#10 Canterbury Road

Summer days

I know some of you are still reading this blog, so I'm determined to give it a few last breaths before it does the thing my plants do.

Tonight I'm sitting in the dining room of my new house as Matt wrestles the dishes into the house's old dishwasher (which has no silverware tray, incidentally). That deal Mike and I had where I cooked and he did dishes—that's worked out well for me in the years hence. (Renaissance lit and history, not so much.)

I work as a copy editor for a health company. It's about as mundane as things go, but it pays the burgeoning mortgage and assorted bills. Matt works at a bank and does things with numbers (you know, those tricky little figures you had to study to get a liberal arts degree) and we have a cat. Actually, five cats as of last night's kitten explosion. I suppose it seems cute and domestic, to have all that and a house. And I suppose it is.

The truth is I don't like working behind a desk or being tied to a house. I miss the summers after Oxford where I worked as a rafting guide, moving between towns in nine- and three-month intervals, and I miss studying. Coming home at the end of the day, too exhausted to comprehend anything more intelligent than Harry Potter or Get Fuzzy, means my vocabulary is atrophying like my muscles and my brain.

I guess this is that thing they call real life. I'm not too sure I like it, but I'll give it a shot before throwing it all in the wind and heading off to Prague for TEFL certification and then to China or India or Uzbekafghansomewhereistan.

But I guess for now, I'm going to go sit on my front porch and hope to hear what the rest of you will be doing this summer, this year and onward.

posted by Anonymous @ 6/23/2006 04:14:00 AM