And that's how I feel about that.

Purgatories.

Lately, I have been forgetting that I am any sort of a writer, or that I have any kind of desire or obligation to fill up these little white boxes from time to time. I think it's getting me down a little, though of course that could also be a host of other things. So, let me try a little harder.

I'm at my parents' house now, which is perhaps my definition of the modern 'purgatory'. Nothing to do here, most days no real reason to get dressed before 5pm if I bother to get dressed at all. Can't leave the house on my own, and rarely have any idea where I'd like to go if I did leave. Yesterday I smacked through the ennui long enough to put on a bathing suit and go out to the back pool, only to see a large dead spider waiting for me under the water at the bottom of the stairs. In the deep end, a small (living) frog floated along atop the pool thermometer. I went inside, and took a shower.

Seven more days here, and I can't think of any way to make them not like the last seven. I feel most awake when I'm in the shower, enough to make plans and get back a little of my 'take charge' attitude (read books, practice japanese or korean, write that paper, call the landlord), but none of my books are waterproofed, and the feeling usually dissipates by the time I wrap a towel around my head and leave the bathroom. The real world just feels a little too far away.

And yet, I have plenty of work to do. Late paper to write, two languages to relearn, finances with which to wrestle. Silly, silly important things. I can't hope to get them all done through 6ish weekday afternoons in Brooklyn while I wait for friends to come home from work. Maybe about half, though. I have heard there are some very nice cafes in some of those Brooklyn neighborhoods.

I have, instead of stuff, managed a lot of naps with the new kitten. This kitten has no name, because no one in my family can agree on one. This perhaps makes him even more adorable. I went to my kid sister's open house and met all her teachers. Some of them may have thought I was her mother, until our own mother came in. Two were spastic in the way only high school teachers are, and four of them are probably good educators. Two were coaches pulled to fill in as teachers of classes they had never taught before, due to budget cuts. One was just vaguely annoying. There was another teacher-like person (computers?) we passed in the hall that I would have talked to/flirted with, if I did that kind of thing (I do not). Get me out of my house, ironic mutton chops. I am dying here.

I sort of wish my family lived closer, so I didn't have to go through feeling that my real life was being displaced every time I go to visit them. Or I could be smarter, and stay for less time...

Anyway! I hope when the fall semester starts, I'll feel like my life is picking up momentum again. I have the syllabus for the class I'm TAing (Intro to Japanese Civilization) in my inbox now. TA orientation and first classes will be all through my first week back. I haven't finalized my class selection, but I am getting there. I will have a best friend in the city I live in again, finally. I might have an immediate visitor from Ann Arbor as well, so long as the timing is right and the sublettor-roomie isn't sleeping in the living room when I get back. Maybe I will even have faith in boys again? I am really working on this. Of course, it'd help if the other team would meet me halfway.

A lot of things are almost done.

I am leaving Los Angeles soon, and I am glad.

Not leaving for good, of course. As of a few weeks ago, I am officially on the lease for this apartment, which is a nice place with a balcony and in a neighborhood where I would easily expect to pay about $300 per month more than I do now in rent money. My landlord is sort of a flake and I will probably never have air conditioning, but those are small(ish) offenses. The living room has soft white paper lamps in various shapes and paintings, done by a friend of mine or by my roommate. Maybe I will make something to put on the walls as well. I am comfortable here.

But, oh, this summer, and oh, Los Angeles. It has been so long, and so all the same. A hundred hours logged sitting on the bus, or more. Another hundred plus logged sitting in class, discovering that I couldn't learn with my mind turned off. A lot of missed deadlines, piling up. The same meals. That mozarella sandwich on campus that cost $6 and nearly had me vomiting on the sunny pavement. And always, everyone I know being so far apart.

I miss the insularity of the 'Center', which kept us all involved in each other's lives, even though it was also often dreary and bleak. I think I miss everything as soon as it stops happening, until the next thing comes and washes it out. This analogy is certainly applicable to my dating life, when I have one. I never know if I appear complicated or simple when I first meet 'the other'. I don't know which description of myself would be more appropriate, either. Certainly my emotions are simple; the way my mind works is not.

So, I will give up these dry hot times and go to Florida, for the rain and my family. I will definitely eat chocolate-covered dried cherries, annoy my cat, and float in the pool. I will almost certainly get a sunburn. I will not drink my parents' beer, because it is cheap and terrible, and if I start drinking at home I'll see the next sister soon following suit; what sort of example would that make me? When all three of us are home, we all revert to a dynamic that was set in place as soon as there were three of us at all. I think I get stuck at about 15; the two of them at 10 and 7 seems about right. They fight in the car and threaten to spit in each other's hair. Later, we will all climb into the same bed with the cats, say nothing for awhile, spread our bodies out at weird angles. It is always much more comforting to do this with the girls than when my mother comes in to hug me in the morning. I have never been able to feel her hold onto me without feeling that I'm suffocating. It's a neat emotional analogy, as well, but of course a very real physical reaction too.

After that, I will go to New York, and spend my days sitting in cafes in Brooklyn with my beat-up darling laptop. The nights will hopefully all be spent drinking. Sobriety and friendlessness are not doing me any favors, and I have to have some kind of summer vacation, even if it happens in September. If my dating life keeps being idiotic, maybe making eyes at drunk Brooklynites will calm me. Maybe I'll get high for the first time in a year and make fun of people one of my best friends and I both dislike, which is the best schaudenfreude-y time I can have. One day I will go back to my high school reunion, or someone else will, to find that all the people I never liked are now fat. Thanks for the genes, mom, if not the hugs -- at least I don't have obesity waiting in the wings for me. I get enough curveballs as it is.

I don't even like skateboarding.

So why is this so fucking hot?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6uwukoIN-U&NR=1

In other news...

I continue not to write, and my parents continue to both find new ways to destroy themselves and our family while knowledge of past errors slowly unearths itself. I am very lonely right now.

안년하새요!

Oh my god, typing in Korean is so hard. Also, I bet I spelled that wrong. This language hates the shit out of me.

Anyway! So, update time, internet world. Right now, I am studying vocabulary words for my 10th vocabulary quiz in korean (roughly two per week, oy vey), after having finished about half the class (and about 1/100th of the homework). This week, on the menu are words such as "eye" and "gloves", and verbs or verb-like adjectives like "to be warm" and "to congratulate". Did you know that in this language, adjectives conjugate like verbs do, but for some reason aren't verbs and therefore seperate grammatical rules apply to them? Shoot me, please, I beg you.

The tide's always turning.

After two and a half weeks of enjoyable society back in the ol' US of A, the universe conspired to fill my life with suck today. As if being $63 in the hole on my bank account for a week wasn't enough brutal enough. Thanks life, no really, I can't get enough of this shit.
First, I spent nearly 3 hours on the bus today, going from one side of this overly-wide city to the other. The return leg of the trip was particularly bad, as the bus was more crammed full than I have ever seen it. Almost "last train out of Shibuya" bad, and that is not an image I invoke lightly. Next to me for much of the trip was an elderly drunk man, who had waited at the same stop as I had. Before getting on the bus, he asked me what bus was coming, what city were we in, and if I knew of any rehab facilities in the area. On the bus, a sharp turn caused the giant can of Foster's hidden in his pocket to spill out on the feet of the people around him. A small amount of that beer landed on the top of my foot.
Behind me was a man who could not stop singing to himself, R&B style but without any discernable lyrics. Occasionally, he'd give the singing a break in order to proclaim on how full the bus was. A girl near him had been unlucky enough to secure his focus as well, and he asked her if she and her friends were going out to a club tonight. He would be at the club, til closing. On his neck was a tattoo that read "Scheezy".
I did not stab the man with the tattoo that read "Scheezy", but I wanted to.
The bus ride might not have been so bad if I had had a nice afternoon before it, but that was not the case. Instead I had spent 3 hours eating a friend's party food and realizing that I strongly disliked everyone at the party except the host. BDSM professionals and their boyfriends, it turns out, are just the kids from high school who shopped at hot topic and tongue-kissed backstage during drama class, plus seven or eight years. And I don't have much to add to conversations about corset colors or "what happened at the dungeon last night".

IMPORTANT NOTE: Things I never want to see, #1: Bruises on your ass, from your boyfriend spanking you the night before. Everyone I know or will ever know, please take note of this.

Once I got home, I tried to take a nap, but was kept awake by two people in a neighboring apartment. A father and son, to be exact, who were arguing and belittling each other over a video game. The son sounded like he's about 8 years old. Once, I heard the father tell the kid that he was "terrible" at the video game, because the father was winning and it was the first time he had played. Yes, that actually happened. Is that enough evidence for me to call in Child Services?
Now it is late and the day is a waste. My Korean homework is unfinished, my nails are unpainted, and I am out of lemonade. The rest of the weekend was lovely, but all that will have to wait for another day.