april in pictures

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dependency

I was talking with this guy (a guy!!) at a party, and we were watching my and some other kids running around, and out comes the perfunctory small talk re: kids--Oh if only we had that much energy!--as if an invisible hand is somehow forcing us to stand in place, not allowing us to put down our beers, forbidding our feet to move. Ahh, adulthood.

So he says something like, how do kids have so much energy? and I respond, you know, I wonder when we lose this. And he replies, college, maybe? Which says a lot about a person, probably. My chronic ennui set in around high school, so this guy clearly does not have as many issues as I do. Naturally, I pretend, that for me too, I lost my endless energy in college. So what is it about college, then, I ask, and he answers, I don't know, you start drinking alcohol, needing coffee in the morning. He trails off. That's it! I say, It's chemical dependence, and he laughs, because we have just solved the universe.

I'm thinking about this, because I'm at the dentist, waiting for L in the waiting room, and I had this thought that if I was a millionaire, or an entrepreneur, or you know, had any more energy or motivation, I would totally start a chain of coffee carst that followed around bedraggled parents and adults. I would park right outside daycares, elementary schools, outside the waiting rooms of dentists and doctors.

And then I realized that I have an unhealthy chemical dependence caffeine and I should probably do something about that.  Like, eventually. Sometime. Maybe.

Lena's new morning routine. She says, "I like watching birds with Antigone."

running together

I've been reading books lately that have been set in San Francisco, and they are all first person-ish narratives, and they're all mid-thirties drifter dudes, and it is really hard to keep them straight. They are, The Dead Do Not Improve by Jay Caspian Kang, A Working Theory of Love by Scott Hutchins, and Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.

so many things

I've been wanting so badly to sit down and write, but for what feels like the first time in a lot more times to come, there just isn't time. 

I'm moving tomorrow.

I saw my friend Mikey last week, and I said, I can't believe it's happening so fast. And he said, Yeah, that's what happens when you actually do what you've been talking about doing. I laughed, of course, because it's so true, but it also didn't occur to me until later (much later) that hey, I've got a lot of people rooting for me. And a lot of people who have been listening to me talk about wanting to move out and be on my own, and now that time has come. So...yeah. I'm doing it.

I did realize something. I suck at packing! I might have an anxiety disorder! Why can I get nothing done! Why can I make no decisions right now!

My mind is only thinking in lists. I walk from my car to work, from work to car, car to daycare, and my mind has this constant litany throbbing in my mind. Toys, books, kitchen. And then the need list: toilet paper, detergent, garbage bags. (Oh yeah I need to bring garbage bags from home when I move in tomorrow.)

I MOVE OUT TOMORROW. I'm not sure I even realize how big this is. It only took me five goddamn years, but I am finally moving out of my parents house. I'm moving out of my parents house!

Oh, and it's springtime, finally. Somewhere between the endless lists and the one line of Macklemore's 'Thrift Shop' that runs through my head ("I'm gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket"), the old me pops through. 

Yup. Still got it. 

Happy spring y'all. 

**

Oh one last thing. I used to think that fall was my favorite season. Because fall is edgy, and summer ends, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and sweaters and layering and all that. But man, after a long winter? Anyone that doesn't love spring is probably a psychopath, that's all I'm saying.