Letter #2

Dear Rowan,                                             April 5          Bend, OR

Darts are a stupid way to pick a new place to live. Or maybe they need to be thrown by someone who is no good at darts. I put the map up on my dart board, threw my dart, and hit it right in the middle, so it looks like I will be moving to Wichita, Kansas. This may not be as horrible as it somehow seems right now. I was looking for a city that was bigger than Arbuckle or Bend (which is not difficult) and I certainly found one. I was looking for a city in a state a good distance away from California and Oregon, and Kansas is definitely far away. I am sure that the pictures on the internet of Wichita do not do the city justice, so I am refusing to place my judgement by what I can look up. I will experience it for myself. I have no grand ideas about finding a lovely little house as soon as I arrive, so I am just taking enough of my stuff to get me by in an apartment. I am leaving all my furniture, since I think I should be able to find an already-furnished apartment, or else supply what I need from secondhand stores (except for a bed, that I will get new once I know how big the bedroom is in my new place). Upon the advice of several friends who have left town and rented places in other cities, I am not putting down a deposit on anyplace until I see it. I have heard too many horror stories about signing a lease sight-unseen.

And thus begins my grand adventure! I have a destination, and everything will change when I get there! . . . Right? It really has to, doesn't it? Wichita is so much bigger than Arbuckle or Bend there have to be more opportunities there than there are here. It will be great, I'm sure of it. Wonderful, I don't know if I am convincing you or myself, or maybe both. I would say that at least I will be living closer to you, but there will still be a few thousand miles difference between us, so I am not sure that it really counts.

I think all I really need to take are my clothes, bed stuff, bath stuff, and kitchen stuff. I am not even going to take my movies until I get settled in. I am putting most everything into a storage locker, and I can pull things out of it once I figure out where I am going to settle. At least I have Netflix and a laptop, that will cover me for movies and TV for a while. I wonder what the weather is like this time of year in Wichita? I am afraid to look online to find out, I am afraid I will find out it is miserable, or that the city is ugly, or that it is in the middle of a horrible depression and there are no jobs to be had. I know that I am just worrying to scare myself, but I can't help it. Other than for school, I have never made a big move like this before. How did you do it? You make moving about the country, and living in all sorts of places, and making new friends, and everything look so easy! Is moving still scary for you, too? You always seem so excited, and I feel so terrified and unsure. What if this is wrong? What if I am meant to stay in Bend and work at my old job and make the best of it?

But I can't do that. I can't stand to feel like I am just treading water and not making anything of myself. I want to do something with my life! I want to make a difference, even if it just to myself. I want to feel like I have done something big, something important, something that matters. I am not talking about winning a Nobel Prize or anything, just doing something more than punching my timecard and answering phones or flipping burgers all day. I want to do something that other people will be able to see, and that will make them say "look at the girl, she really has done something good." I guess that is what everyone wants, but just because everybody wants it does not mean that I can't want it to, or that it is not something to pursue, even if chasing it leads me halfway across the nation.

Maybe I will get to Wichita and it will be wonderful, and I will get a job that gives me time to write, and doesn't leave me feeling so drained and horrible at the end of the day that even watching TV is a chore. Then I could write that book I have been talking about and fiddling with since I was an undergrad and took those creative writing courses. This might be my chance to become a real writer. Not the starving-writer-living-in-someone's-attic type, but a successful writer. Maybe I can manage to at least write enough to keep myself afloat, and that can be my job. Then I won't have to worry about answering phones or flipping burgers. Maybe Wichita will be just what I need to get started. A big city, lots of new people to meet and new sights to see, it will be a whole new world for me, so different from little Arbuckle. I can hope, can't I?

I suppose I should stop writing and get to packing, there is so much that needs done before I can get going. I have someone who wants to rent the house already, I only posted it a few days ago. It's a single guy, says he needed a break from big cities and thought he would come to live somewhere quiet for a year or two. Well, it can't get much quieter than Bend. He seems nice enough, and he wants to rent the place furnished, so I don't have to worry about storing the furniture, just my personal stuff that I won't be taking with me yet. Which is great, since that means I can get a smaller storage space, which means it will cost less. Plus I will be getting rent from this guy, so that will add a little to my income, which should make the job hunt once I get to Wichita a little less frantic. Not a lot less frantic, but a little. I plan on getting everything packed up today and tomorrow, then I can drive everything I am storing over to the locker and pack up the car with all the stuff I am taking. Then I have to go through the house and really clean it to get it ready for my new tenant (I have a tenant! Weird). I am not entirely sure what to do about all the stuff in the fridge. I am trying to eat what I can of the things that need to be refrigerated since it seems a waste to throw them out. This has made for a few interesting meals these past few days, and getting more interesting as the ingredient list diminishes. The pantry stuff I am not worried about, since I will just bring it along. I am going to need to eat in Wichita too, and non-perishables will be really handy until I can get an apartment and get everything unpacked. This will be the cleanest I will have seen the house since I moved in . . . Ever. I mean, I cleaned it, and for parties all the public rooms could get absolutely sparkling, you just had to know not to open any closets or my bedroom door. This is going to be absolutely, completely clean. I even rented a carpet cleaner to get out all the mystery spots and stains that I usually just put rugs or coffee tables over. It will be a little strange to see all my furniture in it, but none of my personal stuff. But the guy I am renting the house to seems very responsible, I think he should take care of everything just fine. I put in the lease that he is responsible for all bills and all yard maintenance, plus any minor repairs. I will only have to worry about taking care of big things, and nothing big has happened in that house my whole life and longer, or at least so the last owner told me. So really, the house will be his problem and I just get paid for letting him use it, which is fine by me.

Just before I go, after I have packed the car, I think I should take a trip to Fred Meyer or Costco, strictly for drinks and snacks for the drive, they should be cheaper there than getting things along the way. Freddie's has cheaper gas than other places too, so I can stock up on travel goodies, fill the tank, and head straight out onto the highway. I would say that I am planning on getting an early start, but I know myself too well for that. But I do hope to get onto the road before noon. Then it is just driving until its gets late and I get too tired to drive, finding a little hotel along the highway to spend the night, and doing it all again the next day. Google says it is about 1,653 miles, which should take 24 hours by freeway, so that is about 4 days of driving, figuring on a late start on day one, and time to find a place in Wichita on day four. Things are going to be crazy the next few days while I get everything packed up and taken care of, so I will probably be too busy to really write, but I will write you just as soon as I get to Wichita and find a place. Here's to setting out on a new adventure! Wish me luck!

Your friend,

Emily

Road Trip Letter #1

I am going to be participating in Camp NaNoWriMo this July. Camp, unlike regular NaNo, lets me write on something already in progress. So I am going to be continuing the adventures of Emily, my  road-tripping protagonist. In anticipation of new letters from Emily, I am going to be posting a letter or two a day between now and July 1st so all of her letters will be on the blog. She is wandering about the country in a somewhat circular, clockwise fashion, so if you have any advise for her or suggestions of towns to visit along her route, please let her (and me) know in the comments. We are always looking for new places to explore!

                                               Letter #1

Dear Rowan,                                                      April 1       Bend, OR

So, I quit my job today. I know, a little abrupt, but what can I say, that is my news. Well, that and the fact I am going to move, but that goes along with the whole quitting-of-job thing. And it is not an April Fool's joke, I think the joke has been me pretending that I was going to get anywhere staying in this town. I quit my job because I just can't take people screaming and whining at me all day any more. I feel like that job was sucking my soul out through my headset. At first it was not so bad, there are always good customers and bad customers. But it seems like the longer you work at a job like that the more jaded and bitter you get, and the less you care about what other people want or what their problems are. The bad customers stay with you and it gets harder and harder to recognize or remember the good ones. My last customer was a man who apparently just called to complain and insult whoever he got on the phone. When he decided to stop insulting the company and start insulting me personally, just because I was the person he got on the line, I'd had it. I asked him several times what he was calling about and offered to help him with whatever the issue was, but he just exploded. And when I said that I was trying to keep the call professional and that I would appreciate it if he would too, he started cussing. So I took of my headset and walked out. I didn't even put him on hold. I wonder how long it took for someone to figure out there was a line still open. I wonder if he even noticed I had left, he didn't give me time to talk when I was on the phone, so I'm guessing that he kept going for a while.

My boss called me after a few hours to see what had happened, and if I was going to come in tomorrow. What a place, when you can leave a customer hanging on the phone, walk out the door, and not get fired for it. At least they know that the job is that rough. I told my Sup I was done and I hope to never have to put on a headset again. He said he was sorry to see me go, but he understood where I was coming from. He is a supervisor after all, and hasn't had to do more than a few hours of phone time a month for at least a year. I don't think he could stand to go back on the lines full time again either. Once you're out you recognize how bad it was while you were in it, or at least that is what all the other guys I know who've already quit have told me. I'm not sure if I hope it is true or not, it might be too traumatic to look back at this job and see it as worse than it felt while I was working. Working felt bad enough!

But that is that, I am now unemployed. And I will never, ever, work at a place like that again. I think I need to do something big though. I mean, quitting my job was big, but I think I need a life change. I am going to move. And not just a down-the-block or across-town move, I'm thinking a whole different state move. Not even in the same part of the country, I want a complete change of scenery. I don't even know where yet, I think I will just throw a dart at the map and go where it lands as long as it is far enough away. Wherever I go has got to be better than here, right? I mean, this isn't even home, its just where I ended up after college. So much for moving for the job with the amazing promotion prospects. A job that got downsized, what, three months after I moved? So this time I am moving for . . . Well, I don't know what I'm moving for, but I know I have got to move or I will just end up incredibly overqualified in another dead end job doing mindless work for some other outsourced company. What do you think, any states you're particularly fond of? I have no place in mind, so a suggestion is as good as a dart. But don't suggest that I come live with you, or that I go home. I am out here in the world and I want to stay out in the world until I can prove, to myself at least, that I can make it out here. I want to be somebody on my own account, not because my folks or my friends got me set up somewhere.

I will be moving most of my stuff into storage until I find a place to land, so if there is anything you want to long-term-borrow, let me know. My fridge is huge, and the washer and dryer both work great. I think I will rent this place out, rather than sell it. I know its a little house, but at least its a house and not an apartment, so somebody has got to think it would be better than having side-wall neighbors, or upstairs neighbors with kids and a large dog, or oversensitive downstairs neighbors who want you to tiptoe in socks all the time. I mean, there are certainly worse places than here. Hey, for that matter, if you want a change of scenery too, you could move in here, then you could have the fridge, the washer and dryer, and even the lawn gnomes! Not that I am encouraging you to quit your job, pull up stakes, and move somewhere completely different too, I mean, a plan like that is completely crazy. Who would do such a thing?

Enough about me and my insanity. How is your job going? Better than mine, I hope. Is life treating you ok in your neck of the woods? I know we haven't kept in touch much since graduation, but life just seems to get in the way sometimes and things and people just fade away once they are not right there with you any more. It's not like you mean for it to, its just that somehow keeping up ties just gets moved to a back burner while more immediate life issues need taken care of. And sometimes you forget what got pushed aside for a while. But I promise I will write you all about my new grand life adventure. Writing is so much easier than calling for me. I mean, you don't need me to call you with every single thing I do every day, and letters are just fun to get in the mail. For now my address will be the same old place, and of course there will be mail forwarding when I first get a new address, so letters shouldn't be a problem. 

And I have to ask the guy question? Is there one? Are there several? Not that I have anyone in mind, I'm just nosy. Obviously there is no such guy in my life at the moment, I mean the guys at work were sweet and all, except for the few utterly repugnant ones that are mandatory in that sort of job, but they were buddy-type guys, not boyfriend-type guys. But that just makes it easier to pick up and go, right? No guy to worry about or hang around town for. And the guy of my dreams might be waiting in whatever town I land in, pining away because he has never found the right girl, he has never found me! But this is the twenty first century, and I need to go find him, after all. We modern girls have to do all the work now, no more playing princess in the tower. Although I have always thought it would be cool to live in a tower. Or at least a house with a turret. Or maybe one of those upper-story bay windows with the built-in reading bench. Maybe I will look for a place with one of those in my next town. Hey, a girl can dream, right?

But enough of my ramblings for now. The point is that I quit my job, and I am going to move. I will move far away and start over and things have got to get better in that new as-yet-undecided place. That's the goal at least, and I am going to believe that it will be true, and I am going to make it come true, dang it! If I can't make life work out for me where I am and doing what I have been doing, then I need to make a change. Since I already tried other jobs here, with no better results, then it is only logical to try changing locations. Have I talked you into believing me yet? Because I am not entirely sure I have talked myself into it, but I am doing it, either way. And here I am rambling again, right after I said enough of my rambling. Oh well, it is me, after all. I have never claimed to be brief or succinct in my letters. Or in my conversations, really, but right now I will just concern myself with my ramblings and randomness in writing, since my conversations are random in completely different ways.

While I have said that I am absolutely moving, which is true, I would still greatly appreciate your advice or support or comments or whatever, really. Just to know there is someone out there who knows what I am doing and has some part in the decisions of my life. And then I can blame you rather than myself if things go horribly wrong! Or you could get in an "I told you so," not that I will every admit it, but you could say it.

Well, here I go off to begin my great relocation! I will tell you all about it as soon as there is something to tell. Write me soon!

Your friend,

Emily

Two poem revisions

For my Poetry class final I had to revise two poems that I had written during term (for the class) and hand in my revisions. I chose the sonnet I had written, in the hopes of making it feel not so plain and archaic and boring (as I was assured it was during the workshop on it), so I added the dead coming back to life. Spring is the season of rebirth, after all. The other poem is a bit on the past and the future and lobsters.

Sonnet for April Showers

April rains dripping and drizzling to earth,

Soaking flowerbeds down to bulbs and roots,

Reviving the world after Winter’s dearth,

Nourishing tender vibrant green new shoots.

Reaching out their fingers and toes for rain,

Stretching through the damp earth to drink their fill.

Winter falls to sunbright trumpet peals again,

pushing up, soil is not as strong as will.

Bursting again to life and air and light,

withered hands and fleshless faces reaching,

Spring brings both the undead and flowers bright,

pushing up daisies, no hope in preaching.

Grudge not the rains that fall to earth today,

But beware the graveyards and tombs in May.

Lobsters

We once worked as cooks

            drowning screaming lobsters

in boiling Jacuzzis

until they glowed cherry red

            pale sweet meat inside perfect bodies.

I was a twiggy girl

            playing with fresh caught

            giant bugs, burgundy and shiny.

into the bath quick.

            It screamed, jumped

            out of the pot, scuttled blindly off the dock

                        into the sea.

I wanted a pet

            and a meal, lobster tail

so sweet and tender,

will my burgundy pets turn red and

But there are no more lobster tails,

            no Sunday bakes on the docks any more.

The seas boiled away and

            cooked them all at once.

Killed them all,

killed us all,

                        screaming.

Sonnet for April Showers

Last week's poem was a simple, rather unimpressive little thing that I banged out in a few minutes. The my husband challenged me to actually put some effort into it and turn it into a sonnet. So I did.

April rains dripping and drizzling to earth

Soaking flowerbeds down to bulbs and roots,

Reviving the world after Winter’s dearth,

Nourishing tender vibrant green new shoots

Reaching out their fingers and toes for rain

Stretching through the damp earth to drink their fill.

Cool crisp sweet drops flow down upon the plain

pushing up, soil is not as strong as will.

Bursting again to life and light Earth reels

Riots of color now paint all the world

Winter’s walls fall to sunbright trumpet peals,

Joyous Spring’s glowing banners now unfurled.

Grudge not the rains that fall to earth today,

For they nurse forth this world’s finest array.