six bloody miles back and forth

All right, I'm back.

Thank you to everyone who gave advice, sympathy, or silly jokes. They helped a LOT, and I'm feeling much better about things.
I have had a nice break so far, until yesterday. Spent the weekend with Dad, spent Monday and Tuesday up at Eastern with Dan and Ben. Had an absolutely lovely time.
Then I spilled that chocolate sauce on my laptop while working on a Mary Sue challenge...

I took my laptop into a repair place. Walked 6 miles and the tech wasn't there, so I left it there and he's going to take a look at it. Apparently it'll cost $50 just to clean and repair the keys (Brian had a go at it and fucked up one of the arrow keys before I could pry the screwdriver out of his hands), but I've got enough in my checking account. Of course, this will mean that I will have to mooch off Dad like crazy...but freshmen are allowed.
I do need to get a job this summer. I'm thinking Border's; I can bike there, and Kathy (one of the managers) knows me. I just filled out an online application...thirty-seven pages of multiple-choice personality questions that all ask the same three things in five hundred different ways. Damn.
So I may not be able to be on Messenger or work on any stories or fanfic for a while. If I'm lucky, the keyboard will be cleaned and fixed within three days (that was the time estimate) and I'm out $50. If I'm not lucky, I'll have to wait a LOT longer and pay more. If I am particularly unlucky, my laptop will be dead, along with my music files, my fanfic, and my homework.

Good news: I got to Mom's house and found some packages that had been awaiting me. Namely, a lovely picture of Crispin as George from hawksatmash (thank you! It's hanging on my wall), a copy of "Bartleby" (cannot wait to watch it), a copy of "The Big Problem" (yes!!!!!), and Daryn's movies (finally! But I can't watch them until my laptop is fixed...)

Geh. Well. In the meantime, I've been active as me over on sages_of_chaos (because I have nothing else to do...no books no DVD player no laptop, and I have all this...INTERNET...) and I've got a date with Bill and Ted at an MC5 concert. And I've also helped convince the Black Mamba to go after Charlie's Angels, which is a crossover I've been wanting to write...yay.

boooooooo

So apparently there is a ghost in the house.

My mom informs me that we've got something. She says that she will wake up at night and a ghost will be lying beside her trying to push her away (probably stealing the covers), or it will be sitting on top of her. It goes away after a few minutes, and she always yells at it. She also says that she will occasionally see something flitting across the room or scurrying around a corner out of the corner of her eye. She went to a psychic and asked, and the psychic said that it was a male Native American ghost. She says it doesn't happen too often, but not to be scared if it does, just yell at him and he will go away.
To which I said, "Well. Huh."

There is no ghost in Dad's house. There is, however, a faint miasma of mold and hamburger.

We are moving to a house on a lake. It is a nice house. I very much doubt there is a ghost there either. We went to see it earlier in the week with Darlene, Dad's girlfriend. The basement is awesome. It's all concrete walls and bare lightbulbs, and great acoustics. I wanted to get some green lightbulbs, beakers, and a table, and see if there was a cemetary nearby. Brian wanted to get some speakers and amps. We eventually decided that we could make it into a combination mad scientist laboratory/punk rock venue. DEAD MAN'S PARTY, YO.

Then Dad started talking about wallpaper. Well, fuck that.