This ain't no party, this ain't no disco.
There is a box crammed full of books making heavy dimples in the mattress on my bed. A stack of old text books is scowling at me from under my desk and my laundry basket is fountaining over with clothes that need washing before I pack them. My drawers have nothing in them but spare buttons and scraps of paper. I've tucked my photographs into a little shoebox and started saving newspapers to wrap my tea pots in.
It's almost over.
I've somehow managed to keep myself clean from the gooey white droppings of the anxiety gull that's been circling this place for weeks.
I don't stress much about school this time around, it seems.
I do not know why this is.
Perhaps I'm so thrilled to be going home that finals are just benign shadows trailing after me. I know they'll be gone as soon as the days are over and I'm watching the Salt Lake City lights disappear under clouds and jet wings.
Oh yes... I didn't say anything before... but Jessie and I found the house. We don't know if it's ours yet... there are some people who came before us who haven't decided on it yet... I've been holding my breath for days over it.
I don't want to imagine myself living there... not curled up on the leather couch next to the fireplace... or scooting around the hardwood floors in thick socks... or lining my books up in clusters on the cherry wood shelves in the den... or filling my very own room with the rich smell of nag champa and listening to sitar music while I try to fall asleep...
I don't want to imagine it.
If we don't get the house, all that imagining would be for nothing.
It's beautiful. A pretty white house with two stories and a red deck wrapping around the back. The main level has beautiful hardwood floors and a den just left of the front door. The stairs have old fashioned carpet runners tacked down along the center and a real banister. The upstairs rooms have slanted ceilings and windows on the sides. The dining room has large windows looking out over the backyard. There are a few fruit trees springing up back there and plenty of room for cookouts or outdoor concerts. The neighborhood is thick with little kids skateboarding and rollerblading on the walks. There are old oaks springing up on nearly all the lawns.
It's beautiful.
I want it.
We've been half-heartedly hunting for houses since then... we really just think it's the house.
We both think so.
I was very hungry when I got home from church today.
I stood up on the chair in the kitchen and reached my hand all the way to the very back corners of my cupboard above the fridge. All I found were empty tea packets and three of those complimentary top ramen packages they give you at the beginning of each semester as a cooking joke.
"Oh, you guys don't know how to cook because you're in college! Your mom is at home and so you have to eat ramen... get it? Because you don't know how to do it because your mom usually did it when you were at home, you know? Ohohoho... you know.... you bad cook, you."
Sitting on top of the freezer was a can of chowder I inherited from the last tenant of my cupboard. It's the expensive kind in the blue can, but I still don't like clam chowder when I'm not eating it on the pier next to the ferry dock. Or fresh from Uncle Art's large grey pot.
I ate about 1/2 a cup of it decked out in shredded cheese and warmed up in my star trek mug.
I'm picky, but not retarded.
Eats are eats.
The star trek mug made it taste good.
I came to Jessie's and made myself a makeshift Greek wrap - moussaka and black beans and lettuce and those fresh uncooked tortillas you can buy at costco. It was filling and tasty.
Now I'm glancing about the ebay looking at jewelry to buy.
I'm a sucker for jewelry.
My favorite stone, insofar as I've ever handled personally... is called a demantoid. The name sounds a little downs-syndromey... but it's a real stone named in like Switzerland I think... it's something to do with being "diamond-like."
It's really a type of garnet, which is my birth stone. However, it's more rare than just a regular old red or orange garnet. It's deliciously green and rich. It catches the light like a diamond and is usually almost as expensive. Most rare are the deep emerald-coloured stones... and they're never very large.
I like them better than emeralds because emeralds are common and dark. These stones are rare and glow.
Aye... I can't afford those.
