Last night's family soiree was perfect. I am incredibly glad to have stayed. Karaoke was a big hit (natch) especially when everyone would take up the tune. We weren't bad, and the game told us we were fabulous. The food was good, the company was good, and they liked to remind me that ever should I need anything, I've only just to call on my vast network.
Which is something that has probably always been true and I have not thought of it lately? Except that Dr. S said the same thing, and Vates too. My aunt's perspective was my favorite. She looked levelly at me and said "Well I guess there's just something you need to see out there." I guess mother told her. But it's nice when people are on the same conclusion as me. Perhaps they all offer support because I do a foolish thing. Perhaps I do a frightening thing. An inexplicable thing. But I hope, at least, to do this thing well.
Last night I wrote that I felt very safe and secure. Soon I will shower and we will pack the car. It is a bright morning, soon to be a hot one. I look forward to a lot of things.. some of which may never be. But dreams are always born with the caveat that they may die.
8/6/08 - "Long Strange Beginning"
Well, we've finally got internet in our happy little home. Instead of a couch, we bought video games today and vowed to go eastward tomorrow to seek prettier Goodwill items. The sun sets mild and we'll soon need to cook dinner.
There are certainly times when I prefer typing, and others when I, for example, discover that I can write in any direction in my little notebook Ping. I bought Ping in 2003 in Valdosta, for what I’m not sure. A sketch notebook, since there are not lines, but a line-creator came with it. For a while I followed it.
Troy is on TV, which I haven’t seen in a long time. It is distracting because Eric Bana is very, very attractive.
It was a long strange beginning of a long strange trip to get here. I packed the car all morning with my parents, and then hugged them farewell. It felt very much like when I first left for college, only then they drove with me. With Jill all loaded down, I smiled at them, feeling steady and strong. And then I went, but only as far as Canton where I stopped with LnL.
We had a nice chat about graduation, life, and boys, and took our “face the future” picture:
AAHHH! (borrowed from L)John and I went out to Fido to meet Tracy, Louise, Beatnik, and later Steve. Beatnik was solicitous, Tracy was downcast upbeat, Louise was her usual languid self, and Steve something between my brother and some memory from a dream. Beatnik said something about having things to tell me. He wanted my address, wanted to write to me. I told him I’d put it up on facebook soon (I have now, ftw). John and I went home to sleep; he had work at 8 and I had a long drive ahead.
I felt fine as I rolled out the next morning in the brilliance of a Nashville Monday. I temporarily got lost since I had never left that city going that direction before, but finally got myself onto the right highway. Straight on to St. Louis, I rolled right on, windows down, matching the speed limit, raising it five. It wasn’t too hot until St. Louis, or that is, until noon hour, when I had to start the AC toggle.
Off to St. Louis, to meet Vates for the first time. We’d been talking for something like six years, no face to face contact. I found his parents’ new house almost with ease, and I could see something of myself in him as we were well met and he gave me the tour. Like I do, he spent the first space of time not looking at me. This made me free to look at him instead. It was strange to stand in the presence of someone who had a voice I seemed to know, and a visual aspect I did not. Not that I had not seen any photos, just not many. Sadly, I could not stay long.
Then it was back on the road, with miles to go before I slept. I drove and drove.. when I got off the highway somewhere just outside St. Louis to fill up on gas, it was literally like a nightmare getting back on the highway. I had to ride along a frontage road for like five miles, a fence between I-70 (where people were doing 80) and myself (instructed to do 40), and signs along the way telling me how to get to 70.. lying. I thought I must be missing something. Those are the most annoying dreams.
I wandered long and wandered far, and when I got in, the fun wouldn’t stop. Roommate had gone to take his mom to the airport and so I had to find somewhere to hang out until he got back with the keys. Happily, Abby was at home in the same complex where we now live. I confess that I called D$ first, but he didn’t answer (he never did.. his phone is wack for the time being). Abby is a delight, and I even told her about the D$ thing, sort of. Finally, Roommate got in around eleven and we went to our apartment. New home?
A long strange beginning to a long strange trip.
8/12/08 - "Pride and Procrastination"
Here we are: one week in. Not a damn thing has changed. Everything has changed.
First, the job front. Some days we go out and wander recklessly, stopping wherever we see any flicker of promise. We march boldly to the podia where the sweet cherub-faced girls ask “Two?” as they gather menus. We stop them from their trouble as quickly as we can, asking whether they are hiring. No one is; they give us forms to fill out anyway, as we like in time. I keep a folder of those I made it only halfway through before the image of myself working at Subway overpowered the motion of my pen and I couldn't go on. I push outside to seek the nearest bar n’ grille.
My interview was fine, except for the part where they ganged up on me four to one and asked hard questions about my qualifications. I was honest as I could be without admitting outright that I don’t know shit. I plan to get pretty tomorrow so I can go to the classier places (the hotel downtown, the school around the corner, back to Kaplan, etc.).
Second, the apartment. Effing rules. For the first few days we were kind of camping in our own space. We would proudly make food in the stellar kitchen (we for some reason had more than enough dishes, and silverware for two families) and go sit on the floor in the living room because we had no surfaces, no seats. But then we drove out to Olathe to hit up their Goodwill. This was my plan, because Johnson county is also called ‘cupcake land.’ Sure enough, when we hit the county line, the road paving was newer. We spotted the couch right away, as the only one not a ‘grandma’ couch. We tested it tenderly, then threw ourselves upon it. Long enough for me to lay full stretch across it, and soft enough to fall asleep. Yes. Price tag? Forty freakin' dollars. Sold. So sold I guarded it while Roommate went to find an associate. It even mostly fit in the car! I am very proud of our couch find. My second moment of furnishing pride comes from the table. Once we had a couch, we celebrated for a while, but I began to chafe for lack of a surface at which to eat, write, or type. I was killing my back and not taking applications seriously. I wanted a table. We pondered those at Wal-Mart and meant to buy one of them, and then maybe a desk instead, when suddenly on the way home, we happened to pass a yard sale. We stopped, and I considered the surfaces, all fully covered with goods for sale. When I asked if the table were for sale, the lady said “ten dollars.” I blinked. It didn’t look like a 'nice' table, but I wasn’t sure I could walk away from that (after staring at 250 at freaking WalMart). “Are there chairs?” My imagined table was useless without them. When she came back outside she said she’s throw in these two chairs to make it twelve.
Roommate and I were back the next day to pick them up, and I grabbed a nightstand while we were at it (so she put our total price at fifteen). But there wasn’t room in the car for everything and everyone, so I threw the nightstand in my seat and proceeded to walk almost all the way home before Roommate came to pick me up, having unloaded the glass table top and nightstand to make room. On my way I enjoyed my solitude (having spent most waking moments with Roommate since arrival) thought angry, angry thoughts about D$, and found the biggest four-leaf-clover ever. The table was nicer than I thought once we got it inside and wiped down. Even the ghetto-esque chairs make me really happy.
Table, chairs, and couch all included in this photo.Things with D$... we have gone out with him and his roommate and friends a few times now.. Some nights much better than others. Fool though it may seem, I still have hope.
I thought everything was smaller in Kansas..?8/12/08 - "My Montagna"
We finally went down the hill, after walking beside the highway for so long. Our morning walk, I mean. We discovered Clinton Lake park, and vistas that look just exactly like the buffalo-hunting scenes on Oregon Trail. Only, not pixelated.
Seriously. Can I get a what what from all my Oregonian Trailers out there?I used to walk to the end of the adjacent neighborhood, in Georgia, and look back into the horse pastures at the very back of it. I would stand up on a rock and peek towards what I titled 'my Montagna.'
Today my Montagna was large and surrounded me, sweet grass waving softly as the constant breeze moved over my skin.
The breeze lasted all day, even downtown through my cute new shirt.
Darkness falls now, another night, another night.
I think Roommate may have been hired today. We'll have to wait til Friday for the official call. The boss was cute. The male barista, the one who knew so much about tea, was quite cute. I feel as if he could teach me much, about tea. He seemed to be willing to make conversation about green tea ice cream. But I felt time-crunched about the applications I'd left at the table. The bookstore app was the most difficult yet. Why is getting a one-year job feeling like college applications?
Ah well. So we continue. We avoid our homework for our video games and DVDs and the recorded reruns of Scrubs.
Tomorrow we'll enter data for D$'s lab, a temporary but well-paying endeavor. And perhaps we'll all eat lunch together.
8/14/08 - "Pleasant"
Things that have been said that seem like mistakes at first but then turn out to be profound:
The world is your cloister! (he tried to say 'clam' and 'oyster' at the same time)
You make my heart go tokidoki. (dokidoki is onomonopoetic for a thudding heart, but tokidoki means 'sometimes.')
Reasons why today ruled:
Met the Latin teacher at the nearby private school and she is awesome; she invited me to come teach a class and promised to commend me to anyone who needs a tutor. Made some money. Ate lunch with D$. Helped out the Cleos lab in some small fashion. Roommate got not one but TWO callbacks to jobs. We saw White Owl and Julia shopping at our local grocery store, and while that may not be a big deal to anyone who actually has been in Lawrence for a while, it was pretty awesome to us (Roommate, get out of the way [I mind him like a child or a pet sometimes, too self-conscious for him.. he moves, but the person waiting to pass says we're all right. Everyone here is so nice, pleasant.. I look up and see the long white beard.. the girl walking with him is so tall. Roommate points and his mouth opens and I am suddenly mindful again.] Yes, Roommate, yes! [I motion for him to lower his hand]), then as I was trying to find the words for "fresh mozzarella" I saw a display containing it two-for-one (the passing days remind me of Rome.. is it being in a new place? the upcoming season end? tea and happy wanderings..).
The word I keep coming up with to describe most of my time here has been "pleasant." The air, the sights, the people, the whole damn place is just so pleasant.
So in order to hurt, I must find another way; God, D$ knows how much I wanted to go to Vegas a few weeks ago to celebrate his birthday. I hate facebook; it is crap.
This weekend, D$ and everyone will be gone for a conference. Even Abby! Maybe Sara and Mike will call us anyway. They are hilarious. (Last weekend in the car... Sara: "Is that D
My day was so strange. I was so inspired at work and then so defeated, all in the span of a few hours, back and forth and up and down. Still so much to do. And so little motivation? I don't know.
8/15/08 - "Zig's"
Today I looked at 'this day in 2005' blogwise.. and that was the beginning of sophomore year.. I was surprised at my own clarity, and to be frank, wisdom. And, I smiled, my happiness. I was happy, then, maybe not always, and maybe even not enough by late fall, but in August, I was.
Happy like now. My broken hair litters my shoulder and it's Friday night, I've stayed in. My hair was dirty; I didn't want to go out? I just didn't want to make the effort to call Sara. Maybe tomorrow. I'm only happy because I let myself be; perhaps last August I might have panicked again.
Eh. It's early, and I'm tired. Going in for a job prospect at three. Zig & Mac's.. it seems a nice place. Apparently the lady did not read me entirely right. "Were you the one who came in with your boyfriend?" "Yes.. well, I mean, he's my roommate, but.."
But we'll see! I may get a job tomorrow that means. I also need to follow up on a few other prospects. Teaching as usual.
I got tired of not having a bed, just yesterday. I will go tomorrow and throw down hundreds of dollars I suppose.
I am excited for D$'s return. I tell myself not to be too disappointed when I won't see him first thing.
But, I will have other things to do. Besides, this is all about timing.
8/18/08 - "That Makes Two"
The other day when I called my mom, she told me about how things were in Michigan. I was there, last year. Fighting something, something. Now I'm in Kansas, walking warily beside it.
And she told me about how my cousin isn't liking the east coast so much, so she's looking to transfer to California. "Our kids," my uncle told her, "they have no fear. They just go."
"Well, not no fear, Ma," I told her, chagrined.
"Not enough to stop you, though."
Is it the mobility of my generation? Is it a restlessness? Is it really a dearth of fear?
It doesn't matter. Having my parents tell me they are proud of me for this, this, moving out to the middle of the country and just being there, working, making it, or at least ends meet... it means more than the 'givens'.. graduations and high GPAs were always just part of life. This is something that has taken courage, for me.. something that has required balls, and which deserves (as I see it) more pride, than those other things that were always just going to happen. That was hard, but at least I knew my footing.
I suppose I am trying to make myself comfortable with being uncomfortable, with being unseated.
8/20/08 - "Good Morning"
I got my effing bed yesterday. I finally feel like.. a real person. More, perhaps, of a real person than ever before? I've never bought my own bed before. In some ways, being at college, and being at home in what is arguably my parents' bed (that beautiful pillow-top cloud that it is) even if it is in my old room, I never was in a bed I owned, unless it was the little twin bed I occupied into high school, and that only through sheer staying power.
And the sheets, I love them. A ridiculous shade of blue, high thread count, and totally cotton. I know myself. I laugh when I see that, in the absence of an available matching blue fitted sheet, I bought a pale gold. Like the sand and the sea, of course. I would think those colors go well together.
So I'm no longer camping in my own room. Roommate is kind of the best roommate I could have asked for. He even took me out to dinner last night. We talked about random shit, including the romantic-comedy scenario. He said Aa-chan and D$ would have to end up together in that case. I pictured this situation and had to laugh.
After that we wen't downtown to pay his parking ticket (two dollars, I freaking swear) and stopped in at Teapouro where I angled for cute-barista but ended up talking more to a couple from Colorado who had just dropped their daughter off at school.
I'm not sure if I have work again today.. I wasn't on the schedule but I remember one of the managers asking me what I was doing today.
I've taken to walking in the nearby park. Running little sprinty jaunts along the way while the cyclists pass me 'on your left.' I suppose now is a good time to do so, that I might be showered in time, in case work calls me.
8/28/08 - "."
This morning I looked outside. It was breezy, and birds were eating at the grasses on my hill. I wondered if it would be chilly. When I looked at the weather online it said it was 85, feeling like 89. I jumped up and ran to put shorts on, to go be out in it. With the breeze, I knew this is the world I want to feel. This is my home. I love the warm air, almost balmy, breezing, making me sweat a little more than would be necessary.
Today we will go to the pool, because we've so few days before it closes, and so little heat. Soon it will be September.
8/31/08 - "Saturn's Day"
A weekend for growing up?
Saturday I finally managed to pull myself out of the apartment to go on my walk. I was not far out when I stumbled on a garage sale, which I should have researched in advance so we could get a coffee table, but overexcited, I bought a corner desk, and the nice garage sale people put it on a truck for me and helped me carry it into the apartment. It fits in my room.. almost. We’re still rearranging things, not only my room but the whole apartment.
After this, Roommate asked if I could bring him some lunch from the fridge, and not one to waste a drive downtown, I tossed my bathing suit and towel in a bag ‘just in case,’ … I went to the pool then, by myself. The lily-pads were closed, and far too short for me anyway. Jumping off the high diving board is just about the scariest effing thing ever. But I liked swimming, floating about, and lying in the sun. I had work at five, so I left at four, and my in my peaceful reverie, forgot that it was game day.
All roads lead to home when you live on a grid pattern. I wanted to avoid the ‘cursed’ stretch of road, ironically the one which passes right by D$’s place.. where Roommate's iPod always craps out, and where my car died just before another man’s car died. Unfortunately, some roads also lead to the stadium, which I realized when I crawled past boys in blue t-shirts holding up “parking, $30” signs and saw the top of it looming just before me. Frick.
I finally made my way out of it all, though something in me stirred to see the lot full of tailgaters, the bright blue canopies. Ah yes, the game. It was always fun at my school, but I never went to a big public university. I imagined Athens, Georgia, and decided that this traffic was nothing.
I managed to even get home and showered and to work on time.
At work, Deb struggled to have the main radio fixed so her patrons could listen to the game. In the kitchen, where I was, we had our little box radio clear and fine. I was unhappy there, because I was barely necessary and messed up almost as often as I got it right. There was even a point where I nearly cried, just wanted to go to my knees right there by the counter and lay my head in the lap of an invisible god who would stroke my hair and tell me You know it’s going to be alright. You know I will take care of you. You know it’s all for the best.. so I could believe in my own importance even in the absence of feeling it.
Listening to the game on the radio was like water torture to an aquaphiliac. I have only ever watched them, in person or on TV, and I have only cared much at all since last year or so? I kept trying to picture what was going on.. wanted to get excited, like the announcer voices. But I always saw what was happening before anyone screamed. Now I was depending on their screaming to tell me what was what. I kept picturing D$ at the game, saw him jumping and shouting as we scored touchdown and again. I was so angry, because how dare he make me care about something so stupid and then leave me out of it? I wanted him to share it all with me, his love of these things, his enthusiasm. I wanted someone else around me to be really excited, to really care, to get into it. I wanted to piggyback excitement, but I was drowning in a projection of a man I don’t know anymore.
Drip, drip, drip.
I don’t even know if he was really at the game. I pictured myself sitting on ‘the hill’ by the stadium, where those who don’t get in can go and see some of the action.
I was sent home, grateful. I had thought, the town will be happy from winning the game. I should go downtown and celebrate with them. I had thought, but I went home hungry, tired, unwilling.
