home for the holidays

Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010 | 11:44 PM

two months ago i promised more pictures, but i actually just disappeared. i think it's time for an update, so you're not left wondering if i was killed in richmond (which is entirely possible) or something. i guess i have been busy or maybe just less needing to share my words and pictures with whoever is still reading this (which i think might be no one.)

two months ago i posted about getting a job at the rabbit center. i am still working there and working on making friends and working on figuring this "life" thing out.

i moved into my own place. it's a small house with an oddly large yard, surrounded by a fence with a locked gate, sitting on the corner of two streets in south berkeley, one of them called "oregon street." it think it's interesting that i moved from the state of oregon to an oregon street in northern california.

the landlord rents this place out to three people and four pets: me and my two cats, in one of the bedrooms, colleen and her dog, in the other bedroom, and megan and her cat, in a sort of laundry room converted into a bedroom. when i moved in, it was just megan and me. i have only met colleen and her dog once. i don't know if she's not ready to completely move in yet, or if she has moved in but then left with every one else in berkeley to some other place called "home" for christmas. when she was first starting to move in, i was leaving to spend a few nights at david's place, up there in the posh neighborhood of north berkeley.

see, the reason why everyone living here has pets, is because it's very unusual to find shared housing that allows pets. the reason why the landlord allows pets, is because cheap rent is still not enough to get people to move in here. he has to offer people the desirable combination of cheap rent and allowing pets to get people to decide to live in this area.

in other words, it's a bad neighborhood. i console myself that it is still safer than oakland and within the city limits of the place that i call, "the city of david." (haha.)

yes, i am very happy to be living in the same city as david. he has become a huge part of my life. our futureless relationship seems quite committed and i have come to love him more than i have ever loved any person or animal. i have to stick "animal" in there because i have loved some animals more than i have loved many people. or something like that. countless people have tried to put it into words, and many have said it far better than i ever could, so i won't begin to try to explain how much i love my david.

so my week generally goes like this:

friday sorta feels like the beginning of my week. it's my first day of work. i work friday and saturday and sunday. most people have saturday and sunday as a weekend, but i have monday, tuesday, wednesday and thursday as a super long weekend. i have always been different than most people, so i guess it's no surprise that when entering the work world, i am still different than most people. while you are having your weekend, i am working my weekdays, cleaning up rabbit poop.

on monday i travel to david's place, which feels more like home to me than my own place. (i did live there for three months.) i usually spend at least monday and tuesday night there. i always say that i should go back on wednesday because "i have things to do," but sometimes i stay a third night also. really, the only things i have to do are clean the litterbox and edit some pictures that i may or may not post on the internet.

and how do the cats handle my being gone so much, you might ask? answer: they're fine. they have each other. they are best friends. i leave the light on for them and fill their bowls with as much food and water as they can hold. i leave them with a clean litterbox and clean it when i get back. they never seem to resent my being away for three days, even when i've told them, "i'll be back tomorrow" and it was a complete lie. they just seem to be happy that i am again joining them on their queen sized bed.

(if something can be called yours because it has more of your hair on it than anyone else's, then my bed belongs to my cats. also, david's floor belongs to me.)

so why am i here, still in berkeley and not "home" on december 21st, like everyone else? well, if it's true that "home is where the heart is," then my home is currently residing in salem, oregon, where david has gone to visit his parents. maybe i don't have a "home" right now. maybe "home" is more a state of mind, or maybe it's a basement bedroom, or maybe it's in the arms of the person who loves you and knows you best. maybe it's in the arms of the person who you moved away from home, and lost all sense of home, just to be with.

either way, i am not "home" because i am working my usual days, despite them being holidays, because i need money to survive. instead of me going to portland to see my parents, my parents are coming here for a few days. i do miss them and i am excited to see them...

but...

i guess i tend to feel that "home" is the last thing on the list of those things that i listed, and if that's the case, then i really wish i could go home for the holidays.

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