That Avi's Full of Crap, Man

Redwall.  Mossflower.  Martin the Warrior.  Stuart Little.  The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Poppy.  Ragweed.

If these titles are familiar, congratulations!  You were a childhood nerd and a softie.  We also would have been the best of friends, as these books filled my prepubescent days.

These novels also share a darker, more nefarious purpose.  They all take disgusting rodents and elevate them to hero status.  The mice protagonists lure unsuspecting children into rooting for them, tricking generations into believing that mice are just misunderstood.  All a mouse needs is some pluck and understanding, and then they can achieve anything.  Besides, how adorable are those velvety ears and pert little noses, right?

Wrong.  This vile propaganda is spewing lies about the adorability of pests.

Because mice?  Aren't cute.  Aren't intelligent.  And aren't worthy of any adoration.  They are DISGUSTING.

A couple of days before I left town for winter break, I was innocently sitting on the couch when something flashed in my peripheral vision.  An ominous brown streak.  I looked down just in time to see the tip of a tail zoom underneath the couch.  After a small shriek and the slightest of Tom Cruise-esque couch jumping, I calmed down enough to acknowledge the truth.  I had mice.  Checking the kitchen only confirmed my worst fears, as small, brown ovals peppered the floors and utensil drawers like confetti left over from some Hantavirus-themed party.

The kitchen was thoroughly cleaned and the mousy invader was cornered and caught.  I promptly named him Humphrey, because some sensitivity from a childhood full of anthropomorphizing mice remained.  He was humanely disposed of, the problem was solved, and I headed off for a D.C. Christmas with nary a care.  Cut to a week and a half later, when I returned home to pure carnage.

Poop.  Poop everywhere.

Counters were sprinkled, forks and knives were garnished, and the cabinet floorboards were carpeted with lamentable leavings.  There was no safe place.  It was utter violation, with danger and disease around every corner.  My own home was no longer secure, and unfortunately the childhood heroes were to blame.  Unwelcome masses had taken over.  It was time to take a leaf out of Mr. Alice Cooper's playbook.



The gloves were off (well, technically they came on, as I disinfected that kitchen to near toxic levels).  My rose-colored, animal-loving glasses were lifted.  The nine-year-old in me would have loved to set up boundaries, some type of compact ensuring that as long as the mice stuck to their corner, they were free to cohabitate.  But mice are idiots.  They are too stupid to control their bowels, which means they are completely incapable of signing the legal documents I drew up.  Warfare was the only answer.  Empathy was dead.  Drastic measures were taken.  The threat was eliminated, and life has returned to normal here on the homefront.

But consider this a PSA.  Mice.  Despite the lies of youth, they are not innocent.  They are not cuddly.  And when they come, they're coming for you.  Make sure you get them first.

Return and Report

Part the First: Reflection

Well, 2013 has been a crap-bucket of a year.

Or so I thought when I initially sat down to write this, my yearly recap.*

Then I realized how much the extreme, soul-crushing suckitude of the past four months has colored my views.  Just because the latter third of the year drained me of all optimism and hope doesn't mean that good ol' 2013 has been a total wash.  In fact, it was a magical year in many ways.

Because this

In 2012, I fell in love with Seattle.  In 2013, Seattle became my home—a sad fact I didn't fully understand until I left it behind for the rocky coldness of the East Coast.  Somewhere along the road, despite the gray skies and the truly horrific traffic, Seattle snuck into my heart and settled down.  It packed up Thai food, Alki beach, the lighthouse at Discovery Park, the house in Queen Anne, the apartment by Silver Platters, the car full of educators starting and stopping down the 90 blasting music along the way.  It smuggled in memories of barbecues on the patio, where my fingers picked charred lamb off the cutting board, where I drank ginger beer and feasted on the best damn guacamole I've ever had.  Thoughts of Menchie's runs and reading on sunny days by Green Lake.  The sunsets—sweet mercy, the sunsets!—viewed from rocky beaches or Pike Place or the top of Cougar Mountain as I finished work and headed out to carpool.

Gorgeous view above the clouds

One of the best parts of having a place you love is sharing it with others, and Taylor and I got to share Seattle with many people this year (Paige, Ryan, James, Jihad, Sarah, Leo, my parents, Lauren).  We had the tour down pat—dinner at Orrapin on Queen Anne or Bengal Tiger down the street from our apartment.  Desserts from Menchie's, Trophy Cupcakes, Top Pot, or one of the many, many incredible bakeries.  One day had to be spent at Pike Place, going to Golden Age Collectables and wandering through secondhand bookstores.  Stopping for soda at the Pear Delicatessen.  If the lines weren't too long, maybe grabbing some Piroshky Piroshky pastries,  Beecher's mac 'n cheese, or the meatball sub at the Pasta Bar (a personal favorite).  Sometimes I would take people to wander around Capitol Hill, stepping into Eliott Bay Book Company or any of the shops on Broadway.  Often, I'd talk someone into visiting my happy place at the EMP and then checking out Seattle Center.  At some point, Taylor would take visitors on a driving loop on Queen Anne, where we'd point out sites from Seattle history and our own personal backstories.

Basically, the first two-thirds of this year were spent soaking up Seattle.  Taylor worked hard to finish school, graduating with his Masters.  I worked hard to save up money for the move to Boston, and despite some bratty kids I mostly enjoyed teaching history and journalism and mythology, going on some great field trips (NCI!) and interacting with six-year-olds for the first time at summer camp.

The North Cascades

That was before we packed up everything and headed out to Boston.  The road trip back was amazing.  In Montana I finally learned the truth of the phrase "purple mountain majesty."  I felt a sacred peace in the Black Hills of South Dakota.  I drove through the Badlands in a lightening storm and was completely alive.  Taylor and I braved the staid cornfields of Iowa to visit Scholte, and in Chicago we met with rain and blues and Gary and Giordano's.  We cozied up in an Eerie bed and breakfast, feeling nervous about the move for the first time and trying desperately to lose ourselves in the beauty of a small town.

And then came Boston.  And grad school.  While we've enjoyed exploring this city, exploring revolutionary history and cemeteries packed with my literary heroes, and while I have loved going to classes and constantly writing and the people I've met through articles and stories, I can't quite talk about Boston without bitterness in my voice.  Because I miss the happiness I left behind.

But that's OK.  Because now, on to 2014.  The year of endurance.

This is the year I put my head down and work.  Where I take Boston and feast on all it offers me.  And then next year, once I have sucked out all the education and experiences possible, I can leave this withered husk behind me and move on to real life.

*Previous recaps: 2012, 2011, 2010

Part the Second: Reporting

Last year, I set a few goals.  Here's how they went.

1. Get published.

Well, not so much.  Not officially.  BUT!  This year I started the television review site Lightbox Heroes with dear friends Mary and Rosemary.  It has been the single most beneficial thing I could have done for my writing, and it is several steps closer to what I want to be doing.  I feel pretty good about this one.

2. Get into grad school.

Done.  Masters of Journalism at Boston University, scheduled to be finished January 2015.

3. Stop eating food in the faculty room.

Ha. That's cute.

4. Keep track of the media I consumed.  Consume more media.

Done and done, and reported below.  While I don't know for certain that I consumed more media than last year, it certainly felt like I did.  And I was much more conscious of actively working to watch more movies and read more books.

One huge milestone I overcame was being comfortable with mass media consumption.  For many people, these types of activities are methods for release or ways to laze about, and so I would always be self-conscious about how frequently I would partake in these activities.  But considering that this is what I want to do—write about pop culture—this is precisely what I should be doing with my time.  So this year was a time for throwing off the shackles of what other people thought and growing my portfolio of expertise.  Making up for lost time, if you will.

5. Write reviews for every book I read.

Another negative.  But I recorded all the books I read, and I am working on slowly making up for lost time.  Writing for Lightbox Heroes showed me how easy it can be to write reviews, I just have to do them immediately and not let them pile up.  So with that in mind, I should be much more reliable this year.

Now without further ado, the media stats. 

MOVIES

-Jurassic Park                                                          -Justice League: Doom

-Spiderman                                                              -The Untouchables

-Django Unchained                                                  -The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

-Inglourious Basterds                                                -Escape From Alcatraz

-Two Mules for Sister Sara                                       -Pale Rider

-National Geographic Explorer: 25 Years                    -The Fountain

-Good Will Hunting                                                   -Naked Gun 2 1/2 

-Objectified                                                              -T2

-Serenity                                                                  -Safety Not Guaranteed

-Raising Arizona                                                       -Last of the Mohicans

-The Departed                                                          -The Godfather 2

-Side by Side                                                            -Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker

-Capote                                                                    -Into the Wild

-Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037          -Zero Dark Thirty

-Reality Bites                                                            -Once

-NFFTY Opening Night                                            -Slacker

-Legends of the Fall                                                  -V for Vendetta

-Ironman 3                                                               -The Great Gatsby

-Watchmen                                                               -Bachelorette

-Willow                                                                    -Reservoir Dogs

-Akira                                                                      -Psycho

-The Town                                                                -Snatch

-Mystery Men                                                           -The Iceman Tapes

-Clerks                                                                     -Training Day

-Ronin                                                                       -Ninja Scroll

-Pitch Perfect                                                            -13 Assassins

-James and the Giant Peach                                       -Let it Be

-The Bling Ring                                                         -Chinatown

-Paranorman                                                             -Tucker and Dale vs. Evil

-Chasing Amy                                                           -Oldboy

-Pacific Rim                                                              -Butter

-Goldfinger                                                                -Johnny Carson: King of Late Night

-The Way Way Back                                                 -Cloud Atlas

-The Breakfast Club                                                   -Shaolin Soccer

-Rifftrax: Titanic                                                         -Wristcutters

-Hang 'Em High                                                          -SLC Punk

-Paranoid: Black Sabbath                                            -Rifftrax: Starship Troopers

-The World's End                                                       -The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

-Hero                                                                         -The Elephant Man

-Dr. Strangelove                                                         -East of Eden

-Who Framed Roger Rabbit                                         -The Other F Word

-Before Sunrise                                                           -Before Sunset

-In a World                                                                 -Tombstone

-My Kid Could Paint That                                           -Escape From Tomorrow

-Hocus Pocus                                                             -Boondock Saints

-Dances With Wolves                                                 -Muscle Shoals

-Shattered Glass                                                         -Baraka

-Hitchcock                                                                 -Se7en

-Inside Llewyn Davis                                                  -Absence of Malice

-No Country for Old Men                                           -Night of the Living Dead

-Rifftrax: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians               -Star Trek: First Contact

-The Master                                                              -Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox

-A Brady Bunch Movie                                              -White House Down

-The Patriot                                                               -Fargo

-Brave                                                                       -Brick

TOTAL: 110

Favorite Discoveries: The Fountain. The Departed. Snatch. Paranorman. The World's End. The Elephant Man. Dr. Strangelove.

Most Uncomfortable Movies: Oldboy. The Master. Bachelorette. Escape from Tomorrow.

Movies That Made Me Angry: Watchmen. Pacific Rim.

Movies Whose Popularity Flummoxed Me: Ronin. The Boondock Saints.

Movies That Were An Unexpected Delight: 13 Assassins. White House Down. Justice League: Flashpoint Paradox.

Clint Eastwood Movies: Escape From Alcatraz. Pale Rider. Two Mules for Sister Sara. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Hang 'Em High.

BOOKS

-Moon Over Manifest                                               -Y the Last Man: Girl on Girl
-Y the Last Man: Paper Dolls                                    -Y the Last Man: Kimono Dragons
-Y the Last Man: Motherland                                    -Y the Last Man: Whys and Wherefores
-Perks of Being a Wallflower                                     -That Summer
-Confessions of a Serial Kisser                                   -The Running Diaries
-Sammy Keyes and the Dead Giveaway                     -Chew: Flambe
-Astonishing X-men: Dangerous                                 -Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale
-I,Q: Independence Hall                                            -One Crazy Summer
-Watchmen                                                               -Anna Karenina
-The Road                                                                -A Gathering of Days
-The Paris Wife                                                        -A Girl of the Limberlost
-Think Tank, Vol. 1                                                  -Good Omens
-Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore                         -Habibi
-Me, the Missing, and the Dead                                 -Court of Owls
-East of Eden                                                            -1602
-Cloud Atlas                                                             -Island in the Sea of Time
-Covering America                                                    -American Vampire, Vol. 5
-Gods Like Us                                                          -Z: a novel of Zelda Fitzgerald
-Attachments                                                            -Eleanor and Park
-Black Hole                                                              -Wanted
-Relish                                                                      -Court of Owls (2nd time)
-The Game of Thrones                                              -The Black Mirror
-A Clash of Kings                                                      -Ex Machina: the First Hundred Days
-Ex Machina: Tag                                                      -Ex Machina: Fact v. Fiction
-Ex Machina: March to War                                       -Ex Machina: Smoke Smoke
-Ex Machina: Power Down                                        -All-Star Superman
-Joker: Death in the Family                                        -A Storm of Swords
-Hawkeye 1                                                               -Fangirl
-Such a Pretty Fat                                                      -The Elements of Journalism

TOTAL: 58

New Favorite Books: Perks of Being a Wallflower.  Anna Karenina.  East of Eden.

What I'd Recommend: The Paris Wife.  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore.  Attachments.  Good Omens.  The Y the Last Man series.  Relish.

Favorite Discovery: Rainbow Rowell, the author of Attachments, Eleanor and Park, and Fangirl.

Biggest Surprise: How addicting the Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) books are.

TELEVISION

Completed series watched in entirety: 

-Bunheads                                                                 -Firefly
-Stephen Fry in America                                             -Terriers
-Breaking Bad                                                            -30 Rock
-Welcome to the Family**

Ongoing series watched faithfully:
-Mad Men                                                                  -Parks and Recreation
-Community                                                              -Nashville
-Sleepy Hollow**                                                        -Brooklyn Nine-Nine**
-The Crazy Ones**                                                     -Dracula**
-The Goldbergs**                                                       -The Millers**
-Reign**                                                                     -Arrested Development

Series with a significant portion of episodes watched:
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer                                           -Friday Night Lights
-Don't Trust the B in Apt. 23                                       -The Carrie Diaries
-The IT Crowd                                                           -It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
-Futurama                                                                   -Saturday Night Live
-The Walking Dead                                                     -Felicity
-How I Met Your Mother                                            -Robot Chicken
-Full Metal Alchemist                                                   -Greg the Bunny
-The Following                                                            -Batman Beyond
-Fringe                                                                        -The Vicar of Dibley
-Gossip Girl                                                                -The Michael J. Fox Show
-Game of Thrones                                                       -Avatar: the Last Airbender

Series with one or two episodes watched:
-Ben and Kate                                                             -Hannibal
-Workaholics                                                               -MythQuest
-The Black Donnelly's                                                  -Orange is the New Black
-Freaks and Geeks                                                       -Boy Meets World
-The Simpsons

**signifies a show watched for Lightbox Heroes 

Ready, Set, BREAK

And just like that, as sure as the sun rises over the east and sets in the golden melted pools of western skies, I am done.  

One semester of grad school annihilated, two more to go.

Now on to one month of blessed rest.

Truth be told, I'm pretty proud of how this last semester passed.  Yes, moving here has been hard, and yes, I still had more annoying student habits than I wanted, but for the most part I was able to defeat the worst of my under-achieving demons.  True, my nasty procrastination habit is not completely gone. But I did kick it into submission about eighty percent of the time (the less said about that other twenty percent, the better).  Most importantly, I was able to finish finals with less stress and in a more timely fashion than ever before.  No last minute cramming for me this semester!  As an undergrad, I would usually frantically write my papers the morning they were due, finishing them with fifteen minutes to run to campus, print, and hand them in.  I am not lying when I say I was a lazy student.

So this is a pretty big deal.

This semester, every paper was finished at least by the night before class, and sometimes with a wider margin than that.  Let's check the timer and see how much time I granted myself, shall we?

Principles and Techniques of Journalism: 14.5 hours

Journalism Research: 18 hours

Arts Criticism: 29.5 hours

Media Law and Ethics: 66 hours

Might not seem like much, but to me that's solid progress.  Actual growth.  So eat that, all those people who stood up to violence or proved the Higgs boson particle or what have you.  I decreased my procrastination!  Victory is mine!

And now I can curl up and spend my break doing all those things I've wanted to do for weeks but have been delaying in favor of doing my work.  So over the next month, I'll be....

Reading these books:

Watching these TV shows:

And these movies:

And writing more on here (shameless plugging):

LIGHTBOX HEROES, a blog dedicated to reviewing new network TV shows.
Check us out at: lightboxheroes.weebly.com

I have a new project coming up.  Stay tuned.

And last but not least, doing LOTS of this:

Garfield is my spirit animal

Have a wonderful holiday season, dear world.  Enjoy the rest of this year.  I know I will.

Same As It Ever Was

So, yesterday was fun.  If the looming terror and guilt about this wretched place and my wretched reasons for being here hitting me in one fell swoop can be termed as fun.

The worst of it happened right before church, and I felt so bad for the Primary class I teach.  I wonder if those five-year-old boys noticed their teacher staring out the window in a catatonic state.   I can imagine it now: "Hey, Sister McCarrey, are you going to teach us about not taking the name of the Lord in vain?"  "There is no hope or justice in this world, little ones.  Only darkness and loneliness forever.  So give up now, because nothing good will ever happen to you, and the more you work for something the worse your life will be.  Leave me to my solitude, small creatures."

But in all honesty, I hit a wall yesterday.  I've basically decided where I want to end up, and what I want to be doing, and how to get there.  And now that I see a clearer picture of my future, a picture un-tinged by romanticized filters, I just want it NOW.  Don't care how.  Just now.  Except that's impossible.  The soonest I can get what I want is in a year.  That makes the youngest child in me want to scream and kick my feet (acceptable behavior?  I'm still weighing my options...).

But last night, after the weight of it all had dissolved into exhaustion and a tears-induced headache, I remembered something.  I remembered David Byrne.




I have listened to this song an embarrassing amount of times since last night.

It struck something.  This knot of frustration and anger that had been twisting inside of me just snapped.  TWANG.  Gone.

There's this moment, when Byrne is questioning different things, when he throws his fists in the air, shouting:

"You may ask yourself, am I right, am I wrong? 

You may say to yourself, my god, what have I done?

Chills.  It's as if my entire experience was wrapped up in twenty-one words.  And suddenly, I was not alone.  This experience was not unique. Logically, I knew that.  I mean, it makes sense.  Everyone has difficulties, everyone has doubts. People have done this before.  And so will I.  And I know that.

But it felt good to have Talking Heads remind me of that.  It felt good to listen to David Byrne describing the slip underwater.  Joining the current, not to drown but to enter the constant stream and flow of humanity.  To know that this too will pass.

Letting the days go by, let the water hold me down 

Letting the days go by, water flowing underground 

Into the blue again, after the money's gone 

Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground 

Into the blue again, into silent water 

Under the rocks and stones, there is water underground 

Letting the days go by, into silent water 

Once in a lifetime, water flowing underground 

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was 

Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was 

Time isn't holding us, time isn't after us 

Time isn't holding us, time doesn't hold you back 

Time isn't holding us, time isn't after us 

Time isn't holding us... 

Letting the days go by, letting the days go by, letting the days go by, once in a lifetime  

Letting the days go by, letting the days go by, letting the days go by, once in a lifetime

2007 Freshman

I recently wrote a personal essay for one of my classes.  What originally started as a glimpse into strange way the LDS church views chastity (launching from an awkward canoe metaphor my first college bishop gave me) soon morphed into a short examination of how I first started to accept my body.  My body, which I actively hated throughout jr. high and high school.  It made me wonder if there really is any way to talk about body hate, body acceptance, and the role that romantic attention  plays in that without sounding like an angsty teenage girl.  Though I suppose, considering the name of this blog, angst would be appropriate.

Anyway, here it is.  I'm considering making this a series.  As Taylor rightly pointed out when he read this, there is so much more between that moment and the place I am now.  I actually do want to explore that in the future.  We'll see if I ever have time (or the lack of pride) to talk about those things.

                

Freshman year my roommate Allison, the adorable one with silky golden curls, attracted guys like butterflies over a corpse.  That summer she chose to date David, a ballroom dancer five years her senior.  At 23, he was almost disgustingly ancient.  He smelled too nice, dressed too well, and spiked his hair too perfectly.  I didn’t trust him.  One night Allison burst in to proudly show us the five finger-shaped bruises on her arm, trophies of a vigorous make-out session in the bushes below our apartment door.  I gaped at the marks, half-fascinated, half-confused.

As for me, I went on one date that summer, with my friend Derek.  It was a set-up, a scheme to help our friend Charlene, who had never been on a date.  We all went bowling.  We ate pizza.  I hugged him at the door—a step up from the high school dances of yore, where guys were lucky to get a high-five.  Other than that, I stayed aloof from boys.  I took the freedom of the summer for granted, playing with these roommates who were the first girls to accept me, wearing sweatpants to class and staying up late.

               

I started wearing T-shirts.

My button-up blouses were donated to thrift shops.  Gone were those shapeless bags meant to hide away my curves.  The bulge of my stomach and the more obvious bulges of my breasts had been covered by pastel sacks bought at mom-stores like Lane Bryant and Ann Taylor.  I could not be as pure and unsexed as the sticks I went to high school with, so my only choice was to mask my disgustingly womanly body.  But that mindset disappeared in college, where my roommates were tall, big-boned, short, fat, muscular, and yet still had gentlemen callers.  If they could show themselves, so could I.

That fall, after the girl group of summer had left me in the dust, I sat in a lonely apartment with two strangers.  They were Idaho beauty queens, the type that kept tiaras in their closet and left the apartment shrouded in the stink of cheap hair spray.  Sometimes they would don their sashes and model in the living room, parading about for the slew of boys that plagued our couches, man-children with popped collars, too much cologne, and pillows placed oh-so-precisely over their crotches.

I needed to get away from the loneliness, and found myself escaping home.  I would beg rides back to Davis County, or take the two-hour bus ride to my front door.  Weekends would be spent with my best friend Andy, driving around listening to music and talking.  I still wore T-shirts.  He wore them too.

               

One October night we sat on the lawn outside the church building by Main Street, looking up at my old friend Orion, debating about the movies that meant something to us.  The stars were bright.  I shivered.  The grass was a dusky silver in the midnight light.

               

“It might be warmer if we were closer together,” Andy said.

               

I looked at him, my lovely friend with the red afro and the freckled arms. My friend, whose typed-out words through desolate college nights had kept me going.  He looked at me.  Not my clothes, not my skin, not the carefully hidden curves.  I scooted towards him.  I was still shivering, but this time from excitement, from disbelief.  He merely took that as a cue to hold me tighter.

               

Two weeks later, we sat on his parent’s couch, tracing each other’s arms with our fingertips.  He encircled my wrist with his fingers, the middle and thumb over-lapping.  His hands were a mass of white skin and brown freckles, giant, rough, and warm.

               

“Your wrists.  They’re so small.”

               

He hesitantly lifted my wrist and kissed it.

               

I looked at my wrist.  It was bare.  It was warm and white, bisected with the thinnest blue lines of veins.  For the first time, I thought my body was beautiful.

Floating in the Dark, Temporary Scars

Clearly, I'm not always full of sunshine and rainbows about my move back east.

But Boston has one thing.

Nearly every night when I walk home in the oppressive dark, I look up.

And there, beyond the tree-lined edges of my view, are stars.

After almost two years without, stars are a welcome presence.  I've missed my friend Orion, and Cassiopeia's regal throne.  I see the chained Andromeda, and I feel free.

More than a Feeling

When Taylor and I were preparing to come to Boston, it was with the giddy excitement of children waiting for Christmas.  Look at all those brick buildings!  Look at how palpable the history is!  Look at the leaves, the seasons, the air, that crisp East Coast feeling we've created from books and songs and movies!

When we got to Boston, that blown-glass image shattered fairly quickly.  The apartment full of light and hope wasn't ready for us when we got there, and instead we were greeted with paint cans and drop cloths and an infestation of crickets.  We slept on an air mattress, dying in the heat, lost and confused in a city that was much further from our dream than we had realized.

That was two months ago, and while we've gotten our bearings a little, it's come at a cost.  The autumnal spirit here is as beautiful as we imagined, but we can't enjoy it.  School started quickly and fiercely, and my life has become a long line of T rides to the COM building and back to the little house in the suburbs, removed from the bustling, shining city of promise.  Taylor's life I can only imagine, after spending a month in a ridiculously oppressive work environment, and now returned to long, empty days in a long, empty apartment.

There are days where I love Boston.  Where I look at my "Why I Like it Here" list and feel calm, remembering the large rocks at my T station, the smushed, Irish-looking faces of Southies on the street, the bookstores and cobblestones and abundance of graveyards Downtown and in Cambridge, the trees that create tunnels of orange and red.

But far more often are the days when I think I won't ever stop hating myself for bringing us here.

Education is a terribly selfish thing.  When I was doing my undergrad, I used my selfishness like a badge of honor.  I would look at all those poor little engaged girls I knew with pity.  They were squandering a prime opportunity in their life. When else would you have an excuse to just be concerned with yourself?  When else can a person be wholly self-absorbed in their own learning and growth?

When I decided to go back to school, it was after I'd gotten married and had halfway tried on a career for size.  It seemed like the time to do this.  I had always wanted a masters, I felt like I had to give this writing thing a try, and it was now or never.  Taylor was more supportive than I could imagine, pushing me to make this decision for me and for me alone, assuring me that he would follow me anywhere and that our family would flourish wherever I chose to go.

I don't think he knew what that was implying.  I don't think either of us did.

He couldn't have seen the gut-wrenching loneliness that would occur.  While we knew moving was hard--the first time we moved to Seattle almost destroyed us--I think we thought we had grown.  We had each other now.  We knew how to work as a team.  We had qualifications and life would happen quickly.   Ha.  How naive.

Instead, I found myself regressing into the selfishness of schooling.  This grad school experience was a chance to redeem myself as a student.  It was a chance to finally push myself, to stop being lazy and see what happens when I exhaust all my potential.  Even though I'm studenting better than ever, the extreme soul-crushing guilt that I inflict upon myself when I don't live up to the impossible standard I'm aiming for is incredibly destructive.  It leads to a weariness and disappointment I couldn't have foreseen. And while I'm concentrating on how to school better, I can't ignore the fact that the house is in disarray, that I'm cooking dinner less, that I'm not being as caring and tender with Taylor's emotional needs.

Which makes me feel even worse.  Thinking about what I've done to Taylor.  I can't help but think about what life would be like if we stayed in Seattle.  Seattle, the gloomy, wonderful jewel of a city that we idiotically couldn't get away from fast enough.  If we were in Seattle right now, I would be teaching.  And I would probably be loving it.  If we were in Seattle, Taylor would have a job.  He'd be able to practice, he'd have spent the past two months making money and ticking off licensure hours, each week coming closer to the dream he's harbored.

Instead, I took us away from financial and job security, and dragged us across the country, to a place that might be breaking us.  That's a whole ton of guilt to be living with.  The dream of Boston has shattered, and now I'm wondering how to make the pieces fit together again.