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.