A Year In Review

We come full circle.

I Got Hired!

All my life I've wondered what it was like to be Tess McGill. I would just be a brown version of her with a huskier voice. I would be like my mother in a hosiery club for office decency. I expected to be in a corner office and wave to passerbys. Maybe I could be Mary Jane Paul when she's writing. I too could have a desk drawer with a fifth of vodka. There would be some snarling old man of a boss growling about my presence. I'd be so well-dressed and articulate. I'd be chosen for teams and put on big projects. I'd be able to lean in at the boardroom meeting.  

Nope.

I work in an office with three other girls. The only guests we have are people from IT. 
I am the girl caged by a cherry wood desk.
I am that girl.

It doesn't matter where I went to school because we all did. It doesn't matter who is proficient in Office because we all have foggy moments in Excel. It is fucking freezing. The water cooler is always broken. Someone uses the conference room for working out. There is a plethora of mean girls who dress like B movie actresses. I take my work home with me every single day. I dream in spreadsheets. My boss is drop dead gorgeous and is the epitome of pure evil. She doesn't deny it either. The evil that is. 

I applied to make coffee. I now specialize in severed limbs. On a good day I'll do my hair and put on heels. Most days I am rolling out of bed. If I didn't have time to make a salad I'll scavenge the complimentary snack basket or order Chinese with the masses. No one uses Square because cash is more trustworthy. I can listen to Pandora with one ear bud. I get yelled at 2.3 times a week for things completely out of my control. Email is a more public form of accountability. I caught someone looking at porn in a cubicle my first week. Yes, office life is everything I thought it would be.

Pffft.

Feeling Good

FYI I wasn't on the verge of anything. I was just thinking of ways to re-route my life. I had been out of work for nearly two months. There was only $46 left of a combined severance and late commission check in my bank account. The kindness of friends and strangers alike kept the lights on and I was beginning to think this was the end. My Etsy account never took off. While I'm pleased that people favorite everything, I can't eat off virtual hearts and Pinterest shares. I had begun to apply for up to fifteen jobs a day. I wasn't using auto-fill and at times I was forced to reformat my resume; it was a chore. The unemployment process was confusing and ultimately denied my denial and asked that I apply again in a month. I had a decent interview cancel on me. I had another offer me a different role that I had already settled for. I interviewed and basically begged for the job and an hour later I was hired. I got a job! However, I got it on two hours of sleep. On tears of desperation. With an i and n missing in the word "maintaining" on my spell-checked, proofread and professionally printed resume. I got it in $15 tax week pants and humidity soaked hair. I also got it halfsies for it is basically temp work under the guise of a career move. So all the while I dreamed of backup plans - of winning the lottery or switching majors to fine arts. I watched videos of installation projects as thesis and I prayed that the government wouldn't shut down when I won. Now I work in an office bustling with people. I use a Windows computer and I actually like 10. I sit in the hallways on my lunch reminiscent of high school and I wonder if they like me. However, all of this is evidence that I and I alone control my own destiny. No one has won the Powerball and the deadline for Maine's intensive is in February. I still have unemployment. I still have North Carolina. I still have an Etsy. I now have a cat. I have several new and free coffee mugs. I pick new hairstyles to wear off YouTube every night. I have friends in low and high and far places. I also have a hundred people to talk to about this or that. And I'm getting paid for it. I even upgraded myself with a SunPass. Things are looking up I guess. I'm feeling good.

Wunderlust and All of the Things

I told myself I would never get caught in the rigmarole of life again. Then I come back here and I allow it to happen just at a slow pace. And now. Well now it is as before. Not as heavy but just as thick. I can say taking a break from life as it was and as it is happens a lot. There isn't a day I don't stop to pinch myself. There isn't an hour where I don't look out into nothing. There isn't a weekend where I go inside myself and disappear. I fantasize about a life where this is not fretted upon. I want to go and never look for approval … not even of myself. Wherever my mind and heart takes me I will just go.

Work

I work about 30 hours a week for and with a friend. It is a small slow paced environment full of rolling change. I am accommodated. I am asked if I'd like to come in later or take a day. I drink coffee. I sometimes have a highball of whiskey. I am left to my own devices. Most of it is beyond me and I've settled with that. Not above me. Beyond me. So I do as I am told and I sometimes dabble in wins. However, most days I am keying away at things I may never understand. This is the work I have longed for. I can sometimes get there in two minutes if I catch all the lights. I am home at the hour when no one else is. I never fight traffic. I sometimes catch the bus. I have grossed just over $1000 after taxes working for almost two months. I have never called my mother in the night. When I made $1200 every two weeks I called my mother often. I was always worried about the wrong things. Now I have learned that trash bags are all the same no matter where you get them from. I have Obamacare and I did keep all of the same doctors I have not seen in over two years. If I get a roommate or side hustle I will be rich. I will be the richest girl alive.

Home

I live in 500 square feet. This is not the smallest place I've lived in. However, this is the most shit I've had in the least amount of space. I have learned to build things to organize it best. I have parted with my most daunting decorative burdens. I have a tiny kitchen with mediocre appliances. I have cooked meals of wonder in this kitchen. Kofte. Tuna Casserole. Pho. A few weeks ago I baked 36 cupcakes and 12 muffins in a night. I seldom vacuum. There just isn't much to it to notice a need. I DIY'd a hamper and spray painted it teal in the courtyard. I don't get much mail because I've been off the grid. I burn incense. I have a bowl of limes and blood oranges. I have people over almost every other day. I lived in 1600 square feet for a year and I never had a single person over. I brought a case of wine from the Carolinas and I feel the need to share. The overall theme to this place is to keep all the doors and windows open like Cleopatra and have parties every night. The air blows in. The glasses clink. The conversation flows. 

Love

I've met who I thought was the one. I've been a Shiksa for a night. I took a call with someone who had pet raccoons. I've been offered to travel with a poly couple for a year. Someone told me this is dating. I haven't done it in long time but something feels off. I don't care for it but I do it because I am bored. On this dating site I've been in 1547 search results just tonight and apparently, allegedly 301 people "like" me. The guy down the street that drives the green truck hits on me 2.3 times a week. Maybe something is in the air. The one texted me till my eyes bled. The other invited me over for Chinese and has since messaged me odd tidbits like "today is the Ides of March, stay away from steak knives". At this rate the idea that I may come back, meet the love of my life and be married and with child in a year … well it has been postponed. I give myself until age 38 when Debi Mazar did it. I really don't love anyone but myself right now. And it shows.

Travel

For the past few months I have told myself over and over this blog is dead. I have said just because I am standing still doesn't mean I don't have the potential to go anywhere. I continually meet people who travel for business or work. I continue to talk up the importance of obtaining a passport. The other day I helped a woman on a motorcycle at Walmart put three bags of stuff into a mini backpack. There will soon be ferries to Cuba. JetBlue has $200 flights to Malaga. My boss throws away his monthly issue of Departures and I snag it. My French is getting so good. But so is my Russian, Politics, Catalan, Boolean, Portuguese and Farsi. I am not putting all my eggs in one basket. Ever. Again.

So I am loosely bound to my new identity and I can take it with me. I can also leave it behind in the right hands. I can come and go. In a book. At a gallery. Through a gaze. On his sofa. In the passenger seat. By the lake. Anytime. Whenever I want. Forever.

And We Are Back ...

I cannot believe I'm actually saying/typing this … I have not opened my computer for more than a second for over two weeks. I've simply forgotten it exists. I had to dust it off to touch base. 

I literally just shaved dust off the top of my laptop. 

So yes I went back to Florida … for absolutely nothing. Yet again, not a single thing was accomplished. The food was good though and quite necessary.

I joined a virtual book club. So constantly reading a book has become the new normal and I feel guilty when I choose another form of stimulation. I normally take on a book and immediately neglect it. So I'll finish in months versus a few weeks. Now I find myself on some imaginary deadline and always manage to miss the online discussions because I am behind. We are on our second book so this time I'm trying harder. 

I got sick … all over. First I began one of those Pinterest exercise regimens which killed me. Then I fell doing something I really shouldn't have been doing taking my right knee out. Three different braces later my support knee threw in the towel. Then just as everything goes back into place I get whammed with a case of "Ear, Nose, Throat". All of these lovelies are not really treatable. 

So yeah I came back and started a two week vacation from myself. Wherein I stayed on pain meds, compresses, book chapters and NyQuil. And of course I am still in the process of clearing my late Grandmothers house which is a full-time, non-paid job - rain or shine, in sickness or in health and whether I like it or not. I REALLY don't like it.

Florida was the calm (albeit pointless) before the storm. 

I'm almost 100 pages in a book I should be done with. The estate sale is this weekend. In between the two I rode in a Veterans Day parade and saw "Interstellar". I guess you can say I am superwoman. However, in order to do it all I had to let go of one thing.

The blog. Many others blogs. The food blogs. Pinterest. My entire online life.

And no my phone doesn't count because I mostly used that for eBay research and the dictionary for reading what is turning out to be a very complicated sci-fi novel. The movie watching helped otherwise I'd be on page forty looking up galaxies and stars. Surely, I attempted to update statuses on social media but I failed miserably at that too. I said my piece on November 4th and 5th. I also did my normal "Ooh Rah" on Vets Day. This is so people wouldn't think I was dead. 

So yeah. I'm alive. I'm back. Just beat up a bit. It'll all be over this weekend. Then everything will be back to normal.

A Moveable Feast Indeed

The preparation and excitement for modern day travel drowns out the obvious noise. The  necessities and the fear gets all masked in packing and planning. It's apparent now that I had read and heard many things before going but I wasn't listening or interpreting. I had read "A Moveable Feast" many times. It was a bible of sorts to refer to when the chips were down. I never took it literally. The same goes for the act we all take for granted of charging and filling our devices. We get ready with all these seasons and playlists. We've played those songs over and over again and gotten no references. Maybe theres a time or place we go back to but nothing stands out as relevant now. The same goes for the movies, shows, games and apps that sort of blend into our lives and make days shorter. We set our iPods up for a 45 minutes commute, a road trip down 95 South or a 2 hour flight to NYC. We pack up the paperback books, manage our Amazon wish list and check the Netflix queue but there is no real intent to finish what we start. I guess all of the above are just tools of solitude. Now I wish I had considered it all apart of an unwritten guide.

Travel Re-Designed and Re-Defined

I've been absent from blogging for a myriad of reasons. Firstly, my grandmother took ill and eventually passed. I didn't expect her death to affect me but it has in a "life is too short" kind of way. She was always suffering some problematic, yet preventable disease along with old age. However, she seemed to move upward despite her issues and always outdid the youth of our family and our time. She had planned to travel a lot this year and to my surprise my mother had agreed to accompany her. Let's just say when she took a turn for the worst it was revealed to me that she really hadn't done all she wanted to do in life. The same goes for my mother and now down to me. A few weeks before her death my grandmother was reluctantly transferred to hospice care. She sort of outlived all her ward neighbors and put on a good fight. However, she went into a vegetative state just a few days in - never speaking again. This left a lot of unanswered questions and many a story told through others that claimed to have known what she wanted. I honestly don't believe what anyone has to say about what she may have or may not have done with the remainder of her life. I only know that she left here unfulfilled. And I only know this by the remnants she left behind and her seething jealously of others freedom.

366, 100, 5 and One (Real Time)

This time (real time),last year I was preparing for the big voyage. This time (in the blog) I was just arriving in Florence. The timing is so strange. In this very moment, I'm thinking about the Florence I didn't get to see. That KimYe wedding just ties up all the loose ends. It is also my birthday, well Friday that is. I am again preparing for that alongside the bigger voyage. Yes, at this very moment everything is packed and I'm ready to go home. Just like I couldn't find a way out of the U.S. faster or a way to "get" Florence - I cannot find my way back home to Florida. No, I still have not found a job. Oh and suddenly theres some drought in housing and my former roommate and I cannot find a place. So again I'm in a limbo much like last year and much like in Florence. 

I have to remember I am here. I mean after all this is my 100th post. I have 93 published, 6 in drafts and this one being typed (real time). If I hadn't stayed optimistic and ate crow and saved face I wouldn't have been able to write anything at all. A lot can happen in five days. I'm not going to make a hard goal of it. I'm not going to force it on myself. I will let the cards fall where they may. For now just as before and once, twice again - my suitcase is packed. I'm ready to go. I was so ready to go June 5th. I was already gone in Florence (I'll get to that). I am soooo totally ready to get the hell out of here. I can't believe I may be stuck here for my birthday. If it happens I'll let my mother amuse me with tokens of affection and re-celebrate later in the month or July. 

So what now that the adventure is almost over? Well is it really? I think it's pretty magical that everything is coming full-circle now. The timing is right. My best friend is coming to get me and he wants to make a road trip of it. We plan on going to Asheville and Savannah. My mother has also suggested she come along. I don't know how this is supposed to work with three dogs, garbage bags full of winter clothes and boxes of Cheerwine but I'll have to see. Trust and believe, I will keep writing and I still have a lot more to tell beyond Florence. I had a stop in Milan. I saw the Alps and my iPod suffered the altitude. There is Paris, Iceland, New York, a few places in between and here. So heres to many places, 365…366 days, 200 more blogs and June 6th and many more. 

It's Been A Year - Update Written May 16th 2014

I cannot believe it. 

A few days ago last year I came here to North Carolina. This is exactly where I didn't want to be a year later. I have been so distracted by things going on. I've been awful at others birthdays, anniversaries, celebrations, announcements. So much so I forgot this unfortunate one. I also forgot to re-evaluate my exit plan. I had recently planned to give myself thirty days to leave. On the 15th day I should have been midway right!? I'm so far from doing what I need to do. I'm not even close. I'm just as unsure about everything as I was exactly 365 days ago.

Fast Forward To Now: Why I Stopped Blogging and Learned My "Place" In The World

So as you can see I took a long hiatus from my continuous photographic memoir of this summer. There are three reasons as to why. I would like to put them in no necessary order but then that would decrease the seriousness as to why I stopped blogging. So there is a main reason, a minor one and then something I can and will get fixed.