The Waiting is the Hardest Part

Driving back to Spokane from Seattle is always difficult for me. Interstate Ninety goes across Washington (and all the way to Boston, for that matter), but to get to that freeway I have to drive on the Five South (which stretches from Canada to Mexico) for a few miles. This time was the hardest: a full tank of gas, a good eight hours before I would be missed, enough clothes to get by for a while.

In my head, I know that Seattle is not much closer to LA than Spokane is - only about a hundred and fifty mile difference, since from Spokane one cuts through the middle of Oregon. Pythagorean theorem at work, there. But being on that road, it seems so much closer, so much more possible. Yesterday I cried as, at the last second, I took the exit for I-Ninety. Twice I nearly turned around and went back, ran south.

But I know that I can not go back, not yet. I have school starting soon. I have a job. But two years is so long to wait to be back. So much can happen in that time, and I am so afraid that I will never be able to return. I constantly fear that I am losing my friendships, that I will end up alone.

I am still angry that I was forced to come here. I am still lonely and hurting. I do not know if I will heal from it, because it hurts, awfully. I do not know if I want the pain to lessen, if I want to be comfortable and happy here. I want to go back; I do not want to become complacent here, stuck here forever. I am so scared of that.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

I Worry Too Much, Probably

Esmeralda will not eat. I have not fed her since the week before I went to California...May sixteenth? Nearly three weeks. She should be hungry by now. But on Sunday she sat in the bathtub staring at the rat (who was fairly freaked out) for about four hours. Then she finally decided she was bored and started to climb up the faucet. I kept the rat overnight in my small carrying cage that I use when I take her to the vet, and tried again on Monday. Same story, except she started climbing in only about one hour rather than four this time. By that time on Monday, the pet store where I buy rats was already closed, so I kept it overnight again (my goodness, rats smell horrid! it slept outside that night.) and took it to the store in the morning.

I explained what was going on, and asked if I could have an "IOU one rat" or something, since I did not have anything else to do with it, and was fairly ill-equipped to keep it until Esmi was ready to eat. Luckily, the gentleman working knows me by now (since I come in every week or two to buy a rat) and was willing to do just that. So now I have an IOU for a rat, which is amusing to me.

And I have a snake who will not eat. I do not know what is wrong. She is not due to shed for another month or so. She is not having any digestion problems. She is being fairly active, and looks healthy. She has never refused food before. My mom thinks that maybe she is finally full - I moved up to rats from mice about two months ago. Perhaps I will not have to feed her as often now. They are rather large. I will try again in a week. I am not sure what I will do if she continues to not eat at that time. But I likely am too worried, and she is probably fine. We shall see.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Itsy-Bitsy Pieces of My Life

Esmeralda is shedding, which always frightens me a bit. I have a rough spot on my neck from scratching it while I had a cold last week, and wondered this morning if I were due to shed, as well. When I was at the optometrist's office today, there was a girl in the waiting room named Esmeralda, and it startled me when they called her. I jerked my head up, and ended up making very awkward eye-contact with her for a few seconds. This was the first time in my life, in all my many years of eye exams, that the assistant was able to perform the glaucoma test on the first try. I hate that test. The blue light coming toward my eye and pressing against it, even though the drops numb the nerve endings so I can not feel it, terrifies me. I was quite pleased with myself for making it through this time. Being there made me keep thinking about Blindness, which I finished reading last week. An excellent book, perhaps the best I have read in a long time. I was fascinated by the author's use of punctuation, which did as much for the pace of the book as the plot itself did. I miss reading a lot. I used to read several books per week, and now it takes me a week to read one. But I am trying to continue reading new books, rather than becoming one who only reads books she has read before. My other new book that I finished recently was If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, which I liked decidedly less. But it seemed to me that part of the author's intent was that the reader should feel the unease I felt at it, so that was somewhat consoling. Next is The Master and Margarita, which my sister has wanted me to read for several years. I had no time or energy to do so during school, but I plan to pick it up starting tomorrow. The trouble I find with reading a lot is, of course, that which so many discover they have. That is, I do not lack time, but I do not feel like reading during that time which I have. I am working eight hours a day, and while I am not working I would like to be mindless. Television is more attractive for that reason, although I dislike television in general. I do not want to lose that mind which was cultivated so carefully over the past four years. My job is horrid at times. We are still in training, having just entered the second week. The hours are awful, and it is a noxious environment to be in. But I have hope that things will improve after training is through, when I am actually in a small, colorless box answering and selling phones. Hard to imagine that that would be a step up, is it not? My soul aches, here. I had thought that I was doing so well, finally getting used to being here again, but tonight after work, my soul started hurting for California again. For my friends, for the places and people I love so much. Oh, how I dislike change, when it is change away from what is good. But I can see ahead. This is not the end. This horrid position is a means to an end, and I will not be there forever. All my applications to graduate school are in, and now I have only to wait. Some say that is the hardest part, but I think it is much easier than agonizing over essays. It is out of my hands; there is a certain ease that comes from that, a sigh of relief. I hope to get into Fullerton. I hope to move back, to finally live with Adria, to study and relax with friends once more. I have few friends here. I hope when I return I will still have many friends there. I am so awful at staying in touch, I fear I may be losing people. My main problem is that I never know what to say. So I say nothing, and they do the same, and we fall away in our respective silences. The underlying issue here is that it is not the conversation that I miss, but the silent presence. I miss most those with whom I can sit quietly, or walk quietly. I miss those with whom there is that quiet understanding that silence is okay, and the silence of not being in contact is so very different than the silence of two people sitting and reading, knowing that the other is there if something does need to be said. I miss that so very much. That is all I can write for now, not because there are no other small pieces of my life I can think of about which to write, but rather because that last bit can not very well lead into any of them.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily

Post-Script Edit: In re-reading this, I realized the ambiguity of one of my sentences. In the sentence I miss reading a lot, a lot should not be taken as the amount that I miss, (eg, reading. I miss it a lot) but the amount of reading I miss (eg, reading lots of books. I miss that).

JobJobJob (take two)

Employment comes to me, yet again. Finally. I will begin working on Monday for ICT. I actually do not really know what I will be doing, specifically. That is, I know I will be answering phones in a call center, but beyond that I am not sure exactly what the job entails. However, the first three weeks are training (a long training, for merely answering phones!) so I am sure I will learn what to do before I actually begin the real job.

The hours of training are a bit horrid: two in the afternoon until ten at night, monday through friday. I have no idea why it is at that time. I like not having to get up at five, but being at work until ten? That is something I had hoped to leave behind me at the library. After the initial three weeks of training, though, I will get a different schedule, five days per week (either monday through friday or tuesday through saturday; I have requested the latter) with hours sometime between six in the morning and eight in the evening. (What is the limit between evening and night? I feel like five o'clock starts evening...and perhaps that nine or ten begins night. Though I have a tendency to say five in the afternoon, and ten in the evening, because in college sometimes midnight still feels like evening.)

It has full benefits (after ninety days), and pays rather well (considering that it is answering phones), so that is nice. Really, any money will be nice. Being able to pay my student loans off would be lovely, as would being able to continue to afford my telephone, and to buy a good heat lamp for Esmeralda's tank (it is too cold, here), and to save money up so that I can perhaps afford to attend grad school in the autumn.

I will, of course, update you when I find out more what exactly the job entails, and whether I will survive it without going insane. I certainly hope I will be able to. It would not be much use saving enough money for grad school if I went insane in the process, rendering myself unable to attend after all.

Blessings in your travels,
Emily.

Discipline and Procrastination

I tend to be one of those people who put off a ten-minute task for days or weeks at a time. For example, I finally just updated my blogroll list on the right side of my page. Silly and small, perhaps, but something that I thought about doing every day, but always put off. Other things are not so silly or small. I have no discipline in my life, and I need it desperately. Even college did not provide enough structure for me. I need maximum structure in order to really be productive. High school was good for me in that way - nevermind that those providing the structure did not really teach me anything. Two separate issues, there.

Other things that fall into this problematic category:
- cleaning my room
- applying for jobs
- applying for grad schools
- prayer
- reading
- eating (sometimes. like now, for example. I am hungry, it is nearly two hours past lunch-time, but I do not feel like putting in the effort of fixing and eating lunch)
- blogging and/or journaling
- staying in touch with friends
- shopping for Christmas presents (two actually valid reasons for putting this off are my lack of money and my dislike for shopping)
- buying a mouse for Esmeralda to eat
- filling Esmeralda's water dish
- responding to emails
- figuring out student loan stuff

Pretty much everything I ought to be doing in my life, when I look at it all typed out there. Tragic.

So, what am I actually doing with my life, then?! Not much. Sitting around thinking how I ought to do things. Playing solitaire and/or minesweeper. Reading through archives of comics. What a sad, sad existence.

Every once in a while I do actually get something done. I applied for four jobs this morning, and now I am updating my blog. And I do plan on eating sometime today...sigh. I really need to get my act together. But I do not know how to start having discipline in my life. With no definite deadlines, I lose my motivation. With no bells and schedules and teachers, I have nothing to keep me on track. I have an agenda that I try to use, but it requires internal motivation. As I mentioned, that is lacking. Blah. Off to find lunch.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.

I...do not understand.

So, I continue to torture myself by reading the housing classifieds folder on BUBBS (for those non-school folk, that is our email/message board system). And, because old habits die hard, instead of having the housing folder on my desktop, I have the general classifieds folder (even though I do not really read that one anymore). Today as I was passing through there, there was a post titled "adorable mouse." I was curious, mostly because I have never really viewed rodents as being worthy of adoration. So I opened it, and was greeted by this this text:

I have a beautiful Albino mouse that needs a home. I'm looking for someone who is loving and gentle and prefers calm electronic music, that is what my mouse is used to. Also, I will only sell the mouse with the condition that you promise to keep it's birth name "The Dog". She is really quite sweet and well behaved and loves it when you open doors for her so if you are interested in purchasing The Dog please contact me. She has alot of personal and emotional importance to me and she is so well trained so I am charging $45 or the highest offer. Please don't argue over her with your friends if many of you want her, she's a one man mouse and so you will have to figure it out via a gentleman's dual, that is how The Dog would prefer it.

Um...what? I have read this over several times, and honestly can not figure out if this person is being serious or not. BUBBS does not always allow for sarcasm to come across very well. My inclination is that it is a joke...but what if it is not? Would someone actually pay forty-five dollars for a mouse? A white mouse? You can buy a white mouse at PetSmart for about two dollars. I should know. I do so once a week. To feed to my snake. Goodness. I hope this is not serious.

Blessings on your travels,
Emily.