Well I Guess This is... Growing Up?

Hello friend-os. 

I want to start a new blog, and call it My Real Adult Life, and document all of the strange and wondrous contradictions inherent in adulthood. For example, this morning I was stumbling half-naked around my apartment, assembling a (very sexy) bed frame and eating a delicious lemon poppyseed muffin. But muffin greased fingers made Allen wrenching hard. I suppose one solution would have been to finish assembling the bed, and then enjoy my pastry. Or vice versa, since greasy fingers are washable. My solution was to leave the muffin on the counter and take hands-free, drive-by bites of it after tightening each screw. 

I’m an adult woman who stretches in the morning and takes vitamins. I’m also an adult woman who eats watermelon with a serving spoon while dressed as a koala. I don’t know, guys. I suspect I’ll be fully feral any day now. 

Lurker cat is lurking

Speaking of feral, That Cat has been hard at work making us friends. The last few days a very large, very handsome, very unneutered black cat has come a’knocking at our door. Doors. All the doors. His hobbies appear to be peering in windows, napping outside windows, and turning Murphy into a rage-filled spitting hellbeast. For the last six years, tormenting Murphy has been my full time job. It’s really a relief to finally share the burden. Admittedly, 3am is not usually the time I choose to torment her, because I prefer to be asleep. Apparently our new friend is much more nocturnal. There’s nothing quite so comforting as waking up in the middle of the night in a dark room to the demonic shrieking of a would-be cat fight. 

Besides my rambling, one-sided conversations with That Cat, I’ve talked to probably three new people down here. One was the laundromat attendant, who commented on how hard it must be to focus on reading in a laundromat while I was trying to focus on reading in a laundromat. I also talked to one of my classmates when she needed to borrow a 3x5 note card from me, and chatted briefly with the guy at the Market down the hill who sells me $5.99 (+tax) bottles of wine.

I’ll have friends literally any day now. 

The problem, of course, is that I have friends, they’re just not here, and it’s hard to live in two places, and it’s hard to be apart from your Real Life. My Real Life now is sunshine, and 20 minutes to the ocean, and white walls whitewashed with natural light. 

During Wednesday’s advising meeting, wherein my Graduate Advisor used the words “bleak” and “job market” more times than I’m comfortable with, she encouraged us to consider looking for post-graduation jobs outside of San Diego. We, of course, stared at her in open-mouthed horror, because there was a collective moment of slow remembrance... there is a world outside of this place. 

I haven’t even been here for two weeks, but it feels like I’ve been here forever. I was born here. I’ve never left here. It’s a strange sensation, trying to keep everything in perspective. 

Unexpected side effects of starting a graduate program: 1) An inability to sleep past 6am, though the fact that I’m sleeping on a couch until my mattress arrives next week could also be a contributing factor. 2) The uncontrollable urge to tell everybody I talk to about my graduate program. I know it’s boring. I’m so sorry. Please still love me. 3) A quiet and persistent sense of impending doom. So there’s that. It’s real neat. 

Still, tonight instead of eating dinner on my “kitchen” floor, I ate dinner hunched over my kitchen counter while reading a memoir for my Queer Texts & Contexts class. I don’t know if that can be counted as progress, but it probably would have looked less pathetic if I took a picture. I’m doing fine, I promise. I'm showered, and fed, and making bone broth, and writing so many words, and feeling all the things, and I'm fine. I promise. 

I hope you’re all having mind-bogglingly awesome Friday nights. I’ll just be curled up here on this couch where I live with That Cat, and some tea, and Jeanne Cordova, lesbian activist extraordinaire. Goodnight, kittens.

Xoxo
-b