That Update I Promised

So....lessee. What's been happening in my life?

I got the apartment, for one thing. Moving day could be as soon as the 29th or as late as...well, as late as whatever the judge will allow it to be.

I was pissed-off enough by what happened with Countrywide "We'd Be More Accurate Without The O" Mortgage, that I took the advice I got from the nice lady on the other end of the Cook County Sheriff's phone, and filed a Motion for Stay of Possession. This required a substantial chunk of a morning, $163, and approximately eleventeen elevator trips from one floor to another in Daley Center, all of which resulted in a court date, scheduled for Monday, which will decide whether we get the house for another thirty days.

And by "we", I mean "Tim and Squeaky"; I plan to move sooner rather than later. The only thing that's holding me back even a LITTLE is this insane desire to be NICE, not to take away the stove and fridge and all the furniture and basically everything they would need in order to continue staying here after I leave.

My insane desire to be "nice", however, is rapidly dying, under the assault of Too Much Relationship Info, Courtesy of Squeaky.

Squeaky is madly in love with Tim. She got some money from an aunt, and promptly spent all of it on Sweetest Day gifts for Tim. I mean, she went OVERBOARD: candy, balloon, books, videotapes, a big whompin chocolate-covered apple...If he gets her anything, I'll be amazed. Because he, you see, is substantially LESS in love. And she knows it, but it doesn't stop her from bashing her head against the wall, doing every single thing he asks--and things he HASN'T asked, but which he might concievably ask for some day in the FUTURE. He totally takes advantage of it, treats her like crap, and generally makes me extremely glad that I don't find him the least bit attractive. I would feel sorry for her, if all the schmoopy-woopy-boopy-poop didn't make me want to scream til my lungs bleed. See, she has no way of getting around to do most of the pathetically-clingy stuff she wants to do for him--so guess who she asks?? "Would you do me a favor and get him some cigarettes/Aleve/cookies/etc? I'll pay you back..." (She hasn't.)


The most trivial thing, which is also possibly the most annoying thing of all: Tim's real name is one of those names which can be tweaked in spelling, to suit the preferences of its owner. (You know--like Britney/Brittany/Brytynie/ad nauseam.) Tim has, in recent months, adopted one of these exceedingly stupid-looking spellings for his real name. (I'm going to use "Christopher" as the base example, even though that's not Tim's real name and honestly, how he's screwed with his REAL name is even worse than the illustration.) I have scrupulously avoided going along with this silliness, because I'm weird about names--I can't even BEGIN to tell you how I felt about the name he saddled his DAUGHTER with--and so I've mostly began notes with either "C" or "Hey dude". But Squeaky...oh, she's more than happy to go along with this ridiculous spelling, along with every other whim of his. So every IM she sends me--and oh, sweet merciful Heaven, does she send me IMs?? YOU guess--aggravates me even more than it ought to, simply by assaulting my brain-cells with things like "Chrystofer is mad at me, I think..." It makes me want to gouge my eyes out.

I try to be charitable. I remember how I was at 19--Firefly, I'm sure, can second that; how I was obsessed with the wishes of my boyfriend at the time, and would pretty much move heaven and earth if he said he wanted something. I remember being goofy (Firefly--remember pissing off our next-door roomies by singing that BoDeans song every night for a week? hehehe...) and childish and silly. But...here's the thing: I only inflicted that goofiness on OTHER 19-year-olds. I didn't move into the house of an unrelated 37-year-old and expect her to be just as entranced with all my silliness as I was. (I may be an immature 37, but an immature 37 is still a hell of a lot more mature than an immature 19.) And frankly, her goofiness is WAY goofier than OUR goofiness was. Is that a self-serving, revisionist statement? Probably, yeah. But I'm standing by it--again, I never inflicted it one an unrelated 37-year-old.

And I know that my friends, over the years, have dealt with a lot from me in the realm of relationships. They've listened to me bemoaning the men that didn't love me, the ones who mistreated me, the ones who I kept around for absolutely NO REASON other than the fact that I didn't know how to get rid of them without feeling like an unconscionable bitch. So maybe this is karma; I don't know. But even karma has its limits...doesn't it?

So there's that, and then there's the fact that Tim is rapidly becoming King of the Asshole Frontier.

I discovered last night that they PROBABLY have an apartment. I found this out by asking Squeaky; she was in the kitchen getting another piece of pizza while I was making the latest batch of catfood, and when I asked her, "So have you guys got any prospects on an apartment?" she immediately dropped her voice to a whisper. "Tim doesn't want me to talk to you about it," she said, and promptly spilled all the beans. Apparently it's a studio, and her aunt is going to cosign, and her grandma is going to help with security deposits and the like, and...blah blah blah...

Okay, whatever. But "Tim doesn't want me to talk to you about it" ?? WTF? And yet...this isn't the first time I've witnessed it. He gets this way, all secretive and awful, when there are stressful things going on; I remember it from our final days with CR, but Tim always blamed the stress during that time on the way -WE- treated -HIM-. And I went along with it--there were things I did during that time which were not very characteristic of a good friend--but now, I'm seeing things he's doing now--things he also did back then--which are ALSO not very friend-like. And this secret-keeping, creeping around, playing one person against the other--oh yeah, I remember those too.

I can't wait to move.

I can't wait for peace, quiet, order. I can't wait to see how I'll do financially, with only my own worries to worry about, and no $8-a-pack cigarettes, $7 bottles of Aleve, cold medicine for Squeaky, Sweetest Day cookies, 12-packs of Old Style, and all the rest.

I'm moving on the 29th, I think. Better sooner than later; and once the move is done, I can relax and get on with my life. I may be losing my house, true....but a fresh start won't be the worst thing in the world, either.