"Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses" or "Keeping The Faith"

Long story short: I received, and accepted, a job offer today.

But I'm not here to make a long story short, so off we go.

It started a couple of weeks ago with the most terrible interview in the history of terrible interviews. It could only have gone worse if I vomited all over the table that seperated my three interviewers and myself. I left that interview feeling like an enormous putz, and chalked it up to good, if humbling and mortifying, experience.

I continued my job search to no avail. I learned that the possibility of getting an interview for my dream job was not as big as I had hoped, and would only have a chance after the holidays - if then. Still, I prevailed. After being in New York for a couplde of weeks I knew that I wouldn't be leaving without a fight. I scoured the web, asked anyone I could think of to get in touch with anyone they could think of to help me find work. By the way, I learned that people are very willing to offer help, but not so easy to get a real follow-up from.

I went to a temp agency, and worked a big and facy cosmetics conglomerate in Midtown for two days, at $15.00 an hour. That at least gave me some hope that I would be able to make a little of money while continuing to job hunt. And, incidentally, I learned that I never want to work in the cosmetics or fashion industries in this city. Not that I didn't love working with some seriously cold and bitchy young women for a couple of days. And it was really swell feeling like I was contributing to the ridiculous beauty standards that so many of us feel the need to live up to. But, alas, beggars cannot be choosers. And I will take their shoddy P. Diddy cologne revenues all the way to the bank, so long as I can eat for the next week or so.

I began to lose hope. With the economy as it is, and no more calls for interviews despite the fact that I had applied for about a trillion jobs, I was scared. Scared mostly that I would have to move back home and live with my mom, socializing only with her and her two little dogs. Which wouldn't be too bad, but would probably lose its luster quite quickly. And wow, were my funds running low. I've been unemployed once before, and I wasn't living in the most expensive city ever at that point. I could still get a pitcher of beer at Mitch's in Ann Arbor for three dollars or so on a Friday night. Here it's considered a good deal if you can pay ten dollars for a pitcher. Come on!

So I took a stroll on Monday morning. The weather was incredible - about sixty degrees and sunny. It was almost scary, sort of 'The Day After Tomorrow" -esque. Christmas ten days away and I was sweating while sitting still in the sun? That ain't right. I went to Central Park to visit the Angel of Bethesda, which is the most beautiful part of the park. It sits in the center of the big, tiled terrace, and it has this ancient feel - like it's been sitting there since time began. I sat and pulled out an old piece of paper from my bag in order to write. I just needed to get some stuff of my mind. I sat and wrote, and realized that 2008 is almost over. So I thought about what I really want for 2009. I thought about where I was a year ago and all that I've done since then. And I wrote down everything that I want for myself for the next year. I filled an entire page. And instead of taking it with me I fold it up into a skinny wad, I hopped in to the fountain (no water was in it, it being winter and all), and jammed it into a grout-free crack at the base of the angel.

Great. I just learned from the wikipedia page for the Bethesda Terrace that this site is a sanctuary for one of the characters on the show "Gossip Girl" when she is trouble.

So I left my wishes with the angel, asking for her to do some work on my behalf. Because I was doing what I could, but needed a little help. And lo and behold, I got a job offer today.

I received the call this morning, told the deputy director of personnel that I need to think about it and that I would call them back before the end of business on Friday. I celebrated, thought, called everyone important to me, thought some more, and went exploring. I ended up in Battery Park, leaning over a railing and smoking a ciggarette, staring off at the Statue of Liberty of in the distance. And then I called them back, accepted the offer, and then felt a fantastic feeling of relief.

It may not be my dream job. But it will be good. And the job is 70% writing, so that can't be bad. It may be analytical writing, but it's writing nonetheless. And, as part of my training, I get to do a couple of ride-alongs with the NYPD. Now is not the time to be picky, as far as I can tell. And there really is no telling when I will get another job offer.

So I travel back home to Michigan on the 23rd, and I can't wait. I can go back feel only excitement for this next year. My anxieties about finding a job are totally quelled, and all I have to do is enjoy these next couple of weeks before I start my new job.

I knew something good was coming my way!!! Did I not just write a blog post about that?!?! Come on! Very intuitive. Man, this feels good.

Now, all I have to do is get on Cash Cab, and all of my real New York City goals will be accomplished. Well, that and meet the tall, broad-shouldered blonde man that the psychic in Ann Arbor told me that I would have a wonderful connection with. She also told me that I would end up in southeast California... so... maybe she wasn't so cosmically in tune after all.

An overpriced celebratory beer tonight, perhaps? Nothing like a good winter ale. Mmmmhmmm.

Some Folks Like To Get Away/ Take A Holiday From the Neighborhood

I have been in New York for a little over two weeks. Though I have no real reason to think this - I think that this week is going to be a good one. I have a feeling that something is going to work out very much in my favor. I think it will be a job. I just have this little nugget of a premonition.

This city is unbelievable. I knew that I was probably going to like it, because it's New York City and it's the most exciting city in the world. But as soon as I got here I felt like it was the right thing to do and that I belonged here. I live on the Upper East Side - which is just as bougeois as it sounds. I took a stroll down Fifth Avenue a few days after arriving here and felt very out of place amongst the ankle-length fur coatted women and fancy designer stores. Luckily I have my tiny apartment to remind me of what my actual position in this city (and this world) is.

I am so close to broke, it's getting a little frightening. My mom is sending me an early Christmas present in the form of a check, which should get here any day. And it KILLS me to have to accept money from her. I hate asking her for anything, particularly when it is a direct result of my failure to have made anything of my life thus far. So maybe that premonition is more a product of wishful thinking than anything else. Or maybe my anxiety levels had reached such a peak that I actually had nowhere to go but in to positive territory. Or, maybe it's a real, honest-to-goodness premonition and it's just on the very verge of coming true.

Food had taken on these mystical properties. It tantalizes me. I can only afford delicacies such as Spaghettios (with meatballs!), so actual food is something that totures me. I spent Thanksgiving dinner with a couple of acquaintances and their friends (an orphan Thanksgiving - because we had all stayed in the city without parents or family) and I ate until I was ill. It took me 3-4 hours to recover from that meal. I was just so excited to have that food spread in front of me and I knew that I would have anything that delectable until Christmas - if then. Also - I learned that I can whip up some pretty tasty garlic mashed potatoes.

So, I'm starving, I'm broke, I have no personal space, I'm jobless... but I'm happy. And PBS is airing a 1979 Billy Joel concert. I have some job leads to follow up on tomorrow, one of which could potentially lead me to a dream job. I've had a few tearful moments of holy-shit-what-was-I-thinking-I'm-going-to-be-unemployed-for-the-rest-of-my-life terror, but they pass quickly. After a particularly humbling interview on Thursday I cried on the subway and felt certain that I would be destined for failure in everything that I do. But I ate some cheap fast food, took a (long) nap, and have tried to keep my spirits up.

And anyway, I happen to really like Spaghettios. So it's all going to be fine.

So I'm going to curl up on this futon, let Billy Joel sing me to sleep, and hopefully wake up to a call from D.J. (dream job!) in the morning requesting that I come in for an interview. I had my phone screening on Wednesday - which I managed to make it through without sounding like a weirdo/dunce.

And I have coffee to look forward to - it's cheap stuff, but I splurged on tasty creamer. I couldn't resist.

Auto Industry Sadness and Zombie Madness

You know, I'm not too in the know about everything that is happening in our nation these days. It's a sorry admission, to be sure. I just tend to use my internet time reading articles that don't make me upset or freak me out. I'm the kind of gal who gets overwhelmed all to o easily, which then tends to lead to a pressing urge to curl in to a ball atop the nearest cushy surface and go to sleep. So I read personal blogs, and fun info-tainmenty sort of sites. But I thought just now, hey, I'm from Detroit, I need to know what's going on there even if I am hundred of miles away.

Earlier today I skimmed the op-ed that Mitt Romney wrote the encouraged Washington to let Detroit go broke. That idea alone sort of bristled my fur and gave me a very 'don't you talk about my city that way' feeling. Which led to me not really reading the piece entirely, and mostly keeping the phrase "shut up, Romney, you're a jerk" in the front of my mind while his words just passed in front of my eyes. Again, not very responsible of me. But this instinctual hometown pride just doesn't leave room for me to be unbiased.

So I was just reading another article from the NY times, and this quote jumped out at me: "But with the House set to adjourn at the end of Thursday, the automakers were left with only the dimmest of hopes that Congress would provide any assistance this year."

Maybe it's the fact that I haven't slept yet tonight and have not really gotten more than two or three hours of sleep a night this week. My emotions may be a bit overactive at this point. But that quote (and the rest of the article) hit me like knee to the gut. I don't particularly understand how the auto industry got to this point - but I'm sure that Big 3 executives aren't blameless. Regardless, I am scared for what will happen. And that fear is even harder to deal with because I don't even understand where it is coming from. I'm worried for the people in my home state and my relatives who work in the auto industry in a way that I didn't know I was capable of. It's that instinctual fear that you feel when something dear to you, something that is a large part of who you are, is under attack and you are powerless to change the course of events.

Detroit is in the news, and none of it is good. And it feels like I'm watching my mom get clotheslined or something. Overwhelming, indeed.

Did I mention I'm flying to New York in, oh, three hours? I slept last night for probably 4 hours, took an hour nap this afternoon, and now I'm basically running on adrenaline. I have some last minute packing to do, a shower to take, and some sad goodbyes to say. Then it's travelling all day and arriving at my new home looking like a pale-faced zombie and probably feeling as pleasant as one.

Long, long day ahead. Maybe my cab driver from LaGuardia to the Upper East Side will be Ben Bailey of Cash Cab, and I will answer all the questions correctly (naturally) and my money anxieties will be quelled for a couple of weeks.

The Meeting

So, I'm hopping on another plane and flying to another coast again. Thursday morning. As in a couple days ago. I'm going to New York - a quick decision that I made on this past Thursday. Greener pastures and such. I bought the plane ticket before I had time to second guess myself. It's happening without nearly as much ceremony or crazy anxiety as my move to Portland, which is a good thing. My nerves would not be able to stand up to that whole experience of panicking and crying and freaking out again.

NEW YORK CITY! I am excited beyond words. I can't wait to meet Ryan Adams and sweep him off his feet.

It is 10:50 pm as I write this, and I'm sitting in my basement room nursing a burly hangover. Hungover?! at 11:00 pm?! Yes, indeed. Last night The Native of the New Dawn came through Portland on their tour. After watching them play their brief set (they're supporting the band Fishbone) we headed to a bar to have a going away get together in honor of my impending deaparture. Eventually Tom (drummer of the natives, old friend, and generally the rowdiest man alive) met up with us. We got kicked out of the bar, and while everyone else drove home in a car, Tom and I picked up an 18 pack of PBR and biked home. Biking and carrying an 18 pack are mututally exclusive - meaning that they are two things that cannot occur at the same time and have no common outcomes. The chain fell off my bike and I couldn't get it back on, so we had to walk our bikes. And I got us a teensy bit lost, which is unbelievable now that I'm looking back on it, because we were so close to home.

Once Tom and I finally made it back home, everyone had gone to bed. The Natives pulled up in their van, all of them already asleep save for the driver. Vince (MC of the Natives, new friend, and general sage-like guy) sat on my porch with Tom and I for a bit, whereupon Tom passed out. I fetched a red sharpie, and giggled while Vince drew on all of Tom's exposed skin. Creepiest place to draw on someone while they sleep: their eyelids.

So Tom snored, and Vince and I talked. We smoked cigarettes, we drank some beers, and we just talked. And it was amazing to have that experience, to sit with a stranger on wide porch and have a real conversation. And you can have conversations in those late hours that you can't have at any other time during the day. Because the world is asleep, there are no potential interruptions... it's this totally focused situation and all that matters in those moments is listening and speaking and learning about this other person. He had so much to say and he's lived so much life. And everything he said entwined in ths ribbon of serious heart and warmth, because he's a poet, he translates thoughts and feelings into beautiful rhymes and verses. He kept my feet warm and he really listened to what I had to say. And then the sun was rising, my housemates all woke up to start their days, and the loveliness of that one-on-one experience sort of evaporated in the sunlight and the company of 6 other people. And there I was, drunk at 9:00 in the morning. I went to sleep around 11:00, right around the same time that the Natives rolled on to Seattle.

It's rare to connect with somebody like that. To just take a night and spend it with a new person and know that for a few hours you opened up and were entirely yourself, unabashedly. Or maybe it's not rare. But it's rare for me. So it was a good night. A great night.

I'm left with a few parting questions, to be broadcast out in to the universe:
1. If I got so lost in the streets of Portland last night in a neighborhood that I'm actually pretty familiar with, how am I going to make my way in NYC?
2. How am I going to make my way in NYC at all?
3. Where, oh where will I find the energy to pack all of my belongings up?
4. Why do I find myself needing to finish watching "Undiscovered" online when itis one of the worst movies I have ever seen? Am I really that hard up for means of procrastination?
5. Would it be cruel of me to adopt a tiny dog in NYC and then keep it in my apartment while I'm at work all day? I think that it probably would be, but is it possible that my enormous love for it would make up for that cruelty?

That is all.

Goodbye To All That

Nary a day goes by that I don't find myself consumed by wondering where I will be after Christmas. I need to make a decision soon. Well, the decision will be made for me, essentially, if I don't have a job by the time I fly back to Michigan for the holidays on December 21st. I will need to have decided by the beginning of December, so that my housemates can find someone else to rent this basement room in my stead. So, it's either (miraculously) get a job here in Portland and stay, or go home and figure out the next step from there.

New York City is an option. I have two very close friends who are really pushing for me to live with them in their apartment. I think that I could really get in to the idea of living in NYC. As I have been considering it more seriously lately, I decided to find the text of Goodbye To All That by Joan Didion, which is probably one of the best descriptions of what it's like to be young and not quite comfortable in your new adult skin. And, of course, it made me want to pack my bags immediately and settle in to a meager existence on the east coast.

When I was younger I always imagined myself living in New York as a young adult. Of course, in those adolescent daydreams I was always the girlfriend of a grungy rockstar, so my vision may have to be slightly adjusted.

And just when I start to think that Portland isn't right for me and that I'm crazy to be out here when I could be living a life that is not much unlike the life I had back in college, I have a great night with a couple of my housemates and I feel like I'm right where I should be. I went to a neighborhood bar last night with Tony and Zack, two of the guys I live with. We drank some beers, played some pool, smoked some cigarettes (yuck, I know) and they ended up giving themselves haircuts. An image: drunk guy bending over, swaying from the many Pabsts just consumed, grabbing a fistful of his own hair and cutting it off with a pair of dull scissors.

I could be happy anywhere. Which closes no doors and does nothing to narrow down my decision. I know it's a bit silly to base major life decisions on something as subjective as "a sign." But signs are pretty much all that I've got going for me at this point. If I get a good job here in the next couple of weeks, I will take it as a sign that I should stay in Portland and see this through. If I get any response from jobs in New York that I have applied/will apply for, then that will be a sign of different portent.

And if I don't hear anything from any employer, then I will take it as a sign that I am forever doomed to live with my mom and talk to her dogs all day, every day.

Sometimes I think about "The Glass Menagerie" by Tenessee Williams, and the character of Laura. I think that's her name. She's the sister of the main character/narrator, and she is the terribly tragic girl who lives at home and feels too shy or scared to continue her classes at the secretary school, so she just walks around all day. She collects beautiful, fragile little glass animals and shuts herself off from the world completely. I know that my fate couldn't really be shared with a character like that, but sometimes it feels like it could.

As long as I refrain from collecting anything or signing up for secretary classes I'm in the clear, right?

I Killed the GRE

I mean, really. I smoked it.

Call this one a big W for me.

That is all.

This time tomorrow, I'll be a free woman

I went to a group interview at American Eagle today. We each had to pick out an outfit for the manager who was conducting the interview, and then explain to her why we picked that particular ensemble for her. In a British accent. Then we each had to do our favorite dance move.

This is what my life has come to. Aye carumba.

I take the GRE in less than 12 hours, and holy guacamole, I cannot wait to be done with it. It's not that it's taking up that much time or that it's extremely mentally taxing or anything. I'm just sick of it. So, considering that I haven't worked very hard on it, I'm hoping for at least an 1100 combined score. 1000 is straight up average, so doing a little better than average is fine with me. I like to think that I'm a pretty smart cookie, but we'll see what ETS and the GRE have to say about that come 3:30 tomorrow afternoon when I get my raw scores for the verbal and math sections.

Then, Halloween! I think I plan to sit on my porch, play Scrabble, pass out candy, and have some drinks. Sounds pretty wonderful to me! I'm coming down with a sinusy cold thing, so I won't be celebrating the holiday/the completion of the GRE too heavily. I just hope my symptoms plateau until tomorrow evening. I really don't need to be dealing with a case of faucet-nose while I'm taking a test that could potentially have quite a bit to do with my future acceptance or rejection from grad school programs of my choosing.

Also, I'm re-addicted to 'Lost'. I'm rewatching season 4. Such is life.

Matt Nathanson is coming to a venue that is a few blocks from my home. Maybe I can convince him to come over for a beer?

Nearly November

I went to a pumpkin patch yesterday. I had never been to a pumpkin patch before. What kind of child of the upper-middle class am I?! I've still never been to an apple orchard, either. I'm going to attribute the lack of seasonal outings like these to the fact that my mom was (and is!) an awesome human being and preferred to spend her single-mother autumn weekends just hanging out at home instead of hauling us out to various patches and orchards. We got our pumpkins from the grocery store, thank you very much, and usually not until a day or two before Halloween, because procrastination is embedded in our family's genetic code.

Did you know that pumpkin stems are covered in a prickly sort of fir? ?I didn't. Until I reached down to pick up a pumpkin and felt like a misbehaving doe, trying to steal a snack from a forbidden farm. Very treacherous.

The pumpkn patch was located on Sauvie Island, a place that made me forget about the little twinges of regret I had felt in the previous days about my move here. I was beginning to feel that it was a massive mistake to move out here, that I was crazy for making such an enormous change without any real plans in place. The unreal beauty of this place made me feel only grateful for this beautiful city that I live in. It made me pause and just appreciate that I am here. The sun was high in the perfect clear sky, with Mt. St. Helen visible to the north, Mt. Hood poking it's pointy cap in to the sky a bit south of that. Nearly impossible to have afternoon like yesterday's and not feel your spirits lift out of whatever funk they were in.

I'm still feeling the warmth from yesterday, but it's also hard not to think about the fact that this Indian Summer can't last much longer. It's nearly November, and the cold rain will set in sooner than later, I think. It's always like that, I guess - qualifying a pleasent present with the assumption that it can't possibly last. But that's ok. Maybe it will last. Maybe it will be a lovely autumn forever, light streaming through yellow leaves and mild breezes breezing by every few minutes.

Benjamin Franklin <3s Internet Porn

Amazing how I set out to do one thing, and then wind up with my original goal sitting on the far left of my task bar, next to other, much more interesting windows. Do I need to be writing my 'motivational statement' for my Americorps application? Why yes, I do. Am I, once again, easily distracted by EVERYTHING ELSE on the internet? Double yes. I wonder what Benjamin Franklin or T.S. Eliot or Albert Einsteain would have thought if someone had told them that the internet would exist in the future.

See, not only am I distracted by the actual internet - I am distracted by what various historical figures would have thought about the internet. You KNOW that Franklin would have been all about internet porn.

I'm listening to some classical music via Pandora (another mind-blowing corner of the web!) and it makes me feel like I'm doing things in montage in a Jane Austen inspired movie. You know, I'm learning how to make a filigree basket or play the pianoforte so as to impress that dashing fellow (who is probably my second cousin or some other not very distant relation) who moved in to the little cottage on my rolling English property.

I took a Jane Austen course in college. We read every work of Jane Austen's, including the stuff she wrote when she was a tween. I used the word 'read' loosely, as I only really finished one of the assigned novels and survived by taking really good notes ln lecture. Our professor was sort of a kook, in a great, entertaining way. Well, I suppose she was just an enthusiast. A noted scholar, too - I think she wrote the introduction for one of the editions we read in the class. Anyways, she tried her best to bring the texts we studied to life for us by having us doing little activities in class and learned about the social context in which these novels were produced. She had us all (and it was a huge lecture) participate in English country dancing. I will never forget the supreme awkwardness of having to trot around a large room holding hands with my English 313 professor.

So this is my life here in Portland. I stay up late, Charlie (our wonderful catahoula leopard dog/pit bull mix) sometimes snuggles with me in bed, I avoid the very things I tell myself that I must accomplish, and I think about English country dancing.

More studying tomorrow. I'm quite over the GRE, I assure you. At this point I just want to get it over with so that I can evict it from the large cubby it has taken up residence in within my brain. I have better, more interesting things that can occupy that space! Things that involve less math and less inanity!

Ok. I will barrel through this motivational statement, which is supposed to explain what influential life experience of mine sparked my interest in community service. What if I just used up all of my interesting life experience with that bit about English country dancing? (joke.)

Intervista number 3...

Come on, lucky number 3! I'm off to the mall (ugh) for an interview at Paradise Pen, a fancy shmancy pen store.

I'm in my grown-up clothes, too. So this better be worth it!

Why Doesn't Borders Understand How Much I Love Bookstores?!

Ain't nothin' like job hunting in the face of the worst job market since the Great Depression.

I felt like I was standing in a bread line today while at a 'job fair' at Borders. They were hiring for seasonal help, for low level retail positions. And there were no less than 100 people waiting in line to see if they passed the initial screening test that was a prerequesite for the position. It was mind blowing. There were people of all types there, just wanting some shitty job at a bookstore. And the majority of them were turned away! I got an interview - which was a little reassuring. At least I know I'm somewhat competitive for a bottom of the barrel job. But they turned me away after that... no second interview for this little lady.

Maybe it doesn't help that I'm a little awkward?

Then, just to make myself feel like a total chump, I headed across the street to the mall and filled out applications at places like American Eagle and The Gap.

American Eagle Manager: 'Why American Eagle?'
Me: 'I've always really liked American Eagle, and the casual, cool style it represents.' (LIE #1)
AEM: 'And tell me a characteristic about yourself that would make me choose you or someone else.'
Me: 'I'm really flexible and easy-going, and I just like to go with the flow and enjoy the work that I do.' (Not entirely false, but hopefully the overcompensatingly enthusiastic tone of voice I had adopted for my informal interview wasn't too transparent.)

Ugh. Am I really at a place in my life where I need to grovel at the feet of lower management at chain stores in order to make a few dollars?!

I even went to Victoria's Secret, which I swore I would never resort to. I worked there for about six months when I was a sophomore in college, and while it wasn't completely hellish or anything, I have a feeling my memory is conveniently failing me and choosing to block out how mind-numbing it was.

I'm feelng really positive about my job prospects, clearly.

I have an interview scheduled at this weird, high-end pen shop for next week, and a group interview at American Eagle in two weeks. Apparently my lame answers were enough to get me an in there!

Needless to say, I do believe I left a sliver of my soul (and my dignity) at that mall, and part of me just wants to buy a pint of cheap whiskey and call it a night.

On a happier note - Obama was quite wonderful in the debate last night. My ears perked up when they began discussing women's stuff like equal pay and abortion, and Obama administered quite a body slam to McCain (in my humble opinion). John McCain was all 'I'm a federalist, abortion should be left up to the states,' and Obama was like "blam, the right to an abortion shouldn't be left up to ANYONE but the woman herself!" and I was like YEEHAW! Which reminds me, I really need to get my absentee ballot. I still have time, contrary to popular belief. And, in all honesty, everytime I remember that I haven't my ballot yet I picture Elizabeth Cady Stanton and feel a wave of gult pass over me for being an irresponsible voter.

I'm going to try to forget about my mall experiences today. It felt pretty terrible to fill out those applications, but I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. I suppose I'm not above any sort of work at this point, so I can just abandon the idea that I am. I'm going to make some dinner and try to unwind. No dessert for me, though - I filled up on humble pie already.

The GRE is making feel moribund

Back at Palio, the only place in my general neighborhood where I can even pretend to get anything done. I tried a new locale today - the Starbucks in Sellwood. Get this - you have to pay to access their internet. That is ridiculous! I paid $1.75 for coffee and $2.45 for a yogurt parfait - and they tell me me I have to shell out some more money so that my computer can reach up in to the sky and grab a couple of internet waves? I don't think so. That was enough to send me on my way, back to this lovely place for a little local flavor and FREE wireless.

I started my day at 3:00 this afternoon after getting out of bed at 2:00. Yes, I realize that is ridiculous. I need to work on it, ok?

I'm shuffling through the old files in my brain again. The 'cities I would like to live in' files, the 'jobs I want but am totally unqualified for' files. Maybe it would be crazy to move again in December after moving to Portland in August. But it sort of feel like the right thing for me to do, if only because I like the idea of moving around right now while I'm young and the idea of being a waif is too appealing to pass up.

I do love this city. and the life I'm living is good for now. But it's a little too settled, too adult-feeling. I know that I am technically an adult now and therefore I should be attracted to an adult life. But I've heard too much recently about enjoying your 20s and not trying to hard to be a serious person during them to really settle in to domesticity yet. It's funny, because the very things that I found myself needing an escape from are the things that I miss the most now. I miss the crazy nights and the lifestyle that got me through college. I guess I'm not ready to give it up yet, regardless of whether or not I should be.

I'm thinking about New York City. And the more I think about it, the more I feel like it's the next step for me. Maybe I'm idealizing it now, just like I idealized Portland, especially because I can't get a job here and I have no leads whatsoever. But I know that coming here was necessary. If nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to re-evaluate my plans and have whole lot of time to think.

I need to get a little more studying done, and then I'm going to head next door to the video store to rent "Reality Bites." It's just the angsty, generation X, quarter life crisis-y movie that I need right now.

Life Lessons: from Full House to GRE Math, it's all cheesey

I took a late evening nap today, the kind that you hope will carry over in to the night and leave you with a seriously augmented night's sleep. Alas, no dice.

I also took a GRE pracitce test today, and got a 670 verbal, 420 math. Those are some noticeably disparate scores, eh? After looking over the answers to the math portion, I realized that I made some pretty careless mistakes. I always feel this intense pressure to finish the sections quickly, and end up having ten of fifteen minutes left over. These practice tests are making my general feelings about this test way better, so I'm glad that I just bought a book that has, like, seven older tests in it.

While riding my bike today, I also realized that a lot of this whole test-taking process is all in your mind. I'm not that bad at math, but when I go in to a practice test thing that, well shucks, I'm going to really stink this one up so I might as well get it over with - that just isn't productive at all. If I just cool out and think happy thoughts and have confidence in the knowledge that I do have, I think it will only help. There's a little life lesson tucked away in this GRE studying, wouldn't you say?

My roommate is currently moving her bed out of our shared basement room. For the month that we have both been in this house, she has slept exactly one night in this room. Which works for, because I paid for half of this room for the month of September and had the room to myself the entire time. This also means that I paid for the full room for October, which is twice what I had anticipated paying for rent when I moved here. Granted, my rent is still just barely over $300, so it's still a fracking bargain. And, after checking my bank accounts, I'm still doing ok.

Maybe I'm spoiled. Does it take a sort of princess to sit on her laurels all day and not bother searching for a job? I guess I'm studying for the GRE so that, in theory, future me can have a job that is meaningful and worth another $50,000 in loans (holy poop). And we all know that a princess wouldn't bother with that sort of thing. Plus she wouldn't have to take out loans in the first place. Maybe I'm just not desperate enough yet. If I needed money immediately, I would probably be more apt to click on the ads on Craig's List for dishwashers and what have you. But I'm not there yet. But there has got to be a job in this town that I am qualified for that doesn't involve washing dishes or making sandwiches. I really don't want to work retail again, but that may be the only option.

I've also been considering the prospect of teaching English aborad. One of the guys I live with has done it, so I should talk with him and get his perspective. There's one problem, though. And I almost can't believe I'm about to say this. But I don't think that I, the cantankerous hermit crab of a girl who would typically prefer to be alone than with most groups of people, would want to go anywhere abroad by myself. I've spent enough time by myself since I moved here to know that meaningful friendships are important to me, and I don't feel like I have many these days. I have one close friend here, and the few others that I have are across the country. I would love to have the experience of teaching abroad, but something like that would be so much more meaningful if I could share it with someone else. (Cue the 'Full House' music when one of the girls learns a valuable lesson about life.)

That being said, I should teach English in Poland. Or Italy, since I already know a decent amount about the Italian language. It would be awesome to go anywhere in Eastern Europe, but it would be tough to be around any Cyrillic language without knowing anything about them. All of the teaching programs say that you don't need to know the language, but I'm dubious.

Just about four weeks to go until I take the GRE. I wonder what would happen to my score if I studied every day? It would go up, presumably. And considering that I've started looking at non-library graduate programs that I'm ultimately less qualified for, my scores are probably going to need to be pretty good.

I wonder just how many people there out in this world wide web that write in their blogs and write in their journals and think that they want to make a living doing it? And what of the aspiring writers who don't write in blogs? What of the countless people who want to be writers? Why do I presume that I could even be a semi-finalist for success in the journalism/writing realm? Well, I guess I would be willing to sign my life and a good deal of future earnings away to a student loan corporation, for one. I have no experience, but I'm trying to get some. I will weasel my way in to Emerson's graduate program in writing and publishing. It may take a few years, but I will get there!

More studying, job searching, and coffee chugging tomorrow. Living the dream.

Oh, heavens no!

The following exchange happened at a recent talk given by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor in Portland. Two of my housemates skipped the line afterwards to ask her their questions. Despite their liberal leanings, they approached Justice O'Connor to ask their innocent and earnest questions in the hopes of getting some inspiring answers.

Becca: 'So, was there, like, 1 issue that really inspired you to become a Supreme Court Justice? One issue that was really important to you?'
Justice O'Connor: 'Oh, heavens no! They just gave me the job, I didn't even really want it.'

I kid you not, that was her actual answer.
Sandra D, you old bat! Here I was, thinking you were some sort of majorly important woman ready to impart your wisdom. Such passion! It's a good thing that the position of the first female Justice wasn't wasted on someone who actually CARED about politics.

Aye carumba.

Dude, give it up. Your car clearly is not going to start.

I cannot believe the perfection of the weather today. I'm sitting on our porch, with a (borrowed) laptop balanced on my thighs. Some poor schmuck down the block is trying to get their car started, but the engine won't turn over. It sounds pretty pathetic, like an old, asthmatic dog. The sky is completely cloudless, little bluebirds are chirping and I'd be willing to say that the temperature is hovering somewhere near a perfect seventy degrees. I feel like I'm in Pleasantville.

This weekend was pretty great. I went to my first Portland party, with a keg and everything! I felt like I was home. Lovely that only when I see a keg do I feel like I'm finally in the presence of something familiar. I can't help it! I went to a Big 10 school. I ended up at this party after a day of moping and feeling depressed, somehow devoid of all the warm fuzziness I felt when I last wrote. A couple of people said they were heading out to a party in North Portland, and so I decided to join them - if only because I really wanted a beer. At one point a group of kids started playing flip cup, and I felt this huge surge of competitiveness rise up! But I didn't join the game, because I didn't want to be that weird person at the party who gets way too in to the drinking games even though no one at the party knows them. Nobody likes that guy.

2 more people moved out of the house today. Well, techinically they moved out when I moved in, because I took their place in te basement... but they've been mostly sleeping on our couches for the past month. The two guys were unbelievable goofy and funny, and I'm really going to miss them. One of them is a performance artist who once painted his face like Darth Maul, sat on a stage in nothing but a pair of whitie tighties, drank juice boxes, and called his mom on his cell phone. So. You can imagine that they were pretty goofy guys.

That leaves a total of 6 people living here. And with people seemingly dropping like flies from this place, it only makes me think more about what I'm going to do in December. But I need to not think about that for now and just focus on the task at hand: the GRE. I need to do some math studying today, and I'm going to really try to not get down on myself when I inevitably get the majority of the questions wrong. I just need to keep working at it. But it honestly feels like my brain is resistant to re-learning this stuff and that I may just have to come to terms with the fact that my math score is not going to be good. One time a professor of mine accused me of intellectual laziness, but I can't imagine why.

But really, all I want to be doing right now is watching 'Friday Night Lights.' I finished season one last night, and I just want to watch it all day. I know that's lame. Ha, the other night when the presidential debate was on I was in the midst of my rut and watched the season three premiere of 'Heroes' in my bed while all of my housemates watched the debate in our living room. I know it's not right that I'm just not interested in politics, but I can't help it. I'd rather watch lame television shows in my bed than two politicians split hairs and use pathetic emotional appeals to win over a few more voters. Oh, wait John McCain - did you just mention that you were a prisoner of war? Well gee whiz, I suddenly find your statements on foreign policy more credible. It really grinds my gears.

Ok I need to settle in for at least two hours of some serious math studying. Then, I need to enjoy this beautiful day and do something totally crunchy and Portland-y, like go for a long bike ride or walk to a farmers' market.

"All These Squawking Birds Won't Quit" -The Shins

Here's the thing. I love coffee shops in Portland. Every few blocks or so there is a perfect little spot nestled in to a city block. The coffee is good, and the atmosphere is great. I just hate listening to other people talk. No, it's more than that. I really cannot stand when a person is squawking away, and their voice resonates at the specific frequency that sets off a series of natural reactions in me. First, I glance in the squawker's general direction. Then I glance again, my face slack but still managing to convey just how annoyed I am. Naturally, these loud-talkers are impervious to my meaningful glances. (Impervious! It's a GRE word.) So I have to turn up the volume on my ipod until it almost hurts me. I guess if I want silence I should go to a library, not a community gathering spot. Ha. I'm such a grump sometimes.

Maybe the grumpiness has something to do with the fact that I didn't sleep a single, solitary, miniscule wink last night. It started with me getting all worked up by the houseguest we had, who is a very good friend of all of my housemates. He is beautiful. He also moved to Montana this morning. But he bummed around our house all day yesterday, and I spent all day trying to be cool in the face of this tall, blonde, scruffy boy. "So... are you moving to Montana for good?" Yeah, I'm subtle like that. And let me tell you, it's tough sharing a house with three couples. They are all lovely, to be sure. But put a newly single blue-eyed hippie boy in front of me after weeks of watching 6 people in love and I'm pretty much not going to be able to help myself. That' s just how it is.

After trying to shoot meaningful glances of another kind at him - specifically the 'don't move to Montana, stay here and fall madly in love with me' kind - I went to bed. But instead of sleeping, I ended up lying awake and have some sort of epiphany about my life. Basically my head suddenly became all abuzz with little bugs of ideas flitting about, knocking in to my skull and making it impossible for me to settle in to sleep. I tossed in my bed until dawn, daydreaming in the dark and realizing that with no ties to any place, I can do anything at all. While that is fairly obvious, when that thought passed over me a sense of freedom followed and is still enveloping me like a big fuzzy sweater or something.

Part of it, actually, came from having this fantastic conversation with the beautiful Montana-bound boy. We sat on the porch and talked about nothing in particular. He told me about some of the jobs he has held, and I thought 'yeah, I want to do that, too.' And it's that easy out here. People talk about doing something, changing their lives or moving away, getting some job abroad or going on an adventure, and they do it. It seems that everyone I talk to here has these great experiences and they plan to have more. Wilderness firefighting, working on fishing boats in Alaska, teaching English in Japan, going to Mexico for 3 weeks to take pictures of the border fence. And it's not that any of those things are necessarily things I want to do (althought I'm reading Moby Dick right now, and it's making fishery work sound pretty appealing). But I could do those things, or I could think of something totally different and try that out for a little bit.

I guess it just comes down to the fact that I am in an almost constant state of rethinking everything about myself and my life. I'm trying to keep my ears and my mind open. But I feel closer in this moment to a sort of greatness than ever before, and I know that this feeling is exactly why I moved away from everything that was familiar to me. Maybe I'm getting a little loopy due to the lack of sleep, a little drunk on my own drowsiness and too easily moved to getting overly emotional. But I feel really happy and really excited, so I'm going to enjoy it.

Um. GRE time. This may call for another cup of coffee. $.50 refill, and perhaps a day old pastry? I must remember that even though I am giddy and hopped up on my own sleep deprivation right now, I'm still unemployed and can't go splurging on fresh pastries.

Also, I got the first of what I'm sure will be many uses out of my rain jacket today! I'm sure my excitement about the rain will fade quickly.

I'm Bad At Math... Just Wanted to Throw That Out There

I’m supposed to studying for the GRE today. I told myself that I would read about the essay portions – the analytical and… perspective? Is that the other essay type? Shit. I clearly need to open my book. But I’m too distracted. Marge and I are at this lovely little coffee house in this lovely little part of town. She is working from home today, which makes me very happy and lot less lonely. The sky is perfectly clear today, again. It rained this weekend and I thought for sure that the rain was settling in and making itself comfortable for its extended stay throughout fall and winter. But, miraculously, it looks like there is a little bit of this late summer sun left yet.

I went for a long bike ride this morning, about 7 miles. It felt really great, and I think that maybe all of my moroseness and gloom that tended to hang around my like Eeyore’s personal rain cloud may have been the result of a distinct lack of exercise. If all it takes to get me feeling a little happier is a surge of endorphins, then hallelujah. Better to find a simple solution late than never, yes?

Every day my mind changes and different options seem to present themselves. And that is, of course, not a bad thing. But it’s also a bit confounding. To be able to envision myself taking any number of paths is envigorating but terrifying, because I’m back to my old stomping grounds, the land of indecision. But for now, I’m studying my vocab and my math skills (that apparently are only high school level but still manage to be beyond my grasp). And I guess I will go from there.

But Portland is really great, and I don’t regret my decision to come here. Not at all. There are moments when I feel very sad and I miss being comfortable in my own skin like I was when my life had routine and when I knew my way around my own neighborhood. But then there are days like today, when I sit at a perfect little coffeehouse with a beautiful mosaic floor, across from my best friend, making conversation with the two friendly gay men who joined us at our table. The weather is perfect, and I’m not starving, and I have a nice little place to call home for now. That all may change soon, but for now everything is pretty perfect. Now all I need is a source of income.

I could stay in Portland for a while. Or I could move to the coast and live in a little town by the ocean. Or I could go to San Francisco. These are all things that have crossed my mind. But… one thing at a time. I better focus on getting a respectable math score on the stupid GRE before I make any more fantastical life plans.

Greetings from Brooklyn

So I’m sitting at a coffeehouse in Portland. In my very own neighborhood of Brooklyn. The coffeehouse doesn’t really feel like a coffeehouse, maybe because it’s so well lit, or because it’s right next to a convenience store and has the same sort of plate glass and linoleum feeling. I guess this place serves as a sort of bookstore as well, with some shelves of used books set up in the front half of the shop. I assumed that this place would have wireless internet available, but I guess I assumed incorrectly. I came here with the purpose of trolling the internet for jobs and accomplishing various other tasks via the internet. It’s unnerving how the absence of a wifi connection can throw a wrench in to all of my immediate plans. At the very least, I can drink this coffee. Maybe I’ll continue down the road after this and see what else I can find.

I think I’m settling in nicely here. Everything I see here makes me fall in love with the city a little bit more. I’m happy I came here, more than happy. This is a big change in the way I live, and it’s exactly what I needed. I needed a shake-up. I guess I’m “finding myself,” although I absolutely loathe that phrase. I’m deciding what I want for my life and what I don’t. Not at the moment. But in the scheme of things, that is the point of this phase of my life, isn’t it? Is that the point of all phases of my life? But I feel good here, immediately comfortable. Maybe that’s because of my lovely best friend who is taking the greatest of care to help me adjust. Or because it’s not all that difficult to feel comfortable when you roll out of bed in the late morning and spend the days feeling most responsibility free. But for now, in this in-between sort of place, I feel good. And happy. The sky has been clear since I arrived, I’ve spent some time with some great people. And I couldn’t really ask for much more than that.

Next up, attempting to find some sort of job. It’s hard to persevere through the process, I have learned this before. At this point I’m not too picky about what I will do, partially because there isn’t much that I’m actually qualified for. I could probably stand to be picky, too – because I’m not desperate for money. I am, however, desperate for a way to fill some time. If I work even just 15 hours a week, I will at least be able to meet some new people and stimulate my brain by learning something new.

Speaking of learning something new, the time is drawing near for me to put my money where my stupid mouth is and start studying for the GRE. I want to do it, and I need to if I want to go to grad school – which I do. It sounds easy enough – buy a GRE study, open the book, and study it. Simple. I’m just worried that my lack of discipline is going to be quite a roadblock in this process. I need to create a schedule of some sort. Everyday from noon until 4:00 I study for the GRE. Something like that. I also need to register to take the test, because without a deadline I simply cannot accomplish anything. As long as a commitment is open-ended, I will stand still and let the days pass until I know that I absolutely need to finish the task.

I need to find a way to make the energy and drive that I had on Tuesday last for a couple of more weeks. I woke up on Tuesday and spent the whole day working diligently at searching and applying for jobs. I suppose it is only Thursday. And I think I should be entitled to a few days that are dedicated only to figuring out the little things – such as how to walk to True Brew from my house and learning that they don’t have wireless internet. Lesson learned. Now I can go home and get down to business. I think I will stroll through the neighborhood a little bit more first. Continue to get my bearings.

I wonder how things will be when the rain starts in a few weeks?

Out With The Old

I could stay in this in-between spot forever. Sitting at my mom's, reading all day and sunning by the lake. I sat on the dock today and felt sweat beading under my clothes and I thought "if I had a gin and tonic this would be the most perfect moment." But alas, my mom was fresh out of gin- and I was too content to get up, anyway.

A sign that my move to Portland is imminent - and that my life there will be real and not just some far off abstraction: I have started looking to see if my favorite bands/singers will be stopping there on their tours. Yes, I will be living in a different city. And will I be able to see Matt Nathanson in my free time? Apparently, yes - he is going there in November! Very exciting.

My time here is dragging on and on. And it's very strange to be filled with such incongruous wants: I want to stay here forever and I want to fast forward to Saturday so I can just get on with it already. Here I am fed, unemployed but not needing a source of income, well-rested (probably overly rested is more accurate) an totally un-obligated in every way. I suppose it would get old. But, I did it for a whole summer back in 2006 and it was pretty great. Admittedly, it was pretty miserable at times. But in hindsight, I mostly remember the books I read and the countless hours spent lounging on our dock and not the lonely days and lonelier nights. Who knew that my Polish skin could even hold a tan like that? It's nice to be back here for a week or two, but any longer would probably toss me in to a vortex of depression. This place has that sort of effect, which is hard to believe with this beautiful view of Lake St. Clair spread out just behind any window here.. But it's very isolating to be out here, away from the place where I grew up and without any human contact other than my mom. Thus, the days stretch on and on.

But. Five whole days and then I'm gone. Maybe for only a few months, maybe longer. Is it a little bit crazy to have no timetable for my own life? More than a little bit crazy? My best friend and I have discussed the possibility of wwoofing after Christmas this year. In Italy, or possibly elsewhere. At which point I would be a bonafide hippie, but it's been a long time coming if we're being honest.

I am wholly satisfied with the choices I have made. I see other people my age (ie my twin brother who has just set out on a path to become a mind-blowingly rich lawyer) who have their upcoming years laid out in front of them and I know that I don't want that. I could be anywhere in the world in just a few months. It's what I've always wanted, and it's about to start. Couldn't really ask for more than that.

Amazing to think that right now some other girls are moving in to my old house in Ann Arbor, that a whole new crop of kids are starting up where I left off. Out with the old, as they say.

Never Trust a Big Butt and a Smile

There are about a trillion things that I feel like I need to be doing. But when I sit down to actually create a plan of attack, I can't seem to figure out what these trillion things are. My to-do list has very vague bullet points, like 'loan stuff' and 'finish packing,' which really isn't helpful at all. Because there could be countless sub-points under 'finish packing' - such as 'figure out what to do with all of the useless shit I have accumulated' and 'take a moment to think about how in the world I came to own all of these stupid clothes.'

So many of my (ex) co-workers expressed envy at the fact that I will be able to fit all of my earthy possessions in the back of a car. And yeah, it's nice to see that I only own a few boxes worth of stuff. But at the same time... where has all of my money gone? If I had piles of awesome stuff staring back at me at least I would have something to show for small bank account balance. Not to say that my possessions define me, but my possessions are sort of defining me right now.

I have been getting 12 hours of sleep each night this week. It is wonderful. Unnecessary, but absolutely wonderful. I have to take advantage while I can.

My ipod has really been working overtime these days. With no computer to use at home from which to play packing music, and with no music channels on tv ever actually playing music, I have resorted to turning my ipod up to full volume and using the headphones as makeshift speakers. The shuffle option has turned up some real gems, including "Poison" by Bel Biv Devoe.

I'm sitting at the student union, trying to figure out the various parts of my life that can be figured out via the internet. Student loans, flight info, shipping info (because I can't bring my suitcases on the plane for less that $25), cancelling my bi-weekly box of organic fruits and veggies that gets delivered to my house. I don't like this tying up of loose ends. I inevitably feel like I am missing something totally obvious and forgetting something crucial. There is a man plunging a drinking fountain next to me. Things are getting weird here, clearly. I need to leave. I stopped getting anything done quite a while ago.

Possibly off to Chicago tomorrow morning. It is going to be the ultimate game time decision, as my mom will call me when they are leaving to inform me if there is room in the van for me or not. My life is totally out of sorts now anyway, why not throw a last-minute weekend trip to the windy city in to the mix?

I said the most difficult goodbye this morning. It's comforting to know that all over this little college town there are people saying these terribly sad goodbyes and feeling just as weird about moving on. But, at the same time, watching my roommate's little blue Ford Focus pull out of our parking lot this morning was gut-wrenching. My little buddy is gone, moving to New York City on Tuesday. I'm lucky to have met these girls. I just hope I can get it together and stay in touch with them. It's always so much harder than you think it will be to keep up with old friends.

I don't want to say that I love goodbyes, because that would be a weird thing to say. But it's so nice to have the chance to be total wreck in the presence of people you love while letting them know just how much it's going to such to not be around them all the time. And goodbyes (at least the ones that I have faced so far) are usually paired with moments of great excitement and change.

So now I have to start packing up. I may be taking a little trip to Chicago this week to help move my twin bro in to his new apartment. I should go, if only to keep myself in the running of people who he will take care of when he is an enormously rich lawyer in a few years. And I think that staying around this town all week and just waiting to move out will just get me down.

Just marking time now. I'm not at work. I'm officially jobless. But at least I'm spending my first day as a member of the unemployed in bed watching the olympics. I foresee a nap or two in my immediate future. I do my best work at night, anyway. At the very least, not having to wake up early each morning will give me a chance to get back to my nocturnal roots for a couple of weeks.
Oh! My birthday! It was really great. As far as birthdays go, it was definitely up there. It was a good way to wrap up the summer.

Technically, I'm getting paid to watch the olympics this week because of the vacation days I never used up at work. Technically this is a vacation day. How awesome is that?

8 people showed up. 2 of them were required to be there (my boss and her assistant), and 1 of them left early. But it was a great crew, and I got to hear my boss say (in reference to her early 20s): "Man, I was drunk all the time! How did I even manage that?"

So, on a scale from 1 to popular, I'd give myself a 6.

They'll miss me when I'm gone and the void that I leave swallows them all whole!

Go West

Oh, the countless times I have sat at a bar with a karaoke song request slip in hand, desperate to remember the name of the band that does "King of Wishful Thinking." It's by Go West. Not only is it the name of a totally righteous band, it's also my charge in life for now. Go West! And I will!

It's my last day of work. It's my last day of work!!!! And it's my birthday. 08.08.08. You really can't get a much cooler birthday than that. If it were merely my birthday, or merely my last day, I might consider doing a little bit of work-related stuff. But, since it's both, I'm not even pretending to do anything. I think I carried a box of papers that need to be shredded down to the basement earlier. That's the extent of my working today.

Fond farewells and such. There is a goodbye lunch for me today at this really great pizza place. I hope a few people actually show up. The verdict is still out on how many people actually like me here... but I guess I'm about to quantify my popularity. Aside from the people who are on vacation (who I will just assume wouldn't have missed my goodbye lunch for the world if they were in town), there may only be a few people in attendance. Would it be inappropriate to order a beer?

Celebrations tonight will be epic. You know... I'm just thinking about how the only calls I got last night were from ex-boyfriends. My own twin brother didn't even call me! I have come to conclusion that there is a gestation period of about a year after which the boys who dump me realize that I'm actually awesome. But I will take calls/texts from exes over no calls/texts.

I'm not sure why I felt it was necessary to celebrate my birthday last night when I knew that tonight would be the actual celebration. I have a tradition of celebrating my birthday no less than three times, so I guess I might as well keep that up. Many free drinks last night. Many glasses of water at home. Large headache anyway. Something tells me that free pizza in an hour will help.

Holy shit! It's my last day of work.

Good lord, please don't let me cry.

Distraction, thy name is Pandora.com

One of the librarians just came up to me and said "20 hours." I instantly knew that by this she meant that I have about 20 more work hours left before I am completely done here. I heaved a massive sigh and continued to fill up my water bottle. But I felt a little sad. Which is totally strange and unexpected. A few coworkers have already said goodbye to me. There is a man who I typically only see at staff meetings, and sometimes we bump in to each other in the building. He is really sweet and friendly, and yesterday he apologized for not being able to come to my farewell lunch on Friday. He then said, "Have a really great life." And it was so sincere that it left me fumbling for false words to say that we would keep in touch. Of course we won't keep in touch. But to hear someone say 'have a nice life' and know that you will never see them again is very sad. It's a huge part of life, I suppose. And I should get used to it.

I have much to do between now and 4:30 on Friday. Pandora.com is not helping me get these things done any faster. First of all, it totally slows down the computer in my office. It makes my web browser freeze, and makes it impossible to multi-task with any bit of efficiency. On top of this technical roadblock, it's driving down my morale. Because it's making me realize just how terribly lame my taste in music is. For example, the station that I listen to the most is the one that I built to include music that sounds like Sara Bareilles, Ingrid Michaleson, and the Indigo Girls. I don't know who this Missy Higgins character is that keeps popping up, but I really like her as well. Show me a girl with a guitar/piano, that's all I really need. Sigh. I created some other stations to make myself feel better, but I don't even listen to them. My Ryan Adams station just sits there. Trust me, I would love to listen to you, Ryan. I'm just a little busy getting emo to sappy singer-songwriters that are pumping pure estrogen through my headphones.

People are moving out, everything is changing. I think that I will probably be poor for the rest of my life, and I came to terms with that during my walk to work this morning. After I spend some time scraping the bottom of the barrel and having wonderful adventures, then I will go to library school and become an administrator and make way too much money. Did you know that the higher-ups make big bucks? I'm talking 6 figures. So I think my plan is totally feasible and totally orginal - go off in to the world and travel until that gets old, then go back to school and then become outrageously wealthy.

I'm almost 23. I know that's not old. But I, personally, have never been that old before. Why does it feel like such a grown-up age to me? I remember being a little girl and thinking I would be married by 23. Ha. That's silly.

Last Monday

“Intelligence is all well and good, but if you want to unstick your eyelids first thing in the morning you need to forget everything you know.” -Sylvain Trudel, Mercury Under My Tongue

This weekend was filled alternately with too much sleep and with sleeplessness. Leaving me floating somewhere above my body today - not really knowing if I'm completely rested or just very, very tired.

This is my last week of work. Naturally, I will treat it as any other week - meaning I spend most of Monday easing in to work. I have to clean out my office soon. The hardest part about that will be resisting the urge to steal office supplies. Then, I will have to clean out my room and the rest of my house, and then I will being the long process of transplanting my life.

I really, really, really want to work at Powell's in Portland. It's a giant bookstore, and it has a couple of different locations. I applied to two really shitty positions at Powells.com sometime in the past couple of weeks. I just checked, and they have opened up a full time bookseller position at one of the stores. It pays a little over $9 an hour, which sadly isn't much less than I make now. I would be the perfect bookstore employee. How do I convey that in a cover letter? This I will have to work on today.

Something smells real funky in my office right now. I'm hoping it's the garbage that the custodial staff has not removed since the beginning of last week and not me.

Me + Michael Cera = <3

The kindness of people is astounding me today. A couple of people have, upon learning of my move, stuck their necks out for me and offered whatever help they could give in finding me a job/getting me in touch with people out there. One man offered to call a library contact of his after casually meeting me at a big library function earlier this week. We were introduced, he asked where in the library I worked and I told him, but qualified my response with saying that I'm leaving in a week. He asked where I was going, I said Portland, and he said that he lived there for 10 years, worked at the public library there, and would be happy to get in touch (even make a phone call! That is huge in this everything-accomplished-via-email age!) with his former colleagues and see what he could do.

People helping people. It's just nice!

I took yesterday off of work. I was "taking my mom to a doctor appointment back home." But I was actually spending some time with some old friends, and visiting the movie set downtown for "Youth in Revolt." Some of the streets have been blocked off for a while, so we decided to take a stroll and check it out. Yeah, I saw Michael Cera. I'm pretty sure he winked at me and then fell hopelessly in love with me. But I had to go get breakfast at The Broken Egg, so it was pretty bad timing.

My friends left around noon, which left me the rest of the day to get things done. Which, surprisingly, I did! I finally took my broken monitor in to get fixed, and then took a drive to the recycling center to get rid of some trash. Which made me realize that we have a large amount of stuff that has accumulated in the past 2 years of living in our house. And we will have to go through all of it very soon. Just thinking about it fills me with dread.

Going through motions here for the rest of the day. But I'm sure this weekend will be great, as everyone is trying to squeeze every last bit of collegey raucousness out of these last weeks here. I'm getting to be kind of an expert at it during the last, oh, year and a half that I've been treating as a long goodbye.

My supervillain name: The Polish Predator

If anything, at least this blog has given me a way to occupy my time at work. This is proving to be ever more important as the days count down until my last day here. Just today I passed on 2 of the biggest tasks of my job to a couple of successors. Which leaves me with basically nothing but empty time on my hands. I started cleaning out my desks today, though. Which is a huge step towards high-tailing it out of here.

It's sad that I am ending things here with one of my employees on such a bad note. Well, maybe it's not sad, because it was really only a matter of time before her unendingly difficult personality pushed me over the edge. (Yet another reason why I am not suited for management.) We have hardly spoke a sentence to each other this week. It's getting kind of tense. Luckily she spends most of her time on a different floor of the building... but I'm beginning to think that she is spending more time down there than usual.

Well, I can't say I'm too upset about it. She did, in so many words, call me an under-qualified racist last week. That was an awkward conversation, let me tell you. It was funny that she was sitting there yelling at me and accusing me of treating her unfairly when I know that she never would raise her voice or make such accusations in the first place with someone older than me. So, naturally, it's been hard to go back to normal ever since then. I can't not take it personally. So maybe I am under-qualified.

Um, in other news, I saw 'The Dark Knight' last night. As expected, it was phenomenal. Batman movies make me feel like a super losery 12 year old boy, but I'm totally fine with that. The first time that badass bat cycle flew out of the front of the bat mobile after it was all wrecked, I almost peed a little and I'm pretty sure I squealed out loud.

I really think they need to bring a female villain in the to mix for the next installment. I'm talking a seriously psychotic, creepy female villain. Catwoman was obviously awesome, but she was more the sexy villain, what with her full body bondage suit, whip, and Michelle Pfeiffer-ness. The Batman movies of the '90s generally sucked - read: Poison Ivy. Who wants a villain whose main concern is environmental affairs? No. Not cool. I don't know much about the comics, but there has GOT to be a badass lady villain in there somewhere. But probably not - I can't imagine there has ever been much room for powerful lady villains (who DON'T end up falling in love with Batman) in the comics.

Sigh. I could do some serious damage as a crazy Batman villain. I'm just a couple of shitty days away from losing it anyway - might as well find a shtick and run with it.

"Are you sure you're moving to Portland?"

Asked the incredulous psychic I got a reading from on Friday evening.

"Uh, yeah, I bought my one way plane ticket..."

Yeah, it was really reassuring. She told me that Portland will be better than Ann Arbor for me, but that there is another city that I will move to not long after I move to Portland that will be a much better match - somewhere in Southern California. She also told me that I should go back to school to be a librarian. Which my current boss was very happy to hear.

I also am supposedly going to meet a broad-chested, lean, light-haired man with facial hair who will I will have a deep spiritual connection with. This is slated to happen in December. But this was difficult for her to see, because of the clog on one my love chakra. This purple-colored clog is apparently that of addiction. Coincidentally, this purple-colored clog also came for a spontaneous visit on Friday evening, which ended up lasting until Sunday morning. It left me feeling, well, clogged. Just when you think a door is closed, a gale-force wind blows in from the center of the state and leaves that door swinging on it's hinges. So I just have to keep my head on straight. Which is easier now than it ever has been - and that's a welcomed change. But certain words never lose their appeal, and it's hard to be unaffected.

But, no more on that! Because I'll write myself in to a tizzy and before we all know it a 17-year-old version of me will be gushing and bursting at the seams with pure sap.

The countdown begins. It's just about 4:30 now, meaning that I have 9 days of work left. Wow - single digits! Unreal.

'It is always late summer here.'

Something I will miss dearly about Ann Arbor is the lovely blend of coffee that you see to the left of this paragraph. This coffee has gotten me through many a morning, particularly this year. Aside from this particular coffee, Espresso Royale is the best coffee shop ever. They have $2 lattes on Wednesdays, and when they pair up with Ann Arbor's awesome local radio station for 'Martin Bandyke's Caffeinated Comfort Zone' and the cheesiest/most rad local DJ goes and sits at various Espresso Royale locations in town and broadcasts... well, it's fantastic.

Sadly, they didn't have my favorite coffee or my favorite little pre-wrapped vegan granola bar thingees today. So already my morning kind of sucks.

I can't wait to have a job where I am not in charge of anyone else. I tell you now, I am not cut out for supervision. This is something that I always suspected. I am far too independent (and youthfully selfish) to think of anyone else when making decisions or doing anything, really. So excuse me, lady that I supervise, if I decide that cutting two sizes of scrap paper is completely unnecessary and mind-numbingly inefficient and I therefore decide to cut only one size from now on. I didn't realize that this detail was such a crucial part of your life and that you would get personally offended by my decision. No, you're right, I really needed to run that by you beforehand. Are you kidding me?! Is it any wonder that I want to get out of here? I'm starting to feel that this extra week I decided to work strictly to make money just isn't going to be worth it when compared to the fragment of my soul that will die while I wait for August 8th to roll around. I guess it's not that bad. But that's probably only because the end is in sight and when there are people (one person in particular, actually) squawking at me, it's in one ear and swiftly out the other.

Because in the face of this summer and my near future, it's getting pretty impossible for me to get too upset about anything. To be sure, I have moments of serious doubt. I had one just this morning while I rode the staff elevator up to the third floor and wondered if maybe I should start thinking seriously about a serious full-time job in Portland so that I can possibly save enough money to travel come January. But what kind of job? What, sweet mother of pearl, are my transferable skills, and how will I find a job that won't make me feel like I'm ruining the planet or scamming the general public?

I need to cast off my guilt complex for the next two weeks and start to feel ok about leaving the staff here to figure out what to do when I leave. Of course they will get by - it's a library and it's a library that is about to shut down, at that. They'll figure out how to function without me. I will, of course, take steps to make the transition easy, but I am by no means going to spend too much time worrying about it.

Yesterday, after getting reamed out and accused of being a racist by my cantankerous supervisee, I headed home and got in to my bed (my ultimate defense mechanism and retreat). I scrolled through my phone to find someone, anyone!, to call and coax cheer from. I called a friend in Portland, because I figured there was no time like the present to expose my emotional messiness. We chatted. It helped - a lot, actually. And he read me this poem, which is even more beautiful now that I read it again:

Moment Vanishing

by Elizabeth Spires

Now, in the quietude of evening, the dove comes.
It does not flash its feathers, does not
make a sound, but feeds on what the finches
leave behind. How little it needs.
A few hard seeds. A drop of water.

It is late summer. It is always
late summer here. The air is hot and dry.
Brown leaves lie like hands in the yard.
There is no place to turn. No place to stop.
We are hurried along, pushed farther into our lives.

Moments are vanishing all over the earth
as bombs explode, the victim is hooded,
great populations scatter on endless dust roads.
It is too much. We avert our eyes.
We wait like children for the coming of the dove.

And if I were allowed a question,
one question, of the evening dove
who asks for nothing, whose pleasure
is a few small seeds, whose heart I covet,
I would ask, O what will I become?

Lovely, right? I think I will be in good hands out there. Anyone who has the good sense to read me a poem when I'm sad is someone I can get behind. Brown leaves lie like hands in the yard. Come on! That's beautiful.

On the phone he told me to try not to expect too much from my move. To just come out here, relax, and maybe figure some stuff out about myself. It's hard not to expect that this move will be the decision of my life - and that suddenly everything will make sense once I step off the plane and touch Oregonian soil. But. I suppose that nothing is ever that simple, is it?

I will try to keep my head up today. And if it falls, I will think to the 8th, and then to the 30th, and then I will read that poem again.

From a New York Times article:

In a report titled “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Enhancement in Self-Recognition,” which appears online in The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Nicholas Epley and Erin Whitchurch described experiments in which people were asked to identify pictures of themselves amid a lineup of distracter faces. Participants identified their personal portraits significantly quicker when their faces were computer enhanced to be 20 percent more attractive. They were also likelier, when presented with images of themselves made prettier, homelier or left untouched, to call the enhanced image their genuine, unairbrushed face. Such internalized photoshoppery is not simply the result of an all-purpose preference for prettiness: when asked to identify images of strangers in subsequent rounds of testing, participants were best at spotting the unenhanced faces.

Ha! That is fantastic. We all think that we are better looking than we actually are! Not only do we delude ourselves in to thinking we ourselves are hot, we refuse to do the same for others.

So basically, I'm prettier than you.

I left my dignity at a hotel in Cuyahoga Falls and all I got was a lousy hangover

Many sleepless nights lately. If not actually sleepless, then very sleep sparse. Or something. My brain must know the difference between when I'm supposed to be sleeping and when I'm not. And my brain must be somewhat of a night owl. Because I have no problem dozing off for a few minutes after work when I want to be awake watching Jeopardy... but when it comes to falling asleep at bedtime, I have a terribly hard time.

This weekend was fantastic. I went to that wedding in Ohio, and it ended up being really fun. I knew it would be, because our respective dates are 2 ridiculous human beings and probably 2 of the funniest people I have ever met. Our table was right next to the bar, too. The reception was fun, but the after party was better... romping around a really nice hotel and making friends with the absolutely shit-canned bride and thoroughly enjoying the company of my date. He was a negative, hateful bastard - and I mean that in a good way.

We all spent Friday night at his house in Ohio, and it was one of the most incredible houses I have seen in real life. It was a ranch house, which I usually hate for some reason... but this one was all windy and wrapped around the property, and it had a huge deck in the back and this awesome furnished treehouse that they built for his dad because he's an insomniac and needed a place to hang out at night when he can't sleep. (I need one of those.) To get to the treehouse we had to cross over this little bridge that went over a stream and climb up a set of rock steps. It totally blew my mind! And there were trees behind the house and all of this space... it was really beautiful there. Akron, Ohio! Who knew?

The wedding on Saturday was nice. You could tell that the couple was really excited to be getting married, and it was really cute. Of course, I can't walk away from a wedding ceremony without a hearty case of the creeps, but I appreciated the sentiment. And I think it's impossible for a girl my age to go to a wedding without thinking of what her own wedding could possibly be like, and so that's a mindfreak in itself. I found myself thinking about speech acts during the ceremony. How saying the words "I do" really don't mean anything at all. They are just words that we have all collectively decided to give an enormous amount of significance to. When a couple stands before a church full of people they already have their marriage license. So, they are really just standing and getting stared at while they repeat some words that add up to a lot of promises that are most likely impossible to keep.

Instead of thinking nice things about what I was witnessing, I was thinking about linguistics and the improbability of their lives going as they planned in that moment. So, that's pretty telling.

All of that pessimism was out the window, though, when I was on the tail end of the reception after milking the open bar for all it was worth. I was clinging to my date as though I had known him for years (obnoxiously, I'm sure), I was hugging the bride... I was in the best mood. What's that Hemingway quote about a drunk man's words being a sober man's thoughts? I must be thinking sweetly affectionate and warm thoughts and then am only able to bring them out after numerous drinks. Sad, eh? But... what's a girl to do. So I'm a little hardened during the day. At least I'm still a sweet gal after dark.

Anyways. I need to get to work.

It's out in the open now - I've come out of the 'I'm quitting my job' closet. My boss announced it at a staff meeting today. I was expecting negativity from my coworkers about my decision. I was expecting them to scoff at my lack of plans. But they were all genuinely excited for me and very congratulatory. So that, in turn, revved up my own excitement... and I have not done much of anything today. It's just so hard to keep my feet on the ground and my head in the office right now.
In other news, I have the grossest spider bite on my leg. It is incredibly painful, and red, and swollen, and starting to resemble a freaky third nipple. I'm hoping that it's just a spider bite and not bite from some disgusting mutated creature that lives in the filthy pool I jumped in to when I was about 32 sheets to the wind on Saturday. The only reason I know that said pool is disgusting is because I went back the next morning to see if I had left my sweater poolside. The image of that murky water in the daylight has continued to give me the heebie-jeebies all week.

I started applying for jobs this week. I don't know if anything will come of it... but it feels good to at least have my stuff out there somewhere (even if it is just on the web).

The anxiety has kicked in, though. I can't sleep at night. All I can think about is all the things I have to wrap up here before I leave, all of the potential outcomes for my life in Portland, all of the minor details that I need to take care of. Why is it that the little things, like closing my bank account here or scheduling a dentist appointment, seem to stress me out the most?

This time last year I was interviewing for this job. And here I am, gettin' outta Dodge.

What if I made a terrible decision? I have slowly started telling people at work that I'm leaving soon. But there are some that I can't bring myself to tell. How do I explain that no, I don't have a plan or a job lined up, yeah, I'm just sort of going there? It sounds so silly. It sounds like impetuous youth. It sounds like I hopped on the emotions train (that one of my mom's original sayings) and I'm about to ride it all the way across the country.

But seriously. What if I'm steering myself in a direction that I really shouldn't be going? Ah, the unanswerable what-ifs. Always on my mind.

Emancipation Proclamation

I am moments away from putting in my notice. That phrase doesn't actually mean anything, does it? Well, tell that to the flock of butterflies in my stomach. It'll go a little something like this,

"I have made the decision to move. I want my last day to be August 8th. Until that day, you can expect my productivity to drop off sharply because I will merely be phoning it in."

I'll leave that last bit out, I suppose.

Here goes!

I bought my plane ticket to Portland a couple of hours ago. One way, please - seat by the window. It was quite a rush, a powerful exhale after so many months of breathing in and holding it, avoiding any decision.

August 30th. It's still a ways off, about a month and a half. But I have a feeling time will fly and I'll be winging my way to the Pacific Northwest sooner than I realize.

One foot out the door

I am enitrely preoccupied today. Each time I speak to my mom or my best friend out in Portland, the plans to move get more and more concrete and leave me unable to think about anything else. And not only am I thinking about the details of the actual move, I am thinking about huge abstract things like My Future. A few times a year I find myself researching graduate programs in writing and then I consequently find myself getting excited and picturing myself nestled away in a writing workshop under the tutelage of my mentor, Jeffrey Eugenides (at Princeton) or Amy Hempel (at Sarah Lawrence) or Michael Byers (sigh) (at University of Michigan). Naturally, all of my would-be mentors happen to teach at ridiculously fantastic schools. Schools that would require one to have gobs of talent/money/drive. Schools that require three letters of recommendation. See, there are shortcomings both big and small when it comes to the idea of applying to these places.

Not to mention that I haven't written anything (except for silly pages in my journal and silly entries here) in over a year. It's delusions of grandeur, I'm afraid, thinking that I could even contend with other applicants. But I don't know... I took a couple of writing courses in my undergraduate career, and plenty of people who took themselves very seriously as writers weren't nearly as good as they thought they were. What I wouldn't give for an ounce of their unfounded confidence to replace my self-doubt. Why can't I just be one of the blissfully unaware ignoramuses? Ignorami?

At least it gives me something to do at work while I piss away these last days. I counted earlier - 23 days left. That is hardly any at all. And while thinking of how much I will need to do once I announce that my last day will, in fact, be August 8th is slightly overwhelming... this moment of finally feeling excited about where I'm going is really nice. And maybe the move to Portland will be big enough to shake me out of my terror and really go for this completely unrealistic dream of getting an MFA in writing. Maybe.

Or maybe I should stop wasting time on these daydreams when I know that they will never happen and focus on finding a job in Portland so that I can survive. I have enough money saved up to last for a couple of months out there, but if that money runs out I will be back where I started. And that needs to not happen.

I'm reading Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris right now. It's about a workplace. In it, there is a brief mention of a character who would get to work early, photocopy every page of a novel, and then sit at his desk and read through 300 pages in a day of what looked like legitimate work documents. That is so brilliant! That would be a much more productive use of my time than what I'm doing today, that's for sure.

My Name is Richard Henry Lee, Virginia is My Home

It's a damn shame that I lost my necklace whose pendant depicts the signing of the Declaration of Independence. There is only one time during the year that it is actually relevant. Every other day of the year it only serves to demonstrate how weird I am. I'm still reeling from the loss of that necklace.

You know what else is a damn shame? That "1776" will only be aired at 11:00 pm tomorrow. On TCM. It used to be played on basic cable, during the prime it's-too-hot-outside-and-the-fireworks-won't-start-for-a-few-hours-anyway movie watching hours of the afternoon. What a great idea for a musical! To depict the events of the days leading up to July 4th, 1776 - all through song and dance! Brilliant. But since I will be with a group of people I don't know this weekend, it would probably be wise to keep my love for this movie under wraps.

I sat down for an impromptu meeting with my new supervisor today. He seems like a good guy, like he knows how to manage people and how to get things done. I did tell him that I will probably be leaving mid-August. I like to temper my own declarations of independence to the higher-ups with a dash of uncertainty. I had been planning to wait a little longer to tell him - the only reason I told him today was because I was trying to avoid answering his "what do you want to do with your life" question. After mumbling "I don't know" quietly and awkwardly a couple of times, he asked me "well what do you know?" and the only thing I could think to say was that I was possibly thinking about maybe moving in August.

He then went on to offer free counseling. Which was odd, because I don't know this man and we have had maybe 4 conversations. He asked me what I would do if I won the lottery, a question that I dread - even more so when near-strangers ask it.

Because something feels wrong to me about naming my ideas about my own life. Nothing I say outloud could do justice to the convictions I hold in my mind and in my heart about the kind of person I want to be. And maybe that's just insecurity, not wanting to really speak up about who I am. I tried to tell him about going to Guatemala and how it made me realize that I want to do something good with my life, something that benefits other people. But of course, I said it in a way that made hardly any sense at all and just sounded dumb. I don't know how to find the words to express all that I feel.

I talked to my mom on the phone last night... and it's getting hard to keep my head up in the face of doubts that have been coming my way. And it's not just her (and she's my mom, of course she's worried for my well-being) but it's many others. Is it so wrong to want to do something different than what everyone else is doing? Do I really have to follow the same path as everyone else in order be considered successful and smart? I think that is really silly. I'm not worried. At all. The only thing that makes me worry is when other people get to thinking about my future and then tell me all about the misfortune they foresee. They plant their little, ugly seeds in my head and I feel that fear creep up on me.

I need to buy a plane ticket. But, I will save that for after the holiday weekend. I will be heading out of town this weekend, for road trip number 2 of 3. It will be a long drive tonight... about 6.5 hours. And I will be visiting the hometown of a friend, which will be great. And if I get to catch even a few minutes of "1776," well then we can call the trip a success.

I felt a little crazy this morning. My alarm went off at the time I had set it for, which was somewhere around 6:30 am. But something about the light coming through my window, or something, made me feel very confused as to what time it really was. I was convinced that I had slept through work, that my clock was wrong and that it was somehow mid-morning. And then I got to work 15 minutes early, which made no sense to me either.

I got my nose pierced on a whim yesterday. I went in to a piercing studio after lunch to inquire about prices, and I walked out with a shiny piece of metal (and some sort of yellowy colored stone) through my left nostril. It hurts today... mostly because my nostrils flare pretty much constantly. Someone once told me it makes me look like a friendly dragon. While that is a comparison that is awesome, the flaring is not conducive to a painless healing process.

I have to conduct a couple of interviews today. Yet another aspect of this job that I feel terribly unqualified to perform. I don't know what exactly it is that I think would qualify me for these tasks. Maybe it's just that I still feel like an awkward thirteen year old trying to get through the grim days of early adolescence.

My ears are still ringing from the band we saw on Saturday night. And my mind is still spinning from the details I ironed out regarding my upcoming move. I will not be taking a car (I think), I will go home to my mom's house for a few days before actually going west, I will stay at least until Christmas.

I need to pick a last day for work. I might just work until Friday, August 8th. Which is my birthday. I think that would be a nice, dramatic way to round out my 22nd year and begin my 23rd. A real, honest to goodness fresh start. I think I like that.

The Upside of Being Entirely Aimless

I forgot to bring anything for lunch today. I have all of this delicious produce at home and I keep forgetting to use it. It's going to wither away to goo and I will have wasted my, well I was going to say hard-earned money... but that wouldn't really be accurate.

This week, though, I feel like I worked pretty hard. Justin and I have been working on this project that will eventually make it so that there is only one print copy of any journal on campus so long as there is online access to said journal. Which, in theory, is an important project because it will free up a great deal of much needed shelf space. But it means that we have to get rid of large quantities of these duplicated journals. So Justin and I were at other libraries this week gathering carts full of volumes to eventually ship off to other libraries. I got off pretty easy because he did most of the heavy lifting, and it was his car that had to really bear the brunt. Ah, the sound of an undercarriage scraping on cement. It was fun, though. I'm glad I volunteered him for this job and not anyone else.

It's Friday, and I'm very excited to sleep in tomorrow. That was one of the only things that motivated me to get out of bed this morning, actually. I thought of how I will be able to sleep in as late as I want tomorrow, and that fortified me enough to face another day at work.

What will I do in Portland? Where will I go in December when MG's job ends and she will potentially leave Portland? Will I ever stay anywhere longer than 6 months?

I'll go to Italy. I'll work in a restaurant. When I was in Guatemala we went to a beautiful little restaurant on our first night. We were staying in Antigua, the gringo tourist hot spot of the country. We sat down on the open-air patio and an equally beautiful, young American man came over and handed us menus. He asked, "how's your Spanish?" and laughed when we said all said variations of "extremely shitty." In that moment I created an entire back story for this guy. He dropped out of college, moved to South America, fell in love with a lovely dark-haired girl, had his heart broken by that lovely dark-haired girl, and was traveling around the continent, never staying in one place for too long, trying to forget about her.

So maybe that will be me. I suppose that anything is possible when you don't have any plans. That's the upside of being entirely aimless. One more month here, and I don't know how I'll stand it. I'm starting to get weird pangs of finality, like during the last few weeks of high school. That knowledge that you will never see some of these people again, that you will never take this familiar walk down the street again.

But, as I said, it's Friday. The weekend is spread out before me. I said "it's Friday" to a co-worker a little while ago, in a very cheesey, co-workerly, TGIF sort of way. He then said something about how it's dangerous to always wish it's Friday. He said something about the 'dangers of wishing my life away.' Well, Gary, I'll be on the west coast in about a month and a half, doing exactly what I wish. So don't worry about me. And I'm not taking my job too seriously until then, so don't worry that I'm working to hard or not enjoying the time I have left here. No worries on that front.