The weekend of hell is finally over. My new apartment is actually significantly smaller than my old one...the bedroom is a little smaller, but most importantly, there are NO extra closets in the new place. I had 6 cabinets and closets at the old apartment, and to go from six to one means there's a lot of reassessing of what I actually want and/or need to have. So the abundance of storage space, and the fact I'd lived there for almost 5 years and also had stuff left there by my previous roommate who'd moved out 4 years ago, meant there was a lot of junk laying around. So I had a giant pile of trash when I was done, and made 4 trips to goodwill in my friend's truck with the stuff I thought people could actually use. I gave my now-former downstairs neighbor my older 20-inch TV and the wine rack I'd been using as a TV stand. It took me almost 2 full days to move everything and sort through, throw away, and make the trips to Goodwill. Sunday night, I watched the first 3 quarters of the Super Bowl at a small party and then left when the score got out of hand to finish. Finally, at 11PM Sunday night, I was done with the old apartment, and then took an off day Monday to finish organizing everything in the new place.

Vern came to the new place Sunday night and seems to be adjusting surprisingly well. The last time we moved, she didn't come out from under my bed for over a week, and this time she was out the first night, although she is still skittish. My only concern is her scratching up Dan's couch. I've gotten her new scratching posts, and she's been good about not scratching couches lately....for the last year or so. So hopefully that won't be an issue.

Another thing about moving--it can be pretty expensive. I am estimating my total moving costs to be around 150 bucks.

It's nice to be in a place with new carpets, though. My allergies are not having a problem and I had the best night of sleep in months last night.

Our lease is for 1 year. Hopefully by the time that's up I can better afford a 1 bedroom or buy a house. I could afford a 1 bedroom now, but it'd make things tighter than I'd like them to be. We'll see in a year, I guess.

Last night I got started on my moving stuff. First thing I did was clean up the rest of the mess Mya left behind. While I was doing this, a couple things came to mind. How can a chick who is SO prissy and who presents an air of daintiness be SUCH a slob? In four years of living with her, I never saw her wash a dish or use the vacuum, and her room looked the part. I think she took the trash out once or twice maybe. There was about a half inch coating of dog hair on her carpet, which got as high as an inch and a half around the edges of her dresser and entertainment center. Then there was the mountain of trash in her walk-in closet--mostly shoe boxes which had been ripped up by her dog, and also purses, prescribed meds, tons of over the counter meds, and hangers everywhere. I know she was raised by "well-to-do" parents, but did she just have servants do all the cleaning or what? Then there's the treadmill she left--I couldn't believe she told me "just leave it here and let Tom--our landlord--get rid of it. It works fine but she and her boyfriend are too lazy to move it. At least Kim said she'll take it. I doubt I'll ever have to see her new place. Within 3 months it'll probably be worse. I won't be around to keep the "shared areas" at least respectable.

Anyway I will be finishing my own boxing and cleaning after work the rest of the week. I just want to have the stuff in the boxes and lined up so we can just haul it out to the truck and be out of here.

Everything else, like moving the cable and changing my address and all, has already been done. I'ts become somewhat clear to me that, living with Dan, I'll be the one having to make sure bills are paid and things are running smoothly. Again. Oh well, nothing new to me at least.

Oh I forgot to add something to my new-years observations which has become just ho-hum and not a big deal anymore. I haven't smoked anything in over 4 months now. My lungs are, I'm sure, better off, but it's hard to tell for sure until I get back into basketball again. Which should be soon now that football season is almost over. Either way, having quit smoking cigs makes me a more hygienic and healthy person, and having quit the other makes me more motivated and likely to do things on time that for years I hadn't, like getting gifts for people, paying bills, keeping up on certain things (like this blog) and the like. There is no doubt that I am a lot better off for having quit both. It's a relief, really, to have cured those two very bad habits.....

Well I haven't had too many people email or IM me the words of consolation about yesterday's Eagles loss. The season of destiny ended a week too soon. But, being an Eagles fan means having learned how to deal with disappointment. I remember being 11 and watching them get their asses kicked in the Super Bowl. Back then I about wanted to kill myself---but now I guess I am used to it, and realize there are much more important things in life.


All in all it was a fairly crappy weekend. I helped Mya move Saturday and then went golfing. It was really cold--like in the low 40's at the warmest point of the day. We only played 13 holes and then said to hell with this. For the last 3 holes I could barely feel my hands. I'm just glad that weekend is over.

Foremost on my mind right now is moving this Saturday. I will be spending the weeknights this week packing and cleaning and throwing tons of stuff away that's accumulated over the last 5 years. I've been to Goodwill with clothes twice already and will probably be going back again. I doubt I will be living with Dan for more than a year--although you never know. I said that about Mya and 4 years later here I am. So we'll just have to see. I know I am an easy person to live with, but am not sure about Dan.

I saw mom and dad last weekend. We didn't really do a whole lot---it was cold then also, and there wasn't much to do with people like my parents. We had an ok time though. Went out to dinner a few times, went to the Landing, then I went down to St. Augustine and spent a night in their gigantic motor home. It was good to see them again, and I'll probably see them in Orlando in a month or so.

Like many other people do, I am going to look back a little at last year and my life in general:

Not much changed last year. I was on a softball team which won the C league championship 2 seasons in a row (Spring and Fall), learned golf, learned a lot about my job, starting "blogging", and became more comfortable with the way I live and think.

What I would like to see happen next year:

I have got to get a new job. That stagnant feeling has set in. Although it's cool that I am always learning new things and that I like the sort of "puzzles" I am constantly faced with in the job, I can't be promoted without leaving town, and all of my friends and a city I like, behind. Getting a new and better job is prioirity number one this year.

It would be nice to meet a chick I really like. For years I pursued women much more aggressively, but lately I've come to accept the fact that I may not meet someone compatible for a very long time. I see my loneliness as independence also, and I recognize through seeing others who married earlier or have been with someone a long time that it stunts their personal growth in some ways. These people seem to be more likely to become content and fall into years-long ruts. I think that my "going it alone" for so long has developed me as a person to a point where I am happy with the man I've become. I have all the time in the world to myself to learn new things and expand my own mind. At the very least, I have some very good friends who I am close to and have mutual trusting relationships with, and a happy, productive, and well-bonded family. This all said, I am not in a hurry to get "hitched." It will happen if and when it happens.

The third thing I would most like to see happen is probably the least likely to happen: becoming a homeowner. I won't do it unless it's financially feasible, and the first thing I want to happen this year--getting a new job--will clearly have to happen first. AOL stock sure as hell isn't going to finance it.

There's a lot of other, smaller things I'd like to see happen, but these three things sum up what I want most right now.

I am kind of glad the holidays are over. It wasn't my typical holidays, working every holiday and not seeing anyone from the family. In fact, this is the first and only time that has ever happened. I just worked the whole time and made some decent extra money.

It's good that I did work those days, since I need to finance my latest addiction--an expensive one too--golf. I have been going to the driving range and playing every chance I've gotten. I've definitely gotten a lot better, also. In only a few months I've gone from the worst player by far amongst myself and the guys I usually golf with to the best. We played in a 30 mph wind on Wednesday, which was New Year's Day, at the little 9-hole course Palm Valley. It was some crazy wind to play in, and it had rained very hard the night before, which made the course's low-lying areas into extra water hazards. I would have had a very good round except that on the last hole I thought I was hitting with my sand wedge when I was really hitting my 5 iron, which made it fly way over the green, almost hitting people by the driving range about 50 yards away from where I was aiming. The S marking my sand wedge and the 5 on my 5 iron look very similar. I will have to mark one of them to differentiate the two. I'm looking forward to golfing again on Sunday at Windsor Parke, a very nice course which we got a special deal to play at on lastminutegolfer.com($30/golfer).

Mom and dad will be coming to visit soon. They are taking a long trip to the south--mostly Florida--for the rest of the winter. My dad has wanted to do this since he retired, and since my mom retired in June, he finally can. It will be good to see them. They are hardly party animals but they will take me out to a nice dinner, I'm sure, and we'll have a pretty good time. I will prolly see them a few times in the 2 or 3 months they'll be down here.

I am also somewhat excited about moving out. It will be nice to live in a new place, be closer to work and to most of my friends, and have an apartment that's got everything working and has been thoroughly cleaned. The higher rent (only $30 more) will be offset by the fact that my new roommate will also be splitting the cable internet bill. I didn't charge Mya for this since she can barely operate a computer anyway. Plus, with my new roommate, we'll be playing Madden on his Playstation all the time. We play a lot now, and living together we'll surely play a lot more. This moving out comes at a good time. Mya's boyfriend moved in with Ralph on New Year's Day, and that means she will be home all the time now. A BIG change from when she would hardly ever be home, and definitely not on weekends. I think we could get along okay, but she is kinda odd. She doesn't really have any friends other than her boyfriend, and kinda just doesn't talk to anyone else. Whenever we're both home, she's in her room with the door closed. Pretty bizarre, especially considering I've known her for 10 years now. So I doubt I'll even see her again after we have parted ways.

It's really awesome that the Eagles are the #1 seed in the playoffs. There is a certain feeling about this year, that this could finally be it. We get our best player, QB Donovan McNabb, back for the playoffs. He'd been out the last 7 weeks with a fractured ankle. Things are looking so good, I've reserved the Tuesday and Wednesday after the Super Bowl off from work for the parade. Us Eagles fans are used to disappointment, though....

I've also finally made amends with my boss. He asked us to send in our self-review of our "AOL valued behaviors" to put in our annual Focal Point Reviews. Here is a piece of what I wrote that brought my problems with him back to the forefront:
"....I have also taken other steps to learn job-related skills on my own, evidenced by my self-initiated and self-financed quest for an A+ certification. Unfortunately, I have had extra duties and responsiblities, such as R2 requests, web tickets, and tech mail, removed. I regret this mostly because I enjoyed the extra learning which these tasks afforded me as well as the diversity these tasks provided, but also because I still don't understand why this happened."

Later that day he took me aside and we finally buried the hatchet. Best of all, he admitted he was wrong for having waited so long to talk to me about it. We talked for quite a while and very frankly about what had gone on since then. It feels a lot better to not have a rift between us anymore. It was very wasteful to have ever been that way. I hope nothing like that happens again.