I quit smoking
8:45am
I look at myself in the mirror. I have about five welts on my neck. My neck! I haven't been bitten on the neck before. They must know the end is near.
10:15pm
I’m on the 7 train heading home. A man is loudly singing, "I love chicken, I hate crack." I have a package of 28 large black garbage bags with yellow ties. Should be plenty, I think. I have to bag all my clothes and all my personal effects. The idea of this makes my head spin. I just hope it ends up being worth it.
10:24pm
I've gotten $26 in quarters from the laundromat. There are laundry machines in my building, but no change machine. My purse is really heavy now. I have another $20 if I need to get more quarters, but that’s all I’ve got till the wee hours of Friday morning when I get paid.
10:55pm
In bagging my things, I've come across my one and only sex toy, which I thought had been lost during my move into this apartment last summer. I'm feeling quite cynical about all this cleaning/exterminating business and am dreading that the bugs will return; but if little good comes out of this, at least I have found my Silver Bullet! Hooray!
11:07pm
My roommate, who thankfully has never been bitten by bed bugs, is also cleaning up her room. She came in to tell me to turn on Seinfeld. In the episode airing, Jerry has a flea infestation caused by dirty neighbor Newman. How fitting.
1:49am
I think I'm done. I've watched Monty Python & the Holy Grail twice: once with the commentary by directors Terrys Gilliam & Jones and the other with commentary by Cleese, Idle and Palin.
My closets are bare, save freely-dangling hangers. All my furniture is squished into the middle of the room, away from the walls. (In fact, I’m sitting on a dresser with my legs up on the desk right now.) I've removed all the electrical plates. My things are all in plastic bags and piled on top of the crowded furniture. I labeled all of them with red “Hello my name is” tags I had leftover from my Marla Singer costume last Halloween. In the morning, I'll strip my bed and flip it up against the wall. I pray the exterminator determines that I do not have to throw it out.
Out of the box of 28 garbage bags, there is one left in the box.
I really hope the exterminator isn't a prick. I'm going to have lots of questions. Thankfully, Brady will be coming by in the morning to lend an extra set of hands for doing the laundry and a lot of desperately needed moral support.
I hope I've done everything right. I'm so worried about all this.
Um, I think I forgot to leave out pajamas for myself.
2:54am
I stop writing.
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