Adventures in Drawers

In general, moving is incredibly painful. We all inspire to shed ourselves of all of our belongings and only move the actually important or good things we own each time we change addresses, but in my case, I always end up moving in a rush and just throwing everything I have into grocery bags no matter how completely worthless it is. This time I am actually cleaning out some drawers getting ready for the "big move" and I can't believe the shit I've been dragging along all this time.Expired Condoms
Broke Ass WatchUgly hair thing that my brother's ex fiance in Vietnam that I've never met gave me

evelyn and ngoc, circa 2002

Weekend in Nepal

New apartment? It's Ikea time!!I get a little tense when I go to Ikea. Some people relax. Some people even choose it for a first-date destination, as if modular furniture would break the ice to allow you to tell that cute barista over Swedish meatballs about your dad's porn addiction and see if she's phased. I get nervous because I'm easily lost in big stores like that, but I also have Noah to guide me through the whole thing. Plus he has a good sized vehicle and is sweet so he will do shit like this:Yeah, that's Noah pushing a cart with two bed frames and carrying a stylish red particle board bookshelf for yours truly. *Sigh* My hero.

He also convinced me to buy this rug that looks like it came from a baby polar bear cub. But he had me put it on first.Soon after taking this picture, a somewhat drunken ruffian swaggered over and insisted on taking our picture together. "Scoot in closer! Hey honey, I'm helping them remember their weekend in Nepaaal!"

Okay, it was weird having that drunk guy bully us at Ikea, but we had a good time right?
I'm framing this picture and giving it to Noah for Christmas.

The Squirrels

As fall nears and I prepare to move out of my apartment and into a new home, the squirrels, who appear around this time, are getting desperate. Here is their latest communique:

Dear Evelyn,

Since last October we have been visiting you. We watch you from outside your window as you sit inside, watching us. All through last winter, heat from inside kept us warm, if we pressed ourselves to your window. When we did this, you would beat the glass, flick it with your fingernail, or, and this was by far the worst insult, you would throw a soft object with great force at the window, startling us from our huddle so that we would leap into the scraggly branches of a nearby tree, where a clan of militant crows made ragged by winter threatened to peck out our eyes.



It is nearing October, again. Again we approach the ledge outside your window and you pound the glass. It is our Dark Night of the Soul. We beseech you: let us stay here on your ledge, or better, let us burrow into the wood of your window frame. We have already chewed a nice, squirrel-sized hole for our family.

SQUIRREL MANIFESTO
We wish that our motives would no be so misunderstood by you. To this end, here is our MANIFESTO, first drafted on the inside of a discarded cereal box.

Point 1) We are squirrels. We will not deny the truth of ourselves.
Point 2) As squirrels, we are creatures of the street, of the urban dumpster, and as such we exist symbiotically with you.
Point 3) We don't ask to eat from your hand, but if you offer, we will
Point 4) We want nuts, if you're offering
Point 5) Our aims as urban creatures are often misunderstood. We do not "slink", "creep", "cajole", or otherwise act deviantly. Our brothers, the rats, have motives and methods completely separate from our own: do not conflate ours with theirs.
Point 6) We are essentially harmless. Just look into our eyes.
Point 7) We deserve to exist unmolested by you. We just want to gather, play, and huddle near your dissipating heat.
Point 8) The simplicity of our demands should not negate our intelligence. After all, we managed to draft a manifesto.

Into the Seward

We'll be settling in the Seward neighborhood, a part of which was once called, by an unknown crank, the "hub of hell." I suppose I can think of worse places to live, such as the bottom bracket of hell. Really, the hub is not so bad.

I will be traveling across town to our new home the way everyone travels in the heartland: by corn. -e

"How I learned to stop worrying..."

It is new!

A new house! New neighbors and their hellos and car alarms! A new street to cross every morning, with new gutters to explore for fallen car-floor treasures! A new silence at night, and new windows to yell out to break the silence. New stinks and new sweets. Maybe even a cafe, and neighborly cats to wrangle. New corners to navigate and new dumpsters!

Even a new roommate, one who will share and leave leave messes and sometimes clean up mine. Someone to spit wine at when I laugh, and to hide the last cookie from.

And you, new house, wherever you are: we'll do all kinds of things in you, laugh and barf and twirl our hair. We'll read books and swear, probably sometimes at you. We're excited to find you and to dump our heavy boxes.