Crois-moi

I think I have a job. I think I have an apartment.
Well, okay. I know I have both. But the job that I started yesterday doesn’t turn me on as much as I would like, and the apartment won’t be official until later today, when I sign the papers.
I’ve been trying to beat Spider Solitaire again, but it’s a bitch. I’ve beat it before, but apparently my skills need to be re-honed.
Stew’s in Europe. I keep picturing him atop a ruin or lounging with a book under an olive tree. I wonder what Greece is actually like.
Today will be another day of traipsing around the city, trying to get things in order. Please hire me, charming Italian restaurant. Please don’t call me to cancel our meeting again, apartment renter.
Where are all of my red devils? What are they doing out there? When we were all leashed to Carlisle, I was satisfied to know that we’d end up back there at some point, but now that the leashes have been cut I need updates! Contact! Reassurance! I guess it’s time to revive the old more-than-a-minute phone call.

Here’s another gory story. Stewart and I were leaving Cleveland on our way back to Wooster when we got a heads-up phone call from his parents about an interesting spill that they saw in the highway, and which we were going to pass, too.
A dump truck full of cow parts had somehow slung its contents out onto the pavement in front of it. This happened on a two-lane overpass, so traffic snuck by in the right lane, giving everyone a good long whiff and glimpse of the accident. By the time we saw it, most of the stuff had been cleaned up, but there were still a couple of men scooping black, bloated cow guts off the highway with snow shovels, a big brown smear where the rest of the guts must have been, and some legs and random scraps were visible poking out of the top of the dump truck. A few yards away a cameraman stood by while the reporter he was with lost his lunch.
We were all grossed out by the spilled guts, but what troubled me about the incident was the reminder that I have no idea what goes on with the meat industry. I would never have thought that dump trucks with open tops just tool around cities during rush hour loaded with stomachs, bones, intestines, skins, or whatever it was that flew out of that thing. Where was it coming from?  Where was it going? What gets done with all of those bits? The fact that they were trucking those cow parts from one place to another instead of just destroying them after they slaughtered the animals leads me to think that they were going to use them for something, but that’s just speculation on my part. Still, it’s kind of creepy. Not knowing anything about how the meat industry operates is one more reason to stay away from foods whose origin you can’t trace… nobody really wants to think about the meat they eat coming from the same place as the dump truck full of entrails.

Whoops! I’m a grown-up now. Last Sunday I wore a big polyester sack with a lot of ropes and some patches stapled onto the shoulder. Lots of people said high-falutin’ things about our future. Then a hood was draped around my neck and I teetered down some steps (this is why I should practice wearing heels more often) to take a rolled-up piece of paper from a man, shake a few hands, and that was it. I became a degree-holding adult.

I guess it was a pretty special ceremony. It was made more special when the girl behind me barfed. She kept repeating, “I’m sorry,” but I had absolutely nothing to wipe off my neck or my robe. I looked around – everyone around us was staring straight ahead with their eyebrows raised, totally disgusted. Quietly, she said, “I feel so much better.”

My drive to Wooster yesterday was seriously scary. About thirty miles out from Carlisle I had to pull over because inch-thick hail was pounding my car. I curled my feet up under me (for fear of getting them wet if a chunk of rock from the sky penetrated my windshield)
and waited it out with Stewart on the phone.

I also near ran over a turtle (well, I did run over him, but I am pretty sure that he ducked).

And now it is a beautiful day so we’re off to Cleveland
to hear an orchestra perform Stew’s friend Matt’s music! YES! SUMMER!

I think of things to write all the time, but I don’t write them. When I wake up in the morning, I think about all the things I have to do so they’re all ready in my head before my body starts to move. I’ve started this thing where I just keep a file of everything that I’m saving to do for later, but it’s like trying to carry a really big armload of laundry – things spill over and fall off which you don’t notice because you’re too busy trying to catch something else that’s slipping out of your fingers. So I’ve got this back log of things to sew, cook, read, watch, and do, and the prospect of being able to DO these things in another couple of weeks is pretty fantastic. It’s very, very exciting, actually.

There are lots of things to think about right now. Things are about to change in a big way but my suspicion is that it will just feel like a normal trip back to Bel Air. I’m still waiting to hear from France, still chewing on other ideas and ambitions, and somehow it’s all just going to materialize and fall into place by June.