oh, you won't catch me around here

i've never been so excited about a job that requires me to file for three days. but i've never been paid $21 an hour to file. i guess at times like these, you forget the fact that you're college educated, you're not a shit writer, you once worked for a fairly reputable name in new york, and once you really get your shit together, you're totally going to make something of this name of yours. none of that really matters. you just try to not get too many papercuts throughout the day.

****

this isn't to say i've stopped asking, "why did i come to australia?" and started asking, "why did i leave new york?" it's not really about the questions these days. it's more just this general sense of, "i had no idea it would be like this." the good and the not-good-yet.

****

before i left for australia, in this blog, i said, "for all the yes and all the no of my life. i have no choice but to be incredibly grateful." it's easy to say when you're feeling like you've just conquered mt. everest, and it's important to say it when you just feel you can't keep climbing.

****

i didn't exactly have any expectations of what it would be like when i got to australia. some more grown-up, "saved by the bell: the college years" version of the last time i was here, maybe? much like so much in my life, i romanticize too much.

****

i should be concerned if i don't occasionally feel completely out of sorts, right? maybe it's set in, what everyone else had mentioned at some point and reminded me of in some way. i picked up my entire life and moved to the other side of the world with no plan, only some drive to try something new. i get it now. it sounds fun and exciting and adventurous on paper. i should be doing exotic things, traveling constantly, hop-scotching through this country.

but i'm (quite gratefully!) temping in offices around melbourne, living in a neighborhood so mundane it makes me yearn for the garbage-strewn sidewalks of 159th St, and spending large chunks of my day entirely paralyzed by more than the idea but the cold, hard fact that i don't know what the fuck i'm doing here.

but at least i know where i stand today.

****

i keep thinking i shouldn't be writing this. but if i focus on the positive one more time, i'm going to throw up.

****

but this is probably far more important to be writing about than some drunken night at a sweaty gay club where i pretend my life is a lot more wild and exciting than it's really turned out to be. believe it or not, i'm quite happy to not be drinking or sweating to britney remixes on podiums for a little while.

vodka's devastated; i barely call anymore.

****

maybe it's "the artist's way." i am writing a lot more, to say nothing of the spiritual overhaul this process has done on me. maybe there's no room to be wasted and blathering false sentiments to strangers i hardly connect with on a real level, when i'm spending so much time rediscovering some other part of myself i was probably drinking away that year in new york.

****

but i'd hate for anyone to think i'm not fine.

****

once this nausea passes from positive thinking, i could actually list off a few really good things in my life right now.

****

the truth of the matter is, though, i really am sort of grateful for these foggy, uncertain times. i seriously mean it. i'm quite exhausted from what's been a pretty constant buzz of anxiety for the past few weeks, and to be fair to anyone who's seen or talked to me, i haven't been myself. but i don't believe in the meaninglessness of it. i was doing my morning pages a little late this morning, after my interview at the temp agency, and i wrote: "the light is easier to see when the fog lifts, but the fog requires a deeper faith in it."

****

something to think about while i'm filing for the next three days.

tell me you never wanted more than this

lately, my computer has been having a lot of updates that keep requiring it to start over. about every five minutes, the message pops up letting me know that the changes are ready to be installed, but i must restart. do i want to restart now or later? a progress bar, with five minutes on the clock, creeps forward.

i keep pressing "restart later" because i don't want to stop what i'm doing and let the computer do what it needs to do for these changes, these necessary updates, to take effect.

symbolic much? you better fucking believe it's symbolic.

i've been a well-contained mess this week. short story long, this new job is offering a miserably small amount of hours and a miserable work experience. that harridan of a boss? well, there's something to be said for first impressions. i was discussing this with someone yesterday, but i do not think that, just because you work for someone, that gives them any right whatsoever to speak to you without some respect. i think it's this misconception that our bosses are allowed to yell at us because they are our bosses.

but don't get me started. i think there's a benefit to recognizing the negative, but no one wins when you swim in it. and it doesn't make for pleasant reading. or hell, pleasant living. venting is great, but wallowing is miserable. i've got higher ambitions than misery.

so i've turned to what i know and can rely on: office work. the temp agencies of melbourne, australia, have no way of preparing themselves for the ensuing tidal wave that is "me, on desperation's edge." i know i said i didn't want to end up back in an office--if i wanted to be in an office, i'd stay in new york, blah blah--but let this be one of the important lessons i've learned here in oz: hospitality & food service blow hard. just the sight of a waiter carrying three plates at once gives me a serious panic attack now. this morning, a few of us went out to brunch, and i could barely handle being waited on. i couldn't look at any of the servers, sure that i would spot a deep sadness in their eyes, like cows at the bloody slaughter.

(i don't quite know when i turned into carole from "repulsion," and it's only a matter of time before i'm crawling around on the floor in a nightgown or avoiding hands reaching from the wall to pull at my beautiful but recently unkempt blonde hair.)

and strange, that this is desperation these days. i know i like to talk about my early days in new york the way everyone talks about their early days in new york, particularly if they were challenging in some way. i romanticize the hell out of that time, because it's long over and because i grew so intensely in that period of time, but i think it's fair to say i had to keep moving partially because stopping meant letting the great bear hug of depression move in for a spiritual kill. i like to look back and think, "the universe delivered because i demanded with my entire soul."

i don't know where people find the time, or even the energy, to cry in public at these moments of strife in their lives.

anyway, i think i'm just feeling a bit on the razor's edge because--and this is something i didn't quite expect to experience here--i'm also going through a bit of "foreign exhaustion." this is typical, they tell you when you study abroad. the newness will wear off, the excitement will fade, and you'll grow obnoxiously intolerant of even the smallest difference you spot from what you know back home. i had a minor bout of this earlier in my trip, and i remember when it happened the first time i was here (and passed in maybe two days' time), but it's been pretty full-on lately. and i start to crave new york like a drug.

yesterday, i called my mom, partly because we were due a catch-up, and partly because i think some times in our lives ask for that phone call, to whoever it is knows you best. sure enough:

my mother: "hello?"

me: "hey there, it's me."

my mother: "hi. what's wrong?"

and it wasn't like she was assuming something was. it's the mere fact that all i have to do is say hello, and she knows something's up. i laughed (blinking back a tear or two) and said, "god, how do you know?" she said, "i'll call you back" so i didn't have to pay for the call. which was a nice break so i could pull it together, because one kind word at that point, and i would have absolutely crumbled. i just couldn't bear the idea of crying to my mother from the other side of the world.

it baffles me, really, that i'm so seized by this financial situation. to be honest, i have enough money right now. when i moved to new york, i did not have enough money. but i always need a cushion. being raised (loosely used term here) by my father, a man who made a living of riding by the seat of his pants, and that includes with matters of financially supporting his family, i've run like all hell to the other side of the spectrum, and for my entire life, i've been careful with spending and diligent about saving. and sometimes, pathetically cheap.

i want to say, though, in recognition of seeing the positive of this all--besides the basic point that this is a fantastic learning, growing experience, and in just a few weeks time i will be looking back and sighing and already romanticizing this moment--that without naming names, because i'm bloody awful at compliments, thank you. you've been so kind. there's a couple people that could be said to (including my mother, who thank god is not aware this blog exists), but i know what i mean here.

a little gratitude goes a long way when we think we've got nothing in our grasping, clutching hands.

sometimes, it's just what we need before life's changes can take effect.

fists on up, it looks that easy

i'm playing life by ear until i go deaf from it.

i've never left it all to such chance. the catchphrase of the few months before i left for australia--"i'm just gonna figure it out as i go"--has turned into something entirely more formidable. and say what you will about my signs from, i don't know, the universe--the fact that the shoes i had to wear for the recently-quit job gave me gouge-like blisters and possible nerve damage in one of my big toes; the way that song came on my ipod this morning while i was writing my morning pages, and correlated so frighteningly with what i had just written down; etc and so on--but it seems life is always throwing me a hint that i'm onto something. i suppose it's a comfort.

like, i just started getting into "six feet under" and i've been powering through episodes to get to the series finale which promises to be the most devastating thing i've seen since "away from her," a movie that leaves me puddly-eyed just thinking about it sometimes. and it seems every episode i watch, when i watch it, connects with something i've been thinking about. there are characters in their thirties who have not pursued a career but have merely worked jobs, and claim to be happy at them. and in some strange combination of "artist's way" realigning, living in australia on the seat of my pants, and possibly a good old quarterlife crisis come a few years early, i'm thinking, "could i do that? could i get away with not ever having a career?"

if i don't start saving for retirement now, am i going to be one of those old people living in a dingy apartment somewhere with ugly curtains, old newspapers, and cat food for dinner every night? if i don't hop on a career track now, will i be left answering to these years of wandering and waiting tables until someone takes a chance on me? do i really think being a writer will actually pay some bills?

i suppose these are all rhetorical questions, and being listed for the sheer sake of keeping records. y'know, so i can look back in a few years and say, "boy, was i confused!" (don't be fooled; what i'm doing here is tossing off all these questions as just silly notions, and not the intense self-interrogation i've been doing on the couch all morning as i put off returning overdue library books again.)

oh, as it is friday morning, i should note i ended up not going in for that "dream job" at the cafe in the city, because let's be honest, i don't even know how to make instant coffee, let alone anything more complicated than sanka. on the plus side, the universe tossed me a literal sign in the window of a cafe/bakery in my neighborhood, and after a brief conversation with the harridan of a manager--who, if i get the job, god willing, i'm sure i'll have a hell of a time making like me--i now have a trial shift on monday. it's like a game of hopscotch lately.

so i'm a little "meh" today. i don't know, there's the fun and excitement of a life of uncertainty, of questions not quite answered and possibilities not quite known, and then there's just the fear that you're going to turn one of life's corners and walk into a punch in the face.

i reckon i could do myself some good by listening to my own advice from the last post, in recognizing that things do--or don't--work out for reasons that reveal themselves as the next page turns.

so i'm keeping my ear to the ground till then.

it sure takes its precious time, but it’s got rights and so have i

i once noticed that when my life got to its most interesting, i never made any attempt to chronicle it until sometimes months later. i've been journaling on and off since i was about 9, and there are any number of entries over the years that have begun with me saying, "i'm sorry i took so long to write, i have so much to catch you up on!"

i reckon it has something to do with living in the moment, not wanting to hop back to the sidelines and observe, but rather be the story itself. possibly also, at least recently, because i'm also into week five of "the artist's way," so i have in fact been chronicling my every move with a mandatory three pages of freeform writing a morning (the morning pages, god bless their cotton socks). but no one else will ever read these pages, unless i step in front of a bus tomorrow and someone snoops while packing up my belongings.

so for the record, if i do step in front of a bus tomorrow, and you're the person folding up all of my h&m button down camp shirts and stuffing them in the space bags i brought, i will haunt the living shit out of you if you start reading my morning pages. but do please return the actual "artist's way" book to the public library, it's already overdue and i don't want anymore fines.

all this to say, a lot has been happening since i last wrote my treatise on unhealthy relationships. i reckon that was rather cathartic in a way, and i found that the theme of healthy relationships--with myself and other people--nabbed a bit of the spotlight as of late. ah well, let's be honest, it's been a main character in my neuroses--obsessions, whatever word you want to use--for years. but as i sat on my bed one friday afternoon, with spread cheese, salami, and crackers scattered before me, each labeled with feelings to be eaten, i think i actually cried out, "okay! i have had ENOUGH of this!" and i dashed out of the house and insisted on more.

that's all very vague and requires a fair bit of backstory, so the blunt truth of it, which i think will sum it up nicely, is this: i think i'm done dating guys i don't actually like. i know, who is this person, and where did the old colin go? i don't know, but he's not here. check washington heights, i think he's pouring himself another drink and waiting for some asshole in his forties to call.

i haven't quite given "the artist's way" the credit its due, and i'd happily dedicate the next seven weeks of that process to singing its praises, as i can say quite assuredly that it has changed so much of my life. yes, it's initial intention was to rediscover myself as a writer, to take down the brick wall between me and my creativity, to be the artist i so unabashedly saw myself as when i was maybe twelve, when i was writing books, regardless of their quality, huge books worth of writing! the point was, "i want to be a writer again." but as chekhov said, "if you want to work on your art, work on your life."

let's not even bother rehashing my love of a good self-help tome, if only to say i do believe in it, and doing this twelve-week course is probably the most actively i've tried to reclaim some sense of myself. and truly, it has been work on my life. i think the artistic resuscitation is almost secondhand to the recovery this process offers for your self-esteem, your sense of wholeness, your ability to be honest and compassionate towards yourself as much as others, and really, to discover what you want to be doing in this life.

have i ever mentioned that, sometimes, i would ask the question "what am i doing in australia?" i don't know, i've been really sort of quiet about that in this blog, i know....but seriously, one morning, i was wrapping up my morning pages, and it seemed the answer--in reference to another aspect of my life than my artistic self, as in fact the morning pages are so rarely about my writing--just started to flow out. i'm going to let it marinate for a bit, but i think i've come up with a really good answer to the question.

the point of this all being, it's been a good couple weeks. i got a job--and then quit! and now i have another job that i'll be doing a trial shift at on friday. i thought this post, following the hiatus, would be about the job i got, as a waiter at an upscale french restaurant in the city, and the quirks of it all, but i found, as the week went on, that i just completely made no sense at this job. i think, if i wanted to make the sacrifice, i could have stayed, the money would have been good, but the hours were long, the pressure was high, and my gut was screaming, "honestly, i hate this idea!" so what did i do? i sat down one morning this week, for my pages, and wrote out my "dream job." i did a brief job search before leaving for work, got a couple phone numbers of jobs that sounded like what i was looking for, called one on my break that day, and was told to come in for the trial shift in a week. i don't think this was just luck. i think it's all a matter of putting out what you want in this life and then listening for the opportunities to receive it.

really, lately, there's just been this sense of "this wouldn't have happened if i hadn't come here," that sense of the why, why my heart was so insistent on traveling 10,000 miles away from home, why i had to leave new york despite everything going so well (eventually), why i had to wait until getting here, and getting settled for a month and a half, before finally starting "the artist's way." when things in your present life start falling into place, you realize more fully why things in your past maybe did not, or why they fell into the places they did.

with things going so well, let's see if i can avoid that crosstown bus.

hide out from the ones you know will love you

"i'm just so bloody over it. this boyfriend-as-band-aid syndrome."

"yeah, i hear you. it's pathetic."

"you know? it's like, get your shit together. no one's going to 'save you.'"

"right? maybe you should write a blog post about that."

i smirked, thinking of how this blog has become something of an extension of myself now, my life, like a place to hang my coat by the front door.

"yeah, maybe," i said.

****

"do you want to come over?" he asked, online, of course. "we could run those errands of yours. i'll help you. then maybe get some dinner?"

"yeah," i typed back, full of false enthusiasm. "that sounds like fun!" smiley face.

"oh, and bring some swimming trunks, maybe we can take a dip in the pool after dinner." winky face.

"yeah? that could be good. you know what they say about going swimming after you eat, though." winky face back.

"well, maybe we'll just have to think of something else then."

winky fucking face.

*****

last week, i was crossing the street, and i could swear someone who looked exactly like david was crossing from the other side of the street. he looked different, of course, like maybe he'd put on some weight or lost some hair or something, but i couldn't stop staring, waiting for the hint that this was not in fact david, that he was still in new york or who even knows anymore. he'd have no reason to be in melbourne. no reason to be back in my life, even tangentially. regardless of what i sometimes considered, maybe in some way wanted.

to recognize one another.

*****

i forget my swimming trunks and we never run those errands. i have been here before. i know how this works. assumed familiarity, which i suppose is necessary when it's only a matter of minutes before clothes are coming off and privacies invaded. we're in the bedroom, he's fiddling about with this and that on his dresser, i'm not sure if i should sit down on the bed. it's like halloween every day, and i keep recycling my "lady in waiting" costume.

and then he comes over to me, as if he is about to walk right through me, and so it begins.

here's the keys, you drive.

****

"well, when's the last time either of us has been in a healthy relationship?" jay asks, online, unfortunately.

"i know, right?"

"i mean, maybe we're all in something of an 'unhealthy relationship' until we're in the right one."

i agree, because it does seem quite simple, and i'm just too exhausted for complicated these days, but i want to ask if it's possible that it's still healthy, but it just doesn't work. or is it just the amount of sickness? what if it's just the flu, not a five-car pile-up that's ended in a fiery rage and you trapped in the passenger seat?

****

yesterday, on the tram, i said the name "david" in my head over and over, trying to attach recognition to the word. i don't know how this started, what track my train of thought had jumped onto. i suppose i'll never speak to him again, and the greater distance i get from the time our lives intersected, the more it seems like just some strange fever dream that i've awoken from, sweaty and confused, and asking constantly for almost two months now, where am i? where am i? where am i?


****

i read this fantastic quote in a book once. the main character is getting ready to meet a man she's been seeing quite uncertainly for dinner. throughout the story, she is visited by something of an imaginary relationship counselor trying to talk her down from the rooftop of her dating life.

"telling jokes is your way of asking, 'do you love me?' this mentor says as she's getting dressed that night. 'and when these men laugh, you think they've said yes."

it was as if someone had revealed my dirtiest, darkest secret. and the book was a bestseller--how many people that knew this! i put the book down and looked around, blinking away the sudden film of tears on my eyes.

****

"i might just lie and say i have a boyfriend, i don't know, say that we had taken a break and decided to get back together," i said later. "i just can't handle it--it's too intense."

"yeah," she said. "yeah, that'd be easy enough."

"i don't know, maybe i should be honest," i sighed, rolling my eyes. "just tell him that he's looking for more than i can give him."

i look back now, and i wonder: what am i trying to say here? he's asking for too much, or i'm incapable of giving more? this supply and demand of the heart.

****

and let's be honest, i can count on one hand the number of guys i actually liked, which means i've spent much of my time giving shit excuses to men i was too afraid to tell the truth to.

****

i've been here before, waking up at 6:30am in someone else's bed, curled up at the very edge, clutching the pillow and thinking, how quickly could i get out of here? i usually just go back to sleep, go through the motions of waking up (the inevitability of morning sex), having a shower, having breakfast, and gracefully making an exit. but one time, i ran. i slid out of bed, listening to his snores as i pulled on my clothes, closed my backpack (he lived two hours away; i was supposed to be there for the weekend) and held my shoes in my hand as i tiptoed out in my socks.

in the living room, i left a note. "thanks for the accommodations." i was angry at him, but moreso, i was angry at myself. what was i doing here? i knew in the months earlier that we'd spent chatting that this guy was no good for me. and did i really need this on the history books, another 40-something with a kid who can't understand him and an ex-wife who can't forgive him? (talk about validating those daddy issues.) and did i even have any right being pissed off that he was flirting with some surely underaged twink at the bar the night before while i stood a foot away, staring blankly at a drag queen and sighing into my vodka? (some things you can guarantee in life...)

but there i was, the next morning, slipping on my shoes and making my way to the door. scorned by someone i did not actually really know, and yet recognized almost instantly. i think some people's dysfunction fits together like puzzle pieces, and the picture they create is always an ugly one. i said i'd learned my lesson, but this was years ago. i hadn't, yet.

the moment i was out the door, zipping up my jacket against the frigid morning of an upstate new york winter, i started running for my car. i threw my bag on the passenger seat and slammed the door. i hit the lock, i don't know why, except i sort of do. i pulled out of the parking lot of his apartment complex and held my breath all the way to the highway.

****
ultimately, i'm sure, it wasn't david crossing the street that day. i'm sure if i did something crazy like dart through the crowds and grab his arm, i would realize on closer inspection he looked nothing like david, except the look of annoyed bewilderment on his face, which i might recognize from the tail-end of our relationship. and i would apologize and keep walking, my heart pounding in my throat for at least the next ten minutes.

and if it was david? what would i say? what would he say? i doubt i'd be able to even come up with a decent joke. i doubt he'd even laugh anymore.

****
"you know what? screw it," i said. "i think i'm just going to tell him the truth."

"absolutely," she said. "it's so much easier in the long run if you're just honest."

****

honestly? i knew i'd never get those errands done, and i forgot the swimming trunks on purpose.

winky face.

life is a maze and love is a riddle

who isn’t genuinely tired of the question, “what am i doing in australia?” let’s just assume from now on that i’m asking it every day. i think i do at least one thing every day hoping the answer will be lying in the experience. i can’t put pen to paper without trying to draw a map for myself. i analyze everything.

if we’ve talked, i’ve analyzed our conversation later on, waiting on a corner for the tram to come rumbling up the street, or walking to the library to use the internet every day, until we finally get this modem set up in our apartment. (ivy and i are so perfect for each other, i think, because we are equally scattered about these things and over time, none too bothered about it.) or wandering a park, or sitting in a food court eating a sushi roll by myself. or doing a price-comparison on cereals. i’m deciding if saving 70 cents is worth the possibility of a bland breakfast, but i’m also looking for meaning in that thing you said to me that i pretended to not hear.

in related news, i’ve started this twelve-week self-guided course called “the artist’s way.” jay did it, and not-always-gently insisted i start it for months before leaving new york, and i always said, “okay, okay, yeah, i’ll try it.” i kept thinking, “but the book is on your bedroom floor, it’s yours, and i’m going to want to cuddle with it at night.” nevermind the book i’m using now is on loan from the aforementioned library, and i’ll have to extend the loan period at least three times in order to complete the course, but still. i think it just wasn’t the right time. i needed to come to australia, shake off the fixings of my life, like layers worn in winter weather, and then put it on.

it’s related news, because it’s required me to write three pages every morning of essentially anything that comes to my mind. it’s a blank canvas for analyzing. i am generally incapable of free thought. all of my thoughts are quite constrained to the requirements i have for any of my writing. it has to be somewhat linear, it all has to serve the purpose of one topic, everything has to work. the point of these “morning pages” as they’re called is to get all of the thoughts blocking you from writing out onto paper and out of your way. the book suggests this might be hardest for writers doing the course, as they will have to resist actually writing. i have to resist writing and editing, and forming a thesis, and tying it all up in the end with some clever line that somehow references how this all began. (the method to my madness with this blog, mind you.)

but i’m five days in, and i’m slowly accepting what needs to be done. i have had terrible writer’s block for a while, and it’s been an effort enough to write in this blog (hence the two-week break at the beginning of this month) and my theory—which is hardly original or groundbreaking—is that my writing and my personal life are inextricably connected. certainly that’s been manifested entirely in the mere fact that i am writing a personal blog, but when it comes to fiction or playwriting or anything else i might attempt (hello, poetry, my old pen-pal from childhood! i have not written to you in ages!) i think the groundlessness, the aimlessness of life right now is constantly leading me astray from whatever source of creativity i am able to tap into when i feel like i’m growing from roots in the ground.

but i think this is much like the stages of grief, insomuch that there are stages. there are rooms we must pass through to get to the next room to get to our rooms, a place we can relax and call home. the way i look at it right now, it’s like i’ve just moved into this house and taken all of my stuff out of the bags and boxes i moved it in, and now it’s all scattered around me and waiting to be put somewhere. i’m sitting in the middle of my new living room floor, looking at the pieces of my life, and saying, “okay, where am i going to put everything?”

and with all of this newness, a very particular brand of homesickness sets in. i’ve come to romanticize new york, in particular the couple months before i left, but certainly even the times before that, the rougher waters. in new york, i thought, “in college, all of this was some exquisite agony, because i could just skip class and order pizza and lay on the couch, and it didn’t really matter.” but now i look back at new york and think, “what exquisite agony, because i had my work to focus on, and my friends at work to keep it fun, and i could spend hours in central park, and order pizza and lay on the couch, and no one had to know.” i don’t quite know what the idea is here. perhaps the lesson to learn is that every stage of life is full of comforts.

certainly here, while i’m still unemployed, i can wake up whenever i want, lay around the house, go to the library, go get lunch, go for a walk around the neighborhood, and eventually catch up with someone for a drink or dinner or a night out. i think it’s not that i don’t have plenty of life’s comforts here in australia, it’s more like learning how to translate another language into the words you didn’t realize you knew all along.

and the more of this new life i continue to translate, the more i answer the question, “what am i doing in australia?” right now, today, i’m translating. i’m learning the language so i can start to speak it quite fluently, and soon, discover that it always made sense.

i just had to keep with it. even if that requires a fair bit of analyzing. obviously, the question, “what am i doing in australia?” is far simpler than the answer. there will be dozens of answers, as i will discover a year or so from now. so maybe i could just accept the analyzing. it’s my purpose.

i came to australia to analyze everything.

even that thing you said.

we have loaded up your eyes and fed you tangerines

my apologies for the disappearing act. i may well have lost all of you, but my flight path led me briefly astray. or something pertaining to this whole metaphor of me flying (south).

i won't waffle on forever with this one, but at least give a brief update on where things are, now a scant month and a half into australia. the short of it is i've moved into my own place, with my new roommate ivy, who's the best thing next to two-for-one drink specials and bartenders with a heavy pouring hand. i don't have a job yet, but i have been going out a fair bit, and taking regular vodka baths in public, much to my eventual embarrassment the next morning in bed (and sometimes, even my own bed...). champagne may have proven herself to be quite capable, but nobody knows me like vodka knows me.

there is drama. there's always a bit of drama.

i admittedly hit a weak spot about a week or so ago, where it seemed i was really swimming in the question, "what am i doing here?" and quite privately, whispered to myself the possibility of just packing it all in and going back to new york. but clearly, that is when you should most assuredly stay put, because that means the life lessons have arrived for the learning. i'm never having the nervous breakdown i like to claim i'm having (i have admitted in the past, in regards to other topics but certainly applicable here, that i can talk a big game) but as my mother said on the phone last night, "you're always the most surprised of anyone by your ability to be just fine."

fair enough.

give me a good twenty-four hours to realign, and i'll have something solid for you. the good news is that i think the emotional dust has settled, and while there is a bit of bs going on in other fields, it's certainly nothing that's got me laying on the kitchen floor playing with the dust bunnies.

it appears we are touching down with a relatively smooth landing.