April 1, 1999.

Ohhhhhh.

Please don't consider this an April Fool's joke. I had a good one planned, but events raced out of my control. This entry is deadly serious. I have witnesses.

So last night I moved what's left of my possessions out of Hippie Hell and into the new half-sized Grotto, with the kind help of Scott and Stacy. It took us 4 trips to get everything in. Hmm...4 trips...4 flights of stairs...twice more on top of that...once to get the keys...once to finally lock up...oh, hell, I'm an English major. Figure it out yerself.

It was not my best move, which is entirely due to the fact that I'm a lazy ass. I spent all Wednesday afternoon reading Cosmo...not looking at the time until I had a half hour before class. Oh, the frantic ripping down of posters (my Big Rude Jake poster will never be the same). Oh, the frantic clean-up. Oh, the embarrassment when my movers showed up and I wasn't quite ready.

In terms of sheer entertainment value though, moving with Scott and Stacy is far preferable to moving with my parents. Scott and Stacy appreciate strange buildings, sinister cats, sleazy balconies and large abandoned teddy bears. And finally, to cap off their applications for sainthood, they offered to take me home to their couch instead of leaving me to make a nest on the hardwood floors with my convenience store fare of peanut butter and white bread. Even the fact that they get up ass-early in the morning (they have real jobs) was okay, since I needed to go back to Hippie Hell to vacuum.

What no one had counted on was Wednesday.

Wednesday is the cat. She's very beautiful, very curious, very lively, very interesting and very dominant. She is, no question, the alpha female of the loft, attacking even Stacy when she foolishly lets bare limbs dangle off the furniture. I was told that when they had their bedroom downstairs, Wednesday would wake them up constantly. I learned quite early on in the night that I should wrap up my feet in the blanket, otherwise Wednesday would attack them through the slats in the futon. I was in her territory, and she didn't like it at all...although she did seem to listen to my agonized pleading and stopped clawing my arms (which were wrapped protectively around my head).

To make things a bit more challenging, the arc sodium parking lot light is right outside one of the living room windows...the one without a curtain...so I coped by wrapping my black dress around my head (the very one I wore that day and am wearing now!). This made it impossible to guess when Wednesday would make an approach. It was...interesting, I'll tell you that.

But despite all this complaining about the cat, I kind of felt sorry for her. I was really for sure and no doubt in her space, in her house, and under her dominance. Besides I was a bit too afraid of her to bundle her off into the bathroom. I like my eyes, and pending any revelations about my ascension to power here in Thebes, I plan on using them for awhile.

I really don't want to talk about the trip back to Hippie Hell. Suffice it say that being locked out & ringing the doorbell for 15 minutes was a bit of a high point. I left with the few scattered things I'd forgotten, including some superfluous bedding and my wicker waste paper basket. I could tell by the look of apathy in her eyes that my roommate would sooner throw my stuff out than lift a finger to move it, so I decided to haul it to campus. Bad move. It's so draining to carry a full wastepaper basket around in the rain (my umbrella, which I kept for such an occasion, is at the new place of course) that I won't even describe it. And here I am, catching a few minutes of peace on a library terminal. I'm wearing the same clothes I wore yesterday and somebody else's socks. I'm sleep deprived, I need a bath, and I'm carrying essential toiletries around with me...not no mention half a loaf of white bread, a jar of peanut butter and a sticky plastic knife.

I feel so punk rock.