fox in the snow, where do you go?

March 13

It's been about a year and a week since I got to New York. The time has gone blazingly fast. Like most years, there's been bad and good.

One of the good things this year has been in finding a job I enjoyed, with people I respected, none of whom seem to have any major personality disorders. After three years of mediocre jobs and truly godawful bosses, I am thrilled. In fact, I'm having to unlearn some of my defensive maneuvers (never making eye contact, avoiding conversations, revealing no personal information, fake-smiling, nodding idiotically) that I previously used to help keep me sane, employed, and not in prison for murder. I don't need to do that anymore, because the people in my new place are much less prone to wild accusations, screaming, crying, back-biting, alcoholism, sexual harrassment, or throwing office supplies. Ahhh. Normalcy.

Another good thing was to discover just how laid-back---or maybe self-absorbed---Matt and I are capable of being. After this many months in this little space, we should have killed each other by now, if we weren't so good at being oblivious. But instead we just sit inches apart, happily absorbed in whatever book, cd, movie, or bit of useless cogitation that has caught our attention. It's like a superpower. Normally, it's a superpower that tends to make us walk into doors and fall down stairs, so it's nice to know there's a positive application.

Just being here's been a good thing, though not really in ways that I expected. I'm still intimidated by New York, I admit; it doesn't feel like home. But then when I left, neither did Texas. It may be a long time before a place feels like home. I've moved twenty times in my life so far; I know that I'm not done yet. Matt and I aren't at a point where we can think of settling down, so we live a sort of comfortably nomadic life, keep things as portable as we can. New York is a strange place, and I haven't quite figured out what I think about it. But so long as it's a place where I can do the work I want to do, I can just enjoy the strange funkiness around me without worrying about whether this is where I want to stay evermore.

I did have to deal with the bad recently. It began a few weeks ago, when my doctor asked, "Hey, what's that lump there?" during a physical. Not words you ever, ever want your doctor to say. I sweated it out for three weeks until the tests came back: no big C. Hey, you're fine, go about your business. But I find that I still haven't entirely relaxed. It will take a little while before I do. Cancer is one of those diseases you can't be casual about, no matter how many people that you know have survived it. If it comes anywhere close to you, you start imagining the worst. Or at least I did. And the worst is pretty bad. And I'm very grateful to let thoughts like that go away.

So, lots of good things. I'm happy with my location, happy in my work, my marriage, my friendships. There are things I would change, sure, but not where I am right now. By May, I'll have written two books, and be looking for a new apartment. Matt and I will move out of our tiny squat and into a less-tiny place so we can bring up our remaining belongings--mainly books, cds, clothes, and a cat. New York isn't quite home yet, but it's got room enough for us for now. I think that's enough.