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As I posted previously, we lost our home to fire on the 21st of March, 2010.

We stayed at the Days Inn courtesy of the Red Cross for four days, after which were were able to locate a suitable apartment that accepted our cat. We have a provision within our homeowner’s insurance policy to pay for temporary housing up to one year after a catastrophic incident such as this.

The leasing agent, as well as Comcast (for the crucial internet) streamlined the process so that we could move in right away and have services up and running. There are a lot of steps and the light from my bedroom windows has very much turned me into a morning person, but I find it difficult to complain about much. I will openly complain about the low quality appliances though, and the use of primer as paint on the walls, otherwise it’s almost starting to feel like home.

There are still lots of boxes, mostly full of stuff that inevitably is thrown away because of smoke and/or water damage. My strongest advice to anyone who would be unfortunate enough to lose their home to fire is to simply leave it all there, and don’t waste your time or emotional well-being trying to recover things; it’s all ruined anyway.

The paperwork has been signed to rebuild our home, they are actually scheduled to do the demolition today. Last week most of the trees were cut down, there are two very tall trees left that will eventually be removed. I neglected to tag the Lilac bush, and unfortunately it was cut down too. Oh well.

The process of claim submission for personal property has been a long and confusing one. We’re still not quite sure if we’ve done it correctly. Either way though, it’s now in the mail to the insurance company, hopefully next week we’ll get a check, ideally anyway. I’ve pretty much exhausted my credit trying to get the household up and running again. The $5000.00 in advance money goes by extremely quickly when you have nothing left, beds alone took half of it.

There are lots and lots of errands to be done when you have nothing, and there are lots and lots of atrociously bad drivers.

I’ve been in two automobile collisions since the house burned down. Neither were my fault, both were instances of the other driver smashing into the rear of my car while I was stopped at traffic signals.

The first collision occurred on April 2nd, totaled our car, killed two people, and destroyed a building. I was taken by ambulance to the hospital for the day after having been extracted from my vehicle. Allegedly the man driving the vehicle that hit mine suffered a seizure, after having a history of seizures and just that week receiving his driver’s license back. He was taking his neighbor to the hospital as her son was there for some unspecified emergency reason. He hit me, hit a parked car, drove down the sidewalk and parked inside the Shippensburg Sentinel newspaper office.

By the grace of god I was able to avoid hitting anyone or anything after the vehicle hit me and pushed my car 450 feet. My brakes completely failed, I finally pulled the emergency brake, did a little Tokyo Drift action and came to an abrupt halt. While attempting to stop I saw the other drive barreling down the sidewalk and witness the impact into the building and instant structure collapse. I was shocked and so thankful to hear that no one on the sidewalk was injured, nor were the two people in the building hurt. Apparently the vehicle stopped within a mere six feet of one woman.

The trip and stay at the hospital was one of the worst I’ve experienced, mainly due to the cervical collar I had to wear for the entire stay. I had CAT scans, with contrast, ultrasounds, IVs, blood draws, pretty much your standard collision affair I guess. I’m happy to report I suffered no major injuries such as broken bones, etc, but unfortunately I do have a badly sprained neck and back.

After a week of driving a rental base model 2010 Sonata, desperately trying to find a replacement car we finally purchased a beautiful 2011 Hyundai Sonata SE on April 9th. My family was down to visit and help with the property recovery at the house that weekend, so Madalayna (my five-year-old niece) and I decided to go to the pet store to try and find our cat Gabbie a replacement pet bed. She was excited about riding in the new car, so much so that we had to have a little discussion on the importance of her safety seat and wearing her seat belt before we left the pet store.

On the way home I came to a stop at a fairly major intersection nearby the apartment. I look up in my mirror and see a truck approaching at a speed inconsistent with stopping… there was not enough time to react, I sort of felt like a deer in the headlights. I knew what was going to happen, but I couldn’t do anything at all to change the outcome… and BAM! The jackass just smashed into the back of our brand-new, not even 24 hours old car.

The damage is relatively minor, but I had a complete emotional breakdown on the scene. The asshole state trooper just wanted us to share information, and was going to leave without taking down anything. I told him to stay put, called an ambulance, and made sure everything was done as it should be.

Madalayna was checked out by the EMTs, and I got to turn this into a teachable moment as to just why I made a fuss about her wearing the seat belt and sitting in her special car seat.

My injuries from the previous collision were greatly exacerbated by the second collision. I’m now seeing a Physical Therapist twice weekly, taking medication for pain thrice daily, and anti-anxiety medication. Traveling through that intersection, which is nearly a daily necessity, breaks me out into a sweat, and being a passenger in a car makes it twice as bad because I’m not in control at all.

The Sonata SE has been in the repair shop since last Wednesday. Apparently there’s some problem now with matching the paint color correctly, which I feared would be the case. I suggested they have pre-painted panels flown in from Hyundai before they even took the car in. I tell you, the world would be such a smoother-run place if people would just do what I tell them to do. Everytime somebody goes against my suggestion we end up in a clusterfuck.

I cannot stand a single day extra with the massive piece of shit that is the Chevy HHR. Are all American cars junk? The American auto industry really should have been allowed to fail if this is the shit they put out.

So, that’s my life right now. Shitty rental car, weird apartment, significant pain most of the day that prevents me from performing most daily functions, and I basically live in fear of being hit again anytime I leave the house.

The bright side, in a few months we should have a basically brand-new house, with insurance money to fill it with all of the necessary stuff of life.

I lost my house to fire sunday night.

My mom and I are okay, and the firefighters rescued my cat. My aquariums did not survive.

The Red Cross had arranged for a motel room for the past couple of nights, and we’ll be able to move into our temporary apartment today.

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There’s some irony, perhaps, that tomorrow I have an old love arriving to, while another is leaving from, New York.

Arrival, it reminds me of the great and uncontainable joy once experienced, that makes me happy, remembering feeling so in love. I’m very happy for him, which sounds so trite, it isn’t though, really. I was going to mention something to him about it, but we rarely speak, and really it isn’t necessary. He’s happy, I like that.

I’ve decided that I truly enjoy being alone. I cherish the quiet and the freedom. While the company of another on occasion is nice, it is by no means necessary or particularly desired, and especially not needed. There is a balance that just cannot be struck easily, and until I find that beacon that says “this is just right” in the very beginning, I don’t particularly see a reason to bother at all. I will certainly forget that little detail, but I’m too picky about everything, and given enough time, I’ll find enough about someone that promotes feelings of disgust. It certainly isn’t the fault of the other, it’s me that needs more and more perfection; unrealistic perfection. It is time to be brutal, when I feel like bothering at all, that is, when I’ve forgotten that I don’t want to bother.

The whole point of this business is that… because I’m remembering how amazing I felt so very long ago, and how nobody has really ever come close to that since, well… I need that feeling again, or at least some similar enough. Now, I suppose I’m not being completely fair when I say no one has even come close, because that isn’t true. It’s just… a quick burst of infatuation, narcotic as it may be, doesn’t really, honestly, count. It especially doesn’t count when I’m being completely delusional, while, though rare, did happen once in recent memory.

I want to proclaim from the rooftop how much I love someone… That doesn’t happen in six months, it just can’t, unfortunately I can’t seem to make it past the sixth or so month without wanting to go into witness protection. It doesn’t matter though, because while it is completely contrary to socialization, I’m happy with just myself.

Well, not exactly just myself, I do have Clyde.

Clyde is a fish, btw, a Betta to be precise.

Monday I started the process to quit smoking. I haven’t had a single puff since Sunday night before I went to bed, afterwhich I began using the Commit lozenge.

In a few minutes I’ll be 48 hours smoke-free. I’m having a difficult time taking/using the minimum of nine lozenges a day, the most I can manage is about six. They take an hour to dissolve, can’t eat or drink while that minty tingling is happening… and it is suggested that you take them between one and two hours apart. Now, is that an hour after you start one, or an hour after you finish one? …no clue. Either way, if it takes an hour to dissolve and I wait two hours between them, which is astonishingly easy, I’d need to be doing it for eighteen hours a day… uhm…

I sleep a lot more than the typical person; between ten and twelve hours, if I have the bed to myself (otherwise it’s more like between four and six, heh).

I smoked cloves, significantly lower in nicotine than a typical cigarette.

I can handle some withdrawl symptoms… I did quit cold a few years ago, of course that only lasted a week, heh.

Without just saying “pfft, I’m at step two already” …which isn’t supposed to be for six weeks, I’ll try to get into some sort of habit, hah, of taking these things every two hours, which is really three hours after I started ‘not sucking’ on one. If I don’t get up to nine a day, well… that’s because I was sleeping.

Overall it hasn’t been too bad. I do get fairly strong cravings after eating and drinking coffee. With after eating being when a nice clove would be oh so very perfect, and of course… anytime I sit down here at the computer I automatically reach over for the pack of cloves and lighter that aren’t even there.

I’ve been spending most of my awake time with knitting, it’s something that I associate with not smoking, it keeps my hands busy, and with a lozenge also my mouth busy putting a slow dose of not exactly calming nicotine into my body.

I did choose the 4mg version, versus the 2mg, because I would always smoke my first cigarette within thirty minutes of waking. Perhaps if I chose the 2mg version I’d be popping those suckers like there wasn’t a tomorrow? Oh well.

I don’t want to do this wrong and end up smoking again, but I just can’t imagine finding time to take nine of those things a day. I’m also not quite sure why this whole process is supposed to last twelve weeks. Either way, I’m doing my best to stick with the program. I’ve not had an overwhelming desire to kill anyone, outside of well… normal hostility of really hoping that the cop that jumped in front of me on I-270, having just clocked me with his laser gun going 76MPH, does that to the wrong person and becomes road kill.

Matthew is on day six of his cessation of smoking, he’s doing it cold, without NRT, but then he generally would smoke less than I would, and has been on a slow decline in numbers of cigarettes smoked anyway. I feel better about my decision to quit, knowing now that I won’t be negatively influencing him by my continued smoking.

My mom was supposed to quit with me on Monday, but she backed out, wanting to wait until a weekend so she could have a day or two under the belt before she had to go to work. I can’t force her to quit, but considering how her continuing to smoke in the house would negatively effect my process of quiting, well, that has now been forbidden. If she wants to continue to smoke, even if it is only for the rest of the week, she has to do it outside.

My cigarettes have been on a continual rise in cost, now being just shy of $5 a pack, I’m burning $150 worth a month… it had to stop. I can already breathe more easily and my nose isn’t nearly as stuffy as it typically would be. Actually, the lozenges do cost slightly less than the cigarettes, basically $4 per day versus $5 per day… the cost of quitting smoking is no longer substantially more, yay!

Not that it is really appropriate to comment about a speeding ticket under the moniker of a major life changing event, but I’m still thoroughly disgusted by receiving it. Anyone familiar with I-270 near the DC beltway would realize that 76 MPH is actually on the slow side. I was going that fast simply to avoid being run over by all of the cars going just as fast behind me. It just happens that I had crossed over into the 55MPH section… cop sitting along the left side of the road, hits me with laser, jumps out in front of the car and points straight at me. If it weren’t for the whole killing being bad thing, I’d have run him over for the shear stupidity of doing such a thing. Several cars behind me also pulled over, only to realize that this cop was playing the out of state game, apparently if you have a Maryland plate you’re allowed to go that fast — since I was simply keeping up with the traffic ahead and behind me (again, to keep from being run over).

There’s no debating it, I was speeding… it doesn’t matter why to the cop, he’s doing his job. My lump is the $145 ticket payable toward the end of the month, as if my financial situation wasn’t delicate enough. I was going down to Ikea with mom… my first instinct was to just turn around and go home, but… that would have made the trip totally worthless and hideously expensive at that. So, I went, bought what I planned to buy, those damned shelves ended up being seriously more expensive than planned.

I’m going to sound like a thirteen year old girl here for a minute, you might want to skip ahead.

I have a boyfriend. I’ve been seeing him since just prior to Mother’s day, so a tiny bit more than a month. I really like him… he’s even helped me in the garden! Major points awarded there… as well as other areas of course.

Yesterday was the ‘change in title’ which really I suppose is all the difference it truly makes, but I guess the idea is it certainly makes it easier to describe my relationship with him, versus saying ‘this guy I’ve been seeing’ you know?

I’ve avoided going to Denny’s for quite a while… normally I’d avoid it just because, well… it is Denny’s afterall, but around the middle of March I found a new reason. Last night both of us were hungry, he suggested Sheetz… and, well, I’ve had enough Sheetz to last my lifetime, including tonight. Here in “small town hell” it’s not exactly an easy thing to find food around midnight, and I wanted to actually sit down somewhere and eat. It was a bit of that ‘internal battle’ business, but I figured I couldn’t go on with being avoidant forever. Quite frankly I don’t know if I was being avoidant for my own good, or for his benefit, but as long as Mr. Denny’s and I didn’t see each other then all was well. It would figure, he was there… I saw his car, my stomach sort of turned and as much as I wanted to just say “let’s go…” I figured it couldn’t be that bad, could it?

So, I saw him… but there wasn’t any eye contact, and really no reaction.. no biggie. So, a bit later on I see him walk into this little space that allows people ‘in the back’ to see what’s going on in the smoking section, and he looks at me… and there’s plenty of eye contact that time, then there was that second look. That was it, basically, we just looked at each other… they weren’t looks of disgust or happiness, or any other discernable emotion… perhaps some of that ‘what are you doing here’ but really, it didn’t matter. I wasn’t there to see him, I was there in spite of having to possibly see him.

My heart did sink, I can’t change the fact that I reacted to seeing him… seeing me. I miss talking to him and spending time with him, but there’s nothing I can do about it, because there’s nothing I will do about it.

I’m exhausted, but you know, I’m still awake now at 3AM. I didn’t sleep very well lastnight, I think the biggest ‘problem’ so far with the boyfriend is his insistance on sleeping underneath the down comforter when it’s 90&deg outside… just being near him I turn into a puddle of sweat (well, okay… it’s only a problem when I want to sleep). This whole sleep schedule thing isn’t working for me, it’s just another one of those “I’m getting OLD” indicators I think. I really need to pick a schedule and stick to it without error… and possibly use sleep aids to help get onto that schedule. It’s the continuing problem of physical exhaustion, but my mind simply won’t shut off. Of course, whenever he’s not here I don’t really want to sleep… it’s better in so many uncountable ways whenever he’s right there next to me.

The weather has been horrible with high heat and equally high humidity… one can feel the air when walking outside. Today my camera’s lense wouldn’t stay clear of fog; being outside for even a few minutes I become a puddle, I’m not pleased. This is seriously putting a damper on my gardening activities, I can barely survive just deadheading and pulling weeds. Today’s storm destroyed one of my little Delphiniums, the flower stalk was snapped… blegh!

I’ve started working on garden.indiboi, mostly photos of the rose garden’s progress and upclose photos of the blooms at this point. As I find myself having more motivation to actually work on it and post photos I’ll try to do just that. ;)

Jackson & Perkins had this set of six David Austin roses on clearance, all told it cost me $32 for the set, quite a nice little deal. Now, I’ll be getting them in a few days, right in the middle of this heatwave horror — I’m supposed to get them either on the 17th or the 20th , damn that weekend business. I think I would be better off putting them into pots — I’m giving one of them to Matthew anyway, as it’s a duplicate of one I already have. I like it well enough, but not enough to have two of them when I could use the same planting space for something different. With the addition of those five, my total rose count will be up to 22. I still want to see if I can find a nice white English or ‘Old Garden’ — preferably Bourbon — rose in a pot at a greenhouse, but I’m not sure. I have at least figured out generally where the new roses will be going… that also means I need to dig up a big stretch of grass (again), lol. I took some spray paint and laid out some of the general bed redesign ideas… I have to keep focusing on making sure I can actually walk around… I’ve made an island of planting, basically my veggies & herbs surrounded on nearly all sides by flowering plants. It could be problematic, time for stepping stones. ;)

The strawberries I’d planted last year and yielding quite well, enough for a nice snack on a daily basis. I’ll need probably four times as many if I actually wanted to do something productive with them… such as make preserves. I suppose that’ll work though, they need to be moved anyway. The six or so strawberry plants from last year have fairly well taken over the veggie garden, thus, yes, you guessed it… more grass will need to be torn up, ammended and all that fun stuff. Thankfully for the strawberries there isn’t a terrible hurry, I’ll probably move them in the fall. This has me considering moving the whole veggie area to the side yard… I’m not sure enough about the daylight though, it could be problematic with the house possibly shading the area. I’ll just need to pay attention to the sun patterns… if it looks okay, then I’ll probably get that started in the fall too.

I was showing Zilla a photo of my rose garden the other day and mentioning how wonderful it is to go out there with coffee and cigarettes, and relax on the bench, with Justin. He remarked that it seemed like a great way to spend the holiday… I suppose that was Memorial Day. Tonight was especially amazing, to the point that I really wished he (Justin) had been here… all the baby lightning bugs were out, the air was sparkling! Add in the cooler air thanks to the sun setting and all of the birds sending their calls through the trees, it was nearly perfect.

I so very look forward to later in the summer when the perennials we’d planted get a bit more mature and hopefully start flowering. The foxgloves have just finished, the roses (some of them) are finishing out their first flush, while some of the others are just starting. I think that timing will work nicely, should (hopefully) prove to provide blooms pretty much consistently throughout the summer and early fall.

Today’s observations: There’s a tiny little tomato forming on one of the Roma bushes, there are a few tiny buds on the Dahlias, the yellow lily in the front has started blooming, two of the new lilies in the back are blooming now; the coneflowers have little buds on them, the ‘Fragrant Treasure’ Daylilies have started blooming, even the ‘Sum & Substance’ Hosta have started to bloom. I’m still waiting for ‘Tiffany’ to bloom, one of the newly planted roses this year, along with ‘Graham Thomas,’ ‘The Prince,’ and ‘Pat Austin’ as well. Hopefully the ‘Tiffany’ will actually be as labeled… my ‘Chicago Peace’ isn’t.. but maybe just a ‘Peace’ but that is still questionable; my ‘Sterling Silver’ appears to be a ‘Joseph’s Coat’ …but that’s still undetermined too. I’m not worried about the others because they actually came from a decently reputable company, versus being bodybags at Walmart.

I’ll definitely need to have a garden party of some sort this summer… hopefully with the correct timing to catch the roses & summer blooming perennials in bloom… it would be lovely.

Random, but I find myself missing the neat features of OS X whenever I’m using my Gentoo workstation (which is whenever I’m actually… well, working).

I found a little thing called skippy to give expose-esque functionality to the desktop, but I can’t figure out (yet) if it’s possible to do a hot-corner thing with it like OS X — I haven’t tried though. It is also horribly slow and doesn’t do automatic updates like the real thing, basically it’s just junk… good in theory, crap in comparision to the real Apple Expose. I do realize that one can install some bastardized X server that has all sorts of patches applied to it so that windows will update, etc, but hell, I had a difficult enough time when Gentoo just automatically swapped me to the ‘xorg’ X server, versus XFree… of course, aren’t they the same thing? Whatever, I don’t care, whatever works.

I’ve been ‘vacationing’ from reality as much as I can lately, for obvious reasons… basically that I would rather my mind just be totally shutdown. (more…)