Everything’s in boxes

A lot is going on!  Big changes are afoot and many adventures are in the air.

First of all, something that would have seemed so highly improbably mere months ago has happened:  I have moved in with a gentleman.  I know, right?  But it is wonderful and good.  I am currently living off of his good graces in his apartment on the West side (part of operation Pay As Little Rent As Possible This Summer) and in the fall we will be moving back Eastwards to a West Hollywood apartment built for two.  Well, built for four, actually:  it will house myself, my Gentleman Caller, his Gentleman Hound Dog (Boomer Thaddeus Dog, Esq., World’s First Canine Lawyer), and a CAT that I am going to get and the cat will be grey and cute and named either Otto or Rock Hudson.  And as for my Gentleman Caller, well, suffice it to say that he makes me a pretty happy lady, and takes me on wonderful adventures and makes me tasty sandwiches.  Also, he is currently sitting behind me geeking out over an old synthesizer someone gave him to play with and it is totally cute.

PLEASE NOTE that this does not change the fact that I am, and will always be a spinster, and spinsterly in my ways and doings.  I recently conferred with one of my sisters in spinsterliness and explained that, despite how happy Gentleman Caller makes me, I had been having a very fraught, angst-ridden identity crisis over the nature of my spinsterliness.  But Good Spinster Amy reminded me that, indeed, men may come and (hopefully not) go, but Spinterhood is Forever.  And since being angst-ridden is really our defining characteristic, what was I worried about anyhow?  And so now I begin this new weird life as a cohabitating spinster, with slightly less angst about that particular issue, but plenty of angst about most other things.

Also, one of the sad things about this move is that my dear, dear now-former roommate, Sam, has left for New York for a year, and I miss him.  The glory days of 1027 North Laurel Ave have now come to an end.  But also this gives me an excuse to go to New York sometime.

Other important things have happened recently, namely:  I have done the greatest thing that I will ever do.  No, no, I did not start and write my dissertation in a month.  No, I did not end world hunger.  Instead, I had a poem about crullers written in the style of William Blake published in the Los Angeles Times.  Because remember how I ran that Donut Summit for LA Metblogs (now totally sleekly redesigned and relaunched as blogging.LA)?  Well, the whole event was nothing short of miraculous and wonderful.   And the next day, when I saw that my cruller poem, written late one night when I needed to think of something funny to post on the blog, was in the LA Times, I laughed and laughed and laughed.  ”All of our hopes and dreams for you have come true,” said my father.  Well, all of my hopes and dreams for myself have come true, too.  I can probably just go ahead and retire now that I am a published poet.

Giant fantastic things are coming up in the next few weeks, too:  I’m off to the UK for my first venture into actually doing research for my dissertation.  I’ll be traveling in the North for a couple of weeks, then meeting up with Gentleman Caller for a couple of weeks of vacationing in Belgium and the Netherlands.  And then I’m going back to London for a month of research at the British Library.  And TANYA IS COMING TO VISIT ME THERE AND WE ARE GOING TO KIDNAP HUGH GRANT!  Actually, probably we won’t kidnap Hugh Grant, probably we’ll just go laugh inappropriately at the art in the Tate Modern, and maybe see a soccer game.

UNTIL THEN, my life is consumed by teaching the history of rock and roll to a group of people who ask me questions like “what is that electronic sound effect they use on Neil Young’s voice in that song.”  The technical term for that sound effect would, of course be “Just Neil Young’s Voice.”  Oh, the undergraduates!  Sometimes endearing, always entertaining.

Also, Gentleman Caller and I went on a desert adventure that I am going to post about in a minute.  And also this weekend is dinosaur day so I will post about that in another minute!