Chrissy's Blog

I found a new friend on the ceiling of my bathroom. My policy with spiders is that they can hang out in my space if they’d like, but they just can’t get in my way or crawl on me. I used to be afraid of spiders. I guess I grew out of that. They are fascinating and worthy of respect. I just don’t want all those legs on me. It might surprise me, they might bite me. It would just be a big misunderstanding, and we don’t speak the same language. So we have a peaceful understanding at the moment.

At the four-weeks-till-New-York mark, I finally started to feel like I was on a downward slope to my departure. Up until that point, it felt like an uphill battle, like I was just never going to get there. I am so antsy to just start my life, to see my new apartment. I’ve only been to NYC once, six years ago, I want to investigate my new city. I want to find bookstores, coffee shops, friends, classes, causes, readings, shows. I want to get started, and it is painful to be just hanging out. My sister is in town, and I fully expect her to entertain me for the next week. Then I’ll be in Seattle with my wonderful friends. Then it’s Labor Day weekend. Then it’s my birthday. Then I’m outta here. In between, there’s work, applying to new jobs, sleeping, knitting, hanging out with the handful of friends that I do still have here. I still can’t get the countdown out of my head. Patience is a virtue that I just don’t have.

Sunday, I went up to Truckee, California to attend a Yoga/Mediation class. I drove up and down the streets completely unable to find the studio. It was getting to be 15 minutes or so past the time the class was supposed to start, and I was getting flustered and stressed which is entirely the opposite purpose of me wanting to take the class. I want to be calmer and have more control over my mind. I want to not worry so much. So I parked the car and forgot about the class. I’ll find some other one I told myself. So instead of meditation and stretching and calming, I got a Corona and some fantastic Mexican food, all greasy and spicy. Then I walked up and down the streets of Truckee. I love that town. I stick to it. I would live there if I ever got the chance. This is a panorama of the downtown area. It was bright out, and I accidentally misaligned the last frame. So it looks like the Sierra Ta Tavern. Whoops.

An Oreo Brownie Earthquake Sundae. Yes! I met up with Angie after a long day of applying to jobs to enjoy a treat. Not a raucous Saturday, but as I drove home from Dairy Queen, I passed Jack-in-the-Box. This was THE Jack-in-the-Box where all teenagers in Northwest Reno would meet up on the weekend and figure out where to go party. I found myself there for a couple of weekends. It was amusing to find, as I drove past it, that there was a group of about 10 or so teenagers shuffling their feet in the parking lot, no doubt also discussing where to go to drink some booze. It made me feel old to look at them.

I went to a Bluegrass festival up at Davis Creek Campgrounds out by Washoe Valley. The lighting wasn’t good enough for me to get a picture of the bands or anything. So here is a tree-thing. Neat!

My silver shoes. Even though they look nothing like Dorothy’s shoes in “The Wizard of Oz,” they somehow remind me of them anyways. I did read somewhere that in the book, the slippers were silver, but they wanted to show off the color technology in the movie, so they made them ruby slippers. I recently re-watched the movie and just feel baffled. Why does she want to go back to Kansas so bad? A land of no color, no exciting adventures and interesting creatures. A place with tornadoes and farm work. She misses Auntie Em, I know. But I just don’t get it. If I were her, I would want to stay in Oz forever.

This is my darling Fang’s toothy grin. I sold him. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be, but I think the separation anxiety just hasn’t kicked in. I’ve had this fantasy since I was 15 years old and buying my first car. It was the first major thing I ever owned, and it felt like adulthood, like freedom. The fantasy was to just pack a bag, not say a word, and disappear into the night. Drive in one direction until I needed gas. I would stop in a small town on the side of the road and start a new life, because that is where fate and gas mileage had led me. Honestly I still have it. Every once in a while, I just want a new start. Living without a car in Seattle was rough sometimes, because I felt trapped, like I didn’t have that escape route. Selling Fang invoked some of those feelings. Although I never have just run away, I liked the option being there for me.

I sold Fang to a nice college student. He seemed like he would take good care of my baby. He handed me the money, I handed him the keys, and we walked to the car.

“Please still call him Fang. He won’t answer to any other name,” I told him. He laughed and agreed. I hope he wasn’t just humoring me.

Honestly, here is the situation. I wake up late. I always wake up late. I run around like a chicken without a head. I go to work for roughly 9 hours. I come home, eat, do the crossword, answer e-mails, check something off my to-do list, write in my journal, get in my pajamas, snuggle up with a book, start to feel my eyelids grow heavy, snuggle into bed….SHIT I have to take a picture! I could take the “art” seriously and roam my suburban surroundings looking for something meaningful, but I’m in my p.j.s so I just wander around my house and eventually take a picture of something, anything. I keep telling myself that the pictures will improve, be so much more exciting once I’m in New York. I say that about a lot of things in my life, and I’ve been saying those things since I was 16 and thinking about college. But, as Sissy Hankshaw said in “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,” that’s bullshit. Those weren’t her exact words, but I don’t have them in front of me. It’s silly to keep waiting. Why not live life now? Because that’s what we do, wait. How else could television and youtube be so popular? If we all were aware of our mortality and the constant marching of time, we wouldn’t waste it away like this. That’s the rant for the day.