Everything
Is Temporary
The drive itself
took two days. My father, much to my
unending relief – seriously, the idea still
panics me – drove the moving truck. I
had my faithful, ’89 Toyota Corolla station wagon, my suitcase, a laundry
basket full of plants, a cooler of soda and snacks, my backpack, a tape player,[1]
tapes, microcassette recorder, Loki’s bed, Loki, Ichabod, Mallory and catbox–
Dad may have had it easier with the 27 foot van.
Loki, being a dog
enjoys car travel, but was still a little stressed over the whole business, not
to mention seriously cramped and a little warm.
She did her best.
Ichabod is a
pretty good traveler for a cat. As long
as he could sit in the plant he nearly killed several times in Billings – he
didn’t pee in it, but he startles easily and would occasionally go flying out
of it, leaving dirt and plant pieces around – or on Loki’s bed, he was
fine.
Mallory hates to travel. She roams around the car crying, trying to
sit on the dashboard, steering wheel, under the accelerator, my head, etc. She also seemed to resent that Ichabod was not upset and would periodically pick
fights with him, in which Loki would feel the need to intervene. At least there was no chance whatsoever of me
falling asleep at the wheel and as the parental units were in the lead, freeing
me from having to pay attention to exits; I was generally able to stay in the
correct lane. On the second morning, Mom
suggested catnip. Aside from a brief
fight over who got it first, Mallory was (and is) a much more pleasant traveler
while stoned.
Hotels were also
fun. For some value of the word fun.
This was actually an ongoing issue.
When we’d hit rest stops, it was necessary to get Loki out for a walk. Somewhere in Washington State, Mallory
fortunately decided to go up a tree when she got free, rather than across the
highway. That was the scariest moment of
my life until she got loose at a hotel in Tacoma. Ichabod only escaped once, but ultimately we
all made it to the new house in Spanaway.
Where Loki
promptly claimed the master bedroom for Laurel.
I liked the view in mine better anyway, so I was able to be amused when
she walked in that room and peed on the floor.
Things moved
fairly normally after that. Loki found a
dead squirrel in the yard. I found and
patched some holes in the fence and eventually found a part-time job and then
some temp jobs, none of which thrilled me, but sort of paid the bills. Much to my surprise, was even harder to get
any kind of teaching job (or any kind of job at all) with a Master’s degree in
Folklore in Washington State than in Montana.
Thinking about it logically, that shouldn’t have come as a surprise,
there are, after all, probably more liberal arts majors per square foot here
than anywhere outside an actual liberal arts college. But it did.
And a crushing disappointment.
I eventually
settled into a soul-sucking customer service job that provided health insurance
after six months and not much else. I
was almost able to keep my head above water financially and to hide the times I
couldn’t. And most mornings I was able
to get up and go in.
The problem wasn’t
really that the company was pretty crappy to work for. Or that one rapidly learned that once in
customer service, always in customer service as the very obviously least valued
members of the greater whole. It wasn’t
that the pay was not excellent or that I’m pretty sure my manager was trying to
get me to quit.
It was all of
these things. And I would have left at
the drop of a hat had I somewhere else to go.
It was that I put nearly all my energy into hating the job and
everything tied to it – including myself, my lack of accomplishment in my life
and my unfinishable Ph.D. thesis.
Because of this focus, the energy and effort I thought I was putting
into the areas of my life I considered important – thesis, job-hunting,
writing, family – tended to be half-assed at best, though I didn’t realize it
at the time.
Not that it was
all bad. I made a couple of really good
friends there and learned some skills regarding home repair and various product
types that are still treating me well. I
had a fairly set schedule and it was better than living in a cardboard box.
Laurel and I
explored a bit, went to movies, ate out, became better at our own
relationship. Walked Loki and got a name
in the neighbourhood for Ichabod, who ran when he saw people coming, but
otherwise would faithfully join us on our walks. We hope the people who would point and wave
as they drove past thought this was a good thing.
The job also had
one major advantage. It was less than
ten-minutes from the house. In Wyoming
this was a long distance, in Montana around average. In Washington it’s a miracle. And shortly after I took the job in February
of 2004 it became a necessity. Because
in May of that year…
