Catch up

So much has happened in the last few months and I’ve been dying to a) know where things are leading and b) write about it here.

I guess most importantly: I got a job!

The Monday after graduation, back in May, I started interning four days a week at a large tech company with an office in Austin, while continuing to work another ten hours a week or so at the local museum and sculpture garden where I did my master’s capstone project. And then in July, the tech company offered me a full time salaried position! So happy to only be working one job for the first time in…a while. My first day was on Monday.

As for why I started almost a month after the offer, first I spent almost two weeks in Montana!

I had already booked the flight before anything came down the job pipeline (and had bought tickets to see Paul McCartney in Missoula), so I decided to push back my start date and take a little vacay – and escape the Texas heat. It was awesome to see family and friends and my dog and also to have almost nothing to do, save a little preliminary Craigslist stalking. I was exhausted and spent more time sleeping than ideal, perhaps, but I needed it. I did read three books and started another, plus a ton of magazines, so…productive? Sure.

And then the morning after I got back from Montana, I moved! To some weird degree, this is the most exciting aspect of everything for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m excited about the job for lots of reasons and I’m relieved to be employed and all of that, but c’mon, decorating is basically the greatest.

The lease on my old apartment ended the first week in June, so I hired movers and put about 95% of my stuff into storage. Not knowing where the next few months would lead, I took a friend up on her offer to let me stay in the studio apartment behind her house – all 150 sq ft or so. It had a shower that required me to take a deep breath to enter, a futon I slept on/ate on/watched TV on/lived on all summer, and perhaps most frustratingly, a defective dorm fridge. One particular night when I pulled out a carton of ice cream (melty and funky) and then thought “OK, this is a sign. Find something healthy instead” only to bite into a strawberry (mushy on the outside, frozen in the center) was kind of a low point. Don’t get me wrong – my friend’s generosity enabled so much of this to happen, and I am really grateful for a rent-free summer. But I was also reminded just how much my living situation affects my happiness and how cranky I get when I feel unsettled. So I was ready for my situation to become less temporary/nomadic (so much house/cat sitting this summer!) and more permanent.

Guys, my new apartment is going to be awesome. I can feel it.

After lots and lots of Craigslist stalking, and one place that fell through in the process of signing the lease (I had the pen in hand!), this place actually took my breath away. It’s a two story garage apartment with a loft feel and a big open first floor. The second floor houses the bedrooms (yes, I said bedrooms plural!) and bathrooms (!) and an open office-type space. The previous tenants let the place get pretty rundown, so there’s been quite a few fixes by the landlord since I signed the lease and more surprises all of the time (um, what the heck is the deal with the wire hanging outside from…somewhere, stopping abruptly a few feet off the ground…?) but I see potential. Plus light! Nice, soft light streaming in the many windows and casting cool shadows on the walls.

So now is kind of the Crazytown USA moment where I have boxes everywhere and am just wrapping up moving out of the studio and I haven’t really found a place for anything but I have, against all reasonable advice to the contrary, managed to unpack a large number of boxes, thus exploding things all over the place. Things that do not yet have homes. Whoops.

But this, too, shall pass. I have lots of ideas and thoughts and feelingz about it all, and I’m hoping to get back in the swing of posting. Want to follow along with me? I hope so! I think it’s gonna be a real good time.