True Life: I think I Dislike Happy Hours

I know, I know, this goes against everything you understand about my deep-set love and affection for alcohol and camaraderie. Hear me out, okay?

So RG asked me to go to happy hour at this bar he likes that is walking distance from both my job and my house tonight. I said sure, because I hadn't seen him in almost three weeks and wanted a chance to catch up, and besides, he's always *RAVING* about this bar. I got there first and he wasn't as late as he usually is, which was nice [Really, RG, I give you two freebies whenever we hang out--it's just that you always use your first one by being late :P]. I couldn't see their happy hour specials posted anywhere, so I decided to just sit, pretend to be interested in my phone, and wait until he got there.

Strike one: my amaretto sour was EIGHT DOLLARS. But I love amaretto, and so I let it slide and said I'd get a beer next to balance my happy hour budget. I then got a crappy Corona and it was an unheard of SEVEN dollars. I am never going back to this bar. But that's not what this post is about. Trying to have semi-serious conversations over thumping hip-hop doesn't jive well with me either, but again, this post is not about this bar specifically, and I suppose happy hour is not designed for semi-serious conversations with good friends. Fair. 

At the particular bar we were at tonight, I was, for one of very few times in my life, on the tiny side of a seriously skewed gender imbalance. At one point there were seriously five women and over twenty men in the room. RG kept commenting on this, asking if I saw anything I liked, saying I could have my pick. I kept brushing these comments off, until he tried to challenge me to get one of them to buy me a drink. I flat-out refused, and he seemed puzzled by how adamant I was. 

I...can't fuck with the superficiality of bar scenes, this one in particular or bars in general. Unless I want meaningless sex with someone I couldn't contact again if I wanted to, which is exceedingly rare but not impossible, then I have literally no interest in like, interacting with strangers on the premise of wanting them to give me things for no real reason but the possibility of getting my number and seeing me again, which they can only decide if they even want to do based on my looks and the brief conversation I suppose we'd have to have in order for him (or her, though that didn't seem likely in this bar) to decide to buy me a drink. That's actually one of the most undesirable forms of supposedly-pleasurable social interaction I can imagine--it brings to mind how I imagine putting an evening with me up for bidding at a charity auction would feel. Step up, step right up and place your bid! For the not-low-at-all price of an eight-dollar amaretto sour, you too can have a chance encounter with this woman, whom you know absolutely nothing about! #donotwant

Now, I'm not saying it's impossible to meet someone at a bar and develop some sort of legitimate interest. For instance, if that guy I met at the bar at The Howard had asked for my number, I would have given it to him. If he'd asked me out, I would have gone. Because we had an hour-long conversation that wound through all sorts of subjects and involved him showing me pictures of his family--we developed an understanding of who one another was. But that's the kind of thing that can happen when you meet at a bar at a concert you both came alone to--you already have two things in common: musical tastes and a dislike for the social constructs that say that going to concerts alone is a faux pas. At the bar we were at tonight, what was I supposed to do, scan the crowd to find a face I found aesthetically pleasing, walk over and start talking to him based on nothing, and hope he found me attractive or interesting enough in this briefest of encounters to...reward me with a drink? I'd rather not. There is literally nothing substantive involved in that kind of interaction, and I don't understand why it is supposed to appeal to me. 

A club is slightly better, because then I'm not supposed to talk and I can just dance by myself and maybe someone will start dancing with me and maybe I'll let them and maybe not and it's not a big deal. I feel simultaneously like this is less of a meat market and like I'm more comfortable because we stopped pretending it's not a meat market. There aren't awkward introductions or performance-feeling conversations when a guy whose face I probably haven't even seen comes up behind me and starts grinding his junk on my ass (culture is so weird). And grinding is infinitely more pleasurable/fun to me than dancing alone. But even so, when I go out, dancing with randos is not ever on my list of goals for the night. My list of goals for the night always consists of three things: have fun with my friends, don't lose anything important, and get home in one piece. 

So I'm in a weird place right now. I like going out with my friends. I still like drinking just as much as I did a few months ago, and I like partying with people I feel comfortable with. I don't like being thrust into social spaces where it is assumed that I will want to talk to/flirt with people I know nothing about and be "gifted" things from them for unclear reasons. For this reason, I was probably way more comfortable in the random neighborhood bar near my house where I was the only Black person in sight than I was at this upscale Black bar RG and I went to tonight. I like places that are chill and for drinking and talking, not for putting on appearances and flirting and playing peacock. If I don't know you and have literally no premise for an inkling of desire to get to know you (an attractive face does not premise make), I don't want you to do anything for/to me, kthnxbai.

...This post could appropriately be called True Life: I Miss Quad. 

Big girl purchases:

I made two significant purchases that make me feel like a big girl this weekend:

1) My very first piece of art. As in, you know, something three dimensional and not a poster that an artist spent hours of sweat and struggle and creativity on.

From this etsy shop. It's wooden, painted black and glossed over so it will shine.
It is FIERCE and I can't wait to have it on my wall!

And 2), a comforter for my bed! It cost the same amount as my prom dress (which was under $200--I wasn't one of those crazy girls with dresses that must have been diamond-encrusted for the money they cost), which I balked at at first, but then rationalized was worth something I'll use daily for 8-9 months a year for at least a few years. And it's GORGEOUS and bright and fun and funky and will complement my mauve walls wonderfully.  

With these items, my bedroom shall finally be complete!

I took an impromptu break from my ever-so-busy social life this weekend

I was supposed to go to a friend's birthday surprise dinner on Saturday, but then a freak tornado in Fairfax and the accompanying rain in DC that had me hiding in my downstairs bathroom (the smallest room in my house, which still has a window) with a blanket, a thermos of water, a box of honey nut cheerios, and my computer, cell phone, and mp3 player charging in case the power went out) convinced me to stay in the house. Day of deep conditioning my hair and watching The L Word on my couch in sweatpants #1. I had long leisurely conversations with EY on Skype and CC on the phone in the middle of the night, during the course of which, in having effectively stopped for a day, I was able to recognize the holes in my life in DC. 

Keeping myself too busy to recognize that I'm unhappy is a tactic I've used before with great (if temporary) success. I'm not sure, however, that I've ever done it unintentionally before...

Okay, unhappy is too strong a word. I am far from unhappy with my life in DC. I love this city. I feel like I'm adjusting well to most parts of adult life. I have a more-than-well-enough-paying job (at which I recently got a "salary adjustment") that I enjoy on both the day-to-day and deeper-purpose levels. I have a core group of people I'm cool enough with at work to eat lunch with, be Facebook friends with, and do some sort of fun thing together once every other week or so with. I don't want to kill my housemates, and even hang out voluntarily with one of them somewhat regularly. I'm getting involved with Princeton alumni stuff (don't even pretend this surprises you). I've been to 10 bars, 9 concerts, 9 restaurants, 5 Meetups, 4 baseball games, 3 museums, 3 movies, 2 barbeques, 2 Jazz in the Gardenses, 1 festival, and 1 cupcake shop. I am unabashedly and undoubtedly having fun. 

...But really all I wanted on Saturday night was someone I could call to come over and watch TV with me. Someone with whom an evening spent together does not require any planned activities. Someone I could touch in little intimate non-sexual ways without needing to ask permission--someone with whom head rubs or massages are welcomed. Someone to snuggle with. Someone to bake cookies with or have an entire night constructed around Disarono sours and conversation. 

I love my work friends, but I don't ever really see developing that sort of easy intimacy I had with my friends from middle school or high school or college with them. I think they will forever be activity partners, which is great, but I need relationships that are deeper than that with people beyond RG (who really does deserve an appreciation day, btw). 

...It turns out I still don't know how to make new friends.    

Courting friends can be just as thrilling and crazy as courting a new lover. You want to spend all your time with them and know their histories, their families, and their friends. You’re getting to know and love a whole new person, which is so exciting! I get butterflies just thinking about the possibility of finding a new close friend! As much as I think I’ve closed up shop on my social life, I also know that one can never have enough friends in this world. I hope to never be too old to go on a friend date.
 

  -- Ryan O'Connell, here

Domestication

You know how housecats once upon a time ran wild and free and did whatever the fuck they wanted until humans came along and fed and litter-trained them into domestic complacency? Well, I might as well start practicing my "meow," because it's getting serious--I'm becoming increasingly domestic.

And before everyone who said I'd change my mind about not wanting things like children or perhaps even a husband open their mouths to say they told me so, sit down. That's not the kind of domesticity I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is my newfound urge--and occasional even *desire*--to clean my house. It has been overtaking me since the moment my housemate first handed me my keys.

My mother and grandmother were basically appalled at the degree to which the house needed a thorough all-over scrubbing before they would deem it liveable. We started this with a broom, some rags, and a trip to Target for cleaning supplird. There, my grandmother demanded that I purchase stainless steel cleaner for the kitchen appliances. Yeah, right, as if I would ever touch that can after they drove off, right?

False. I use that shit on the REGULAR. I voluntarily get on my hands and knees...to scrub the kitchen floor. I sweep all of the hardwood floors and the steps once a week. I find it difficult to go to sleep without washing all of the dishes in the sink if I contributed to the pile in any way. I regularly get tiny broken curls all over the bathroom on Saturday mornings as I deep condition/detangle, and regularly sweep every nook and cranny of that bathroom on Sundays. I sometimes even fold my clothes immediately after they come out of the dryer.

And if all of that wasn't enough to make me stop and question who the fuck I'm becoming (note: it is), the most ridiculous part is that I get sooooo angry at my housemates for leaving messes. I come home and start muttering to myself about the mail being spread all over the table (when we have canvas totes for it to go in, separated by person!) or dishes being left on the coffee table from the night before or two or three nights before. I curse them out under my breath as I put their dishes in the sink. I wonder aloud how they can stand to live in such squalor. I...realize that I have switched sides in the epic battles JA and I used to have about cleanliness in common spaces.

When the fuck did that happen? When did I become this person who can't stand to see other people's messes fucking up our shared space? I certainly wasn't in college. Hell, I didn't keep my own space clean. 

Granted, these messes (besides the mail) that I cannot tolerate are generally food messes. I hate food mess. Always have, always will. We are not the only things that eat food. Insects and rodents eat food. Leaving food out will attract insects and rodents. I don't *do* insects or rodents, as a rule of life. Thus, clean your shit or I will clean it for you. 

So, the dishes can be explained away fairly easily. Maybe even everything related to the kitchen. But the sweeping dust dogs (too big to be bunnies) down the stairs? The stainless steel cleaner? The mail? Something in me has changed. I have come to know that peaceful satisfaction that arises from your space being clean and orderly. I still hate the cleaning, but afterwards when I look at my shiny kitchen and bathrooms and house, I feel...good. 

And I've been trying to get a handle on that for basically as long as I've been here. Does some switch magically flip on the day you move out of your parents house that makes you care about the little hairball on your floor or shaking out the welcome mat so it looks less dingy? Is holding your diploma generally associated with a growing desire to dust? Ironing my clothes in the morning is attributed to being a working person. Ironing my clothes on the weekends could be called a force of habit. But devoting my Sunday mornings to cleaning the damn house when OBVIOUSLY my two housemates don't give a combined shit (one actually has the nerve to complain about how her boyfriend never cleans his apartment and wants me to sympathize, while I just sit there like BITCH DON'T YOU EVEN)...

I think it generally comes down to I'm spending BANK to live here. Granted, my rent is actually pretty great for DC prices, but still, that check I send off every month makes this bedroom the most expensive thing I've ever paid for. And if nearly $12000 of my good money is gonna go to living here over these thirteen months, then it had better damn well be a place I want to be. It had better damn well be a place I feel ownership over (regardless of the fact that I'm renting). It had better damn well be a place that I don't have to be embarrassed about or make excuses for if I bring someone over. Having chosen this place and paying that $833-plus-utilities every month means I damn sure ain't gon live in squalor...even if that means I feel strangely domestic. I suppose I *should* as this is *my* domicile. Not my mom's house. Not my dorm room. Not a place wherein I'm renting a room for two and a half months. This is my motherfucking space and I'ma do right by it.

[I should say that my older housemate will at least do the dishes from time to time, especially on her days off. The one who's only two years older than me cleaned our shared bathroom once...the day after I'd cleaned it...smh.]  

My Sexual Commandments

In the midst of a larger drunken conversation (the subject of which I'll probably return to shortly because it's interesting) I had with RG Thursday night, somehow the subject of my "rules" about sex came up. 

RG: ...Is there a list?
Me: Yeah, sort of. I don't have it like, written down, but I have rules.
RG: Like what? Condoms...?
Me: Yup. Protection is always rule number one. And I like to have sex in my own space, if possible. And rule number three is possibly even more important than rule number one--I have to actively want to be doing it. 

And then the subject came up of whether I need to change/add rules now that I'm living in  "the HIV capital of the country". ...Which is a legitimate point. More legitimate, I think, than just changing/adding "for the real world," which I'd been debating but had intellectual issues with because I don't like suggesting that Princetonians are less dangerous than the "real world". 

So, without further ado, a list:

1. Thou shalt always useth a condom. Thou shalt additionally always carry one in her purse, because thou knowest not what might happen. 
2. Whenever possible, thou shalt sleep with someone for the first time in thou's own space, as it alloweth for thou to be in control of the situation. 
3. Thou must actively desireth to be engaging in sexual activities with the person(s) with whom one engageths at the time of engagement. Thou is forbiddeneth from being "meh" about sex.
4. As a corollary to rule 3, thou must immediately cease and desist in all sexual activities with anyone who make you feel anything other than wholly positive about thyself and thy actions.
5. (This was actually a rule already, but I forgot to list it on Thursday.) Thou shalt not go down on strange genatalia. In the past, this has meant rando dick--in the future, it shall mean all fun bits of whose status one is not confident about. 
6. Thou shalt not be discouraged from having conversations about sexual health with new partners because it's awkward. The conversations one might have to have because they DIDN'T talk about it are a lot more awkward, I bet. These conversations  may need to happen earlier with girls (if applicable).
7. Thou shalt get tested every six months or after any semi-risky behavior with a new partner, whichever is more frequent.

This seems pretty exhaustive to me, but if you can think of anything it might do me well to add (and which doesn't go against any of my sex-positive philosophies), please do tell in the comments!

An update on my real-world friendships

Reblogged from Choosing Pancakes

That was me whenever I thought about my post-grad life before graduation and for my first few weeks of living in this city. I was stressed out about how I've never made a friend out of anything but proximity (and forcibly inserting myself into the life of a person whom I think is cool, evidently, which evidently has worked in the past) and I didn't understand how to bridge the gap between meeting people and befriending them. 


...Soooo I'm still making friends out of proximity, haha. This time, proximity being my office. I went to Jazz in the Gardens at the sculpture gardens near the National Archives with some people from work (none of whom I actually knew very well) and met a fellow Princetonian who works in another department! I've gradually been making more and more social visits to my work friends' offices and convincing people that eating alone in their offices when there are literally 300 other hungry people nearby is just silly. This culminated in me hosting a dinner party at my house on Wednesday night. Eight girls from my office--the five that I'm closest to and three that I didn't actually really know, all went to the grocery store with me after work to pick up the ingredients for shrimp fettuccine and cooked and ate and laughed and were merry together. They fawned over my house, too. (Side note: everyone keeps doing that. It makes me really happy.) And afterwards, about half of us went to this little...park is a strong word...more like vacant grassy lot near the office where they show outdoor movies on Wednesday night and watched The Incredibles. One of the girls, whom I hadn't known super well, baked ninja-shaped Incredibles cookies, complete with the red icing and little yellow i's on their chests. It was ADORABLE. 


I am now friends with three of them on Facebook and have one's number. She texted me on Friday night to see if I'd be interested in doing a singles "events and adventures" group with her...uh, duh. So, these developments excite me. 


I've also been hanging out with a decent number of Princetonians: most notably RG, but I've also seen AM once and will see her again Tuesday along with some other 2011s. I went to a concert with DA two weeks ago. I finally saw BK at the Princeton Club of Washington Nationals baseball game event last Sunday, and met/hung out with a Black 2010 guy I hadn't known before (who is unfortunately only in town for the summer). I had dinner with one of my assistant activities chairs from Quad last night (and learned that Ethiopian food is delicious). RP is in town on business for the next few months Mon-Thurs, and I saw her last week and will hopefully see a lot more of her over the next few weeks. MJP was here last week with her program, and when FS was here for the 4th, I saw him, too.


And in all of that hanging out, something has occurred to me: there is something incredibly refreshing about spending time with people who already know you, even if you aren't particularly close. I don't feel like I'm putting on a show for the new friends I'm making in DC or anything--even when I'm socializing with my work friends, I feel like I'm being myself. But still, I am ever in the process of introduction with them, I suppose. It's more stories and backtracking, more "a friend of mine from college" instead of "[name]". It's as if I'm demonstrating who I am and what I'm about, rather than simply living and breathing it like I can with people who already have some established sense of those things. The familiar feeling, combined with the catching up, reminds me that I didn't leave myself behind in all the changes of late. It is wonderful to literally bring the past into the present and watch it still fit. 


(I get to do this to an even higher extent next weekend: TN is coming to stay for two days! This also involves me taking my first paid-time-off day. I feel so fancy. Like, what, I'ma not come to work and you're gonna pay me like I came? What is this awesome world?)


But before you're all, "Omg, Maya, you're living the dream!", I have a confession to make. I'm unsure about the placement of that comma, and my post-college social network is beginning to look a lot like my pre-college social network. For those who aren't familiar with Maya of olde, this means that RG is the only non-White person I'm consistently spending any time with. Also, to the best of my knowledge, everyone I've spent time with is straight. And I don't really know how to remedy either of these issues. My housemates are White, my office is Vanillaville with a spattering of Asian/Indian, and though I know some of the other black recent Princeton grads in the city, RG is the only one I was close to in college. I came to rely on communities of people of color and a collection of individuals who fall outside of normative heterosexual boundaries during my time at Princeton, and I am fiercely adamant that those are not communities that I want to lose. I joined a couple of Meetups for women of color and/or Black women in the DC area and those for LGBT folks in the area, so hopefully some sense of community will come out of that, but from my experience at the Live Soul meetup for Musiq Soulchild, I'm scared that that crowd might be considerably older. So if anyone has any suggestions on that front, I'm all ears. 

On "Good" and "Bad" Neighborhoods

EY got to Colorado the night before last. Yesterday, she drove to the school that she's going to be teaching at and checked out the surrounding neighborhood, looking to see why people have suggested that she not live in that area. Her report back to me was, and I quote, "I could not [live there]. I mean, I could...but I would not be comfortable. I didn't see a single white person, and the kids walking around on the street were dressed like hoodlums." 


I couldn't have predicted word for word, but I knew what was coming after she said the word comfortable. I was dreading the rest of her statement. And once it was there, staring back at me in little black letters in our Skype window, I wanted so badly to get angry. To rant and chastise, to want to smack her. I wanted to ask how she could think and say things like this...but I already knew how.


I'd thought them, too. I'd thought them when I was room-hunting. I thought them when I was on the bus going to see my very first place and I looked around and saw that all the non-Black people who had been on the bus with me got off before I did. When I got off the bus at the corner by a gas station and there were (Black) men standing around in three-sizes-too-big white t-shirts and basketball shorts and sneakers just talking, and I seriously entertained the idea of crossing the street before I got to them (but they were on the side of the street I needed to be on, so I didn't). I remember later that night, being in a different neighborhood where I saw people on dates holding hands and brothas in button ups and felt safe. I recall chuckling at the way the Pakistani girl at the first place said that the neighborhood was incredibly safe, even if it looked a little rough around the edges, and that she'd never had any problems in the 4 years she'd lived there, while the 5 white girls at the second place all seemed more than a little uncomfortable with the ethnic mix of their neighborhood ("It's not the beeeest neighborhood..."). I recall thinking that the relativity of neighborhood quality was a fascinating concept, and that I should explore it more in a post.


Oh, how much more complicated it became. See, I didn't get anything but a crushed dream out of my solo place-hunting adventure, so later came back with my mother and grandmother. As they drove me from place to place, my Nana kept saying, "Oh, this is a Puerto Rican neighborhood." "Oh, this is a Chinese neighborhood." And the way she said it, it was clear that these were not places that she would like for me to live. My grandmother's favorite place, by far, was a basement apartment I looked at in Friendship Heights, which was as suburby as the city gets and where I saw exactly one person of color. I did not like it there--the apartment was stuffy and it was too far away from everything, much to my grandmother's disappointment.


The neighborhood I moved to is mostly Black, which my grandmother also had some commentary about (despite the fact that both she and my mother live in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods), but it is in the process of being gentrified. I am as likely to be hit on by a Black man in an oversized tee who has lived in my neighborhood for the entirety of his 27 years as I am to be smiled back at by a gay couple walking their dog. I don't live far from Howard, so when I'm lucky, I see a fine-ass brotha in a button up and he asks me how I'm doin. I get catcalled. I also get my "Good morning"s ignored by White women also on their way to work. We have a bodega-like store on my corner, a housing project down the street, a hipster cafe further down the street, and a farmer's market on Sundays. We have a baseball field and a basketball court. We have a rent-a-bike station. We have a public school and a charter school. We have a strong police presence. 


Getting catcalled doesn't scare me. This literally has happened every time I'm walking alone in an even somewhat urban environment--remember my posts from New Brunswick? But I am extra-vigilant when I'm walking home at night. And I have crossed the street--to the side of the street my house was on, but still--to avoid walking past a group of Black men when it's dark. And yet, it slightly offends me when my parents suggest I take a cab home, or RG doesn't want me to walk home alone. I hate the question, "Is it safe?" I want to respond that the color of my neighbors' skin does not make them inherently dangerous, nor does their style of dress or the comparative amount of money we make. I walk home, but I walk quickly, purposefully, and with my eyes and ears wide open.


Sometimes while I'm walking to or from work, or on my way anywhere else, I wonder whether I belong here, in the neighborhood where I live. I am a Black woman living in a historically Black neighborhood, but that doesn't preclude me from being a gentrifier. I am a sociologist living in a city, which means I know that Blackness isn't dangerous, but concentrated poverty is. My personal history includes both free lunch and an Ivy League degree, so I'm a little confused about my class status. And even as a social scientist, I can't tell you what does more to mark me "us" or "them," only that it depends who I'm asking. 


I can't tell whether I belong here, but like E, I knew that I couldn't live in that other neighborhood in NE with the Pakistani girl. It was too...all the things I am not with respect to who/what I am. I felt like I was in the hood, and it scared me. I was uncomfortable in broad daylight, and didn't want to be around after dark. I was uncomfortable there, even being me. I just don't know where to draw the line between things I want to call "comfort" and "caution" and things better called "racism" and "classism". It's like this essay, by Taigi Smith, that ChoosingPancakes and I read in a feminism class last semester, called "What "Happens When Your Hood is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express?" Taigi writes:

Do my low-income neighbors realize that the new buildings being put up like wildfire are not for people like them but for people like me, who can afford to pay inflated rents for renovated apartments in the hood? I am keenly aware of exactly what is happening, and I realize that neighborhoods don't have to be financially rich to be culturally vibrant, and that white people moving into poor neighborhoods do little good for the people that already live there. When white people move into black neighborhoods, the police presence increases, cafes pop up and neighborhood bodegas start ordering the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times...When I think about this, I am caught somewhere in the middle, because although I have the money to live in a neighborhood that is being gentrified, I still hear the words my black real estate agent whispered to me: "Just think of this as your own little castle in the hood."

[...]

When I come home at night and see the crackheads loitering in front of the building next door, I realize I may have switched sides in this fight. When I dodge cracked glass and litter when walking my dog, I realize that this neighborhood really could use a facelift and that the yoga center that just opened up on the corner is a welcome change from the abandoned building it used to be.

[...]

Walking the streets, I realize my neighbors and I are alike in many ways. We like the same foods, the same music, and most important, we are a group of African-American people living together in a neighborhood that is on the verge of change. But in the end we are also very different. If the rents go up, I will have options and they may not. They may have to move and I will get to stay. Although we look the same, we are different. We are connected by race but remain separated by a slip of paper called a college degree. 

Smith, Taigi. "What Happens When Your Hood is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express?"

Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today's Feminism, 67-9 

I beat myself up about it every time I cross the street to avoid a person/group that I'm approaching. Every time I smile at a non-poor-looking person on the sidewalk without hesitation. Every time I approach my corner and hope that "these fools" aren't hanging out across the street, and become painfully aware of how easy it would be to replace "fools" with a word with one more letter. I come into my renovated house with its electric fireplace and exposed brick and cook dinner and chitchat with my White housemates and watch The L Word and feel bad about the way I behaved. And that just makes it even worse. 

I had the best idea of my very short post-grad life today.

And it's already playing out fabulously. This morning while I was deep conditioning my hair, it occurred to me that it has been almost a month since I graduated. I was thinking about what I've done in this first almost-month, and feeling pretty smug: I had witnessed the doctor tell my mother that she's now cancer-free, successfully grilled food at a huge BBQ in my little sister's honor, gone place-to-live hunting, been chosen as my new housemates' first choice, been approved for the lease all by myself with no cosigner, bargain shopped for new home essentials, hung out with a few friends from home, vegged out on my couch for days, moved, unpacked, grocery shopped, made dinners that wowed my housemates and turned into lunches that my coworkers were jealous of, been complimented on my outfit nearly every day by at least one person, had two guys ask for my number while I was walking home from work, and received commendations on my work at work from someone else with my job title and then, through my direct supervisor, from a senior survey researcher who is evidently quite hard to please. My boss said, and I quote, "If you can please [name redacted], you can please anyone at [my company]." I had transitioned fairly painlessly to the 7:30am to 12:30am lifestyle. I'd experimented with my hair to find cute styles for work. I'd cleaned my entire house from kitchen to bedroom. Was there anything I hadn't done? 

And then I thought of all the people I hadn't talked to, and my sense of accomplishment dwindled a little. I was keeping in regular contact with KS (text and AIM) and EY (Skype and text). I'd talked to SO (gchat) and DG (facebook chat) a few times, JB (gchat) and JA (an actual phone call) once. But they're a tiny fragment of the people who are important to me from my life at Princeton. They're certainly not the only people to whom I meant it when I said that we'd keep in touch. 

So how to fix this? I could be like RG and call people randomly, but, while I appreciate that, it can feel a little intrusive. (When did that happen? Phone calls used to be what I lived for. Oh, the days of middle and high schools.) Okay, so not random phone calls. Or, yes random phone calls, but only to people with whom I'm close enough that intrusion is welcome.

Then I thought about all the people I saw on gchat/Facebook chat/Skype every day and didn't click on their names to have a conversation with them. It's like there's some line I established somewhere between people I'm allowed to just talk about anything/nothing/whatever with, to shoot the proverbial shit with, and some people I have to have something to say to in order to message. As no sooner had that thought completed itself than I realized the degree to which it is utter and complete bullshit. And it's the exact brand of bullshit that causes people to never ever keep in touch. 

I have a simple message for the world. Though I don't like it as an initial message on dating sites, between friends or close acquaintances who haven't talked in a while, "Hey! What's up?!" is something to say. "How'd moving to [insert city here] go?" is something to say. "How's your new job?" is something to say. "How are you entertaining yourself before grad school?" is something to say. Yes catch-up conversations can feel a little interview-y, but would you rather feel like you're asking too many questions or have to have a two hour conversation next year at reunions because you haven't spoken at all? In reality, you're not going to want to waste two hours of partying, which means you could never have that two hour conversation (which will need to become longer and longer as more time passes). 

So, new rule: If I see someone that I call a friend (rather than someone I call "this girl/guy I know") pop up on gchat or Facebook chat and I haven't communicated with this friend in some form in the last two weeks, I must message them just to say hey. To see what's up. To shoot the shit. I'm going to say hi because there's no reason not to, and every reason to. The best way to stay in touch...is to stay in touch. You don't have to play catch-up if you never leave "the know". So I want to stay there with as many people as I can.

Since this afternoon, I've had conversations with four people that I care about, but might not have talked to for months or longer if I thought I needed something specific to say to them. I feel so plugged in to the world right now. I didn't realize how much I felt like I was living on an island away from everyone I know. But just like that, in ten minutes of catching up, I remember all the bridges we've mad and feel so connected. The simple joys of just saying hey.              

Is it just me, or is this being an adult thing easier than expected?

Granted, I've been at it for a grand total of four days now, so everything I have to say should be taken with a grain of salt, but hear me out. So buying everything for my move? Between thrift stores, Ross, and Marshall's, #MayatheBargainHunter had no problems. My mother, grandmother, and uncle graciously helped me with the actual moving, and in four years of dorm rooms, I've become a pro at unpacking and decorating in a day or so. My mom and grandma also took me on an initial grocery run and trip to Target to buy, among other things, an ironing board, because that would have been awkward to take on the metro. But then on Saturday afternoon around 4:30, they got on the road and here I was, alone in my new house in DC, establishing myself as an independent young woman and shit. 

...And everything was fine. I cleaned the kitchen and then went upstairs to continue unpacking. I found out that my housemate wasn't coming home that night and didn't freak out about it (much). I went to sleep at a reasonable bedtime. The next day, I woke up at 7:48 and went on a three-and-a-half hour cleaning spree. It involved stainless steel cleaner, window cleaner, Fantastic all-purpose cleaner, scrubbing floors with Swiffer Wet Mop pads because the Swiffer part was nowhere to be found, Lysol bathroom cleaner, Mr. Clean Toilet Bowl Cleaner, a broom and a dustpan, and nearly an entire roll of paper towels. My landlord came over later that day and the first words out of his mouth were, "Whoa! Extreme home makeover! You're a welcome addition to the house already." I made pasta and meat sauce that night for dinner, with enough leftover to take for lunch on my first day of work. I picked out my outfit for my first day and went to sleep at a reasonable hour. 

The next day I got up at 7:30, showered, ironed my clothes, professionalized my hair, made breakfast, packed my lunch, and walked to work. I did not get lost. I did say hello to people as I walked down the street. A nontrivial percentage of them ignored me or looked at me as if I should be institutionalized. I did not worry about it. I got to work exactly at 9:00, met my supervisor, and had a generally amazing first day. I think I'm going to thoroughly and completely love my job. AND I think I'll be good at it. And that's a great thing to be able to say about a well-paying good-benefit-giving right-out-of-college job. Hell, it's a great thing to be able to say about any job at any point in one's life. 

Today was my second day of work and I've already been heavily praised for my performance. I've started doing some actual work instead of just orientation-y things, and I still really like it. I didn't realize how much I was deeply craving a way to apply sociology to actually helping people and influencing things until I joined this company where we do that every. single. day. And today I may only have been helping in the smallest of ways (calling Quality Directors at hospitals for this project we've been contracted to that's aimed at reducing inpatient harm and hospital readmissions), but I saw direct results and was just like, FUCK YEAH I LOVE WHAT I DO. And I came home and made a burger for dinner and then realized I didn't have any ketchup, so I went to the store and got some. 
Then I came upstairs and was like, oh, the 4th of July is next week. This is another one of those holidays that stores like to commercialize on to have entirely unrelated sales on big things like mattresses and TVs. I should check Sleepys to see if my bed is on sale. Not only is it on sale, but there's free shipping on online purchases over $599.99 during some 36 hour window that right now is part of. I searched online for a coupon code that saved me ten percent, bringing my order total to $601.97 for a full sized headboard, footboard, mattress, boxspring, and bed frame. #winning

tl;dr version: Goodbye strugglebus, hello awesome adult life. 

Pushing the reset button.

We're fast approaching the last 36 hours or so before I load up the car and truck and make the trek down to DC. I'm moving out of my mother's house. Like, for real this time, not like going away to college I'll-se-you-when-I'm-on-break-in-six-weeks leaving, but rather I-just-signed-a-13-month-lease here's-my-new-address moving out. 

And it's funny because when I was fake-moving-out to go to Princeton, I did a crazy overall life reset. I had come to terms with the fact that I didn't really want to keep being the person I was, and actively underwent a major overhaul trying to redress and redefine myself. My entire mindset was new place, new friends, new me. And even though I didn't stick with the self I'd created for Princeton for very long, rather opting to develop into the person Princeton made me, I definitely learned the value of taking a moment out for self-reflection immediately before a major life change, and the opportunity to personal development new places, faces, experiences, and challenges offer us. 

Four years ago, when I was getting ready to move, I was so excited for everything to change. I wanted to become everything I didn't think my hometown could make or let me be. The entirety of my immediate future was one big Wonderball of opportunity that I couldn't wait to take advantage of. 

And now I'm tempted to say that I'm moving, but I don't want anything to change. That's hyperbole, but I feel so much closer to the other end of the spectrum. It's like, I'm moving and everything is changing and there's not much I can do about it. But...come to think of it, that's not really the truth either. 

I am absolutely not looking for a personality overhaul like I was last time. I'm not looking to redefine myself. I happen to think I'm pretty damn fabulous. In all honesty, I adore the person these past four years have made me, and I'm not finna let her go. I want to maintain her, and I plan to do this by maintaining the types of activities and relationships that made her, both specifically and generally. I can't say that I'm going to stay in such regular communication with (all of) my friends from college that catch-up sessions won't be necessary, but I demand that such sessions be many and frequent. I'm going to keep blogging and keep following all the blogs I follow. I've joined a bunch of meetup groups and am searching for like-minded folks with whom to have discussions of the Large Library (read: late night college) variety. I'm going to read again. 

But there have to be things about the college lifestyle that I don't particularly want to hold onto in this new chapter of my life. Let us count the things:

1. I don't want to only actively maintain those friendships which are logistically convenient. In fact, I refuse to.
2. I don't want to be tired all the time. There is no reason to be consistently running on empty anymore. When I hit that first wave of tired at night, I should go to sleep. There's no reason to pretend I'm not tired. End of story.
3. I refuse to be off balance. No part of my life deserves to be dominating everything else. 
4. I want to read for pleasure. I want to do absolutely nothing sometimes without feeling bad about it. I want to watch TV. I want to take back my free time. 
5. I want to eat better. And drink more water. I did that well last summer, by simply not buying drinks so that I drank a lot of water. 
6. I want to exercise regularly. I've already decided that I'm going to walk to/from work, because it's less than a mile each way, but there's a gym in my office building and I want to start using it. Maybe after work two or three days a week?
7. I want the majority of my free time at least one day a week to not be spent in front of my computer. I want to go out into the world and DO things. And I want to not be scared to do them by myself. I got over that in Chi-town and I want to do it again. 
8. And I need to at least seriously think about drinking, partying, hooking up, and how my rules about these things need to adapt to life in the real world. Not sure exactly how they should change yet--I might need to experience real world partying before I can make plans/rules for how to navigate it. 

Seems like life is full of a million possible reset buttons, some bigger than other.  

Neglected to post this when I first discovered it

But it's still awesome:

I went to Princeton, bitch!

Accomplishments of the last week:

1. Passed the credit check for my new place all by myself, without needing my dad to cosign.
2. Signed a 13 month lease for a bedroom in a 3br house with exposed brick, an electric fireplace, and I only share my bathroom with one twenty-something female housemate, at a way cheaper rent than I was prepared to pay. Text/email/call/DM if you'd like my new address.
3. Took inventory of every piece of clothing I own, and organized them in various suitcases according to type. Donated mad clothes to my mom and sister (it's nice all being around the same size).
4. Bought a nightstand, a chest of drawers, and a bookshelf from a thrift store for $56. #MayatheBargainHunter
5. Bought plates, glasses, utensils, salad plates, and bowls from Ross and Marshall's for about $36. #MayatheBargainHunter strikes again.
6. Bought an air mattress and sheets. (They're a temporary fix til my dad buys me my real bed, which is my graduation present from him, at which point they'll be for when people come to visit me. AND I EXPECT VISITORS, FRIENDS. <3)
7. Found at least one quick and easy work-to-night hairstyle. It takes like two minutes and it's both wear-to-work-able and cute enough to wear in my regular life. #winning
8. Joined a bunch of meetup groups, bookmarked all the touristy/event/festival sites, and started talking to some people on OKCupid. I want to dive into this city with open arms.

...But I still don't feel *ready*. What does being ready to start a whole new chapter of your life feel like? I feel nervous. But maybe that's as ready as I'm going to get.  

Advice for the real world Part One

But as much as I want to say it's impossible

to let go of a place (and/or people) that made you who you are, I can't without feeling dishonest. To some degree, I have already done this. I think about the people who were my best friends in high school: TJ, PD, and RB. These guys were my whole world. We were on the phone for hours every day, hung out after school and on weekends at each others' houses, passed notes back and forth in the hallways... I would have been hard pressed to tell someone about myself without talking about them. Those friendships and the way I developed while I was in that tiny group was, at the time, entirely indicative of who I am. If you'd asked me then, I couldn't imagine not being friends with them any more at X point in the future.

...And now I barely even talk to any of the three of them. PD and I stayed the closest throughout the past four years, but even that closeness is like, months and months of not talking and then a very long and emotional catch up session, often in person. TJ and RB and I are still all totally cool with each other. We hang out in groups when we're home and it's really easy to fall back into familiarity with each other, even as we change, but that bond we had is gone. The people we were then are gone. Erased. Forever. Changed immutably by the new places we've gone, experiences we've had, people we've come to know and love and define ourselves according to our relationships with. I don't regret being the girl I was when that was my life, but I also wouldn't want to go back there for a second, even if it meant regaining those friendships and that experience, even though they once occupied nearly the entirety of my heart. 

There are friends from high school with whom I did keep in fairly regular contact during high school: TN, SH, and FO. TN and SH are the two people in the world I've been closest to for the longest period of time, and though our friendships have gone through lots of changes over the years, I'm pretty damn confident they're going to be my friends for the rest of my life, though the contexts and contents of our friendships will change. FO and I didn't really become friends until after high school, when I was already in the process of undergoing substantive Princetonian change, so he fit right into my "new me" life with all of my friends from school.

And then I changed from the person I thought I needed to be to be a Princetonian (aka "Freshman Year Maya") to the person Princeton actually made me. Remember, in the acknowledgements of my thesis, I thanked the University as a whole "for introducing me to myself and allowing me to reintroduce myself". In so many ways, from what's on my head to what's in it, from what I wear to where I am, from intellectual development to more intimate ones, I feel in this moment as though I was never in my life as "me" as I am now, as these four years have made me. 

...The only thing that keeps tripping me up is this: I don't feel like four years ago, when my family sat on the bleachers at Oakcrest High School for my graduation like we did for my little sister on Thursday, I would have told you that I *didn't* feel like myself. Perhaps, had I already absorbed sociological/psychological language, I would have said that I often felt like a passive participant in the construction of my self. If I was feeling particularly introspective, I could have told you I didn't feel like I was my WHOLE self with anyone. But even that didn't make me feel like who I was wasn't "real", even if that realness was separated into bits and pieces to be shared in different spaces. So if that self was real and this self is real, but somehow to a higher degree than the old self because I'm actively working to make and maintain the person I am now, then there's no way of knowing whether in 2, 5, or 10 years I'll still be this self. Well, okay, actually it's a pretty sure bet I'll be different in a lot of ways, but will I look back on these old blog posts and still recognize myself in the person I am now? I don't know.

And that terrifies me. Not because I'm afraid of change or because I absolutely love the person I am now (though I am pretty happy with myself, if I'm being honest), but because I don't want what happened with my friendships with TJ, PD, and RB to happen with my friendships with KS and EY. I'm scared that my deepest closest most intimate friendships are the ones that are most vulnerable to falling apart when I undergo deep intimate change. I mean, it makes sense, right? When the whole of who you are is wrapped up in this friendship and then the whole of who you are changes...I think only time can tell whether the friendship is strong enough to stand the change.

But you know, I think there is one thing that I share with my college friends, both the closest of the close and just the people I'm good friends with (hell, and even with all the random internet people who read this blog), that I didn't have with even my closest friends from high school. It's a word I toss around in the classroom a lot. It's a word that interests me when you put an identity category in front of it or the word "politics" behind it. With these people, I feel authentic. I don't feel like I'm taking on roles I don't want or playing up some aspect of myself to fit in...I feel like I just kind of came along and laid myself bare on a table or something and they were like cool and rolled with it. I don't ever feel like I'm frontin', and though I would never have been comfortable using the word frontin' four years ago, I couldn't have said that about the vast majority of my closest friends from home at the time.  I was able to be vulnerable with those people like I am able to be vulnerable with these people, but not wholly, not in all the ways I needed to be. I wasn't able to be strong when I needed to be with them either, sometimes. I had to pretend sometimes, like I don't know. Like I don't want to in the future. Like I refuse to in the future.

So, am I going to stay absolutely as close with my best friends from college as we were in college for the rest of ever? Of course not. That's absurd. We're in different places and leading separate lives and off on our own great adventures. We're going to figure out how people in "the real world" make friends and make new best friends in our respective places. I certainly wouldn't be upset if EY and I talk every day like we did when she studied abroad junior fall, but I'm certainly not going to demand it either. The demand I will make is that I never want to fall out of touch with the people who mean the most to me right now. I never want to not know where they are or what they're up to; I don't want it to be weird if I call/text/email/facebook/tweet them on a whim. I also want to let myself grow in ways only DC can make me grow, like Princeton made me grow in ways only Princeton could have made me grow. There's no point in starting a new chapter if you don't give it the opportunity to affect you deeply, right?       

Princeton = over? Error: Does not compute.

So after experiencing the biggest party in this hemisphere (judging by amount of Bud Light purchased) for three days at Princeton Reunions--the events of which included a more intimate reunion of my own with [name-redacted], hayyyyyy, a ridiculous amount of free alcohol, a surprisingly large amount of time spent with non-Quad friends, and the P-Rade which will actually go down as one of my favorite things about Princeton*, Princeton kept the party going for seniors with three full days of events celebrating us and our collective accomplishments. 

On Sunday, there was the baccalaureate ceremony with speaker Michael Lewis who told us to recognize when we're claiming domain over all the extra cookies and learn to share (#everythingIneedtoknowinlifeIlearnedinkindergarten). There was Pan-African graduation, a beautiful ceremony to which my family rolled 14 deep, making me feel surrounded and overwhelmed by love (but which also served as a moment of me feeling "not Black enough" because I'd actually never heard "Lift Every Voice and Sing" sung in full before, let alone know the words). There was the Step Sing, a tradition in which the entire class gathers in the biggest archway on campus to sing together, and during which we sang "I'll Make a Man Out of You" from Mulan as a tribute to our being 90s babies and "Closing Time" by Semisonic so that we could remember that "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end".

On Monday, Steve Carrell spoke at Class Day and prompted our University president to make at TWSS joke. We granted honorary class membership to my favorite dining services employee who works in the dining hall I called home freshman and sophomore year, which made me really happy. Unfortunately my family wasn't able to be there for Class Day because my mom's nurse needed to come change the dressing on this tube thing she's got going on for blood drawing and medicine giving, but they made it up to Princeton for the African-American Studies and Sociology receptions. AAS spoiled us with pins, really nice messenger bags with the logo and tons of pockets, and a soft warm-looking sweatshirt with the logo on the front and a quote by Brother West (who couldn't bear the thought of Princeton without The Great Class of 2012, evidently) on the back. I learned that I didn't graduate with honors at the SOC reception, but I gave surprisingly few fucks. Monday evening, FO, TN, SH, and my little sister trekked to campus to accompany me at senior prom. Look how pretty we are:

And then Tuesday was our actual commencement ceremony, which having both sides of my family together for made as drama-packed as possible. The ceremony was quite nice, and Aretha Franklin was there! They gave her an honorary doctorate in Music. Surprise! We walked out of the Fitz-Randolph gates (not even close to my first time after accidentally breaking the superstition last year...not graduate in four years, my black ass...anyway) and to our departmental receptions to pick up our diplomas and have the University buy us alcohol for the 5th time in 6 days. And then it was like, well, party's over! Time to pack. You need to be out of here by noon tomorrow. You ain't gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell out of here... Tuesday night consisted of packing, a very extended dinner with some pre-Quad friends at PJ's Pancake House, being filled in on the details of CC's life, some tearful goodbyes, and more packing. We shifted from celebrating to wiping away the tears so quickly. 

And now I'm home. I've been home for 4 days, minus a second trip to DC to find a place to live yesterday. I've been home and wrestling with the idea that Princeton is over. This thing by which I define myself but don't want to be solely defined by, has come to an end. 

...And then I was catching up on the blogs I follow and came upon a post of RG's about how "Princeton" his life still is a year after graduation and, while I totally understand him saying he needs a break from that, it made me let out this huge sigh of relief. Who was I to think that Princeton was over just because I up and graduated? That the "Orange Bubble" extends only as far as the Fitz-Randolph gates? I'm moving to city with the second largest concentration of Princeton alumni in the world (the first being NYC). I have no doubt that I'm going to get involved with the Princeton Club of Washington on some level--remember, I don't know how to be in a club without helping to run it, lol. I know a few recent alums who live/work in DC (BK, RG, AM, YN, JG), and know that there are more I'm not friends with yet but could be! And I also know that now that we're on that #grownperson #salaried status, distance doesn't have to mean the dwindling of friendships. EY will see me in Denver before the year is out. KS and JB will get sick of me taking weekend trips to NYC. 

To make a long story short, it's absurd of me to think that something as huge as Princeton could "end" just like that. No one in the world keeps their college experience going the way we do (#highestratesofalumniparticipationontheplanet). It's only over if I want it to be over. And come on now...me? Want it to be over? #onceaTigeralwaysaTiger #PrincetonBlood #2012forLife                                                  

#thestruggleneverends

It only changes form. 

Sometimes my feelings can only accurately be expressed through meme generators.

There are 64 email threads under my "DC Housing" label in my Gmail account, and I send more email inquiries legitimately every day. And yet, I do not yet have a place to call home outside of the state of New Jersey. I took a trip to DC earlier this week to meet people and view places I had had positive email interactions with, hoping to come, see, and conquer the DC housing market in two days. The third of the five places I saw, I fell in love with nearly at first sight. It was all I could do not to gasp as I was given a tour of the apartment, and I could see myself becoming fast friends with the roommate. She was a Black girl with loose curly hair and awesome earrings who is a PoliSci major at Howard. COME ON NOW. Maybe I was overeager and scared her off. Maybe a friend of hers or the girl who is moving out got the room. I don't know. All I know is I had already started envisioning myself in that space and was feeling quite comfortable there when I got the email saying they'd decided to go with someone else. That email was quickly followed by one from a place I wasn't interested in, saying the same thing. My second choice place had had two rooms available, but the one that was in my price range and with my more favorable move-in date was accounted for already. It was like my whole trip had been for naught.

So I had a mini-breakdown and then reopened padmapper and craigslist and kept looking. I'm now waiting to hear back from two people in a lovely house who sound really nice about a room that's available July 1, and then will have to work out where to stay for my first week of work. I see a fairly expensive sublet for two weeks from June 15-30, or I could try to see if I could stay at a friend's parents' house or with one of my older sister's friends, or if my mom wouldn't absolutely freak out at the idea of me doing Airbnb for a week. There's a room available with this black girl in Arlington for $40/night that could be fabulous and maybe we could even be friends.

During the writing of this post, I was contacted to say that the other roommate in the July 1 place wants someone older. The search continues. My parents are both using the "everything happens for a reason" route to suggest that something better will come along. I have no choice but to believe them (or carry out a half-assed plan to just sleep in my private office and shower in the gym in my building). Someone will want to live with me. I'm a cool person, I promise! Lots of people like me. I make really good pancakes. I'd want to hang out with my roommates sometimes, do brunch or drinks or throw a party or something. I'm social but not cray. I'm a little older at heart than 22. Always have been. Someone will want to live with me. 

I just hope it happens in the next six days, or I'll have to call work and admit defeat on my first deadline before I even start...    

I'm going to miss easy physicality with people.

I don't remember why this came up, but I clearly remember saying this during the wee-hours-of-the-morning drunken conversation KS, EY, and I had the night before last: 

"You know who I kissed twice last night? CB. You know who I'm not attracted to at all? CB."

I also remember KS being confused by my shirtless snuggles with MT and my having kissed him the week before (#truthdarekissorcody #middleschooldrinkinggamenight #dranglerproblemsawesomesauce), so I decided not to mention having also held MT and JD's hands that night or been in a cuddle/feel-up puddle with DS, SW, and RW the night before. When you're with a group of people that will get up and run around the house naked on a moment's notice, touching each other isn't always the biggest deal. But even when I'm not talking about PQCSS members or that kind of touching, it's still really easy to be physically affectionate with a lot of the people I'm (sometimes not even particularly) close to on this campus: for example, there are at least two guys in my eating club who I usually initiate interaction with by running my fingers through their hair and massaging their scalps. We used to get a small Asian female member who has since graduated to walk on our backs, and massage circles are still quite prevalent. It's not uncommon for people to sit on other people's laps for no particular reason; we're quite cuddly. 

And I thrive on that. Granted, I don't have that kind of easy physicality with KS or EY, and they are the people I'm "closest" to overall on this campus, but there are few other people I call close friends that I would hesitate to put my arm around in daily life. ChoosingPancakes was entertained by the fact that my strongest love language on this quiz we both took was physical touch, because that was one of her weakest. I don't just mean sex or sexual-ish touches when I say I value physical touch as one of the strongest ways to show me you care about me. It can be little things, like hugs that feel like you mean it, or not feeling the need to jerk your knee away if it meets mine under a table or on a couch, or an arm around a shoulder for no reason at all. It's rubbing my back when you're comforting me while I'm crying. It's me being in your space/you being in mine not being a big deal. That's how friends should be, in my opinion, but I know that a lot of people have much stricter restrictions on even light physicality than I do and try to respect them (though that sort of goes out the window when I'm drunk, oops). For me, it can certainly also mean being able to do things like hold hands and snuggle in various degrees of undress and kiss in front of a room of cheering friends on a dare without it being a big deal, but again, I recognize and respect that most people have lines they draw in this arena.

What worries me, though, is when I get to wondering if I'll ever have this kind of easy physicality with a group of people ever again. I had it for a while in high school--one of my fondest memories from sophomore year will always be laying on the floor in PD's living room watching Pirates of the Caribbean with my head in the small of TJ's back and him telling me he would be my pillow anytime--and I have it here in this amazing community of 'Dranglers (who mean more to me than I may ever be able to express), but conceptualizations I have of the "real world" suggest that maybe it's something about youth and chosen communities, that grown folks don't do that.  I feel like in some respects, adults revert to like middle school rules about what touching someone means, and it makes me sad. 

Side note: Did I ever tell you how when I was holding PD's hand at an Applebees once to comfort her while she was telling me about a breakup and some dude came up to our able to ask if we were lesbians? I both appreciate the acceptance of this as a possibility by our unknown audience and am mad that two people interacting with each other physically must be presumed to be romantically involved.

If being okay with you touching me and vice versa is a quality of youth, then I want to stay young for as long as I can while I grow up. How do I find other people who want to stay young in the same way? I don't necessarily need people who will laugh at bad porn together on a giant television in the middle of the night or play shirtless ruits (though that would be AWESOME), but I want people who understand that the unequivocal best way to watch a movie is while snuggling, people who won't read anything more into me laying my head on their shoulder than I find your presence enjoyable. But I feel like that kind of easy physicality only comes from like, spending all your time together in intensely social subcultural spaces, and that seems difficult to recreate in the 9-5, separate addresses, lack of communal spaces world. I feel like if I want someone to replace the guys whose hair I like to fluff, I should get a pet. Sigh. 

Growing up stinks. I want to change it. But this revolution can't just be personal...

Goal Number Next: To Not be Homeless

I graduate in 3 and a half weeks. I start working in DC in six and a half weeks. Thus, the only goal right now is to find a place to live (which certain professors evidently just don't care about when they assign 14-pg take-home exams to be done in 4 days over the last pre-holiday weekend of the month). But moving somewhere from out of town is more difficult than I'd previously imagined. 

Struggle #1: Where do I want to live? 

When I first started this search, my answer was just in the city limits, rather than in Maryland or Virginia. Then I realized that DC is, like any other city, made up of lots of little neighborhoods, and that some places were convenient for me to get to work and that others weren't. My older sister used to live in DC and so she's trying to give me input, but her opinion of the safety of various neighborhoods is like 9 years old. At this point, I think that I would most preferably like to live in the Atlas District, Shaw, Mt. Vernon, Ledroit Park, or on the Hill.

Struggle #2: How do I want to live?

Should I jump right into this independent living thing, or take it easy and get roommates to start? If I want to live by myself, should I be trying to do so in a studio or 1BR? I have an irrational opinion of studio apartments: they seem like it would be weird to have people over, even though they're basically the exact same thing as a dorm room. Maybe I just feel like any place I live when I am working a real job and making real money should be a considerable upgrade from dorm living. But trying to furnish a whole 1BR apartment straight out of college sounds like start-up costs I can't afford. And living alone in a new city sounds like I could be lonely. But on the other hand, it sounds like it might force me out to explore. But I had a roommate in Chicago and still felt encouraged to go out and explore, and sometimes had an exploring buddy. At this point, I've decided that I would prefer to move into a 3+ bedroom house or apartment with other young professionals, because having a group of people to introduce me to other people and hang out sounds awesome and only having to furnish my bedroom sounds cost-effective. 

Struggle #3: Distance is a bitch

I think that this will always be true, regardless of the context in which we're discussing the bitchiness of distance. In this case, it's difficult to coordinate how to actually meet people and see places. I'm going to have to go to DC--probably next Monday-Wednesday--but that means spending money to get there and missing shifts at work in which I could be making more money. In-person viewing/meeting seems fairly necessary for any situation involving roommates, though. Then scheduling these meetings is extraordinarily difficult. Most people seem to be having open houses on weekends, and this damned take-home is preventing me from being able to be in DC right now. Next weekend is a holiday weekend, so a lot of people are going out of town and unavailable. This means I'll have to try to squeeze in all of my viewings over the course of two evenings (maybe an afternoon if someone has a non 9-5 work schedule) while navigating DC public transit for the first time, at least some of which will probably be after dark, as I'll have to wait for people to get off of work. This sounds like the opposite of fun. I'm not looking forward to it at all.

Struggle #4: People are ineffective writers/advertisers. 

There are certain things you should include in an advertisement for a room in a house/apt with roommates. As a bare minimum, I would suggest these things: the size of the room, or what comfortably fits in it now if you haven't got a tape measurer or whatever; the age/gender breakdown of the other people living in the house; a short description of what these people are like; whether utilities are included in the rent; some amenities within walking distance. Occasionally people only have one or two of these five things. That, people looking for roommates, is simply not helpful to my life. I've legitimately resorted to language-profiling to figure out whether the person writing an ad is male or female, which makes me feel all gender essentialist-y and shitty.

Struggle #5: Every minute I spend doing schoolwork, leases are being signed and my potential for homelessness is rising.

Every time I click on a listing I had favorited to see that the posting was deleted by its author or it has expired from Padmapper's map, I get a little more scared. I legitimately don't understand how Princeton University expects me to function successfully in my post-graduate life if it won't give me a break to establish the means by which to function in the real world. I feel like I'm going to rush into something just for the sense of security it will bring, which is generally not a good look, no matter what aspect of your life it relates to. I have a couple of places lined up to look at, though. I'm hoping everything will work out.  #wishmeluck

One thing that put a smile on my face today: someone emailed me back to let me know that while I sounded like a great addition to their house, they had already filled the room, but to let them know if I wound up in the area, as they were planning to have a barbeque sometime in June. Even if he didn't mean it, that was really nice of him. I like cities whose neighborhoods have that small-town come-over-for-a-bbq feel.     

I swear Ryan O'Connoll lives in my head.

"I just don’t want to wake up one day and feel estranged from everyone. I don’t wake up one day and ask myself where everyone went."

--The man who doesn't know he's my internet BFFL, in this Thought Catalog post

This is one of the things that terrifies me the most about becoming an adult in the real world. My friends have jobs all over the country. Hell, someone really important to me is moving to fucking Thailand. It's hard enough to keep up with my friends on campus who aren't in my eating club--how will I stay in touch with friends who aren't in the same time zone? I can barely manage to coordinate times to eat with people who live on the same campus as me most of the time, and you're expecting me to transition easily into this new world where if I want to see my close friend who just got a great job in Ohio, I'm going to have to get on a PLANE? I don't know how to be ready for this.

Sometimes it seems to me like life is this grand process of gradually getting comfortable with a group of people until you feel like you can be yourself and everything is wonderful and then getting wrenched away from that group and having to start over somewhere else where people don't know you or get your references, then gradually finding and coming to love people there and being wrenched away again. Thinking like this makes me want to be a hermit. But even hypothetical future self-induced hermithood wouldn't keep me from feeling like I'm about to lose the best relationships I've ever had.