Seems like everywhere I go, the sky is falling.

[constance]

I have a cat sitting next to me, and she refuses to keep her tail off the keyboard, so I'm writing this kind of blind, with my fingers tucked up under her tail, which keeps twitching. There's another cat who's crammed herself between my back and the headboard. There's a dog sleeping on the floor: it's a bit thundery and she has prepared herself for the possibility that she might have to wriggle under the bed any moment now. We are all happy to see each other, but there's some anxiety attached to our happiness. I leave the room and they all follow. I leave to run to the grocery and they greet me at the door fifteen minutes later as if they'd been afraid they'd never see me again.

I feel it too. But I will be home for the next week, and it's good to be home.

:::

Last night I went to pick up my child at her grandmother's, where she stays while I'm gone, and my mother showed me all the things she'd done to and around the house in the week I was gone. She is now so far ahead of me, move-wise, unpacking-wise, that I am a little embarrassed (she has four bedrooms! I have one!), but of course she has all that time I am at work or out of town to pull ahead of me, I keep reminding myself of this.

I was telling her last night that the thought of spending the weekend unpacking when I'd just spent the week trying to convince five people that our software doesn't suck and would not cause their office to go up in flames the second I walked out the door, that thought did not appeal. And my mother said...

(Well, before I tell you what she said, I want to tell you a little bit about the sort of person she is. She is the sort of person who makes the bed the moment she gets out of it in the morning. She is the sort of person who does laundry every Monday and Thursday even if she doesn't actually have a full load of clothes to wash. She is the sort of person who scrubs her counters with bleach as part of her weekly cleaning routine. Which is always on Friday, and which is timed so perfectly that she is showered and just putting the finishing touches on her toilette when my father gets home from work so that they can have a cocktail together and then go straight out to dinner before the restaurants get too crowded. She is the sort of person who is mostly much too polite and kind to say so, but my own haphazard and halfhearted housekeeping methods pain her terribly.)

(And I also want to tell you a bit about my apartment, which is the much-smaller part of a duplex, the other half of which the landlord is renovating and which will be available for rent when they're finished with it, for a hundred dollars more per month than my current rent, which is still well within my budget, and I have first refusal on it if I want it when they're done.)

And my mother said, "Are you still wanting to move to the other half of your house? Because if you are, and if the apartment will be ready when your landlord says it will be, I'd just not unpack any more. I'd just wait."

Which is shocking coming from her--it is like hearing Michael Moore talking about what a fine President George W. Bush is--but which actually makes a fair bit of sense. My bathroom is finished, and my closet. My living room. I'd want to do more with my kitchen, but really, aside from the kitchen what's left is nonessential. Books and odds and ends. Christmas decorations and teapot collections. Winter linens and boxes I never actually got around to unpacking the entire time I lived in New Orleans.

I could live this way, I am thinking, for a few months, especially if I spend half of it in a hotel room. I am thinking about it seriously, anyway.

:::

Ohhh. There goes the rain. Here comes the puppy, who wants to tuck her nose into the crook of my elbow. Off to cuddle and comfort.

Comments

[kickthebeat.livejournal.com]

If my other option wasn't panning out so beautifully -- and it is, and I should post about that -- I would move into the other side of your house. Or, your side, if/when you relocate to the other side of your house. It would be absolutely marvelous.

I miss living in an area where it rains regularly. And thunderstorms, even! *swoons*

[cursive.livejournal.com]

My cat does the same thing. I'm getting quite good at typing around and under his tail. And when ridiculous errors appear, I like to think of them as his contribution. :)