No more being able to rank on Tammy for having a piece of shit for a computer. She got a brand new one that’s faster than ours for $1,600. She’s got CD-ROM, Windows 95, big speakers and all kinds of things. I told her that since I can’t rank on her for having a piece of shit for a computer I’ll have to double the amount of ranking I do on her cold and snowy winters and her humid summers.

Just called AOL and got two messages from Alex and one from Tammy. All she said was that she made it online and would talk to us soon. What a boring, non-original screen name she’s using.

I sent her a reply letting her know I am very happy for her and now she can enjoy all the things we do. I won’t be sending her regular mail anymore. Just to my folks, Bob, Kim, and Larry.

I don’t usually print out Alex’s messages since they’re usually short with nothing really new.

Got a letter from Kim today with letters she got from Bob. She also sent copies of her AT&T bill and her Excel bill, but I’m shitty with math, so I’m gonna let Tom check it out. She also sent a $5 bill saying some places charge $5 to switch over, some charge $3 and some charge nothing, but to keep it anyway.

Yesterday my combination of PMS and being tired didn’t have me in the best of moods. I could tell Tom was bored by my rambling on and on and he even said so, but also that it was OK to get it out of my system. Just when I had been doing so good at keeping my mouth shut!

Then he came out and told me the biggest lie to cheer me up, even though he denied it was to cheer me up. He told me that he was gonna win the bet. What a liar and how it’s all the more obvious that he loves playing with my head about this!

Yesterday I really got on my ass about smoking indoors and am now smoking outside. I hate it and it’s a pain, but it’s already begun to cut me down as far as how much I smoke is concerned.

Later...

Now I’ll get into describing places I’ve lived, but first, I got 3 free pairs of pantyhose in the mail today and a form for the Literary Book Club so I can get 6 free books in a bogus name.

After I was born in Springfield, we lived in a house there till very shortly after I was born. I was only a few weeks old, I think, when we moved into a 4-bedroom house in Longmeadow. The house, which was next door to my mother’s parents had a huge backyard. Many acres both out in the open as well as set in the woods where I had my swing set and Larry and Tammy had their private fort. The house was built right before I was born and was pretty modern and still is compared to the second house. It was on Berkeley Drive and the cellar was just about finished. It was carpeted with heated floors and even a toilet, sink and shower stall. The stairs that went down into the cellar were in the middle. To the right was one big room with a few built-in shelves. On the other side was my little playroom, the bathroom in the middle and the laundry room behind that.

The first floor circled the staircase. If you were standing in front of the stairs, the front door would be behind you. To your left would be the dining room, through there in the back would be the kitchen, and through the kitchen would be a small hallway. To the left was a bathroom with a sink and toilet and to the right was a walk-in pantry and the stairs to the cellar. Past this was a long living room that made up one whole side of the house.

Upstairs were 4 bedrooms with just a small hallway in the center and a full bath.

The attic in this house wasn’t one you could walk up into. You had to go through a hole in the ceiling and stand on beams.

There was a double-car garage at the left of the house.

Berkeley Drive was a quiet dead-end road with a circle at the end of it. There were only 7 houses on that road.

When I was 12, we moved to Birchwood Ave., also in Longmeadow. This was on the corner of a busier street with many more houses on it. This house was also a 4-bedroom and it was bigger and older, built in the late 1800s, but I liked it much better. It was kept in excellent condition and my mother had the rooms with different kinds of wallpapers and carpets as she loved to do, so most of the interior was pretty modern looking. Its front and back yards were very small, but this was to free my dad from having to do so much yard work as his heart was never the greatest. Even I’d mow the lawn from time to time. My dad used a sit-down mower at the other house.

Its cellar wasn’t as finished or as nice as the other one, but it was my private resort that I loved. My stereo and guinea pigs lived down there and that’s where I’d do my homework, too, at my desk which had drawers and a bookcase. Again, the stairs were in the middle of the cellar, and towards the right was one big side (my side) with lots of big built-in cabinets. The left side was where the washer and dryer were and there was also a small room with an old freezer in it as well as another small room with no floor in it. I used to wonder if I’d find any secret passageways.

The first floor was kind of like a U. If you enter through the back door which is in the kitchen, as with the other house, you enter a huge kitchen. This was one of my favorite kitchens and I think my mom agreed. Off of the kitchen was a bathroom with a sink and toilet and in front of that, also off the kitchen was a closet area within a small area. There was where the steps leading to the cellar were.

Through the kitchen was a dining room and through that was a good size foyer where the front door was as well as the stairs going up to the bedrooms.

Through the foyer was a huge living room that ran the length of the house. Off of the living room was a solarium.

The upstairs hallway was kind of in the shape of a staple. Once you hit the top of the stairs, there’s a bedroom on the left. If you go right, there’s a full bathroom and to the right of that is another bedroom with a porch off of that. In the middle of the hallway was a big linen closet. To the right of that were the stairs to the attic. It was a full walk-in attic that I’m sure we would’ve used as a playroom if we kids had been younger. To the right of the attic stairs was the master bedroom, then to the right of the master bedroom was the last bedroom. That was mine in the beginning and if you stood right outside the door and looked towards your left, the stairs went right down under you. Off of my room was a small cedar closet. Its door was a few inches shorter than I am.

The master bedroom was always my parent’s room. The first bedroom was my father’s mother’s, then Lisa’s bedroom (Tammy’s first kid when she was a baby). The second bedroom went from being a den to Tammy’s room, then back to a den. My room became Tammy’s room cuz after I graduated I lived in the cellar.

Although I had my share of horrible times in this house, it also gives me a warm feeling to remember it and I did have some good times there. I fell in love with this house the second I saw it.

From when I was about 5 till my late teens, my family and I always spent the summer at our beach cottage in CT. I had more shitty times there and wished we could stay home a lot. When we first got this 4-bedroom cottage, it was a dump. My folks fixed it up really nice and later knocked out some walls making it a 2-bedroom cottage. It was small and on one floor. The walk to the beach from there took only about 90 seconds.

I first went out on my own the day before I turned 20 in 1985, so it’s been just over 10 years now. I first moved to Locust Street in Springfield on the first floor into a 1-bedroom apartment. This 4-story building was built in the 50s and the apartment was nothing too bad and nothing too impressive. It was about 600 square feet and I had a roommate there for a month or two. Her name was Michelle L and she was a 17-year-old runaway that I worked at the Harley Hotel with. She said her father molested her. She turned out to be a major backstabber who took no appreciation for my rescuing her from her home situation. This was at the time I wouldn’t see my brother for 8 years as she, as well as Jenny, came between me and my brother. My brother fell in love with her and they had an affair. Michelle and Larry were becoming more of a nuisance by the minute and in order to get rid of Michelle, I knew I had to get rid of both of them. So, I kicked her out and she went to live with Larry and his family, but I don’t know for how long.

I was only in this apartment for about 5 or 6 months. I think it was the following May that I moved due to someone knocking on my window at night. If I’d had the guts I have today, I would’ve waited outside the window at night to take care of the problem. I think I did once, but no one showed up. This left me to believe it was my brother or someone he knew. I still don’t know up to this day. In the end, whoever it was did me a favor, cuz I moved around the corner in the same building on Woodside Terrace into a much bigger and nicer 1-bedroom apt. This one was about 900 square feet. It was on the fourth floor and I lived there till July 1987. I had a black girl named Barbara T live with me there for a couple of weeks who ripped me off and was a lazy bitch. She rang up $143 of long-distance phone calls while she was there, but luckily my good acting with the phone company got it wiped out. There really wasn’t any way I could’ve afforded to pay that, either. I can’t remember where I met Barbara which is weird since I have a great memory, but I think I met her along Locust St.

Then I moved to Oswego St. onto a second floor in a 1-bedroom apartment that was more modern. I even had a garbage disposal there. This apartment was about 600 square feet. My roommate at this place was Crystal C. Another lazy bitch who ripped off a few pieces of clothing from me. She was a real wimp who was under the bad influence of her no-good boyfriend. We met at Dunkin Donuts and ended up chatting when the discussion of roommates came up. After a month or so, she left out of fear of me. I don’t know why she was afraid of me when all I wanted was for her to do her share of chores.

I left there on March 17th of 1989 to move back to the same fourth-floor apartment on Woodside Terrace.

After Crystal, I wanted no more roommates, but I ended up taking in my best friend Andy who I reunited with in April of 1988 cuz he got evicted from his own apt. It was terrible, as all we did was fight and he wasn’t there more than a month or so either. We’re just too much alike to live together, but Andy’s also changed dramatically for the better since then. I think we both have.

I moved out of Springfield to South Deerfield, MA, 40 minutes away from Springfield, on April 1, 1991. This was the most beautiful 1400 square foot (the size of this house), 1-bedroom apartment I ever had, but I was terribly isolated there. This apartment had everything from a Jacuzzi in its bathtub to a dishwasher, washer and dryer in the bathroom, a garbage disposal and a trash compactor. A ceiling fan, a microwave, a burglar alarm and 3 big skylights. There was only one other apartment in this 3-story office building where friends of mine lived. We lived on the top floor.

I moved to Norwich, CT February 8, 1992, to the biggest dump I ever lived in. The Norwich Housing Authority. I lived in a rundown, filthy old 1-bedroom apartment that was about 500 square feet. It was to be a 102-day nightmare and the noise there was horrible and this place literally ran me down physically and mentally till I came to Phoenix on June 9, 1992.

The apartments in Phoenix were very modern and beautiful with dishwashers and some had a washer and dryer in the apartments, but their walls are still too thin. Just about all apartment complexes have pools and even Jacuzzis.

I spent my first 5 days here with Andy who had been here 16 months before I got to his 400-square-foot studio apartment. I ended up getting the same studio two buildings away from him on the first floor. Then, I moved right behind him into his building in an identical studio. The walls were also too thin there and I hated my neighbors. This was in the Vista Ventana apartment complex.

Then I moved about 40 minutes away to the Crystal Creek complex in April of 1993 into my first 2-bedroom apartment on the second floor that was about 1000 square feet. My husband lived next to me and that’s how we met, but I hated the people below me.

Then I moved to an identical apartment in the back of the complex to avoid the pool noise till I moved here in September 1993. This has been the longest I’ve ever lived in one place since being on my own. Then again, I spent a total of 3 years at the Woodside Terrace apartment counting both times I lived there.