hard work

I spent the day on the prairie, on my knees in the mud looking for a plant that wasn't there. it was actually a lot of fun. i'm doing it again tomorrow.
Currently, my internet is nonfunctional in my home. I'm sitting in the coffeeshop on the corner, where there is free wireless. no internet makes it hard to find a new home online.
I looked at another apartment this afternoon, this one a two-bedroom currently occupied by an older lady artist who is really cool, and her terrier who is amazing. I hope she picks me. I hope I find out soon.
I still haven't told my roommate I'm moving out. I only saw him once since I decided, and we only talked long enough for him to tell me about dumping his woman.
I think that I am missing the Irish seisun for another week. It started an hour ago, and I have too much to do. I am stressing myself out with this moving thing, and not sleeping enough - i have to leave the house at 6 am on the days when I work on the prairie, as Midewin Nat'l Tallgrass Prairie is about an hour and a half drive away - when traffic is sane (which is rare). I wish i could do the not-sleeping thing better.
wish me luck.

big day

so, i'm trying to move. i emailed a bunch of craigslist offers, had an appointment with The Apartment People and learned a lot about renting in Evanston from a wonderful woman named Melody, and visited an absolutely adorable and wonderful apartment on Main St. (which, despite the name, is not the main drag). And right this minute, I got turned down by one of the other offers - apparently I wasn't fast enough (wow, 2 hours means a lot - i wonder if the other apt is already gone, too ...)
anyway ... i'm nervous, but i really feel like i'm making the right decision. i haven't had a chance to talk to the roommate - he was home when i got in, but when i asked him about his weekend, he said, it was fun, except for the part where i broke up with my girlfriend ...
so i didn't feel as though it was the opportune moment to tell him i wanted to move out.
sometimes life is just awkward. but i still really feel confident in my effort to move - i'd like to live someplace where i want to walk outside my house at night, because there's somewhere cool to walk besides the train station, instead of having it be scary, and i'd like to live closer than 45 minutes' commute to work. it's not like i go downtown often anyway, so there's no point in living within the city.
okay, to bed, to bed - i have to be up at 5 to head to the prairie!

home

i don't remember feeling homesick my freshman year of college. or at any other time in my life, in fact. i guess i've never been in a new place and been the only new one. i've only been away from home for two weeks and i'm ready to be done. of course, i don't even know what counts as home - there's not anything left in Ithaca for me to go home to, and I know there's nothing for me to do in Melrose. I guess home is just wherever I'm loved, and here definitely isn't home.
i guess there's not much i can do about that.


i'm thinking of moving. i started looking for an apartment in Evanston today, for a variety of reasons. It would be closer to work, the community there is a better fit for my personality and background, and odds are I wouldn't see so many people get arrested within a block of my building. And if I work it right, i might even be able to live with people who are a little more available as friends.
i know this isn't the most reasonable course of action, but it feels right - i have to at least look and see if there might be something better. not that this is bad - my apartment is beautiful, i live a block from the beach, my roommate is sane, employed, and kind, and i have easy access to public transit and shopping. but i can get most of these things in any number of living situations, and after two weeks i still feel like a guest in this apartment. i don't feel at home enough to start hanging anything up on the walls - my roll of posters is sitting in the closet, and the one thing i bothered to frame is leaning against the wall in a corner. i never feel inspired enough to go out except to walk the beach and watch happy families with their little kids and dogs.
anyway. we'll see what happens. it will all work out in the end, regardless of what happens.

if all else fails ...

well, i reinforced my self-esteem tonight. i sat outside and read a book until about 8, when i just got intensely hungry, and then i decided to let my tummy guide me. i'd bought some asparagus at the evanston farmers' market yesterday, so i decided cream sauce was the way to go (i think i was craving some protein ...) so i whipped up some cream sauce, boiled some linguine, and steamed my asparagus, and wow, i *can* cook. it might have just been hunger, but that was some damn good dinner. local asparagus and organic, happy-cow, rennet-free raw cheddar and whole-wheat pasta ... mm, tastes like hippies.
anyhow. i think i had some good training in the kitchen. if all else fails, i could still make a good housewife. oh yeah, and i cleaned my apartment this morning, too.
i still need to get good at sewing, though.
... i guess housewifery also requires someone to wife to ... whatever.

using my saturday

i took an adventure up to evanston this morning - running some errands and then wandering around the streets on the phone with mom and dad, idly looking for someplace (i had forgotten to look at the map before i left, but it wasn't an urgent mission), and i came across the evanston farmer's market, which was cute. i ran a few more errands on the way home, and made friends with the nice indian man in the health food/hippie food store. now i'm cleaning like a fiend. i might head back out on my bike, because the used book store wasn't open when i went past it this morning, and there are books in the window i want to buy.
but maybe i'll just sit on the beach until it starts to rain, and then take a nap.
nap, nap, nap. i do like those.

tragedy strikes

so, when i started working here, the big glass doors at the entrance to my building had just been decorated with big white dots, about 3 inches diameter, and an occasional white silhouette of a bird. the dots were to warn birds that there was glass there, as apparently there had been some deaths.
well, apparently these dots weren't up to par for aesthetics for some people. 'they're ugly' 'they look ridiculous'
i thought, well, if it's preventing death, then whatever. they're pretty unoffensive, just white and sort of blocking the view. they also probably save the cleaning people some time, because that's one less glass door they have to polish twice a day (there seem to be a lot of glass doors, and a lot of donor tours for which they must be spotless).
apparently aesthetics won out. they cleaned the dots off the doors the day before yesterday.
today, as i walked up to the door, i noticed a sparrow lying on the ground. dead. not just dead - i could see where it had run into the spotless glass because its beak was stuck to the glass with its own blood and tissue.
i can't handle the selfishness of people. and i can't help but worry a little that at some point, i'll be going at top speed, maybe on my bike, maybe in my car, maybe just on foot, and i'll run smack into a big invisible wall and display my brains for everyone to see, from both sides.
i bet next time i go out that door the bird brain will be polished off and its tiny life forgotten.

out on the town

just got home from a fun night - i went to a bar to the southwest of me tonight, to catch a stand-up show (for free - always a good choice). it turned out that i have good instincts for my own - most of the comedians were Irish-American Catholics, and had the requisite cynical humor, which i understand and appreciate. it was slightly awkward because i was pretty much the only one who hadn't seen most of these guys perform before, but it was still fun. the trip also required a nice long train ride, which i really enjoyed. a lot of the trip is through people's backyards (because obviously you're not going to build your place facing the tracks), and it's interesting to peek into people's lives like that. the bar was also in another big Spanish-speaking enclave. many of the stores were only labeled in Spanish. i can be another ad for mom's students: "i wish i had kept speaking spanish after high school - it would have been useful"