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it's been a long time. that anonymous-secret-comment-post scared me a bit, i'll have to admit. i don't know maybe i won't do those anymore.

so i guess the first order of business is to say that i moved! well half-moved. brian and i are now living in a 200 year old schoolhouse on a historic cemetery built on an indian burial ground, in this tiny town about an hour or so from the city. it's so amazing. it's white with chipping paint and lonely porch lights at night and trees everywhere. and deer, i saw four deer there the other day at dusk and everything looked like it had a green photoshop filter over it, like everything was covered in this green shroud. and it gets so dark out there. the other night brian and i were moving stuff in and i sat down on the van and looked up at the sky and there were all these stars. no orange light pollution glow anywhere to be seen. and there's so many trees. and we have a really big front yard. we live at the top of this hill with this long path that goes down to the road, and in the front yard there's a big old tree with a chain hanging down from it that looks like it once had a tire swing hanging from it. maybe we can attach a new one.  and there's plants all around the perimeter of the building that are from the last person who lived there. she liked to plant flowers i guess so maybe they'll grow again. and if not, maybe i'll make a garden. i don't think i'd be very good at it but i guess i could try.

and when we look out our windows we look right out over the cemetery, which only has really old broken stone graves and one from a kid who died fighting in the civil war when he was sixteen. it has one bedroom and a living room and a kitchen and a bathroom of course, plus a whole basement to hide in if there's ever any tornadoes. brian is going to use the living room for his recording studio and he says i can decorate the bedroom any way i want. and the kitchen has checkerboard white and black floors and the ceilings are really high and the light that comes in is really nice and it's so cold, even without air conditioning or anything, not like my apartment in logan square, which was 90 degrees in the dead of winter.  it's pretty much the exact opposite of that place. actually i'm there right now, getting easily distracted from packing.  i suppose the city was okay for awhile but i think i'll be really happy in this new place.  the town is so tiny and pretty blue collar. it feels so much better out there.  driving fast down roads through tunnels of trees and the wet rush of the leaves passing through the air when you go by with the windows down. and it smells so good. like a campfire in the distance and like the molecules of whatever makes up air are farther apart from each other, like open pores of oxygen, unlike the city where the air feels so heavy and hot and hard to breathe and tight when it goes down to your lungs. and i live like five miles from my mom now, which is nice because i can see her more often. i'm worried she gets lonely even though i don't think she does, i still worry about it, especially since my grandma died and all. and we're less than a mile from the train into the city, just in case i ever want to go wander around downtown or go to a museum.  it's pretty much the most perfect place in the entire world and if you couldn't tell i'm real real excited about it and so genuinely happy about this situation it's kindof unbelievable. i suppose those of you who know me will think i'll get sick of it and start feeling displaced and complaining eventually, and maybe you're right, but i don't really care right now. i am so excited to go live in a pretty schoolhouse in the forest and be a hermit for awhile. lately i've been feeling like i have to impress everyone, and that everyone i know is disappointed in me, even though i have no real reason to think that. just maybe that i am selfish and typical and boring and everyone has grown very tired of me and my antics. i'm just going to learn to ride a bicycle and ride it all over the town every day. and then come home and read a book and drink mint juleps on the porch with my boyfriend. in rocking chairs. with mosquitos all over.

so with moving comes a new job, which i just got today. i'll be working at ups store, that wraps and sends packages and things. it will be nice i think, a nice and quiet job for the most part. i hope i do well.  this means i'll be leaving the dog hotel which i'm really sad about. i'll miss the dogs a lot and there were some nice people there for the most part. i've been thinking i'll try to work just sundays there for awhile, take the train in. but i'll probably get sick of that real quick and end up quitting for good. i don't know, i don't like the sound of that, but it's probably what will happen.  and also with moving comes the potential of going back to college, though it would be community college this time, which is just fine with me. i'm actually really excited and i hope i can go.  it probably sounds weird, but the thought of doing homework is pretty thrilling to me right now.  and learning about things and writing papers and being in classes and maybe making some friends, but i don't know about that last one there.  but i think overall life is working out and going in fantastic directions. i am very hopeful and excited.  especially about brian.  i feel silly writing love things here for all to read, but i hope i can say without jinxing anything that this relationship is looking promising and good, in the purest, truest sense of the word. not beautiful because it's doomed or anything. just beautiful for the sake of being beautiful, and amazing, and he's like my best friend, for real, and wow i seem to get stupider and simpler when i start talking about that so maybe i just ought to stop and end with this is the kind of love that's going to last, i think, i'm pretty sure, i know.

anyway, when i get a chance i'll take some pictures of the house and post them. we don't have internet there right now. but i can't wait until i get a spare minute to take lots of pictures.

he said this place is his dream place, and it's mine too, and i really like that he thinks that way.  so many people we talk to can't understand why we want to get away from the city, why we didn't find it exciting to live there. i only lived there for two years, but maybe i know enough about it from that and i've figured out that it's not the place for me. it's weird that when i was sixteen all i wanted was to live in the city. i'm slightly afraid that i don't like living anywhere, and all i really like doing is escaping, or having something to escape from. but i have to keep trying to find the perfect fit, and i'm pretty sure this is the closest thing to it.  and i know sometimes i will feel trapped or isolated, i acknowledge that, but i will always try to keep in mind that my heart just gets fluttery sometimes, my muscles get twitchy and anxious to run, and just to keep running won't ever get me anywhere except really out of breath. but that's such a good feeling sometimes.