A New Month, A New Start

I am in Auburn. I am all by myself. (If you don't count the cats.)

I came down Monday evening, after loading the car like a pro visual-spatial expert. I thought of everything! But I didn't pack everything that I thought of, and that's why my phone is dead with no hope of revival before next week sometime. I sure hope no one calls with a job offer that I need to respond to PRONTO!

Eli took the Bar Exam on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. We went out to eat Wednesday night and got some ice cream from Bruster's (which is DJ's favorite ice cream place in DE) and waited for Alex to arrive.

Yesterday, Alex and Eli set off on their exciting camping/hiking expedition on the Pinhoti trail. While I'm glad that I don't have to carry a latrine tool with me to create a toilet every time I need to use it, and I don't have to wash with biodegradable baby wipes when I need a bath, I do miss the company.

Have I mentioned that our apartment complex isn't done being built yet? Out of forty-some-odd units, only 8 or so are populated. I've met most everyone, but we don't hang out or anything. There's a microbiologist working on her Ph.D. and teaching some high school students to get excited about science (through a grant--she, herself, is not so excited to be teaching them); there's an extroverted pharmaceutical sales rep who everyone just calls "Crazy Laura"; and there's a 29-year-old, divorced Finance Professor who enjoys walking around the complex half-naked (and I guess if I had a bod like that, I would probably want to walk around in my skivvies--er, I mean swim trunks--too). And those are just the three people I know what they do. The people next door have a little boy. The girls upstairs are undergrads (I'm guessing). The boys by the pool are elusive (known only by reputation and one rare sighting). The guy on the end doesn't really live there--he just has the apartment for show and spend the majority of the time at his girlfriend's place.

So, it's lonely. The mall stinks. Okay, I'm being harsh because the Tuscaloosa mall wasn't that hot, either. I don't even go to the mall, so I don't know why I spent the fifteen minutes I did yesterday walking around it to find out that there was nothing there that I really was interested in.

The library is my only refuge. And that's where I am now. Checking e-mail, facebook, job updates, writing cover letters, trying to find a job. Auburn area teachers went back to work yesterday. The students come back next Thursday, just like in Tuscaloosa. I'm starting to feel out of sync.

We are by no means moved out of Tuscaloosa yet. We're going next weekend to pack--we're going to move the weekend after that, and then we're going to clean the weekend after that, at which point we will wash our hands of that place.

In the meantime, I brought my sewing stuff with me, and I intend to make a couple of skirts that I've had the fabric to make. I rented some musicals from the library, and I'm going to watch them. I brought some books to read, and I'm going to read them. Perhaps out by the pool. In a bikini. But, we'll see.