back in california

here i am. back on the other coast. and feeling more unsettled and uprooted than ever. i love going home. i love seeing friends and family that i enjoy because they're amazing people - not just because they support me or have known me forever. i miss the green and the humidity and the blueskyness and the walking and beaches and sunsets. and old hardwood floors at my parents' house that creak when i slide my bare feet over them and always risk a splinter.

so, going home is a wonderful thing. it's also very, very hard for all of the above reasons. i know i made the right decision to move last fall, but going home raises a whole host of other questions - what next? what now? what have i accoplished that can justify my staying here when i love so many people so far away? would i feel any more satisfied if i went home for good? probably not - not at this point, anyway.

i have felt pretty transitional for a very long time now. and going home only increases that feeling. of being pulled and unsettled and baseless. scattered. half of my things are at my parents' house. 1/4 are at tracy's house still and 1/4 are at my new apartment where i have no furniture, and no place to put my stuff.

i feel placeless. i have always been attracted to stability - friends, history, buildings, furniture - but i have yet to find it. and i'm pretty sure that i won't find it for a while yet.

i feel like i'm breaking up with new england.

i'm in MA!

for leia's wedding shower (last weekend) and smithie college reunion (this weekend). will post more later with pics. but it's been a bittersweet week. seen a million of the folks i dearly love. and then i had to leave them again. never settled, never settled.

tried to post

the other day, but evil blogger wouldn't let me. grrr.

and now i'm too tired to post anything else. allergies + moving (to berkeley!) = exhausted.

my new room is a mess of boxes and bedding and i feel totally disoriented and uprooted. again. when, oh, when, will i feel settled?

so much to do before head back to the east-side on friday. ugh!

Me = MacGyver

About 20 minutes after writing the below post, I did something a little silly. I LOCKED MYSELF OUT OF THE YOGA STUDIO.

this yoga studio is usually where i can be found on Monday nights from 5:30-9:30PST. I work the front desk in exchange for free unlimited yoga. I've been thinking that I was going to do this eventually - every Monday when I walk out back to throw the trash away, I think "one of these days, i'm going to lock myself out." well, on monday i finally did it.

i was locked out with no phone, no car keys, no phone numbers to call. And i was wearing the weird cloggy shoes someone left in the back room for those taking the trash out. so i walked down to my favorite restaurant and asked the cute bartender if i could use the phone.

no answer at the police. no answer at tracy's (used directory assistance). i started to panic. "well, i can walk home 3 miles in these weird shoes if i have to. if i have to, that's what i'll do"

i handed the phone back to the cute bartender but was too frazzled to ask him out.

walked to another restaurant, used their phone book. the ONLY person i could reach was greg, tracy's ex-husband and dad to cait and jesse.

"um..gregory baldridge?"
"yes?"
"um...hi! this is jessica mele."
[confused silence]
"um...i live in tracy's basement."
"oh, JESS! hi."
"um. i kind of locked myself out of the yoga studio i work at and you were the only person i could reach."

we strategized a plan that involved calling cait - no answer. calling tracy again - no answer. so we agreed to touch base in 10 minutes.

that was when i resolved to break in.

"ok. think of macgyver. if he needed to break into this building, what would he need? what would macgyver need? what would macgyver need?"

i won't tell you what it was, but i found it and i did it, and i got myself home that night.

i am officially a cat burglar.

AND i went back to that restaurant to ask out that cute bartender. he was gone. so i had a glass of wine. what a weird night.

under pressure!

i'm feeling mildly pressured by my horoscope. the month of may is supposed to be romantically and socially exciting, sizzling, whatever, for capricorns. which is great, but now i feel like i have to go around asking out every male piece of meat i pass, just to benefit from this period in the stars. is that a capricornian thing to do or what!? even socializing is work. and i have to work HARD! dammit! i can't be slacking. i can't waste this time!

the horoscope lady even said - don't expect to benefit from these stars if you sit at home daring people to ask you out.

but i'm tired! and yes i'm lonely, but do i have to ask EVERYONE out?! calling a guy has only recently become "something i do". now i have to do MORE? are you kidding me? and are men ever working this hard on this kind of thing? um...no. i'm pretty sure they aren't.

can't i just turn on my big beacon of amazingness and let them flock to me? FLOCK! FLOCK, DAMMIT!