divine angst

Malfunction 1: First train of the morning herked and jerked its way from one stop to the next. After being twelve minutes late.

Malfunction 2: Farmers’ market is TINY this morning, with four times as many flowers as edible vegetables or fruits.

Malfunction 3: The cart escalator at Target broke. While our cart was on it. So we had to ask the security people to stop trying to FIX the cart escalator and stop the people escalator so we could walk up it backwards and get our stuff so we could leave. Meanwhile, someone kept trying to run the cart escalator anyway, causing our cart to get wedged on top of the cart in front of it and go “Bang! Bang! Bang!” This was bad because we had two boxes of wine glasses in the cart. Thankfully, none were broken.

Malfunction 4: Not really a malfunction, just a pain–it started to rain while we were getting the Very Very Last Stuff out of our old apartment, with help from the Angst-in-laws.

Malfunction 5: No room in the car for me, so I took the train home from the old apartment and, you guessed it, there were train problems of the herky jerky kind again.

Thankfully, there have been no further malfunctions. The evening went well. The kitchen is fully unpacked, we have 8 new wineglasses (including some lovely new pinot goblets), and I made a delicious dinner for all four of us. Mmmmm.

Ta!

So Work Club and Moving Club are keeping me SUPER BUSY, so super busy that I haven’t really been posting at all lately, and for that I apologize. The nutshell on my life is:

Tax is more interesting than I thought it would be.
Our new apartment is so much better than I even hoped it could be.
We still have a bunch of stuff at the old apartment that has to be dealt with this weekend.
Mr. Angst graduates this weekend and the Angst-in-laws will be here, so there’s a time management problem looming.
Journal stuff looms and looms and looms. And looms.

Um, yeah. That’s my life. That and trying to figure out where all of our books go, now that we’ve gotten rid of two of our bookshelves. (We haven’t actually gotten rid of them; if anyone in Our City needs bookshelves or a honey oak media shelf (or a baker’s rack or wire storage shelving for that matter), should Let Me Know.)

If one more person posts about The Sopranos without spoiler tags or warnings, I’m gonna get pissed. Because of Comcast’s ineptitude in EVERYTHING, we still do not have HBO at our new apartment and I still have not seen the finale. So SHUSH.

Thank you.

I think it finally hit me.

That is: the lack of sleep, the non-stop packing and editing and editing and packing, the general worry about whether I’m doing enough at my summer job, and the stupid, stupid weather.

I think I’ve been pretty tireless for the last two weeks–and that’s good, because I needed to be–but I think it’s finally caught up to me. I’m wiped. I’m wiped and I’m pissy and I’m brain dead. I reread the same two sentences twelve times this evening (while trying to make up for some lost hours at work), and I still couldn’t tell you what they said, or why they were important. At home, I find myself unable to concentrate on finishing one task–I keep getting distracted into doing something else. Everything seems sort of hazy.

I keep reminding myself that tomorrow is moving day and we’ll be done with all this soon, and that I’m taking a little vacation this weekend (albeit work-related). And that when I get back on Sunday things will look better, clearer, brighter. But right now, I just want to hide my head in the sand and sleep.

Apparently I don’t sleep any more. I go to bed late and I get up early. I wake up hours, or at least significant portions of an hour, before my alarm goes off. I can’t go back to sleep, even when I try thinking about the really cool dream I was having (and that almost always works).

I’m hoping this extended stretch of psuedo-insomnia (insomnia for me, who is accustomed to sleeping 8 hours at LEAST) is only related to the journal duties I’ve essentially finished (for the time) and the move. I’m hoping I’ll sleep like a baby on Tuesday night. I’m hoping this lack of sleep isn’t affecting me in other ways.

In any case, the apartment is very nearly completely packed up–we have all the most important stuff in boxes. All of the food is still in its usual place, but I’m less worried about my spices and nonperishables (and the scant collection of stuff in the fridge) than I am about things like the cover and pillows on the futon and bed (must be packed up by 8 am tomorrow) as well as the ulcer I’m pretty sure Himself is developing. Lucky for him, he gets to go to the vet today and play with his friends. When he comes home, he’ll be coming home to a new place. I hope it’s as much a relief for him as it will be for me.

After a full day of boxing stuff up, I now actually feel like we’re moving this week. We have only a narrow strip of floor to walk on, foam peanuts and packing paper litters the floor in the kitchen, and I’m starting to get that edgy tummy feeling.

It’s always this way for the few days leading up to a move with me. I start to feel really crappy about moving, between getting nostalgic about the place we’re leaving and dreading having to get settled in the new place. And it’s not just about getting our stuff settled in. It’s more about me getting settled in–finding the neighborhood spots as well as learning the tricks about which outlets are switched and how best to arrange the clothes in the closet.

So I’m in that place right now. The next day and a half won’t be fun. But when I go home from work on Tuesday, I’ll be going home to a new place, and that’ll be really nice.^[1]

1. As stressed out as I am right now, too, I can’t imagine how much worse I’d be if we didn’t have a full month left to get everything out of the current place. The money guilt isn’t enough to make me regret that decision. ↩

My last offer of furniture here was incredibly successful–my coffee table and end table are now gone, to a reader. I’m glad the set goes to a good home; it’s good stuff, just doesn’t match the rest of our stuff any more.

In light of all that, I’m offering MORE furniture! If you live in my city or know someone else who does, I have bunches more stuff to sell (well, practically give away). We have a media bookcase that fits CDs and DVDs perfectly (and so is very slim in profile–handy!). We have some bookshelves. We have an old TV stand that’s perfectly serviceable, if inexpensive. And we have some wire shelving (purchased at The Container Store–the kind where you buy the poles and the shelves and then you put it all together yourself). Finally, we have a baker’s rack, which I LOVE, but for which there is no place in our new, open-floorplan apartment.

Can you tell I’ve got moving on my mind? I’ve been packing up the kitchen this morning, and it seems to be going well. The best part about packing up the kitchen this time is that we are not taking our dishes with us. We are getting NEW dishes, so I’m leaving the old ones here and will offer them to anyone who wants them, as well. (It’s good stuff, but a couple of the plates and bowls are chipped.)

OK, my break is over. Back to work!

I think I may have some mental relaxation time coming up now. I’ve finished most of my intellectually demanding tasks–at least for now–and all that’s in front of me is The Move. The Move involves some non-relaxation time, but that non-relaxation time is largely non-intellectual, non-relaxation time. I.e., physical labor. Packing and lifting. Lifting and packing. Things I can do without mental stress. Or much mental stress; I will continue to worry about getting everything done “on time.”

Anyway, it’s Saturday, I finished some important work, I’ve been out with some friends, and I’m going to meet up with some old college friends in a bit. So it’s been a good day.

In addition to taking advantage of the available car this weekend to move a small load of fragiles to the new apartment, we also took advantage of it to pick up the furniture we had been planning to buy. We had wanted matching living room furniture–the wood stuff, not the upholstered stuff. (I.e., no couches and chairs.)

So a month or so ago, we had looked into buying some new furniture, and found a set we liked at Crate & Barrel. Best of all, the stuff we liked was the “ready to assemble” stuff–and therefore cheaper. I mean, I have a paycheck and all, but it’s still just a summer gig.

We stopped in today, then, to see if the store in town had our stuff in stock (they did, except for one end table) and if we could take it home Right Now (we could, except for the one backordered end table). We brought it home to the old apartment (which kind of sucks, but works out well, since the movers can move it next week) and I promptly put together the new coffee table.

Kids, I Love It. It is bee-yoo-tiful. It has sliding doors instead of an open shelf, so it hides whatever crap we want to put in it. It has a lovely smooth finish, it’s a beautiful color, it’s even a good size (it’s a little big, but that’s probably just in our current place, which hasn’t really had room for a coffee table). Best of all, it’s good, solid stuff. Sure, I had to assemble it, but it’s still good, solid stuff. I mean, there weren’t any wood-colored pieces of cardboard to be nailed to it.

So, we have new furniture. I’ll take a crack at the one end table we could bring home later this week, and the media console…sometime. And I’ll enjoy it, very much. It feels very grown up.

Um, I haven’t been posting much, have I? (Nothing substantive, at least.) That’s because I’ve been really busy. The end of my week saw me scrambling to finish up an assignment at work (it had to be done by Friday), spending some time in the library, working on some journal stuff, visiting with some in-town family, and packing some boxes. Today, that family that are visiting are going to help us trot a load of stuff up to our new place. Our lease doesn’t start till Friday, but we have the keys already and they’re in town with a car, and I just want to drop off things I don’t trust the movers with or that are a pain to box up (like, our china and crystal and our stacks of winter coats). I’m planning to just tuck the stuff away–we’re not moving in yet or anything, we’re just taking advantage of the available vehicle. And did I mention we already have the keys?

A few other notes:

1) I have decided no one should start a sentence with the word “Thus.”
2) Himself knows something is going on–he’s been sort of squidgy for a couple of days now, and I think he’s worried we’re going to move away without him.
3) I am selling a bunch of stuff (furniture-type things), so if you’re in my city, let me know if you want a coffee table or some bookshelves. Or a baker’s rack.

I’m trying to get motivated to start the packing process, but all I really want to do right now is go shopping, finish my edits, and watch TV. Some of those things are good things (i.e., the edits have to get done, right?) and some of them are less good (shopping needs to happen, but it’s not totally urgent; TV watching is bad).

Today has just been a day.

I’m dealing with some unpleasant duties, some dealing with Word (which, um, I. Hate.) and some dealing with people (who, sometimes, I. Really. Don’t. Like.). I’m trying to figure out a good schedule for studying for Admin and Con Crim Pro. I’m trying not to get too excited that today is Lease Signing Day. And I’m trying to decide if I should push my start date at work back a week so I can attack the edits I have due with total concentration. (I’m thinking that wouldn’t work; I’m not much of a total concentration kind of person. I can hyperfocus on something for about an hour or two, and then I need to switch gears. Plus, I want that extra week of cash.)

So basically I’m just not in a very happy mood today. I’m not in a BAD mood, per se, I’m just not very happy nor am I, probably, at all pleasant to be around. I’m going to try and get over that here in a bit so I can enjoy Lease Signing Day (or Hour) this evening, and also not be completely worthless for continuing to get my work done.

See? I can’t even write good anymore.

If anything could cement my desire to move (again, for the fourth time in three two years^[1]) it would be the fact that we’ve had to flee our home today to get any work done because our upstairs neighbors are playing their music too loud. I’m sure they have no idea how loud their music is to us–this isn’t bad faith on their part–but that doesn’t make the noise tolerable. At all. Even worse, their stereo is DIRECTLY above our table, where I do the bulk of my work, so I bear the brunt of it.

Lest I seem completely negative about the whole thing, I’ll note how delightful it is to be out of the apartment today, even if just for the duration of a walk to the coffeehouse. It’s about 80 degrees, sunny, breezy, and absolutely DELIGHTFUL outside. I can see the sunshine from our table, as well as all the people in their shorts and flip flops, walking their (very happy) dogs. Things could be worse.

Studying update: I’m halfway through my Admin outline, and I’m pretty pleased with it. I’ve also decided not to worry about the jinxing effect of saying such things–confidence is the name of the game, really, when it comes to law school, so I’m letting myself feel good about the work I’ve done for this class so far.

1. Mr. Angst has corrected me, and this makes it even worse. FOUR MOVES in TWO YEARS. Seriously barf. ↩

OK. I have written a check for the deposit. The landlord has confirmed our preferred move-in date. We have to be approved by the building management (a formality, apparently), reserve our move-in date with the building, and pay some weird fee for the freight elevator. We also have to sign the lease, get keys and the garage clicker, and, oh yes, give notice to our current landlord. But it’s basically a done deal, and I am SO excited.

But I have questions:

First, do I wait till we’ve signed the lease to give notice to our current landlord? The building approval is a formality, yes, but it’s still a hoop, right? I want to give our landlord enough time that if he wants to rent it out half a month early, say, he has time to do that. (We’re doubling a month, sigh.)

Second, is it OK for me to get a little freaked out right now? I LOVE the apartment we’re moving into and would sign a two year lease HAPPILY if it weren’t for the pesky issue of possible clerkships not in Our Current City (and job opportunities for Mr. Angst that could take us to Places East). But it’s a little spendier than I had hoped we’d end up paying (even though totally worth it, I think), and, well, we’re having to move again. And pay for movers and probably some new furniture and all that transition stuff.

I am guessing the second question arises from a little bit of buyer’s remorse–fairly typical of me, I think. But it’s still not pleasant to be so twitchy and nervousy.

Oh, and also? I only have about half of my brief written, and it’s due tomorrow. Eek!

So we may have found a place. Waves that there are no problems with the application.

Today I attended my last classes as a 2L. Somewhat anticlimactic, to be honest. Since then, I’ve made several more appointments to see apartments (tomorrow), done some administrative stuff relating to journal duties, and done some work on my seminar brief, due in three days. The seminar brief concerns me the most right now, since I haven’t written a brief since legal writing as a 1L and I’m not sure I know how anymore; also, I’ll probably spend most of tomorrow away from my computer, unable to work on the seminar brief, so I’ll likely end up pulling an all-nighter at some point this week. Oh yeah, that’s because I’m supposed to study with some friends on Wednesday. At this point, I imagine I’ll show up and just absorb and listen and converse rather than actually proffer any pearls of wisdom or gleaned understandings.

But if I can get past Thursday, and the turning in of the brief, I think I will make it. That all assumes we find a place to live while we’re out looking tomorrow. I’ve really packed our day, hoping something will bear fruit, because I can’t keep taking days off to look at apartments. Really.

Is it really necessary to turn the volume on your TV up so loud that it can be heard from the street (and, more importantly, in my workspace)? I can tell they are watching something on SportsCenter while I am trying to work. THEY SUCK.

Two more months.^[1]

1. Yes, we are moving again. Don’t know where yet, but out of here, that’s for sure. ↩

Dear Downstairs, Dirty, Loud Neighbors:

I mean, really. You’re moving. I saw you loading shit out of your apartment today. I saw instruments being carried out. And you’ve been so good over the last week and a half–keeping relatively quiet, making yourselves scarce.

So why, WHY, did you decide to start playing music NOW? Right when I am about to EAT DINNER?

OH MY GOD. YOU SUCK.

Toodles!
k

God, they are SO LOUD.

I have NEVER lived in a building with people this loud. Currently, they are jamming–their band, that is. Drums, electric guitar, electric bass. LOUD. We have teh TV turned up pretty damn loud so we can hear the football game, and it’s still almost not loud enough.

I keep telling myself, “Twelve more days, twelve more days…” Usually that sort of thing works. But tonight I am not so happy. Not so willing to be relaxed about it all. Maybe it’s because this morning, the neighbors UPSTAIRS were playing music at 8 am, loudly, while I was trying to catch a few more Zs. Honestly, I wasn’t so bothered by it, but I was really worried it would wake Mr. Angst, who was still sleeping soundly.

The upstairs neighbors, at least, are noisy only occasionally–like, once every couple of weeks? The downstairs neighbors? Have been jamming right under my living room every night this week. Yeah. They suck, a lot.

Update: Oh my god, they’re having an effing party. A party that looks to have more people than I would EVER invite into a space this size (dozens and dozens, I would venture to guess), and is JUST NOW ramping up. (It’s after 10 pm.) Mr. Angst went down there a couple of hours ago, before the people started showing up, and asked them to turn the amp down and they essentially told him to deal with it, because “that’s this neighborhood, and you shouldn’t have moved here if you didn’t like music.”

Why can’t our neighbors be more like this guy?

This morning I dropped off the keys to the old apartment. The office doesn’t open until 10, but the doorman had opened the door so that all of us moving out could drop off our keys and forwarding address. There were fifteen other scraps of paper and little envelopes of keys scattered on the desk, and one of them was ours.

In other moving news, though, our landlord would like to charge us an UNGODLY pet deposit, so we are in the midst of negotiations over THAT. Hopefully there won’t be any further problems, and we can get that mess worked out so we can bring our new dog home next week.

Dear Shitty Downstairs Neighbors:

Yeah, I know you’re all moving in a month. That’s great — you have NO idea how excited Mr. Angst and I are that you and your drum kit and mix table will be gone by September 1. This does not mean, however, that we are willing to sit by and listen to you beat on your drums and play your music louder than any human being should have any tolerance for — in the middle of the evening, no less! Play your damn drums, but play them during the day, when we are AT WORK.

Let me give you a tip: if your music is so loud that you can’t hear us beating on your door, it’s TOO LOUD. Further, because you have seen our reaction to your loud music — more than once! — I will bear no responsibility if Mr. Angst goes postal on you one of these days. Moreover, if he has a heart attack in the next five weeks, I will immediately blame you, because I have NEVER seen him get as angry as he does when you beat on your drums and blast your music in the middle of the evening.

Downstairs Neighbors, we want your final weeks here to be as pleasant as possible for you and for us, though, of course, mostly for us. So keep it the hell down and I won’t call the cops on you.

Thanks!
Your (Legally Educated) Upstairs Neighbors

P.S. If you ever again make this much noise the night before I have a TEST, I will figure out a way to lock you out of the building.

Today, we finished (OK, Mr. Angst finished) setting up our entertainment center/stereo equipment/TV. It’s SO NICE now that all the stuff is in its place, even though we do have a really big rat’s nest of wires piled in a corner.

The next task is clearing out the bedroom, since a footlocker is currently blocking the closet halfway. And there are a few other things that need to be taken care of — pictures hung, some stacks of paper filed, and some leftover laundry washed.

Remarkably, we have only been fully moved in for…what…five days? Five and a half?

To reward myself, I am getting a REAL haircut tomorrow, at a REAL salon, and I just ordered these. Squee!

I am never moving myself again. The heavy lifting, the bruises…none of it.

In other words, hiring movers was the best decision we have EVER made. They loaded up our boxes and furniture, drove them to our new place, and carried them all up the stairs in THREE HOURS. We wouldn’t have had the truck half-filled in three hours. They were completely insanely efficient!

We do still have a couple of things over at the old apartment–mostly small stuff that we didn’t have boxes for, and cleaning supplies. (And I really miss my cleaning supplies because my kitchen counter is already needing a scrub.) But the bulk of everything is HERE and in place. We’ve even unpacked ALL the books, CDs, movies, and most of the clothes. Our new apartment is totally livable. Sigh, sigh, sigh, with happiness.

I think this will be the last post about noise.

We discovered a way to reduce the outside noise by about 40%. Turns out our double-hung sash windows have been open about two inches at the top (yes, all of them) since we moved in. Since before we moved in, actually. Maybe since the other people lived there. We discovered this the other day, but had little luck closing them from the floor and neither of us felt inclined to crawl up on the window sills to get them closed.

This morning, I said “Screw it!” and climbed up on each window sill and closed each window without any problems. We thought they were slipping, but I they weren’t. The springs (or cords, not sure how new these windows are) seem to be working fine. All but two clicked nicely into place–and we were able to lock the windows for the first time since we got our keys.

I don’t know why we didn’t do this earlier; I guess it’s because neither of us has ever lived in a place with double-hung sash windows. Windows open from the top, too? So weird! Well, apparently not and, now that we know, we are reaping the benefit of reduced noise.

[And, knock on wood, our downstairs neighbors didn’t play loud music after our last request on Sunday night. This might work out well after all.]

Thanks to everyone who pitched in advice for dealing with noisy neighbors. I think I’ve decided what I’m going to do–I’ll start out polite, and play tit-for-tat depending on what sort of reaction I get. If necessary, I’ll invite them up to see what I mean when I say the floor vibrates and explain that I’m not being unreasonable. And if necessary, I’ll–nicely!–explain that I will officially complain if necessary.

I know a lot of people recommend playing nice and making friends but, given the interactions we’ve had so far, I don’t think that’s going to be all that successful. Only one of our downstairs neighbors has even bothered to say hi as we pass, when we pass, and the others seem to deliberately ignore us. So I’m not going out of my way to offer a beer or coffee to them.

And with all that, I’m going to get some more work done. It was a truly bizarre morning, and not a terribly productive one.