I said that two important things happened on Easter, and that the first was my return to facebook. This was literally the first, as it occurred at 12:00am as soon as it became Easter on the official.
The other was that I went to church.
It isn't that I've never been to church, or even that I never go. I used to go fairly often in Georgia, when I was in town. I attended Johnny's church quite happily because the pastor was so darn good, I didn't even mind that I felt like an outsider. They didn't make me feel like an outsider, I did that to myself, just to be clear. I liked then and still like a lot of Christian doctrine, but I'm missing some of the crucial parts that would make me feel comfortable calling myself an outright Christian. Still, pastors often have some really solid lessons, based on really solid goodness that I like to hear.
Anyway, at Easter's service I fretted about being "stereotypical" and "statistical" in my attendance, and pestered Erin until it was time for her to go up and sing. She encouraged me to "go and make friends," but I always feel a little weird making church friends, because I feel like I'm then making friends under false pretenses. Because I am there, they will be even more likely to assume I am Christian, and trying to live a good Christian life just as they are. And while I don't find it necessary to explain from the get-go that, "hi, I like your Christ, but not all of your Christianity," I fear that later when they do find out, they will feel disappointed or somehow cheated.
But once the lesson got started, it was about letting go of feelings just like that, about letting go of not feeling good enough. 'Letting go' in general is a topic that is good to teach me over and over again. She made allusions to getting new clothes for Easter, and talked about how important it was to discard that old stuff, citing three big areas that people tend to cling to.. "I am my family history," "I am what I do," and "I am what others do to me."
Twenty points if you can guess which one hit me the hardest. As a firm believer in personal responsibility, of course, it was number two! I've been wrapped up in this idea regarding D$ for a long time, actually, quite concerned with what how I handle this whole thing says about me.. what kind of person I have to be in order to do or say this or that. I got a gentle reminder that there's something bigger than me out there, something actually boundless.. and that love is never a mistake.
I'm still coming to terms with what has blossomed into genuine disinterest in what D$ has to offer.. but on Sunday, I knew that I'd forgiven him, and I remembered the corollary to that.. I recalled a little the beauty of just letting go.
This coming Sunday is going to be a sort of continuation on the theme. I think I'll go.
Showing posts with label D$. Show all posts
Showing posts with label D$. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Monday, April 13, 2009
Epistulae and news
For the second day in a row, we are blessed with moderately chilly rain here in the middle of the midwest. I was going to bounce around Loose Park and take photos for another "travel guide" kind of thing, but bouncing around parks in chilly rain is simply not my thing. Staying inside, writing letters, and contemplating life..? Ah, that is more like it.
Letter writing is something that comes in waves, for me. It is, in fact, the very thing that prompted me to start this blog in the first place. I had let the letters pile up in my little desk organizer, and when I finally dispensed with replying to all of them, I realized I'd written the same thing fourteen times and sent it to different places around the country. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself.. but the whole reason I had let them pile up was a general lack of time to deal with writing. Remedied here.
Not too long ago, I bought a rainbow pad of paper. The pages are "A5," so they are large enough to say something, and small enough to never say quite enough. There are a total of ten colors, but here are seven spread across my coffeetable.
I later put six under the glass and made them a permanent color fixture.. because I like colors.
Anyway, they may make me write more, or I may just like to write more than I used to, when it comes to letters. I'm going to say my record is the letter I sent wherein I used one of every color of paper, front and back. I used to just give the news, but now that this blog does that, I get introspective and deep as well. It allows me to tailor my letters a little bit more when I don't have to spend any time giving the basic facts, maybe?
I make a list of all the people to whom I need to mail things on my whiteboard in my room. I tend to go in order of who sent me something first and work my way down, but that isn't always how it works out.
Anyway, I got some sweet new stamps that I'm excited about using. I had to keep myself from also buying a bunch of sunflower ones, being in Kansas and all. It was almost too cliched.
So, in general: things are going pretty well. I've settled into a sort of schedule and am getting better at these things I do. My GRE tutor student has, I think, improved, although her diagnostic wasn't terribly encouraging. My Latin tutor student has worked his way up to an A, which rules. My GRE class last week wasn't the most awesome thing ever, but I have a feeling this week will be much better. D$ has expressed some interest in being my friend (and it's different, this time--). Zig's has added me for Saturday nights as well, so my frustration at only being given four hours a week is assuaged. And, literally, the sun just came out as the clouds are migrating southward before my very eyes. The sunset side of the sky is pinkish.
Letter writing is something that comes in waves, for me. It is, in fact, the very thing that prompted me to start this blog in the first place. I had let the letters pile up in my little desk organizer, and when I finally dispensed with replying to all of them, I realized I'd written the same thing fourteen times and sent it to different places around the country. There's nothing wrong with this in and of itself.. but the whole reason I had let them pile up was a general lack of time to deal with writing. Remedied here.
Not too long ago, I bought a rainbow pad of paper. The pages are "A5," so they are large enough to say something, and small enough to never say quite enough. There are a total of ten colors, but here are seven spread across my coffeetable.
I later put six under the glass and made them a permanent color fixture.. because I like colors.Anyway, they may make me write more, or I may just like to write more than I used to, when it comes to letters. I'm going to say my record is the letter I sent wherein I used one of every color of paper, front and back. I used to just give the news, but now that this blog does that, I get introspective and deep as well. It allows me to tailor my letters a little bit more when I don't have to spend any time giving the basic facts, maybe?
I make a list of all the people to whom I need to mail things on my whiteboard in my room. I tend to go in order of who sent me something first and work my way down, but that isn't always how it works out.
Anyway, I got some sweet new stamps that I'm excited about using. I had to keep myself from also buying a bunch of sunflower ones, being in Kansas and all. It was almost too cliched.
So, in general: things are going pretty well. I've settled into a sort of schedule and am getting better at these things I do. My GRE tutor student has, I think, improved, although her diagnostic wasn't terribly encouraging. My Latin tutor student has worked his way up to an A, which rules. My GRE class last week wasn't the most awesome thing ever, but I have a feeling this week will be much better. D$ has expressed some interest in being my friend (and it's different, this time--). Zig's has added me for Saturday nights as well, so my frustration at only being given four hours a week is assuaged. And, literally, the sun just came out as the clouds are migrating southward before my very eyes. The sunset side of the sky is pinkish.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
This Is How We Live It Up In My Town
Every time I look down at my left big toe, I want to wash it off. It looks like I spilled ink all over it, or some kind of dark dirt. The stain, however, is not ink. It's a big ugly bruise I got when a girl accidentally tipped a stool onto it.
And for all that my toe hurts, my calves hurt worse for all the dancing I did. We went out to celebrate Thursday night when Roommate's co-workers invited us. I ran into an old co-worker of my own at the place we'd elected to 'check out.' I talked, laughed, and later danced with exuberance as though no one were watching. I only hope no one was.
Friday, I had to do something about the banana pops I'd begun to make Thursday in anticipation of people coming over to celebrate with us. I brought them to Erin's apartment to share with her household and their 'underneighbors.' We (three underneighbors, Erin, and I) then piled into Erin's car and went downtown to the Jazzhaus to see Russian Discussion, because Erin wanted to. And, now that I'm officially going to Japan, I want to live it up as much as I can in Lawrence, and spend as much time as I can with these people.
Brittany, underneighbor Nick, and Erin: The Night They Switched Shoes
We danced at the Jazzhaus, too.
Couldn't resist trying to take this photo because of the way these two guys are right in front of their respective Jazzhaus window silhouettes! Blurry, for no flash.
Later in the night (once the restaurant was shut down), Heath arrived to join us, because he knows the lead singer of the band. At some point at the Jazzhaus, I thought about how I'd spent two consecutive nights now with two different groups of friends, and had great times both nights. And neither, I may add, included D$. The ambivalence I feel at the prospect of having him back in my life is, I think, connected to this.
Because just think. A year ago, I didn't know any of these people, hadn't been to any of these places. And now I feel more comfortable with some of them than I do with people I've known for years. I'm not sure this means it would be like that any place at any time. I just like knowing it happened; I came, I saw, I made friends before it was time to go.
And for all that my toe hurts, my calves hurt worse for all the dancing I did. We went out to celebrate Thursday night when Roommate's co-workers invited us. I ran into an old co-worker of my own at the place we'd elected to 'check out.' I talked, laughed, and later danced with exuberance as though no one were watching. I only hope no one was.
Friday, I had to do something about the banana pops I'd begun to make Thursday in anticipation of people coming over to celebrate with us. I brought them to Erin's apartment to share with her household and their 'underneighbors.' We (three underneighbors, Erin, and I) then piled into Erin's car and went downtown to the Jazzhaus to see Russian Discussion, because Erin wanted to. And, now that I'm officially going to Japan, I want to live it up as much as I can in Lawrence, and spend as much time as I can with these people.
Brittany, underneighbor Nick, and Erin: The Night They Switched ShoesWe danced at the Jazzhaus, too.
Couldn't resist trying to take this photo because of the way these two guys are right in front of their respective Jazzhaus window silhouettes! Blurry, for no flash.Later in the night (once the restaurant was shut down), Heath arrived to join us, because he knows the lead singer of the band. At some point at the Jazzhaus, I thought about how I'd spent two consecutive nights now with two different groups of friends, and had great times both nights. And neither, I may add, included D$. The ambivalence I feel at the prospect of having him back in my life is, I think, connected to this.
Because just think. A year ago, I didn't know any of these people, hadn't been to any of these places. And now I feel more comfortable with some of them than I do with people I've known for years. I'm not sure this means it would be like that any place at any time. I just like knowing it happened; I came, I saw, I made friends before it was time to go.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Attempted Explanation
Last night, I was talking to my friend Christy. I told her the latest on the D$ situation and said I felt a little like a fool. When I met Brittany's dad and he asked, like everyone asks, what brought me to Kansas, Erin laughed from across the table. She hasn't known me that long, but she does know me well enough to laugh with me at the part where "you get to say you moved here for a guy." It's so unlike me! And yet, a very me thing to do.
Yep. It happens, of course, to the best of us. Why do we go anywhere? As L once said, we go for something greater than ourselves. I happened to fall in love, this one time. Which is easy enough to say now, but...
One cannot say there was a moment when I ever fell in love with anyone, but a series of moments. The string of days when we tell the story later and I say "this was how we met." Again, and again, we met. Little by little, I grew into a notion. Until finally it seemed the right thing to say. - 7/22/08
But that's not all there is to the story, of course. My whatever-it-had-been with D$ began to go south long before it was time for me to go west. Why, then, did I go? As I cobbled together those photos from the past few seasons, I also got my hands on some stuff I wrote over the summer things were coming apart with him.
I'm so scared because every time I try to find a job and I think this is the place.. this place will hire me and I will love working there! ... it doesn't pan out, it falls through.. I am going to be poor and alone in a town way the hell far out there. - 6/19/08
Well, to begin with, I was scared of doing it. This is ALWAYS, of course, a great reason to do something. (/sarcasm)
What is getting me is this. I am petrified about the future. It draws ever nearer.
I am reminded that I didn’t want it to be easy. I wanted it to be right. I just wish that could be easier, sometimes. - 6/22/08
So I really did consider scrapping the idea. Taking my year off somewhere else, maybe, closer to home. But really I didn't have any other plans, and not nearly so concrete as the lease I had in KS.
Sometimes it really seems like it was because Jason needed a competent long-term sub, and I needed a shot at being a Latin teacher. Other reasons include all the people I've gotten to know here, in the various capacities I've gotten to know them.. the way I've become more myself. I'll even go so far as to say I've touched a few lives here that I never would have seen had I stayed home.
And I hope that the greater answer to the why is more obvious as time goes on.. it is evident in all that I learn, through the hard moments and the easy ones. As surely as the Italian postal service may have kept me from JET, and the failure to get in to JET is what brought us here (my roommate and I--), being here is what has prepared me so much more for JET, and for the rest of my life.
Finally, something of the 'how':
Today at lunch Dre said he was thinking of taking a year off before graduate school and moving toKansas , to live in Lawrence
Christy said, last night, that I am not a fool, even now; she was proud that I had the guts to fight for what I believed in. And I am too! It's not always easy, but I'm glad I came here. I have not regretted it nearly at all. Of course, there were those moments as I knew there would be, when I didn't want to be here.. but they were the kind of moments where one doesn't want to be anywhere, so those aren't the same as regretting moving to this particular town.
Yep. It happens, of course, to the best of us. Why do we go anywhere? As L once said, we go for something greater than ourselves. I happened to fall in love, this one time. Which is easy enough to say now, but...
One cannot say there was a moment when I ever fell in love with anyone, but a series of moments. The string of days when we tell the story later and I say "this was how we met." Again, and again, we met. Little by little, I grew into a notion. Until finally it seemed the right thing to say. - 7/22/08
But that's not all there is to the story, of course. My whatever-it-had-been with D$ began to go south long before it was time for me to go west. Why, then, did I go? As I cobbled together those photos from the past few seasons, I also got my hands on some stuff I wrote over the summer things were coming apart with him.
I'm so scared because every time I try to find a job and I think this is the place.. this place will hire me and I will love working there! ... it doesn't pan out, it falls through.. I am going to be poor and alone in a town way the hell far out there. - 6/19/08
Well, to begin with, I was scared of doing it. This is ALWAYS, of course, a great reason to do something. (/sarcasm)
It has been a rough couple of weeks for this customer. LSU-John pointed it out, or took note of it, or something, at lunch the other day. I gave him the best answer I had.
When I coolly and frankly told him that I was simply afraid, scared about the future, about finding a job, about living in
What is getting me is this. I am petrified about the future. It draws ever nearer.
I am reminded that I didn’t want it to be easy. I wanted it to be right. I just wish that could be easier, sometimes. - 6/22/08
So I really did consider scrapping the idea. Taking my year off somewhere else, maybe, closer to home. But really I didn't have any other plans, and not nearly so concrete as the lease I had in KS.
This next year is going to be a journey. A sort of journey through myself to try to find out as best I can what it is I will be happy to do. I suspect that there are several things that would make me happy.. not in a sort of high all the time happy. In a hard-working fulfillment kind of way. I know far too many people who want to get away with doing as little as possible; it's not in my nature, and never was. I will never be happy seeking ways to slack off. It was never appealing to get paid for doing nothing.. doing nothing was never appealing, to begin with. Wasting time? Unless one is actively doing nothing (that is, relaxing, enjoying oneself.. but I hardly see how one could do so when on the job, on the clock, just passing time at a desk or something).
So. To be a clergywoman? A sex therapist? An editor? A teacher? I know that I freak out about these things.. I have known for years that I omg-don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-life.. but as it turns out, I operate this way with a great many things in my life. Just gotta freak out about them for a while, sometimes without knowing I'm just going through the requisite freak-out period, and then the decisions are as good as made, and were all along. Choosing a major was like that, for example.. I try too hard at decision-making because I think it is hard.
It is! Hard, I mean, to make decisions. But, not world-endingly so. - 7/13/08
Making decisions is hard when you are a stubborn person; but sticking to your decisions, that part is easier.
Some moments I stand, head high, ready to march into Kansas and take that effing town by storm. Other times, I put my weary hands on paper to fold, and I wonder, what the hell I was ever thinking. But the result will be what it will be. I cannot go for him. I will go.
For me.
To see what there is to see. Because I couldn't stand not knowing. Because there's a lot to learn away from home. And because one not win fights with God. Because life, as we learn, is hard. Decisions are, too. Finding a job, making the rent, learning to cook... all of these things lay ahead of me. This adventure is meant to be mine.
There will be days, I know it!--when I will be in Kansas and I will be crying, maybe on the floor, that pretty white carpet in the apartments, and I'll want to know why the hell I made such a dumbass decision as to move all the way out there. And if those days outnumber the good ones, I won't ever go back to Kansas after my year is over. And if they greatly outnumber the good ones, maybe I'll talk to the leasing office and work out a subleaser. But for now, I have to have to know, that even when those moments come, this adventure was for me. -7/14/08
"one not win fights with God" is a complex reference to a mistyping I made back in Rome. I made a sort of deal. All the elements beyond my control, which I had specified, turned up with the green light. In the end, I had to go for something greater than myself, because there was just something I needed to see out here.Sometimes it really seems like it was because Jason needed a competent long-term sub, and I needed a shot at being a Latin teacher. Other reasons include all the people I've gotten to know here, in the various capacities I've gotten to know them.. the way I've become more myself. I'll even go so far as to say I've touched a few lives here that I never would have seen had I stayed home.
And I hope that the greater answer to the why is more obvious as time goes on.. it is evident in all that I learn, through the hard moments and the easy ones. As surely as the Italian postal service may have kept me from JET, and the failure to get in to JET is what brought us here (my roommate and I--), being here is what has prepared me so much more for JET, and for the rest of my life.
Finally, something of the 'how':
Today at lunch Dre said he was thinking of taking a year off before graduate school and moving to
Christy said, last night, that I am not a fool, even now; she was proud that I had the guts to fight for what I believed in. And I am too! It's not always easy, but I'm glad I came here. I have not regretted it nearly at all. Of course, there were those moments as I knew there would be, when I didn't want to be here.. but they were the kind of moments where one doesn't want to be anywhere, so those aren't the same as regretting moving to this particular town.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Em Not in KS, Part I
My Nashville weekend was a whirlwind, but not a blur. I must have run the entire spectrum of emotions within Friday alone (but then again, if you are awake at 3:30 am and don't go to bed until midnight, you have a lot of time in which to do this). Happily, this began with the stressful negative stuff that comes from being tired and traveling, and it ended with the elation that is the natural result of being done with something.
True to form, I didn't give my interview much thought until about two hours before, so caught up was I in everything else. This includes Thursday evening, when I was supposed to fly to Nashville, but volunteered to take the next available flight when money was thrown at me in encouragement. My roommate was scheduled for the 6:30 flight anyway: why shouldn't I go?
This left me at the KC airport around dinnertime, with no one on the way to pick me up for hours. In a last-ditch effort for a companion with whom to kill time, I called Barbie.
Barbie has been the Dorm Director at my summer job as long as I have worked there. She recently fell in love with D$'s best friend and moved to Kansas City, though I have not seen all that much of her in the month or so she's been living in the midwest. [Don't worry, I'll be saying more about my summer job, D$, and all the rest as time goes on.. if you have specific questions, feel free to leave them, though!]
In the end, she and her boyfriend came to get me. We all went out to dinner, and then they drove me back to the butterfly apartment. I now have a good handful of Southwest credit and am free to plan spring break.
My roommate was insisting on leaving at 4:15 the next morning, so I dutifully set my alarm for 3:44 and woke up at 3:30. The flight was uneventful, thankfully, and when we arrived, John was there to pick me up. I was cranky and strange, though a bit better once I'd had breakfast (a sweet 101-year-old diner in Nashville called ...
Alright. I have to take a tangent. I just forgot the name of the restaurant, so I began to enlist Google to help me figure it out. I started fooling around with Google Maps, and the next thing I knew, I was clicking forward from the Google mapped location of Johnny's apartment, walking along the Nashville streets like it was a Myst game. In this way I "walked" right up to the restaurant so I could read the front of the building. It is called Varallo's.
Technology these days... wow.
Anyway, I was even better after I got to nap from about 10:30 to noon. This is when I promptly began to worry about my interview, and feel unprepared. Upon meeting up with my friend Dean, I made him practice interview me, rather than have a really decent conversation. I fretted and asked for tips and read articles about the current political and economic state of Japan.
But, as it was wont to do, the interview was pretty smooth. While I never quite feel satisfied with these things, I also know that I gave a pretty good interview, and that the judgments made on me in those 20 minutes of reckoning were probably positive ones. As a result, the next blog I start up might be "MiriNihonDe" or something like that.
And, just like that, I could begin to really enjoy my Nashville afternoon.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Repost: August
8/3/09 - "Pre-Departure"
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)
I then sped on to Nashville where I hung about John’s before we went to dinner with Roommate, Zul, Dayana, Mami, and some others. The nicest part was going to the park after, just walking through the dusk light, hearing music drift in from the pavillion, watching the thinnest sliver of a crescent moon sink slowly into the trees from across the pond.. the kids shouting, the ducks quacking. The fairytale garden all newly planted, like it is. Parthenon all lit up. My phone did me the courtesy of not ringing when D$ called; he left a message and my bones froze to hear it, its beginning a voice I wasn’t sure I recognized until it identified itself, and I in shock tried to process. Still, in Centennial it was a perfect night, the second in a row.
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.
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.
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