In which where DOES the time go?

It’s September?!

I’ve been at the cheese shop for a month and a half now and really enjoy it. My friend got a job there too, so I have someone to ride to work with now that my beloved is working at the casino and can’t chauffeur me around everywhere.

We’re still at my grandmother’s house but are considering moving to Milton Freewater to shorten his commute and remove my need for a car. (I really don’t want to buy a car. They’re wasteful as fuck in terms of resources, and you have to throw money at them ALL. THE. TIME. Gas, maintenance, insurance, registration, parking. Yuck.) I also really want my stuff back, in particular my kitchen and the rest of my wardrobe, and we’ve been leaving the Ubox in storage until we’re fully settled.

I love living in this house in this neighborhood, but if we stay much longer I’m going to need a refrigerator and a hot plate and an area rug and MY CLOTHES and probably some other stuff I’m not thinking of right now. (I can and do cook in my grandmother’s kitchen, but rarely. I cook weird stuff at weird hours and I need my own kitchen space.)

I also want a proper desk and a second monitor and keyboard; I computer very little right now because it’s a pain in the ass. Mostly using my laptop for streaming, and do most of my internet fucking around on my phone. Could easily set up a workstation here in the basement, but keep not doing it because we might move out any minute AND OUR STUFF IS IN A UBOX IN PASCO OR RICHLAND SOMEWHERE.

I’ve seen both my parents, my brother, two aunts, an uncle, and of course my g’ma. I’ve seen TONS of friends and fans and gotten lots of hugs and kisses and emails and texts. I played at Marcy’s last Saturday and literally dozens of people came out to see me.

After living an almost entirely socially isolated life in Minneapolis for the past five years, I can’t even express how deeply fulfilling and satisfying it is to get to love on so many people!

I have a friend whose mom owns a restaurant, so I GOT CUSTOM ARTICHOKE COTIJA TAMALES, even.

It’s never what you know, and always who you know!

Plus the weather here, the goddamned amazing weather. Sure it’s hot during the day, but it’s dry, and it always cools down 20-30 degrees at night, so you can actually sleep even without A/C in the attic bedroom.

AND THE PRODUCE. OH MY GOD, THE PRODUCE. I’ve had a perfect peach, a couple of Hermiston melons, veggies from my aunt’s garden, and I made pico de gallo from heirloom tomatoes a cheese shop customer gave me — FOR FREE — because he didn’t sell them at market.

You don’t get produce like this in the city, you just don’t. There’s some amazing produce to be had in cities, sure, with co-ups and CSAs and stuff, but it’s nothing like living in farm country. You get stuff here that was literally in the garden that very morning, and it all tastes like happiness and sunshine.

We’ve been to a ball game, restaurants, bars, a couple shows, and people’s houses for BBQs. Look at this food I ate at Embo’s house!

We have A Social Life and it’s wonderful! We’ve been shopping, on Sunday drives, and across Stateline (between Washington and Oregon) too many times to count.

We’ve done more stuff in the past two months than in the past five years, probably, and it’s easy here because the whole town’s barely five miles across and the traffic is actually reasonable (rather than millions of passive-aggressive Minnesotans).

I’m so super happy to be home, to have people again, to have a good job, and my better half seems to like it here too! (I actually knew a couple of old online blogger people in MSP, but never managed to meet up with them. Somehow never felt like taking a few buses all the way to Saint Paul and back. Kind of regret it now, but obviously not enough to have actually done it in five whole years, so. I don’t know. Combination of distance and weather, I guess?)

Deeply looking forward to the season change, a proper autumn and sweater weather (there’s no fall in MSP, as I’ve complained for the past half decade), and then the holiday season rituals with family living nearby! We’ll probably GO to a Thanksgiving meal! Or a Christmas one! I’m so excited to be back that I probably won’t even briefly consider trying to get out of it this year!

If we’re in an apartment by X-mas, I might even splurge on a real tree, just for the hell of it!