living alone

The Art of Adulting

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I have been working on the art of being an adult. What does being an adult even mean? To me it means autonomy, taking responsibility, and paying a lot of bills.

In some ways I’m doing a fine job of adulting. I pay my bills (mostly on time), make my own decisions (after much consultation), and cook my own meals (occasionally). I still, however, do not have a washer or dryer and cart my laundry to my parent’s house every few weeks. I sleep on a futon and ignore my dirty dishes until I can’t use the sink faucet. So I’d say it’s about 50/50 right now. I may act like an adult but I live like a college student. And you know what? Right now, it works for me.

Note: This piece was originally published in April but, due to user error, it showed up as a page rather than a post. The author would like you to know, she no longer sleeps on a futon. She now has a mattress on the floor.

Off the Grid, Just a Little

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I spent the weekend without wifi.  Is this even possible you ask?  Well I was house sitting and had forgotten to get the password.  Rather then be a pest, calling to ask for the wifi password, I decided to go without, thinking it might help me write.  Which it did, sort of.  What I really did was:

  • Checked my phone every ten minutes out of habit, even though nothing had refreshed.
  • Had the constant feeling I was missing something important.  What if my friends were getting together and talking about it on facebook?  And I missed the whole thing because I couldn’t log on?  What if they didn’t think to text or call me but instead decided I didn’t want to be friends with them any longer?
  • I tried logging on every seemingly open network.  They were all password protected at some point or another.  What happened to the days when one could easily mooch wifi because no one thought to have a password?  Now everyone watches their broadband, not wanting anything to slow up their Netflix streaming.
  • I felt bored and a bit listless.  I couldn’t research anything.  I couldn’t post blogs entries or check my email or look for job postings.  I couldn’t sell clothes online or tweet or put filters on Instagram photos.
  • I read more, wrote more, went to bed earlier, and didn’t watch terrible TV.  I felt a refreshing distance from the outside world for the first time in a long time.  My phone sat quietly.  I left it out on the balcony and forgot about its existence for a couple of hours.  I was ok.

Starts with a bang

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Instead of a lengthy welcome post wherein I explain who I am what I’m about and…whew, already bored.

Last night, in the moment before I fell asleep, I thought a snake was going to get into my room through my stove vent.  It conceivably could happen.  The vent leaves directly outside and sometimes I hear the rustling of creatures who get trapped in there.  I live mostly below ground so the event is at perfect height for some unsuspecting snake to slither in to hide from the rain or the neighbor’s dog.  Then there are these large holes in the vent its self, definitely large enough for a snake to get through.

The moment my sleepy brain put all these pieces together, I had the lights back on and was sitting straight up, staring at the vent.  That’s when I remembered I’d covered it with plastic for the winter.  So, if a snake was to get in, it couldn’t actually fall through the cracks and onto my stove until I removed said plastic.  Meaning I didn’t have to worry.  Yet.

The idea was comforting for about three minutes until I thought about how thin the plastic really was and how easily a snake could tear through it with it’s sharp, poisonous fangs…