We Know How to Have a Good Time

It's 11:14 PM and we have just finished shaving our cat.

How was your Friday night?

Holy Hiatus, Batman!

Dear Blogfriends,

As you may have noticed, I ain't posted shit lately. And I couldn't tell you what's going on on your blogs.

Here's the thing: I'm moving in two weeks. And moving is kind of a clusterfuck even when you're not moving 1000 miles away from everything (okay, maybe not EVERYthing) you hold dear. For starters there's the packing, which if packing doesn't sound like a very big deal to you, it's only because A) you haven't seen my bookshelves and B) it probably hasn't occurred to you that books should be packed alphabetically by subject. So the packing is a bit time consuming.

It's not really the packing though, and it's not even so much the physical act of moving that has kept me from the internets. It's that I am consumed by the IDEA of moving. For weeks all of my mental and emotional energy has been devoted to what it means to move, and I have busied myself with a series of bittersweet lasts: my last weekend at the beach, the last time I'll make crabcakes, my last Cogan's Thursday, the last visit with my brother/sister/parents/friends, my last chance to tousle my pseudo-nephews' hair, the last time I'll see the Atlantic Ocean or walk down this particular street. You name it, I'm crying about it. Even the last rent check elicited a few tears. I'm obsessive like that.

I've picked up the phone at least 25 times to call my best friend -- a military wife who's moved five times in the past nine years -- and wail, "How do you DO it?!" But each time I've put it down because I know how she does it: by not picking the phone up all the time and carrying on about how much she misses us all. That and she has a husband who's just about as perfect for her as my boyfriend is for me, and when you find a guy like that you really have no choice but to follow him to the ends of the earth. Or at least to Michigan.

So the bittersweet lasts are tempered by an array of exciting firsts, none of which, I assure you, will involve jerky and some of which I may even tell you about.

Change Is Good. . .Right?

So. Remember back in January when I lamented my lack of direction and my inability to formulate any plans for my future? Remember how all y'all said plans are overrated and throw caution to the wind and other such nonsense? Yeah, well, you win. Although I AM currently in possession of both direction and plans.

I've submitted my letter of resignation, informed my kids that I won't be returning next year, given notice on my lease, separated books I'll likely never read from books I can't bear to part with, loaded up my CD player with Eddie from Ohio in a fit of preemptive nostalgia, begun searching for good homes for my 40 or so houseplants, and struck up a friendly online relationship with the good folks at U-Haul. Oh, and I'm cheerfully burning through 25.5 days of sick leave. Because, as my boyfriend has already announced with his trademark brevity, I'm moving in with him. (He did elaborate on this exciting news by noting that he hopes I like frozen pizza, but that was pretty much the extent of his announcement. Now you know why I'm the designated detail-sharer. His detail-sharing lacks, you know, details.)

When Chris and I first started discussing the possibility of moving in together (back in January, actually, right before I started to lack direction), it kinda freaked me out. By which I mean it TOTALLY freaked me out, not just because it involved me moving to Michigan where I hear it's fucking cold, but because it involved me giving up some of my independence. "You know, you can live with a man and still be a feminist," my married friend G finally said, rolling his eyes after weeks of listening to me obsess and over-analyze. "I don't know," I responded, "one minute you're happily shacking up and the next minute you're shuttling a minivan full of kids from soccer practice to piano lessons to cub scouts, face to face with the problem that has no name." This only elicited more eye rolling.

I pretty much got over that whole Betty Friedan thing only to begin freaking out about my living-with-a-man track record, which is not pretty: I tried it once, and I didn't like it. To be fair, it took a mere five days to confirm what I'd known long before the good folks at U-Haul got involved, and my fiancé was not exactly shocked when I called the whole thing off. "I'm going to stay with my parents,"I announced, duffel bag in hand. "Okay," he answered, glancing from the TV to me, "but do you want to watch The Simpsons with me before you go?" which I think we can all agree is not the way normal people react to their fiancés walking out on them six weeks before their weddings. But I digress.

I've never been good with change, and I rarely initiate it. I've lived in Virginia since I was five years old. My only major move was two years ago when I relocated a mere 188 miles down the road back to the place I grew up in, so while it was a self-initiated move it hardly qualifies as major. My family and almost all my friends are in Virginia, not to mention the mild winters and my proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. I really love Virginia, despite our propensity to elect morons like George Allen, and I pretty much thought I'd stay here forever.

But then, I'd never fallen madly in love with a man who lives in fucking Michigan before. What's a girl to do but invest in a good pair of snow boots and throw caution to the wind?

If You Seek A Pleasant Peninsula (or some exotic jerky), Look About You

So. I'm back from Michigan. Actually, I've been back from Michigan. I've just been busy working and drinking and petting my cat, who was beside herself with loneliness by the time I returned late Tuesday night.

My trip to Michigan was great. Even the airplane part wasn't so bad. I hate to fly and I'm a nervous wreck every time I have to get on a plane. I worry that even though I've purchased a ticket, some computer glitch will prevent me from being allowed on the plane. I worry that I'll miss my flight. I worry that the plane will crash. I worry that even if the plane doesn't crash, they'll lose my luggage. In short, I'm not good with flying.

So I sort of freaked out after it took me 30 minutes just to check in for my departing flight and I noticed as I was rushing to the gate that I hadn't been assigned a seat on the plane. And when I say sort of I mean totally. Unfortunately, there was only one gate agent at the gate and he was boarding the plane. I waited until everyone had boarded, thinking, "Ohmygod I'm not gonna be allowed on the plane! I'm gonna miss my flight!" and then I approached the gate agent and said frantically, "I don't have a seat!" He glanced at my boarding pass and smiled at me. Smiled! Then he handed me a new boarding pass and chirped, "You're flying first class today." Jesus! Could they not have mentioned this during the 30 minutes they spent checking me in?!

First class was nice though. Right up until the end of the flight when the captain announced that all the luggage that was supposed to have been put on our plane had accidentally been put on a plane to DC. "Ohmygod, they lost my luggage," I panicked. But when I got to Michigan, there was my bag in baggage claim, just as it should have been. The travel gods must have been smiling upon me.

And where they left off the weather gods took over. Michigan was unseasonably warm and therefore extremely pleasant. It was sunny and in the upper 40s/lower 50s for most of the time I was there, so those snow boots I bitched about? Totally unnecessary.

Oh, and did I mention my super-dreamy boyfriend? Chris and I had a great time. We drove around checking out cute little towns, we had dinner with his aunt and uncle, we walked along the shores of several different lakes, we did the daily crossword together and yelled at FOX "News" together, we checked out places Hemingway used to frequent, AND Chris let me go in THREE different bookstores without even rushing me out of them. Also we sat around in our pajamas and made out a lot.

I could get used to that. Although I draw the line at elk jerky.

in Just -- spring

My world is not quite mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful yet, but buds are starting to appear on trees, daffodils are poking out of the ground, and robins are flitting about. It's one of my favorite times of the year. You can practically smell Spring.



And I'm off to Michigan -- land of icicles, axe-murderers, and bacon-flavored bedspreads -- for five days.

It must be love.

Do We Look Ridiculously Happy Or What?

We had an awesome weekend. That is all.