8/8/88

I have the fondest memory of August 8, 1988. I was dating, at the time, the cutest boy. He worked at Flip Flop's #1 breakfast joint. He was the boy that all the girls wanted to date and he was dating ME. That alone is enough to make me smile when I think back on it, but the reason I associate him with 8/8/88 is that upon returning home from work that day, I found waiting for me, a bunch of flowers with a note saying, "I noticed your flowers were wilting so I brought you some new ones." And the note was dated "8/8/88." I'm not sure why I still remember that, but I do. It's funny the things I choose to hold on to, both in memory and tangible reality. I've had to come face-to-face with a whole lot of that over the past couple weeks and it has been bittersweet. SO many memories. SO much of my life lived in that house. I'm finding it difficult to let go. I almost feel like the house is holding on to _me_. There's no one there anymore to really care about the house. No one who has any history with it. The landlady doesn't care about it. She just cares about making money by charging as much rent as possible to as many people as possible, while doing as little as possible to maintain the place. It's not right--the house deserves to be treated better than that. But it's completely out of my hands now.

Hmm, I hadn't intended for this to go in that direction, but it is still consuming me. Unfortunately, I'm not all moved out yet. And until I am, I fear that it will continue to consume my thoughts, my time and my energy. It's weird, I keep getting these mental images from the movie, "Pacific Heights." Did you ever see that movie?... Michael Keaton, Melanie Griffith, Matthew Modine... Anyway, I keep imagining my old house deteriorating from neglect, which is actually quite different from what happened in the movie, but the "kids" (at the old house) keep leaving food out & open and there's already been a rat sighting just outside the house. They might as well just invite him in. But I think the main reason I keep having these weird "Pacific Heights" flashes is that when I first moved into my new apt, I pulled out the cutting board and found, not only crumbs, but a dead cockroach. I think the cockroaches in the movie freaked me out more than anything, and never having encountered one in my own living space until now, I think finding the dead one on my cutting board sufficiently freaked me out. But enough about that.

Well, my battery is about to die and I need to get some sleep, so I'll close now and share more about my new home later.

Good night dear readers.