On my trip here, Tio, one of my kind hosts, told me I wouldn't feel like I had totally moved away from home until I had found a routine in my new city. This is apparently true. I'm getting closer and closer to finding that routine. I've just signed for an apartment and I'm so close to getting my own space. I feel like that is the first step. Then (hopefully) some income. I don't know how. I'd prefer to just do extra work and all that but most likely I can get a job at a brewery somewhere. (Hire me Golden Road) I figure if I'm not working in my passion I should part time in my other one.
I'm also frightened by this prospect of sameness. I like to feel challenged and different. I like new things coming my way. If I find a routine then I'll get comfortable with it, settle in, get a job and start adulting... hard. But I will have to work doubly hard to maintain some type of interesting things to keep me sane. Its so easy to slip into routine and realize four months later that you have done nothing interesting with you life, always waking up, going to work, and spending all your money going out with friends on a specific night. I want to maintain that sense of adventure, and routine, while it helps alleviate stress of my daily life by giving you a map, it also can trick you into never deviating from that map. Its a dangerous game and I know me. Gotta stay on it and keep interesting things happening to me.
Of course, in a city this weird its hard to miss out on weird stuff. One of my crowning moments was getting to see Harry and Libby again after a 2 year stint of "kinda keeping up" on facebook. You know, a 20 something friendship.
Two years ago in the fall of 2012 I cast aside my American bonds and rode a plane over the ocean to spend 3 months "Studying" in the UK. I traveled to the University of Kent, Canterbury and thought I was prepared for all the festivities that awaited me.
Turns out, as a senior at a well to do party school in Tennessee, I WAS prepared, and had a romping good time.
However, I wouldn't have been as successful at it had it not been for my flat mate Libby and her boyfriend Harry. Libby me to Harry the first night we were there at Uni and Harry and I were inseparable after that!(If you have ever heard any story from my UK trip, Harry was most likely involved)
We had discussed meeting up in California as I planned on moving here and he was going to study abroad in San Francisco, so as I left I always kept that in mind. Now, years later, that thought has come to fruition.
I met up with Harry and Libby on Santa Monica pier. Upon their arrival, I heard them and had forgotten what a "proppah" accent was, and they reminded me that I sound VERY American. We walked the pier, rode the Ferris Wheel, and I had the pleasure to introduce them to their first funnel cake.
After Santa Monica we scooted down, at the sun's sinking, towards Venice Beach and watched the skateboarders be generally awesome on in their cement jungle gym. It was a great reunion and I'm happy to say I got to see them. Harry and I have made plans to meet back up and Libby will just have to wait! I'll be back over to the UK soon.
Thanksgiving was swiftly approaching though you'd never know it. When people say the Holiday "Black Friday" I find it so repulsive. Every Fiber of my being is opposed to Black Friday. The only thing Black Friday is good for is showcasing the shit of humanity and creating a "Holiday" for other countries to use as fuel against America. Its a disgusting display of avarice and consumerism that has taken over our other, slightly less disgusting, Holiday where we eat ALL of the food and say #blessed.
We had a Hoiliday where we ate beyond our capacity for the sake of celebration and said....
"No, they still don't hate us enough for having all the food... we should kill each other for XBoxs.... that'll show 'em!"
While I do HATE WITH A PASSION Black Friday, Thanksgiving is still a grand Holiday. People joke and say its about us killing the Native Americans but its actually about family. Hokey as that sounds, Thanksgiving in my family is important. I adore the food and the company and the kitchen as people tell me to "GET OUT OF THE KITCHEN!" Its such a loving, tender environment. And ssitting around a table and talking about things is just wonderful and I missed my family this year.
Luckily, I had a surrogate. Corey, a friend here in town, invited me to spend it with him and his Framily (Friend-Family) this Thanksgiving. People who have been here, know each other, and probably got their shit together so the food will be good? Sign me up!
The bulk of the guests arrived at 4:30pm and the festivities began. We drank (I was in charge of beer. I did not disappoint), we ate, there was music, we ate, no one danced, we ate, everyone else was done eating, I ate. It was a great time and I was, in fact, #blessed, to be invited to the Thanksgiving festivities with Corey, his wife, and all their friends.
Capping off the evening we played Heads Up, which I do believe EVERYONE else played on thanks giving as well. Its a sily game where you put a phone on the head and people try and tell you whats on the screen without SAYING whats on the screen. There are videos taken, hilarity ensues. "You coulda beena contenda" was the line of the evening. It was a blast.
Thanks for the invite Corey!
Post Thanksgiving I spent more time with my roommates. As I am not paying rent I do my best to be useful. My usefulness, and by my I mean my car's, can be measured. That measurement is 64x28x29.5
It happens to be my credit score... bad joke.
It happens to be a fridge. Guess what. It fits in the back of an Envoy. NEWS TO ME! But it was a lot of fun minus all the hard work. Sarah had a friend come and help us, and she commandeered a dolly for use in the fridge's exodus from its home to its new resting place, which was very useful.
I think, the moral of the story is that if you let me stay for free, I will be sueful to you... keep that in mind my friends... keep that in mind.
Until next week!
What could go wrong?
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