So far, so good. Because of my trip to New York this weekend that was scheduled well before this rigmarole started, Monday/Tuesday seems like the day I will get my bed unless I can get same-day delivery before 2 p.m. Thursday, which I doubt. I was going to go the used mattress route but most people have jobs that run for normal hours so I wouldn’t be able to get one until the weekends, which would leave me sleeping on couch cushions for up to seven more days (I think my work schedule will be what it’s going to be starting Monday. I think I actually don’t have any of the traditional weekend days off at all since I’m the new guy so I may be MIA longer than I thought I would.
Other than the bed, almost everything in the room is where I want it. I just need to build a case for my CDs (I never finished uploading everything and I think my external hard drive is in Richmond and it’s possibly stolen). and put my books on the shelves. I haven’t put the books up yet because I’m suing them to mark out where the bed would be and stop the couch cushions I’m sleeping on now from sliding. I’m pretty much stopped moving in my sleep but I had gotten used to a queen bed and those first couple nights were an adventure. I haven’t put a lot of things up because I’ll be out of here in a few months. There haven’t been any problems and I think we’ll be friends but it feels a little awkward to have a complete opposite sleep schedule from everyone else in such as small house.
I go to bed between 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. so I’m as refreshed as possible for work but I typically spend those overnight hours afraid to breathe too hard. I’m probably overreacting but I’d rather overreact than be that asshole banging things around at 3 a.m. They mentioned being afraid of waking me up in the morning as well but I lived in a frat house so, once I’m out, I tend to be out. The weirdest things wake me up but, typically, something going on in an adjacent room does noting for me, with the exception of when I had the ill fortune in Petersburg of having my bed directly opposite the bed of the other apartment where they did nothing but argue and have loud sex for a good portion of every night. I would up sleeping in my living room. I’m doing some preliminary looking around at places now. I found some that I like toward Wilmington but I’m not up for commuting 20+ miles to work again. It’ll work out; this feels like a combination of my move to Petersburg and my first six months in Richmond right now. It’s a little freaky that way.
I got good news out of the Virginia today. Once again, I can’t and won’t explain what’s going on but Katy was out of a job too. She is now at the one job I ever truly ranted about online. I didn’t hate the place. I was mostly annoyed at one person. Back when overtures were made last year, I told her that it was nothing but a clash of personalities and she should go for it when the opportunity arose. I actually went out of my way to not talk about my time there with her before that point because I didn’t want her to think it was an awful place because it’s not. If anything, everything went as it should. If I was 100 percent content, I probably would be there still, hating that, six years later, I was still writing articles. Being annoyed and leaving there allowed me to spend almost three years practicing layout and design in Hopewell which allowed me to move on to a daily copy desk since, between the time I started college and finished, copy editors and paginators became one and the same. I would have been stuck as a reporter because I never would have had the opportunity to learn how to design pages. At the end of the day, I’m glad I left both places in Virginia when I did because I left with good information and an impressive résumé: over three years of daily experience, writing experience, nunchuku skills, bow hunting skills, computer hacking skills, photography experience, social media experience, three years of managerial experience and experience in InDesign and Quark. I want to hire me.
But I digress.
Anyway, she’ll be fine there. I still have some connections if she’s ever in a bind, she already knows some people and she has at least one loyal friend in that newsroom.
And I’ll get to live vicariously through her. I’ll probably end up pitching story ideas to her just to get updated on people I miss. I just have this soft-edged, sepia view of Dinwiddie County. I still miss it. I don’t think I’ll ever stop. I wasn’t completely joking when I told someone I would be content in my old age to have a house on a couple acres there. It’s probably the country boy in me. I’m only one generation removed from the farm. I have no idea how to farm but I tell you, if I get my own grain to sway gently in the wind, I’d be the proudest man in Dinwiddie.
Oh God. This is going to be my midlife crisis, isn’t it? Why can’t I have a soft-edged, sepia view of me in a sports car?
Just be glad you didn’t have your mid-life crisis at 23 like some people named Bill (Although I do love my job, whatever that job may actually be).
My dad calls it Dumbwiddie. Probably due to where he works.