As each box is unpacked, broken down, and thrown out, life is slowly starting to wind back down into a normal routine. Moving is an incredibly stressful event, and I've already decided not to move again until I have enough money saved up to hire movers to do it for me. I've also decided not to move again until I am done with my time here in SoCal, or until I get married/shack up with a life partner. Neither are happening any time really soon, and so I can relax and melt into a puddle of domestically-blissed-out Mel goo.

I do like it here. Already I have learned the funny little quirk of life down here in the desert: do it (it being anything) or don't do it at all, and wait until October. Almost everywhere else in the country, people get outdoors during the summer and hole up in the winter; here it's the other way around. 115 degrees is simply too punishing. I find myself day-dreaming a lot about places like Seattle and Asheville, places that are mountainous and cool and rainy and cloudy and humid, but when I catch myself, I shrug it off. And remind myself to put on more sunscreen.

The cats are doing alright with the move, too. Maggie doesn't seem to be fazed at all; Austen, well, he's another story. He's not the brightest kitty, but the first thing he learned at the new place was to pry open a kitchen drawer and dive inside whenever he gets scared. Sometimes I wish I could fit in there with him!

Last night I tried my hand at cooking, with mixed results. I found a recipe for ground-turkey-stuffed peppers which looked yummy...I added the correct amount of milk to the turkey-flour mixture, but I found it a little too runny for my tastes. I added rice to the recipe, but added it a little too late in the process so it's not entirely cooked, and the whole recipe is not spicy enough. I am excited, though...I think this will be a great recipe to experiment with until I perfect it into my version.

Tomorrow I am going off to San Pedro in the evening to visit my cousins before they move away to another phase in their army life. I am not due over there until later, so I think I am going to get a little adventurous and explore the Queen Mary over in Long Beach. Given my penchant for calamity, it will be a brilliant stroke of luck if I manage to sink the old girl.

Over and out, folks. Have a great weekend!

Living It Up, Singles-Style

So much has happened in the past month...things that seem pretty cruddy at the time, even as you intellectually know that it's all happening for your own good. But all of it pales in comparison with the biggest event of the year: I moved.

In fact, I am currently hanging out in my own home, my Palm Springs condo (rented, not purchased) sipping champagne out of a shotglass that my colleague gave me. Why a shotglass and not a lovely, elegant, art-nouveau-style glass flute? Well, the flutes are packed away, the plastic shot glasses were accessible, and oh my god give me alcohol NOW!

Moving is effing hard work. And you always find out who your true friends are when you move. This move was such a protracted affair, and when the actual furniture got moved, it was apporximately 1,003 degrees outside. But it's over, for the most part; all that's left is the best part, which is unpacking and organizing and cleaning and decorating and making it my home. I will stay here for at least three years (simply because I am sick of moving, and I love my job), and it's nice to think about what can unfold here in this time. Maybe I'll write a novel, or find real love and companionship as opposed to a stop-gap measure. Maybe I'll learn to grill on the charcoal grill the previous tenants obligingly left behind. Maybe I will entertain some, and learn to knit. Maybe there should be no "maybe" about any of these possibilities.

At the end of the day, all I know is this: this is the first place I have wanted to live in a very long time. I moved to California because I had to, because the alternative was staying in Indiana and feeling like a mooch with M. and gambling on a very problematic relationship and giving his mother more ammunition against me. I moved to Beaumont because I needed to be close to work and my colleagues. But I moved to Palm Springs because I found a great place to live, in a great city. Except for the lack of heterosexual men, of course. But I found a place where I wanted to be, and for the first time in 2 years, I feel as though I had a choice.

Now pass me that champagne, please.

Can a Girl Be Too Responsible?

Lately, I haven't been sleeping well, at all.

I used to be able to sleep like a log, and sometimes I still do. But a lot of the time, I have a hard time getting to sleep, and an even harder time staying there. Too, my dreams are so vivid and intense and sometimes dangerous-feeling that they further keep me from sleeping soundly.

A lot of it has to do with anxieties over certain wildcards in my life, certain situations that are fine in the short term but untenable in the long term; situations that will require honest introspection, confrontation, and maybe causing someone pain. (Not fun.) And then, career anxieties keep me up too, although at the end of the day, "worry makes small things have a big shadow" and when you are a worrywart, slightly OCD, a tiny bit paranoid, and a neurotic perfectionist, everything seems big and fatal to a career.

Yesterday, I had a long overdue talk with one of my sisters; she provided me with an interesting perspective. She works to fund the things she likes to do outside of work. "I hate to work! If I could go on welfare, I would!" I got a chortle out of that, but her words did make me think a little. Right now, it feels as though I am working for the sake of the work I love...I love my work, and therefore take it home with me (at least in my head) every night. I am not focusing a lot on the more selfish rewards that come along with work--i.e., the money and the fun that can come along with having more of a discretionary income. Every spare cent I am socking away to pay for the move, get some nice stuff (television, anyone?) and still have a nest egg left over. So I am not really enjoying the rewards of my work, and I certainly don't do much outside of work. I guess that can make a girl lose sight of things, a little.
But what is saving money but delaying present gratification in anticipation of future reward?

That will be all good and well, so long as I do start to live a little more and reward myself when I move. At the very least, I should find some activities to fund!

Who Needs Chick-Lit When You Can Read My Blog?

In theory, I love chick-lit novels. It's a few rungs above bodice rippers on the Literature Ladder to Author's Heaven, sure, but reading them is fun, because hey, it makes me feel a little better that here I am at almost 28, not married, living in the slums of Sunnydale, not livin' large. If Bridget Jones is okay with it, then hey, I am too.

But I haven't read a lot of them in the past year, and last week, I figured out why. My life is enough of a chick-lit without having to read about it.

Crazy family? Check.

Job that keeps me jumping? Check.

Complicated love life? Checkcheckcheck.

Skanky apartment? Check.

Quirky friends with their own chick-lits going on? Check. Which segues nicely into the story that I am about to tell.

A friend of mine recently manifested a job down in San Diego, where she has wanted to live since moving to Southern California. Finally, it happened. Then she had to go and find herself some nice digs, and so it was thus that she spent last weekend flat-hunting in downtown San Diego. I accompanied her for moral support, amusement, and the interrogations to which I force leasing agents to submit. (I've moved about nine times since 2002; you get used to asking these questions. You know: What utilities are included? Are pets allowed? the usual.)

We find her a nice apartment: big enough, with a washer and dryer in the unit, parking included, lovely view. She signs the application, and we return to the Armpit Inland Empire. On the ride up, my friend calls her mom and excitedly begins describing her new place. Concerned mother does a little research on apartmentratings.com, and it was then that we learned that there's another question that I need to add to my interrogation, right between asking about the pet policy and how late the pool is open: Has anyone ever been murdered or met an untimely death in this apartment unit? Because it became apparent that someone had been murdered in that apartment building.

After a few minutes of all of us freaking out, I whip out my mad information mistress skills and start consulting actual, legitimate sources. Damned if I am going to buy Google Gossip. In this case, the Internets had a point: some poor guy was strangled in the apartment building a couple of years back. It was a hate crime, which makes it all the sadder. We also learned that it was on the same floor of the unit she had just applied for, but we could not determine whether or not it was her unit. Could she split her rent with Casper? I posited this question, which didn't go over well.

In the end, it all turned out okay. Poor Mr. Murder Victim wasn't killed in her apartment unit, at least, so we should not be expecting any spectral phenomenon soon. Damn! It would have made such great chicklit fodder.

In the meantime, I think I need to buy a ouija board for all future flat hunting missions. Of course, that would take the element of surprise away from things. What's your 20-something years without a few unexpected things that go bump in the night?

You've Been Warned

My sister told me about this site. She warned me about this site. It's Internet crack for females. But it's so wonderful!

My two first Polyvore creations:

Ladies, I pass this torch on to you.

Maybe This Is Why My Car Hates Me...

Observations from the 20-something life, part 1:

When you're beginning to worry that, because of all the junk in it, your vehicle will be mistaken for that of the homeless patron who hangs out at the library every day, you know it's time to clean out the car.

Oh yes, definitely time.

Songs of Leaving...

Seems like I've spent a goodly portion of the last several years saying goodbye and leave-taking. I think it's one of the hazards of pursuing a graduate degree and devoting a portion of your life to pursuing a career--the path requires you to move some, lose some, say some goodbyes, and hang out with people who are doing the same. So not only are you parting from people and places that you have grown to love--or at least accept--but often, you are left behind. People say good-bye to you, too.

And when I say you, I really mean me. And maybe you, too, but firstly, me.

I remember reading somewhere (was it in one of Peter Gethers' books?) that any sort of parting brings us pain, because it ultimately reminds us of death, of our own mortality. I used to think that was a bit of a stretch, quite a leap, but not really, not anymore. Goodbyes of any type are hard, really hard. And if you're certain red head with a contemplative, dysthymic streak, goodbyes are good reasons to get good and quiet and sad and thoughtful for a good few weeks.

It was just a conference. Sure, on one level, it was just a conference, but on another level, one that relates back to my own life, it was also the first time I had returned to a region that I continue to love, stupidly and persistently, long after the region stopped loving me. More and more, I see that my love of the Midwest has been and will always be an unrequitted love. I have never been able to explain it to anyone, why I've loved the Midwest, Indiana in particular, so much. I don't know that I will ever be able to explain it. I know that it goes back to my childhood, some sense of rhythm and stability and normalcy that I knew I lacked, and that I somehow got into my head that a life in Middle America could have provided me. And I never really, truly realized it until I moved there and fell in love with Michael and thought we were going to live on a leafy, tree-lined, suburban street for the rest of our days, and finally I would have that normal family, that rhythmic life, that stability and security that I had always dreamed of.

The real lesson, the real gift that I came away with was that there is no stability or security. Not now, not ever. Not with a job, or without, not with a husband and children, or without. There's no true safety, no lasting security. Only comforting but fleeting moments in which we feel secure and experience a stable life, but never true and lasting stability. This realization still doesn't stop me from wanting a home and husband and family, but at least maybe it will keep me from going completely stupid the next time I experience the belief that there's a ultimate happy-ever-after.

When the plane lifted off the frozen Minnesota ground this morning, I cried. There is a song of leaving in my heart, one that I have been carrying around for two years, but haven't been able to sing.

But I think the music is starting...