Finding a place to live has turned out to be harder than I thought. At one point we were the top pick of someone renting out a loooovely little house with a backyard and a garage with a shop that we adored. But then some other couple offered the renter $300 above the rental price and that was that.

I can’t write about the job yet because it’s all so new and there’s so much to learn. I know once things solidify I’ll be much more excited about it – right now I just feel like a big empty head that gets filled everyday and I come home and have to stare blankly at walls for a long time before I feel like myself again.

I was driving across the Richmond Bridge this morning and had A Moment. I’d been singing along to nursery rhymes on the CD player for days, trying to memorize them for storytimes. But halfway across the bridge something snapped and I just had to listen to something else. RIGHT THEN. Luckily there was a Sleater-Kinney CD hiding in the 6 CD shuffle machine. This song came on and it so exactly expressed how I was feeling at that very moment that it bordered on eerie. I’m not usually one to post song lyrics to a blog, but in this case, I just gotta.

I spend the afternoon in cars
I sit in traffic jams for hours
Don’t push me
I am not ok

The sky is blue most every day
The lemons grow like tumors
They are tiny suns
Infused with sour

Lonely as a cloud
In the Golden State
“The coldest winter that I ever saw
Was the summer that I spent…”

Sleater-Kinney’s “Jumpers”

This all sounds so awful, right?
It’s not awful, though. I have friends here, and they’ve been around. It’s not a kind of lonely that gets fixed by having people around though, you know? It’s going to be good – I’m just in that weird in-between space where everything’s all shifty moving and settling into its place. Soon Sky’s going to be here and THE CATS are going to be here and we’re going to have a sweet little (it is the Bay Area after all) apartment with a lemon tree in the backyard. I’ll hear this song again and remember how I felt now and be happy for where I am then.

I didn’t get the sunshiney Valhalla I’d expected since it rained 90% of the time I was there, but that was fine. I caught some sunshine my first morning there as we drank boozy coffee on the huge porch. When it did rain, it was often in big, gusty sheets; watching the rain pound the water outside the window was fun, but seeing the poor birdies trying to fly against the wind wasn’t so great. Poor seagulls.

We had some excellent meals, including a lunch at the new branch of Burma Superstar which was just blocks from Jaime’s place! We also had some heavenly burritos and some ridiculously delicious french macaroons.

We watched two scary movies: Orphan and Paranormal Activity. We watched Orphan because it featured our mutual movie boyfriend Peter Sarsgaard. The plot to this one was fun and creative and I enjoyed that they took the time to build up a good story with interesting characters. Paranormal Activity wasn’t half as scary as I’d set it up to be, but it did give me the willies in a few spots. We also watched Up in the Air. I found it kinda depressing, but there were some interesting moments.

The last night I was there we stopped by the house of a friend of Jaime’s: we had some lovely wine (okay a lot of lovely wine) and hung out with the couple and their 9-year-old son who RULED. So often kids are left at home when parents go to visit or put down to sleep in a bedroom when company is over, but this family had their son hanging out with us for most of the evening. It was so fun – we played Spongebob SORRY! and drew pictures and giggled and played hide and seek. Seeing a well adjusted kid enjoying time with his parents yet letting them be adults and have conversations was pretty awesome.

We had plans to visit San Francisco and maybe drop in on some friends, but Monday morning we both woke with awful hangovers. I guess we aren’t 23 anymore. The storm was raging outside so we ordered pizza delivery and sat around chatting. We never left the 94501 zip code and I’m not one bit sorry. It felt like old times when we both lived in the city – back then we didn’t spend our time jetting from place to place trying to mark things off of a list. We just talked. Slept in. Read books together.

I came home, feeling a bit lonely but happy to see Sky. Then I was in Jury Duty for 2 days and got the worst haircut of my life. Both those things will have to wait for another post…