Here in Katie’s Head

I suck at packing. I was “packing” all day, except that I was actually playing games on the computer and daydreaming.

As of 7:30 p.m., my last night in the duplex, I have packed four small boxes (labeled: shoes, heels, lacy things, wine glasses). I have dragged all my clothes downstairs but haven’t put them in boxes. The spare room and the walk-in closet are empty, though.

As of 8:30, I’ve added three more boxes (drinking glasses (a personal weakness, I have three sets), misc. kitchen, and non-perishable food). That’s a pathetic rate of progress. I’m definitely behind where I should be.

As of 11, I packed up the truck with nine small boxes (the above plus books), two large boxes of bedding and towels, about a third of my seemingly endless supply of clothes, the toaster, my knitting gear, lawn chairs, and other crap I can’t remember. It felt like progress. Then I went back in the house where there is still a ton of stuff, including everything heavy and everything that doesn’t easily fit into a box.

I think last time I moved, I said I wouldn’t move again until I bought a house. Well, a lot has changed between then and now, but I’m tempted to swear the same thing again.

When people of work ask me where I’m moving, I tell them the name of the apartment complex (between Riverside and Midtown, just west of the county jail) and their eyes light up. “Oh, that’s like a rite of passage!” and then they start listing off newsroom employees who have lived there. If they’ve lived to tell the tale, I figure it can’t be too bad. And no more unfathomably high gas bills, yay!

Posted: 6:33 pm · Category: Duplex · Comments: 3

Today, the landlord showed my duplex to some potential new renters. This morning, it occurred to me that maybe I should clean up the place at least a little. God bless the Magic Eraser. It really does magically erase stuff.

And by the end of the day, I have three more reasons to dislike my landlord:

1. He left the lights on. Wasteful. On my dime. Tsk.
2. He left the door to the “second bedroom” (glorified attic) open. I am not paying to air-condition an empty room, dude.
3. HE PEED IN MY TOILET AND LEFT THE SEAT UP.

I feel violated.

Posted: 9:58 pm · Category: Duplex · Comments: 3

For the four days I was gone, it rained constantly in Wichita. And then my plane lands and I go home and collapse.

And then I wake up to discover that, after a few days of rain, the roof leaks. You know, the new roof. The roof that was put on right before I moved in.

I’d been waiting to give my thirty days’ notice to my landlord (I’m on a month-to-month lease at this point) because, uh, there was sorta a reason I didn’t want to sign a new twelve-month lease right now. But I’m tired of waiting, and the list of nuisances has only grown longer (another new one: the neighbors are building an addition onto the back of their house by themselves…loudly…with lots of yelling at each other).

Along with my rent check, I gave notice to the landlord today. I have to be out by the end of the month.

So, lovely Wichita readers, please give me a heads up on any reasonably priced, one bedroom apartments you know of within the College Hill to Riverside span (I’m not becoming a commuter until I live in a real city).

Posted: 3:42 pm · Category: Duplex, Wichita · Comments: None

Since that last letter from my bathroom scale, I had another cup of gelato.

And then I weighed myself. How can it be that a small gelato weighs far less than a pound, but I seem to gain an entire pound every time I have one?

Thank god for the gym.

And after three weeks of Muscle Pump class, I no longer lay on my mat and cry during push ups. I may whimper like a sad puppy, but I do the freaking push ups. (I wish this were sarcasm, but it’s all true.)

After the first class, I was sore for four days. Well, sore’s not really the word for it. I was in incredible pain and could barely stand up, sit down or walk. But the days after the last three classes, I wasn’t even sore.

So the status report after a month of gym-going is this: I’ve lost a few more pounds. My clothes fit better. Many of my TV shows are going unwatched.

I’ve also rediscovered my crafty side. Sadly my crafty side has not developed any real sense of craftsmanship. (It has long baffled me that with some things, I am maddeningly anal retentive, while with other things I can’t muster more than the sloppiest of techniques, with no real pattern as to which tasks fall in each category).

This week, I decided that I’m tired of my ugly, cheap (read: I bought it at Target/Wal-Mart/Big Lots and put it together myself without needing a single tool) furniture. So I went thrifting and found myself a new nightstand ($10) and a TV stand ($5!!!). It amazes me that I can find furniture that’s twice as sturdy as what I have, twice as attractive once it’s painted and far, far cheaper than even the DIY Target equivalent. I’m spending more on paint than I am on the furniture.

So I’m left with two major concerns:

• How can I rearrange my living room so that it makes sense? (It’s nearly impossible given the ridiculous proportions of the room, but right now, it says “stay the hell out of my territory” rather than “make yourself at home.”)
• How do I deal with the fact that my ugly couch and loveseat are solid black? (I would never have chosen them on my own. Why didn’t I hold out? Yet another chapter in I am an Idiot. It’s a long chapter, entitled “I have no skill for design, except when criticizing other people’s work.”) I’ve heard there are slipcovers that are actually attractive, but that sounds pretty laughable to me.

Anyway. Cheers to progress.

Posted: 7:44 am · Category: Duplex, Fitness, I am an idiot · Comments: 5

Scene: Monday morning at the office

Katie: So you’ve got a teenage boy at home, right?
Ron: Yeah.
Katie: Does he mow lawns?

I put it off until it could be put off no longer. The weatherman says today’s the last day to mow before it gets all gross outside again. And for some reason, I believe him. He also said something about snow, so I’m probably just a sucker.

There’s a mower in the garage, and I was pretty sure it worked. And I thought it probably had gas in it, too. But I loathe mowing so much that I really have no interest in details like that.

So I hired a coworker’s kid to do a slightly-less-sloppy job than I could have done myself. And I paid him way too much. And when I picked him up, he was on his cell phone and he told his friend (girlfriend?) that he was “going to mow some lady’s lawn.”

Kids are calling me “lady” now. Ugh. I’m only eight years older than you, kid.

And then in the car, I realized I was doing that Uncool Adult Desperately Trying to Seem Way Cool thing and I was so very, very mortified.

But now the weeds are back down to the same height as the grass, I didn’t have to exert any actual effort, and I can stop feeling guilty about my neglect for yard work.

In conclusion: I am not at all cool. Paying a kid to mow was totally worth it. I am now considering other applications for child labor.

Posted: 6:05 pm · Category: Duplex · Comments: 3

So I’m looking over my lease for no particular reason today when I notice something that I had previously missed:

… for a term of 1 years, to commence on July 1, 2006 and to end on March, 2007 …

July until March is (insert finger counting here) eight months. Not twelve. And don’t ask me why he didn’t put a day of the month for the ending date. If that’s at all binding, I’m now on a month-to-month deal and I can leave with 30 days’ notice at any point (according to a later section of the lease).

But that kind of mistake on the landlord’s part isn’t binding, right? Anyone know?

Because I’d love nothing more than to leave the ants behind and move somewhere with reasonable utility bills before we get to air conditioning season.

Posted: 7:01 pm · Category: Duplex · Comments: 2

Thursday, there were two ants.

Friday, there were seven. I smashed the first four, then saw two more walk across the spot where I’d just smashed two of their buddies. They must have smelled the blood, because they turned and ran. Not fast enough, mwah ha ha.

Today, I called my mom, knowing they tend to get ants in their kitchen every spring and she probably has good advice on how to get rid of them. She said, “mint oil,” and loaned me her can of Victor Posion-Free Ant & Roach Killer (4.0% mint oil, get it at the hardware store).

And then I came home and found two ants heading straight for my toothbrush and oh, it is so ON. And just like the can says, mint oil kills in seconds. I killed ants on the wall, on the window sill, above the sink, in the bathtub, and then I sprayed everywhere else because those little fuckers can’t get away with invading my fortress of solitude, my beloved bathroom sanctuary. Then I went outside and sprayed around the window where they came in.

I tried warning them. “There’s no food in here,” I said, “and there’s not even any food in the kitchen. Go back outside. If you stay here, I will smash you. And if you keep coming back, I will spray you with the first spray can I can find. It might be insecticide, or it might be mouse or Oust, but you’re not going to like it either way.”

Ants do not listen to reason. So now my bathroom smells minty fresh.

Just now, about eight hours after the initial slaughter, I saw another pair of ants wandering around the bathroom wall, but before I could reach for the spray can, I saw them freeze up and go into their death throes.

Mint oil rocks.

Posted: 10:40 pm · Category: Duplex · Comments: 1