i think it worked

i love my new apartment. it is beautiful, the cats are awesome, and my roommate is my friend already. i moved everything on Saturday and then spent the evening down in the city with friends! at their film festival - Student Films Across America - if it comes to a city near you, you should see it because the movies are good but attendance is not (i think that Chicago is a tough city to attract a crowd in, though - too much going on, like the Blues Festival this weekend).
Then i went to church with my roommate (Emily) on Sunday morning. She goes to this crazy liberal Mennonite church a couple of blocks from our place, where everyone loves Jesus and sings and dances to show their love. It was a long emotional service, and the pastor gave a great sermon that was down-to-earth and surprisingly unreligious (i guess in his former life he was a computer programmer, so he's very worldly). then i got to join my roommate and her church friends at a picnic on the beach - they were all very happy, environmentalist, laid-back people, and it was great to get to know some folks in the same life situation that i'm in.

all in all, it was a full weekend - quite tiring, what with all the hauling up and down stairs, and praising jesus and whatnot.

now i'm back at work, learning about fire regimes on prairies. what a fantastic job!

attempt 2

so, i am half in one apartment and half in the other. i started moving things up to Evanston tonight, in with my new gal Emily. I am already in love with her cats. I will move the rest tomorrow morning - I will see how well a single girl can move a mattress ... apparently she's got a busy day, and i want to get going, and be independent and all that. i think i can do it, with enough sweat and determination.
I climbed 27 flights of stairs tonight, moving half my stuff - both apartments are on the 3rd floor. a good quad workout.
i'm excited, and not scared. i will take lots of pictures in tomorrow's morning light of my new home. i already feel confident that i will be able to call it home - not like this place, which feels more like a hotel. big closets, small heart.

it's also time to post this picture:

which is from a couple of weeks ago when i shaved my legs. this is the halfway point, one hairy beast and one sleek beauty.
i had to do it - i felt like i needed to blend in a little more, and not be pegged as a crazy hippie country girl.
it's also, incidentally, a little cooler.

too much waiting! call me, lady, call me!
can't sleep til i know more!
not enough sleeping ... too much stress ....
but i'm not an undergrad anymore ... what the heck?!

life changes

sooo .... i think i found a place to live. i mean, i know i found at least one place. i can either live with a 57-year-old artist lady, or hopefully with a 26-year-old art-store-manager lady. the first has already offered me the spot, but i haven't told her yes yet, because i went to look at this other place last night - it is a little more expensive, a little farther north, much bigger, and the girl who lives there is amazing. the apartment felt like home from the first moment i walked in - she has 2 cats! and lots of houseplants, and the place has so many windows! but on top of that, she is a very calm, pensive person who really listens! when you talk. we talked for an hour and a half, about the apartment, about ourselves and our qualities as roommates, and about life in general. we were both shocked when we realized how late it had gotten. i left after we both said we felt good about each other, and she asked for a night to think (pray!) about it (we had already talked religion, and she told me about her church, so it didn't seem that weird that she wanted to pray about it). i am really hoping that she gets back to me saying i can move in - the old artist lady would also be a fine roommate, but her place is smaller, there are kids upstairs from her, and she does a lot of talking ... it is obvious from the way that she presents herself in conversation that she has no doubts about her self-importance.
we will see, i guess.
i'm off to a new area of prairie today ... so much fieldwork! so little sleep! argh ...
there are supposed to be wild thunderstorms this evening/tonight ... i hope they hold off until i'm off the prairie, or life could get a lot more exciting (or a lot shorter).

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.