Dear John~

No, this letter is not intended for a person named John...but it is a "Dear John" letter...I guess.  Kids do not try this at home.  What I mean is, don't do the things that lead up to having to write a letter like this.  I am posting it here because I can never send it to the person it is intended for and I haven't written a blog in months.  Instead, I've been writing this letter for a week.  So, here it is in all of it's patheticness for your amusement.  I'm going to go back to crying now~  Enjoy

I hope you can receive this with an open heart and mind.  I feel that I owe it both to you and to myself to explain a few things.  I want to tell you that the time that I spent with you was beautiful.  Sort of magical really.  I mean, dancing in the rain?  What an experience.  I told you I felt lucky, and I meant that.  You are gorgeous, talented, sweet, charming, fun, deep, seductive, bright, open, intelligent, passionate, energetic, surprising, full of wonder, inspiring, and I am sure a lot of things that I didn’t get a chance to see.  You were a welcome breath of extremely fresh and rejuvenating air right at a time when I was coming out of something extremely dark…I guess I just hadn’t come all the way out yet.  I recently lost someone very close to me.  It isn’t an excuse, but it is one of the reasons that I’ve been having a hard time being my best possible self.  This person that I lost was my best friend of 22 years.  She drank herself to death and nobody knew it was happening until it was too late to do anything about it.  She was my twin, my soul mate.  It feels like a piece of me is missing and I’m learning how to live in the world without her.  It isn’t easy.  It changes you and leaves you slightly off balance.  Not long after she passed away, I misguidedly got involved with someone who was a heavy drug user and also a heavy drinker.  I think I was trying to get a second chance at saving my friend in some weird-backwards-subconscious way or maybe trying to feel what it was like to be in her shoes, or maybe I wanted to drown out feelings that I didn’t like having…I really don’t know, but instead, I got sucked into this guy’s toxic world.  I don’t blame him, it’s just what the circumstances were.  While I was smart enough to finally get out of that situation, some of the habits I developed in that relationship had been hard to shake…and that’s when I met you.  Because I already wasn’t in the best place emotionally (read vulnerable and lost), and because you are so young and so beautiful, I have to admit, I felt insecure.  Believe me, I know how unattractive that is in a person (I can’t stand it when people tell me I am intimidating), but I told you before, I am not much of a bullshitter.  Sometimes the truth sucks, but I think it is the most important thing.  Remember when I asked you how you could put so many great things into one person (meaning you)?  I suppose I didn’t feel as though I deserved to have you.  I was confused and it sort of tapped into some stuff that I hadn’t worked through yet.  I should never have mixed alcohol with those feelings.  My bizarre drunken behavior might seem frightening or psycho, but I can assure you, as can those who have known me and loved me for many years, I am a wonderful (mostly sane;) girl.  I just also happen to be a person who blacks out easily and says and does really strange things when she is drunk that she would never in a million years say or do under any other circumstances.  I am extremely grateful (though sad as hell) that it took me completely humiliating myself in front of you to wake me up to how all of this stuff has all been affecting my life.   Now I have a chance to do something about it.  I have no reason to drink ever again.  And day by day, accepting the loss of my friend gets easier.  You seem to be very mature and well tapped into your spiritual side and I gather that you are a humanist and a deeply compassionate person (your friends seem to think so).  So, perhaps you can understand where this is coming from.  I am sorry that I ruined our budding friendship for both of us.   Maybe after I’ve had some significant time to get my balance back, you will consider getting to know me again.  Meeting you was pretty intense and I loved every minute of it…I just don’t think I was at all prepared to handle it. 

Whatever happens, I wish you all of the best.  Thank you for shining your light on me~

The Simple Story (Yeah Right)

"The Simple Story...unfurling slowly...is if you lay down with a dream...you'll wake up lonely"~Jane Berkin fet. Feist (remix album)


Oh Gosh, where do I begin?  See, this is what happens when I stop doing a "weekly" blog.  I have to catch you up on so many things that writing becomes a hurdle to be jumped (like everything else in life) as apposed to just a quick little trip into my psyche.

Well, a few months ago I met a guy.  Online.  Puke.  Barf. and Double Puke.  God, how I hate online dating.  We lasted exactly six weeks, which I must say is a bit of an improvement from my track record over the last ten years.  I used to have two week "honeymoon period" relationships that ended when the honeymoon was over.  I had two relationships with the same person, five years apart that each lasted for five months, so I guess you could say that my longest relationship in the last ten years was ten months long.  But that's cheating.  So, back to the guy.  He was Drop.  Dead.  Gorgeous.  I felt like I was FINALLY getting what I deserved after giving so many trolls a chance.  Okay, he was gorgeous, quirky, funny, down to earth and whatnot.  Now this is what I thought in the begining.  After getting to know him I learned that he was a "Dry Drunk" (from what I understand, that's an alcoholic who stays sober but still doesn't grow spiritually or whatever--basically they still act like an alcoholic even though they no longer drink).  He also had Mommy issues and was a narcissistic hermit.  Winning combo.  Man he was fun (groan).

Now, because I'm me and I like to beat horse until it's beyond dead (basically, I dig horses up from their graves and beat them senseless in the middle of the night when no one else is looking, but believe me...the horse knows...oh...it knows) I didn't dump this guy.  I let him dump me.  Apparently, I looove to be dumped.  I can't break up with anyone to save my life.  I used to break up with people.  That was years ago.  I don't know what happened to me, but my will to end a relationship is nonexistent.  It doesn't matter if you are the worlds biggest loser and I hate you.  I will not go down without making a visit to the horse grave yard.   I can't be helped.  Dump me.  Dump me now.  I implore you!

So, there I was, post dump (even though it really just fizzled out, but I liked to think of it as me getting dumped cause I am sick and twisted and like to wallow in self pity) and I was feeling rejected, dejected, ugly and unlovable.  You know, the usual.  On top of this, I'm STILL dealing with/grieving the loss of my BFF, adjusting to living back in Lala Land in an apartment that I hate and barely scraping by financially, I reached a new low.  Now, don't get your panties in a twist people, this ship has sailed and I am talking about the past, but I was starting to feel like life wasn't worth living any more.  This was not the first time I had felt this way, so to say that this was a "new" low is kind of a lie, but it was new again, so let's just go with it.  My therapist made me call her every day to check in with her and after about four or five days, it passed.  I know this is an uncomfortable topic for most and I know that the only people who read this blog are people who know and love me, but if I keep NOT addressing these uncomfortable topics (trust me, there is so much that I've been want to write, but haven't been able to), I'm never going to write a blog again.  I gotta tell it like it is or it's not worth telling.  Having your BFF die on you changes you and makes you feel things you never thought you could and makes you think things you never thought you would.  I often find myself saying to her (but in my head) "I don't blame you."  Sometimes I envy that she's done with all of the hard work.

Well, low and behold, right about this time I meet someone new.  Someone like me.  Someone who is questioning whether or not it's worth giving another day a go.  We connected in our depression and desire to self destruct and a new relationship was born.  Let's call him Mr. X.  Mr. X is a wonderful guy. I'm not being sarcastic either, he really is.  He's brilliant.  Probably a genius.  He's easy going, super duper friendly, has a lot of charisma and for some reason I find him incredibly sexy.  Not sure what's going on with that last bit.  I don't usually describe men this way.  In fact, I've never done so before.  I dunno, it's weird.  He was kind to me, a great listener, he understood and he reached out when nobody else was doing so.  We were both in a bad place and since I've learned that we attract what we are putting out there, we were immediately inseparable.  It lasted two months.  A NEW RECORD!  Why did it end?  Well, Mr. X has an insatiable appetite for self destruction.  I won't get into particulars because I don't wish to tell his business, but let's just say, I couldn't keep up with him.  And I tried.  Boy did I ever.  It was like reliving the worst parts of my twenties all over again.  The thing is though, the worst parts of my twenties also housed some of the best parts.  Incredible experiences that are a right of passage at that age.  If you choose to look at it that way.  There are many ways to look at over indulgence, experimentation, and living on the edge.  Take it how you like it.  My mind can change on this subject from minute to minute and I guess maybe that's how I so easily revisited a certain way of life that I thought I had long been done with.  Whatever.  It happened.  The thing is, being with him made me feel better and having someone to talk to and do things with, to hold was all I really wanted.  And because I was feeling better, I no longer wanted to self destruct.  Unfortunately, my charms didn't have the same affect on him.  I don't know if it was a lack of attraction or anything having to do with me at all.  He's expressed that he is not up to talking about "us" at this time, so I can't really speak for him.  All I know is, even though he had me, he still had a need to numb and escape.  And again, I don't blame him.  I'd like to think I was sooooooo awesome that he'd just want to clean up his act so he could bask in the glow of me, but...that's wishful thinking.

Okay, so I couldn't keep up and he knew I couldn't and he's not ready to get off that train, but I knew if I didn't get off, I'd be reunited with my BFF sooner than I would like.  I started to make more and more comments in reference to maybe going in a different direction and I guess he reached a point where he didn't want to hear it anymore.  So, basically even though I knew it was over before it even began...I let him dump me...just to keep my perfect record.  I mean, why spoil a good thing?  Being with him was indeed like "Lay[ing] down with a dream" and yes, when I woke up, I was often lonely.  As time went on, it was lonelier than being by myself.  When the novelty of being with me wore off for Mr. X his behavior towards me became inconsistent.  The honeymoon had long been over...actually, I'm not sure it had ever begun.

It's hard to watch another person who I care about go down the same path that led the the demise of someone who I cared so deeply for.  I think a part of me wanted to see if I could make up for not being able to save my BFF.  You know, maybe if I could do things differently, care more, say more, do more, love more, not just stand by and watch, maybe the world wouldn't have to lose another amazing human being before it was ready.  There's no doubt that that was part of the attraction with Mr. X.  Oooh goody!  My chance to get it right this time!  And they are a lot alike Mr. X and my BFF.  Two of the most easily likeable and bright shiny people that you could ever meet (with a blackness that few, except for myself, get to see on the flip side).  There's a nutty part of my brain (the part that sometimes wants to believe in ghosts and other weird inplausible stuff) that indulges in those fantasies of "Oh maybe BFF sent Mr. X to me so I can do with him what I couldn't do with her."  You know, you can't blame me.  Those are the types of thoughts us big hearted half crazy humans have.  Sue me.

I know that I have to let go and I have.  I didn't even get closure this time and for the first time in my life, I'm okay with it.  I'm growing!!  I can't and won't stop caring, but I know that there's nothing that I can do other than let this person know that I'm there for them should they need me and there's not much else I can do beyond that.  But, oh how the mind loves to continue to go back to that place where it says "You can do it!"  No, I can't.  Like I said (previous blog), all the kings horses and all the kings men...they couldn't do it and neither can I.  Now, there is absolutely no guarantee that Mr. X will meet the afore mentioned fate and god willing, he won't.  A lot of people that I've known in my life, including myself have been to dark places only to rise from the ashes.  It happens every day.  I am rooting for him and I have a lot of faith.

The long and the short of it is, I gotta worry about me.  I gotta take care of me.  And that brings me to what I really came here to write about.  I am fuckin' WORRIED about me.  And YOU too!  Don't even get me started thinking about kids and what they are all going to have to deal with when they get older (global warming, our food and water supply,  those are just for starters).  I'm worried about everybody!  For realz dawg.  Shit be scary out there.  I know that the thoughts that I'm about to share border on compulsive and are part of my lingering depression (that is improving daily, thank you), but here they are and they have to be worked through.  What the hell is going to become of me?  And when I figure out what I want to do to earn my keep for the duration, what is going to be the point of it?  (A few things that make life worth living that I will interject so you don't get too depressed:  Babies, Music, Art, Laughter--I haven't given up, I swear!).  Existential crisis anyone?  Yes, I'll have one of those please.  I was driving home from a crappy movie a few hours ago and I just started feeling really panicky.  I'm worried about social security and my retirement and shit that I really don't have to worry about right now, but then again, I do.  Right?!  I mean, RIGHT!?  I'm gonna be old before you know it.  I keep getting older every day and I'm just so worried about the state of the world right now and how it's all going to affect me.  I'm currently looking for a second job to supplement my income cause I literally don't make enough right now to even cover the most basic necessities of food and shelter.  It's damn scary and all I can think is of the AUDACITY that I had to quit my job last August and up and move out of my awesome apartment.  I had NO IDEA what was going on in the real world.  I really and truly didn't.  I lived in the bubble of Hollywood and the security and comfort of a job that I'd been doing for almost eight years.  I had no idea that things were getting so scary out here in the real world.  Since I got my shit together in my late twenties my parents have been more than willing help me out of a pinch now and again.  But, they are both getting older and their income is going to become fixed soon.  The world is getting scary for them too.  So, what happens when I no longer have that safety net?  That question needs to get answered and soon.

The life that I'm living right now is something that I heard about on the news and that I only thought happened to other people.  I used to live in a fantasy world of hope and dreams that consisted of me thinking that some day I might actually go back to acting or singing and maybe I would get "discovered" or get my "big break" or whatever and I would live happily ever after.  Next thing I know, I'm almost forty and that shit just sounds plain crazy now.  I just want to make sure I don't end up homeless at this point.

Where are we headed people?  How much worse is our economy going to get?  How much more corrupt is the government going to get?  How much wider is the gap between the haves and the havenots going to get?  And we can't even have a revolution.  Not with technology and weaponry where they are at now.  We mere mortals, civilians, peasants, broke ass mofo's, we don't have a prayer in the world of turning things around.  I don't want to be one of those people who fixates on how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, but dang...I'za sceered.  I know that some of this will pass and I won't worry so much as I feel better and crawl out of the whole that I dug for myself while I was on a tear with Mr. X--it takes time to normalize again afterall--but in the meantime, I have to figure out a Plan X,Y, and/or Z (and I will repeat the mantra "Babies, Music, Art, Laughter" over and over).  I can't just stick my head in the sand and pretend like it's all going to be okay without me taking an active part in the security of my future.  I feel like I've been living in a dream for the last 37 years and I've just woken up to find out that I'm not in Kansas anymore.

For now, all I can do is take things one day at a time and be happy that I do indeed have the stamina, the will and the downright desire to wake up each day and try to make a go of it.  At least I know that I'm no longer dreaming...and I'm okay with just waking up with myself.

Humpty Dumpty

Did I say that I was living in Limbo?  I think what I meant to say was that I am living in Hell.  It isn't that I don't know what I want to do, it's that I think I've officially given up trying anything anymore.  There's only so much a person can take before they say "enough is enough".  I've had enough.  We are taught growing up that life isn't fair, but no matter how many times that notion is crammed down our throats, it never gives us any comfort.  Life should be fair.  It just should.  It's not okay to have a broken childhood, to become a hardened survivor because of it and then have to spend your entire adult life unlearning all of defense mechanisms you had to learn growing up.  I've learned through years of therapy that almost every single feeling I have is an overreaction.  My emotional self is stuck at about eight years old and no matter how much I try to encourage my inner child that "everything is going to be okay", years and years of life experience has done everything to convince me otherwise.

Ignorance is bliss.  Unfortunately, I am smart enough to know certain things that keep me from being less than blissful.  For instance, I know that a beautiful, cheerful, bright and sunshiny woman can hide a deep dark secret from the world and die from self medicating because her life hurts too much.  I know that a man can be married to a woman for over twenty years, help raise her daughter and then leave her when he comes into his inheritance...and never speak to the daughter again.  I know that not everyone gets to live their dreams.  Some people just end up being bartenders.  I know that you can lie beside someone and feel more lonely than if there was no one there at all.  And I know that you can cry for hours and hours and nobody will come to comfort you.

I have never been more terrified in all of my life.  I'm scared of myself.  I'm scared that I see old demons resurfacing and I know better than to indulge them, but I do anyway.  I can see myself running, no sprinting, into the center of disaster.  I can feel this need to be taken care of as though I were a child, but I'm not a child.  It's too late to get that kind of love.  And the sad fact is that I will never stop wanting it, never stop needing it.  I have been here before.  A few times.  What's scary about being here now is that I am creeping up on forty.  I should have learned to cope by now.  I haven't.

It is amazing to me to have as many advantages as I do and still not be able to make a go of things.  I am smart, attractive, talented, or so I've bee told.  And this isn't me being conceited or anything.  Trust me.  Knowing these things about myself does nothing to make me feel confident or able.  For how I feel, I might as well be the ugliest, stupidest, most untalented person to walk the earth.  And I know I am being super self indulgent with these feelings.  Oh poor me.  I get it, I really do.  But there's just this self destructive part of me that has taken the reins and doesn't care.  I am broken.  And I don't know how to put myself together again.  How many times can you  super glue something back together before you decide "this thing has just become a piece of junk" and toss it into the trash?  Besides, we already know that not even all of the kings horses and all of the kings men could put Humpty together again.

I recently met with my therapist and I felt bad for her.  I felt bad that she's taken so much time and energy to get me to this super good place (where I was about nine months ago) only to see it just all come crumbling down.  All of her hard work.  All of MY hard work.  It's all gone to shit.

The one and only thing that I want is to love.  That is all.  But you can't get other people to love you until you love yourself and show them that you are worthy of their love.  With me, it's a bit of a catch-22 cause I'm never going to believe that I am lovable until someone else actually loves me first.  I wouldn't love me right now if I were someone else.  I don't know how I would feel about me.  Lemme think.  Yeah, it's too hard to see myself from the outside.  I think I would just feel sorry for me and then walk away.  It's hard to watch people be in pain.  It's hard to watch people struggle.  I feel like maybe if someone were to just hold me for about a hundred years, THEN, MAYBE I would feel better.  I honestly think that's what it would take.

Here's a question:  Would I hold me for about a hundred years?

Yes, I believe if I could I would.  I guess that's something.

The Limbo

Apparently the Vatican decided a few years back that Limbo doesn't really exist.  I am here to tell you, it does.  I have been living in Limbo for eight months now.  It is everything they said it was and more.  It totally sucks.

When I decided to quit Lala Land and move far far away I had a vision, I had a plan.  The plan was good.  But then one thing led to another (see previous posts) and the plan became null and void.  And now I am back at square one.  My friends are getting engaged, getting married, having kids, moving on, living life, and I'm watching Grey's Anatomy for seven hours a day.  What the hell has happened to me?

I don't want to get engaged, get married, or have kids.  I did, but now I don't.  In my mind the world has officially become this uber scary place and I do not wish to bring any other humans into it.  Perhaps that will change, but for now, that's how I feel.  I thought I wanted to be a Yoga teacher.  It seemed to be a life that would hold some meaning and that would keep me happy and healthy, but now I just don't think I will be fulfilled by that.  I haven't practiced regularly in months.  I've lost my Yoga mojo.  So what the f do I want to do already???  Why can't I figure this out?

I still have my artistic desires.  I still want to write.  This is why I am forcing this horrifically boring and dismal blog right now.  I still want to act.  I still want to sing.  I still want to do a lot of things.  But after being run over by the biggest steam roller of my existence over the last few months, I'm still trying to get my bearings and figure out how to put one foot in front of the other.  I feel like a cartoon character who's just been knocked out and while I back on my feet I'm still dizzy and I have those cartoon drawings above my head indicating that my brain is still the equivalent of scrambled eggs.

You know that saying "No matter where you go, there you are?"  I hate that saying.  I hate it because it's so true.  I thought if I relocated I could start fresh.  Wrong.  What I can do is refigure out everything in my life that I thought I had figured out.  While I am grateful for all of the freedoms that I have, there's a part of me that wishes that I didn't have any choices.  I mean, I have a hard enough time choosing a shampoo when I'm at Target.  There are too many to choose from.  And that's how I feel about my life.  I can do anything.  So, how do I choose?

When my BFF died, along with the grief came this powerful rush of ambition.  I felt like I had to live my life for both of us.  If she couldn't do ANYTHING, I would do EVERYTHING.  Well, that's obviously not realistic and maybe that has become a burden now.  I've turned around and done NOTHING...and that ain't good.  I'm still dealing with the grief from that loss, but there comes a time, and I believe that time is now, when you have to pick yourself up and just move on.  It's embarrassing for me to continue this way.  Something has to change, and I have to figure it out, but nothing is coming.  I've been through hard times before.  Times when I was unsure what the next step was going to be, but then I become inspired somehow and I put one foot in front of the other and I move towards something.

It's scary not to be able to look ahead and have some sort of insight into what your life is going to look like in five or ten years.  I think we are expected to be able to do that.  I can't seem to.  What does that mean?  I envy my departed friend in a lot of ways.  She doesn't have to work.  She doesn't have to deal with having a broken heart or with being disappointed.  She and I shared a lot of the same worries.  Now it's just me.  I know you aren't supposed to say that you envy the dead, but sometimes it's true and I'm not here to tell lies.  But, the other side of that is that she doesn't get to experience any of life's joys, and there are many to be had.

Maybe this is a start?  I really don't know.  But, there is something inside of me that NEEDS to express itself even if it doesn't quite know what it wants to say.   Even though this is surely my most boring and craptastic blog of all time, it's something.  Maybe the artist inside of me hasn't died after all.  Maybe it's just waking up from a long nap.  I know one thing for sure, it doesn't like doing the limbo.

Happy Valentine's Day to Me

It all started when I decided to move back to Lala Land (btw, Iiiiiiiiiiiii'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack).  I thought, let's try something new this time around shall we?  I mean, I love a good douchbag as much as the next girl, but any and all schtick gets tired after a while, so I figured this time around I would check out a different area to live in.  An area that might be douchebag free, or at least dbag deficient.  Studio City is close enough to Hollywood that you can still see your friends on a regular basis, attend the odd casting here and there, plus, it's cheap, not hideous, and safe.  Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeert! (That's a car slamming on it's breaks)  Not so fast cowgirl.

I moved into my new place on February 1st.  On Feb 8th, I left the apartment for a few hours to go get my hair did.  I walked exactly 1/2 block down the street and was gone for exactly four hours.  When I came back, I noticed that the screen to my kitchen window was flappin' in the breeze.  I wondered, "Um, was that like that before I left?"  But, I just couldn't be too sure.  Now, I know it wasn't flappin' in the breeze before I left, but I wasn't positive that there maybe hadn't been a tear or a hole or something and that maybe an afternoon breeze had blown it wide open.  It seemed odd.  It looked like a perfect cut, but...I don't know I guess I just didn't want to believe that someone had come to my house and sliced my kitchen screen open in broad daylight.  Plus, I had all of this crap in front of the window and nothing had been moved.  I called a girl friend and told her I was suspicious, but that I didn't want to be psycho and paranoid.  She didn't have much to say on the subject, just that she was familiar with my street and thought it was a really nice neighborhood and whatever.  I blew it off pretty much, but made sure from then on to shut and lock the windows every day before I went anywhere and of course before I went to bed at night.

I didn't mention it to anyone else and eventually I forgot about it.

On Valentine's day (YES VALENTINES DAY, BECAUSE THIS IS MY LIFE PEOPLE!), six days after the screen cutting incident, I came home from running errands and went to bed super early (like 5:30ish) and watched Seinfeld DVD's on my laptop til I fell asleep.  Around 8pm a noise woke me up.  I could hear my neighbors being super duper noisy, but I could also hear another noise and it sounded like it was coming from my kitchen.  It took me a minute to completely wake up (by the way, I am freaking out even writing this and starting to get all scared again...yuck), but when I did, I realized, "Holy motherf*cking sh*t someone is trying to get into my m*therf&cking kitchen window".  (The expletives are completely necessary because when your heart starts thumping like mad and you are all of a sudden feeling your most animal survival chemicals coursing through your veins, that is the language that your brain now thinks with.)  Like every girl in every horror film ever made since the dawn of time, I got up out of bed and started walking directly towards the sound, which would also be the source of impending danger.  I did not turn on any lights because I did not want the serial killer, monster, Freddy Krueger, ASSHOLE to see me.  I crept on, and with every footstep became more and more positive, holy shit, there is a person out there, trying to get in here.  I arrived at the window, parted the blinds...and there he was:  A huge, possibly bald, silhouette of a man with his hands wrenching my window open further.  I screamed, "What the F***********************CK" with the voice of an animal that has yet to be discovered in the wild, but that could certainly frighten off an eight foot grizzly bear, or even the king of the jungle himself.  You do not know this noise.  You have never made it, and you have never heard it, and I hope you never have to either.  Anyway, I made that noise and the stupid F*CKHOLE JERKOFF ran away like a little girl.

I hope he pooped his pants. (see image to the left-mwahahahahah)

Anyway, I immediately shut and locked the window and grabbed the phone and dialed 911.  Okay, that's a lie.  I did not immediately dial 911.  I actually stood in the middle of my living room and thought, "Who do I call?  Do I call 911?  Is this an emergency?  I'm not currently being murdered?  Does almost being murdered count?" and then I proceeded to call 411 so that I could call the regular police department.  The idiot at 411 could not move fast enough for me though and I cut that call short (hung up on her dumbass) and called 911.  I did not move one single muscle the entire time that I waited for the cops to show up (although I was on the phone with my Mom--I just stood stock-still in place while we talked.)

The police showed up exactly 9 minutes later.  She (it was a she and a he-there were two of them) arrived and knocked on the door and I was still so frightened and in shock that I screamed "WHO IIIIS IIIIT?!?!?!?" in the same exact way that I had at the (enter expletive that describes jerk who tried to break in) and the officer said that I scared her.   Oops, sorry.

Anyway, she came in, I told her what happened and she looked around my place.  Then the next unit of cops showed up.  They were cute.  It felt weird to be attracted to anyone at this given point in time, but when a guy is cute, it doesn't matter how upset you are, especially if he's wearing a police uniform and is there to rescue you.  Not much happened after that.  They asked me to tell them what happened, so I told it again then they gave me my police report at which time I reminded them of the episode of Seinfeld where he gets his TV stolen and says something like, "Something tells me that unless the criminal gets HIS copy, I don't think we're gonna crack this thing".  They thought that was pretty funny.

I didn't.

I asked the cops to wait for me to pack a bag and get in my car and they did and I left.  I never spent the night there again and over the next few days I moved my stuff out (always accompanied by a good friend of course--thank you again:).

Perhaps I will share more of this disturbing tale at a later date, and yes, there is more.  Ugh.  But for now, I've had enough.  I am safe and sound in a new building (Thanks Dad for flying in like Superman and saving the day).  I'm trying to get used to all of the sounds and to convince myself that they aren't all someone trying to get into my windows.  Something tells me it's going to be a while before I am completely convinced.

Until then, I'm sleeping with a hammer under my bed and considering becoming a member of the NRA.

Lesson #1 of this blog:  Never leave one side of town to avoid douchebags.  The other side of town may be full of serial killers.

Lesson #2: When you think someone has tried to infiltrate your home, but you just aren't sure, go ahead and buy a gun just incase so if he comes back to kill you (or steal your microwave, whatever) you can blow his face off.

And finally Lesson #3 (last but most certainly not least):  If you think spending Valentine's Day alone with Seinfeld DVD's is bad, think again...it could always be about 1 trillion billion gazillion times worse.