Something between sixteen candles and a quarter life crisis...

When I turned twenty years old, all of my friends were 21. In Bellingham, Thursday nights during the school year meant 80s night, a costumed and musically-themed dance-and drink-a-thon at the local gay bar, Rumors. After a fun-filled dinner, every single one of my friends, barring my then boyfriend, left me alone to shake their asses to "Don't stop believin'."

On my 21st birthday, my parents' divorce papers went through.

September 1st, 2008 saw me sitting with a handful of friends, lamenting my imminent departure to Perpignan, France--which I was, at the time, dreading.

As a 23rd year old, I rang in my new year with a day of classes and students who barely knew me, and a lonely meal with the only person I knew within a 3,000 mile radius.

Last year, the only two people I could convince to spend time with me on my birthday were my then boyfriend and my most recent ex.

You could say I don't have the best birthday track record.

And this year, this quarter century, this big one? I'm spending it at work for seven hours, and then at a three or four hour in-service meeting for ITT Tech, all before I begin moving in to my new apartment.

Luckily, my conception of a "birthday" extends far beyond the twenty-four hour period surrounding the hour of my birth, and I have a sweet weekend planned.

Perspective

I've gotten several storm warnings from UNH in the past week or so (wait...did I really graduate? Now I'm not so sure...). The East Coast is preparing for Hurricane Irene. Non-residents of the Jersey Shore are being evacuated. Lists of storm essentials are being spread across the Internet, and I am watching Treme.

Treme, for those of you on whom I have not already forced the show, is an HBO series begun in 2010 by the creators of The Wire, and is centered on life in post-Katrina New Orleans--specifically the Treme neighborhood. The show begins three months after the storm, when thousands of people were still missing, housing projects for the city's poorer (and, generally speaking, Blacker) populations were still boarded up--despite minimal flood & wind damage--effectively allowing only the wealthy (and often white) New Orleanians to return to the city.

And, at the moment, the entire nation is mobilizing to evacuate the people from the Eastern seaboard, with special attention paid to New York, arguably the seat of our nation's wealth and power. And white people.

So, perhaps I am being cynical. Perhaps I am over-emphasizing the racial aspect of Hurricane Katrina, and underestimating the degree to which a nation can learn from its past mistakes. But lingering outright doubts tell me otherwise. Somehow, I feel that Hurricane Katrina or no, a Category 2 or 3 hurricane hitting the business and financial epicenter of America would take hold of the nation's attention and instigate a preparedness that quite possibly would have had no precedence in our nation's history. But a Category 5? Hitting a vulnerable coastline populated by African Americans and the nation's poor? All we have for that is hindsight.

This Grind is Harshing my Groove

I have had exactly twelve jobs in my life, since I started pulling weeds for Mrs. Kelly at the tender age of ten or so. In that fifteen year span of twelve jobs, I have had exactly two that I couldn't hack. No, I'm not talking about being a custodian for the summer camp facilities that your high school football team uses every summer. Nor I am referring to answering questions for inquisitive traveling Canadians ("I have my tickets for this tour, and I'm sitting in the parking lot outside the building, but I'm just not sure what to do now...").

The first time I felt like dying every time I thought about work was the beginning of last summer, when I worked for two weeks in a dentist's office that, during morning meetings, called their patients not by their names but by the dollar amount they brought in to the practice. My duties included cold-calling unsuspecting past patients and tricking them into coming back for a hygiene appointment. When I left, I lied and said I was hired to teach at a college, when in reality my other part-time position increased my hours when I told my boss that I felt like my soul was being crushed.

Unfortunately, I've found that second job, that position I can't quite hack, the one where I can't enjoy my time off because I'm anxious about having to go back to work the next day.

And people, I've only been there two days.

I'm currently nannying for a very wealthy family whose house has an elevator in it. The girl, who is nine, has informed me that her favorite brand is Dolce & Gabbana, and the little boy, who is six, wonders why I do not have a television installed in the back of my 2005 Hyundai Elantra. My first day, which was supposed to be a 5 hour shift, morphed very quickly into a 9 hour shift, when the mother kept whisking one child off to doctor's appointments, T-ball practice, ballet--the list goes on--and asking me to "work on reading" with the other. These kids fight, shove (each other, myself, strangers), yell, and have no concept of the fact that other people do not live like them. They may be fluent in French, English, and Armenian, but they do not understand why I would buy a used car. Their parents have filled their schedules with so many planned enrichment activities that even reading is something to be "worked on," and as a result they despise it. Their mother assumes I will be available at a moment's notice any time ("We're having two parties in the next few weeks--not sure when yet--on Friday and Saturday night, and we'd like you to be available for both of them."), and hasn't quite explained what I'm supposed to actually do on a day to day basis. In short, I'm living that book--you know the one. And I'd like out of it, thank you very much.

Please?

Visions of Kili and Ashley

I.

My last morning in New Hampshire, we stood in a mostly empty apartment overlooking the bay, and watched three foxes hunting in the fields below. We ate eggs and English muffins at The Big Bean in the sun before getting in the car.

II.

Kili and I normally get a lot of stares. Usually, I'm not sure why--maybe it's the hand-holding, or the way we get bugs out of each other's eyes.

At a Subway outside of Madison, WI, we got a lot of stares--more than usual. For a while, we were unsure why, until a few miles down the road, when I realized what a vision we made. Picture: Five dollar footlongs. Kili, wearing the biggest sun hat I've ever seen, and I, wearing a bandana tied Aunt Jemima-style, heart-shaped sunglasses, holding a leash attached to a yowling cat. Cat, snubbing her water in a torn styrofoam cup, staring longingly at a car with New Hampshire plates.

A vision, I tell you.

III.

Two days and over 2,000 miles later, Seattle greets us with traffic and sunshine and missing brake pads and Kanye West on the stereo. I think it's time for us to have a toast.

I'm home.