Interesting point, with clarification

It has been pointed out to me that I ruminate a lot on the nature of leaving; that I talk about how sometimes it's sad to move around the world and leave people behind and stuff, and that there might be some kind of inherent implication in that: the implication that I don't like where I am.

It never occurred to me that anyone might think my sadness over leaving one group of friends might not be able to co-exist with my happiness in a new group, or that my expressing said sadness might not similarly imply my future sadness for eventually leaving all awesome people in my life. So here we go: if any of my totally fantastic friends and amazing fun partners have ever been upset or offended by my unwitting implication that I Just Don't Love You, I'm really really sorry. I may be sad to leave the other people, but I will definitely be sad to leave YOU. You are the cat's pajamas. You are the bee's knees, and my life is much richer and better with you in it.

I have to say, the main reason I wrote this most recent article was simply because I still, despite evidence of Niagara Falls-worth of apathy on his part, often think about my ex-boyfriend. It's rough to like someone a lot and they tell you they like you, that they love you more than anyone else on earth in fact, and they tell you so much that it's easy to forget that they're not actually SHOWING you, so the relationship is not that great really. Actually, emotionally, it sucks. So why should I miss that person? Well, because he was charming, and really funny, and because he had a particular turn of phrase that I found hilarious, and could talk to me about pretty much all the music that I liked, and he generally did almost all the things a perfect life partner for me would have done except ONE THING: want to be a good life partner. FAIL.

And actually, missing him PISSES ME OFF because it is dumb. Emotions are weird. And then Facebook has to turn up and even though I have blocked him from my news feed, I just can't bring myself to unfriend him, because yeah, he's pretty funny, so instead Facebook is constantly reminding me of the latest Place he checked in at (with by the way the new girl he instantly replaced me with) or reminding me that I have some photos in which we are both tagged, and generally constantly reminding me of a person that never thinks about me. So...well, it's a bit emotional sometimes.

That's why I wrote that.

I hope all my friends, old and new, know what they mean to me. And if you don't, I will SHOW you (not tell you) every day, because frankly, that counts so much more than anything you could ever read online.

Disposability, impermanence, and Facebook

Sometimes, what I absolutely can't stand is thinking that someone I care about might find me...replaceable. Nothing says, "I don't really love you that much" like plugging another person right into the spot you left behind -- nobody wants to be so indispensable that their friends are left weeping in inconsolable heaps upon departing, but a wee bit of grieving might be nice.

It just goes along with the nature of a nomadic lifestyle, though; until I can perfect my Evil Secret Plan (now not so secret) that means everyone I love will come live with me in a commune and stay with me forever, chances are some of my relationships will end because of choices I make. And not choices like "I'ma join a Doomsday cult and get my hate on for comets." No, choices like, "I don't want to live in the same place for very long." Some relationships rely on proximity for maintenance, and as soon as the distance increases, the relationship decreases, until you're left with...nothing.

Morose? Partially. Obviously, with every new move, comes new opportunities to increase your social circle...every time God closes a door, he somehow opens a window, yadda yadda. But something I've been thinking about thanks in no small part to Facebook. Facebook allows you to keep in somewhat obscene faux-proximity to people you might only have met once; before you know it, you find yourself reading the daily ruminations on breakfast food or dreams of some girl you sat next to in a lecture that one time, who you kind of liked. I remember in my orientation program at Curtin, I briefly talked to a lovely Singaporean girl on my way to the gym where we were being oriented, and she wouldn't release me from her grip on my arm until I gave her my phone number. She really wanted a new friend.

Facebook means impermanence is so much less likely -- how can you pretend someone's not in your life when you constantly see them changing their profile picture? (Answer: do what my ex, Justin, always does, and just don't read anyone else's Facebook, ever, preferring instead to concentrate only on what everyone else thinks of YOUR Facebook profile) However, it also increases the sting of disposability confirmed: nothing drives home how replaced you've been like seeing your ex-girlfriends out on dates with new guys, or your old tango partner swinging around with someone else (note: these are generic examples, as I neither date girls nor dance tango).

Dear Zuckerberg: you've made it easier to stay in touch, but also easier to grind salt into the wounds of loss. I'm sure you don't find it so dramatic, since according to The Social Network, you're just pounding cocktails and banging girls, so you'll never read this. Also it's a pretty melodramatic way of putting it. But still.

Living, not traveling

So I don't really write here because I just don't know how interesting it is for all of you (you know, all four of you) to read about my exciting life in Australia and how I WENT TO THE GROCERY STORE and then I RETURNED SOME BOOKS TO THE LIBRARY and then I WALKED MY DOG. Those are the things that living is made up of, not traveling, and since this blog is about traveling, I don't want to bore you with my ex-pat lifestyle. Unless you are panting to know where to find the best seedless grapes in season here in Perth, in which case I can tell you, it is the Morley Grower's Market, where they are less than $6 a kilo, and Americans, if you think this is massively expensive, this is only because you don't know that bananas are $2.99 a kilo. Compare that to the whopping US sum of 39 cents a pound. Also gas (or as they say here, petrol) is up to $1.35 a litre and not falling. I might as well light all my money on fire as soon as I get it.

I live in a new house now. It is very large, much larger than my boyfriend and I can fill up, even with an enthusiastic dog. The dog mostly just sits where we are anyway, hoping that he will someday have discovered the way to occupy the exact same molecular space as us so that he can literally be INSIDE US and therefore complete the purpose of his little pat-obsessed doggy brain. The house has rooms everywhere, so many rooms that we have two guest rooms and only one guest to fill them with (Jason's teenaged son, occasionally), and whole rooms with which we do nothing. It's like living with Jeff all over again: having not just rooms but FLOORS where nothing happened, and dust slowly settled on whatever thing we'd temporarily decided to put in there. (As an aside, can I say that I think dust is one of the most unfair things about living in a large house? I remember complaining to my mom once about how I had just dusted and then I had to go and dust AGAIN. And she said, "Yeah, that happens. Dust really never stops, you know?" Stupid dust)

So this new house is in a supposedly bad neighborhood, and apparently we can't get contents insurance on our stuff--which, given, is mostly not very expensive--because we don't have up-to-date security stuff. We have deadbolts on all the doors, and window locks, but we don't have security screens or an alarm system. The dog would probably lick burglars to death, and Jason's son would probably not emerge from the depths of World of Warcraft to notice that they'd made off with the TV and laptops. So contents insurance is renter's insurance, basically: it's insurance for the stuff in the house, as opposed to the house itself.

Living in my own space as opposed to just renting a room from an awesome lady I met on Couchsurfing entails some understandings of things that I didn't have before: namely, that domesticity has a tendency to hit me hard. For example, I seriously considered buying a $400 Dyson vacuum cleaner the other day. I bought a 1950s dressing table and put it in the bedroom. I refinished it with wood cleaner and walnut polish. I feel like I should be wearing an apron and curlers, and like my name should be Mabel.

I also need to understand that it's a sort of permanence I've avoided rather seriously up til this point. Living with Justin, I always knew I could leave whenever I wanted. In fact, most of the time, I felt like he would have been equally happy if I left or stayed...he might have been a bit sad that I was gone, but he would have gotten over it by evening, when he found a nice squishy girl to have sex with. The only time in my life my name's been on a lease before now was a six-month stint at an apartment in Pittsburgh (still the only six months I've ever lived alone), and I always knew that was temporary. I had the plane tickets to Guatemala already blinking in my in-box; the end-date was set. Now, in Perth, I've gotten more settled than I've been for a very long time, and I admit, it scares me a bit.

The thing is, whenever I get settled, I get hurt. I give up parts of myself, get all domestic and homey, and then realize the world I've settled myself into has cracks...it goes bad...and I end up ending a relationship or being forgotten. Moving in with someone takes a big commitment, obviously, but just the space of commitment is a commitment itself. I take a big breath, though, and I try again.