satisfied

Today, i feel as though i accomplished a lot.

After waking up early (a feat in & of itself) i thoroughly cleaned the condo.  Degreasing the oven knobs, scouring the formica, hand-mopping the floor.. the deeply satisfying type of clean.

After dipping myself into the industrial-sized vat of spf55, i rode Roomie's bicycle to the supermarket.  It's not terribly far - 4.5 miles - & considering that there aren't any hills at sea-level, it's a pleasant trip.  Biking over bridges, under palm trees, dodging iguana.  Satisfying.

Supermarket choices are: Winn-Dixie or Publix.  We shop at Publix, which seems comparable to the newly remodeled Dillons back home.  I can't complain, because they do have booze, & there is a smallish health-food section.  They also stock a few organic options in the produce, & best of all, they have the best yogurt selection i've ever seen!  Thankfully, since i'd say that these days, an easy 90% of my diet consists of yogurt & organic produce.  However, the last decade in a college-wonderland, i have grown accustomed to some particular eating habits.  Great Harvest bread, Vanilla-Blueberry granola from the Casbah (all within walking distance.)  A luxurious life indeed.  I found a granola that i thought would be good - anything with freeze dried berries can't be bad - but really, it was too crunchy & hurt my teeth.  

So, if you're reading this, i sure would like some bread & cereal from back home!

escape velocity

In the twenty-six years that i have been alive, i have lived within twenty-six miles of where i was born. From four to seventeen, I attended the same school district. My parents & grandparents still live on the land where I was raised (where my own mother grew up.) The past nine years are the only i have spent living in a city, a college town of about 90,000.

Now, i am in the process of extricating myself from Kansas to live with a friend in the Florida Keys.

Anyone who has ever lived in & moved from a little oasis is surely empathetic to my situation: excited to leave, terrified to be gone, & effing tired of talking about it. Obviously, the constant dialogue about the perfect weather & the ocean view is helping to keep my spirits high, & is a definite nudge towards optimism. However, working as a barista in a busy Downtown coffeeshop, i have started to feel like a broken record.

Besides the obvious resident-turnover that will accompany a Big-12 state school, there is a constant ebb & flow of townies who all have the same Dorothy desires. It is expected that you will move. And when you do move, it is expected that your take-off attempt will fail, & you will return, tuck-tail to the motherly embrace of her limestone alleys.

Unlike a lot of others who have come & gone in the years i have been here, i love this town. It cannot be overlooked, the obvious drawbacks of living in a university town: alumni, greeks, basketball, football, freshman, art students, business majors... Undeniably, the suffocatingly exponential expansion of the 'west side' is only getting worse. And, a small town, is a small town, is a small town. We may not be rural, but Downtown is tiny enough that everyone knows everything, personal & otherwise. The frequent farewell parties all share the same refrain, 'I'm just so tired of this damn town.' & 'I can't stand any of these effing hipsters anymore.'

Ridiculous. I have the most incredible life i could ask for here. I haven't owned a car in seven years, everything i need is within a five block radius of my amazing apartment in a pre-civil war house, & there is convenient & reliable public transit for the rare occasion when i am required to leave Downtown. We have a lively (albeit wheezy) art scene, & most importantly, the ability to sustain one's self by 'living locally' (groceries, restaurants, shops...) It's a town where you can barter! A community where you all live & work nearby, therefore, you know everyone! I lead a blissful, luxurious life here. I fully intend to come back someday to grow old here.
While I have yet to make any kind of decisions concerning kids & career, I feel safer assuming that someday I could have one or both of those. So, why wait until having them binds me irreversibly to the Midwest? I am aware enough of the passage of time to recognize that the now is an opportunity to save myself from becoming an elderly woman who settled down without exploring her options.

Mostly, I just hate winter. I hate being cold. I take it as a personal affront. As if every bone-chilling breeze, & soul-crushing ice-storm is an attack on me, as an individual. For a third of the year i wear long-johns, thermal socks, undershirts, sweaters, gloves, boots, a coat, & a thick scarf. It's suffocating! Not just the scarf over my mouth & nose (or the frozen air when scarfless,) but the layers & layers constricting your movement & rendering you as unsexy, & uncute as possible.
Do you know where they don't have winter? The tropical islands known as the Florida Keys.
And what they do have in the Keys, besides beaches, palm trees, sunshine, & crystal clear water? Weather that allows me to wear sundresses for two thirds of the year.

summer sundays

I live in a kickball town.
Now, i know that Vice has talked trash on small-town, hipster kickball leagues. And until this spring, i'd never been to a single game (despite having worked jobs in multiple business with kickball teams in the last 5 or 6 years.) A couple of weeks ago, i was lured to the night-time game at our Municipal Stadium to watch a rousing game of the drunken sport.
When school lets out (as our town can also be called a college town,) my city is laid-back & generally more easy-going. Most obviously, a certain percentage of the town packs up & leaves, much to the relief of we that live here year round. More importantly, the weather in the springtime is amazing, especially in sharp contrast to the brutal wintertime we all feel lucky to have survived. So, true to our college town stereotypes, when the weather gets good, the good get drunk. Here, we get drunk at a public park while we make fun of our friends falling down when they attempt to steal second & lose their still-lit cigarette in the dust.
The circa-1947 stadium is only a few blocks from my house, so unlike most of the fans, balancing coolers of PBR on their bike handle bars, i can walk over with the dog as dusk starts to settle into the tops of the trees. Some weeks we come armed with coozies & a case of beer, but there have been a couple of glorious evenings filled with jugs of homemade sangria (perfect for a hot summer night.) Which is not to imply that it's about drinking. Sure, it's fun to get drunk with your friends, but it's also fun to sit around in a crowd of people who are all excited about the same thing. Everyone has been doing this for a few hours, so we're sharing in this community moment that lasts all afternoon.  And that's what i really like about it., that feeling of camaraderie, especially amongst drunken compatriots.