Hair Farm and other Neuroses
Tuesday, July 10, 2007 | posted by Kate |
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I have lived in this apartment for what, two minutes, and ALREADY the bathroom floor has a ton of my hair on it. Yech!
I was sitting on the toilet this evening, with MacBook (and my neighbor's wireless internets, heh) keeping me company when I noticed I have a regular hair farm going on the previously-clean tile. And I've taken approximately 10, 15 showers here. All this hair? Already? Even I hate "living with me" sometimes. Gross!
In other new-apartment-organization-news, my major voyage to IKEA is all set for tomorrow.
I know, you're asking yourselves, WHY, OH WHY isn't she organized YET? Well, friends--it is funny but not working means that the pace of my days is slower and I'm only finally learning how to be productive when I don't have a 9 to 5 to balance with the rest of my life (or a 7 to 6 as it was, haha).
The cheap-furniture budget: $800. Needed: a corner desk, a TV table, a bookcase, some picture frames and a clock. Wanted: a few shelves and a filing cabinet. We'll see how it shapes up. If I can get the things I need on my budget anywhere, it is certainly there. I hate lugging the boxes to the car (thank God my new place is only up one flight of stairs) and I am not good at putting things together (remember the injuries LAST TIME from using tools?!?) but it is "go time." I wish I could say that I'm totally going to put it all together myself but we all know that R will probably end up doing a lot of helping. God bless that.
Meet the Parents
This last weekend I took R home with me to the beachy coastal place I grew up in (and the weather behaved perfectly, which was THE way to represent!) and my parents LOVED him. So much. He behaved perfectly as well---he was calm, happy and sweet. Himself. Yes!
My family embarrassed me a few times, but I tried to be graceful. I took R for a walk on the beach which he enjoyed--we splashed around in the cool ocean, held hands and I fell a little more in love with him.
Taking him home and introducing him to people somehow raises the stakes a little for me--now I'm even MORE invested in this relationship--before if something happened with us, he was just a name and a few stories to my family and...now, he's someone who's listened to grandpa's stories and had a cigarette with my mother. Now we have momentum. From both sides. I know it won't be crushing (I wouldn't let that happen) but I am not so naive this time to think that intertwining the families doesn't mean that the relationship will be affected.
Anyway, part of me feels satisfied with the visit and the positive results of the visit because he gets to know me more and see where I came from, and my family gets to see that I'm doing better at picking out men, BUT part of me feels terrified! If we break up, there are going to be a LOT more questions (which, naturally, will be very hard to answer at that point) and there will be more people disappointed than just me.
The reassuring part of my brain would like to remind everyone that R and I traveled nicely together through the airports, which is a source of stress/pressure/disagreements for a lot of people. (Haven't you ever seen "The Amazing Race?" Come on now!) He held my hand during takeoff and landing, and gently patted my hand when I would clutch him if there was turbulence. He bought me Cosmopolitan in the airport and didn't laugh or make any comments about it. We walked most places hand in hand. We laughed at others. I showed him how good a burger "Animal Style" can be from In N Out Burgers. He showed me how to be patient with my folks.
