I would say that her death was unexpected, except that in going through her things I saw that she was not taking very good care of herself; honestly, I’m not sure that she has ever been able to. She was smoking heavily, drinking. I had a conversation with another resident of her building that said she liked to come to the group dinners; she had a lot of food hoarded in her apartment, though it didn’t look like she’d been eating very well – in quality and quantity.

I hadn’t spoken to her since some time in 2007, after Barton and I moved to Lansing. I feel guilty for not keeping better contact with her, but, it was mostly to protect myself. My mom was diagnosed “paranoid schizophrenic” – I could write a book based on my experiences with just her throughout my life. In the least, I should probably see a therapist/psychologist.

I installed a to-do list app on my server called “Tracks“. I give it 10 to 14 days before I give up using it because I have to keep pushing my tasks back because I can’t keep myself motivated enough to actually do stuff.

Barton and I are going to Traverse City tomorrow.

Yesterday I ate a bacon cheeseburger & fries for lunch, and 2 english muffins with pb&j and half a dozen jelly beans for dinner.

Today I ate a bacon cheeseburger & fries for lunch, and an 8oz sirloin steak w/ onion straws and mashed potatoes & gravy for dinner, followed up by another dozen or so jelly beans. At the dinner restaurant my iced tea tasted like soap to me so I asked the waitress for ice water instead.

OH THE MUNDANITY.

Yesterday, we went to the ER for ‘breakfast’ at 10am. Got back home around noon, napped until 4, had Chinese food for dinner at 6, and did nothing else until going to bed again at around 10pm. Total. Suck.

Today, got up at 6, breakfast at NB at 8, went to Barton’s work for about an hour, home at 10, napped until noon, shopped at BB&B around 1:30. Then came home and back out to Sonic for ‘lunch’ at 2:30. Loaded some clothes in the washer around 3, and they just got put in the dryer at 4.

Now, what should I do? Sewing? Gotta clean the tables/desk off first. Reorganizing/repacking? Boring. Shopping for actual groceries? AHAHAHAHA, you’re kidding, right?

Getting distracted by the Intarwebz again might be doable. I’m so full of just … meh.

I visited a few places on Tuesday, found two I really liked, and decided on Chateau Village today. Free Washer/Dryer in unit, free carport, and February free (so we can move anytime) pretty much sealed the deal for me. The bedrooms are a little smaller than what I saw at the other place I really liked (Glen Oaks East), but I think it will suit our needs fine. Eventually we hope to have a house, anyway.

We could be moving stuff as early as next weekend, provided our application is accepted. Rent will be a little more expensive than what we are paying now, (~$650/mo) but the W/D in unit makes up for that, since I won’t have to spend $100+ in quarters every month. The kitchen has more counterspace, which I am extremely happy about.

• Work
  • Moved to the Secteam in Sept.
  • Back on 2nd shift (4pm-12am) in Oct.
• Car stuff
  • Bart bought a 2004 Tahoe in Aug.
  • Its been in 3 times for repairs. Over $1600 spent before 2 payments were made.
  • Tahoe now has pretty white letters on the side expressing our unhappiness. [pics forthcoming]
  • Contour is still running like a champ.
  • Bonneville had to have the upper and lower intake manifolds done AGAIN, to the tune of $1200.
  • Both Bonneville and Tahoe have aftermarket remote start/car alarms.
  • Bonneville has back windows darkly tinted.
• Other stuff
  • Still checking out apts in Grand Rapids, however moving to Marshall or staying in Lansing are now options as well
  • Apt building we are currently in had to have major sewer repairs a couple weeks ago

One very short-term goal is to update this site to WP 2.5. I hope it doesn’t break stuff.

Edit [9:25pm] – WP updated to 2.5 sucessfully!

Anyway, I was thinking just now that I somewhat regret selling off most of my TF collection. I still have some good ‘bots left, but, I know I’m going to miss certain ones here and there and its going to be tough if I ever go to Botcon again not to give in to buying some back. I don’t even have a complete list of what I have left, I’d have to trudge back up to TC to take an inventory, since they’re all there.

• Fall/winter 1996: Intro to the Internet, IRC, ‘Fanfiction’ (google/wikipedia it if you don’t know what that is). I didn’t have a real dial-up connection – I used Dave’s or Mich-Net (free!). I participated in the IRC channel #duesouth, and the Due South online fandom to a minor extent. I didn’t bother with college, though looking back I know I should have went, no matter the expense. Dave and I had gone to Ottawa in August/Sept, which was cool.
• 1997: I got a job at Taco Bell (what the hell, I was 19, I needed money). That lasted all of 3-4 months, into the summer. I was still on IRC, in the DS community. Work took a lot out of me and I don’t think I did much more than chat online, read fic, listen to music, sleep, and work. I quit working at TB in early summer, not sure how I financially made it through to the next job which didn’t happen until May 98, I guess I just never bought anything. I lived at home with Dad. Gas was cheap, I remember that.
  I went to the Due South convention RCW139 in Toronto in August, took Dave with me pretty much at the last minute because I was too scared to go by myself and stay with a Canadian guy that had come to visit me a month before. Dave and I ended up staying with Didi, a cute French-Canadian gal. I miss her.
  Also during the summer I co-founded the IRC channel #thundercats with j-man. That kinda started taking over my fandom priorities. I made my own website, hosted on my ISP’s free webspace (dialup and 10 or 100MB free website account, and a sub-domain? erin.something.. don’t remember. eesh), then it was on geocities, brinkster, xoom.. dave’s server. something. Its all a blur. I had a thundercats ‘site’ and my own little personal page. I probably have that shit saved somewhere still, well, maybe not the original version, but the subsequent ones.
  I had a few online.. uh.. ‘romances’? Infatuations, lets say. I get attached to people easily I think. Especially when I spend hours chatting with them every day. Lots of angst and hurt.
  Oh! I almost forgot. Forever Knight was in there too. Yeah, vampires. Hot. Did lots of angsty-fic reading for that show, too.
• 1998: A blur. My dog died on Feb 13th, a Friday. I cried for about 2-3 days. Gargoyles fandom took me over. Didn’t last too long though, and then TransFormers took me over in spring, cause they showed some episodes of Beast Wars on Cartoon Network. I got a cat in May, my mom gave me $50 to pay for the adoption fee, and dad paid for the vet stuff. I got a job at the Horizon Cinema at the end of May, probably to fund my new TF toy obsession. Worked in Box office mostly at first, which was ok, except for the standing in one place for endless hours. At least the concession people got to move around some. My co-workers were fun, but I didn’t participate much outside of work. I worked the opening of the X-Files movie with a headcold and probably gave it to a lot of patrons. Oops. Some memorable movies: X-Files (even though I didn’t really ‘follow’ the show), Armageddon, Blade (eee, vampires!). I’m sure there were more, and I had been keeping track at one point but I lost that file somewhere, oh, look. I love the internet now days. Erm. I mean, I <3 teh internetz.
• 1999: In Feb they made me an assistant manager, I was supposed to be just a staff-assistant (hourly vs salary) at first but then shit got changed around on me and basically I didn’t like it. I wasn’t mature enough to handle it, I hated having to boss my friends around, and I so quit in June. I couldn’t bum too much though, so I ended up with another job in Sept, at Traverse Bay Woolen Co (now defunct) via Manpower. They laid me off around Thanksgiving.
  I had lurked on alt.toys.transformers newsgroup since early ’98 (I posted to it once or twice, but always got that “OMG! A GURL TRANSFAN!” reaction from the 99.9% male population there so I tried not to participate too much lest I drive them off-topic), but ended up joining a new forum at EZboard in late ’99 called “The Allspark”. That’s probably the most I have ever participated in any fandom. At some point I got bored with IRC (all the people from #duesouth were pretty much gone by early 99 I think) and I quit signing on daily. It might have been later (late 99-early 2000?) I don’t remember.
• 2000: Y2K came and went with hardly a blip. I had a couple of one-day jobs from Manpower, industrial stuff that I didn’t like, people were mean and confrontational. I got a call from TBWC in Feb or March and ended up going back to work there directly for them. From the time I worked there in November ’99, to the time I was hired on in March they had had a complete staff change in the warehouse. I worked my ass off, got promoted (kinda) to do the receiving when the guy who had been doing it (Herb. yes, his real name. and I’m pretty sure he was younger than me, like 18 at the time) got in a car accident and couldn’t work for a month. My 1988 Oldsmobile Delta 88 died after about a month working there, and I bought a ’98 Pontiac Bonneville. First car with my name on the title.
  Online I spent a lot of time at the Allspark, reading TF fanfic, chatting with people. I went to Botcon, which had its high and low points. After Botcon there were some debacles at the Allspark, and I ended up leaving in November (I think), and I created my own board. Nothing too fancy, just a place for people to hang out if they wanted. I stayed on the fringes of Transfandom. I was depressed a lot.
• 2001: Still working at TBWC, my job got a lot more complicated when they installed a “new” computer inventory system (DOS-based, where the other had been WindowsNT-GUI based), the boss split with his wife and started having a fling with one of the girls from the store, and basically ignoring his job. I went to Botcon again, was reallllly depressed when I came back because of some awkwardness there. Nothing had been accomplished at work while I was gone for almost a week, I was back for 1 day and the next I came in and found a note from one of the buyers about stuff not being done, and I cracked. I walked out as soon as the boss came in. That was in mid-July. I had some good online friends who gave me some moral support then (at my ezboard) and I started looking for a new job in August. Then.. there was some.. well, I can only describe it as an online friendship gone horribly awry, and by December we weren’t friends anymore. Those who have known me since around or before that time will know what I am talking about, and if you don’t you can just ask me in chat or something because details don’t need to be put here.
  I got a job at the Kodak photolab in Target in Sept, and got ‘introduced’ to the joys of binge drinking by my new co-workers. I was working in the lab on Sept 11, a regular customer came in and said the WTC had been blown up, and I didn’t believe it until I saw the news later that night. Numb.
  Dave & Lucia took me out for my birthday and I puked all over Dillenger’s ladiesroom after a few too many. I quit the photolab by Thanksgiving, it was too crowded and crazy. LoTR came out. I was in the fringes of that fandom for awhile.
• 2002: No job until April, I think. I helped setup Tractor Supply, the pay was shit but it was a job. Went to work at Karen’s Uniforms for my sister Mary in May. I almost have to consult my LJ at this point because I don’t remember what I was doing online. Spider-man was a hit. I let my board die. I started college in Sept. At some point I had developed an interest in Linux.