Playing house

I've been here four days but it feels like much longer. It's been pretty hard work setting up house and trying to figure out what to do with this cross-country trip, which feels further and further away from reality (reality being Target, IKEA, Craig's List, a basement apartment, the Dodge Caravan, and a sickly Jetta).

This morning we went to Target and got a boatload of household goods, including a vaccuum, Dustbuster, Chlorox, garbage cans, sponges, soap, a lamp, kitchen towels, pans, scissors, Palmolive, and more. Lots more.

I've never had a house, never had a place that I considered my own, really. It's been five years since I even rented my own place or cleaned my own bathroom. So you could say that I am not the most qualified person to try and set up a house. No doubt this could all be done a lot more efficiently and with less expense by someone else, which would cut down on the irritation factor too. Because I get irritated. I try not to, but I do. When my grandmother asks me what the Swiffer is, or calls me into the kitchen to tell me that we need foil, plastic wrap, and Ziploc bags for the dorm, or says she doesn't know what to get because she isn't familiar with any of the products -- these things annoy me. God knows that it's hard being in a foreign land with a job to do, and harder yet to do it when you're 75 years old, and -- dear god, WHY is she here, and WHAT is my dad doing?

This is what I was feeling today at Target, so I did a good thing for myself and my sanity and probably that of those around me, and I took off a few hours. Went to see a friend from law school, who drove around in the Jetta with me and directed me to one of the ubiquitous taco trucks around Hispanic neighborhoods in California, where we had the most delicious tacos ever, and then drove around aimlessly some more, like high school kids, stopping only for more tacos. It was fantastic.

My friend is recovering from the fourth serious back surgery he's had since he herniated a disk as a kid, but was remarkably sanguine about it, as he is about pretty much everything. Take, for example, his reaction to being mugged in Oakland last year: "Yeah, it's not such a great neighorhood." Or his reaction to his mom being mugged by two kids, on his block, while with him, in broad daylight, during his convalescence: "Yeah, she was a little freaked out."

Although he lives in what sounds like a scary neighborhood, his little apartment was sweet, complete with a little calico cat that was born right outside his place about a year ago. (The cat hissed at me, then wound itself around my legs, then hissed some more. Dumb cat.) Before aimlessly driving around, I hung out with him there for as long as I could before succumbing to allergies. My friend's always been kind and generous to me, and as I drank his coffee, I mentioned that I wished I had more stability in my life. He asked me what that meant. I struggled with the answer.

I have been aimless, I guess. I led a pretty straight arrow path until graduating from college, after which I meandered through three full-time and two part-time jobs before heading to Korea and then going to law school. In the past ten years, I have lived in seven cities and 13 buildings, had 7 sets of roommates, and logged at least 100,000 miles in air travel.

Whatever stability is, it's not that.

I'm blogging tonight while sitting on J1's and bigbro's couch, surrounded by photos and books and things acquired and accumulated through seven years of marriage and 14 (?) years of togetherness. Is this stability? Who the hell knows? But if this isn't what stability looks like, stability's stylist should be fired.

I just want to know. I want some definiteness. I want to feel free to acquire things without weighing in my mind how difficult they will be to move within a year.

But mostly, I really want to know.