To Take In

I should really be in bed right now—it’s been another rough day at work and tomorrow promises to more of the same so basically: UNH BRING IT SOCIAL WORK YOU WILL NOT BREAK ME oh man what am I doing here—but I haven’t been writing much lately and I get to feel a little weird when I don’t, still, after all these years. I have never really come to a good decision, since I started writing this thing and since all fourteen of you started reading, whether it’s best to wait to write until I have something interesting and important and incisive to say or to just keep writing even if it’s just to say Dang It’s Been A Hell Of A Week, You Feel Me? Ideally I’d like to be writing interesting and important and incisive entries three-to-five times a week, but that goal remains, um, unrealized at this juncture.

So the things I am thinking about lately are, in descending order 1) Wow, Work Is Hard, 2) OMG Politics, and 3) I Am In Complete Denial About Returning To The States In Five Short Months. Today I got home from work and immediately went down for a nap (I don’t know if I mentioned? But work was hard today), and, like, in my dreams I was worrying about who I would vote for in the primaries if I were able to vote in the primaries. I woke up when it was time for dinner, all sweaty and exhausted and thinking, “The intersectionality of pervasive racism and sexism upon which American society is fundamentally based is manifesting itself all too clearly in the campaigns so far and WHAT DO I DO ABOUT THAT?” And then when I had made myself a huge bowl of pasta with broccoli, sundried tomatoes, olives and garlic and was snorfing it down on the couch in my yoga pants, A. and I started talking about her impending Overseas Experience and how awesome it was going to be and how much she was going to totally own it, and I said that one of the big turning points for me here was when I stopped noticing NZ accents and started whipping my head around and being all “Buh?” whenever Friends was on. And then I had this big weird moment of realizing that in six months, this Northern Hemisphere summer, I will be hearing American accents every day on the street and it will be no big deal to anyone except me, who will probably have whiplash from whipping my head around and a sore throat from going “Buh?” all the time.

A full month from today is my going-away party, and I keep making new friends and discovering new things about Wellington and thinking new thoughts about New Zealand and America and everywhere in between. My pink bed in my little flowered room is just the same; I go to work and to New World and out on weekends just the same; I read the news and assure people that no, not all Americans are ignorant assholes just the same. I got what I wanted, for a little while at least, and nothing has changed yet. It’s on the way, though, I feel it coming. By this Northern Hemisphere autumn I will have stopped whipping my head around, and we’ll be right in the thick of the elections, and nothing will be the same, and I’ll be writing this very same entry from a completely different perspective. It seems too much to take in, but nothing has even happened yet.