I took the day off from work due to a crappy cold but mostly due to total frustration with the state of our room. We've been so lackadaisical with the unpacking because when you know you're moving in a year, eh, who cares, right? Also, we lost half our closet space which is exactly half of what we needed. So piles and boxes and half-unpacked suitcases and a serious case of blargh, do I really need to hang up all my vintage purses again? Why bother? I made a nice dent in it all but seriously, it will take weeks and then we'll be moving again. I hope. We are pretty seriously over living here. Yesterday it was scorching hot and humid as all get out and we got lost in the wilds of freeways for 45 minutes, trying to discern if we had passed said strip mall every before and who knows, they all look the same? So. We're ready.
The cause of said drive was a biometrics appointment to get my Green Card replaced. Nothing like a little brush with the DHS to remind me I don't belong here. But it was nice to spend time in a government facility that was not plastered with Bush's face for the first time. It made it easier to be cheerier and want to stay.
I'm really itching to get back to a real life too - every evening it is nothing but homework, homework, homework. And I think about art projects and other projects and swimming and knitting and bike rides and good books and I almost fall over from the sheer thrill of it all. By the time I graduate this spring, I will have been in school for 5 years, with non-stop homework. I wonder if I remember how to be myself.
I went for drinks with one of my bestest friends here last night, and I remember how to be myself with her. She is working in an independent school targeting poor, African-American kids and her stories are amazing - you could never repeat them without sounding like a cold-hearted republican who sees no value in these programs. The teachers - 30 year veterans - are questioning their lives and decisions just 6 weeks in. She spends all day every day managing kids behaviour. 10 of her 75 kids have parents on death row. Most have parents who were teens. It is a battle every day, and it takes place two blocks from where I used to live, not in a giant ghetto in Chicago. I am going to come volunteer next week, to see it for myself.
I told her my story from the wedding about trying to look as good as I possibly could for the wedding, and right before it started, trying to find the babysitter who would be looking after Simone. I ran into the wedding coordinator and he grabbed me by my shoulder "Are you the babysitter?" This burned me for a couple of hours. If, when I'm as dressed up and polished as I can be, I am still mistaken for the babysitter, what is the point of it all? Yes sir, I wear candy apple red lipstick and red high heels to babysit. And Spanx. Cause it's comfy when you're on the floor with a toddler. I may officially give up.