…I’m getting really sick of writing about myself. I think this means I need to hunker down on compiling/editing my book, and then focus solely on writing about — brace yourselves — OTHER things. Like, things BESIDES myself? Imagine?

I moved into the new place on Monday, and I’ve basically just been fluctuating between broken-down bawling and total paralysis ever since. I honestly haven’t cried this much since my own parents got divorced, and when I’m not darting back and forth from Bed, Bath, & Beyond, noticing restaurants across the avenue, thinking, “Wow, that looks like a neat place! We’ll have to check it out sometime,” since it still hasn’t hit me that Elliott isn’t moving with me, all I do is hallucinate the sound of cats jumping in and out of boxes. Overall I’m learning that it’s extremely odd and depressing to move into a new place without being excited about it. I’ve never done that before.

And then last night I was just lying around in the 8,000-degree weather inside my apartment (the air conditioner SAID it was 76 degrees, but it was joking), just trying to mentally escape into my vampire book, which — along with my prewar, pre-society-caring-about-whether-people-kill-themselves, not particularly long or wide, but deep bathtub — is currently my only form of relief from sadness and madness. And suddenly I heard what sounded like an ELEPHANT rooting through the garbage.

Is it a rat? Is it a mouse? Is it a large mouse? It was making a hell of a lot of noise to be anything smaller, and I knew that if it was a rat, I would run screaming from the building and never return. If it was a mouse, I just didn’t know if I’d have it in me to kill it. Of course, I wouldn’t have been pondering any of these things at all, had I, say, a couple of cats on hand to scope out the scene. When we lived in Brooklyn, Sarge caught a mouse and kept it half-alive to play with it all morning, until finally I realized what was going on and took mercy upon it. When I came near him to wrestle the mouse out of his grip, the growl that came out of him sounded EXACTLY like a vibrating cell phone. I swear, I looked up and over at my phone to see if it was ringing in the next room. Meanwhile, Sarge is practically a kitten and can barely even meow properly! But that cat can growl, should you decide to take a live mouse away from him.

But last night I had to scope out the scene for myself, and I am not happy to tell you that it was the biggest, healthiest, shiniest cockroach I’ve ever seen. Even though I proceeded to smash the hell out of it with the huge, heavy chunk of marble from the base of the “Thank You for However Many Years of Service” Prudential desktop calendar/paperweight I inherited from my grandfather, it leapt back up instantly and scuttled energetically off into the shadows, quicker on its feet than ever. I may have actually increased its lifespan with that smash. What doesn’t kill ‘em makes ‘em stronger.

So the place may have cockroaches — only one so far, mind you, and granted it was three thousand degrees, and there’s a restaurant downstairs — but they’re free-range, juicer-pulp-fed cockroaches, dear readers. Or at least that’s what they’ll have to be if they want to peacefully cohabitate with my ass. Their immune systems might weaken temporarily but their shells will only grow sleeker and glossier over time. That’s about all I’ve got to offer these days. Take it or leave it, cucarachas.

Of course, the one other thing I do a lot of now is constantly try to stop thinking about what an excellent pied-a-terre / crash pad my apartment would make, should Elliott & I ever get back together and want to start saving a shitload of money for, oh I don’t know, a baby and/or a house.

So when I’m done with my vampire book (thank you, Goddesses, for making me a slow reader!) I may have no choice but to drown myself in the tub.