2002-09-26 - 2:31 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Wake Up", RATM

Well, if you haven't already guessed, we're getting down to the wire on moving out of the box and into the house, so I've been distracted. Plus, work got busy. It never fails. If I am moving, work is busy. Argh.

So, I'll write an entry of snippets.

Roach stuff:

Poindexter came out of the bathroom one day last week with a half-shocked, half-amused look on his face. He didn't want to tell me why. I said, "I can take it."

Apparently he lifted the toilet lid (which we always keep down), and saw a three-inch roach (the biggest yet) sitting on the toilet SEAT.

It didn't even MOVE.

So he grabbed a tissue and flicked it into the toilet, and DROWNED it.

Y'know, we get up to pee in the middle of the night. In the dark. I am horrified. I could have SAT on one of those things. I would never have recovered

I found that the conical thingie was loose, the one that covers the wall in back of the toilet, where the cold water comes out for the tank. So I taped that up. And we now have a fairly bright nightlight in there.

Gah.

I also bought sticky traps for the house, to make sure there are no roaches in there. I can't put them out yet because they'll just collect sanding dust from the hardwood. Next week sometime.

House stuff:

We're moving out of the box this weekend. The stuff in storage in Virginia will be brought up in a couple of weeks, after the painting is done.

The floors and stairs in the house have been sanded, but not yet stained or polyurethaned. The difference is astonishing. The stairs were just so gross -- dirty, brown, scuffed -- and the geezer's floor sanding was SO BAD that seeing the job done properly is astonishing.

We bought a fridge. Poindexter seemed willing to deal with the possibility of some annoying design flaws Tino mentioned in an email, so what the heck. I don't have to do it. We got a stainless-steel bottom-freezer fridge. Poindexter is positively GIDDY that he won't have to bend down to get his Coke anymore. He sounds like he's been waiting all his life for such a thing.

The carpets are in. They are the color of egg-nog, almost, and I *love* them. Pictures soon. Unfortunately the installers made some mistakes (gaps near the walls, stains) and didn't vacuum up their staples or the little carpet twists that come off when they cut it, so they have to come back and fix that next week. I seem to have made some peace with the fact that contractors never do everything right and it's our responsibility to keep dragging them back until it's really finished.

We met some more of our neighbors. Two of them are restaurant freaks -- very good to have nearby. They and another couple we met are the most normal-seeming of our neighbors so far. A few of them seem a little out-there.

Not that I'm the picture of sanity, or anything. But most of the time I put on a pretty good show.

Parent stuff:

My parents came down a couple weekends ago to check out the new abode. They were very excited about it. They saw it when it was a complete and total mess -- no work had been done yet -- so they will be the most impressed when the work is done.

The following weekend, we called them up and said, "Can we come over and watch 'Lord of the Rings'?" They said sure, so we bought Chinese food and went on up there. Did I mention HOW GREAT THIS IS!?!?! Impromptu visits with the folks! Woooooo!

I enjoyed the movie. I got very attached to the characters and was extremely pissed that they started killing them off. I hate movies where they make me love a character and then they die.

I also made a startling discovery: I am a hobbit. Not a Baggins-type hobbit, but a regular one. I am short, I have hairy feet, I eat constantly, I have a "good-natured" face, and I don't like to leave home.

Musings stuff:

Someone I care about just found out they are being cheated on. This person is in a lot of pain and I feel terrible for them. I was up in the middle of last night worrying about them. I have no idea how or if it's going to be worked out.

Why can't people be honest about this facet of themselves? If you're not monogamous and you know it, don't marry a monogamous person and lie to them. There are plenty of polyamorists or potential polyamorists or swingers out there. There are even some monogamists who don't care, beyond health issues, if their partner gets some on the side occasionally. Marry one of them.

Poindexter's take on cheating is absolute: If I do it, it's over. That's it. Lucky for him, I never cheated even when I was in relationships I really wanted to get out of and was crushing on multiple other people at the time. My guilt complex and honesty-drive are far too strong for me to cheat.

I think I could forgive being cheated on, myself, if it was a one-time thing. It would take a while to get over it. Although I say that in the context of knowing he's never going to do it -- he's so honest and upfront that he'd call me to "break up" before he did it.

It's pretty much a non-issue, though, because we are SO wrapped up in each other's lives that it would be really hard to keep a secret from each other. We each know where the other is and what they're doing every minute of the day, and not because of a sense of obligation, but because we each like to make sure the other knows. And with the exception of occasional visits with friends or shopping excursions, we do everything together. If we're not doing the same activity, we're most likely doing our respective activities in the same room. (That is, when we're not living in a box.)

I suppose some people might find that stifling, or like they were losing their identity. But this is, on a daily basis, a conscious choice on each of our parts. It's what we want to be doing, because life is the most fun that way. If we needed more space, neither of us would hesitate to say we needed it, and the other wouldn't hesitate to give it.

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