Well, I’m Back . . .

I’m back in New Jersey after a three and a half day trip from Wichita, Kansas!!!  We got back on, I believe, the 30th.  We came into New Jersey at 4:05 pm.  And I was a bit of a picture fiend on the way back.  No dumb scenery shots of trees, or six different shots from each angle out of our hotel door or anything stupid like that.  I got shots of the Mississippi River, Missouri River, the tunnels we went through in Pennsylvania, cool stuff like that.

The past couple of days, I’ve been driving around, just wanting to travel the familiar roads and such.  Rob and I pretty much aren’t allowed to unpack because the garage hasn’t been turned into the more or less studio apartment my parents have been planning.  We anticipated this; it comes as no surprise.  It’s still annoying, though, to not really have access to any of my stuff, especially my books!  Gah!  On an upside, though, they’ll start work at the end of this week and it should be done in about two.  Then it gets painted and we can "officially" move in and unpack.  I can’t wait to unpack.

On a MAJOR downside, though, my parents have been renting our spare room to this guy named Jim.  I guess he goes to the church my mom goes to, or knows the reverend or something.  I don’t know.  Anyway, that’s fine, I don’t care/mind that he’s renting the room.  What I do mind is that he is a smoker and my parents were letting him, and had no problem with him sitting up in the room and smoking!!!  I mean, what the freakin’ bloody Hell???  At this point I’m allergic to smoke, it greatly affects my eyes, making them all red and dry and itchy.  Not to mention how bad second-hand smoke is.  And with my dad having the allergies and coughing fits that he does, I mean, seriously.  How could they be so stupid???

I haven’t stopped harping on it.  I do not want him smoking in this house.  I acknowledge I cannot stop him from deciding to kill himself with those cancer sticks.  I can’t tell him, "No, you can’t smoke at all."  If he wants to, as stupid as smoking is, it is his right.  But I’ll be damned if I let this house be polluted by smoke.

I haven’t meandered to Sycamore yet.  I should soon.  I have a lot to think on, to be honest.  For one thing, Melanie told me Jill asked her opinion of contacting me not too long ago.  Melanie said she just wants to stay out of it and I don’t blame her in the least.  I say if Jill wants to contact me, A) she knows where to find me.  My E-mail address, IM, and diary names haven’t changed.  B) This isn’t the first time I’ve heard of her wanting to talk.  If she wants to, she should just do it and get it over with.  What’s the point of prolonging it if she’s thought about it this long?  C) And I told Melanie this, she wants to talk, I have no problem listening to what she has to say.  Frankly, I don’t think we’ll ever be friends.  I think at best we’ll come away as peacefully coexisting acquaintances.

I admit, if she did talk to me, I somehow know the conversation would eventually bend towards Mike, however briefly or long an amount of time.  I’m not sure whether I would, (whether asked or not,) tell my blunt, honest opinion of Mike, and of the turns I see their relationship going, or just keep my mouth shut, saying nothing more than, "While any answer I give you would be my honest opinion, I also acknowledge it is my honest yet extremely negatively biased opinion.  So I’d prefer to say nothing."

I don’t know.  Of course, to be honest, it’s not a bridge I’m seeing myself having to cross in either way, because I don’t think she’ll ever contact me.  She’s waited this long for one reason or another, and now that she’s with Mike, if she’s mentioned this to him, he’s probably advised against it, saying it’d be a worthless endeavor because of my volatile temper and other such BS like that.  When really, he’d just be spouting off at the mouth, because no matter what he wants to pretend otherwise, he knows nothing about who I am now.

Yeah.  A walk to Sycamore is definitely in order.  I need to rant about all this stuff in my head.