Still Packing

Who bought all this shit?

Almost a Waste

For the first time ever, I did not get a job I interviewed for. As the forces of hey-doesn't-that-figure would have it, this was also the first time I had driven almost 250 miles for a job interview. So while I'm disappointed to be missing out on a job that offered perfect hours for a writer (8-6, just three days a week), I'm mostly miffed about the time and money I spent getting there. But to continue my efforts toward consistent optimism, I will remind myself that I got a very nice (if short) visit with my mom out of the drive, complete with a good dinner at Red Lobster. And reheated properly, jumbo coconut shrimp with pina colada dipping sauce make delicious leftovers.

Also, though I'm not sure I believe in fate, I will try to assume that this loss is merely making way for a much better gain.

Optimism

As I fit my world into boxes that seem too small and too few to contain something so significant, I also fold my life up into a tight accordion of tasks. My days are strangled by working-packing-cleaning-cleaning the car-change of address forms-setting up utilities-restless sleep-placing an ad in the paper, then taking the dryer we're selling apart, only to find that its parts are all intact after all, and when I thought they weren't, well, I guess that was just the crack talking. And then there were the nine hours of near-stasis while I drove to and from a twenty-minute interview for a job I am in no way assured of getting. But hope wins, as always, because even though I can barely breathe to begin with, I held my breath through both of the tunnels on the highway this afternoon, wishing for this job to be mine and be perfect, and for our new life in that city to fulfill all the promises drawing us toward it.

Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Week

I don't really feel like talking about it, but between the back spasms and the other (ridiculously private) pain and the rude hotel guests and the dead goldfish and the downpour of pure, unadulterated financial shit...I'm about ready to pack up my life and move away. How handy that I will be doing exactly that in a week and a half.

Too Damn Hot for a Penguin

At 1:30 last night, when the thermostat on our bedroom fan still read 94, we inflated our air mattress and camped out in the air-conditioned living room. But today there's work to do. We move to the city in two weeks and two days, and it's time to start sorting through our hoards. Eric is in the garage, sweating and throwing empty boxes onto the middle of the floor. I already showered today, so I've been in the living room, digging through boxes of things that, three and a half years ago, I deemed worthy of keeping but not worthy of looking at every single day. I've chosen to bless Goodwill with some of these things this time around, but I'm also rediscovering the fact that I have some pretty cool Christmas decorations. Will someone remind me of this in December?

Cultivating Toads

Two nights ago, it rained. It rained swift and bullet-hard against the big window overlooking the parking lot at work, and people walked into the hotel with shoulders drenched from the twenty-foot walk between car and door. "It's wet out there," they complained. But even from indoors, I soaked up the rain and its tangible atmosphere of release.

Meanwhile, three miles away, baby toads emerged from a scummy, stinky pond near my house onto solid ground that finally--after weeks of drought--offered hospitality to their thin, delicate, permeable skins. Last night, the yard quaked with them: tiny, intermittent earthquakes for which I stopped and stooped. We stepped carefully through the grass with our bratwurst, to and from the grill in the garage, trying as much as possible (but mostly hoping) not to squash them underfoot. I thought about nature and how it overproduces, knowing without consciousness that so many of these toads will become road-kill, yard-kill, bird food, or baked in the sun.

Today it's hot. 94 degrees outside, says the Weather Channel. Feels like 98, they add. I'm grateful for the air conditioner that cools only the rooms downstairs, and so far only to 74 dry degrees. Upstairs, in our bedroom-loft, with two facing windows wide open, our always-oscillating fan's digital thermostat reads 99, but there is clearly only room there for two digits. Up there, the bed is warm to the touch and my goldfish (poor Gordon) steeps in his tank.

When I came home at 5:00 from ten hours of blissfully air conditioned work, I gave my rock garden its daily drink. But my thoughts weren't with my desert-evolved moss roses, most of which still bloomed brightly. Today, I watered the toads that now call my garden habitat, and that sprang up here and there from beneath the rocks when the stream of water splashed around them. After all, two nights ago nature tricked them. If the weather can't be kind, I can be.

85 Degrees and 34% Humidity

Comfort: 1
Class: 0

Almost as Exciting as Newborn Babies

A few days ago, the first of our moss roses finally bloomed. This morning four more exploded into yellow, orange, and white blossoms. And the buds on two others have turned bright red, signalling that they are almost ready to open.