dear baby boomer feminist clinton supporters:

Cynthia Ruccia, 55, a sales director for Mary Kay cosmetics in Columbus, Ohio, is organizing a group, Clinton Supporters Count Too, of mostly women in swing states who plan to campaign against Mr. Obama in November. “We, the most loyal constituency, are being told to sit down, shut up and get to the back of the bus,” she said.

Grow up. I’m so fucking tired of reading how it’s the duty of all women everywhere to vote for Hillary because she’s got the same chromosomes. Yes, sexism is doubtlessly bad but it’s not the same as racism so quit making allusions to the back of the goddamn bus. Also, your candidate is losing because her platform sucks and she lies; get over it.

Geraldine Ferraro, you can bite my shiny metal GenX ass, but you won’t, because you’re too fucking busy whining.

no love, and just so you know, this is totally the sort of bullshit that drove me to quit supporting NOW,
–sabrina

4 days!

just a little left yet to box up. boxing things up is, as it turns out, sooo boooring. and thursday is shaping up to be quite busy with non-packing:

• Bank - cash for tipping movers
• Jewel - bottled water for movers at both apts
• Clean fridge out and move everything to new apt
• Drop carload of crap at Brown Elephant
• Get keys back from cleaning service
• Get keys back from laundry service

i think i’ll spend basically the whole morning and probably early afternoon on thursday running those errands. (joy!) i’m getting pretty close to being done packing, though — in the kitchen, i just have my cookbooks, wine glasses, and some coffee mugs and plastic tupperware stuff left to go; in the bedroom, my nerdy t-shirt collection which i forgot about due to its being in the bottommost drawer of my chest of drawers; in the computer room, my printer and speakers that can get packed ahead of time, and the computer itself plus networking gear, which goes in last; and my CDs/DVDs, which i have not yet packed on the basis of “i might want to listen to those while packing!” oh, and a little bit of soap stuff yet as well. and the guy is coming by tomorrow after work to disassemble my elliptical. actually, it kinda does sound like a lot of stuff yet. but mostly what really needs doing is cleaning and hauling stuff away to donate it.

everyone keep your fingers crossed that in the next 6 days, someone will (a) lease the apartment and (b) decide to take me up on keeping the air-conditioners, so i don’t have to try and hock them on craigslist, which will inevitably lead to two people bailing on me before the third shows up alone, thus forcing me to help them haul 3 a/c units down two flights of stairs. — i am somewhat surprised and yet not surprised at all that no one has (evidently) leased the place yet. it’s a great place, location-wise, and frankly if you’re only visiting briefly to see about leasing it, you wouldn’t know (as i didn’t know) about the weirdnesses like the shouting neighbors and the OMG so leaky porch roof and the furnace of doom. i wonder if $landlord raised the rent substantially? i certainly wouldn’t pay a grand for this place. and the poor person that does take the place is going to get smacked with some ugly-ass gas bills next winter, especially if the gas rates keep increasing. oh well. not my problem, i suppose… i just hope someone wants to take those air conditioners off my hands!

dear chicago city clerk and everyone else in the known universe:

WHY DOES EVERYBODY ALWAYS SPELL MY NAME WRONG QUIT IT QUIT IT QUIT IT QUIT IT QUIT IT!!!!

IT’S NOT ‘DOWNWARD’!!!!! JESUS CHRIST!!!!! I EVEN SPELL IT OUT FOR YOU PEOPLE OVER THE PHONE!!! D O W N A R D!!!!!!! NO SECOND W!!!!!!!! QUIT PUTTING IT IN THERE!!!!!!!!

QUIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTTTTTT!

I HATE YOU ALL WITH ALL THE HATE IN THE WORLD THAT COULD POSSIBLY DRIVE ME TO USE ALL CAPS AND MULTIPLE EXCLAMATION POINTS.

:(,
–sabrina

today at petsmart, to buy a new kitty litter box (what? how else do you celebrate moving into a new apartment than with a shiny new kitty litter box?), i fell for the impulse buy: the plug-in feline anxiety pheromone calmer-downer thingie. the *$35* plug in feline calmer downer thingie. kiyoshi has been so upset lately, he won’t leave me alone, and he keeps jumping up on boxes and howling at me. he comes in to the computer room while i’m working and wails miserably until he gets my attention, then he runs away and comes back five minutes later and starts again. i didn’t really want to spend $35 (plus tax!) on something i honestly didn’t figure would make a difference, but on the other hand, cat is driving me nuts lately.

i went to petsmart right after work and came home to clean some stuff up before the Apartment Weenies came to do a showing (5 hours notice! — which was enough to get an OK from me to show the place; however, the guy who tried to give me 30 minutes notice at 3PM went away disappointed and, i think, not entirely prepared to be rejected since when i said “i’d prefer not until after 6″ he was silent for a good ten seconds before he recovered), and plugged it in then before leaving. when i got home later after meeting d. for dinner, both cats were utterly chilled out. kiyoshi hasn’t been in the computer room *once* in 20 minutes to howl at me. he hasn’t bothered me. he’s hanging out lying on the living room floor. tiger’s napping with his chin on my foot.

THIS MAGIC KITTY PHEROMONE CALMER-DOWNER THINGIE IS THE BEST THINGIE EVER, OMG. that $35 (plus tax) was so worth it! i love you, magic kitty tranq!

courtesy of d.:

18

Created by OnePlusYou

Dear Apartment Leasing Agent Jerkfaces:

Okay, guys, for real this time, say it with me now: CALL FIRST. Seriously. I was even *home* this time. In pigtails, no doubt looking my absolute best in a dusty nerd t-shirt (”Distributing Clue to Lusers,” by O’Really), and carrying an armload of sheets that were about to get shoved in a box…said boxes all over the damn place and hardly any floor actually open to be walked on, and the apartment not exactly in prime condition to show. Because I was packing. Because I am moving. *Honestly*. Frigging CALL FIRST.

Grrrrrr.
–sabrina

Dear Jesse White, Illinois Secretary of State:

I am moving, so I just went to the SoS office to get a new driver’s license with my new address. OH MY GOD THESE ARE SO UGLY. Who did you have design these things, kindergarteners on LSD? This is so horrible it actually makes my photo look good in comparison. They might be really hard to forge now with all those technicolor wavy lines, but only because no one with a fake ID would be caught dead with something so tacky.

I should have just kept my old one and explained to people for the next 4 years that the address was out of date. Never ever ever ever ever EVER let the person who designed these things design so much as a doodle on a paper napkin, EVER AGAIN. I think I’m blind!

On the bright side, I feel compelled to note that the people at the 69 W Washington, Chicago “Express” office were, as usual, fast, cheerful, and competent, and five bucks is a wholly acceptable amount to pay for a replacement license, plus I like that I don’t have to sit for a whole new awful photo, you just reprint the old one, so the replacement process was quite painless, except for aesthetics.

Mr. Secretary, don’t hire the kindergarteners next time, no matter how bad the budget situation is. Please, I beg of you.

sincerely,
–sabrina

Dear Apartment Leasing Jerkfaces:

Guys. Seriously. I meant it.

still no love,
–s.

Dear Gary, Indiana:

Man, I’d like to buy you all a drink. 95% voter turnout? THAT SHIT IS BAD. ASS.

Also, way to pull out the last-minute edge-of-our-seat electoral excitement. :)

love,
–sabrina

Dear Apartment Leasing Agent Jerkfaces:

24 hours’ notice to me that you are going to be showing strangers around my apartment is not just a good idea, it’s the law. It’s not like you don’t have two phone numbers and an email address for me!

Stupid jerkfaces.

no love,
–sabrina

10. The intermittant sounds of things falling, inside the walls of my office, making me wonder if today is the day the plaster will all fall apart.
9. First-Tuesday and First-Wednesday street cleaning parking restrictions.
8. The neighbor with the filthy kiddie pool of water they haven’t dumped out for like 2 years which is probably festering with mosquito larvae as I type.
7. People having loud, foul-mouthed shouting arguments on the sidewalk. For hours.
6. The truly astounding amount of junk mail I get here. It’s unreal.
5. Noisy-ass neighbors with huge stereos and subwoofers (in cars, or houses) playing crappy music.
4. Stairs.
3. The emphatically non-watertight mailbox that means every time it rains, my mail is a sodden mess.
2. The drafty drafts of draftiness.
1. THE FURNACE OF DOOM.

Changed over my DSL service to the new apartment today. It went entirely too easily — no attempts to upsell, I get to keep my same equipment, no installation fees, no insistance that I must have a landline (…which, as I explained, “I [will] never, ever, ever, ever ever” use), no X-month contract, I’ll be paying $15 less per month for, seriously, like 10x faster speeds, they’ll get it provisioned next Friday, the 9th of May…

I fully expect that by the time I get home tonight, my existing phone and DSL will have been disconnected. There’s no way it was that easy. This is AT&T we’re dealing with, after all.