Jersey

I'm here, I'm safe, I'm trying to get settled. I'll write more once I get myself in some kind of routine, but for now I wanted to let you know that I made my return official by consuming the symbolic communion wafer of NJ: the taylor ham, egg and cheese sandwich. I am home.

The end draweth nigh...

Well, this is it, my last night in Brooklyn. I'm starting to feel really sad about leaving, Brooklyn's been so good to me these last three years. It's funny, I still remember the first time I drove in here to see Tania. I was scared shitless and I swore that I'd never move here. My original goal was to convince Tania to move into my cabin back where it was quiet and safe. Needless to say she squashed that idea pretty quickly. Eventually I got to the point where I could tolerate Brooklyn enough to move there, and over the last three years I've come to realize what an amazing place it really is. So here's a little list of the things I'll miss most about it here (in no particular order): -Veggie chicken nuggets from Vegetarian Palate in Park Slope. If you havent had these before, do so immediately. -Really amazing friends who've helped me grow into a stronger, more educated person. -The best dating/hook up options I've ever experienced -Hanging out in coffee shops all day -Getting food delivered (how sad that I cant do this in Jersey!!) -Amazing selections of beer -Cake Man -My great garden that took so long to get together -hundreds of restaurants to choose from -Lounging in Fort Greene Park with the pup -Brady :( There are so many other things, I'm sure they'll come to me over the next few weeks as I try to get settled back in Jersey. Part of me is happy to be heading back. I love my family and can't wait to spend time with them everyday. I've also fell out of touch with a lot of my friends there, I'm looking forward to building those relationships back up. And its also autumn! That's my favorite season, especially for hiking which I plan on doing as frequently as possible :) So tonight to commemorate our last night together, Xavier and I went out to Putnum on Myrtle. It was our first time there, they're relatively new, and I really liked them. I had a great chicken pot pie (I only wish it was twice as big) and I drank some pretty good Pumpkin Ale.

It was nice being able to spend some time with Xavier. We've grown pretty close, particularly over the last few months, and I'm going to miss coming home to him (or more accurately, having him come home to me). He's off to live in Manhattan, so there's still a chance that we'll be able to hang when I come into the city. I went home and finished up my packing. Here are all my worldly possessions! It's still more than I had hoped, but I was able to get rid of a ton of stuff. Considering that six years ago I had enough crap to fill an entire house and this is what I'm down to, I think I'm doing pretty good :) (My living room looks so sad!)

Here's what's left of my bedroom. Big difference from my hoarders pic from last week. This is the first time that I've seen the apartment empty, its pretty sad. When I moved in here Tania had already been settled for a few years. It was a little unsettling to see it like this.

So as of tomorrow the apartment will be left in Tara's capable hands. As sad as I am to leave it, I know that she'll make it look beautiful and appreciate it as much as it should be appreciated. Off to bed, tomorrow I resume my role of country mouse/mountain man.

Painting from HELL

So as my end time approaches, I've been finding myself crazy busy. I feel like I'm paying for all the lovely downtime I had at the beginning of my unemployment. I have never ending lists of stuff that needs to get done before Thursday, and every time I do something it seems to spawn three other things that need to get done. I feel like I'm really coming down to the wire here. On top of everything that I'm doing, I also took a job from a friend painting her apartment. It seemed like a great idea at the time because I really needed any money I could get, but it's taking soooooo long to finish! I'm such a horribly inefficient painter. I'm afraid the step stool cant handle my weight and its is going to collapse while I'm trying to hang up these endless strips of painters tape. If only I was seven feet tall, I could blast through this all. It looks good so far though! Her apartment was really nice before, we're painting it back to the boring neutral color so she can move out. Here are some before and after pictures.

Let me tell ya, painting something white is a hell of lot less satisfying than painting it something pretty. But good news is she's offering me really great compensation for the job which should take a good chunk out of the cost of the language school. Speaking of which I should really start my research and pick out a school. I've been so focused on getting out of NY, I can't wait to get to NJ and start focusing on the next steps :)

10 more days!

I've been bad at updating because my entire life has been consumed by garage sale prep, but thank god its over!! My house was horrific, serious Hoarder-like conditions.

But hooray! Its clean again and I'm slowly starting to get things out of here. I still have a ton of furniture to get rid of by next week, but hopefully someone from Craigslist will come grab it up (thus saving me the need to transport crap.) The sale was a lot of fun, had a pretty good turnout and while I didnt sell a lot of the big stuff, I was able to get rid of most of the smaller items. I really have nothing interesting to report, so here's a short photo synopsis of my past two weeks: Brady and I chilled out in Fort Greene park. I laid in the grass and read a book while Brady enjoyed some high quality people watching. Look at how adorable he is.

I hung out at mom's house and had some high quality time with the girls. Jake wanted in on the action.

I also had dinner with my buddy Ethan who I hadnt seen in a while. We went to Black Swan which has enormous beers and really awesome food :) Here's the spinach salad I had with him. I went back later in the week with Tania and ate a DELICIOUS meatloaf sandwich. If you havent been here you should definitely check it out.

Soon my life will be much more fascinating. For now, I'm going back to watching back-to-back Torchwood.

Trucking along

I've been lazy about updating lately so I should cover some of the big stuff. There's not much, lol. All I tend to do lately is sit around my room and slowly sift through all the crap that i need to sell. It's such a huge task, I have boxes and boxes full of stuff that i need to get rid of, and I'm just praying that I sell enough of it to pay for my plane ticket. Its nuts to think that I only have another three weeks in NY. It's going to be a lot harder to leave than I thought. When i originally made the decision to go, things seemed to be lined up perfectly. The last month or two as I've been preparing to go, I made some new connections with some pretty extraordinary people. It's going to be challenging leaving when I know people are wanting me to stay. I'm hoping I'll be able to fall back on those folks when I'm homesick and needing some support over there. Oh yeah, aside from saving up for a plane ticket, I also need a laptop so I can skype :/ Let's hope craigslist works its magic for me and I'm able to get rid of every last piece of this furniture. So here are the updates! First of all, I got my start date!! My first day at the group home is Jan 9th, and since I have to live with a host family for a month prior, I'll probably be leaving NJ the first or second week of December. This will be awesome on two accounts. First of all, my brother is coming home from Japan to visit the family in November, so now we can chill together. It's been about a year since I've seen him, which for my family is criminal. It'll be great to have everyone safe and together again, I'm really looking forward to it. Another great thing about leaving in Dec is that I'll be able to spend my 30th birthday here! I was feeling a little bummed about potentially arriving in a foreign country and then being alone for such a milestone, so I'm super psyched now :) As far as the paperwork process goes, I received a Welcome Packet in the mail last week from the organization and I've slowly been making my way through it. I had to get my doctor to fill out a physical form yesterday, so that's all set to go. I also got to start all my travel immunizations! That was kind of a big deal for me, it was the first time that I actually felt like "Ok, this isn't just talk, you're really going through with this." Here I am swallowing live typhoid, hooray!

Luckily I dont have to take many shots, being at Willowglen and in nursing school has forced me to get immunized to most things already. They're recommending rabies vaccine which I think I'm going to skip on. It's not a requirement and I really dont have to go through an expensive and painful process for nothing. Besides, the hospitals there have rabies vaccines, its not like they just let Guatemalan folks go rabid and die. If I get attacked by any crazy animals, you can guarantee that I'll be high-tailing it to the city for treatment. I'm going to mail all the info back tomorrow so hopefully that'll be all I need to do on my end! After that I just have to wait. Oh, I do need to call the company's insurance agent and see how much international medical insurance is going to cost me while I'm there. That's a big wildcard right now, it could be $30 a month or $300, I honestly have no clue how much to allot for this. Hopefully its not going to make things much harder financially. Some good news on that front though is that I'm getting my old job back when I move to NJ. I used to work a part time overnight job taking care of medically fragile kids while their parents slept. I told them I would be back for a few weeks and they said i could have some of my old cases back. I'm excited to see my kids, and also excited to bank away a bit of extra cash! This weekend should be pretty awesome. Tomorrow I'm heading to ikea with Dan (ok, not the most exciting), but I always love seeing him. Sunday I'm hosting a queer board game night for twenty of my closest friends ;) It'll be fun, we havent done one in a while and I'm looking forward to inviting some of my new friends to mingle with the veterans. Hopefully I'll have some pics to post of that!