new apartment

Dear 2009,

Dear 2009,

It seems weird to do this in a letter, but I can’t think of any other way to do it. I need to tell you that it is over between us. I think it has been over for a very long time. I was trying to stick it out, I don’t know why- maybe just to prove that I could. But all that did was bring me more pain and sorrow.

I’m done.

I don’t want to be “friends”. I don’t want to pretend to care about how you are doing. I honestly, just want you to go away. It may sound harsh- but I think it’s best if we just sever all ties, and go our separate ways.

In truth, you were an ass.

Don’t even pretend to be bewildered. I can just see you now, feigning astonishment as you read this. “Where is this coming from?” “What did I do to deserve this?”

Yes, I’m not gonna lie- there were some good times, but the bad now seems to outweigh the good. I’m moving on, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

I had such high hopes for us in the begining. You swore President Obama into office to woo me, and it worked- I fell head over heels.
But then after a few months, things went sour. I felt like I didn’t know you anymore. You were no longer the year I fell in love with. You seemed cruel, and without any cause.

In June, you almost paralyzed my dog.
My beautiful, little pup!

Thank goodness Hot Nerd and I paid thousands of dollars (that we did not have) to get her emergency spinal surgery. And thank goodness after that, and all the physical therapy I gave her, she was able to walk again. But she never did anything to you. And for that- you suck.

I should’ve known it would only get worse.

At the end of that very month, you really tried to squash my spirit. I suppose you wanted to strike in a way that was not overtly personal, but would still wound me.

You were clever.

You were ruthless.

You started killing my childhood.

On June 25th, you took both Michael Jackson, and Farrah Fawcett from the world. I admired Farrah as a little girl, and then years later as a woman, I was inspired by her fight to live life in spite of cancer. Michael made me feel cool during so many adolescent, dark times, and was by far, one of the world’s greatest entertainers. I hated you for that.

You were so tricky, because just weeks later you made me BlogHer of the Week. Was that an apology? A smokescreen? A trick, to make me feel special and loved?

Just a month later you took the life of John Hughes (August 6th). His movies were stamped all over my teenage brain. He represents my angst and my innocence all in one.

How could you do that?

From then on, you became relentless…

And I know you remember this…

Hannah Montana- the movie.

No, don’t even bother trying to explain.

After that, you must have been a little drunk with power. You thought it would be fun to burn over 160,557 acres of the Angeles National Forest. Is it because you knew there was a beautiful place in those mountains that had once given me such hope? Did you have to use the Station Fires to turn that place into piles of ash?

You then broke me with BALLOON BOY. As a mother, I watched in terror for hours as that hot air balloon raced across the sky. My heart broke into a million pieces, when it finally landed and there was no little boy inside. We all knew it was likely he fell out, and most certainly couldn’t have survived that kind of fall. I couldn’t even imagine what his parents, Richard and Mayumi Heene, must have been feeling. I was ill. I called Hot Nerd in tears.

“He’s not there. He’s not in there. I think he fell out! Oh my God, they lost their little boy…”

Then, you bitch slapped me, pointed, and laughed.

It was all a fucking lie.

On top of that, you then moved us into the worst apartment on the face of the planet. Complete with fake faucet handles, broken doors, rusty water, and no working heat. After a month without heat, my baby boy got sick, I got sick, and you struck down Hot Nerd with the h1n1 virus.

I don’t know how I handled it. The tragedies, the illnesses, even the little day to day jabs from you. Endless parking tickets, broken washing machines, Octomom on TV, crazy smoke detectors, noisy neighbors, Jon and Kate, tonsil stones, and stupid health insurance companies.

I was lucky to find an outlet in my blog, and an online community as well. But you were jealous of that and lashed out at them. You wanted to hurt the community, and you did.

Anissa Mayhew and her family suffered at the hands of your severe stroke. She is awake now, but has a long journey ahead of her. And Shellie Ross did not deserve to lose her two year old little boy. Nor does she deserve the onslaught of online mothers, who are criticizing her- a bereft mother, for being online herself.

So just stop it, 2009.

You and I are done.

I actually made this decision a while ago, and just couldn’t put it into words.

You must have sensed it, because I think you tried to lash out one last time with the strange passing of actress Brittany Murphy on December 20th. And then on the 28th, with a not- so- quick trip to the ER for Hot Nerd, myself, and half-crazed toddler in tow.

It’s sick. It’s mean. And I’m done with it.

Yes, if you must know, there is someone else. Or, more accurately, the hope of someone else.

This someone is named 2010.

And although we haven’t officially met yet, I think things look very promising.

So don’t write.

Don’t call.

And don’t apologize, because I wouldn’t believe you anyway. You’ve lied too many times.

You may, however, feel free to kiss my swaying ass as I walk away.

A couple days from now you’ll probably find me dancing in the arms of 2010.

But don’t try to approach us,

or say hi,

or even wave from a distance.

Because I’ll just pretend I don’t know you.

Goodbye.

Something better.

The home that paper mache built. Or some other crappy material.

We have lived in our new apartment for 30 days now.

When the wind blows, it rattles. And it’s cold.

It’s like the house that the second little pig built out of sticks. Or a house of cards. The walls are made of paper mache, and it’s held together with Elmer’s glue.

Oh, or to glam it up– it’s like we’ve moved onto a movie set. Everything looks all nice and shiny, but IT IS NOT REAL.

We picked this place because it had just been redone, it was in a neighborhood that we knew, and it had a central AC and heating system. We live in Southern California, but in the dreaded valley. The day we moved in it was 103 degrees, and tonight it is 47.

We found out on the first day that the AC did not work, nor did the heat. The little box on the wall is there. The vents in each room are there. It appears to have central heat and air but… gotcha!

We also have shiny, new faucet handles in the redone bathrooms. The second day in our new apartment, I learned that they are not really for turning water on and off- they are for show. I learned this when the hot water faucet handle came off in my hands and I could not turn the water off. The water, by the way, that comes out dark brown for the first few minutes. Because, of course, one is not expected to actually drink, clean, cook, or bathe with it.

It also appears that we have several doors to separate our rooms, but that, my friends, is just “movie magic”. They only look like doors. Real doors are expected to simply do two things: open and close. Ours do no such thing. Well, most of them just don’t close. But you truly can’t open a door that doesn’t close. Side note- put that on a fortune cookie.

The building also has a security intercom system so that visitors can buzz your apartment to be let it. Correction, it has a pretend intercom system. No packages, no visitors. We might not even have a real address, I’ll have to check on that one.

We also have fake shower doors that my Bam Bam tore off the hinges the first week we were here. In all fairness, that could be due to the fake doors not actually being attached, or it could be my toddler’s super human strength- that one is up in the air.

But the full length, mirror- closet doors in the bedroom for sure, are not up for debate. THEY SHOULD BE ATTACHED TO SOMETHING. They were seriously just “placed” in front of the closet, and soon enough just fell over into the closet. If I must get technical, this is a huge, rolling- door- thingy. Yet if you stand on the other side of the room and blow, it topples over. Completely over- like a domino.

Through our paper mache walls, I can hear our neighbors brush their teeth, and I am astounded that other people actually live here in this fake building. We are an average, well educated, family that somehow got tricked into living in this disastrously, cruel joke, of an apartment.

As my husband still recovers from swine, and our fight for heat continues, I am surprised I haven’t had several heart attacks over the last month.

I live in constant fear that this sucky, trap, house of cards is going to fall apart around us the next time the wind blows.

On the bright side… yeah… I have to get back to you on that one. The whole “at least you have your health” thing doesn’t fly in this case, since we are all suffering from a horrible cough.

All I can do is bundle my Bam Bam, hold my family close, and cuddle on our “new” Berber carpet that is quickly unraveling like a poorly knit sweater. And I can’t get over this gnawing feeling that there is a 180 foot Marcia Brady standing outside, with a dangly charm bracelet, about to knock us all down.