Lara I.

And yes, I will continue to refer to spending the night with someone as a "sleepover." What of it? :P

I did the coolest thing. I've done one cool thing in the house so far. And it's made all the difference. This house is now MINE and I want to be here.

So this house has a really lovely bay window in the back. From the outside the window has like it's own little roof - there is no bay window above it upstairs or anything. From the very beginning I wanted to sleep in the bay window and have like a walled garden outside of it. Well, I have no garden and no wall BUT, for the past three nights I have been sleeping in the window.

Usually I sleep on the couch. If I sleep over at B's, well, he sleeps on a couch too but it has a bed in it, and we pull out the bed if I sleep over. I do have a bed here, and at the other house I had it set up like a platform bed with plywood and cinderblocks, but here the mattress has just been propped against a wall and I've been sleeping on the couch because that's where I usually am more comfortable sleeping anyway. I also have a futon I can fold down if B wants to sleep over with me but it's pretty uncomfortable for sleeping on so usually we don't do that.

Well. I have made this amazing discovery. There is a such thing as MEMORY FOAM and I am in love with it. So now? Now I have a new I-wish-I-was-a-platform bed set up in the bay window - my uncle cut more plywood for me so it sits right in the shape of the window and my mattress is on the board and then in the non-rectangular area I have stuffed foam and pillows and stuff (I know, ghetto, shush) and then, see, I did the most amazing thing. I bought a king-sized memory foam pad, cut it to fit the mattress and the rest of the non-rectangular space, and put it over the whole combination and so NOW I have a bay-window shaped memory foam bed and I AM IN LOVE.

The left over pieces of memory foam I piled up on the one end of the bed, because sometimes I'm more comfortable sleeping half sitting up (which is why I sleep on the couch a lot) and memory foam is freakin' amazing. I sleep so much better - I'm absolutely astounded at how much of a difference it is.

I'm never sleeping on the couch again. Seriously.

So I had a conversation with Erica this morning in the car on the way to work. I told her before that she could move the boxes in the extra bedroom up to the attic if she wanted to - she didn't want to, I guess, cause they're still in the extra bedroom and she doesn't go in there. Which... is understandable, since there really isn't anything in there. But her being around is kind of like the kick in the ass I needed to really get started finishing the house up. There are a lot of things I have just not been bothering with or putting off for whenever because it's been just me here - now she's here too so I feel like I have to step it up a notch or something.

This time I asked her to please take the boxes up to the attic :P

And she is the one who brought up paying rent again - I don't need rent money from her, and I can't even charge her rent in good conscience, considering what the house is like right now. But I need favors like you wouldn't believe. So she and I together are going to "finish" the extra bedroom, and her help is going to be considered rent, and then after it's finished if she really is going to keep living here then she can pay me rent.

I think that's fair, right?

So, it's yellow, white, and blue for the third bedroom. I never would have picked that, but that's what Erica picked, and I just don't really feel like contradicting her - it doesn't really matter, after this year, I'm not going to be living here anyway, and I'm definitely never staying in that bedroom. I'm sure it will be fine. I think I know where I can order some white wicker furniture, too - nice and beach-looking, and all that.

( So, tomorrow is the wedding with B - that'd be the DATE )

So... I am really never going to know what's going on in his head. Unless I learn to read minds, or something. I don't think I can master that by tomorrow, though :P

I totally lied about the serious business part, of course. But all my bitching and moaning about being bored out here has been satiated, for now, I think.

First and foremost, my upstairs looks a thousand times better with painted walls. Yes, they were all ugly and patch-y all winter. Now every room is a different color. I am a big fan of colored walls. It wouldn't have occurred to me, ever, except for Daniel used to paint houses as his job and he always talked about what color rooms did what kinds of things to your brain and stuff, and I guess it rubbed off on me or something, because I was determined, from the very beginning, not to have a white wall in the whole place. And I don't. It looks so great. I'm so impressed with myself. Lol yeah right. I'm impressed with my painters. I didn't do much - I hardly did anything, really. And I spent... oh, I spent about a thousand dollars. But that includes the paint, too. And really, that ain't bad.

But you see... I can see myself preparing to spend another chunk of money on something totally unnecessary. It's a piece of electronics and I WANT IT.

Not buying it, though. Not this week, anyway.

So not buying it.

( So I have neighbors, by the way )

...I can't believe there is a boy sleeping over at my house. That isn't Matt.

Does this mean that we're actually friends now?

So I went and sat on the edge of the beach today and drew for a few hours, it was really nice. Even though it was warm and sunny outside it was still pretty cool, especially closer to the water like I was, so eventually I got cold and went home.

When I got back my download was finished and I got to watch the Pompeii episode!

I'm not going to review the whole thing, or spoil anyone, but I was thoroughly impressed. Season three started off with me being seriously skeptical. Season four is doing just peachy, as far as I'm concerned.

So now I'm hardcore obsessing about paint. My kitchen floor is black and beige tiles. Big beige ones and small black ones. They have like a stone-ish texture. Same kind of thing on the wall above the counters. I wanted shiny black and white tiles so I could do it all nineteen fifties-ish, which would have been fab, but, really, white tiles? Shiny white tiles? So, what, I'll have to scrub them with bleach to keep them white, and rub them with mop and glo to keep them shiny? Yeah I think maybe not. If this was my house, that I was going to be living in, then yeah, maybe. For renters? No way. Carpet (eventually) is gonna be a beige-taupe kinda color. Like dirt. So it doesn't show dirt. And it's going to be the burbur kind of carpet, so it doesn't get all visibly worn and stuff.

So I have been debating about what colors I want the rooms. I've had it in my head that I want the living room to be a sort of pale baby blue color, lighter and more pastel than the outside of the house, which is a sort of blue-slate color. I also had this idea that I wanted my shutters to be maroon instead of white, but I'm not even going to go there. They're white and I'm not touching them and that's that. So the living room and the "dining room" share a wall, and the "dining room" shares a wall with the kitchen. Long ago I wanted the kitchen to be like sea foam green, to go with the black and white tiles, but of course that is not the case. So, I guess it should be blue to match the rest of the front half of the house. Except, I don't want it to be blue. But, I don't want it to clash either. I was thinking maybe a darker blue (and this is just a very little bit of wall we're talking here, so I don't know why it being blue is bugging me so much) or maybe even light grey - I don't know.

The bathroom really is going to be sea foam green, cause that's a great color. Maybe the kitchen should match the hallway? Cause I don't want the hallway to be blue like the living room/dining room either... I want the biggest bedroom to be peach walls with green accents. The smallest bedroom can be yellow walls with like cream and pink. I dunno about the middle room - I already did blue and green and yellow and peach, what does that really leave? I can't do purple, I hate purple walls. Maybe the kitchen and the hallway walls should be beige-sand colored, and the middle bedroom should be slate blue like the outside of the house - I have white curtains for that room, that would probably be nice. I'm not sure. It has to look really fab, though, because people are (ideally) gonna pay big money to stay here.

John said he'd go with me to get all the paint sometime this week - he's a waiter at the restaurant, and he's always asking me if I need stuff done around my house, and totally jumped on my "omg paint for me!!" sign. Apparently people always ask him to help them out but no one ever offers to pay, they think it should just be a favor from a friend. Well, friend or no, if someone does something you'd pay anyone else to do, well, you should pay them. Anyway, he's painted lots of houses, so hopefully he can be a good judge of how much paint too get.

He said he might bring Ruth along, if that's okay with me, because he said "she likes that kind of shit" I guess meaning decorating. I know Ruth owns a house on the island too. Maybe it would be good to have her advice, I should probably take her up on that.

I always feel kinda awkward around those two. One, they're both in their thirties, and they pretty much act like teenagers, as far as I've seen. That and, they're both obviously screwing each other, and Ruth is married to some other dude. So that's just kinda odd. But whatever.

Oh PS. I paid my taxes. Yes, I really did. I didn't spend all the money I have on stupid shit and have none left over for taxes. I seem to recall something about my mother insisting I was going to do that. Well, so there, mom. I didn't.

First, a meme from ithidrial

1. My username is ______ because ______.

Lara_Everlong, because my first name is Lara, and I deeply adore the Foo Fighters.

2. My name is _____ because ______.

My real name, in case (just in case!) anyone from RL is looking for me, they can find my journal and know that I am still a part of existence. As far as I know, this has never happened. But I hold out hope.

3. My journal is titled ____ because ____.

Come Down, because it references the Foo Fighters song that I used for my LJ handle. And because when I started this journal, I was feeling pretty much on the bottom of the world. I've thought about changing it, though, because really, I'm not permanently down there, even if I felt that way when I named the journal.

4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.

Out Of Her Head She Sang, because even though in theory I know all the people on LJ are real people, sometimes it all seems like this elaborate made up place.

5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

Well, that's Billie Piper, she plays Rose in Doctor Who, and she's my default icon because I like her :P I like her because she isn't perfect, because she's had an incredible life, and she didn't get a happy ending.

( And now for the rest, which I promise is not depressing or full of rage. )

I guess what I can do that would be really productive would be to start shopping online for some shore-house-type furniture, because, well, summer is coming and the season is starting and if I want to make this whole income-property thing work, well, I have to have this all rentable by summer. Which is basically impossible, and how I'm really going to get everything done when I've been dicking around all winter instead of taking care of all this stuff, well, damned if I know.

The Man With A Thousand Voices Standing Perfectly Still

Lalala no kitchen but soon!

I just woke up.

Aren't I just the loser? Seriously. It's quarter after four in the afternoon. Nobody's here, I can tell, my car isn't outside and it's completely silent downstairs.

So I was thinking about going back to dying my hair platinum. Not platinum blonde- real platinum, like silver-white. It's been maroon-ish for a while now, maybe it's time for a change. Although, I don't know. With all the focus on trying to be healthy and all, maybe I don't want to go messing with all that bleach again. I'm really indecisive. I just know I'm getting tired of my hair the way it is, and god forbid I actually let it grow out naturally (whatever that looks like)

I was also thinking that I need to get a move on with this house. I have some contractors coming in to do the kitchen in two weeks - very exciting! The bathroom is already done - those are the two major things, I believe. I want to have the whole floor ready to rent by summer, which means that by summer I will be living downstairs again, and my tenants will be leaving. They know that, they've always known that, apparently that's just the way it is here, everyone moves twice a year - somewhere nice in the winter, somewhere crappy during tourist season.

But see... when they leave, um, who is going to drive me to work?

Why am I such a fucking idiot, anyway?

Whatever, I'll deal with that when it comes time. Maybe I can apply for a restricted work license or something like that.

I was talking to another hostess at the restaurant last night and she made the observation that a lot of people who used to be hard core into drugs are now hard core into medications, like anxiety pills and antidepressants and mood stabilizers and such. That does seem to be true and I always assumed that those are reasons people get into drugs in the first place - they're unhappy and trying to fix it. But I started wondering about the flip side - I wonder if excessive drug use actually damages your personality, so that to be normally functional again without drugs, you need other drugs to keep you stable?

But whatever. I hate talking about drugs.