so spreading one date out over two days doesn't sound so bad when i think of it like that.


aside from that, lauren gets back from new york i guess tomorrow.

i'm super sad about losing her as a local friend. we've made a point to have drinks at least once a week, and i've gotten to know her pretty well after deciding to knock down the wall i was building when i thought i was moving home back in the fall and winter. and she was there for the ups and downs of sorting out what will happen to me next, and what i will to happen next in my life. and when she told me that she wants to move to new york to be with her boyfriend, i was sad, selfishly.

it's what i was about to put my handful of friends here through, sans the bit about the boyfriend. and being on the receiving end of losing a friend to another city is sad. i'm only less sad about it because she is only a two hour bus ride and a great excuse to go to the city away.

and i'm really happy for her, like she was for me. i feel like it's been time for a change in her life, and being with her boy will be so much better for her, because he's a sweetheart and they are great together. distance is annoying when you're with someone who is awesome.


she went on a bunch of interviews and got multiple offers, so it's going to happen. soon.

and the way that it must feel to have companies vying for you must be great. it's something i would have been into, had i moved home. and now that i'm staying, i have to restructure my plan to open a bar/cafe here. it will be a ways off, which i've been okay with to this point. once the house is done, hopefully in the fall, i can go into vacation mode. and then, focus on opening my place.

it will require a shit ton of saving, since i won't be selling the house. but i will be able to do it, and if i stay in the house with three roommates after aubree leaves, i will have it made. having two functional bathrooms will make that possible.

it won't be long now.


hopefully this phase of being fucking BROKE breaks soon. i know it will. i figure a month from now. but the plans for the house get more extensive by the day.

yesterday, a hot tub on the top of the third floor got added into the mix, for snow shower hot tub adventures. it'll be another $2000 investment, but by the time fall is here, i think i'll have things under control and will be able to daydream about hot tubs and triple decks. sigh... for now, i'll stick to financing away the $20 kiddie pool, because in a few weeks, it will be high time for rooftop sunning.


the house list is starting to stress me out again a little. i think because, as the assessing items get accomplished, five more things get added to the list. it's ever-growing, exponentially.

i called mom yesterday, and dad answered. and talked my ear off for an hour, as per the usual. and gave me a rash of shit about the priorities of the house list. and i think, without him saying it, that he's afraid that contractor is taking advantage of me somehow. i guess because of the bad experience we had when we used the original contractor. but i think when he sees what we've accomplished and the price tag attached to it, he'll feel better.

not to mention, he's absolutely chomping at the bit to get up here and help me work on the house. and i made sure that i told him i want him up here and working as soon as he can get up here to do it.

he bitches about being broke, but can't wait to drop a few thousand dollars on supplies to fix up the house. it makes no sense. by doing him a favor, i'm doing him a disservice.

as soon as aubree got here, she started talking about how dad was talking all through the divorce process, about me letting ever stay here, and that i was the one who left, and how pissed he was that i borrowed the money to pay him to leave, because he just wanted him to leave because it wasn't his.

but divorce is divorce, and fifty percent is fifty percent. so with that in mind, he thinks it's fantastic that it took so much less money than he originally thought, and doesn't say a word to me about it.


i've pretty much decided to take out a home equity line of credit to pay dad back the $7k i borrowed to buy ever out. and to consolidate my own debt that i can't pay off on my own, due to not selling the house. and probably take a little chunk on top of that to pay contractor to do the bigger house projects.


i feel like things are coming together again, big picture wise. i know that every transition period is rough.

when i thought i was moving home, i was sad to leave this city. because i do love living here. but i was so afraid of the long reaching arms of ever, and dating city boys, and running into old friends and having awkward and uncomfortable interactions.

and i guess that starting to run into people, and having them embrace me, changed that. and meeting nice boys to date, and not having to be alone all of the time (just MOST of the time) has been a relief. and knowing that junkie ever will never be anywhere that our friends will be, or where i would be, and especially not anywhere i'd be on a date, i can relax a little and just enjoy being here.

which is so much better than having bad experiences and being stuck in the house and hating mylife.


i guess i'm achieving another level of freedom. and i didn't expect to, not so soon.

i thought it would be six months of being officially divorced (as in, september) before i could feel this way.


and i know a big part of it is having my sister here, and having nina come up in 63.5 days (we have twinkie countdown clocks on our iphones), is making me excited to do all the things we didn't have time to do the last time. and just to have her HERE. man. i cannot wait.

and i told brownies that i am not taking 'maybe' for an answer, because i want her to come up at some point this summer, too.

i feel really selfish lately, cheating almost, to have all my best friends from home coming to visit me.


and i know that living with aubree will be fun. i'm really interested to see what she decides to do at the end of the summer. because i know she will have offers to stay here and work after she graduates, while she waits to go to med school in a year from august. but i think that, just like me, she'll need a reflexive period following her transitional period. and i can't guess how she'll be feeling in three months from now.

but i will make this as easy on her as possible. and as fun for her as possible. and now that she is all settled in for the night, with a completely finished bedroom, she's one good night's sleep away from her first day at her summer internship. i've armed her with everything she needs to have a great day tomorrow. and i can't wait to see her when she gets home.

i'm off to bed now, too. it's early, but i have two weeks of suck store, two weeks and a day of waking up at 545 to dread. and i need tomorrow to be well rested, because i cannot imagine how awful i'll feel by friday. luckily making tips for the next two weeks is going to save my broke ass. i've gotten myself into a bit of a pickle, and it will be nice to not have to worry about that for the next couple weeks. to have cash on hand, for the unforeseens.


and it's safe to say i've effectively cooled from that catfight. i decided that, for me (and i am only one half of the deciding), i think that the best way to move forward is to bunny slope it. i had to wait until i wasn't angry. and i do still find myself tapping into it and getting upset all over again. but not like i was.

i think a phone call is a great way to say what we need to say, and start to rebuild. because then we don't have to see the eye rolls and faces when one of us says something that is hard to swallow. and actually, i'd be perfectly fine to not speak for that first call. i do have a lot more to say about it, that post was half of what it was originally. but i am more interested in her feeling like she can respond to the overwhelming amount of information. and i don't think she'll be as concerned with dishing out criticism in my direction, if i'm not sitting across from her. i think she'll feel a lot better when she gets the stuff that has been on her mind these past two weeks out of it and into my ear. because there have been no 1s and 0s.

and who knows? maybe she needs a week to cool down now, like i did.

i can only control what i think and feel and know. but it feels better to decide to work things out now. because, if nothing else, there's a star party in 17 days, and i can't fathom her not being there, even if it's in a separate tent with someone she wants to share it with, the way i am going to share it with aubree.

and maybe the bunny slope is what it will take to make things right enough, to be able to spend three sleepless nights looking at things much bigger than our differences, and talking about what we can do to be friends again.

because i don't want to see andromeda, knowing that she can't see it under the city lights...