My Animated Life

I'm currently sitting on the floor of an empty apartment that used to be not-so-empty. I have a hand-truck, a vacuum, and a backpack of stuff to entertain me while I wait for the guy to show up for my final inspection. Today is my last day in this apartment; I will never see it again. While I'd like to be overjoyed at the thought of finally getting out of this god-forsaken hell hole, it's more bitter sweet.

I fought tooth and nail just to be able to live here. Not to get the apartment in the first place, really, just to keep it in a livable condition. There was the time the fireman kicked in my door for no apparent reason. There was the time the ceiling of the bathroom nearly caved in from a leak upstairs (they patched it up and claimed they couldn't find a leak (I can still hear it dripping)). When there was a problem with the water, more often than not it was the curious and inexplicable case that I could only get scolding hot water, as opposed to a more logical case of only cold water or no water at all. I once lost power to half of the apartment. Another time, I lost half of the power to the whole apartment. The list goes on.

I've been trying to move into the new house for a month now. This whole "Oh, I have a month to move in so I can do it slowly" thing really backfired. I dogsat for my parents for ten days, in which I didn't have time to move anything, really. I also had that triathlon that I had to train for (it went very well, more on that when all the pictures are posted). The gas money has been drilling a hole in my bank account.

I still have to deal with the DC DMV, which by all accounts is the worse than the twelve trials of Hercules. And I can see why. Last week I tried to get my car's emissions inspected... I spent 45 minutes driving in a 4-block radius and couldn't find it. I followed the signs, they led me straight back onto the highway. I hate it and I haven't even stepped foot in it yet. I can't even register my car until the title saunters it's way up from Carmax Autofinance HQ in Georgia, hopefully some time next week.

I lost the last remaining key to my car two weeks ago. It took three days and $275 to get a new one, and another $170 to get a spare from the dealer. The locksmith broke my driver's side door, and the key only unlocks that door (it's always been like that), so if I lock the car, I have to climb in through the hatch. That should be fixed tomorrow, and I've already practiced three versions of my "Hell no, I'm not paying for this!" speech, should he try to pull some shenanigans.

I have an hour and a half round trip to make so I can return the cable box. Today.

Guys' night tonight. We're getting drunk and watching The Expendables. House party tomorrow night, because we've been in the house for a month and haven't had a party yet. My birthday is next week and I have off for two days afterward, then it's the weekend. I will take one of them to spend some quality time with myself. I'd like to go hiking, or maybe for a very long bike ride, I haven't decided yet. The point is, these things are all things that have been missing from my life since I started the moving process a month and a half ago, and I'm really looking forward to having them back, if only for a few days.