Regina Noctis

I got all my stuff out of the apartment, said my goodbyes, picked up a pizza, and drove four hours to deliver it. I’m now in Delano.

Right this moment, I think that the hardest part of leaving was abandoning the huge, deep jacuzzi bathtub at the hotel room I had on my last night in the Bay Area before heading south. I was developing a deep and meaningful relationship with it.

I’ve so missed having access to a tub that’s comfortable for anyone taller than four foot nothing.

It was rather luxurious to just settle in for a soak, the bathroom TV tuned to HBO, a plate of ripe grapes to munch on, a plastic disposable wine glass full of vanilla Coke, and enough bubblebath frothing around that I couldn’t see any of it around the mounds of bubbles.

I know people who steal towels and ashtrays from hotels. I, however, wanted to steal the tub.

LJ seems to be having some kind of fit about user pics. Most of my user pics aren’t showing up on the pics page, or on the entries. And a couple of them aren’t actually my pics. One has transformed itself into some chica with a caption that says “me in honey.” The other is some b&w pic of a guy in a hat.

Well, I’ll worry about it at some point in the future, if LJ doesn’t straighten itself out. Sometime after I’m settled in Hellano, and have internet connectivity again.

I may occasionally be able to log in from my mother’s machine and update, but it won’t be too often. And since the cable modem goes back to Comcast tomorrow, this is probably close to my last entry for a while. Rejoice, all ye who friended me. Soon you’ll have a respite from Christophine the Verbose.

What I want to know is where all this crap came from. I didn’t think I owned this much. But my room is so full of boxes now that it’s starting to feel just a might bit claustrophobic. I think I’m getting close to the end on the room, so at least an end is in sight, and I won’t achieve what some part of my mind is starting to think, that my room will be so full of packed stuff that there will be no room for me in it until the movers come. There are moments, though, when it feels like the stuff is finding dark corners I can’t see and multiplying like crazy, so the packing will never end.

Speaking of never-ending, for some reason I got hit by a bit of nostalgia for watching back at the Pit, playing Final Fantasy. Specifically, her Never-Ending Knights of the Round extravaganza. It’s much more fun to remember than sit through, since watching the animation over and over gets a little tiring after a while. But a short time ago, I suddenly wanted to watch her pull it off again anyway.

Speaking of Final Fantasy, I’ll probably dive back into VIII once I’m down in Delano. I still have not finished it. I’ll be starting over. I have a talent for accidentally moving this story forward, and so I don’t do everything I actually wanted to do. I’m entirely too good at, “Hey, I wonder what this does/going this direction will do/talking to this person will cause.” And almost inevitably, it’s whatever moves the story to the next phase. Particularly when moving the story forward at that point will close off some side-quest I wanted to do. This will be the fourth time I start the damn game. I’ve really got to stop indulging my curiosity until I know I’ve completed all the side quests I want to complete. I’ll have plenty of time to do it. I’ll have to give the first semester a miss at college, so I can be there to take care of my grandmother while my mom is away taking care of Aunt Demon Dog. I can’t very well go charging off to Bakersfield every day to attend classes. Oh well. That will give me a few months to get settled in, get the room arranged the way I want it, and start wanting a respite from Psycho Cousin and Grandma.

There’s a possibility that Psycho Cousin won’t live there for too much longer. He’s constantly on about how miserable Mom and Grandma make him, and that as soon as he can afford it, he plans to move someplace else. Usually, he talks the talk, but doesn’t walk the walk. Even before he started on the PCP and did enough damage to his brain to make him permanently crazy, he was always so afraid of living life. Afraid to go after a job, afraid to do anything new, afraid to meet anyone because he couldn’t guarantee that they’d be the kind of person who thought he was the coolest thing that ever walked. This time he’s actually made some steps, and I’m hopeful that he won’t retreat from moving forward. He’s taken the safety classes and such that are recommended if you’re going to work the oil fields. And working the oil fields pays some decent money. Certainly better than what he’s making as a Domino’s delivery boy. Mom and I are already making tentative plans to take over his room as soon as he’s gone. Move some of my furniture from the storage unit to the room, and make it someplace we can go to play games and watch movies.

That will leave the TV in the living room for my grandmother, since listening to TV and doing laundry and dishes are pretty much the only things she feels capable of doing now that the macular degeneration has advanced so far. The last time I was there, it had gotten so bad that she could no longer recognize who was who. She could tell that someone was there, but until they spoke, she didn’t know whether it was my mom, my psycho cousin, or me. I got called Patricia and John pretty often if I was making a pass through the kitchen to get something to drink.Toward the end of the visit, she started paying attention to whether or not the outside edges of her field of vision showed any hint of black or other dark-colored clothing, and then she’d know it was me. That will be harder for her now, however, since I cut down so severely on my wardrobe leading up to this move. From so much clothing I couldn’t stuff it all into my closet and chest of drawers, down to about two wardrobe cartons. And most of what went was the older stuff, which had a large chunk of my black or dark clothing in it. It’s all elderly and starting to fall apart, or too big, or too small. She’ll have to learn to recognize some other thing from what little peripheral vision she has left. Maybe if I do dye my hair one of the shades I’ve been looking at. It’d be difficult to confuse lilac-colored hair with anyone else in the house.

Dyke to open up BBC archive

Yes! Access to Dr. Who, The Prisoner, The Goodies, Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Neverwhere, old favorite Masterpiece Theater episodes, all free for the downloading. Woohoo!

Your medieval name is: Magdalen. Out of conformity
and inducing sexual meaning, you’re seductive
and passionate, silent until spoken to and only
violet when provoked. Gorgeous and mysterious,
you’ve got it all.

What is your Medieval name?
brought to you by Quizilla

So, don’t provoke me. I’ll get violet!

*resists urge to correct the thing, chanting a mantra* Not your job to be copy editor for the web. Not your job to be copy editor for the web. Not your job to be copy editor for the web…

Every time I see it or hear it, I wind up with a picture of a patient walking around, with an entire surgery team keeping pace and trying to perform a procedure. I suppose Walk-In Surgery is no better. It almost conjures up images of something similar to drive-thru burger place.

“Can I take your order?”

“Yes, I’d like one tummy tuck with a side order of liposuction.”

“Please pull around to the table. We will take payment of one arm and one leg while you’re already under.”

Yeah. Some days, being short on sleep makes me weirder than others.

But enough about me. The important part of this post is that is out of surgery, and doing just fine!

(See, , I told you that it would be fine and stop worrying. I think I even said it several times, ever since this started. The translation of that, in case you didn’t get it at the time, was, “suck it up and deal, woman! There is no need for all this worry, tension, and hysteria!”) :p

The news report on what’s up with the Dev can be found here, as reported by our lovely anchorwoman, .

Next on LJ 7pm news, Comestibles: Lunch with the Dreaded Dorie. But first, a word from our sponsor.

Since we were about out of packing tape, and I went off on an adventure to find more at three in the morning and to gas up the car. While we were out, it finally rained. It’s still humid, since it didn’t rain for long. But it is cooler, at last.

While on the way back from picking up the tape, I was in the far right lane on El Camino. A truck was parked along the side to unload cars at one of the dealerships I was about to pass. I didn’t bother to get over, since there was plenty of room to drive around it without leaving the lane, and I was going to be making a right turn at the stoplight just beyond it. Synkitty and I were talking. I don’t even remember about what now. Without missing a beat in the conversation, I abruptly swerved into the middle lane, finishing what I was saying with, “And I could also almost kill idiot truck drivers wearing all black who suddenly step around their truck into a lane that has oncoming traffic.” And then I swerved back to make my turn.

The whole process hit Synkitty with the giggles. She just laughed at my near-accident (the second tonight, or the third in the last two days, depending on when you want to count from) and told me how much she loves my reflexes.

I love my reflexes too. If I didn’t have them, I’d have been run off the road by an idiot in a silver pickup truck yesterday night, followed by getting hit by someone in a white pickup truck who saw I was making a turn and speeded up to try and beat me to the turn, and finally achieving its climax with a dead truck driver about half an hour ago.

I hope that I’ve had my quota of near-misses for a while and things will calm down. I manage to keep my head and get out of most near-accidents, sometimes rather spectacularly and in ways that I wouldn’t know how to do on purpose, but at the time I do what I need to and it works. But I’m getting rather tired of dealing with the adrenaline rush as soon as I’m no longer driving and so have the leisure to go through the reaction I’ve staved off until it’s safe to react.

Hey, life. I didn’t claim to be invincible, or bored, or say any of the other things that generally makes the universe say, “Oh yeah? Let’s see you deal with this, in that case!” I didn’t say any of the trigger phrases that almost guarantee a bit of Murphy-like slap in the face. Can we ease up on the Christophine now so she can stop having coronaries every time she’s behind the wheel? I don’t need my ego deflated right now, honest!

It became obvious while at the going away party that I’d pulled a muscle in my back either while packing in the morning or fighting wardrobe cartons into my car in the afternoon. It wasn’t noticeable when sitting, but standing put enough stress on it to make it really hurt.

I’ve been packing tonight in spite of it. I don’t have time to lie around recovering. The movers will be here this Friday, and I need to be finished in time. I’m packing without help to get my stuff together. The roomies, after all, have their own stuff to get together, and a far worse health issue than a pulled muscle in the back to deal with right in the middle of final preparations. All the pushing, pulling, lifting, carrying, and bending is not making the muscle in my back any happier. Now it hurts while sitting here, too.

Just a bit of a break to gripe, cool off (since the apartment is still pretty warm, in spite of the time. Humid, thanks to the thunderstorm that’s staying just distant enough to add a lot of moisture to the air, but not close enough to really cool it down in my neighborhood.) And to give my back a chance to recover before going on.

I don’t think I’m going to be able to pack much more tonight, since I just noticed that we’re almost out of packing tape again. I should have gotten another roll this afternoon when I went to get the wardrobe boxes.

I’m feeling very down right now. Very depressed. Now that I’m alone in the apartment, with the roommates out, everything that’s been building up and left unexpressed just burst the dam. My sleep has been full of nightmares with symbols about my life and how it’s going out of my control, symbols of unresolved guilt, symbols of anger. It’s stuff that I keep to myself for the most part, rather than add to the stress level of the people around me. But I’m no good at keeping it shoved aside for good. If I don’t deal with it all sometime, I start going crazy. Truly crazy, not “usual” me crazy. Just to prove that it needs to get dealt with somehow rather than shoved aside, I wound up bursting into tears this afternoon. There was no real trigger. I was at the computer, listening to some oldies music, and bam, crying. It wasn’t a few silent tears, either. This was serious sobbing, the kind where you just can’t not make noise. I was relieved that no one was home. I don’t cry in front of people if I can avoid it in any way. Sometimes what I’m feeling is too strong for control, and it’ll happen. It’s a little easier to do it if I’m with someone I absolutely trust, but even then it’s another level of uncomfortable on top of whatever is upsetting me in the first place.

But now, I must go pick up and bring her over to check out some of the clothing I’m parting with, and then off to the going away party. No time for being down now.

He holds her in his arms, would you? Would you?
He tells her of her charms, would you? Would you?
They met as you and I
And they were only friends
But before the story ends
He’ll kiss her with a sigh, would you? Would you?
And if the girl were I, would you? Would you?
And would you dare to say
Let’s do the same as they?
I would
Would you?

The living room is about packed up, and I made a start on some of the dishes in the kitchen. Now my arthritis is telling me how much it hates packing. That’s okay. I hate packing too, so it’s not alone.

Tomorrow will be a jam-packed day. The yard sale will be going on, but I won’t have much opportunity to help out with that. I’ve got to wash and sort clothing into what’s going to Hellano and what’s being given away. With the vast amount of clothing I have, that alone should take most of the day. In addition, I need to take to get her medication, however long that takes with the length the line tends to be at Valley Med. I need to stop by U-Haul and pick up boxes, especially wardrobe cartons.

I’m so short of sleep it’s ridiculous. And it’s not even because of insomnia. If I was let sleep, I’d get enough. But the phone starts ringing early every day, and has been for several days now. And it just doesn’t stop all day. The only breaks are when I am busy and awake. The moment I start even thinking about a nap, the phone starts again.

Not one of the calls have been for me. Not a single one. I might be less irritated by the constant ringing if any of those calls were for me. Might. But I doubt it. I’m heartily sick and tired of hearing the damn thing ring. If I didn’t need to have phone service for confirmation calls from the movers, talks with my mom about the storage unit in Delano and getting a number of things set up down there, and so on, I’d just have the phone turned off NOW. suggested that, but unfortunately, it’s not something I can put into practice.

I’m starting to hit the point I sometimes used to when I was working at El Camino Hospital. The point at which I growl loudly every time the phone rings, answer it nicely, and then grumble and growl some more once I’m off the phone.

There is no phone jack in the room I’ll be taking when I move down to Hellano. And it’s a converted garage, completely separate from the house. I won’t have to hear the phone ringing at all if I don’t want to when I’m there. Right this moment, that sounds lovely.

In the midst of packing madness, I decided to take a break.

What began as a short bout of resting arthritic joints and drinking some water turned into an hour-long revamping of the look of my journal. I should never have investigated the new style system.

Next time I take a break, I’ll stay in the living room instead of wandering in to play on the computer.

Back to shoving as much of the living room as I can into boxes.

When I signed the contract with the moving company this morning, it made me realize that the movers will be here a week from tomorrow. How did it get here so fast? This month is just rushing by, and the move date is approaching like a runaway freight train.

may have to be at the hospital the night before her surgery, which is the night of the going-away party. If that happens, considering that there’s also been such an underwhelming response, we may cancel the party altogether.

I just got done calling around and scheduling termination dates for phone, cable, ISP, and electricity. Everything but electricity ends on the day that the movers are here. Electricity, because of the weekend, will be on September 2. The number in Hellano will be on the recording for my current number when the phone service ends.

and are out running errands and picking up more packing tape. I need to spend the rest of the time packing like mad.

I’m going to be going through my closet and doing laundry over the weekend. There will probably be things that don’t make the cut to go with me to Delano. If anyone wants to take a look at what’s not going to Delano, please contact me ASAP so you can have the opportunity to look through things. There is clothing that is too big for me, and clothing that is too small. It’ll all be left behind. Anything that doesn’t get grabbed by friends will go to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Everything else will need to be packed, so time is limited.

The Eric in the Elevator trailer has been created, and I’m in it. Woohoo!

I guess there’s my fifteen minutes of fame, as Andy Warhol predicted people would have.

Possibly ’s fifteen minutes also. (Right, Bill? :D)

It’s just too bad that Bill was an inside joke. Most people who see the interview on Eric in the Elevator aren’t going to know why I said the actor with Tourettes was named Bill. But it was funny to Locke and me at the time.

Actually, a number of my stranger answers during the interview were either from inside jokes or memories of things I’d found funny at the time. Even the elephant-shaped g-string worn by someone on a stage. I remember that Friday night in Santa Cruz with the Denton Affair very well. If I didn’t know so many freaks, I’d have had a lot harder time finding things to say. Though I wish I’d been a little less brain-fried at the time of the interview. I spent more time saying “Ummmm…” than anything else.

After BayCon 2002, Locke and I spent a year talking about how much fun we’d had with being interviewed, and how we hoped that they’d be back the following year. And when we found out that there’d be an Eric in the Elevator party that began while we were doing reg, we did everything we could to get us out of there early enough to catch at least a part of the show. We did arrive in time for the interview we were in, as well as the funniest interview ever. I was also rather fond of the interview where Eric succeeded in just breaking the guest.

I think the show’s a brilliant idea. Charming, too. Funny, of course. I had intended to lobby among the BayCon staff to “legitamize” the show, so they’d get harasssed by Flare a bit less. Though that would be taking away an amusing element of the show to some degree. However, that plan was made before things reached the point where I had to move away. I’m not going to be at the meetings much now. I might be able to drive up for one or two, but I’m not going to be the kind of presence I’d intended to be.

Maybe I should lobby at the friends I’m keeping contact with who are on staff, until they lobby for me at meetings just to shut me up. :D

Eric in the Elevator has to be one of the very few times I didn’t mind being on film. I usually avoid being in front of any sort of camera. I hate having my picture taken in any format, whether that’s a still or filmed. I’ve been known to threaten to take cameras and break them if someone points one at me. But the camera was on and the interview started before I really knew what was going on, and once I did know what was going on, I was having too much fun with the interview to be irritated. Maybe that’s the secret for those friends of mine who have whinged at me about the lack of pictures. If it’s fun, I won’t glower and growl and threaten. Or if I’m too distracted to care. Take your pick.

I guess now that I can only say I’ve been avoiding cameras for a year and a half now, rather than since I graduated from high school.

Hey Locke, if you want to see when the trailer is up on the web for viewing, you might consider joining the community. ;)

The Allied rep will be by tomorrow with the paperwork for me to sign. The movers will arrive to haul my things into the truck on the 29th. I’ll clean up around the apartment after they’re gone, stay the night in a hotel if I have to in order to get final cleaning around the apartment done. Not that there will be as much as there was when I moved out of the Ponderosa house. This place hasn’t been painted in who knows how long, the carpet needs to be torn out so the water damage in the hall can be repaired, the wallpaper needs to be redone in the dining area, the place needs a new carpet, the toilet needs to be replaced, the refrigerator needs either repairing or replacing, the plumbing needs to be fixed, the screen door needs to be replaced, the screens on the windows either need to be repaired or replaced. There’s not just a whole lot I can do to get the place presentable. Dust off the windowsills, clean the windows, scrub down the counters, sweep and mop, clean the shower and tub. If necessary, I’ll stay in a hotel and finish everything up the next day and then head down to Hellano. I doubt it’ll be necessary, however.

Technically, since I’m the one who’s on the rental agreement (Nicholas had fill out an app so he’d have her info on file, but didn’t actually add her to the lease) everyone is supposed to be out on the same day I am. Since my mom doesn’t know at all, and only met Dev a couple times back when she was 16 or so, she’s worrying about the idea of me leaving and Dev and the Zebra staying on here for a couple days after. I’ve tried to explain that Dev’s going to be recovering from surgery and will need the couple days of rest before getting out of the apartment. She wants me to tell them that they need to be gone when I am anyway. Hell, Mom would like it best if they were out before I left, like it was at the Ponderosa house when I kept returning to get the place cleaned up. I don’t see why it’s an issue. The place is paid up through the end of the month.

The going away party is coming up this Monday, and it’s looking like we won’t have enough to hold the room I reserved. The minimum is thirty people. So far on the evite, there are nine yes, nine maybe, and nine no. A couple of other people have responded by word of mouth that they’ll be there, or will try. But the other 33 people on the list have either looked at the evite and then not responded at all, or they haven’t even looked. This is not the most encouraging reaction. It makes me consider the possibility of just not coming back up to visit, other than BayCon, which I’m committed to work at. Really, if my “friends” can’t be bothered to even reply, much less attend, why should I be bothered to make the drive each direction to visit? This isn’t about those who have classes, or will be out of town, or already had other commitments on that night. It’s about the overwhelmingly apathetic reaction to the whole thing from most of the people invited. In some ways, it feels like this whole thing is letting me know who my real friends are. The temptation is very great to just disappear rather than try to maintain contact with most of the people I know.

Huh. I’d say that dave_over, kasul, and I are lucky to at least be the correct gender. Though I don’t know how thankful dave_over will be that he’s Lon Chaney.

On the other hand, I remember the Grandpa from The Munsters impersonations that he used to do. Maybe Lon Chaney is a step up. :D

2143!

(please?)

Well, movers, at least. If they do too much shaking of my glassware, I will not be happy with them.

We got the estimate from Allied, a company that we have used in the past. They moved us out to New Jersey and back. We had good experiences both times. Certainly not like other movers we’ve had before.

The estimate is around $1500, which is about half of what my mom was expecting. So we are going to go with Allied. I’m waiting on a call back now from their rep so I can set up the date for them to come acquire my things for the move, and to check on delivery dates. If they’re just going to take my stuff down, then I should get delivery the same day or the next. But they’re probably going to consolidate my things with someone else’s, rather than deadhead back up to the Bay Area. I don’t have all that much stuff, after all. Certainly not enough to fill a moving van by myself. So, my things may have to hang around up here until they can consolidate with, say, someone who’s moving to La-La Land or Sandy Eggo. Since they’ll want a cashier’s check for payment, it’d be best if we can get the things before the 13th. My mom is off to take care of Aunt Demon Dog for a couple weeks on the 13th, and so she won’t be there to get the cashier’s check for them. Though that can be worked out, and she can put the money into my account and I can get the check. It’s just a little more inconvenient that way.

So, I’m going back to packing while I wait for the call back from the rep. And then tonight, dinner with and . With Persian ice cream at the end of the evening. Yummy!