Heals The Original Dryness

letter i just sent to relatives after reading nora's letter to relatives (she just moved and is settling in seattle right now, so i thought i was in enough of a similar situation that i deserved to send out a self indulgent letter):

Subj: from the other daughter...
...who is living on her own in a strange new location

we are still without internet in our little townhouse so i am taking advantage of being online while i'm home from a dentist appointment (i got my first cavity. i survived 19 years without cavities and now i have one! i feel so flawed) and for yom kippur. we are also without tv/cable and newspaper, so we were pleasantly isolated on the 11th. my housemate and i decided to go out and support the economy in honor of the occasion. so we now have decorations for the walls. the last tenents left various kitsch-y wild cat pictures alond with some decent furniture and a bed. we can deal with the bed and the worn out armrests of the furniture but the pictures were too much. their frames were in really bad condition too.

we've cleaned it up a bunch. the previous tenents were incredibly messy, so marcy (our landlady, mother of a couple of my friends, which is how i got a place) replaced the carpets and did a good once over of cleaning the whole place and then benn (my sweetie) and i bought harsh chemicals and cleaned some of messier spots more.

our appliances are like sick children. they need lots of rest and constant supervision while they're awake. our dishwasher spit up on the counter the first time we used it. we figured out that the water was comming out the airvent next to the faucent, so we just turn the opening towards the sink, so it spits up in the sink and we can just take a sponge for the random splatterings. marcy's theory is that something might be blocking the pipe in the garbage disposal so we're going to have someone take a look at that soon. also, the hose on the back vent of the drier broke loose when we were moving in and had to move the dryer out of our walkway. benn wasn't too sure about what would be the best way to fix it, and at the time it wasn't that high on our "fix it" priority list at the time, so we waited until our other housemates got there and set them to those tasks. the kitchen faucet also ticks me off, but talking to dad about it he said it should be just a matter of changing a few washers, so we'll see how that goes.

my housemates are wonderful. after 5 years at an all girls school, living with three really nice guys is such a breath of fresh air. and after having a single in the dorms halfway across campus from my friends, living with other people is a nice change as well. having a single was lonely. now i have people to shop with and cook dinner for and watch movies with and all the other pleasures that come with having housemates. it'll probably fade as school starts and we all hold odd hours and lose sleep and become more stressed and irritable, but hey, it's santa cruz, the stress level can really only go so high. so, dispite various difficulties, life is good.

ps to blog readers: various difficulties includes low seratonin levels, so despite things being wonderful, i am still having bouts of depression, but we're working on it. i'm all practicing for school and everything. :)

over and out