Settling In.

I unpacked my last box yesterday.  It was a beautiful thing.  Now I just need to find somewhere to recycle the cardboard and take out all the trash bags.

I have a ton of shit.

I never want to move again.

But I will.  One day I'm sure I'll be living in a little shit-box apartment in San Francisco or Chicago trying to make a living as an opera choruster.

Or I'll be an accountant.

I'm feeling much better about things.  I love my house and my roommates.  My room is organized and uncluttered (mostly).  I think I'm going to be okay in my classes.  My voice lesson times are pinned down and I even have a deal with my roommate that we'll go to the gym together three times per week. 

Moving was tough, though.

I hadn't sorted through most of my things since I moved out of my apartment and I had to deal with all those sort of residual feelings that still hadn't been exorcised.  Last Monday night I packed and listened to Adele's album 21 for a good three hours at least.  I spent much of the time weeping.  Music is such a powerful thing and can affect me like nothing else in the world has the ability to do.  Sometimes I can relate to it far too well.

I kept finding little things Bambi had given me or I'd saved from the time I was with him while I was unpacking.  Most all of it is torn up and/or in the garbage now.  The Cork is there where it belongs.  I probably should have burned it, but I don't have a barbeque.    The clothes are in a bag that I'll be taking to Goodwill soon because they are in good shape and some of them are pretty nice.  Plus, poor people can always use sweatshirts. 

There's only one item I'm not throwing out.






It's silver and definitely old.  When he gave it to me he told me it had been his grandmother's jewelery box.  She was the only woman I ever felt he had more love for than me.  She was the only woman I think he ever respected. 

I can't bring myself to throw it away because it's too nice.  I don't feel right giving it to Goodwill yet because it represents a relationship I had with a woman I unfortunately was never able to meet during her lifetime, but who I feel was there with me through many of the terrible things I've experienced in the last few years, especially with him.  I would not be the person I am today without her.

However, it was still a gift from him.

So my plans for it look a little like this:



I can blow these up for days and never run out, thanks to the Women's Clinic in Redding and their insistence on giving me a lunch sack full of condoms every time I went to get birth control or a bv check.  And this made me happier than using it as a candy dish or q-tip holder.

I feel like I really am finally free.  I think that's why it doesn't hurt to get rid of all these things anymore.  I just don't want them around because I will get tired of being reminded of him.  There is so much more in store for me than wasting my life on someone that...  Pointless.

Please excuse me while I take out the rest of my trash.

Out with the old, in with the new mentality. 




Oh, and by the way, I'm pretty sure I'm falling in love with my new life.

But It Feels Like My Eyes Are Shut.

It's hot in my house tonight. 

I was sweating while trying to print stuff earlier.  Which, by the way, is kind of a pain in the ass right now.  I thought I had my printer fixed after purchasing new ink and installing new drivers to my laptop.  And it works perfectly...  As long as I only have to print in color.  It's kinda sketchy looking if I have to print anything black.  And by sketchy I mean it doesn't wanna. 

This would be fine if the one thing I really needed to print wasn't blank music paper.

I'm almost through my first week of University. 

So far it's been a mix of completely amazing/exciting and incredibly frustrating.  The end result was that I took two naps this week.

I moved to Modesto only a week ago.  It feels like I've been here a month already.  I've hardly had any free time.  And what little free time I do have has pretty much been spent unpacking, cleaning the kitchen, or hanging out with the roomies. I'm almost completely done unpacking; there's just my box of dvds that I don't know what to do with.  They may end up under my AMAZING bed.  After maybe I'll post pictures of my room. 

Either that or I'll go to Santa Cruz for the weekend and forget completely.

Sleep Blogging.

Dear Blogland,

I thought I should probably check in.  It feels like it's been a while. 

So, I'm finally moved into my new house with my amazing roommates.  I've been here officially for four days.  I feel as if it's been weeks-- in a good way.  An excellent way.

Friday night one of my best friends in the world came to stay a night and help me unpack.  She didn't leave until today.  We did almost no unpacking.  You should see my room.  It's terrible. 

Side note:  I really wanted to be super organized and unpacked by the time school started (tomorrow).  I failed miserably; most of my clothing is still in the bags and boxes it's been packed in for over a week, which are all sitting on my obviously chaotic bedroom floor.  And you know what?  I don't care.  For the first time in a long time, my neurotic and anal-retentive self doesn't give a fuck.

I feel amazing.

I know it will get done in the next couple of days and I'm okay with that.  I had a lot of errands I had to do and a lot of experiences I would have missed out on by being a fuddy-duddy at home with my clothes.

My bed is set up and beautiful.  My furniture is all in the right places.  I have my stereo hooked up and the rest of the house has been done forever.  My roommates are amazing.  And it's awesome to feel so comfortable and at-home in our space.  I love it.

Today we took a road trip to San Francisco to see the opera in the park at Stern Grove.  I have never been.  It was FABULOUS.

The park was ridiculously beautiful, full of Eucalyptus trees and green grass, and the singers were beautiful people with beautiful voices.

Plus, we got to meet up with an old friend from our "high school" days (one day I should probably explain to you all how I spent high school) for some laughs and good food at Pizza Orgasmica.

All in all, I think I'm starting off my university experience perfectly.

Just perfectly.

Getting Oriented.

I swear I'm going to talk about my tattoos this week.

Seriously.

I just don't have the pictures right now. I feel bad because I've been saying I was going to do it for a month now.


First things first.

This weekend, three days stretched into two weeks.

My orientation for school was Friday, so one of my roommates (G-Raffe) and I drove down to Modesto Thursday night after I got off work. Our other roommate (Button) has been staying there with a couple friends for the last month and a half or so. We crashed on their couch.

I got four hours of sleep, got up at seven, and went to my orientation at eight.

Not that I wanted to go to orientation. I just wanted to sign up for classes. Which you're not allowed to do unless you go to orientation. And pay the $75 to attend orientation.

There was a warning that if we didn't get there by eight we'd be locked out. Yet they forced us to watch a slideshow with pictures of clubs and Katy Perry songs until nine.

Then they talked. Then they made us play games. Then they took us on a tour. Then we had to listen to them talk for another hour and a half before they fed us.

Lunch was close to an hour and a half long with tables set up in direct sunlight only.

I am white. (On the outside; internally I really identify more as Native American. My skin just doesn't really agree.)

By one I was red. And white. My dress had a square neckline. Now my cleavage is all weird.



My armpit is super sexy. Almost as great as my strapline.

After lunch we finally got to meet with our academic advisors and register for classes. I finished early, got my student id early, and still didn't get out of orientation until almost three.

I was grumpy, to say the least.

Since Button was at work, G-Raffe and I met a friend at his house and he made us dinner, which was quite delicious. It had been incredibly hot all day, so after dessert we sat around the edge of the pool in his backyard and soaked our feet in the water.

I went to check the time on my phone and didn’t understand why I couldn’t read the screen when I pressed the button. Then I realized a snail had wandered up onto my phone. It was kind of adorable, waving its little antennae at me.

I washed my phone immediately after.

We picked Button up from work and went over to Target, where we purchased a ton of cleaning supplies for our house.

Button got up super early and went to work at seven Saturday morning. We picked him up at eleven and went to the bank, then went to sign the lease on our awesome townhouse. We were able to start moving some of his things after two. Then we went to Home Depot to rent the flatbed truck in order to move the larger things. Their computers were down, so we had to go rent the truck from Lowe’s. We ended up not moving the furniture, so it just made moving the boxes faster and easier.

Driving the Lowe’s flatbed truck with three people in the cab and the back full of stuff is a lot different than driving my little Honda Fit. I felt like I would never be able to get my speed up, and as soon as I started to a stoplight turned red and I had to slow down really fast. Luckily, nothing fell out of the back. We must have done a good job packing. Maybe.

After returning the truck we tried to look at a few appliances. We realized how late it was and G-Raffe and I made the decision that it would be better to stay the night than to drive back as late as we were probably going to have to as tired as we were. This also enabled us to help Button out with a couple more things before we left Sunday. And we had a floor pizza and slumber party.

I’m kind of glad we ended up staying, even if we did have to sleep on the floor with hardly any blankets or pillows. Now we can say we spent the first night in our house together.

I feel like I’m trapped between two worlds for now. One is the world in which I currently live and the other is the world awaiting me in Modesto. The world in Modesto is ready for me to enter it (and in a lot of ways I’m ready to go) and the world here is somewhere between pushing me out of it and suffocating me so I can never leave.

I finally started packing yesterday.

I’ve never really taken my time to pack. Every time I’ve had to move since becoming an adult has been rushed. And when I moved into my old apartment I was able to make a bunch of trips. When I moved out I pretty much shoved everything into my mom’s CRV and a trailer and fled.

This time I’m moving four hours away and I have to take furniture and everything. I have to actually go through the crap that I’ve accumulated over the last three years of living here. And the crap from before that, as well.

That being said, between knowing my financial situation, knowing where I’m going to live, and knowing what my classes will be, I’m surprisingly less stressed than I’ve been in months.