The Saga of Anthems, Adventures.

Two lines deserve to be tattooed on my forearms given how much I'm living my life by them. One is nothing new - The Mountain Goats' angry anthem, a determined and crazy and desperate mandate: I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me. (This, incidentally, lends itself well to insertions of "motherfucker" as in, I'm gonna fucking make it through this year even it motherfucking kills me). The other one is Otis Redding: I can't do what ten people tell me to do.

I vanished to the North for two weeks and it was an adventure full of smaller adventures tied up with an adventure with a side of adventure. Exploits include moose sightings, Indian buffets, an LCD Soundsystem concert, a wedding with bottomless Makers' Mark and lobster mac and cheese, leather jackets, and lots and lots of trees. Also, lots and lots of Milwaukee's Best. And lots and lots of driving. I saw two states I'd never seen, ate a homemade whoopie pie on the steps of an old church, and saw a moose. Did I mention there were moose? We decided the moose had organized a congress in the woods and knew of my arrival.

All in all, it was a much needed and wonderful span of days.

And I felt pretty triumphant when I crossed the VA-NC border, knowing my apartment was mere hours away, and my dog, and my bed. But there's also a hell of a lot of obligation here, which I felt as soon as I opened the door and wrangled Pinto to the ground (he missed me a lot). Emails from bosses. Missed phone calls. Voicemails.

That, paired with a residual claustrophobia from driving I-95 from Portland, ME to Rocky Point, NC, made it real real tempting to get back in the car and head West, throw my phone into the Mississippi, and rent some ranch in Montana with my student loans and adopt 8 more dogs.

In short, coming home made me feel like a crazy person.

Which, in turn, made me an incredibly ill person.

I got sick in Maine, I think in part because I stepped out of the car in Farmington and realized I'd just fucking driven to Maine - and thought nothing of it. I'd hit a point as I was driving that was both terrifying and liberating--no one knew where I was, aka I was beholden to nobody, had no responsibility besides keeping the car on the road, didn't have to do anything. The other side of that, though, is pretty horrifying--I could crash and no one would know. I could just keep driving, reach Canada, see how many days I could go missing.

Again--crazy person thoughts.

But I got to Maine, and as soon as I stopped traveling, BLAMMO! Fever from hell. Fortunately my host was insanely gracious even when I slept for 15 hours straight and requested a bath at midnight (he had a Jacuzzi so it's not all that crazy). And it was a weirdly low-key vacation (though, to be fair, there are two bars in Farmington, and they're spittin' distance from one another) of watching movies and driving through the foliage and drinking coffee in jimjams, which was, weirdly, just what I needed.

I've been hesitant to type in this thing because it's inaccurate. It's a public forum and it makes me want to crack jokes, which is good, because cracking jokes keeps me going sometimes (I still think Grampa is a hilarious name for a dog), but it also feels pretty artificial at points.

Plus, man, I really just want to bitch about work and school and everything and that's bound to get me in more trouble than I inherently, perpetually find myself in (and I ended on a preposition but whatever!).

This is what it comes down to, though, and why Otis Redding has been added to the Rachel @23 Playlist Of Life: Pinto.

(BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS ABOUT PINTO!!!!)

No seriously guys this one isn't a joke!

Lately, I need Porching as early as Wednesdays, because by Wednesday, I'm as fried as a pickle and there are two fucking days left before it's the weekend--I lay in bed and think, "I'm gonna make it, I'll survive," but there's the corny question of survival vs. oh, you know, enjoying your glorious twenties. I realize I sound like I have some hideous disease (which, currently, I do, ha!), and, as far as I know, I don't. But I go to bed feeling badgered and hounded and--there has to be another animal verb--moosed and like I am before some tribunal and they are all so, so disappointed in me. My bosses don't think I'm working hard enough. My classmates think I'm a drunk; my peers a sentimentalist whose blog is the narcissistic, babbly ramblings of a dog-obsessed overgrown child. The editors of all the journals I submit to think I'm ridiculous for my stories about God as the Lincoln Memorial. My parents wish I would grow the fuck up already.

(Of course, all of this is supposition - I don't know what anybody thinks, but man, it sure feels like I do.)

And then there's Pinto. And what does Pinto think?

"I sure wish you'd take me out to poop soon."

Or: "Could you throw this hedgehog toy for me?"

Or: "I'd like to be on your lap for a while. Thanks."

What I mean is this: I can fulfill Pinto's needs. I am always doing a good job with Pinto, even when I'm not, because he's alive and well-fed and only gets the shits sporadically nowadays. I just got out of a relationship where I was supposed to be filling the other party's every need, and I couldn't do it, because no one can--but Pinto's a dog. He needs somebody to open doors for him because he has no hands.

So I've been deadly ill all week, and the only fun of it is hanging out with Pinto, who might be 65 pounds but is convinced he is a lapdog. And Pinto will not go get me Sudafed or a box of Kleenex or another gallon of orange juice (though I think he would if he could). But what he does do, and what he always will, is love me, no matter how bitchy or dirty or sickly I am.

And that, friends, is why I am going to capitalize on the Marley & Me market and write The Pinto Papers, which I plan on beginning as soon as I get all this MFA literary avant-garde shit out of my system first. Pinto's face is gonna be all over your Barnes & Noble - you just wait.

The Saga of Can-Do-Ismus & Work Work Play.

And suddenly it's September.

Friends, I had a remarkable revelation the other day--and no, it was not if you make Pinto's leg thump hard enough while scratching him he will fart, nor was it that it's probably time to buy groceries when there's only some sad eggrolls and a 2-liter of Coke (to be mixed with rum) in the fridge, nor was it oh, my underwear is inside out.

I learned this: if you taunt me in to doing something, I'll fucking do it.

Seriously! And this does not mean I did something insane the other day ("Hey Rachel bet you won't snort this line of ants off the front porch" "WATCH ME MOTHERFUCKER") but only that lately I am feeling pretty unfuckable, and I don't mean that in the copulative sense. The contrary, actually. As in, every cigarette is a victor-ette solely because it can be.

Hence the affliction, Can-Do-Ismus. This is the strange and wonderful phenomenon of doing things because you can't see a reason not to, and, more importantly, because you can. And I don't mean shoplifting. I don't mean running red lights. I don't even mean not flushing the toilet as soon as you use it.

I mean being content.

I've been rustlin' with this whole idea of happiness for oh, well, ever, and I sometimes hesitate to sit down and type on this very public narcissistic badly syntaxed bliggity blog because I have no conflict to report. And no one wants to read about Rachel's wonderful days. We want drama! Intrigue! Action!

Sadly, I must disappoint. Things are really, really good. Like freaky good, like "oh shit is this the best time in my life ever I THINK IT IS" good.

And that is fairly remarkable to me.

"But Rachel!" you cry, shaking the corners of your computer screen like a lover's lapels! "What are these things? Why must you wax so philosophical? You realize it is a Friday night at 11 p.m. and you are in your jimjams blogging for Pete's sake? Who is Pete, anyway?!"

Pete, incidentally, is a name I would only bestow on a cat, because cats, unlike dogs, are allowed to have person names, but it's much funnier when a cat is named after a trademarked thing (Kleenex, Velcro, Ziploc, etc--great cat names). Dogs, on the other hand, are only permitted to be named after inanimate objects and preferably those that begin with P (but that's a personal thing)--my next dog, because while normal people are out there making shopping lists for dinner, I am eating eggrolls and planning dogs, will be named Potato. Followed by Pimento. And possibly then Pinata.

The things are these. I have arbitrarily chosen three of them because it's a nice, curvy number.

ONE. Work.

At last! At last, the gilded deluge of a paycheck, albeit monthly!

One of the reasons I don't blog with any form of consistency, friends, is my insane work schedule. I have twin jobs, one sitting at a computer designing ads for fancy pants cultural events and writing press releases and clambering around campus display cases, and the other, as you know, at W HQ R. My daily schedule has three parts: job 1, job 2, and class. When I get home, 10 hours after I've left, Pinto has often demolished something, but who can blame the little guy? Ten hours is a long time to go without peeing. Try it sometime.

I should record this now before the new station manager arrives and rattles everything up, but I really, really love working in public radio. Sometimes the egos are a little asphyxiating and the quirks are borderline deadly, but you guys! I am "a voice"!!!! And I didn't think anything of it because I am just a little old intern at the end of the day, but I can't tell you how many folks come up to me saying "I heard you today! You were great!" This also might have something to do with my new stint as back-up host for Morning Edition, which means I wake up at quarter to five, let a very groggy Pinto out of his crate, brew some hideously strong coffee and clomp to the station in the pre-dawn dark; then I go live, and there are 40,000 people listening to me.

Did you catch that part? 40,000!

That is a whole lot of people!

So now I have added "professional voice work" to my infinite list of actually paying post-MFA potential job opportunities. I'm informed there's an anime studio in Wilmington that hires voice actors, so someday you might be watching some disproportionate big-eyed schoolgirl in a sailor suit as she battles (or gets screwed by, let's be honest here) an octopus monster and you'll think, "Wait, shit, is that Rachel?"

And maybe it will be!

Two. WORK.

I don't want to speak too much about it because I know I'll jinx the whole thing entirely, but this year I am writing a novel. I have around six dozen pages of diagrams and scribbles and strangely oriented fragments, but it's actually coming along. And yes, it's about Tulsa, and yes, there are dogs' perspectives in it, and yes, the Rock-a-Fire explosion, and beyond that I am not so sure. What I know, at least, is this thing has got to get written because I want to put Tulsa on paper. The Admiral Twin Drive-In burned down this afternoon, and the fact that I got so heartbroken, adding it to the list of Tulsa Lost (Bell's and the Metro and the Rose Bowl), actually made me think, "Holy cannoli, I'm actually going to write this thing, aren't I?"

Considering the last novel-length undertaking I took was Harry Potter fanfiction in middle school (unfinished, but still really awesome), this is kind of a big deal.

And I read an excerpt from it to some fine folks who gathered at the library, and while they did not lift me on their shoulders and go marching off into the night singing, they might as well have for how good I felt afterward. It went well. It went freaky well.

So that work, the real work, is likewise happily pooting along (like Pinto on a walk).

Lastly, THREE. Play.

As usual, I am living in the Hamilton mindset of work hard and play even harder. So I'm home on a Friday night because my throat feels like I ate a sandcastle (and now I have to take care of my voice because it's suddenly a product, a commodity, this shit is crazy!) because we gathered on a porch last night to welcome the season's first hurricane, Earl.

Long story short, the jerk didn't even call. Not a drop of rain. Just some breezes, and a lot of beer drinking, and I bought a pack before coming over and, well, it's got two left. Even typing that makes my lungs cringe.

But it's truthfully been one of the most fun summers of my whole little life--I am having far too good of a time. I am spending way too many hours on porch swings. I am taking far too many notes--but I'm not squirreling away this good and gladness because it's just the start of how things will be, because they can be good and they are.

Watch me, motherfuckers.

(Okay I feel bad about calling you guys motherfuckers. I didn't mean it. I love you all.)

Let's toast to ourselves and bake ourselves a cake! Because we can!

The Saga of Rachel and Her Week of Wonders.

There is no sense to any of the following but there have been too many small good things recently. Please regard the following post as a Whitman's Sampler, which my parents have bought one another for Christmas for maybe the past twenty years because they are adorable (the metaphor is also apt because most folks can find at least one thing they adore and abhor in a Whitman's Sampler--for me it's the Toffee Chips and Cherry Cordial, respectively). (Also I just looked up "Whitman's Sampler guide" and found this and that is why I love America.)

I. HOUSING
Now there is a word I do not miss from campus days of yore. It has been a time of doors, friends, namely the one with the sticky lock that leads to the aqua stairs that lead to my apartment, and the one to my bedroom that must be propped with an obliging rock, and the one that doesn't exist between living quarters and writing quarters and was replaced with some curtains by my mother. Also, previous doors: the screen door of the old apartment that taller folks than I propped so that we could tote my couch out, not once, but twice. The swinging door between kitchen and living room that I'm pretty sure has some petrified Pinto poop from his puppy days that I'm certain has since been painted over in Mind-Destroying White courtesy of the Bell Apartment Company, may their souls writhe in moral agony because they were meanies (except for Mark the Elderly Repair Man on His Customized Golf Cart--he was pretty legit).

In less ambivalent terms, I moved!

And now I reside in an apartment that is two years younger than the entire state of Oklahoma. Mull over that for a moment while you chew on your piece of wheat, then deduce: awesome!

Pinto and I went through a rough adjustment time, wherein he kept his nose a millimeter from my heels and it was not unlike being followed by a loyal elk or walking ottoman. Either way he posed a hazard. But he has finally acclimated, and now he delights in sleeping in his tiger-sized crate or chasing Hemingway, the six-toed cat that lives on the porch. Which leads to:

II. PORCHES AND OTHER INDEFINABLE SPACES
Guys, do you know about porches? I mean, do you know about porches?

Did you know, for instance, that you can lug your excruciatingly large and comfortable couch to a its semi-permanent home at a friends house at 4 p.m. or thereabouts and then spend approximately six hours sitting on a porch swing, simply swinging and shouting at the cars (and/or horse-and-carriages did you know Wilmington is magical because it is) for something like six hours afterwards? Did you also know you can gather to presumably watch Blue Velvet and instead spend another something-like-six hours on a porch drinking sweet tea and bourbon instead?

Did you also know that one minute on a porch swing has approximately the same effect as 1) strong shot of whiskey or 2) half a narcotic or 3) ten minutes holding a baby and/or sleeping animal in terms of how much better you feel afterward?

All of these things are true.

Sadly, I do not myself possess a porch, but my friends two streets over do, and so Pinto and I tromp over there with embarrassingly regularity. What we do there is a mystery to me, but it is much like a bar in its dark and tempting pull, where you know, should you dare to plant yourself on the stoop steps, you will be rooted for at least the rest of the day. This leads to:

III. SUMMER
Summer is over. My daily production of sweat would argue otherwise, but according to the good ol' planner, it's true. Classes start tomorrow, and my tuition is due, and I can't believe it, really. Here is the part where I get all sentimental and start pulling nostalgic conclusions from things, the old "this time last year" modus operandi which is foolish and not productive. But we'll put it this way: everything that happened last year has happened again, and this time with gusto! As in, I moved. I've made friends. I've eaten good food. I've gone on good walks.

And, last but not least, not at all, I threw an amazing party.

This party was not amazing by standards of previous parties I have helped coordinate (AHEM WAGNER AND VODKA AHEM). In fact, I'm sure some people did not have an impeccable time because my dog jumped on them in a moment of unfettered glee and maybe or maybe not accidentally kind of punched this person in the nuts. Or because I insisted they try the combination of Cheerwine (aka North Carolina Dr. Pepper, only flat) and Svedka. Or because they were sweating because it's hot in my apartment.

But! It was still amazing.

And it was amazing in the goofy way all parties are amazing--solely for being an amazing party. There were no kegstands or pot shots delivered by frat brothers from the next suite over, but there were a lot of people, and a lot of drinks, and a lot of lovely dresses, one of which was worn by me, and which, shall we say, did not go to waste that evening. And maybe I was washing cups for half an hour straight the next day and my three middle toes are still numb from the combination of cobblestones and heels, but all in all--worth it. Utterly and totally.

And this leads me to:

FALL: Hamilton, you have a lot to live up to when I grace your hill this October. Prepare now. Cake would be nice, but friends (!!!!) will do.

The Saga of Size, Sighs.

This title is not meant as a pun (though it is a fine one), but rather as stakes to ground the flyaway tarps that are me trying to make my life into sentences. See also: that past sentence.

But first, Pinto.

I know, guys, I know, you're all out there rolling your eyes thinking Juh-heee-zus Rachel shut up about your dang dog already but whatever! I can't help it. He's my little fluffer nutter, and he is loved and revered by all who are fortunate enough to know him.

Also, he is a moose.

Both my parents have visited me this summer, and they have both said the same thing re: my moose dog: He's huge! To be fair, Penny, our Corgi, is small. Or, at least, not huge. As in, she is about 20 pounds, and Pinto is 50.

Now, as you will recall, I am actually somewhat retarded when it comes to numbers of any sort--my brain starts buzzing like the yogurt section at Wal-Mart and no matter how much I try to think, I can't really put 50 pounds, or 300 feet, or 7000 miles, in perspective. I'm certain whatever quadrant of my brain devoted to spatial reasoning was long ago taken over by Oasis lyrics.

Then there's the fact that I have been with Pinto since he really was just a wee little bean, so he hasn't sprouted so much as imperceptibly increased in the previous months. Ergo, to me, he doesn't seem like a big dog. He is not a little dog, yes--most of the time I just think of him as my little fluffer nutter.

Then we went to puppy school.

To be short, I think I now understand how mothers who get called about little Bobby's trip to the principal's office feel. Pinto is not exactly a star student. In fact, he's the equivalent of Roger from Doug--not the kind of dog you'd want to bring home for dinner. After our first class, I was pretty close to just sitting in the car and having a meltdown, but then I realized it was way too hot outside for such silliness, and, moreover, how silly it was to be so upset.

As my wisest friend Karlena J. Riggs put it: "Rachel. Seriously. You have to stop taking criticisms of your dog as a personal affront." (Karli also said, when I screamed OH LOOK IT'S A PIGGY at the Animal Actors show at Universal: Rachel. Seriously. You need to calm down.)

Pinto has a whole slew of little idiosyncrasies that make him a special case at puppy school: he is completely uninterested in the presence of food, so while the other dogs are happily heeling and sitting and staying, Pinto is dancing around so he can go make friends. Pinto's head is 90% mouth, so he likes to say hello with his teeth. And, I think, most tellingly, Pinto has a vice-tight grip on my heart because he was the only thing that stayed constant in the past 6 months, when I was completely alone and afraid and awkward--the other couples in the class (and they are all couples) have children, have houses, have each other.

I have my dog.

So that's why I never shut up about my dog, and why I crouch on the floor daily to look him in the eye regardless of the inevitable faceful of puppy breath, and why I sleep with him even though he vibrates the bed whenever he gets an itch, and why I almost crash my car every time I take him on a drive because I'm looking in the sideview mirror at his ears flying back and the unmitigated glee on his face.

And if that isn't a good enough explanation for you, well. Too damn bad.

So we went to puppy school for the second time yesterday (it's a 6 week course before he is "Star Puppy" certified), and we did a little exercise where we swapped dogs, a kind of canine musical chairs. And so I got to pet the 2 month old Shepard, and the little spring-loaded yellow mutt, and then I look over and Peyton's owner, a guy probably 6'5, muscled, imposing, is straining to keep Pinto in order.

That's when I kind of thought: okay. I guess he is a moose.

The good news is two-fold. Whenever we're out walking, absolutely no one fucks with me because I have a beast at the end of my least. Also, because I spend about an hour a day reeling him in from whatever squirrel/cat/interesting patch of monkey grass he is desperate to interact with, I am acquiring some legitimate guns. If my professional Scrabble career never takes off, I might start entering Arm Wrestling tournaments.

As usual, this post has been entirely about Pinto. But, briefly, there is also the size and the sighs of me.

Roll the drums and sound the trumpets, bitches, because I've lost 40 motherfuckin' pounds. Again, due to my inability to process any kind of abstract integer, I have no real idea of how much this is, but I do know this: I went to Ross. I scoured the racks. I extracted a slinky, teal-blue satin Calvin Klein number, thinking, "Oh, what the heck." I put that sucker on. I zipped it up.

And I looked good.

Which then, of course, inspired me to keep looking, and extracting, and zipping, and amaze-ing, and, of course, purchasing. So I'm down about a Benjamin, but my gigantic closet, weirdly located off the bathroom, is replete with a dozen new dresses. 5 of them are Calvin Klein. I wish I wasn't so proud of that, but I am.

And it is so, so, so nice to go through my clothing and discard not only what's too big, but what's cheap, what's worn, what's simply ugly because I can now go into a store and look through the middle of the rack, not the extreme end. It's a really awful phrase that I'm not fond of, but I have to admit, it's kind of true: Nothing really tastes as good as looking good feels. (Which, again, does not mean I don't eat, but that I only treat myself to a cheeseburger when I'm having my monthly Cheeseburger & Chandler night, where me and my detective novel pull up a stool at P.T.'s).

When I started typing this, I thought the 'sighs' in the title referred to all the sighing I've been doing lately, which is a lot--mostly exasperated, exhausted, between moving apartments by my lonesome (see the aforementioned budding gun show) and making novice's mistakes at the radio station and my dog's tumbleweeds of shedding hair that are overtaking the corners of my apartment--but I think I deserve some contented sighs, too. I have a semi-tan from spending days at the beach. I have a dog who does not shit on the carpet. I have five Calvin Klein dresses.

And, and, and! MAD MEN PREMIERS TONIGHT.

Glory hallelujah amen!

The Saga of the Spooks.

Shit, guys. It's July. How did this happen? I am aghast, both at the passing of time and my inability to post consistently. I assure you, oh dedicated readers, it is not for a dearth of hilarious happenings, but rather my inability to sit down at my desk and type. See also: why I got the spooks.

The spooks are something like the heebie-jeebies, something like the willies, something like that giddy anticipation that happens when you dressed up two hours too early for Winter Formal and just kind of sat around watching TV in your dress trying to pretend everything was normal even though the evening held such, such promise, which of course was not capitalized upon, but which was, ultimately, still a really good time.

In short: Shit is happening!

I am in a weirdly liminal phase these days: I am boomeranging between dual jobs and dual apartments. The jobs are pretty nifty and not only because of the paychecks--I work at the radio station! This is so undeniably cool, and only really becomes tiresome when my blood sugar nosedives and my boss is trying to explain things about transmitters and routers and satellite feeds, which happened today, and which I remedied by sneaking away and wolfing down my lunch. A gal's gotta eat.

Speaking of eating! That is all my father and I did during his grand visit of the past week. Or at least, that was the majority of our activities: oysters and barbecue and donuts. Have I mentioned lately I fucking love this little city? Oysters! Barbecue! Donuts!

So my dad and I feasted like fiends and I still somehow managed to knock off two pounds. This is relatively small change in the scheme of things but perked up my day tremendously when I found out. More importantly, my dad showed up and was flabbergasted and told my mother over the phone that I was physically "a shadow of my former self." And people, I am currently wearing a pair of shorts. This pair of shorts does not stop at the knees (though it also does not stop at my heiny so don't get any wrong ideas). But I came downstairs on the day my dad arrived in said shorts, and I immediately prefaced: "I know they're too short" in hopes of waylaying any of my father's fatherly but unwanted criticisms about my appearance--which at one point were deserved because I was wearing a Wrigley's Gum t-shirt that I had cut up and refastened with safety pins. Granted, I was 13.

But my dad, in a totally non-creepy way, simply said, "Those shorts look pretty good."

In Richardson speak, this is tantamount to "DAMN, GIRL."

Which, again, was not creepy so much as it was pretty heartening. And my dad, who is the shit, was also completely fine with me leaving my number on the bill when we had our traditional Admiral's Delight Enormous Plate of Sea-Borne Deliciousness. I had also had 4 magaritas (including but not limited to some magnificent concoction called a Cactus Juice). The waiter in question had also been flirting mercilessly all night. And was tall. Which is about where my standards start and stop these days.

But, as I said to my wisest and wildest friend Karlena J. Riggs following her departure, it always astounds me how lonesome I get when she leaves. Likewise, today was tricky because, let's face it, I'm alone. And there's a certain thrill that comes with independence--little luxuries like leaving the bathroom door open when you're showering, making messes in the kitchen and not cleaning them up til the next day, etc.

But there's also a lot of trepidation, especially when you are also moving. I think I said to Pinto a dozen times today, "C'mon, let's go home." And then I realized I don't really know where that is right now.

My new apartment is not the place I posted about earlier, but it is on 4th street, and it is pretty amazing. Hardwood floors and fireplaces and a tub with a sloped back (thank the Lord) and, thank the Lord outside of parentheses, furniture. My dad came by and saw it, and I had some folks over following the tremendous fireworks display over the Cape Fear River, and everyone is duly impressed. My dad mentioned Stingo in Sophie's Choice, which shows how a) nerdy and b) awesome my dad is, because this is an apartment to write novels in! This is a place where a writer lives! I live here, ergo I am a writer!

But somehow it also cements the events of the past year, like the picture is finally developed after weeks sitting in the camera. I'm moving to a new place; I'm leaving the place I arrived in. When I got here, I thought I would be with someone; now I'm alone. The move is not so much a joyous affair--though I am excited--but really a reminder that my life is not what I ]thought it would be.

Point blank: I'm having to leave because I got left.

And this is not the venue to air the filthy, soiled, sodden and mildewed laundry of what went wrong with me and Rob. Suffice to say, I'll be glad to be away from the place we moved in to together.

So I'm over at the new place tonight, slowly moving my things--a box of books here, a bag of laundry there, the Where the Wild Things Are decals (which are totally on my new cabinets, and I should've known something was wrong when my ex kind of hated them, ha!), my stolen papa-san chair--and it's hot as hell inside there, and Pinto is kind of weirded out and acting strange, and I have no towels, no dishes, and this place has a strange old lady smell in the closet, and I'm more focused on whether my dog is completely overheating to really have an existential meltdown but it definitely crosses my mind--how I am alone here, and my family is 20 hours West, and how Rob left with no warning, and how I am living in a strange state and doing this crazy thing and this time last year we were on the road or riding roller coasters in Branson, and the year before that I was in Europe, and remember college? Jesus, I was in college last year, I am only 23, what am I doing what am I doing--

But, again, these thoughts are quieter than they've been in previous instances, and I safely drown them out (with a Red Stripe) and Pinto and I head back to the old place. But I'm still unsettled. I feel rattled. I still have the spooks.

Or at least, I have the spooks until I see the happy parade of ants marching from my front door--what used to be our front door--to Pinto's dirty food bowl.

At that point, the Antinator kicks in and I vacuum those fuckers up and spray down the baseboards with bleach and stand with my hands on my hips and tell those little six-legged shits who the hell is the goddamn boss.

Because the goddamn boss is me, goddammit.

At that point, friends, I realize I am over thinking things, as usual, and somewhere in here there is a great metaphor, something some Buddhist philosopher could say: When in plight, recall the ant, who toils only for a morsel of spare snack. Or: Be as the ant is, following the path of his brethren. Or: As ants are, so should you be; act with determination, perseverance, and worth.

But really, what I think is: fuck this place and fuck these ants and my life is going to rock so hard solely because there will be no motherfucking ants in it.

Which, I gotta say, is a pretty sure-fire remedy for the spooks.