August 12, 2002 | 11:03 AM

So I moved.

I have a new home.

It�s all mine.

It�s completely beautiful and I can�t believe I live there. I feel like a character on Friends or something. You know�how TV people always have these amazing apartments? Like if they live in New York, instead of living in a so so section of Brooklyn like a real life twenty-something would, their apartment is in the Village or the upper West Side or something and is huge and impeccably (but eccentrically) furnished.

Everything is unpacked and lots decorated. Pictures will be forthcoming in the next couple weeks, once I can afford to get them developed.

I also started writing in a paper diary again�something I haven�t done in awhile. I was prompted to do this when during the course of unpacking I came across my box of old diaries starting in 1991 and going all the way up through 1998. Reading through some of them was so interesting. Revisiting so much I had forgotten. I�m really beginning to value the concept of personal space�be it physical or emotional, and beginning a diary that no one else will see feels like a really good thing to do.

I am of course still going to write in here as well.

Everything I was scared of about moving has turned out to (so far) be unfounded. I don�t feel lonely or scared or uncomfortable or bored. I had forgotten how much I like being by myself. When I was a kid I used to spend hours alone in my room drawing or writing. It was only when all that shit happened freshman year of college on through the saga that I truly felt dependent on other people�s company.

I also don�t know how I got it into my head that I was incapable of doing things that I had always done before�like hang pictures or xmas lights. I hung every single picture in my new apartment all by myself, including my framed John Coltrane picture which is like four feet tall and weights approximately 50 lbs. I strung the xmas lights. I screwed in the beaded curtain. I put together my zen waterfall fountain. This probably doesn�t sound like a big deal to people who do that kind of thing all the time, but for me it�s huge.

I somehow wound up believing for a long time that I was weak and couldn�t do things on my own. And I don�t know how I bought into that concept. Up until the age of 19 I was fiercely independent. I directed Community Theater and volunteered and published a chapbook of poetry and I did it all alone.

But when I went to college so much shit happened, and I stopped trusting myself. I thought that my feelings or opinions or abilities weren�t as significant or relevant as someone else�s, and that in order to be whole and strong I needed somebody else. I don�t know why I thought that. Maybe I was so enraptured with loving someone so much that I lost my own sense of self. It�s not that I wasn�t really in love with John, because I was. And at this point in my life I can�t imagine being capable of ever loving anyone as much or in that way ever again. But loving him became more important to me than anything else in the world. And as a result I lost access to my own strength.

The more I trust my own abilities and make my own decisions the happier I am.

Details�

On Friday, John and Jenn helped me move and unpack and put shit together. Originally Angus was going to help with the heavy lifting stuff (i.e. the Coltrane poster) but he wound up calling three hours after he was supposed to show up saying he had promised to meet his girlfriend after work, and that they (he and the twenty-one year old girl friend) would be down in a while. I was so fucking pissed I wanted to choke him. He had promised me he would help and it was understood that the only people I wanted to be there were him, Jenn and John due to space constraints and wanting to actually get things done as opposed to having it turn into a party.

Yet again I was ditched for Angus�s flavor of the month. I had no interest in entertaining Angus�s chica and feeding her beers and what not during the first night I was in my new home. That was never part of the plan. So I told him to fucking forget it. And I think (I know I�ve said this before) that I really just don�t want to have anything to do with him for a long time, if ever. Why should I have somebody around who only makes me feel like shit and is completely unreliable? I hate feeling used. And I hate using. And I feel like that�s what my relationship with Angus has become�like two vampires sucking each other�s lifeblood.

So anyway, my point in all that was that Angus not coming turned out to be the best thing in the world because I did all the shit he was going to do myself and I felt like a million bucks.

Yesterday morning Jenn brought over bagels for breakfast. We hung out and giggled over bad fashion magazines. She left after a couple hours for her web-consulting job. I spent the afternoon listening to music and doing an art project. Later on I went out for burgers with Jenn and John. Then I went back home, finished my art project, listened to some more music, wrote for hours, and watched Leaving Las Vegas. (Expect a dissertation on that movie at some point.)

Oh, yesterday I also watched these two opera divas singing arias for cash outside my apartment building. They were so incredible. Both of them had phenomenal voices�not screechy at all. Very powerful. Their faces and hair were painted silver and they wore matching gold scarves and renaissance dresses. They stood frozen like mannequins until someone put a buck in their jar and then they would sing a song. At the end of it they would freeze again in whatever position they happened to be in and an adoring bystander would drop a dollar or two in their jar and they�d break into song again. They were raking in dough and they deserved it�not like those irritating folkie assholes who sing off key renditions of Dylan�s greatest hits outside the Discovery Store while aging boomers relive their glory days listening to a real live street musician (�Hey honey, doesn�t this remind you of Berkley? It�s just like the sixties!�)

I was enraptured by the opera grrls and watched them for almost an hour.

Today I�m back at work and can�t concentrate on anything. However, I signed up for the two classes I�m taking this semester�History of Film and America in Depression and War. I am so excited for school to start.

So all in all I feel really terrific. For the first time in forever I am relaxed and comfortable.

I apologize for the lengthiness and rambling tone of this entry. I�ll probably write something more precise later on.