Maybe the pock-mark wasn’t on his left sideburn.  Maybe it was on his nose.

But I’m almost positive it was from measles.  Right?  Measles?

How is it that things I obsessed over are now no more valid than fiction?

I once kept a draft post in my email account for over a year.  It was to a boy, of course.  I believe one I wanted more from and wasn’t getting it.  I remember feeling so scared and free when I finally deleted it.  But now I could not tell you a single word it contained.  Or even who it was for with 100% certainty.

This weekend, I was contacted by the past.  My very first real boyfriend from when I was in the 7th grade.

It was through a site set up for people to connect like that, although I’ve never had anyone do that.

He’s suggested we catch up.  In offering direct email communication, he used the word “addy”.

I don’t remember him that way.  I don’t remember him in words at all.  I remember smells and touch.  I remember light brown eyes.  A jean jacket that I would rest my head on.  His digital calculator watch that I wore that summer.

I used to be the kind of person who hung on to everyone and everything in my life.  In that, I am tempted to catch up.

But I’m also scared.  Not about the present, but about how direct contact would abscure the past.  How much of what I remember is completely wrong?  How many memories will get re-written?

ST and I were on the Busch Gardens tram, heading into the park.  I looked to my right, and there he was.  NB.  It had to be.  That gelled hair.  The pock-mark under his left side-burn.

So I smiled, at first to myself as he was with a beautiful and skinny blond.  Then I smiled at him after poking him in the shoulder.

He looked at me as if I was a stranger.

I took the sun glasses off.  “NB?”

“No.  Sorry.”

“Oops!”

On reflection, the hair was too blond.  And he did not walk with the right stance when I saw him leave the tram.  But that pock-mark sure had me going.

ST slung an arm around my back, “Sorry dear.  But you can’t have dated them all!”

This time I have not been silent because of a funk or a death or even a hang nail.

I’m just busy in ways that keep me from the computer and happy about it so that I don’t come vomit discontent all over these pages when I’m not busy.

Going-to-the-sanctuary-sporting-a-hickey kind of busy.  (A HICKEY?  Am I fifteen or what?)  More embarassing, I was unaware of the hickey until it was pointed out in a crowded food prep room.

Things are very much going my way right now.  I have gotten back in touch with friends that thought I was dead and R’s first instinct was to offer to fire up the grill.

(At one point, much of my “gang” lived in a one-mile radius of each other.  We spread out sufficiently that random knocks on the door were no longer possible, and then the apartment ST and I had was a good half-hour addition to any visit.  Being back in the condo allows for more ease of socialibility.)

After a good first week trapping rodents (although, did you know golden mice JUMP?  Jump like FROGS?  Frogs that I am DEATHLY AFRAID OF?  The jumping.  It creeps me out.) we were given a week off while the grad student took a vacation.  I haven’t had these kind of free time since last summer.  It’s awesome and just what I needed to get the final touches on the move.

I’m not sure the grad student will be happy to return to find that I myself will be taking an impromptu vacation.  But since he’s not invited, I guess he won’t rain on my parade too much.

ST’s favorite cousin requested our presence at his family’s cabin in Port St. Joe next week.  The timing was all odd, and the drive up is not a fun one, so we finagaled a day or two to ourselves before they arrive.  I know ST is excited to have me meet this cousin, but I am just psyched about the break.  I wanted to go to the cabin when we went to Miami.  It’s like cabin-lite for me.  All the comfiness of a family cabin without the worry that Grandma will decide it’s too much work and sell it.

Plus, it’s on the beach.  (Thank you, previous hurricane seasons!)

And…that’s about it.  I am out at the sanctuary more with my new schedule, but an update on that is it’s own post.

Things went well with Grandma; I even had a half-way decent post written when my pilfered Internet went down.

I drove straight back into packing hell - the cats.  Luckily, we’ve got moving Zulu down pat.  One person systematically shuts her out of every room, usually by force, then gives up.  The second person comes home, proffers the carrier, and she jumps in.  Being person #1 involves a lot more swearing and sweat.

I am happy to say she is acclaimating to the move and particularly enjoys the loft.  However, there are no good high up hidey places and I think it’s actually better for her.  She’s getting a lot braver about breathing the same air as THE DOG.  (That’s how she says it.)

I spent the weekend at the sanctuary, moving, and fretting over the fridge.  The fan motor that cools the fridge part went kaput.  If I were alone, I would have tossed everything and ordered much pizza.  ST went to Walmart and purchased a small fan to put in the freezer.  He also ordered a part, perhaps even a fan motor.  I believe he also plans to install it when it gets here.  Unless that’s the physical challenge portion of this relationship.  In that case, I think we’re having pizza Thursday night.

We got Internets up and running here yesterday, in conjunction with something I’ve always said I would never get: cable.

Yup.  I have never, except when coehersed by significant others, had a TV dispension system more fancy than rabbit ears.  The cable was ST’s idea, although I admit the reception was particularly awful and you couldn’t catch any non-verbal jokes for the static.

I came home and promptly commandeered the remote.  How fun is it to watch Animal Planet with someone who must tell you Every.  Little.  Thing. she has ever learned about animals ever?

I give it a week.  He’ll be begging for the rabbit ears back. 

It seems inevitable.  I move.  I hate moving.  And, as years go by, I get worse at it in terms of my physical limitations.  This time, I’m fighting a bum knee on top of my back and general unfitness.*

So why?  Why do I keep doing it?  Why can’t I keep still damnit!?

And of course, the condo is still on the market.  I bet we get an offer the minute the bed is over there (today, maybe?).

While I am estatic about moving back to the only place I’ve felt “home” since eighteen, I thought this next move was going to be out of state.  Which means I have to either come up with a wildly different Plan of Action, or move again.  Ergh.

And now, a few meta details…  First off, thanks to those commenting and responding.  I really appreciate it.  And those who wish to get in contact directly may do so at: jessica in progress at gmail dot com alloneword.

Second, I updated my links. If you want to be in my Read Them list, please let me know.  If you are there and wish to be have a different link name, let me know. 

Third, I have very little in the way of comment protection from spam.  (Anyone know how to install a verification on wordpress?)  If you are trying to comment for the first time, it goes in moderation.  If I don’t get to my moderation in time, it contains 293 comments regarding drugs, porn, and where I can get a nice time share.  I’m assuming those are spam and not comments from nice readers.  (In that case, I will take some drugs and porn.)  Anyway, 293 comments is hard to moderate, so if a valid one is in there it is likely to get deleted with the rest.  If that has happened to you, I apologize.

Lastly, I will be in Gainesville for the next few days.  I think I will bring my laptop, because Grandma believes left turns are taboo so I will at least want mapquest handy.  But I will come back on Friday and go straight into a weekend of tiger poo and more moving.  Please try and play nice if I don’t get back until next week.

*This is an wildly unfair whine because 1) I have to maintain some level of fitness to work at the sanctuary and not break down 2) ST is doing most of the heavy lifting.

I took the first load of stuff over to the condo yesterday.

This move is forcing ST and I to finish a year-long project of decluttering.  Sure, when we moved into this apartment we got rid of quite a bit.  His dishes.  His silverware.  My glasses.  (I still miss my glasses.  Not that I have control issues over dinnerware or anything.)

And throughout the year, we always seemed to have a give-away pile.  A sanctuary volunteer holds a garage sale every Saturday and proceeds all go to the cats.  The cats have benefitted from our excess bedding, our love of books with no place to keep them, and the fact that we could not justify a TV in every room.

But there are major areas that have yet to be tackled.  For example, we still own two beds.  And two couches.  The condo has been kept partially furnished for selling purposes as much as laziness.  Thank goodness I did not lug that file cabinet over here only to lug it back.  Even it did mean I spent a year in filing angst.

I am finally letting go of my first bureau.  It was my great-aunt’s and I did a poor stain job on it in the spring of 1997.  It has two drawers with marvelous dividers just the size of folded shirts.  While I might be able to justify we could squeeze it in the back of the bedroom walk-in closet (where I kept it before), it would just enable our keeping of more clothes we don’t wear.  And that’s what the rest of the closet is for.

I am not letting go of a half dozen cassette tapes.  I don’t care that my little 20 dollar pink boom box is the last cassette player in the world.  The mix tape of Blues and Irish music I created from records at my parent’s hosue must live on.

(Pause for ST to shake his head at the crazy.  YOU CHOSE TO SLEEP NEXT TO THIS CRAZY FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.  NOW WHO’S THE CRAZY?)

Not that he is any better.  While he has been very adult about the fact that his huge computer desk won’t fit in the study, you should have seen in the look on his face when I proffered various dusty cables and asked if we could get rid of them.  You’d think I suggested replacing our toliet paper with hedgehogs.