deep breath.

I just finished my first week of grad school and it was totally fine! 

Read that with a note of surprise in my tone. 

Because I have been FREAKING OUT. 

Like, walk past the restaurant you're about to enter to order food from three times before working up the nerve to go in and order because you're doubting every decision you've ever made and your ability to interact with people, that kind of anxiety.

But with the help of a few pep talks and some extreme sweating on the walk to my first class, I managed. I went in and sat down and listened and learned and suddenly all my anxiety seems a tad unfounded. 

It's going to be a ton, A TON, of work- but I'm actually kind of thrilled about it. 

Minus the recording audio and video of myself interviewing people and then having to play it back for the class and my professor to critique, because I really hate the sound of my own voice. 

But right now, I'm not going to fret about that. I made it through my first week of classes. 

Deep breath of relief. I've got work to do. 

 

the trek!

Ok, I SWEAR I’m going to get back into the swing of things now. Today I bring you a very abridged version of my journey westward! With pictures!

what i'm looking at. 

......and this would be more of the breakfast nook.

I’d just like to note before I get started that I am typed this in my breakfast book WHILE EATING breakfast, drinking tea, and listening to Fleetwood Mac on the record player…. So basically I’m killing it out here. Yesterday I got up, brushed my teeth, walked to a trail and climbed up the side of a mountain. It was awful! I’m terribly out of shape, but the view made it all worth it.- I definitely feel that I’ve moved to the most beautiful place in America. Plus- you’re going to be able to bounce a quarter off my ass before long from trekking all these giant hills! I can’t wait.

Ok back to the journey. 

we left last wednesday morning, my father and i. this is what we were working with for the next 2000 or so miles. at first driving this contraption was a bit...anxiety-ridden. but i eventually got the hang of it. kind of. 

the midwest is beautiful to drive through... but super boring. day one was 700 miles of mostly... this. we stopped in Sioux  Falls, SD the first night. 

on day two we started seeing more interesting and exotic (for me) stuff... like fields of sunflowers! the pictures not the best, but my dad tried, i was driving. this is also about the time we started listening to a book on tape. having someone else's voice have to be every single one of the characters in a novel must be challenging. it made some of the characters really hateable for me... probably my first and last books on tape experience. 

then we saw this shit and it was AWESOME. in the flesh!

we also went to Crazy Horse, which my dad was really intent on. it was actually really interesting and kind of depressing. not a whole lot of progress going on there in the last 30 or so years. 

we drove through deadwood after Mt. Rushmore and Crazy Horse. As you can see from the SUV in the picture, it's not exactly a lawless wild west town anymore. sad times. 

this is where shit gets nuts. it's the end of day two, we're driving through South Dakota, almost to Wyoming and the sky starts to look preeeeeetty pissed off. 

we get across the state line and my dad and I are both like "Shits about to go down, storm style."

and it does.  serious, serious hail/thunder/weird storm. so we stop on the side of the road because we were convinced the hail was going to break the windshield. dead serious. i was laughing hysterically because that's what I do in high stress situations. 

see that hail? damn. anyway. AS SOON as the hail stopped, the sun came out like nothing happened. DOUBLE RAINBOW. it was really bizarre. 

the rest of day two was pretty uneventful. we got to Gillette, WY and called it a night. 

day three was a blur because i knew we were going to be in my new city by dinner time and I started getting really antsy and excited to get there. here we are approaching the first set of actually big, real MOUNTAINS.  i almost peed/crashed the truck taking this pic. 

and then we got here and got some local beers because this place is like Mecca for beer drinkers. My dad is the best. The end. 

safe and sound

I've been neglecting and I'm sorry, it's just that I've been moving my life to the mountains.


But guess what?


I made it!!!!


More to come soon.

my lovely little dining nook and kitchen. 

the carousel.

 

 

 

Remember that time we raced Jenna and Tony to the carousel?

 

To be fair, they had a head start. It was covered with a thick red tarp that made the whole ride into a tent because it was night and all the tourist kids who would have paid a dollar to ride it had gone back on the ferry or were tucked in for the night.  They always covered the carousel at night for protection. Only the adult-children with their ridiculous hamburger hats and slurred speech and teetering walks down the main drag remained. They were always bent on destruction, themselves or anything they could get their hands on. Usually themselves, but the carousel could have easily caught one of their eyes and been torn down to the ground. The bars weren't packed, but they were busy enough. It was a Tuesday, Wednesday, maybe, our evening off.

 

We, you and I, slid under the tarp sometimes, at night. I'd run my hands over all the muscled wood arranged in a ring, their antique bodies painted garishly and shined to a shimmer, even in the darkness. We'd plot how you'd take me on the fish I'd named Petey the Perch, the lazy wind whispering through the shadows and the dorm building we lived in last summer just a stone's throw away. All I wanted was to have you on that stupid child's toy, to sail into oblivion balanced precariously on the wooden spine of that antique fish. It wasn't for the irony, just the rush of doing something wrong. I felt so much of that those summers, and the stakes were getting higher and higher. I was scared to go through with it though, waiting for your sure decision to tell me it was okay. Waiting for you to slip off a shoe or a shirt or pop off your hat the way you always did. I was willing to wait. No one else knew our plan. But that night, by accident, I let it slip to Jenna that a late night trip to the carousel for two was what I was getting for my birthday. She and Tony took off into the darkness without a word as I hollered your name and watched their scrawny backs disappear from my place on the front porch. I waited for you, hoping from foot to foot, and then we sprinted, me barefoot, trailing them as fast as we could.

 

We got there and it was too late, after all. They had already stripped down and mounted each other on one of the painted horses, triumphant but not really caring too much about our matching destroyed expressions, I guess they had some physical distraction. They were already so far away. They beat us at our own game. 

 

That night after we found them, I sat, still under the big tarp on one of the massive red sleds that mothers hold their babies on before they can sit on their own on the ride. I felt like such a child. I don't know why I didn't slip back under the tent and keep on walking into the night, away from you, or them. Another disappointment. Their bodies writhing so close to ours, but the notion of privacy too abstracted by two summers here that I didn't even think to leave. Had I been on the main land, maybe I would have torn out of there, embarrassed to have been such an intrusion. Still, I sat, and eventually you sat down next to me, alluded that we could still do it, you know, right here, as you touched me, inquiring gently. This upset me more than letting them cross the threshold before us. That's when I left.

 

Later I reasoned that I should have maybe been mad at Jenna and Tony for what they'd done, for taking away something I'd said in secret. But more than anything I found I was jealous. Jealous of their daring, their passion, their total lack of commitment, yet complete focus on one another,  Watching them made our lack so much heavier, the gap growing between us so much wider. Had we ever been able to bring ourselves that close?

 

Isn't it funny how we lay in bed at night with our lovers, confessing timidly the moment we KNEW we had fallen in love with the other, but we never share the moment when we KNEW we had fallen out of it? Wouldn't that help bring some necessary closure?

 

Maybe, I don' t know. But I think that was when I knew that your presence in my life, as strong and important as it seemed, was also fleeting.

 

 

That night, you followed me into the star-pricked dark as the tent dropped back down over Jenna and Tony, not saying anything until you caught up with me, in long, pigeon-toed strides. You touched my arm and as I turned, and you slipped a pair of enormous flip-flops to me, motioning at my bare feet. I love walking barefoot in the summer, but something must have told you that while sprinting toward the carousel I'd carelessly scraped the soles of my feet to dickens on the gravel alley. I slipped them on, feeling warmth and the odd sensation of walking in too-big shoes, like dress-up, and I reached for your hand. We walked soundlessly up to my bedroom.

 

You offered to pay for me to get a tattoo for my birthday instead, a few days later, but it felt like a consolation prize. I've sat up nights since, thankful that I didn't let you pay for any ink on my body.

 

You put enough in my mind

sweeth tooth thriftstore diy fairy.

I'm almost fully consumed with packing right now, for the most part. I just downed three, ok four, snack sized Kit-Kats  in less time than it takes most people to work out a sneeze, so in a word, I'm hormonal as well.

 

 

I've got LESS than three full days left at work, which makes me want to dance a little jig on top of a rooftop in a crowded metropolitan area for all to see, but I'm not letting myself near crowds or rooftops right now because I'm anxious enough as is. And have I mentioned that my core four group of girlfriends will be reunited this weekend? Yeah, that's happening. Katherine has been in Korea for a year and Jessica's been in Portland but it moving to Finland for two years. So this will be IT for a while. A long while. It's going to be really, really intense.

 

last summer, the last time we were all together. we're taking it back to basics saturday night.

This weekend I spent the majority of my waking hours in thrift stores with my mother, which was good because we really needed at least one really solid day together before I leave. We're hit or miss, but this weekend was very much a hit, so hooray!

 

 

 I also had baller luck in the buying department. I purchased a pair of chairs for twenty dollars(!) which I'm reapolstering, and a small-ish table that I'll be painting for eighteen dollars (double !!) and I am absolutely brimming with anticipation at seeing them together as a set in my new sun-soaked dining nook.

 

 

I also ought some little odds and ends to add a bit of character, and I'm super psyched to show them off soon. All in all, I didn't spent a ton of money, which was a major bonus and I got to make a project out of my new dining set, which is both masochistic with time running so short and perfect for me because, in case you didn't know, I'm a bit of a  freak about personalzing/DIYing my things and I'm nothing if not overwhelmed with activities.

 

 

My newest furniture additions are below. Updates to come!

blah. imagine it the same, only different! confused?

how cute is the chair? how disgusting is the seat? what the hell.

i've never been happier to rip off a cushion in my life. that shit was HIDEOUS.

no ryhme or reason.

I don't know what to say.

 

I find that I often have that reaction when something too big for me to process in my usual, quick, compartmentalized way slams into me without any sort of warning. There's a lot of intersecting emotion that comes with great tragedy, that comes with being bombarded from all angles by something catastrophic and wrong.

 

It's a jumble of emotions for me. I almost said cycle, because I often revert back to one or another, but really I find, it's everything all at once, just sometimes one or another comes more to the forefront. When I learn of something terrible and tragic, I usually feel really high alert first, and it's not even that my mind is feeling anything, just that physically, I break into a cold sweat and my body is suddenly, inexplicably coated with goosebumps. Complete focus. I'm devoted completely to what I'm hearing or seeing. I could drive fifty miles and not even realize that my body has been doing it, because my head is somewhere else entirely. Mental tunnel vision.

 

I feel sad, next. It's a wall of cold air just fully overtaking me. I think of all the people that were living their lives, completely and wonderously normal and mundane, and now will never get to do so again. I think of casual exchanges that weren't worthy of being the last exchange, because they simply weren't the last. They simply weren't going to be. Until they were. I think of putting pieces of broken glass back together, nicking yourself on sharp edges and crying out in pain while the world keep spinning on, crowds bustle forward, time stops for no one. But for the one affronted personally,  time has stopped. In one moment. One moment that can never be explained. Or reasoned with or have hope for repair, total restoration. And it hurts. Even in my far away state, I feel actual pain, I swear I do. I feel so, so sorry.

 

Guilt comes next, but fleeting, because I don't really have time to dwell on the brilliant and astonishing blessings I have been given, not now. It doesn't feel right to think about how fine everything is with me. How my biggest worry this morning was what people at work would think about the fact that I'm wearing my glasses and I didn't blow dry my hair. It's hot. I was tired. I feel guilty because how can I not? An hour ago I could have held onto these minor inconveniences like pebbles, let them grate in my shoe for hours, something to complain about. They evaporated as soon as I heard the news, but guilt, for the triviality of my concerns, that has come to stay. At least for a time.

 

I feel fear most after that, after realizing how truly good I have it and how much I have to lose. To hear of things happening beyond control. Out of all of our hands. Out of bounds completely from rational thought or societial convention. Out of the blue, no one saw it coming. People always talk about the fragility of life, of our feeble human circumstances when something comes through and plows our intricate structures to the ground so pointlessly and effortlessly. But you know what? I don't think a single one of us really believes everything is so delicate, so breakable until we're literally staring in horror at shattered pieces. I feel strong most of the time, invincible, in fact. To be reminded so blatantly and horrifically that I am completely wrong, it scares me and I hate it. To think, it could be anywhere. It terrifies me. I cried myself to sleep after watching the movie Taken. I appreciate it for the movie it was and I know there's more than an ounce of truth behind it, but in truth, I loathed it because it shook me to my core. Terrified me the way the idea of a person opening fire at a movie premiere scares me. I so strongly don't want to be the kind of person that is too frightened to live my life. I want to walk in confidence. I cannot stand to be someone who will fret when my loved ones leave my sight. But I am scared, now, and it's not fair.

 

It is so unfair, all of it. And confusing and terrifying and core-shaking. And you know what? Finally, I feel angry, then. A raking fury that I don't even realize is there until my jaw starts to ache from clenching it in an effort not to fly off the handle and start howling at the sky. Angry Angry Angry Angry Angry Angry. No words even come. I'm not even thinking, not really. I'm just mad, pissed off, wound so tight that a casual "Did you hear about that weirdo in Colorado that shot up a theater? Ha ha. What a fucking nut job, man," from some idiot at work is enough to make red lines appear in my vision. Actual red lines. Every impulse is screaming for me to get up and get in his face and just *#$&(*#$&(*#$&#$*(. But I don't. I don't. I don't. I didn't think it was possible, but I am just even more angry.

 

In an attempt to tune everything out and to look productive and to find answers or meaning or rhyme or reason or AT LEAST SOMETHING where there is absolutely none, I sit at my desk in livid silence, reading page after page on the internet. Waiting like a vulture for updates, simultaneously ravenous for information and completely disgusted that this is what it has come to. As people we need to exchange information quickly, now it is almost instant. Good job, humans.  I tell myself somehow I've cheapened the tragedy less because I steer clear of Twitter and it's pithy 140-character shows of sympathy. But I know I'm no better. And no better than what, exactly? People that express regret concisely? This is what we do now. It doesn't have to be cheap. But it feels that way and it annoys me and I realize maybe I'm the problem. Maybe it's not about 'cheapening' tragedy. Maybe in judging one person's show of feeling, I'm the one in the wrong. I'm so confused. I'm so angry and sad and guilty and everything. Everything.

 

Everything about this is confusing to me, everything. Another emotion that runs the gamut today.

 

Despite the confusion and anger and attempts not to be visibly crying at my desk, I feel so moved. It comes and goes in a moment, but it's something so much lighter than the frenzied rage that it sticks out. It's gratitude, I guess. For people who fucking did something. Who tried to help. Who did help. Who will be heros when the dust settles. Who find words when there don't seem to be any. I feel moved by the way society is outraged, absolutely united in our HOW DARE YOUness. How we crowd around and update each other and try to make sense as a team, even when we can't do it, we try. We try to make sense of it, we keep going because we have to, and we'll keep going. But we acknowledge and we regret and we HATE what happened and it moves me to have us agree, even if it's something so terrible as the fact, that this is wrong. This was unjust and terrible and NO ONE deserves this. Sometimes I feel like we as people can't reach a consensus on the color of the sky, but I'll be damned if we can't come together to offer sympathy and mutual outrage.

 

And then I feel guilty, again. for finding anything positive to say. Because, really, there's nothing positive to say and anyway, what in the hell do I know? I know nothing, not really. No one I knew was in Aurora last night. I've had injustice done to me and my family, sure. But I've not been touched by something like this. Something that never again leaves once come. In the future, maybe not for a long time, but someday, I know I'll go a single day without thinking about the events last night, and that is a relief to me, honestly, while it simultaneously weighs more than a boulder dropped square on my heart, because how could I?

 

And then I remind myself, that I am not special. That someday, something may happen that will literally change the course of my life. That may alter my reality forever. Something I'll never go a single day without pondering and shaking in fury and sadness. And that scares me. And I'm back to fear.

 

I'll go through all these emotions maybe a hundred more times before the day is through, and I'll lie in bed tonight, unable to sleep because of it. It's almost like an adreniline overdose, I can feel my blood moving a million miles an hour faster in my veins than normal. I'll try to reason and then remind myself that it's futile and I'll get angry. I'll cry out of sadness and fear and rage. Mostly sadness, that's what I feel most of all.

 

Mostly sadness.

progress!

Ok you guys. I don't want to make any completely rash, grandiose statements because nothing is for sure yet.... but I'm totally going to anyway.


I FOUND A PLACE TO LIVE IN MONTANA!


*(#&$(*&#$(*&#$*($#&*$FUCKINGFINALLY*(&#$*(#&$!!!!!111111oneoneoenoeneoneoneoenoeneoneone omg. oh MY god.

Have I signed a lease yet?

No.

Have I been down this road and around this block a few times?


Absolutely.


But none of that matters right now because I heard the words "If you want it, it's yours."


Which at all possible angles means THIS PLACE IS MINE.


Of course I'm at least 2000 miles away from it and have never been there, but I couldn't be more excited to call it home. The lovely and life-saving current tenant somehow took pity on me and bumped me to the front of her list of 'maybes' and I ducked out of work to sit on my phone and do a skype tour with her this afternoon. She's a doll and super sad to be moving, but her vacancy is my new place, so I couldn't be more thrilled. Which means I'm barely containing my excitement. Although I probably won't take another deep breath until my signature is on that lease.

Wanna hear about it? I know you do. I promise future pictures by the dozen, but for now, here is what you need to know:

Hardwood Floors
French Doors
Balcony
Dining Nook
Original Wood Built-ins GALORE
Quaint ADORABLE kitchen
Tons of windows to provide oodles of natural light
The heat is paid by the landlord, along with water, garbage, etc.
EXCELLENT location within walking distance to downtown and school.

So basically, this is the perfect place I kept promising myself was going to come along.


And it did.


Finally.


Whew.


And now it's time for me to resume planning and plotting and scheming where I will be putting all my crap, hanging all my pictures, and arranging all my furniture.