august 3rd, 2024
sometimes i feel like i'm not making fast enough progress on this apartment and it makes me feel like it's just going to turn out to be the same situation as the last apartment again - where i just spend years moving shit around and not finding the right place to put things - but i just thought about it and it's barely been a week and i'm already getting more stuff in this apartment figured out than i did in months at the old one. i'm having some trouble putting up the shoe shelves that i built over the summer because i just had this picture in my head of the spot it will go, and i built a mock-up of it, and it looks not exactly how i wanted it to look. but i'm not going to let that get to me too much. i'll try to get some pictures taken just so that i can keep them, maybe even put them on here. i'll have to figure out how to format that stuff in docs though. anyway, i'm pretty proud of it.
august 9th, 2024
i fucking got the pegboards up already. i don't know how but i gunned a monster and decided that i'm just going to get it done today. and they're level, even distance away left and right (with the door open) and i'm so happy. i didn't get this done in the old apartment until almost a year and a half of messing around with where it should go, what it should look like, how it should flow with everything - all these decisions that i should've spent the time making this time around too, but i didn't - i just thought that i'm going to do it and i did it. and it's perfect.
august 12th, 2024
the tools are up. i'm literally gunning through this already and i feel so good about it. i don't think tools were up for me for weeks after the pegboards were up in the old apartment.
i had a box full of the tools sitting out in front of the walking area in front of my bed because i knew that looking at them and trying not to trip over them would make me work on it more and i think it worked. or maybe it was the fact that i didn't overthink it. i honestly think it was more of that. i didn't focus so much on where each tool goes, where i need to divide up sections, where ease-of-access bullshit was going to be and i didn't spend days on getting that shit figured out and i got it done. i don't know why it takes me this much effort to get this stuff together. my mom would've had this up in an hour and my dad would've had the tools up in the next hour, but here i am, writing a journal entry about how much of an achievement that it.
but it is an achievement, for me, and that's okay.
i want to throw a halloween party full of people from production and a bunch of people from work. that gives me almost three months to get this place figured out, and at this pace, i think i can get it done.
august 13th, 2024
a bit of a mess still but i think the progress is going along. a bit slow, though. i wish i was going a little bit faster, but i had to pick up a few shifts to get some money to buy new things. looking back on it, they were things that i really didn't need to buy - i had the stuff already - but the older stuff was so dirty and contaminated that i decided to not even bring it to the new apartment. for example, the old trash. it was perfectly fine, no stains or anything, but i decided that it would almost ruin this holiness of the new place if i brought that over. same goes for the old broom - i don't want this apartment to even have stuff like that enter. i threw away the silverware too. they were fine, but they had water spots on them, and with how the new kitchen should look - pristine and clean, i didn't think those would fit in here anymore. but, i've got the broom set up! i have it hanging on a holder that i saran wrapped when moving out so i know for a fact it's not contaminated. hell, i had to cut through all the layers to get it out. i have a bunch more shit saran wrapped and i'm upset i didn't do it to all of them because the feeling of safety i got from busting that broom holder thing out and know that i don't have to wipe it down with a clorox before putting it up was relieving.
august 14th, 2024
there was a shooting at my apartment last night. i was on the phone with my dad when it happened. i thought they were fireworks and i saw my girlfriend run into every room and turn off every light. we closed all the blinds, pulled all the curtains, i got off the phone with my dad as soon as i could without telling him what happened because i knew it would send them both into a panic. my girlfriend got on a police radar radio livestream thing on youtube, and we listened, couped up in our apartment, checking to make sure everything was locked. it was a 15 year old boy. from what i've seen and heard, it happened next to the bushes by the office. the people who did it ran away, but the cops and medics showed up fast. we peeked through the blinds to see the chaos unfold, trying to not look too much. who i'm assuming was the family, came out and i heard them screaming. the tapes went up pretty fast, locking down the place. i've never been so close to something like this before. i keep thinking about what would've happened if i was out there. i take the trash out later at night, and i had trash to take out too. the bin would've been maybe 30 feet from where the kid got shot. we were listening to the police radios, lights turned off, huddled up in bed, and i heard one cop say something to another. i wasn't sure what they said, but it just, sounded bad. i heard someone say they're walking up to them now and we knew what it was about. i've never heard a mother scream like that before. our windows are fully shut and it stuck in our room, and i just heard her screaming and crying. we knew he didn't make it by that point.
august 16th, 2024
there was a section to the right side of the laundry room that had this ugly wiring inset in the wall, with a plate on top of it, and i've been eyeing it for a few days now, trying to figure out if i can use that space for something, and i finally did something about it today. it's so weird because i was at work at the wood shop and i just, started building something for it. i had a vague idea of it but i never drew any plans out on paper; all i did was measure that plate and get to work building something that was bigger to cover it, and it actually turned out pretty good. comparing this to the shoe shelves, i took at least a week to plan that out, draw it out, take measurements over and over again, but i just built this in a day. i don't know what's going on it yet - just laundry stuff, i know, but i have no set rules. and i think that's okay. the only thing i purposefully built was the little box to hold the lint shaver. oh, and looking at the pictures i took, i also need to mention that i wrapped the wire shelves that were already there in shelf liner. they were so dirty from before that i couldn't even wipe them clean, and since i want to put some fabric stuff on there, i know those would've got dirty if i didn't cover it up. i would buy new shelves and install them, like i did at the old apartment, but i don't have the money for that right now.
