Explosions

Yesterday started as a great day. I woke up at 10, opening my eyes to the standard California blue sunny sky, and went and checked my email and then was just making quinoa with chicken apple sausage and broccoli and tomatoes when Justin staggered from the undergrowth and collapsed on the couch. He's been sick over the last few days; he got it from me.

I fed him lunch, and then we retired to bed, where I read him about seventeen chapters of "Practical Demonkeeping" and we ordered food delivered from the local food delivery place and they brought it to the gate and I went out and got it in my pajamas. And then I had to go to dance rehearsal.

I'm dancing with several different projects here in town, and none of them are bellydance related, which is kind of fun for me. The bellydance community here is pretty tightly knit, and there aren't a lot of troupes; twosomes and threesomes, yes, but no troupes. It's on my own or nothing, and I am uninspired to fight tooth and nail to claw my way into the public eye when I'm leaving in six months anyway.

So I went to dance rehearsal and was slightly hurt by a misunderstanding but still chipper, and on my drive home, I stopped at the 7-11 to pick up soda for Justin and realized I didn't have my wallet. "I must have left it at home," I mused. So I got home. Not there. Called the people who might still have been at rehearsal. Not there. But by the time they called me back, I realized I'd left it on the roof of my car after getting gas before rehearsal, and drove away.

I panicked. My credit card, my ATM card, my health insurance card, my driver's license, my irreplaceable student ID card, and, painfully, my Social Security card, which you're not supposed to carry around with you...all in the wallet. I called to cancel the credit card at about 7:45 to find that someone else had already called to report it lost at 7:15. Maybe that means I'll get it back, I hoped. But then realized I had to act like I wouldn't, so I had to replace everything anyway, and do all the things that you're supposed to do in case of identity theft, like notify the credit bureaus and all that jazz. The worst part really, is that I'm leaving in six months. The wallet could have held out another damn six months, and then I wouldn't have needed the cards in it anyway.

Then (thank you, PMS) I got painfully miserably angry with Justin for never washing the dishes. Which he doesn't. But I was pissed about it.

The downside of traveling is never feeling like you're at home anywhere. Although I've come to a rest here in California, it doesn't feel like my home; I feel like a temporary resident, which is why I don't have a California driver's license (well that, and I don't need one). This is my current mailing address, here in North Hollywood, but it's not where I live in my head, mostly also because I don't want to stay here.

The major problem, of course, is that the government does not look favorably on those who migrate, or even people who spend six months in one state and six months in another...where do we mail your checks? Where do you replace your driver's license? Where is your residence, your address, your home? Do you want where I'm living, or where my mail goes to? It's a series of questions, and life is not easy for a nomad, at least not here.

(On the other hand, I do live in an industrialized nation. I have loads of friends. My life is hardly difficult. But trying to figure out where you belong is more of an emotional hardship than a real, physical one. Trust me. I know. When RAID performed at the Echoplex on July 4th, in the two hours beforehand, I walked around Echo Park listening to the illegal fireworks go off everywhere and smelling the cordite floating in the air, and thinking how lucky we are in this country that it doesn't smell like this for more sinister reasons.)