Hello, all. A new chapter in my life, it seems. I chose a new theme with the new “full-site edit” direction WordPress is taking. Not sure how I feel about it. So many chances to change and fix things. I added links for Ghost Factor on this page and cleaned some words in other pages, but nothing significant yet.
Basically, again, my mind has been burned. Big time.
For starters, the move. Ho boy.
Last March, I got the notice from the office the apartment lease was up for renewal. This was unexpected because I never knew when it was coming up (the last day was today). Later I asked my former roommate what she was thinking, and she decided to not renew the lease.
That put me in a week-long anxiety attack, panic searching for a new home. The cheapest apartment. An available room-for-rent. However, it came at the worst time when rent rates have jumped 3x than normal, houses were being bought in cash, and all cheap apartments were all rented out. Rent assistance was out of the question.
Amongst that, before my mom went to Alaska for a manager job for the tourist season, she put out feelers on Facebook. One person offered a room for rent. This person is an old family friend back in the Big Bear years working for my parent’s B&B. She’s practically family. It was an option but I wanted to search a little more and see if I could stay in California a little longer.
The room is in Henderson, NV. Southeast of the Las Vegas Strip. If you ever went to Las Vegas in the middle of the summer, you know what I felt because man, the weather is no joke.
Spent two more weeks searching through Facebook, Twitter, Craiglist, and one sketchy roommate service; no favorable prospects. Nobody I was speaking to I was jiving with. Around the beginning of May, I called it and chose to move to Henderson in mid-June. Note that from that anxiety trip, I didn’t eat well and lost four pounds. Thank goodness my WFH job can let me move out of state.
And so, for two months up to the move, I consolidated my possessions, packed a 5’ x 5’ storage until of unimportant items (my entire library in six boxes cries), pulled my lower back getting those books packed, packed my Prius Prime to the brim with the necessities, drove through the desert, unpacked my stuff in the room, and just passed out from exhaustion.
It was 111 degrees Fahrenheit outside when I parked the car at the house. Sweats-ville. It will fluctuate between 95 to 110 for the rest of the summer until after Columbus Day. Sometimes I heard it gets to 120.
Waking up with a dry throat for the first two weeks was no fun. I’m used to it now, along with copious amounts of drinking water. Yet with the recent federal warning water restrictions will hit several states using the Colorado River, I stopped having reading baths.
That set aside, the writing bit.
Expect to see an added scene to Ghost Factor Chapter 6 in the next couple of weeks. I’ll share later when Chapter 7 will come out. The day job is still the same, but I now have a dedicated writing spot at a nerdy coffee shop after work. A lot of art, a plush chair with an ottoman, and enough chai lattes to relax with.
But will the words flow in the hot desert climate? I’ll see what happens.
L.J. McLean 