bye

So I don't think I'm going to continue this blog. I just don't have a lot to say publicly, I guess. I've moved back to a personal journal, something I kept almost religiously from age 10 until 19, then sporadically in college. Since then I've been too busy to slow myself down to write on paper with a pen, organizing my thoughts as I go. A blog made more sense. I could vomit up a day. But the messiness has been bothering me for a while. Time to go back to a new (or rather, old) format.

Writing has always served multiple purposes for me. It is a way to express my "artistic vision" (or something), a way to earn money and keep myself and the kittens fed, a way to keep track of things and a way to find out what I actually think. My brain tends to operate in overdrive, slowing down and feeling at peace only around very specific people and in equally specific situations -- I realized this with a start yesterday when M. and I settled down to watch a documentary about Europe's "Dark Ages" (do not....I repeat, do not!.... look up "the bloody eagle" unless you want to be completely horrified. How anyone made it out of the middle ages alive is beyond me. If it wasn't plague, it was pillaging tribes and rape-happy knights). I don't know why a history documentary would bring this home to me, especially since the narrator was in the middle of detailing Clovis's more loathsome personality traits. I've learned not to question my brain too closely sometimes. It just shuts up like a tupperware or starts muttering gibberish.

Anyway. I think you're all up on the important things:

1. New job, new town. All going spectacular so far. I think there have been two murders, a suicide threat standoff, several major car accidents, a handful of asaults and a body in the marina. All within the last two weeks. And this is the slow season, according to a police lieutenant I talked to.

2. I have two cats. Yes, two. I'm not a crazy cat lady and have no plans of ever becoming one. It's stressful enough to have two animals relying on me. I don't want any more. They are pretty adorable though and like to push each other off the couch and then the aggressor will go up and lick the fallen kitten's face like "Oh, whoops, I didn't even see you were sitting up there. Sorry to bump into you like that. Clumsy me." At which point the kitten boxes the other kitten in the face and they tear around the apartment screaming obscenities for about five minutes before deciding to find me and turn me into their personal nap pillow.

3. I'm still in love with Astoria and will probably move back in about twenty years to retire and die. I miss the river being in my front yard. I miss the ocean being a short car ride away. I even miss that stupid stupid wind.

4. However, I don't miss the howling lack of purpose I felt after I quit the paper but continued to live in Astoria. I'm realizing now what a big identity crisis that was. It was a good thing for me to go through but I'm grateful it only lasted nine months. And really those nine months were pretty fantastic and I had a lot of fun and got some short story writing off my chest and spent a lot of time outdoors and with friends especially Marta and M.

5. That's all.

Maybe I'll see you around on the internet world. If not, give me a call and I'll lock the cats in the bedroom so you can come over and drink tea with me in peace and quiet.

 

new town

Oh not much happened this week except I moved to a new town and will be starting a new newspaper job tomorrow. That's all. M and I moved the bulk of my junk down on Saturday and then I moved with the cats and sundry other stuffs yesterday evening after multiple goodbye coffee dates with Astoria friends. Within the first five minutes of arriving at my new home, I'd locked myself out of the apartment. One cat was yowling from the kitchen, the other cat was yowling out in the car and I had to ask my downstairs neighbor's eldest son to call the landlord for me. Meanwhile, two great danes across the street casually started humping each other.

My landlord arrived 15 minutes later and unlocked the apartment. Half an hour later, one of the cats had squirmed through an impossibly small space of open window and was prowling the roof, meowing and carrying on.

What next? Oh yes and then spiders appeared everywhere and I committed a terrifying number of murders.  Then the cats started fighting while I was trying to fall asleep on my mattress on the floor and I was so overheated from pre-summer weird weather, stressed from the moving and packing and strange smells of strange new places, and ever oh so homesick that I stayed up until midnight unpacking and organizing my books because that always makes me feel better.

Then this morning I woke up and I was till in this new town and I don't think I get to go back to Astoria yet and that was vaguely depressing but I'll deal.

Meanwhile, I'm going to spend this evening unpacking my clothes and psyching myself up about the job.

2 gatos

Marta's sister and niece and nephew slept in the living room. So I had to closet the cats with me lest they prowl and fight all night and keep everyone awake. I wasn't expecting to sleep at all, but the instant I laid myself down, I had two passed out cats with me: Oscar curled up like a gentleman next to my face (as opposed to ON my face... a typical Bruno move) and Bruno, twisted into a pretzel in the cubbyhole made by my bent knees.

Of course, they were yowling and leaping and scrapping at 4:30, but I got more sleep than expected. And then, after breakfast at 5 (when I'd given up on sleeping any longer into the morning), Oscar crashed next to my legs and Bruno kind of collapsed into a disheveled cat pile on top of my back. Must be something in the water.

I'm pretty proud of both of them. They haven't destroyed the apartment yet and Oscar even let himself be manhandled for hours by a four-year-old girl who just wanted to hug him and squeeeeeeeze him forever. 

beat goes on

The problem with house-hunting is that you see all these beautiful houses with spacious green yards and gazebos and ponies and you start to wonder why the people who live there are so selfish. Why haven't they built a mother-in-law cottage and why aren't they renting it out for... say... $300 a month with access to all the ponies ALL THE TIME? And then you go to the places that are advertised and within your price range and not only are the neighbors probably cooking meth but there isn't a door to the bathroom... in fact, there isn't even a wall separating the bathroom from the bedroom. Maybe you can hang up a curtain between them? Meanwhile, the heaters will likely explode in the winter and the landlord is hassling you about owning a cat. Because one little 9 lb kitten will bring this whole place down, decrease the property value and probably destroy every carpet everywhere, even carpets that have not yet been born. Evil kitten.

(While typing that paragraph I got a call back from a guy about an apartment. Yayz)