hello my friends and lurkers:

thank you for still reading. i'm alive and writing, albeit finding my way through a state of chaos, which is what the month of may is going to probably be. we moved into the house this weekend, and the amount of work carved out feels neverending. i've been sleeping on the couch in the living room because my bedroom is cluttered with boxes and trash bags. i forget where i placed the bed sheets and my socks. last night i carried the last box into the house after spending midnight to 3 a.m. cleaning the apartment, feeling like a mad woman scrubbing pumpkin pie stains off of the inside of the oven from that pie i had baked in november for the autumn party (?) by the time i drove to the house and unloaded the car, tip-toeing through the dark grass, it was 4 in the morning and i had to wake at 6:45 to get going to the office. so much has gone awry that it's been no surprise to discover that mercury is retrograde.

here goes. *alicia's grandmother had a sudden anneurism the night before the move in day and she had to get a quick flight back home to be with her family. *i drove out to her apartment in north austin to feed her cat since she was away and the door to her apartment would not lock on the way out. i tried for 15 minutes and nothing would give. it was broken. *our landlord fell sick with the flu on move in day and could not give me the house key personally so i had to have copies made from her maintenance man and get a signed money order check to her office in the middle of rush hour lunch traffic. *then i had great trouble finding her office. *my dad went over to my apartment building to let the carpet cleaners in and my security pass would not allow him access - turns out it was suddenly broken. i had to contact the main office while i was out at lunch and did not have the phone number, which led to me randomly calling friends to see who could look up the number on the internet. *$90 later the carpet cleaners could not remove the major tea stain in the living room and i had to attempt to remove it with bleach. my dad and i got into a small argument because he criticized the rest of my apartment and i was upset that he was getting into my business. *while moving in, the front porch light and bathroom lights suddenly went out, and i had to move in box after box in the dark. *we had the maintenance man come out to fix the lights this evening, and after he left, a fuse blew out half of our electricity, including the air conditioning window units on this sweltering, humid, 95-degree day. i was able to tinker around with the fuse box, luckily, and turn the electricity back on.

i'm so looking forward to a hot shower and a full night of sleep. photos coming.