So Alicia & I had the girl rats out the other day, letting them free range & play.  I went to check my phone, she put them away & got the boys out.  Except she didn't.  She left one girl out & now I am waiting & waiting to see if she is pregnant.  :(  Suck.  I love baby rats.  But I don't know that I want any random baby rats at this point.  haha

Oh boy.

Today started off bumpy.  I thought I was going to be putting our cat of 15 years, Hooka, to sleep today.  Instead, we ended up leaving the vet with antibiotics & a 2 week waiting period.  Maybe he will get better.  Maybe he has an obstruction in his nose, maybe he has cancer or tumors.  For sure... he is still doing his lazy, fat cat thing around my dad's house.

I spent the rest of the day just lurking about the few places in town left that I love, seeing the people who recognize me as a regular.  I did pretty much nothing.  I find that having 2 days in a row off means that the first day (especially if I am alone) I kinda drift. 

I ran errands.  I picked up new cat stuff, new rat stuff, new Amy stuff.  I got coffee.  I love that coffee shop being half a block away.  I sometimes think Salina knows I am leaving & is trying to lure me into staying.  "Look!  I made you a coffee shop within walking distance!"  "Look!  I made you a sweet, super cheap, giant apartment downtown!"  "Look! You have enough.  Barely.... but still.  Enough is worth staying for, right?" 

No.

Alisia & Damion are moving now too.  Supposedly.  Maybe before we do.  Those will be the only... kinda... friends I have left in this town.  Everyone has / is jumping ship.  Sinking ship. 

Do you know something embarrassing?  I have known her since we were 9 years old, in the same class in grade school together.  We have spent thousands of hours together.  & I am still not sure how to spell her name.  I know it's not the normal way.  But I have never really worried about how it's spelled ENOUGH to remember how it's spelled.  & every time I write it (birthday cards, holiday cards, invitations, blogs, cell phone contact list... whatever) I think, is that right?  Is it an S or a C or an SH or what?  & what's worse, is that I have asked, I have made note of it before at times... yet it never sticks.  What does that say about me?  About her?  About our friendship that has spanned decades?  I don't think it says anything good about me.  That I am pretty sure of. 

So today, when out of the clear blue, she sends me a text & says she is moving, I am thinking... "okay, that sorta sucks...." in a self pitying, only slightly noticing, kidna way.  But not for the reasons you might thing, not because my last kinda-friend here is leaving & I will be alone here.  Still here.  Not really alone but REALLY still here.  But because it sucks here & I missed my window so now I have to wait for another.  & hearing someone else say they found a way out, while I sit in this windowless room... sorta sucks.  & I am kicking myself.  I am pitying myself.  I am worrying my hands & being afraid of myself.  Afraid because I missed my window to leave.  Afraid that I missed it because I am a chickenshit.  Afraid I will die here.  Afraid I will die here never having seen or done anything of real value.

I just spent an hour on Craigslist looking at rental houses in a city so far away that it seems like a fantasy.  Waste. Of. Time.  We aren't leaving anytime soon.  It's fun to look, to imagine.  But it's also depressing.  It rakes my thin patience across the coals.  It fires me up.  All fired up & nowhere to go.  Not yet anyway.

Now tonight I am going to try to keep busy.  My 'to do list' isn't really started.  I have tomorrow too.  I am going to pace myself.  I mean, why hurry to get anything done when getting it done is really all there is to do?

After being away for too long, Josh comes home today & I will finally be able to sleep again.

I haven't updated here in so long. Yet I still can't rationalize closing it down. Perhaps because there are so many happy memories here. So many entries that turn my mind into a movie machine.

Lately, because my future is about to change so drastically, I am drawn to my long past, past.

I still love you. I still think about you. I still miss you. Yet it is not that simple.

I called in to work sick today because I am exhausted & stressed out & not feeling like myself. 

I was going through the contacts in my phone & realized that I have more numbers saved to keep from answering people's calls that I don't ever want to talk to again.  Then numbers saved so I can call people I love & want to talk to.  Hm.  I can't see anything good that says about me. 

Today I am going to clean the house & get productive.  Maybe.  Maybe I will just do a lot of nothing again.