Reality Day

I would like to propose a new holiday. I like to call it Reality Day. Or the Day of Reality. Or, ooh, the Festival of Reality! Whatever we're calling it, Reality Day falls on January 2, unless January 2 falls on a weekend. Weekends go against everything Reality Day stands for.

You may have noticed that today is January 2.

Happy Reality Day!

Here's the thing: until shortly before Christmas, I had a job. It was a good one: I sat in a small, messy room, surrounded by people I liked--people I like, actually, present-tense--and wrote scripts for a comedic educational TV show/DVD series. In the middle of December, my company's financial tether ran out. I was laid off, effective immediately; I arrived at the office at 9:15 and was home, with my lunch leftovers and the fake hipster glasses I'd brought in for a sketch, by eleven.

I decided to embrace the time off. Nobody's hiring the week before Christmas, let alone the week after, so I declared my Winter Break, college-style, and applied myself conscientiously to the task of relaxing. I hung out with my parents, who are local, and with my brother, whom I don't see that often. I stayed up late with friends, playing games and drinking wine and talking, and slept in accordingly, unless I had brunch plans. I celebrated Christmas. I went to my family's cabin and read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in front of the fire. I celebrated New Year's Day with friends and fried chicken and a mini-road trip toward dinner, watching the sun set behind the hills as I drove down Highway 101.

That was yesterday. Yesterday was Winter Break. Today is Reality Day. On Reality Day, we wake up to emails about job prospects and unemployment insurance. We brush our teeth before eleven a.m., in accordance with tradition. We ritually update our resumes and polish up our websites. We call the unemployment people, with the eager expectation of being on hold. We eat the celebratory meal of salad. We get stuff done, because that is the nature of this Reality Day holiday, and we are nothing if not enthusiastic about the holidays. ANY holidays.

It also bears mentioning that I'm days--hours, maybe!--from closing on my very first home. This is the exciting end to a long process; my offer was accepted in August, and now it's January, and if you want to talk about wallpaper or window coverings or my vision for the living room,  I can oblige you allllll daaaaay lonnnng. I'm already planning the housewarming party and daydreaming about sunny afternoons reading on the back patio. All of these happy new-home things are coming...AFTER I've scaled the mountain of paperwork, packing, cleaning, move-scheduling, electrician-calling (what kind of person, I ask you, installs a thermostat on the side of the heater?), address-changing, landlord-wrangling work. This work is not, of course, a surprise. We have hurried up and then waited, and hurried up and waited, and hurried up and waited. (Mortgage lenders also take Winter Break.) And when does it all begin? Reality Day! Hurrah! Here's some newspaper! Let's all pack something fragile!

I realize that I am not the only one celebrating Reality Day today. Millions--billions?--of people around the world are walking into cold, quiet offices today, trying to remember what exactly it is they're doing there. They're removing the holiday music from their iTunes to avoid the confluence of Shuffle and Bing Crosby in June. They're finishing up the last of the See's candy and sweeping up the last (they hope) of the Christmas tree needles from the living room floor. And this is why I think Reality Day should be afforded holiday status: we're gearing up, we're ritualizing, we're collectively adjusting. It's a thing. We're all doing it together anyway; why not build a holiday around it?

Or maybe I just want one last day to celebrate before it's really January.

Happy Reality Day.

Right back where we started from

News alert:

I

AM

SO

HAPPY.

The state of things

A telling (albeit slightly disgusting) anecdote:

The other night, I had this dream--not that I remember anything now, only that it was epic and sprawling and I think my friend Sue was in it--and in the middle, I woke up juuuust enough to register that my mouth tasted bad. Really bad. Consistently bad. Like rubber.

And then I realized there was something in my mouth.

And then I realized I was--wait for it--chewing on an EARPLUG. I had taken my right earplug out of my ear, put it in my mouth, and chewed it into pieces. (The left one: still in.)

It's still in bits on my night stand.

Stress eater, meet teeth grinder? In any case, I can't stop giggling about it. When I win my Emmy with a character who wakes up with earplugs in her mouth, you'll know.

...

In other news, today is my last day of work. Last! Day! Of work! What?!

Holy crap.

It's been real

You know, I've come to like DC, in a weird kind of way. I like going to things that begin with "National," and the lit-up view of the Capitol from Pennsylvania Avenue. I like the cathedral gardens, and the pizza sandwiches with hot peppers (and a small Oreo shake) from Potbelly. I like snow freak-outs and dogwood blossoms and hanging out with Lincoln whenever I feel like it.

Which, obviously, is why I'm leaving a week from today.

Did I forget to say that earlier?

I've had a good time here--really. When I take stock of the experiences I had and the places I went and the people I met, experiences and places and people that wouldn't have crossed my path if I hadn't come here, I'm grateful. It was hard, too, both confusing and clarifying, but this year has been like nothing else I've ever done--and certainly like no place else I've ever lived--and I wouldn't trade it. I'll even miss it, some.

But there are other things I want to do, professionally, that aren't accessible in DC without, at the very least, a bus ride to New York; to stay wouldn't be a good use of my time. My parents have graciously offered me a crash pad while I take a shot at writing full-time--while I polish and send out my work, take whatever freelance gigs I can get, save up some money, and see what happens. I fully expect a wild-goose chase, but I'm hopeful and in a take-no-prisoners mood. And really, what better time to leave a stable government job than in the worst employment market in eighty years?

In the mean time, I'm a total to-do list hound. I dream about crossing things off of my master pre-move list, and somehow seem to have transcended procrastination for the time being. Mail: forwarded! Return route: decided! Prescriptions: refilled! The car is in the shop today, getting an oil change and a couple of new tires; I'm dying to get it back so I can put the seats down and start loading boxes. Packing up a furnished apartment is bizarre--I'm about two-thirds packed, and everything looks more or less the same, like I'm not leaving at all. Sherlock, of course, is just psyched that I've finally embraced his passion for boxes of clean clothes (little does he know what horror awaits--he's going on the plane with my brother). In any case, by this time next week, everything will be packed, cleaned, locked and left, and I'll be on the road to Charleston (Liz & Al National Tour Stop #1).

Until then, you'll know where to find me: just look for the giant flag of packing tape.

Goodnight, not goodbye

I packed up my books today. The books are always the first thing to go when I move, empty shelves the first sure sign of leaving. I'd like to say it's because my library is emblematic of my very presence, but really it's because they're an easy first step--I can box up my books with only half a brain, and suddenly a third of my possessions are taken care of before I've wrapped a single dish or even emptied out my closets.

It's different this time, though, because most of my books aren't coming with me, and it was a strange kind of parting as I pulled them off the shelves, like burying a time capsule. As I sorted and stacked and fit them all into rows, I imagined the moment when I'll re-open those boxes, like a reunion with a whole crowd of old friends (...whom I've stuffed into a box and placed in a non-climate-controlled storage facility for a year or two). I could practically see them smiling at me, showing their pages like teeth. I don't even think they'll hold a grudge for the whole storage thing.

Not everything's staying here; I allowed myself one box of books I just couldn't leave behind. The Austens are coming, and Middlemarch and Jane Eyre; so are 84 Charing Cross Road and Girl Meets God (for emergency comfort reading). I also packed a supply of books I have yet to read--basically my takings from the San Francisco Library book sale, plus a few future book-club selections. I'm still debating the wisdom of leaving The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty here, and can't promise I won't sneak it into my suitcase at the last second; I haven't read much Eudora here, but somehow the move has motivated her. Take me with you, she's saying. You'll want me later. I don't doubt it.

Harry and me

Have I told you all about my love for apartment hunting? Here: I love apartment hunting. I've gotten away from the post-college annual-move phase, so for the last few years I've mostly been finding places for other people, but there is something thrilling to me about the possibility of a new space. When I was little, we'd spend hot afternoons looking at air-conditioned model homes, despite the fact that my parents haven't moved since 1980, and I think the apartment search is just the same sensation: I look at every room and try to figure out where I'd put the furniture and what color I'd paint the walls. I liked, and still like, seeing what my life could look like.

It's a good thing I feel this way, because I'd forgotten that apartment hunting for me is approximately 10,000 times more stressful than when I'm not actually looking to move--I don't know how people do it, if they don't already like checking out empty houses. In DC last week, I looked at basically every type of apartment (brand-new, hills-old, row-house, big building, small building) in every type of neighborhood (Capitol Hill to Arlington; Columbia Heights to Alexandria). I looked at nine places in two days, and at the end could barely a) remember my own name or b) feel my own toes (hello, walking city). It was exhausting, especially after I realized that I had not flown 3,000 miles across the country for an exercise in potential, and that I would actually have to choose a place. To live. By myself.

That said, I am pleased to announce that I've found myself a home base in DC, and that it is a home base beyond what I could have expected. I've signed a lease on a beautiful, furnished one-bedroom waaaay up on the northwest side of the city, a quick bus ride up from Dupont Circle and half a mile from the Vice President's house. Harry S Truman lived in my building, and there's a fantastic view of the National Cathedral from the roof deck (and also, apparently, from my kitchen window when there are no leaves on the trees). After the parade of the iffy, strange, inconvenient, and exorbitant places I saw, this place was clearly it, and I am nothing but thrilled to get to live there (and also to not have to move all my stuff across the country--furnished, remember?). I think my new Sleep Number bed and I will be very happy together.

So that's done, and a huge load off my mind. Now...oh, right. EVERYTHING ELSE.

Things I am realizing about moving to Washington DC

I have no office clothes.

I have no winter clothes.

I should start knitting for myself in earnest.

I am going there, and all of my friends (except Sarah) are staying here.

I can get a cat!

I am spending Thanksgiving in New York, which seems fabulously quaint and East Coasty.

I will miss out on the West Coast Thanksgiving hors d'oeuvres table.

I will have to switch banks.

I will not have to switch medical plans.

I can go visit the Smithsonian, or the Lincoln Memorial, any time.



I'm leaving in two weeks.

Flux, or Why I'd Better Brush Up on The West Wing

So, I was planning on going to work on Thursday. I was. I made lunch (Farro and Roasted Butternut Squash, only I used quinoa); I picked an outfit (jeans and a sweater). I was prepared.

And then, well, the U.S. State Department called, and I told them I would move across the country to work for them instead.

Yeah.

I don't consider myself a thrill seeker (not a fan of heights, falling, 3-D movies, enclosed spaces, or creatures that dart or slither), but I think my friends and family would agree that the past ten days have been mostly fueled by some mixture of adrenaline, reckless hope, and generalized uncertainty. The entire process took one week, including accepting the offer around the time I was supposed to be heading off for my first day at the other job. It just happened, in a good way, the way where it's just so convenient you know it must be right. It's a really good job, a job writing in the English language about the English language--so very Jasper Fforde!--which is a little synechdochic representation of two of my favorite things. I keep thinking that it wouldn't be my life if something crazy and wonderful didn't just happen at the last second, and that I'm not sure I'd change that if I could. I like surprises (...don't quote me on that).

So that's how things are now: trying to picture myself a month from now and finding the image strangely blurry. I'm haunting Craigslist of Washington DC, debating the merits of pod storage vs. movers, exploring strategies for fending off crushing loneliness (a. convince friends to move, too; b. cram all of California into suitcase; c. acquire time-stopping device and teleportation skills), and looking forward to a new adventure. It's fun and stressful and I don't even really know what it means, probably, but I think I am ready to find out. I'm pretty sure it's the right thing.

See you on the East Coast.

(!!!)