You wanna know what I hate?

This post is dedicated to KK, because there was a long period of time where she had to listen to every sentence of mine start with the above phrase

I am irritated. I would go for a run or something to blow off steam but it’s cold and my ears already hurt. No need to add to that.

I HATE where I live. Not the boot. I like the boot. I hate Cypress Creek apartments. Argh. I hate that there is no cable in my room, yet a jack exists but it’s not live (of course not–why would it be?) and that Cox wants $50 to come out and fix it. I hate that there is no screen on my sliding glass door and if I want one, I have to buy one from Home Depot. I don’t want to buy one from Home Depot. That requires me strapping it to the roof of my Honda or otherwise finagling it into/onto my car to get it home, then having to lug it up three flights of stairs, THEN installing it. By.my.self. And while I might be freakishly strong, somethings I just cannot help, like leverage over things bigger than me.

Like the mirror that is currently hanging above my couch. That thing weighs more than I do and I wrestled with it for a good 3 hours before finally propping it up on two of my bar stools and taping the wire to the back of the mirror near the top in the hope that it would catch the screw that I had drilled into the wall (that screwed nicely into the plastic anchor that I had hammered in previously because of course there was no stud where I needed to hang the 200-pound mirror) because I couldn’t lift the stupid thing high enough to have the wire catch without taping it in place first. Why? Because I couldn’t get leverage over the damn thing.

So why do I want a screen door, you ask? Because my house smells and I can’t air it out without fear of a giant flying cockroach coming in since I have no barrier between me and the aforementioned man-eating beast the size of my shoe.

My house smells like gross-neighbor-who-smokes and it pisses.me.off. It’s musty and I can smell it in my guest bathroom and in my closet, since those are the two rooms/areas in which we share walls. My closet. Where my clothes are stored. I am going to smell like a damn Pall Mall and it will NOT conjure up good memories of dusting my grandmother’s house and being paid in creme brulee.

It is seeping in through the vents or something because I am currently in the Nook, where I thought I was safe (it being on the wall that faces out) but I can smell it wafting in. And I feel my blood pressure rising. I’m probably getting emphyszema as I type this. I mean, there are things one can do prior to moving in to make sure that the place to be rented is suitable. But how are you supposed to know your neighbor’s cigarette smoke will waft into your house ahead of time?

This rant all started because I bought a few pantry items today at the store, but ohthat’sright, I don’t have a pantry. I have a shelf. Technically two shelves, but some stupid cabinet maker thought it wise to make the second shelf so skinny that I can’t even stack two cans of tuna on top of one another. Awesome.

I mean, I just wanted a home for my triscuts. Is that too much to ask?

I had previously been resigned to the fact that I have to live here until October, at which point I will be moving and I have already been doing research and looking. But today is the first day where I have actually contemplated trying to break my lease. Then it occurred to me that by the time I move out, we will have started baseball season and I will not have time to move. Until May (hopefully June). When it’s a thousand degrees and moving is not awesome then either.

And in case I forgot, the train just went by to give me a little dose of home, in case I missed the feeling of an aftershock-sized earthquake. Phenomenal.

I am a ray of sunshine.