Letter #4

Dear Rowan,                                                May 13th     Wichita, KS

So much for a wonderful new start. I am in a rather horrid city, in a rathole of an apartment, and now I have proven that it can always get worse. The only stupid job I could find in the dustbowl of a town was at another call center. I couldn't even get a full time job waiting tables. It seems like everything here that is hiring is just hiring part time only, with flexible schedules so you really can't have two part time jobs since they need to be "flexible" which translates as "you need to be available any time of the day or night we decide to schedule you, on short notice." So, needing to have some sort of income to make my status here a little more stable, and having put in applications for weeks with no response, I applied at a local call center, and of course they are the only place to give me a job offer so far. I am going to keep applying at other places, and hopefully about the time that the training is done at this place, I will be able to quit and go to a better job before I ever have to take phone calls. At least I will be working for a different company. They can't all be as depressingly draining as my last job, right? The only really lucky part of all this I suppose is that it is an inbound call center instead of an outbound one. I don't think I could handle making outbound calls. And this is tech support, so I shouldn't have to sell anything, which is good. I didn't like having to do sales at my old job, and all I had to try and sell there were warranties on things people already owned. And really, if you are calling for tech support and you don't have a warranty, shouldn't you probably get one while you still can since it looks like you are going to need it? Maybe if they had let me say that instead of the usual "our warrantee is great" pitch I might have sold more of them, or at least felt better about trying. Of course, that job said it was just tech support too, so we'll see.

In other news, it appears that I arrived in lovely flatville just in time for the tornado season. At least I live in a basement apartment. It's almost like a storm cellar, I would just need to board up the windows, and they are so small that wouldn't take much lumber. At least it is flat enough that you can see anything coming from all directions for miles. There really isn't a way for a storm to sneak up on this city unless it forms right above us.

I'm sorry to be so negative, it is just that I thought this was going to be a wonderful new start in a new city. I had some sort of grand impression of getting out here and turning my life around, really getting going out here, and instead I am living in a rathole of an apartment instead of my cute little house, in a city where no one cares to know who you are, even the neighbors, instead of in a town where you saw somebody you knew who would say hello to you whenever you went out, and starting almost the same exact job that I left, which I detested and quit. It just feels like my lot in life is to be the nobody voice at the other end of the phone, who customers can insult and abuse because they know they will never meet me. But maybe this job will be different, maybe the customers will actually be polite and understand that I am jut doing my job. Yeah right, but I can hope.

So far I have not seen a tornado, and I am just fine with that. I did see a truck that was in a tornado that came through one of the next towns down the highway from here. Apparently tornadoes can bring hail. Really big, golfball-sized hail. And lots of it. This truck had no windows left intact, and the hood and roof looked like a giant blue golfball. It was like some very obsessive person attacked the truck with a ball peen hammer, and did no stop hitting it until the whole surface of the car was dimpled. The guy driving the truck said his house looked about the same on one side, where the wind had been blowing all one direction really hard. And he is going to need a new roof. But this guy is a local, and so where I was horrified, he sounded like it was just something you did every year or two, like mowing the lawn, (seriously, I think that is really as often as some people around here mow their lawns).

Oh! Speaking of lawns, have I mentioned the ticks yet? A few different people have told me that if I want to walk in the grass, even a nicely mowed yard, I should wear high-top shoes or better yet boots, and wear long socks, which I should pull up over my pants, so that ticks can't climb up under my pants and bite me. And when I come back inside, even if I did pull my socks up like that, I should still strip and check to makes sure there are no ticks on me. They recommended that I get a full length mirror since the apartment does not have one in it, just the little mirror over the sink. They did reassure me that I only have to worry about ticks during the spring, summer, and fall though, since it snows and freezes here in winter so much that a tick couldn't survive. Somehow I do not find this entirely reassuring.

I think I will just stay inside and knit instead of going for a walk in the park for a while. If for no other reason, I want to see if people really do pull their socks up over their pants and wander around in public that way, or if the folks who told me that just wanted to see if the new girl in town would make herself look ridiculous. I am not sure what to knit though, since they tell me it gets hot enough here during the summer that  you can barely stand it, but they did warn me not to wear shorts unless I was going to wear long socks too, again for the ticks. Or I could wear skirts with pantyhose, apparently they don't usually bite through pantyhose. I think I will just stay off the grass. I suppose I could start knitting myself a winter set, since they say it will get very cold here. But they did point out that I don't need to worry about the snow piling up too bad, since the wind blows so often and strong here that it just blows the snow away. Great. So no brimmed hats for the wind to catch. Got it. But a hat, scarf, and mittens set could be fun. That will at least give me a place to start, although it will not take me all the way to winter to finish one cold weather set. Do you want a hat, or scarf, or mittens? I could knit you something, just tell me what color or colors you like! Or if you are really ambitious (and want an excuse to wander around a craft store) you could go and find a yarn you like, then tell me the brand and colorway. Just remember I am not in what I would call a crafting mecca here, so if you can't find it in a chair store, I won't be able to find it here. I think I will get the hat started right away, since I know it always helped me at my last job to have knitting with me. It gave me something to focus on, which kept me slightly saner than if I was just sitting staring at a cubicle and computer screen all day. And of course no games or non-work-related things on the computer either. Wouldn't want us to destroy the sense of monotony and angst by amusing ourselves between calls.

How is life for you? I hope doing much better than for me at the moment. How is work going? Has spring arrived for you yet? They tell me that it is beginning to come to Wichita, but unless you count the brown showing some green intermixed in the grass, I am not convinced. There are very few trees to speak of, and it appears they must not wake up until later in the spring. A few people have planted flowers in their yards, but somehow store bought flowers just don't feel as springish as budding trees or blooming daffodils. But maybe I just haven't found the right part of town to wander for the view yet. I do need to go down to the river and explore around there. I have been told of a nice park, with miles of jogging trails. I really need to get back to jogging, it always makes the day better if I have managed to fit in a run at some point. The trail is called, quite inventively, "The Arkansas River Trail" and apparently there is even a troll to be found somewhere along the ten miles of paths, so that gives me a bit of something to hunt for. If I find him I will email you a picture.

And of course there are museums, and theaters, and restaurants, and all sorts of other things that a city bigger than Arbuckle has to offer. I have just been so tied up in apartment hunting, then moving in, then job hunting, that I have not really given the better side of Wichita a chance, since the job and apartment sides of Wichita have turned out to be rather wretched at the moment. But things will get better, right? They just have to, this is a new start after all. And new starts are good things, so this will become good at some point here soon.

That's all for now, hopefully my next letter will be to tell you that I got a wonderful job, found a gorgeous new apartment, and have been cavorting around all the attractions that Wichita has to offer with a ravishingly handsome man. Until then, stay safe and happy!

Your friend,

Emily

Letter #3

Dear Rowan,                                       April 20^th          Wichita, KS

Well, I have arrived safely, and found an apartment so I have a roof over my head. That is really all I have to say that is really good news. Wichita is . . . flat. It is certainly a good deal bigger than Arbuckle, and seems to stretch on for miles comparatively. But it is really not so very different from Arbuckle or Bend at first glance, except for the size. The whole city seems dusty, and has a feel of poverty to it. There are nice enough buildings in the historic part of downtown, but even they feel like they were really nice once, and are clinging to their pasts for all they are worth, because their present condition is one of disrepair or minimal and unskilled repair, making them look more like Frankenstein's creations than buildings that were built whole and were once beautiful.

The only apartment I could find at a decent price is a basement of a tiny little house. The main floor is rented out as its own apartment. There is a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom, and main room. When you open the door there is a "landing" about twice as deep as a normal stair step, then the stairs plunge precipitously down under the house. The edge of the floor above sticks out over the stairwell so that if you were to come down the stairs upright, and were a few inches taller than me, you would hit your head. Fortunately I am short enough to just miss it without having to stoop, since the stairs are so steep that bending down may be hazardous. The stairs empty into a narrow "hallway" that branches off to the main room and bedroom on the left, and the kitchen and bathroom on the right. The hall is narrow, and the wall opposite the stairs is brick, having once been a central fireplace and chimney column for both levels of the house. The fireplace is sealed up though, and it did not even seem to have a mantle before, just a hole in the bricks which has since been badly bricked up.

The landlord is an older woman, I refuse to call her a lady, who complained the whole time about how tired she was of continually showing this place, when in fact she had not been down into this apartment for years. Every surface that had once contained water, sinks in the kitchen and bathroom, the tub, even the toilet, had a covering of dead bugs. And all she said about it when I was rather nauseated was that maybe she should have had someone down to clean the place. She wouldn't even have done it herself, and she is the one renting it out! The fridge is stuck into an unfinished, unsealed hole cut into the drywall in the kitchen, which backs into the space below the stairs. I shudder to think what may be living in that hole, since there seems to be just an empty void behind the bulk of the fridge.

There is no dishwasher, and the stove is electric with the wire rings, none of which set flat, and there is only one rack in the oven. Apparently the last tenants must have taken the other rack with them when they left, because she swears that there used to be two. She very generously said I could buy a new rack or new stove rings if I wanted to. Not that she would buy them, or reimburse me for the purchase, just that I could buy them if I wanted them.

The bathroom is the largest room in the whole house, partially because it is also the laundry room. There are plugs for a washer and drier in a large closet in the bathroom. There is no washer or dryer, and she again generously told me that if I wanted them I could buy them, otherwise there is a laundromat a few blocks away. Even if I did want to buy a laundry set, I have no idea how I would get them down those stairs, around the corner into the hall, and then through the tight squeeze and ninety degree turn into the bathroom.

The bedroom has a single-wide bed frame in it, but no mattress. Apparently the last tenants took that too. Sadly, a single bed is all that would fit in this tiny room and still allow room for standing up to get dressed without having to go out into the main room. There is a closet, which is just deep enough for a hanger, although I think that once there are clothes on my hangers things will hang at an angle. The closet has sliding doors, which is great because otherwise I am not sure you could fit a bed in the bedroom at all, unless it was one of those like in old movies that could fold up to the wall.

The main room is large enough for a TV and a chair, or maybe a love-seat as long as you were ok having that be the only furniture in the room. I don't know where even a nook-sized table and chair would go for eating on, the landlady just said to use TV trays that can fold up. She is such a classy lady I can hardly stand it.

In her ad she said that there were mostly basement windows, but that the main room had a full sized window. Well, if full size means a bathroom window size, then yes, it is full sized. It also has a beautiful view of concrete, weeds, and trash. It is a completely sunken window, with no view at all, and no real light to speak of since it is on the worst side of the house for sunlight. The basement windows are the little, two panel type that peek out onto the lawn, and if you were trapped in the house, you would be in big trouble because I don't think you could fit a toddler through these things even if they opened. Which they don't, because there is a layer of dirt and weeds that has built up over the bottoms of them, effectively reducing their light input to a brownish haze that wouldn't even be bright enough to find the light switch on the wall by. Speaking of lights, apparently the last tenants ran off with the fixtures as well, because there are just bare bulbs in all the rooms. Again, the landlady said I could buy fixtures if I minded the bare bulbs.

The upstairs neighbors are gems too. There are three broken-down cars in the two driveways that go to the house, one from the front and one from the back. The unshaven man who was sitting in rusty lawn chair on his porch, (which is just big enough for the door to swing open, so the door can't open if you are sitting on the porch) in a wife beater tank top and paint plastered jeans that he had hemmed by walking off the backs of them, said he could move one of them so I could park in a driveway instead of in the street. Of course he finished his cigarette, yelled back into the house while folding up his lawn chair, and out came a woman with rats-nest hair, wearing a matching tank top and cut off daisy dukes, carrying a filthy toddler in an also matching tank top and a diaper (They must sell wife beaters in family packs around here). A black lab mix, probably around 8 months old, came bounding out of the house with them, and the guy promptly put it in a plastic kennel beside the front door. They all piled into the least decrepit looking car and pulled out, belts screaming in protest, and left. I don't think he meant me to use that spot, since it is the closest to his door, but hey, he left it open. He can move one of his other junkers if he wants to park somewhere else. That dog has been barking its head off quite happily ever since, at least as far as I can tell. After a while I just tuned it out.

The only really good thing about this apartment is that it rents by the month. It makes me wonder if all the things she said the last tenants took when they left were ever here at all. And she said that the last tenants stayed here for four years. I can't imagine living in this rat hole for four years. The only reason I took it at all is that I already spent about a month's rent on a hotel room, and since this place rents by the month I don't have to worry about a long term commitment. It is also in a residential area within walking distance of downtown so I won't have to worry about driving downtown to find a job.

I already went and got a cheap new mattress and a few things for the kitchen, milk and eggs and such. The mattress was kind of fun to get into the apartment, since I had to slide it down the stairs, then slide down the mattress to get below it and maneuver it into the bedroom. When I really think about it, a slide would be so much cooler than these precipitous stairs for getting down into the apartment. Then you could have a rope ladder or something to get back up again. Or the convertible stairs to slide things like in the movies, so they could be stairs when you needed to go up, but you could flip them down to be a slide for coming down. That would add just a touch of awesomeness to this otherwise rather vile abode. Tomorrow I plan on getting everything I can clean taken care of in this little dung heap, then unpacking. And the day after that, the job hunt begins! Once I get a nice steady job, I am going to look around for a better apartment in a better neighborhood. And of course I need to find the best coffee shop in walking distance, because I don't want to sit down in this little cell writing any more than I have to. This place is just temporary and all I really need it for is a place to sleep at night. But at least I have a place, I am out of the hotel so now I have a physical address, which always helps when putting in job applications, and I have a plan for getting this new life on track. Things can only look up from here, right?

I'll write again when I have any news, job, cool coffee shop, meeting the man of my dreams who has been waiting for me here in Wichita, you know, just any little news like that. I hope you are doing great, and you can write back to the address on this letter until I find a better place!

Your friend,

Emily

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